Camerainsider insider reported on X that a new GR camera (Ricoh GRIV?) will be announced this week. Camerainsider has generally been correct in the past when reporting on upcoming cameras and lenses, but they were also wrong on several occasions. Stay tuned for updates.
Skylum has teamed up with Google to unveil Luminar Photo Editor, now available for Android and ChromeOS:
Skylum Partners with Google to Expand Luminar Photo Editing to Android and ChromeOS
This launch brings Luminar’s powerful, intelligent editing capabilities to mobile and Chromebook users, offering a fresh, intuitive, and playful experience designed especially for creative photographers of any level. The interface has been carefully adapted for a wide variety of devices, including phones, tablets, Chromebooks, and foldable devices. Luminar dynamically adjusts to different screen sizes and aspect ratios, providing a consistent and comfortable workflow whether on a single-screen smartphone or a dual-screen foldable. This level of UX refinement ensures a seamless, device-aware editing experience that stands out across platforms.
Luminar stands out with its AI-powered tools that deliver professional-looking results in just a few taps, without the need for advanced photo editing skills or a desktop setup. Whether retouching a portrait, replacing a sky, or preparing Instagram-ready visuals, Luminar helps users edit with confidence, ease, and speed. With just a few clicks, users can enhance their photos and bring their creative vision to life — right from the convenience of their phone, tablet, or Chromebook.
“By bringing Luminar to Android, we’re showcasing our greatest strengths: professional‑grade imaging technology powered by an intuitive, engaging interface. It’s this unique fusion that sparks the urge to create, giving every photographer, on any device, the confidence and excitement to push boundaries and tell new visual stories.”— Ivan Kutanin, CEO, Skylum
"We're excited to collaborate with Skylum to bring its powerful AI-driven photo editing tools to the Android and ChromeOS ecosystems. This partnership showcases the potential of AI to enhance creativity and simplify complex tasks for users across different devices."— Maria Schmidt, Strategic Partnership Manager, Google
“Partnering with Google accelerates our product innovation and reinforces our position as a market leader. Together, we're committed to delivering exceptional user experiences that surpass expectations by bringing the power of Luminar to Android users worldwide.”— Kostiantyn Tymoschuk, VP of Growth, Skylum
With this release, Skylum and Google deliver a seamless, cross-platform creative experience that empowers users to focus on their artistry, not the technicalities.
Luminar Key Features:
AI-Powered Tools:
Enhance AI— A single slider intelligently adjusts up to a dozen essential settings - including shadows, highlights, contrast, tone, saturation, exposure, and detail - to improve the overall image quality instantly.
Structure AI— Brings out detail and clarity while preserving a natural look. Enhances only the necessary areas of an image without over-sharpening or introducing noise where it's not needed.
Relight AI— Gives full control over the lighting in a photo, ideal for creatively enhancing mood or correcting backlit scenes. The tool analyzes the image in three dimensions to realistically adjust foreground lighting without affecting the rest of the composition.
Atmosphere AI — Adds realistic fog, mist or haze, using content-aware and depth-based masking. The effect is applied with precision to enhance mood without covering key subjects, ensuring a natural, realistic look.
Sky AI— Automatically detects the sky in the image and replaces it seamlessly with a new one, factoring in realistic lighting and reflections, specifically on water and other reflective surfaces.
Skin AI—Smooths skin and removes blemishes with a single tap, helping portraits look polished while preserving natural texture.
Body AI —Allows subtle adjustment of the torso shape - either reducing or enhancing the volume - for a more balanced appearance. AI precisely maps key body features, ensuring natural-looking edits without distorting the background.
Core Editing Tools:
Develop: Adjust exposure, temperature, tint, smart contrast, highlights, shadows, blacks, whites, saturation, vibrance, vignette, and more.
Essential Tools: Crop, Details, Erase, Landscape Enhancer (Foliage Enhancer, Golden Hour, Dehaze), and Monochrome.
Filter collection: Robust color correction, film-inspired looks, and nostalgic tones loved by many in the photography world.
For more information and to download the app, please visit the link.
Sony released its FY2024 financial results. As usual, there is little information provided for the camera business, which is part of the Entertainment, Technology & Services Segment (ET&S Segment):
Despite the impact of the decrease in sales and the recording of additional restructuring charges in the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2025, operating income increased 2% year-on-year to 190.9 billion yen, primarily due to a reduction in operational expenses.
The interchangeable lens camera market performed well in FY24 Q4, mainly in the Chinese market which benefited from subsidies, and grew approximately 9% year-on-year on a unit basis.
During this fiscal year, we plan to operate our business conservatively, prioritizing risk mitigation, because we anticipate disruptions to markets and supply chains due to the recently adopted U.S. tariffs.
Sony has a teaser for a new camera announcement on June 2nd. I am pretty sure the short video will be removed any moment becuase it actually has a picture of a Canon camera - this is what happens when you rely on AI to do the work for you:
Hey @Fujirumors, Here's the video clip of the upcoming Fujifilm X Half that the leaked photo is from.
Don't ask me how long it took to find this
Also sorry it's jumpy, I cropped in and tracked it myself to not dox the guy that accidentally uploaded it. pic.twitter.com/05b1uGKAai
"A diptych is an artwork, often a painting or photograph, consisting of two related panels, usually joined together by a hinge. The panels can be closed like a book and, in the past, were often used to protect the interior paintings. Diptychs can be used to create a visual dialogue between the two images, capture a single moment in time, or explore a theme over time."
Cosina officially released the Voigtlander PORTRAIT HELIAR 75mm f/1.8 lens with various bokeh effects for Sony E-mount (previously reported here):
Various bokeh effects using the control ring: by operating the control ring for undercorrection and overcorrection, you can enjoy bokeh depictions with an unprecedented range.
Cosina releases the PORTRAIT HELIAR 75mm F1.8, a special replacement lens compatible with full-size mirrorless cameras using the Sony E-mount from the Focto Render brand.
The PORTRAIT HELIAR 75mm F1.8 is a large caliber manual focus medium telephoto lens dedicated to the Sony E-mount, equipped with the first spherical harvest control mechanism as a replacement lens for full size foctrender. Covering a full-size image circle, the optical design optimizes the image sensor for Sony mirrorless cameras.
This lens creates a wide variety of bokeh expressions by paying attention to the relationship between spherical harvestment and bokeh, allowing arbitrarily control over the state of insufficiency (undercollection) and overcompensation (overcollection).
The lens configuration uses a Heliar type of 3 groups of 6 sheets, while the open aperture is achieved a large caliber of F1.8. Changes in spherical harvestment can occur even with the aperture opening and closing, but by manipulating the new mechanism's control ring, you can enjoy the portrayal of bokeh with unseen width.
In the image with insufficient correction, the pint's tendon is obscured (soft focus) and the highlight flare occurs. The lag makes for a soft depiction. On the other hand, in the over-corrected image, the pinto scale remains, and the lag becomes hard (bubble blur). These trends have been regarded as glitches that need to be fixed from an ideal optical design perspective, but they are planned and designed to connect their characteristics to unique photographic expressions.
Variable spherical harvestment can cause optical principle to shift the pint position, but we are responding to this challenge by incorporating a mechanism that can offset the slip by changing the spacing between the lens group in conjunction with the control ring. When you operate the control ring, the finger point has a small protrusion to give you an approximate sense of correction.
This lens has an electronic contact point, which reflects the usage of the lens in the Exif information of the photography data, but does not depend on the functionality of electronic lens optical correction in the camera, but it is designed to capture the performance of the lens itself as an image. Also, since it has a built-in distance encoder, it is also suitable for models with a 5-axis body internal hand break compensation function that uses distance information to the subject for shift blur correction. You can also expand the viewfinder by using the focus ring. The shortest shooting distance is 0.7m, and the pint is dedicated to manual focus.
The metal focus ring uses a diamond pattern with excellent grip strength. One of the features is the silky operation sensation that is greased by a high precision metal helicoid that can withstand the sheer hint of the squeeze and open. The aperture is a mechanical control directly connected to the operating ring. It adjusts on the lens side rather than the camera side command dial. The number of apertures is nine, depicting the out-focus part of the dim light source, etc. in an arranged form.
WANDRD is celebrating 10 years with the best deals of the decade, where you can get 20%-50% off camera bags sitewide - this is a better offer than any Black Friday or Prime Day discount they have had in the past (valid from May 13th - 17th):
The 2025 China P&E show (Photographic Equipment and Electrical Imaging Machinery) will start on May 16 at the Beijing Exhibition Center. Here are some of the new lenses that will be announced/displayed at the show - stay tuned for the detailed coverage.
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