The developer of the app, which is billed as RAW Manual Camera and has in one review been described as a “pro camera app”, suggests in this blog post that the smoothing observed (and previously described here) may be a consequence of smart HDR in that HDR always reduces contrast (hence high dynamic range) and therefore apparent sharpness, which may subjectively appear as smoothing. Read more here.
Releasing two flagship cameras in short succession, Fujifilm has left some prospective customers confused, never mind the fact that the X-Pro2 is also still hovering about somewhere in the line-up. So here I’ll look at the X-H1 and X-T3 and who they might be suited for.
Several sources, including some from Photokina, are reporting that Olympus is planning to release a flagship camera possibly in early 2019. They will also be celebrating their 100th anniversary later in the year with something special.
A different rumour suggests that Olympus were invited to join the L mount alliance, but declined. Figures quoted in this context point out that Olympus, Panasonic, Ricoh and Fujifilm summed together have about 15% market share, which could lead one to wonder whether Ricoh or Fujifilm might have been approached.
Russian photography industry legend, Zenit, has teamed with Leica to release a Russian-designed version of the Leica M (Typ 240), and they pair this with a new lens, a 35mm with f/1 aperture, which is quite some chunk to behold.
Hugh Brownstone of Three Blind Men and An Elephant Productions has given a fairly comprehensive 30 minute appraisal of the EOS R, linked below. For those who can read faster than they can watch a YouTube video, I’ve also provided a summary/write-up after the break hopefully catching all the main points made.
The f/3.5 lens is reported to give a 180 degree maximum field of view. However, it is not stated whether this is true for Nikon or Canon – since they use different crop factors, they can’t have the same field of view with the same lens without further modification.
Apparently, the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max have skin smoothing built in when using the portrait mode – in addition to the fake background blur. For the way it looks, I’d say it’s probably done by means of frequency separation as used by many professional retouchers. Customers are now complaining since there’s no know off switch for this – if you want the fake bokeh, you get fake skin thrown into the deal, so the only choice is to not use portrait mode and forego both.
