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Cameras and Photography

Digital cameras changed photography, and now smartphones are changing digital cameras. There’s never been more interesting ways to take a picture or record a video, and there’s also never been more ways to view those images. We’re focused on finding the most interesting innovations happening in all parts of photography.

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Here’s an hour of shimmering water droplets exploding from a balloon in ultra slow motion.

When you slow down escaping water to 82,000 frames per second, it looks unreal — like magic pixie dust glittering in the light. Here’s an entire hour of that. I’m mesmerized.

Just the latest example of a slow-mo camera unlocking the fourth dimension; in this case, it’s a Phantom TMX7510 operated by The Slow Mo Guys.


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Nubia’s new smartphone has OIS OIS OIS.

The company’s “Z60 Ultra Leading Version” (yes, that’s the name) has optical image stabilization on all its rear cameras, including two 50MP main and wide-angle ones, and the 64MP “Portrait Prime” shooter.

Nubia’s Leading phone has an overclocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, while its running mate model Z60S “Pro” has a Gen 2. As for OIS on the Pro, well, only on the Telephoto.


rear of z60 ultra with three cameras
The Nubia Z60 Ultra Leading Version is a squared-off slab with a big 6.8-inch AMOLED display on the other side.
Image: Nubia
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More Android phones can now download Blackmagic’s Camera app.

The professional-grade video recording app debuted on Android in June but was only available on a small number of Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel devices.

An updated version of the app is now available on the Google Play Store adding features like HDMI monitoring while also expanding supported devices to OnePlus and Xiaomi phones running Android 13 or later.


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Android apps like Instagram could soon take Ultra HDR pictures.

Google has been testing adding Ultra HDR image capture to a limited camera API for Android 14 that’s aimed at the basic camera needs of social media apps, according to Android Authority.

Once the changes are available to developers, you’d no longer need to capture Ultra HDR images in a separate app to upload to Instagram.


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Is this our first look at GoPro’s next 360-degree camera?

Last year, GoPro CEO Nick Woodman confirmed the company was working on a new version of its twin-lens Max action cam that first debuted in 2019.

Yesterday, @Quadro_News shared what appears to be the first image of the next GoPro Max with its wide-angle lenses now centered and a housing featuring an integrated heatsink design to potentially resolve the original’s over-heating issues.


Nikon’s new $2,500 Z6 III has the world’s first partially stacked CMOS sensor

And all I wanted to do was take photos of birds with it.

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Perfect timing.

NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick, who’s been on the International Space Station since March, seems to enjoy sharing his camera settings. For the picture of the Boeing Starliner below, he followed up:

For the photography nerds: 1 second exposure, f 1.4, ISO 2000, 24 mm lens.


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Insta360 has an updated ‘S’ version of its little vlog camera.

The Insta360 Go 3 was a cute little vlogging cam that was small enough to wear on a lanyard or attach to a pet’s collar. Now, the new Go 3S model has some nifty upgrades like 4K video (up from 2.7K), Apple Find My compatibility, and waterproofing to 33 feet.

The Go 3S starts at $399.99, around the same as the outgoing model.


The Insta360 Go 3S camera and its screen case attachment.
The Insta360 Go 3S looks pretty much like the Go 3, right down to its magnetic case with flip-up screen.
Image: Insta360
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Tough cameras are still a thing.

Ricoh announced a new duo of waterproof / shockproof tough point-and-shoot cameras launching in July. No, the year is not 2011, but compact cameras continue to have their moment in 2024.

The 16-megapixel Pentax WG-1000 is the new entry-level with 4x optical zoom and waterproofing to 49.2 ft for $229.95. The 20-megapixel Pentax WG-8 is the flagship with 5x zoom, 65.6 ft depth range, and LED ring light for $399.95.


Two colors of the Pentax WG-1000 cameras with attached carabiner straps.

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The WG-1000 comes in olive and gray, each including a carabiner strap.
Image: Ricoh Imaging
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A Peak Design “data compromise” leaked 10 years worth of customer service tickets.

In the grand scheme of things, there have been far worse security breaches than what Peak Design, the popular camera accessory brand, is currently dealing with.

But if you had any customer service interactions with the company between October 2013 and May 2023, well... everything contained in those tickets was accessed by an unknown third party before the issue was fixed. Not great.


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Photos so good they make the wasteland seem beautiful.

Amazon’s Fallout was a surprise hit of a streaming series, and the on-set pictures by photographer JoJo Whilden equally blew me away.

Whilden’s photos, shot on a Hasselblad 500cm medium format film camera, are perfectly matched to the show’s aesthetic (the series and set-stills both used Kodak film stocks). Check out the small collection of these beautiful images on both Whilden’s and Prime Video’s Instagram pages.


Leica’s fresh D-Lux 8 makes it to the trendy point-and-shoot party

The $1,595 D-Lux 8 is Leica’s latest budget camera option, launching July 2nd, that takes direct aim at Fujifilm’s X100VI and Ricoh’s GR III.

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Canon is finally ready to reveal a 1-series mirrorless flagship — with AI, of course.

The Canon EOS R1 will “dramatically improve the performance of both still images and video” compared to the company’s previously flagship EOS R3. It’s “coming soon.”

Though it has the same Digic X processor, a new “Digic Accelerator” and ML algorithms can — for instance — allegedly tell when one player’s shooting a ball and focus on them automatically.


The EOS R1, with and without a lens. Tap here for higher res.
The EOS R1, with and without a lens. Tap here for higher res.
Images: Canon

Google’s Gemini video search makes factual error in demo

Google even highlighted the wrong answer in the video!

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A $2 million camera lens.

The Leica APO-Telyt-R 1600mm f/5.6 can take portrait photos from far away. Digital Camera World writes that Leica conceived the lens in 2006 at the request of former Qatari Minister of Culture Sheikh Saud Bin Mohammed Al-Thani. It’s so rare that there’s only three in existence.

It’s also so heavy that it takes two people to lift it onto a table.


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Fujifilm’s X-T50 will have a physical dial for the company’s signature film simulations.

Maybe this was an inevitable step from the camera brand that hangs its hat on film simulations that look wonderful straight out of camera.

According to FujiRumors, the upcoming mid-range X-T50 will have a physical dial for switching between different film sims. A bit unconventional? Definitely. But at least it’ll encourage people to try more of them.


Image: FujiRumors