One could almost think that the big players in the photo business are already familiar with our new column, because it is intended to broaden the perspective – and many newly introduced lenses promptly have wider angles. Instead of the standard zoom with a focal length of 24-70 millimeters, Sony’s Alphas will soon be able to be fitted with a 20-70mm focal length. This is smaller, cheaper, but also fainter, instead of f/2.8 only f/4.0 is required. At 1,600 euros, this is still not a hobby lens, and you can probably add a zero in the summer for the fixed focal length with 300mm and f/2.8 – a typical sports telephoto for professionals.
An f/1.0 for Nikon Z
Nikon only wants to introduce some new lenses for the Z-mount in the course of 2023, and Voigtländer naturally senses a gap in the market with its special lenses. If you like available light and extreme bokeh, you might be happy with a 50mm at f/1.0. And an extreme wide angle, with little distortion according to the manufacturer, is said to be offered by a 15 mm at f/4.5. Both devices are designed for manual focus and manual stop-down. With the latest firmware, they transmit the selected aperture to the camera, so that an automatic timer can be used – but who wants that with such a nice analog feeling?
Fujifilm customers recently also had to struggle with firmware. If this is updated via the smartphone via the already rather sluggish “Camera Connect” app, the camera can become a “brick”. It is then inoperable and has to go to the workshop. Corrected updates should be available soon, until then the following applies: update, if necessary, only via SD card, which is recommended for all cameras. The XT-5, XT-4, XT-3, X-S10, X-T30 and X-T30 II are affected here.
Cameras are software products
The updates are necessary for many, because today cameras are also software products. This does not mean that they are delivered as banana goods and should ripen at the customer’s. On the contrary, companies often add functions after the market launch that really make sense and can extend the useful life of the camera. Just think of the lossless digital zoom when filming with the Nikon Z9. Fuji acts similarly, which has apparently raised the autofocus with tracking of moving objects on the X-H2S to the level of the much more expensive professional blocks.
And because everything with “AI” sells better today, pattern recognition from machine learning is also called that at Fujifilm. In general, autofocus in photo and film is one of the areas where real improvements can be achieved with better software, and many manufacturers are likely to follow suit. Because the processors in the cameras are so fast today that they should be able to track at least a little better, even without an AI accelerator. There may even be a business area for paid updates here, if the camera really does have new or greatly improved functions.
Adobe is rowing back on AI use
There should also be an update for the data protection settings in Adobe’s Creative Cloud soon. The company was criticized because the previous options looked like there was only an opt-out for the AI processing of user data. The fear: The company, of all people, which has forced almost all of its users into the cloud with its subscription model, now wants to create and sell its own computer-generated media from their photos and videos. If that were the case, you would be paying someone else to earn money with your work.
But that’s not the case, says Adobe now. But you have to read the original sources, here conversations with Petapixel and Bloomberg, carefully. Adobe only promises that “Generative AI”, i.e. artificial intelligence that creates new content, has never been operated with user data and has never been guaranteed. Adobe does not deny that customers learn from the media at all and quickly refers to useful pattern recognition such as “Is that a dog or a cat?”. A clumsy diversion, because that’s a question that people who earn their living with their creative work should rarely ask themselves.
Processes around images from the AI
Rather, it is about sovereignty over one’s own content, which in the case of images seems to have already been lost in the de facto lack of copyright checks on platforms such as Twitter. The wave of AI applications such as Dall-E or Chat GPT is now also raising awareness that the work of creative people needs better protection. Consequently, there are also the first lawsuits, which in the USA are always aimed at damages. Among other things, it caused a sensation a strenuous process by three artists against Deviant Art, Midjourney and Stability AI because of the alleged use of their own work with the AI tool Stable Diffusion.
This can generate images from texts and provides, for example, for Plaintiff Karla Ortiz represents a very real threat, because it lives, among other things, from concept art for large computer games. This is exactly what the bots are good at: creating a model in the form of an image from an author’s vision. So if, among other things, the game design envisages a 3 meter tall orc in shorts and with green hair as an opponent in the third level, an AI with enough training data can quickly create it. Artists then sit down with the designer and draw several drafts until the final artwork is due. Days of work that may be used again by the picture bots as templates for other fantasy characters.
Astrophotographers complain about light pollution
Astrophotographers are also worried about the future of their profession – of course because of the increasing light pollution. This means the illumination of the night sky by artificial light sources. A German-American research cooperation has now discovered that light pollution is increasing much faster than satellites have been able to measure – because they look down on the earth from above, but astrophotographers and astronomers are interested in what you can see through the atmosphere from below. And that is becoming less and less, because the result of the study is shocking: the brightness of the night sky doubles every eight years. Or, as Christopher Kyba from the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) puts it: “A child who is now born in a place where 250 stars can be seen at night would only see 100 18 years later.” And then at some point, lenses that are getting faster and faster will no longer help.
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