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Insta360 is making its Antigravity A1 drone way cheaper – with a catch

The Follow Me bundle promises to make it easier than ever to record 360 video of yourself from the air, but comes with a battery that puts it over the weight limit.

A cyclist rides along a coastal road with a small white drone flying alongside.

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Last year, Insta360 announced that it was entering the drone market with its Antigravity brand and A1 drone, which comes equipped with a 360 camera. Now, the company is launching a new “Follow Me” bundle, which pairs the drone with a few new accessories aimed to make it even easier to film yourself. It also provides a substantially less expensive way to buy the drone, though there’s a big catch to anyone looking for a drone to use casually.

Like many other drones, including models from DJI, the A1 is able to track a recognized subject, following them without needing to be manually controlled. With the Follow Me bundle, Antigravity is introducing a watch you can wear to make tracking more reliable, even if the drone loses sight of you behind an obstacle, such as a row of trees.

Insta360 GO 3 camera mounted in a wrist accessory, displaying a live view of cycling on its screen.Antigravity

The watch has a 1.7″ display, which you can use to watch a live view from the drone’s camera and to control things like recording, video mode and which subject the drone is tracking (though it’ll be best equipped to follow the person wearing the watch). According to the spec sheet, the drone has a maximum tracking speed of 10 meters per second (22.4mph).

The bundle also includes a new ring accessory, which the company says enables a “Drag-to-Fly” mode where you can “grab” the drone by pointing at it and pressing a button on the ring. You can then move your arm to control its position. Swing your arm over your head, and it’ll go from following you from behind to filming you from the front, or move your arm left to right to have the drone execute a pan. You can also do a twisting motion to have the drone fly away from you, showing more of the surroundings.

This is somewhat similar to how the drone works already worked in its “FreeMotion” mode when paired with the motion-sensitive remote that came in the standard bundle, but the ring will theoretically be a bit harder to notice in the actual footage. The A1 offers 8K 360 capture at up to 30p, recorded from two cameras with Type 1/1.28 (76mm²) sensors and F2.2 lenses.

White drone with four propeller guards hovering above a wrist wearing a smartwatch displaying a live video feed, with a small remote control ring worn on the index finger.Antigravity

Both the ring and the watch are IP67 rated, so you should be able to wear them even during sweaty or water-based activities.

The bundle also includes a new set of propeller guards that Insta360 says will fully enclose the blades for added safety, along with four extra propellers, a crossbody bag, a USB-C cable for charging the drone (though no charging brick) and the brand’s high-capacity battery. That latter inclusion is a critical one, for reasons we’ll cover in just a moment.

What the bundle doesn’t have are the “Vision Goggles” that came with the standard A1 bundle. Nor does it come with the motion controller. These let you fly the A1 from a first-person view, and look around your scene while doing so, thanks to the drone’s 360-degree camera. Of course, the standard bundle will still be available alongside the Follow Me one.

a woman stands in a desert with goggles on her face and a drone flying in front
The A1’s headset and controller were a large part of its original identity, but aren’t included in this bundle.
Antigravity

Not including the headset apparently means Antigravity can sell the drone for substantially less than it has previously. The “Standard bundle,” which until now has been the entry point for the A1, costs $1599 but the Follow Me bundle, which is available starting today, comes in at just $799. If you already own an A1 and want the watch and ring, the company is also making those available for $340 at retail, though it says it’s offering a 20% discount for “existing A1 users” (which, to me, seems to encompass everyone who would be interested in buying them).

You’ll have to take some extra steps to fly it legally in the US and EU

The Antigravity press release says that the new bundle makes the drone a good option “for family outings and sporting activities, giving people an easy way to capture memories while staying in the moment.” While the price makes it seem like a reasonable pick for those scenarios, especially in the US where DJI’s models are harder to come by, the use of the high-capacity battery rather than Antigravity’s standard one means that the drone included in this bundle has a takeoff weight of 351g. Consequently, you’ll have to take some extra steps to fly it legally in the US and EU, which isn’t the case for the Standard bundle version of the A1, as it comes in right at the 249g limit with its non-extended battery.

The spec sheet for the Follow Me version of the A1 has some other differences compared to the one in the standard bundle, too, with substantially shorter flight time and max flight distance than even the version with the smaller battery, lower top speed, and less wind resistance. However, Antigravity says this is this is only the case with the full-coverage propeller guards installed; without them, it will perform the same.

All of this makes it hard to know what to make of this bundle

All of this makes it hard to know what to make of this bundle. Had it included the standard battery, it’d be a much more straightforward story: a cheaper version of the drone that’s a bit better equipped to follow someone for vlogging style content and more casual shooting. But, at least to me, the people in that audience are the least likely to want to have to get a license to fly a drone, especially when the higher-end version doesn’t require that (at least, until you get into the even more expensive bundles that come with the high-capacity battery).

Still, the A1 is an interesting drone, and this offers a less expensive way to buy it for those who are interested and willing to go through some hurdles to fly it, be they registering the drone or buying one of the standard batteries to try and get it under that 249g weight limit.

About the Author: Mitchell started taking pictures at 10 and hasn’t stopped since. It’s been a wide-ranging adventure, spanning a wide variety of genres and locales, and occasionally dipping into fascinations with video and filmmaking. They honed their technical knowledge doing documentation, programing and QA, writing for The Verge, and just generally messing around on the computer to see what breaks.

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DxO ViewPoint 6 adds direct Raw support and more precise local corrections

Once limited to processed files, ViewPoint 6 can now handle Raw images directly, with smarter subject selection and a more granular mesh for local distortion correction.

The Eiffel Tower viewed from a riverbank, overlaid with a digital grid and a series of orange and red markers.DxO

DxO has announced ViewPoint 6, the latest version of its software for correcting perspective, lens distortion and stretched subjects in photographs. The update adds direct Raw support to the standalone application, along with AI-assisted subject selection and a more flexible correction mesh for precise, local adjustments.

Raw support

ViewPoint 5 only worked with JPEG and TIFF files, meaning that photographers had to process Raw files in a separate program before bringing them into ViewPoint to adjust perspective and distortion. ViewPoint 6, however, can open Raw files directly, rendering them with DxO’s camera profile in its Wide Gamut working space.

While ViewPoint 6 is far from a full Raw editor, the added support allows photographers to make basic tonal and color adjustments before tackling geometry. That includes exposure compensation settings from -4 to +4 EV. It also offers white balance controls with temperature and tint sliders as well as a neutral-point eyedropper.

DxO says that all corrections are written to sidecar files that save as photographers work. That means the original is untouched, but users can reopen the file and come back to those adjustments. Photographers can export finished images as JPEG files or 8- or 16-bit TIFF files.

AI masking and refined local adjustments

Two figures running through a harvested field with a kite flying above, overlaid with a blue grid and node pattern.
ViewPoint 6 adds AI-assisted masking to ReShape Fusion: draw a box, and the software identifies the subject and traces its edges.
DxO

The other major update is AI-assisted masking in ReShape Fusion, the tool DxO introduced in ViewPoint 5 for moving, scaling, rotating and correcting individual parts of a photograph. In version 6, photographers can draw a rectangle around a subject, and the software identifies the element inside and creates a mask following its outline.

ViewPoint then builds a correction mesh around that outline, concentrating control points where finer adjustments are needed rather than relying on a uniform grid. Users can subdivide or merge mesh regions and enable or disable individual control points.

DxO says that AI handles the selection, while the photographer still makes the geometric adjustments. It also emphasizes that the AI is non-generative: it selects existing subjects rather than inventing content or filling image borders.

Before and after comparison of the Shanghai skyline, featuring the Oriental Pearl Tower corrected from a tilted angle to a vertical orientation using DXO software.
DxO says ViewPoint 6’s improved ReShape Fusion tool is useful for correcting a single leaning building without distorting the rest of the scene.
DxO

The more precise local adjustments could make the tool more useful for correcting a leaning building without transforming the entire scene or adjusting a stretched face near the edge of a group photograph. DxO says users can also control how adjustments extend into neighboring areas, an important consideration when reshaping one subject that could then distort what surrounds it.

Price and availability

DxO ViewPoint 6 is available for macOS and Windows for $130, with upgrades from ViewPoint 5 priced at $85. A 30-day free trial is also available. The software runs as a standalone application, supports plugin workflows with Lightroom Classic, Photoshop and Capture One, and integrates with PhotoLab 10.

About the Author: Abby Ferguson holds an MFA in photography and blends a fine-art background with extensive editorial and commercial experience. She built and led an in-house imaging program for a large vacation rental company and has served as an associate editor at Popular Photography. She also teaches at a local community college and serves on its Photographic Technology Program Advisory Board, sharing her knowledge and enthusiasm for the medium.

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Adobe adds easy AI eye generation to Lightroom Mobile

The feature will detect if someone has their eyes closed in a photo and create a new pair for them.

Split-screen comparison showing eyes closed on the left and eyes open on the right, labeled with an Open Eyes button icon.Adobe

If you’ve spent any time taking pictures of people, you’ll probably know the pain of photographing someone with an almost-perfect expression… only to realize that their eyes are closed. Adobe is looking to solve that problem, with a new feature for Lightroom for mobile that it calls “Open Eyes.” And, of course, it uses generative AI.

The way it works is relatively simple: if you open a photo that has someone with their eyes closed in it, there’ll be an option called “Open Eyes” in the Quick Actions menu. Tap it, and the app will use generative AI to composite in a new set of eyes for them that are, well, open. The company says that if you have other pictures of the person in your Lightroom library, it’ll use data from those to match their eye shape, color and size for an “even more accurate” result. The feature works on shots of individuals, as well as groups, and the company says it only targets “the area that needs adjustment,” without messing with the rest of the person’s face, letting you “save an otherwise great photo without losing what made the moment special.”

A before / after example created using the “Open Eyes” feature, provided by Adobe.

Of course, it’s not like this kind of thing was impossible to do before. Even well before the age of generative AI, Adobe Photoshop Elements had a similar feature, which worked by pulling an image of the person’s eyes from another picture you took. If you didn’t have one, or if the lighting didn’t match, or if the result looked odd because they were making a facial expression that would usually force someone’s eyes closed, you were out of luck.

You could also do this relatively easily in modern versions of Photoshop using the Generative Fill tool, though obviously that requires having a subscription to Photoshop and being willing to go through the few extra steps required. Adobe gives people using the free version of Lightroom mobile two uses of the Open Eyes feature before asking them to subscribe to an AI or Creative Cloud plan. Interestingly, when I tested the feature out, the UI implied it was using a third-party image generation model – Google’s Nano Banana – rather than Adobe’s own FireFly one.

I suspect many of our regular readers won’t be in love with the idea of this feature, as it’s the latest in a not-so-slow march of tech that makes us ask “so what really counts as a photo?” And indeed, it’s hard to imagine myself ever using this kind of feature; I’m not particularly interested in sharing moments that didn’t happen, and I think there’s something special about a laugh or a smile so intense you couldn’t possibly keep your eyes open during it. However, I suspect there will be many out there who will find this kind of feature useful, because they just need one more shot to round out a social post, or couldn’t get all the kids smiling with their eyes open at once. Phone makers have been playing around with similar features for a while, most of which typically rely more on combining multiple pictures than wholesale generation, but that step is starting to feel inevitable.

Adobe’s “Open Eyes” feature is now available in the Lightroom mobile app. Like the rest of the Quick Actions system, it doesn’t currently appear to be available on the desktop version of Lightroom.

About the Author: Mitchell started taking pictures at 10 and hasn’t stopped since. It’s been a wide-ranging adventure, spanning a wide variety of genres and locales, and occasionally dipping into fascinations with video and filmmaking. They honed their technical knowledge doing documentation, programing and QA, writing for The Verge, and just generally messing around on the computer to see what breaks.

Want to stay up to date on the latest product news and releases? Add DPReview as a preferred source to ensure our independent journalism makes it to the top of your Google search results.

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