The small, lightweight, inexpensive camcorder was a great liberator for filmmaking. Not only did it mark a significant leap in accessibility, it also made it easier for filmmakers to achieve the kind of raw, immediate visual language that had been established by directors like Spike Jonze in Video Days (1991).
The GR IV Monochrome takes last year's Ricoh GR IV, strips out the color filter from the sensor, and replaces its built-in ND filter with a red filter for one-click contrast adjustment purely using optics.
In the collision repair industry, your visual portfolio is your entire sales pitch. If a stressed vehicle owner visits the website of a local auto body shop, the very first thing they look for is evidence of past miracles. A compelling before and after photo does the heavy lifting of building trust before they ever pick up the phone to ask for an estimate.
Introduced yesterday, Photoshoot uses Google's powerful generative AI tools, including Nano Banana, to create "professional" images of a product. Users simply click on 'Create a Product Photoshoot' and upload a photo of their product. It can be any photo, no matter how bad. "Don't worry about polish - we'll take care of it," Google says facetiously. From that user-generated image, Photoshoot will create various shot templates, including 'Studio', 'Floating', 'Ingredient', and 'In use'.
In recent years, smartphone photography has become increasingly dominated by software. Computational imaging, AI processing, and post-capture optimisation now play a central role in how images are produced. Yet as these techniques become more widespread, camera hardware is once again emerging as a key differentiator. The REDMI Note 15 Pro 5G Series reflects this shift clearly, placing renewed emphasis on sensor capability and optical fundamentals rather than relying solely on software to define image quality.
One of the key components of a modern-day phone is the camera setup. Most phones have multiple cameras, and their quality can vary, which is why, when we get the opportunity, we like to take multiple phones out and shoot side by side. While photos and photo quality are often subjective, it helps us determine which phones can really deliver, from a megapixel perspective.
The new camera features, on the other hand, are neither of those things. They're something worse. Something scarier. On this episode of The Vergecast, Nilay and David discuss the new phones, then dive into the ways in which the S26's AI camera features seem to be clearly designed to change the whole idea of what happens when you try to take a picture.
Younger folks are snapping up old point-and-shoots because they view the aesthetic as more authentic and more appealing than smartphone images. Companies are even rereleasing old tech at new prices. And there are cameras like the original Camp Snap: a $70 single-button point-and-shoot with no screen, designed as a modern take on a disposable film camera. It's cheap enough to send off with a kid to summer camp and accessible enough for just about anyone to enjoy its lo-fi aesthetic.
Samsung's Galaxy S20 Ultra wasn't the first phone to feature a periscopic telephoto lens - both Huawei and Oppo beat the Korean company to it - but it was the first in the US to make such a big deal about it. Almost all of Samsung's marketing for the S20 Ultra centered on its so-called Space Zoom, its 5x optical folded periscope lens, capable of digitally zooming much further.
If it's speed you want for sports or action shots of your kids, models like Canon's R50 can shoot bursts as fast as many high-end cameras. Creators, meanwhile, can choose Sony's ZV-E10 for vlogging jobs. There are also great, and cheap, models in the action and gimbal camera categories.
The mid-range smartphone segment is crowded in ways that make individual products hard to distinguish. Specs converge, designs flatten, and most phones feel interchangeable within days. vivo's V70 enters that space with a clear point of view: a ZEISS-co-engineered telephoto camera tuned for stage photography and travel, a large battery built for long days, and a physical design that genuinely tries to look and feel like something worth keeping.
