The Future of Photography

Who will make your next camera? Despite new launches from both Canon and Nikon recently, Fuji are winning lots of internet reviewer awards for best camera of 2018. So where do we need to look now for the next big thing? DJI Osmo Pocket? Insta360? Yongnuo? Notice all these are Chinese companies innovating photography through applying new technology. DJI even own Hasselblad now. If Chinese manufacturers who already build many phone cameras now start to make waves in the traditional camera markets, how will the established Japanese, German and other nationality companies compete?

It's the age of artificial photography. Be it car ads or the latest IKEA catalog. What's been difficult is coming up with artificial people. Until now. Nvidia just presented their latest research in GANs to create any artificial photo of a person that you like. It remains to be seen what that means for the future of photography.

Over the holidays Ade rented a type of LED light he had not used before - a Westcott Icelight 2 from hireacamera.com. “It made me think about the way I shoot with light in a different way. It didn’t give me absolute control over light - it’s not powerful enough. But it did give me plenty to light a subject above the ambient light - indoors anyway - and made me think more about what filmmakers call “practicals”. It’s a blending of light rather than blasting.” So, will the future of photographic lighting change the art? Or is this just another aesthetic trend?

Synthetic reality is becoming a part of our daily lives, with deepfakes replacing faces and Adobe's VoCo being able to synthesize anything in anybody's voice. How does this change in reality influence our skills and our beliefs? Our discussion on this episode was triggered by this article by Rob Horning.

Remember "Think Different"? Ade is trying his best to do that by becoming iOS native. Native meaning designing workflows, choosing tools and having fun (that's the important bit) with photography all based around "not a real computer". It's a bit of a challenge in places and Chris provides the interrogation to figure out just how real all this is. And check out RAW Power (no affiliation) for properly powerful editing.

Smartphones have already taken over when it comes to portability and it helps that you always have one in your pocket. They do automatic HDR, they have optical image stabilization, they can simulate shallow depth of field and they are masters when it comes to convenient editing and sharing. Now another bastion of the bigger cameras is about to fall: low light photography. Google's Night Sight

Use #TFOPnow on twitter or instagram. Post your images made with futuristic camera and software tools... We think it’s about time we put our creative brains to work using all the tools we talk about every week on the show. And we want you to do that too! The show this week is a call to action - we want to see your creative images taking advantage of new tools and techniques. It could be an in-camera computational tool or a faourite app in post to make the image zing. When you’re done post on twitter or instagram with the hashtag #TFOPnow and let’s see what we all can do. And maybe hit up Chris and Ade on the socials as well... Our social media handles: The Future of Photography on Twitter, Ade on Twitter, on Instagram, Chris on Twitter, on Instagram Also: Did you know, we use the future of audio processing (a system called Auphonic) to make these episodes sound as sweet as possible? But Auphonic processing time costs actual money. To help us keep sounding as smashing as we do, we'd love it if you could help us out by donating some Auphonic credits

Chris was at the Rochester Institute of Technology to see where education in the photographic sciences will take us in the future. Videos from the visit: Scrabble Drop, Drip Drip, Balloon Pop, Streak Photography, Electron Microscopy, Full Series. An article about Harold Edgerton. Also: Did you know, we use the future of audio processing (a system called Auphonic) to make these episodes sound as sweet as possible? But Auphonic processing time costs actual money. To help us keep sounding as smashing as we do, we'd love it if you could help us out by donating some Auphonic credits

Made up story: Once upon a time a man called Steve invented a new camera. It was quite small and he only had room for one lens. He chose one a little bit wide but not properly wide. For the next 10 years, most new cameras had basically the same lens. Do YOU like 28mme? Is it the new “normal”? What should be considered normal now? Aspect ratios have changed. Video is more popular. If cameras of the future shipped with a kit prime rather than a zoom, what should it be? What impact will 28mme have on the future of photography?

Digital compact cameras are on the way out. Smartphones have taken over that segment for good. But Zeiss is looking at the segment with a fresh approach. Their announced ZX1 camera (introduction video) is a full-frame mirrorless camera with a fixed 35mm f/2.0 lens. But what's even more interesting is that it ditched the card slots in favor of an internal 512MB SSD and comes with built-in Lightroom Mobile.