Technology

Print: A Concept Digital Instant Camera in the Age of Smartphones

Digital instant cameras are an emerging trend in the world of photography: Polaroid launched the Pop in January, and Fujifilm followed suit with the SQ10 a few short months later. But industrial designer and photographer Jordan Steranka thinks he can do better: his Print is a concept instant camera designed with an ultra-modern aesthetic.

Microsoft Develops a Curved Sensor That Beats the Canon 1DS Mark III

The development of curved image sensors may be the biggest advance in camera technology in decades, allowing for simpler, flatter lenses with larger apertures as well as dramatically better image quality. Canon, Nikon, and Sony are working on the technology, and now Microsoft Research has developed a sensor with three times more curvature than previously achieved.

The Essential Phone Has Dual Cameras, 4K, and a Dedicated B&W Sensor

Android co-founder Andy Rubin and his new startup company, Essential Products, just launched its first product: a powerful smartphone called the Essential Phone. Its photo-related features include dual 13MP cameras, 4K video, and a dedicated monochrome sensor for "true" black-and-white photography.

Triggertrap Open Sources Its Mobile Dongle Hardware

As Triggertrap continues winding down its business, their Triggertrap Mobile Dongles are becoming increasingly difficult to find. But there's some good news now: the company has decided to open source the hardware, making it is possible to build your own dongle.

That Time I Paid $6,544 for 256MB of RAM to Run Photoshop…

Back in January 1995, I upgraded my Mac 8110 desktop to 256 megabytes of RAM for $6,544. Why? Because Photoshop needed a minimum of 5 times the RAM to work with a 8.5×11 RGB 8-bit color page, and that was 24 megabytes.

AI-Powered App Helps You Colorize Black & White Photos in Seconds

This is amazing. The researchers at UC Berkeley who came up with the automatic colorizer algorithm we first shared back in March, 2016 have released a major update. The software now lets you team up with the algorithm to colorize complex black and white photos accurately in seconds.

Google Will Soon Be Able to Remove Unwanted Objects from Your Photos

Google made a bunch of interesting and exciting camera-related announcements at I/O 2017, and we'll cover them all, but one of the most intriguing was also one of the shortest. Google briefly showed off a powerful "content aware fill" feature that left people wide-eyed and clapping furiously.

Google Launches ‘Street View Ready’ Certification for 360° Cameras

Google announced this week that they are releasing a new certification standard that they are calling “Street View Ready”. This certification will be used for 360° cameras that are able to publish to Street View, and are guaranteed to support the level of quality required for Google’s 360-degree mapping service.

How to Build a Simple Sound Trigger for High-Speed Photos With Arduino

Are you stressed? What better way to de-stress is there than to break things while making cool photographs at the same time? You can break anything, from spaghetti to fancy glassware, there is no limit. It will take you about half an hour to build the Arduino circuit and write the code for this sound triggering photographic system.

Google Engineer Raises the Bar On Low Light Smartphone Photography

When Google software engineer Florian Kainz showed his friends on the Gcam team a nightscape he captured using his fancy Canon 1DX, they threw down the gauntlet. Take that same photo, they challenged him, but with a smartphone camera instead. He accepted, and succeeded.

ISO 12,800. Huh! What Is It Good For?

Absolutely nothing?

Ten years ago, a Nikon D3 saved me while shooting a gig in a dimly lit club. It’s expansive ISO range of 200-6400 allowed me to shoot with a 24-70mm f/2.8 at about 1/20th of a second. Good enough for jazz as it was.

$5,660 Mac Pro Crushed in Photoshop Test by $1,530 PC with AMD Ryzen

AMD's new highly anticipated Ryzen CPU has shown impressive performance in benchmark tests, propelling the company's stock price from less than $2 to over $13 in a little over a year. Now a new test has found that a $1,780 PC running AMD Ryzen processors destroys a $5,660 Apple Mac Pro when it comes to Photoshop performance.

I Spent Two Years Botting on Instagram — Here’s What I Learned

In the world of Instagram, there is a practice known as botting -- and I hate it. For the uninitiated, botting is the process of tying your Instagram account to a wide variety of automation software, which charge users small sums of money to juice their profile. At the heart of it, it’s a pay-to-play relationship where you’re paying money to grow your following on Instagram.

Sony Plans to Release a 150MP Medium Format Sensor in 2018

Sony recently updated their sensor roadmap for 2017 and 2018, and there's some exciting news for medium format shooters on it. Not only will cameras like the Fuji GFX and Hasselblad X1D get a 100MP option, Sony is also developing a 150MP sensor for larger cameras like the Phase One 100XF.

This AI Can Convert Paintings Into Photos and Summer Into Winter

A team of researchers at UC Berkeley have revealed an 'Unpaired Image-to-Image Translation' technique that can do something really interesting: it can turn a painting by Monet into a 'photograph'... also, it can transform horses into zebras and summer into winter.

Apple Patent Shows an iPhone Turning Into a MacBook

Want to process your iPhone photos for Instagram on a laptop without having to transfer any files? In the future there may be a crazy new way you can do so. Apple has patented a new "accessory" that transforms a cell phone into a full-fledged laptop.

How to Find the Best ISO for Astrophotography: Dynamic Range and Noise

ISO is one of the three major exposure settings in the exposure triangle of a digital camera -- shutter time, f/number, and ISO. Of the three, it is ISO that is probably most misunderstood. Even more so than f/number. In fact, it is a common misconception that higher ISO settings will cause images to be noisier. In fact, the opposite is often true. Wait, what?

Adobe’s New Algorithm Makes Super Difficult Selections a Cinch

Adobe Research has been working on some pretty interesting photo and video editing features, but their latest research might just revolutionize photo editing as we know it. Imagine if Photoshop could automatically cut out complex subjects in seconds, no matter the background... no pen tool required.

Marathon Runner Busted for Cheating Thanks to Finish Line Photo

Jane Seo, a professional food blogger, dashed through the finish line to clinch the Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon in an outstanding 1 hour and 21 minutes back on Feb 19th, beating thousands to win the 2nd place with an impressive 6:15-per-mile pace. However, she was soon revealed as a cheater by a sharp-eyed sleuth who found proof in her finish line photo.

Google’s Guetzli Makes JPEGs 35% Smaller Without Hurting Quality

Google has just released a brand new, open-source JPEG encoder called Guetzli that can do two very neat things. First, it can decrease JPEG file size by 35% without a noticeable decrease in quality, and second, it can increase the quality of an image without increasing file size at all.

This is the Camera Tech Used to Film Animals in Pitch Dark for Planet Earth II

Wildlife photography and videography is more incredible today than ever before, thanks in large part to the last decade's amazing leaps in camera technology. This behind the scenes look at the cameras used by the BBC to shoot Planet Earth II shows you how advances in camera tech have allowed us to see the creatures of the night in ways never before thought possible.

X-Trans vs Bayer Sensors: Fantastic Claims and How to Test Them

Since the introduction of the Fujifilm X-Series line of cameras, reviewers and consumers have struggled to compare them directly to the competition. Fujifilm’s is a tightly integrated system, wherein everything is a little bit different.

Google Just Patented a Weird Camera Hat

Well this is... interesting. It doesn't seem like the very public failure of Google Glass—due, in large part, to the built-in camera—has deterred Google from pursuing wearable camera tech. A recent patent shows that they're at least considering putting a camera and microphone onto a baseball cap.

Why and How Fuji Cameras Produce a Strange Purple Flare/Grid Artifact

When FujiFilm’s X-Trans III sensor was introduced in the X-Pro2, many users began noticing a strange new artifact in their backlit photographs. Upon further experimentation, it became apparent that the same artifact could also be found in images from cameras using the older X-Trans II sensor.

Get More Performance Out of Your X-Trans Sensor with This Free Software

In my previous article on the difficulty FujiFilm’s X-Trans sensor has preserving fine color detail, I used the free software Darktable to process the RAW examples. I showed how, specifically in terms of color detail, Darktable was able to do a better job than FujiFilm’s own processing.