The Future of Photography

Chris and Ade explore the the ways new technology can help you make fantastic photos.

Let's revisit GANs on this episode, extending on TFOP ep. 63. Nvidia is at it again with GauGAN (named after French painter Paul Gaugin). This time they present a network that can generate landscapes based on a segmentation map that you draw. Here's a video, a blog post and the paper. Nvidia is planning to release code here.

How do you turn 360 spherical images into a 3D navigable model? Matterport know how. They have produced hardware and software for some years that can do this from 3D capture and now have launched a version of their service that works with both the Ricoh Theta V and the Insta360 ONE X. So now we can all do 3D modelling! Technology is democratised again!! So what will you use it for? Share your efforts on Twitter and Instagram using #TFOPnow.

One of the latest gadgets that claim to make you a better photographer is called Arsenal. It received over $2.5 million on Kickstarter and as of this episode, it has not even been released yet. The amount of pre-funding clearly indicates how desperate a lot of people are to find the AI-powered silver bullet that will make them better photographers. Ade and Chris take a closer look at the promises.

Name a classic aspect ratio. Did you pick 6x4? 8x10? The Academy Ratio? Univisium? Univisium is actually Ade’s favourite. But have you shot 9:16? It’s a new video format that editing houses and digital agencies are starting to take very seriously.

There are several ways to do slow motion. One is to shoot at a very high frame rate. The other is to fake it and interpolate additional frames based on a slower frame rate. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts have come up with an algorithm to stretch video time almost indefinitely and create a Super SloMo.

Are you locked into an everlasting quest for high quality photo kit that fits in your pocket? Ade is. He recently bought the Fuji 27mm pancake lens which has added a new use-case to his APS-C camera - it now fits in a coat pocket. Get in touch with us on twitter @TFOPnow to show us your pocketable camera kits.

Lightroom adds Enhance Details, but is it any good? // Nokia 9 PureView comes with 5 Cameras (see also TFOP 039: Lens Multiplication) // Nvidia StyleGAN Proof of Concept: This Person Does Not Exist (Article), Nvidia StyleGAN on github (see also TFOP 063 Porsche-ness: The Future of Stock Photography)

How do you get your passport photos done? Ade just had to renew his and found that the UK Government now has a great service for uploading digital photos and streamlining passport renewal. Check out the guidelines here. It's a bit different in Germany though for Chris. And in agreessive pricing news, Canon has set a new low benchmark for pricing full-frame mirrorless cameras at $1299. What does this mean for the future of camera pricing in general?

Materials research is trying to make lenses flatter and they are making great progress by employing the same type of antenna technology that makes terrestrial radio work. Just on a much much smaller nano scale to make it work for light. Arseniy Kuznetsov is one of the scientists working with new materials to create the future of lenses, projectors and holographic displays. Watch the video here.