Blytical wanted photos that looked like they were shot with a thrift store camcorder, not another phone filter. He created Retro Cam, a handheld device that records true analog video and converts it into blurry, flickering stills as well as clips, all without using a single digital trick. It fits in your hand like a bulky point-and-shoot from the early 2000s, but each frame has the smooth blur and color drift of an old VHS tape.
Open a photo in Google Photos today, tap edit and select “Help me edit”. From there, type or say a simple request and Nano Banana will do the rest. This model built by Google DeepMind is now live on both Android and iOS in the US.
Photo credit: Carnegie Mellon University
You find yourself in a garden at the perfect time, when the golden hour paints everything in a warm gentle light. A bee hovers annoyingly close to your lens, a tiny speck of pollen clinging to its leg. In the background, a rose blooms in the distance – and then beyond that, a stunning mountain range stretches out to meet the horizon. No matter how good your camera is, even a fancy $10,000 mirrorless beast, you’re always going to have to make some compromises – choose the bee and the mountains will turn into a blur of creamy bokeh. Some have even tried light-field cameras that inevitably sacrifice resolution for a bit of extra versatility. Every one of them is some kind of compromise.
A calm stadium is bathed in morning light as a sprinter bursts out of the blocks. Canon’s EOS R6 Mark III quickly captured the exact moment her foot off the track, with 20 of those images arriving half a second before you even managed to completely push the shutter. Canon has just unveiled a hybrid shooter a camera that just can’t miss.
Photo credit: DJI
Folded up, DJI’s new Osmo Mobile 8 fits neatly into a coat pocket like a thick paperback, neither too big nor too little. But when unfolded, that dark gray arm of its predecessor, the 7P, swings open with a satisfying snap – except now there’s a smart little swivel joint you can’t see that allows the camera to revolve in a full 360-degree circle. Simply point your phone at whatever and press the record button; the horizon will remain visible with no shaking.
Photo credit: Dycus
Dycus started digging through a box of old electronics on a lazy afternoon and pulled out a dusty circuit board from an optical mouse that had long since been forgotten. That seemingly worthless bit, tucked away a few years ago on a hunch, ended up sparking 65 hours of late night modding and more soldered connections than he cares to count. By the end of it all, that old scrap had turned into something completely new: a tiny camera that snaps pretty terrible, yet somehow charming portraits and sweeps panoramic scenes that seem to capture the whole world in a single sweep.
Insta360 has just released the X4 Air, a camera that weighs in at a mere 165 grams but carries the heft of 8K 360-degree video, kind of like a feather in a fight. This device slots itself neatly into the X Series as the lightest one yet – made for people who live for the thrill of grabbing a shot without being weighed down by an extra few grams worth of kit.
Henry Kidman thought to himself, ‘why not try building a 16mm motion film picture camera from scratch?’, and went about it using only a 3D printer, an Arduino, and a stubborn refusal to accept that there are some things that just might be too difficult to get done alone. His project shows what’s possible with the tools most of us already have on hand, and what he came up with is a device that against all the odds, actually captures good quality film footage.
The Xtra Muse – a rebranded version of the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 – is now at its lowest price point yet for Prime members. Knocked down to $499 from $699, this thing is pretty much a no-brainer compared to the DJI Osmo Pocket 3. The reason for the massive price drop? They’ve managed to sidestep some pricey import fees that have been jacking up the cost of similar products. This compact beast still packs a 1 inch CMOS sensor, a 3 axis gimbal to make your footage silky smooth and enough smarts to keep your mug in the center of the shot, even while you’re rambling on about the best way to make a decent cup of coffee at the local cafe.
Your smartphone might be great at taking sharp footage under normal circumstances, but try taking a run through the park or a car ride over some rough roads and those built-in camera tools are going to start to struggle. That’s where the DJI Osmo Mobile 8 smartphone gimbal comes in – to sort out all that shaky footage.