New ZTE nubia phone with 23 MP rear camera, 13 MP selfie snapper leaks

ZTE is holding an event in China next week, on October 17 to be specific. On this occasion it's been speculated that the company will launch the nubia Z11 mini S, a handset reportedly having a dual rear camera setup. No other details about it have been outed yet, but today an intriguing new leak from China makes us think we might see a different smartphone on Monday - or perhaps the nubia Z11 mini S won't have dual cameras on the back after all.

The image you can see below has showed up on Weibo, and it's alleged to be showing a yet-unannounced nubia model. The metal construction of the phone is obvious.

Also, the AnTuTu screen is showing us info about the phone's cameras, and based on this data this nubia is shaping up to be an interesting contender for mobile photography. That's because it has a 23 MP rear sensor and a 13 MP selfie shooter.

Unfortunately nothing else about this smartphone has been leaked yet, not even its name. So it's anyone's guess what it might be. What is certain is that the resolutions of its cameras are a step up from the 16 MP / 8 MP pair seen in the nubia Z11, the sub-brand's current flagship released in July.

Source (in Chinese) | Via

Source: New ZTE nubia phone with 23 MP rear camera, 13 MP selfie snapper leaks

Seattle photographer finally on Instagram — years after his Best Camera app lost the race to $1 billion

Photographer Chase Jarvis, in a YouTube video explaining his Best Camera app. (Via YouTube)

Seattle photographer Chase Jarvis is a champion of mobile photography and a firm believer that millions if not billions of people around the world want to share pictures taken with their phones. To borrow a well-worn cliche: If only there was an app for that.

Well, there was an app for that, and Jarvis created it. It was called Best Camera, and for a time, after its launch in 2009, it was the most popular photography app in existence. Until Instagram.

Jarvis, in a lengthy and revealing new blog post on his website, is finally sharing the tale of what went wrong with Best Camera, what it felt like to lose to Instagram, and why finally — after six years — he has posted his first images to the wildly popular platform that beat him to the $1 billion payout.

For those who didn't get swept up in the early wave of iPhone photography, Best Camera gained its popularity by being an app that allowed filtering of images and sharing to social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Jarvis, a professional photographer who theorized that great images were about the moment, not the gear, writes that he saw the potential in giving millions of amateur photographers a better tool with which to share what they shot.

Best Camera took off in the App Store, landed on best-of lists and was named by Apple VP Phil Schiller as one of his favorite apps. There was even an online community and a book, called "The Best Camera is the One That's With You."

But the early praise for Best Camera eventually turned to skepticism as the app was criticized for not releasing timely and significant enough updates. It is here that Jarvis reveals the inner workings of the downfall of his dream, as he explains the structure of a deal he put together with the firm that developed the app, why that firm decided updates didn't suit its financial interest and how it all unraveled from the there.

The timing couldn't have been worse. In 2010, Instagram launched. Within no time, the free photo-sharing platform had 100,000 users. A year and a half later the company was valued at half a billion dollars. And then, less than two years after launch, Instagram sold to Facebook for $1 billion. This past June, the company announced that it had surpassed 500 million monthly active users — more than 95 million photos and videos are shared, on average, per day.

I hadn't opened my own Best Camera app in years. This 4-year-old picture of a family friend was waiting there when I did. (Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire)

"Despite my frustration that I missed out on what could have been a massive opportunity, I felt strangely calm — almost peaceful," Jarvis writes about learning of the Instagram sale. "I sat alone in my silent studio, ignored the relentless torrent of notifications on my phone and just sat back, letting it all sink in for a bit. Coming to terms with what was probably my biggest professional failure."

To be clear, Jarvis didn't wallow for long. His website boasts numerous projects that he's involved in, including CreativeLive.com, which he calls "the largest and best education platform for creatives and entrepreneurs."

"I've spent more hours than I care to admit beating myself up about how Best Camera went down, but the honest-to-god truth is that CreativeLive is even more exciting to me," Jarvis writes. "What lives will be changed, problems solved, careers and businesses built from that platform?"

Looking at my own iPhone, on which I've taken thousands of photographs over the years, I admit to having to jar my memory a bit to remember Best Camera. But I found it, in a photography folder along with other camera apps I have long since stopped using. I opened the blue lense with the white arrow and up popped a picture that was apparently the last one I imported into the app — a classmate of my now 9-year-old son's, and the boy appears to be about 5.

Meanwhile, over on Instagram, I've posted more than 5,000 images over the past four years or so and it's easily the app I check and use most often in my photo-happy life.

And now @chasejarvis is there.

For four year, lawyers advising him in his case against the Best Camera developers told him to stay off other similar photo-sharing platforms so as to not devalue his argument if he ever decided to sue for damages. Jarvis said he finally has closure and the gag order has been lifted after "throwing lawyers and dollars" at the problem once again in an effort to settle all matters with the developers.

His first post on Instagram is a cut from a YouTube video, uploaded Tuesday, that explains how it's all been a long time in the making, as he summarizes the points in his blog post. There are two more images in the feed, as of Wednesday, and he has more than 8,000 followers.

"It is abundantly clear who kicked my ass in the photo sharing app game," Jarvis concludes on his blog. "Instagram is where everyone goes when they want to share their photos with the world. They built an amazing platform — an amazing business — and I'm happy to say that I'm now able to join in the fun."

Source: Seattle photographer finally on Instagram — years after his Best Camera app lost the race to $1 billion

Double The Action With Honor 8: How Smartphones Are Changing Photography

Sumit Dayal is a freelance photographer covering Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. In his work he focuses on the changing landscape and disappearing cultures of South Asia. He is also the man behind the popular Instagram page @Indiaphotoproject.

In this video, Sumit shares his views on how mobile photography is changing the way we communicate and how Honor's flagship smartphone the Honor 8 is a game changer with its dual-camera technology.

Honor 8 is loaded with a second-generation 12-megapixel dual camera system that features one RGB and one monochrome sensor, and 1.25 µm pixel size. This helps the device to capture more light, increasing picture quality to produce move vivid colours and crisper details.

The device also offers a Wide aperture mode that lets you take photographs with a shallow depth of field as well as adjust the focal point of a captured photo to blur the background and make your subject more prominent. For greater control there is a professional mode on offer as well.

Read the review here.

Source: Double The Action With Honor 8: How Smartphones Are Changing Photography

Charming Photo Series Showcases The Smiling Personas of the Elderly

Images by Ilya Nodia and Irina Muravyova. Used under a Creative Commons License. 

A smile is probably the most common trait to us humans, and it is a universal language that never gets old. Ilya Nodia was invited by the Senior Group to shoot a small photo project with them, capturing beautiful and very touching smiles of the elders.

This project takes Ilya to several nursing home visits, spending a few hours in each home shooting portraits of the elders in their cozy living space which was briefly turned into a mobile photography studio. The elders had so much fun putting on straw hats, powdering their cheeks, and looking their best for the photo shoot. Most importantly, Ilya managed to capture the great atmosphere created by the bright, dazzling smiles of his aged models that never grow old. 

Ilya used a plain background to isolate the elderly men and women in his frame, and filled in with carefully executed external lighting to create a flattering, soft look in his portraits. He intentionally placed his subjects right in the middle of his tight framing to draw the viewer's attention directly into the radiant smile itself. This simplistic and straight to the point approach works effectively in delivering the message that a smile is both simple and beautiful. The portraits show the very human and fragile side of the elders, strong in spirit and enthusiasm with their charismatic smiles.

You may view the original photo gallery published here. 

Source: Charming Photo Series Showcases The Smiling Personas of the Elderly

Limelens Camera Lens Set Review: Shooting wider, closer, and sharper

Thanks to the emergence of smartphones, photography has become more accessible than ever – and some smartphones themselves have begun to rapidly outpace the compact and bridge camera market as well as infringe on the mighty DSLR. That revolution has brought along with it a plethora of accessories designed to heighten the mobile photography experience – and today we've got in our hands on the Limelens Camera Lens Set; a kit which adds two new lenses to a majority of smartphone cameras.

We've received the Limelens Camera Lens Set from our friends at iToys – one of the few official stockists of the kit in South Africa, where the package retails for R650 ZAR. The question stands; is this an accessible offering for someone looking to expand their photography repertoire? Let's dive in!

Read: GoPro reveals what its new HERO5 action cameras will cost in South Africa

Unboxing the Limelens system

Unless you've acquired your fair share of Apple products, it's hard to become jaded about a dramatic unboxing – and that's exactly what the Limelens Camera Lens Set offers. Once a slim cardboard sleeve is removed, one is greeted by a svelte carrying case – a great addition which many competitor smartphone lens kits fail to offer. Opening that up, one finds an informational card case in which product information, device compatibility, and most importantly a series of Limeclips are found.

As the Limelens Camera Lens Set works with a majority of modern smartphones and does away with a harmful magnet, one instead relies on a Limeclip to hold a lens in place. The set is accompanied by three different Limeclips and an alignment disc which serves to help keep everything in focus.

If there's a downside to the Limelens Camera Lens Set, it's the fact that one is forced to apply a stick-on Limeclip for as long as they want to make use of the system. The Limeclip itself attaches by adhesive, which will most likely disrupt the profile of your smartphone or any case you want to use. The upside of this system is that the Limeclip is far more secure than using a magnet and won't disturb your smartphone's camera housing – securing both the investment of the lens itself and your smartphone's back panel.

Attaching a lens is simple; once a relevant Limeclip is installed (a handy guide lets you pick the right one for your smartphone model) lenses can be installed by inserting them into the clip and rotating them until they lock in. This, fortunately, feels truly secure and one doesn't run the risk of dropping a lens – and hence breaking it – on a surface like hard concrete.

The Limelenses

In the box, one gets both a fisheye lens and a macro lens. For the uninitiated, a fisheye lens is a wide-angle piece of glass which expands the range of what your smartphone is able to capture. In fact, the wide-angle of the lens is so expensive your images will become nearly spherical – imagine being a fish and looking out of a fish bowl, and you've got the idea.

Macro, on the other hand, refers to a smartphone lens which can capture fine, close-up detail. While this isn't microscopic – you won't be able to look at the eyes of the common housefly, for example, you'll be able to get up close to a variety of subjects – such as the bud of a flower.

Both of these lenses offer something your smartphone (likely) can't do – and that's the exciting nature of the Limelens system. Rather than serving a telephoto lens (which, hey, the iPhone 7 Plus now has) or a wide-angle lens (your smartphone's selfie camera can likely suffice for this purpose) the Limelens Camera Lens Set expands the capabilities of your smartphone's camera system.

In practise

The fact of the matter is that Limelens has to work quite hard to add value in a truly crowded market space; if you've wanted a clip-on smartphone lens, you've probably come across cheaper, once-off lenses elsewhere. If you've gone ahead and bought one, it's probably either sufficed for the purpose you wanted it for, or you've grown frustrated by the impracticality of substandard glass on top of your smartphone's camera.

Something I came to enjoy while reviewing the Limelens Camera Lens Set is that the quality of either the glass found on the macro or fisheye lens greatly surpasses anything I've used before on a mobile device. While there are a few niggles to be found, this is one of the most ruggedly compatible systems I've had the joy of using.

Let's kick off with the fisheye lens, which likely is the off-the-wall piece of glass you've been searching for to add crazy effects to your images.

Once one has installed and inserted the lens correctly, the fisheye lens is a tricky one to get used to. Thanks to its wide-angle nature, which distorts the expanse your smartphone is typically designed to capture, you'll likely have to change your approach in how you physically hold your smartphone.

As I usually steady my device by placing one hand higher than the other, you'll want to keep your hands clear of the fisheye lens unless you really want a blurry thumb or index finger present. If you manage to get used to doing that, you'll be left with some otherworldly images that approximate the offering you might have already used on a bridge camera system or a DSLR.

Images captured with the fisheye lens usually distort to become circular, and you'll have to make sure you've installed the lens correctly to avoid ending up with a haphazard ring blur on some corners of an image and not others. Another weakness of the system is that – as it relies on a smartphone's small sensor – you might end up having to patiently wait to capture focus on the subject you desire. Otherwise, you might end up with a situation in which one area of an image is in-focus, while another blurs out entirely. See this image for a demonstration of what I've mentioned above:

However, if you're able to control the system and can patiently set up whatever it is that you want to capture, the results can be astounding. In a controlled environment, one can use the fisheye system to blur out the background of a subject while keeping the center in focus, which results in some extraordinary image prowess. I'm left to feel that between the two lens offerings, the fisheye system is one you'll want to keep for controlled environments rather than your next instawalk.

Conversely, the Limelens macro lens is one you'll pretty want to take everywhere. While most smartphones – increasingly those on the premium end of the spectrum – can approximate some kind of close-up photography, Limelens' macro kit excels in adding additional value to your smartphone arsenal.

Whereas one might have to place their hands and subjects carefully when using the fisheye lens, the macro lens is entirely a different proposition; being both smaller and lighter, the kit doesn't disrupt the profile of one's smartphone as readily as its sibling does.

Instead, this is a lens that's truly a jack-of-all-trades, and is further a master of its own domain. One can keep the macro lens equipped for general purposes, and get in close when the situation allows it.

Detail, too, is abundant. In the right lighting conditions (based upon what your smartphone responds to) one can capture some astonishing detail using the Limelens system; as the macro lens relies on a similar focal length to what most smartphone cameras use, you'll likely find that focus and other manual controls on your smartphone are more responsive when using it. As such, it's an easy endeavour to control the focus and lighting in images and capture moments that one otherwise would have to take a step back to accomplish.

Shortcomings

As with many other 'modular' accessories, the Limelens kit isn't perfect.

While the set can be praised for its compatibility with a wide range of smartphones, this isn't an offering which works on all offerings equally. As a rule of thumb, I'd suggest that you'll probably be happier equipping the kit on a larger smartphone with a greater rear surface area than on a smaller one; in doing so, you'll give yourself more room to maneuver your fingers – especially on the tricky fisheye lens.

While Limeclip kit is great for securing your investment aboard your smartphone of choice, there's a level of buy-in involved – once you've equipped the relevant Limeclip, you're more or less stuck (pun intended) with the accessory on your device – if you take it off, you'll most likely have to buy a replacement.

While the glass itself is of a higher quality than on other smartphone lenses I've used, you're going to want to keep the included carrying case around for the simple reason that both tend to attract dirt and smudges like a magnet. While on a DSLR one could equip a filter to minimise this issue, one isn't so fortunate on this far smaller offering. Thankfully, the Limelens kit is accompanied by small microfibre cloths for this very purpose.

Of course, it also goes without saying that if you have – or plan on getting – a dual-lens camera system the Limelens kit is a moot point.

Conclusion

That being said, if you've been seeking a quality macro or fisheye lens for your single-lens smartphone, the Limelens camera kit is likely the setup you've been pining for.

The quality and breadth of the lens kit – not to mention the expertise of its presentation or its compatibility with many smartphones available now and in the near future – is one of the strongest offerings I've had the pleasure of encountering just yet.

Read: Blips lenses turn your phone's camera into a microscope

As a photographer who loves the modularity offered by DSLR, I grew to love using the Limelens Camera Lens Set – and that's despite the fact that one needs to attach a stick-on Limeclip to their device; an idea I'm generally not fond of.

While it's not perfect – and I don't believe any comparative system is – the Limelens Camera Lens Set is a great offering which, for its price point, offers heaps of fun which you'll no doubt enjoy on your next adventure or instawalk. While some might call a smartphone lens kit frivolous, I'd call it fun – and it's an investment of great caliber if you're looking to expand your smartphone photography repertoire.

Score: 8/10

If you'd like to buy the Limelens Camera Lens Set, be sure to visit our friends at iToys, where the kit is available for purchase in South Africa. 

What are your thoughts? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!

Follow Bryan Smith on Twitter: @bryansmithSA

Source: Limelens Camera Lens Set Review: Shooting wider, closer, and sharper

Mostly Mobile Photography & Mobile Art – Tickle Your Fancy #55

Welcome back to our fifty third post in our 'Tickle Your Fancy' section. 'Tickle Your Fancy' includes a round-up of between three to five links to articles from around the internet that have specifically interested us during the course of the week. Ones that we feel are relevant to your interest in photography and art.

Just to explain the title for this section 'Tickle Your Fancy' is an English idiom and essentially means that something appeals to you and perhaps stimulates your imagination in an enthusiastic way, we felt it would make a great title for this new section of the site.

Enjoy!

The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to iPhone/Smartphone Photography Apple iPhone 7 camera review: better than ever Wolfgang Suschitzky, photographer and Get Carter cameraman, dies aged 104

"The celebrated photographer helped establish Britain's first film cooperative and was a noted documentarist of London life".

Source: The Guardian – read more here

Wolfgang Suschitzky … at home in London in 2007. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe for the Guardian

Look Inside the Glamorous Homes of Famed Fashion Photographer Cecil Beaton

"Photographer, painter, diarist, costume designer—interior decorator. Who else can be described as such besides Cecil Beaton? And although Beaton is most famous for his fashion and portrait photography, his life in and involved with homes was just as integral to his identity…."

Source – Vogue – read more here

The famed Circus Bedroom at Ashcombe House. Photo: James McMillan, collection of Andrew Ginger, courtesy of Rizzoli

EyeEm to make Select Images Available to Adobe Stock

"EyeEm is linking up with Adobe Stock to give EyeEm users a chance to have their work licensed on Adobe's budding stock market.

The EyeEm Collection will consist of "hand-selected" images that will be available in Adobe's Premium Collection–the crème de la crème of the Adobe Stock market. EyeEm Collection images are already available on Getty and Alamy licensing platforms as well, making Adobe Stock the third partner marketplace…".

Source: pdnonline – read more here

Image credit ©Dawid Garwol

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Source: Mostly Mobile Photography & Mobile Art – Tickle Your Fancy #55

5 reasons why the Pixel may have the best smartphone camera ever

With a name like Pixel, you expect a great camera. Google says it's delivered that with its new smartphones, going over in meticulous detail all of the capabilities and wowing the crowd with a selection of portraits, night scenes, and action shots at the San Francisco unveiling.

The kicker was trotting out a score of 89 from DxOMark, the highest ever from what's considered a very reliable camera testing site. That's one point ahead of the Galaxy S7 Edge, HTC 10, and Sony Xperia X Performance while a full three points ahead of the iPhone 7 (the 7 Plus hasn't been scored yet).

DxOMark

DxOMark put the Pixel through the ringer and crowned it the best smartphone camera ever.

So what makes it that much better? After some hands on time and staring way too long at sample images taken with a Pixel, I've landed on five core reasons why Google really did knock it out of the park when it comes to building a smartphone camera that you're going to really want.

Low light performance

This isn't the first time that Google has patted itself on the back for a phone that can deliver in the dark, as this was a major claim to fame for the Nexus 6P as well. But this time the results are even more impressive, as illustrated by the following photo, taken with a Pixel.

DxOMark

Low-light performance is one of the benchmark features of the Pixel phone.

The 12.3 megapixel camera has an f/2.0 aperture, which isn't technically as good as the Galaxy S7 and Note7 (f1.7) but it sure seems to do an outstanding job. The Pixel handles the following picture well, which has a mix of different lighting. The photo still has a lot of detail and handles the plants and fencing area in the shadows very well.

DxOMark

In this complex scene the Pixel is able to render good color quality and show details even in the shadows.

In terms of the full suite of specs, the Pixel camera offers the following, straight from the Google Store:

Google Store

The Google Pixel has a solid set of specs for the phone's camera.

Some may be disappointed that Google didn't go for the 2X physical zoom capability of the iPhone 7 Plus or left out more advanced features in the camera software itself, like a manual mode to specify shutter speed. The camera app looked very much like the Nexus version, without the advanced features for tweaking the photo that I'm used to on the S7 Edge. If Google wants to truly set itself apart as the king of mobile photography, this is where it needs to go next.

Excellent detail

I'm by no means a professional photographer (or even a great amateur one) but I genuinely thought the detail of the many images we got to see was very impressive. 

DxOMark

The detail in the bridge is pretty incredible, as you can see the colors very clearly and specific features of the fence.

DxOMark even had this to say about how well the Pixel does with detail: "The Pixel does better in outdoor scenes at preserving detail than any smartphone we've ever tested."

It's a big compliment from a site that's become the benchmark at rating and ranking camera performance of smartphones. Outdoor pictures can be achieved with great performance from many phones on both sides of the operating system divide. If you take most of your pictures outdoors, however, this is another perk that may make the Pixel the right choice.

Fast picture taking

I got a good amount of hands-on time with the Pixel in Google's demo area. Google even brought in a professional photographer who had extensively used the phone and said he felt it was the best one he'd ever tried (but of course, he wouldn't be there otherwise). But I was genuinely impressed at the speed of the shutter and my ability to rapidly switch to video mode, to the gallery, fiddle with the settings, and back to the viewfinder.

Derek Walter

There's a reason the camera icon is right there in the dock. Google put a lot of emphasis on camera performance with its Pixel smartphone.

Anyone who's had a Nexus 6P knows that the shutter lag and shot-to-shot speed can be a serious issue. I've even encountered this at times on my Galaxy S7 Edge, which is (to this point) the best camera phone I've owned. A full test of firing up the camera time and time again over a couple of weeks is needed before a full verdict can be rendered, but I really liked much better the Pixel camera worked.

Video stabilization

Google had a lot to say about this, offering a demo video of how superior its video stabilization is to competing products. 

Again, this was hard to test in the small and controlled environment we were squished into at San Francisco's Ghirardelli Square. But from the demo video you see the movie goes from practically unusable to buttery smooth. That's obviously a best-case scenario, and you're unlikely to get such perfect results.

The Pixel is capable of capturing 4K video at 30 frames per second, 1080p video at 120fps and 720p at 240fps. These features are dying for a real-world test, so we'll be standing outside the office once we get word that Pixel phones are on their way for us to review. I was able to take a Pixel and quickly walk around the room and try out the stabilization feature, but I did notice a tangible difference. But I'd need some more time to really render a verdict.

While the Pixel doesn't have optical image stabilization as so many other premium phones do, it's own new custom electronic stabilization might actually be good enough to make us forget about the missing feature.

Natural colors

The following picture is one of those cheesy images that you often see with product demos. But to me it was one of the most impressive for how natural the skin tones and colors look in all of the different elements of the picture.

Google

This photo of two women outside a bright, red house struck me as a great showcase for the Pixel's camera capabilities.

From a purely anecdotal perspective, this was one of the many moments where I truly wanted a Pixel and felt it could be an outstanding primary camera. I travel frequently and like to capture a lot of family moments with my phone since I've never been a dedicated enough photographer to pick up a DSLR.

Could the Pixel be this great? I can't say for sure after just an hour in a demo room, but I think we may be in for a pleasant surprise.

Source: 5 reasons why the Pixel may have the best smartphone camera ever