As someone who enjoys very high-quality images from my 42-megapixel full-frame Sony Alpha 7R III, I was wondering how good the pictures would be out of my new DJI Air 2S drone.

Anyone who enjoys landscape photography will know that before they realize it, they are pixel peeping and fussing over the smallest imperfection in their photos. Of course, there’s no way I’m expecting that same quality to come from this drone, but the only thing it can do that I can’t do already is fly. So, ultimately, that is the only reason I bought this drone. The interesting question to answer though, is how big or small is that gap from what I’m used to?

To put it in perspective, the 20-megapixel, one-inch sensor of the Air 2S has a surface area of 7.4 times smaller than a full frame camera. To further help give a comparison, due to equivalency, the Air 2S is the same as shooting at 22mm, f/8 at ISO 800 on the full-frame camera.

As you can see in the comparison between the Air2s at ISO100 and the Sony A7III at ISO 800 the difference in quality is very minimal. Being fussy I could say that there’s a touch more noise and slightly less sharpness on the Air2s though.

The next picture shows how ISO performs from 100 through to 12,8000. I think the noise is usable for photography up to 400, with 800 at a push. 1,600 onwards though quickly falls apart and really isn’t usable. Note that the green light as the ISO increases is due to bringing down the ambient light and the green light on the drone becoming more obvious.

In the real world, understanding the limitations of the drone’s sensor helps when it comes to working around them. The photo below is of Rossbeigh, Ireland, and was shot with a three-bracket exposure which helped increase the dynamic range and helped lessen any noise.

For anyone who is trying to decide if they should get the DJI Air 2S for photography, in a nutshell, I believe the DJI Air2s — for the price — is the best quality flying photography tool you can get. It’s super portable, quick to get flying, easy to fly, and its greatest advantage is how it gives you the ability to get photos you can’t get on the land. Essentially, It’s a great addition to anyone’s photography toolkit.

Read More: DJI Air 2S Review: Solid Performance Where It Counts Most

About the author: Jamie Gillies is an award-winning wedding photographer based in Ireland. He loves to spend his spare time exploring and photographing the stunning landscapes of Ireland and documenting them on his YouTube Channel. To learn more about Jamie, you can visit his website, YouTube, or follow him on Instagram.

Photographer Dinda Avena wants to inspire those who have experienced and survived violence, feel unsafe in public, who are suffering due to sexual identity, for those whose land is being seized, and for all marginalized communities to not let their voices fade away.

Dinda Advena (she/her) is a queer photographer from Indonesia. She started taking documentary and stage photography for the punk music community and has has exhibited her work through Sweden, Singapore, Malaysia, and all over Indonesia. Right now she is focusing on gender issues, women’s rights, environmental justice, and Indonesian landscapes.

“May your spirit and flame continue to burn, even though our voices are fading away. Happy Kartini’s Day,” Advena wrote when she submitted her photos online to Scopio.

“This year hit different because of the pandemic, especially after the recent Church bombing attack – it is not safe to march in the street. The team decided to do online action to ask everyone who believes in women’s issues to do the same: taking pictures one by one in different locations while holding posters of each demand, then post it in Social Media.”

Kartini’s Day takes place on April 21 every year and is a symbol of modern women’s empowerment in Indonesia.

“Every year on April 21, women from Indonesia ban together for Kartini’s Day to commemorate Rayden Ayu Kartini – who was a fierce women’s right activist and critic who questioned the Javanese norms created by the male-dominated society,” Avena explains. “Rayden Kartini’s countless letters and words would become a national symbol that empowers Indonesian women to stand strong for their rights today.”

It’s not men who we want to fight, but old-fashioned opinions and old customs. – R.A. Kartini

This year, women marched to help seek the advancement of The Elimination of Sexual Violence Bill (Indonesian: Rancangan Undang-Undang Penghapusan Kekerasan Seksual, abbreviated RUU PKS). The consideration of this bill has been going on for years and it almost got dropped due to “difficulties” in arranging the bill, according to the House Commission VII.

Citizens like Dinda have taken it upon themselves to come together using tools like photography and social media to ensure that this bill, among others, are no longer”‘waited on” and “passed.”

Dinda and fellow activists make themselves visible in a crowd with their message and use photography to amplify that to everyone online.

It gets people looking at the message, one way or another. Men and women alike joined in to help spread the message behind gender equality, equal pay, and support the changes.

“But this march is not only to confront gender inequality issues but is done to ensure the safety and protection of Indonesian women.”

This march has helped to make significant strides in the nation and will continue year after year as it is pivotal to advancing women’s rights that are far too often neglected or waited on.

You can explore Dinda’s photography on Scopio here. She also recommends you search these hashtags to see more on this message: #PuanDanKawanMelawan #WMJ2021 #WomensMarch #SahkanRUUPKS #HariKartini

This article provided courtesy of Scopio. Scopio is the most diverse community-based platform in the world where artists can sell their work and get hired in over 150 countries. Check out their community of 14k plus contributors and a library of over 400k authentic images.

Back in April, the Mars Perseverance rover shared a selfie that included the Ingenuity helicopter drone on the surface of the Red Planet. The space agency has now shared a video and detailed explanation of how that photo was taken, including the fact it is made up of 62 individual images.

NASA explains that the point of the selfie isn’t just to show off to folks back on Earth and perhaps inspire new generations of space enthusiasts, but actually is a way for the engineers to check wear and tear on the rover.

In the video clip above, the results of Perseverance’s robotic arm can be seen as it maneuvered to take the 62 images that compose the finished image. What it doesn’t capture is how much work went into making this first selfie happen. In a separate video below, Vandi Verma, Perseverance’s Chief Engineer for Robotic Operations, explains.

“The way you and I might take a selfie is by holding a camera up with our arm and taking a single image,” she says. “The way the rover takes a selfie is a little more complex than that.”

The rover uses its’ WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) camera that is positioned at the end of its robotic arm. The main purpose of this arm is to allow the rover to take close-up images of rocks for scientific analysis.

“Even with the arm fully extended, it can’t cover the entire rover in a single image,” Verma explains. “To capture the entire rover, we take multiple images and then stitch them together.”

The image below shows a computer simulation of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover taking its first selfie. The point of view of the rover’s WATSON camera is included to show how each of the 62 images were taken. Those photos were later sent to Earth and stitched together into the selfie.

The team tries to hold the camera in the same position for each shot, and to do so it actually may mean that the arm has to move quite a lot.

“It can take up to an hour of arm motion and imaging to take that entire selfie,” Verma says. “The reason you don’t see the robotic arm in the selfie is that it is moving in between the different image frames that we are taking and we include enough overlap between the images so that when we stitch them together, we don’t have to include the arm.”

In the video clip above where Verma explains how the photo was taken, she also notes that for the first time, a Mars rover also has a microphone equipped, which allows them to share the sound of the rover moving its arm and taking each frame.

“The thing that took the most attention was getting Ingenuity into the right place in the selfie,” said Mike Ravine, Advanced Projects Manager at MSSS. “Given how small it is, I thought we did a pretty good job.”

Once the photos were compiled and sent back to Earth, image processing engineers began their work. They had to clean up any blemishes caused by dust that had settled on the camera, assemble the images into frames with a mosaic and smooth out their seams with software, and finally warp the crops so that it looks more like a normal camera that the public is used to seeing.

While a selfie on Earth is made by a single person, the Perseverance’s selfie took an entire team of people and almost an entire week.

As reported recently here on Petapixel, the FAA has rolled out a new testing program for recreational UAV (a.k.a., drone) users, created to “provide education and testing for recreational flyers on important safety and regulatory information.” As with many government-mandated programs, it provides neither education nor safety.

Having just received a DJI Mavic Air 2S for testing, I decided to take the FAA’s TRUST exam, partially to be compliant with the current regulations, but mostly to confirm my suspicions that this was another piece of bureaucracy for bureaucracy’s sake. In that regard, I was not disappointed.

TRUST stands for The Recreational UAV Safety Test — that’s clever, FAA — and the “test” is available through several online providers and is free. TRUST was developed as a collaboration between the UAV industry and the FAA and appears to be a compromise agreed upon to get the FAA off the backs of the manufacturers.

The TRUST questions read like the Quick Start guide on a drone, and in fact, I’ve seen drone “getting-started” videos that provide more information.

It is impossible to fail the TRUST test, which makes it less of a test and more of a very dull video game. Get a question wrong in a section, and you repeat that section’s test questions. You can take the 23-question exam without much prior knowledge, although the exam also provides all the information needed to get the questions right should you find yourself taking the test with no common sense.

During the process, you can learn fun facts like “dehydration can affect [your] flying abilities” and that one may not fly a drone over the White House.

I’m not trying to say that a recreational drone pilot shouldn’t be versed in UAV safety, but more that there seems to be no point to this test. You’ll learn that you can’t fly above 400 feet without FAA permission, that you can use the FAA apps to find out if your airspace is controlled or uncontrolled, and that you must be able to keep the drone in your line of sight. The main problem I have is that the people who need this information the most simply aren’t going to know about or take this test, and they’re even less likely to follow the safety protocols even if they knew them.

The second issue I have is that the questions are so elementary. If you answer “no” to the question asking if “checking your drone before and after each flight is a good idea because it is a time when damage can be identified,” you not only shouldn’t be flying a drone, you probably shouldn’t even be using the internet.

Finally, the TRUST program seems pointless from an enforcement and functionality standpoint. Will local police know that there’s an FAA certification program for recreational UAV users? Will they know that the PDF I have saved with my 15-digit “token” is a valid FAA-registered number? Will they be able to look it up and see that I passed?

What difference will it make if I have a TRUST certificate anyhow? If I’m operating my drone safely and according to FAA guidelines, then there’s no reason for any agency to stop me and ask for my TRUST number. If I’m operating in an unsafe manner, I am already breaking the law, and whether or not I have passed the TRUST exam, therefore, does not matter.

All TRUST does is provide another reason for authorities to hassle the recreational drone user and ask for documentation. It feels draconian in the same way that tripod permits feel like an overstep.

The reputable drone manufacturers include this same info in their “getting started” guides and most drone apps won’t let you take off until you’ve acknowledged reading the safety information. Education is essential, especially when it comes to operating a flying chunk of machinery that can travel as fast as a car and has spinning blades on all sides.

If there is such a need for improved recreational safety that the TRUST program should exist, then it’s not enough of a solution to create that enhanced safety. If one can pass the TRUST exam simply by guessing the answers, then it’s not worth the digital paper it’s written on.

That said, as taking and passing the TRUST exam is now the law, please do so, and please bring the documented proof of passing with you — the last thing drone users need are regular instances of pilots getting arrested because they didn’t have the proper paperwork.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

About the author: David Schloss is a long-time photographer writer, reviewer, and editor. The former Editor-in-Chief of Digital Photo Pro and HDVideo Pro magazines, Schloss now is VP at PixelShift, a press consultancy company with clients in the photography and tech spaces.

The International Portrait Photographer of the Year 2021 has announced its winners across multiple categories with top honors going to Australian photographer Forough Yavari for her incredible image titled “Solitude.”

The competition is in its debut year and follows a similar philosophy to the organization’s eight-year strong International Landscape Photographer of the Year Awards. The competition requires that all entries have been shot within the last year.

Editor’s Note: Warning, some images below may be considered NSFW.

“Our judging process has been developed over several decades of competition experience. Once the first round of judging is completed, we have a score for each entry out of 300, expressed as a percentage. We then take the top 10 scoring entries from each of the four categories and ask the judges to confirm their choice of 1st, 2nd and 3rd,” the competition writes, explaining how photos are judged. “When the initial score out of 100 is given, the judges are scoring against a standard of excellence, but when it comes to the final top 10, they are comparing the entries against each other and so this is an important part of a fair process. And finally, the four category winners are presented and the judges choose the overall International Portrait Photographer of the Year.”

Yavari — an already accomplished award-winning portrait and fine art photographer based in Brisbane, Australia — took multiple categories in this year’s competition which has a shared prize pool of $10,000. The overall first prize is $3000, each category’s first prize is awarded $1000 and each category’s second and third place received $500 and $250 respectively. There are therefore three winners in four categories: The Portrait Story, The Family Sitting, The Environmental Portrait, and The Character Study.

In addition to winning the top overall photo of the competition, “Solitude” also won “The Portrait Story” category, while Yavari also took second place in that category as well as second place in “The Character Study” category.

Below are all the other winning photos in each of the remaining categories.

Character Study

“A young Suri boy paints his face with white clay, surrounded by Suri women decorating their hands with bronze bracelets. Suri tribe in the Omo Valley. Ethiopia maintains important symbols of tribal identity, such as face and body painting. The shapes and colors convey a strong bond and meaning amongst them.”

“Referring to the speech “I Have a Dream”, a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the march on Washington for Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which he called for an end to racism.”

Environmental Portraiture

“Workers appear to be wearing large golden wigs as they carry a heavy bundle of jute fiber. Their bodies are enveloped with the heavy natural fibers, with only their faces visible as they each carry around 50kg of jute on their shoulders.”

Family Sitting

“She is 25 years old, not yet married, and still guarded by her family. She is still waiting for her husband. A man in the Suri Tribe can only marry a girl when he has sixty cattle which are presented to the girl’s family as the price of marriage.”

“I took this picture when I was in Ethiopia to visit the Suri tribe who have lived in the Ethio-Sudan border area for many generations. This picture shows the whole family of their clan in their habitat.”

Portrait Story

The organization says that while there are the above winners, there are 101 total photos that the judges considered to be worthy of recognition. Those photos along with the above winners can be seen in a hard-cover book that has been printed by Momento Pro. A digital copy can be seen here and a published version will be available to order on the organization’s website.

Image credits: Header image by Forough Yavari. All photos individually credited and provided courtesy of The International Portrait Photographer of the Year 2021.

In 2003 my wife Ruth and I were photographing in Colorado and were returning to our campground after a rather uneventful day. Ruth was driving, as always, and I was still looking for a photograph, as always.

As the sun was setting, we sped by this really unusual clump of aspen trees at 50 mph and I instantly saw they had photographic potential but the light was all wrong that evening.

This story is brought to you by ELEMENTS Magazine. ELEMENTS is the new monthly magazine dedicated to the finest landscape photography, insightful editorials and fluid, clean design. Use the PETAPIXEL10 code for a 10% discount off the annual subscription.

The next morning, we set out before sunrise and came back to this spot. Ruth was surprised that I knew exactly where to go as I hadn’t mentioned anything about seeing it the previous day. With this particular scene, I knew precisely where to put my camera and tripod and used my 250mm Superachromat lens on my Hasselblad with Velvia 50 film. This lens has exceptional sharpness and perfect colour correction, and thus perfectly resolved the details and colour differentiation in the leaves.

After the camera was set up, I waited a few minutes until the early rays of sunrise were almost in the scene, but not quite. You can see a bit of bright sunlight on the background trees at the top of the photo. Over the years I’ve learned to photograph using that marvellous glowing quality and color of light with the rising sunlight skimming the air over the scene but not hitting it directly. The closer the sunlight is to striking the scene, the more pronounced the effect. You need to set up ahead of time, since you have only 15 to 30 seconds before the sunlight hits the scene and spoils the glowing effect with harsh contrast.

The brightly colored leaves picked up the glowing light from the rising sun while the background was dark, illuminated only by the dark blue sky. The intense color contrast between the background blue-blacks and the warm glow of the bright leaves gives great depth and a dynamic quality to the image.
This photograph is enjoyable to print, although I need to simultaneously use two dodging wands — There are a lot of dodging needed to balance the tonalities and densities of the “pom-poms” on the trees. Viewing the finished prints, the clumps of leaves seem like clouds, alive with colour and light, floating in the midst of the mysterious dark forest. Light in the darkness, a welcome sight.

The article is courtesy of ELEMENTS Magazine. ELEMENTS is the new monthly magazine dedicated to the finest landscape photography, insightful editorials, and fluid, clean design. Inside you will find exclusive and in-depth articles and imagery by the best landscape photographers in the world such as Freeman Patterson, Bruce Barnbaum, Rachael Talibart, Charles Cramer, Hans Strand, Erin Babnik, and Tony Hewitt, to name a few. Use the PETAPIXEL10 code for a 10% discount off the annual subscription.

About the author: Christopher Burkett is a legendary American photographer specialising in large format photography of woodlands. His prints are regarded as the most impeccable and luminous colour photographs in the history of photography. Christopher is known to produce each photograph by hand from 6×6 and 8×10 sheet film, using now-discontinued Swiss Cibachrome photographic paper. His photographs are featured in many public and private fine art collections such Portland Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Center for Creative Photography and Tucson Museum of Art. 

The photography website Feature Shoot is bringing the museum outside and giving photographers a chance to have their work posted on billboards in New York City as part of its Global Billboard Project, replacing commercial advertising with art.

Feature Shoot says that its Global Billboard Project is in its fifth year and aims to inspire thousands of people who are on their daily commutes with photos from both established and up-and-coming photographers. Rather than subject those commuters with the same advertisements hawking consumerism, Feature Shoot is replacing well-known billboards in high-value locations with art from international photographers.

The publication has already featured photographers’ works on three separate billboards this year and has one of them booked through September — a spot in Manhattan on 9th Avenue seen below — which is expected to generate over 600,000 views per week.

In recent years, amid the proliferation of digital platforms and COVID-related closures, the public has looked to engage with art in new creative ways. In creating The Global Billboard Project, Feature Shoot aims to make outstanding photography accessible to everyone through physical displays made for public enjoyment.

In its first three rounds this year, The Global Billboard Project has showcased the work of three photographers –Elisa Maenhout, Lindsey Rickert, and Selene Magnolia — in three other areas: two in New York — the Fashion District and across from the Lincoln Tunnel — and one in Sydney, Australia.

According to Feature Shoot, those photographers selected to be featured reach a much broader audience with coverage on television, radio, and social media beyond the scope of their normal reach. Maenhout’s billboard, for example, was covered widely and she even gave an interview on national television.

Feature Shoot says that for this round of the project it will crown four winners and each will have their work displayed on the New York billboard on 9th Avenue for five days.

To be considered for The Global Billboard Project, photographers can submit one image for just $15 for consideration, $25 for five images, or $35 for up to ten images. Entries close on July 20, 2021. Interested photographers can submit images on The Global Billboard Project website.

Image credits: Header image by Selene Magnolia. All photos used courtesy of Feature Shoot.

Wristcam, an accessory strap with two built-in cameras, has announced expanded functionality through its new Wristcam Messenger app. Users can now send and receive live video with anyone with an iPhone, even if they don’t have a Wristcam or an Apple Watch.

The launch of the Messenger app makes it what the company calls “the first and only Apple Watch experience to offer live video communication.” In addition to the new app, Wristcam is also introducing a computer vision SDK for Apple Watch app developers.

Last year, Wristcam unveiled the $300 accessory and touted it as an easier way to more seamlessly take photos while on the go. While bulkier than a typical Apple Watch strap, it packs two Sony cameras: one is an 8-megapixel “world-facing” camera designed to take photos and videos of surroundings, and the other is a 2-megapixel self-facing camera made for taking video calls.

Below are a few 4K screen captures taken with the Wristcam and provided by the company:

At the time, both cameras were touted as supporting video streaming, but with the dedicated integration of a chat app, Wristcam clearly is looking to create a community of users in addition to those who would purchase its hardware.

The Wristcam App for Apple Watch allows video communication to be sent to anyone with an Apple device, and doesn’t require the use of the Wristcam nor an Apple Watch to use. Video chats that are sent can be viewed in real-time or later. The concept is a spin on popular apps like Marco Polo, but differentiates itself by keeping messages to a fixed, short length and deleting them once they are watched. Of course, the company also differentiates itself by focusing on and targeting users of its watch-strap-based camera.

For those with an Apple watch that has a cellular plan, the Wristcam allows video communication without an iPhone, which the company touts as a lighter, freer way of communicating while on the go. That air of simplicity is echoed in some design decisions, like the ability for Wristcam users to activate the app with Siri. Commands like “Hey Siri, snap a selfie/photo, start/stop video,” allow for what the company is billing as a “completely hands-free” capture and share experience and eliminate “friction points around camera capture and communication.”

In conversations with PetaPixel, Wristcam’s founder and developers strongly believe that the Apple Watch, once outfitted with its camera system, is the future of communication, and the launch of this messaging app is a core part of making that belief a reality.

The Wristcam Messenger app is free to download and separate from the original Wristcam app that is used to customize and set up the Wristcam. Wristcam istelf is now available from both Wristcam.com and Amazon for $300.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has released its TRUST test, a free online training program to certify that pilots understand the rules of drone flight. It is required in order to fly a drone, even recreationally.

The Recreational UAS Safety Test, otherwise known as TRUST, applies to all drones that weigh more than 0.55 pounds and dictates that not only must they be registered through the FAA’s Drone Zone, but all pilots must also pass the TRUST test. Even those who just operate a drone “for fun or personal enjoyment” must take this test in order to legally fly in the United States.

The test is designed to provide education and testing for recreational flyers on important safety and regulatory information. The FAA says that even pilots who fly drones recreationally under the Exception for Recreational Flyers — which includes drone flights for educational purposes — must pass the test before they can legally fly.

Read more: Why the FAA’s Mandatory TRUST Drone Test Won’t Provide Any Safety

All pilots — even those who already possess a Part 107 certification — must complete the TRUST test and be able to show proof of passing to an agent of the FAA or law enforcement if prompted.

The FAA has listed the following entities as Approved Test Administrators for TRUST. The only way to take the TRUST test is to do so through any of the below organizations.

• The Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA)
• The Boy Scouts of America
• Chippewa Valley Technical College
• Community College of Allegheny County – West Hills Center
• Drone U
• Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU)
• HSU Educational Foundation
• Lake Area Technical College
• Pilot Institute
• Drone Launch Academy LLC
• Proctorio Incorporated
• Tactical Aviation
• CrossFlight Sky Solutions
• UAV Coach
• University of Arizona Global Campus
• Volatus Aerospace Corp

The FAA says that TRUST is divided into two sections: The first section provides prospective pilots with the information needed to pass the test. The second section is a series of multiple-choice questions. It is not possible to fail the test. If a question is answered incorrectly, information on why that was the incorrect answer will be provided, and the question will be asked again.

After the conclusion of the test, pilots will be provided with a certificate that never expires, however, if that certificate is lost, the test will have to be retaken to obtain a new one. The FAA says neither it nor the administrator of the test will maintain any personally identifiable information about the recreational flyer, so neither will be able to re-print or re-issue the certificate.

Image credits: Header photo by Bertrand Bouchez.

Canon has applied for a patent that would use an in-camera algorithm in tandem with the camera’s image stabilization system to intelligently determine the difference between blur caused by motion and blur caused by a moving subject, and correct it.

First spotted by Asobinet and reported by CanonWatch, the patent describes a way to suppress blur of a subject in a photo by using the image stabilization system in the camera (on sensor) and in the lens.

In the patent, Canon says that the problem is that blur correction in current cameras isn’t able to differentiate between “camera shake” and “subject shake” and correct for both at the same time. To get around this, Canon’s Subject Blur Correction would be able to correct for “subject shake” when a face is detected and “camera shake” when a face is not detected.

“‘Camera shake’ and ‘subject shake’ should be corrected depending on the intention of the user (target of interest) in the shooting scene,” the patent says. “For example, when the user pays attention to the background, it is desirable that the ‘camera shake,’ which is the shake of the entire screen, is corrected. On the other hand, when the user is paying attention to the main subject, it is desirable that the ‘subject shake’ is corrected. Therefore, it is necessary to appropriately control the shake correction target according to the user’s intention that changes with the shooting scene.”

The patent was originally applied for by Canon in September of 2020, but was published on June 24.

While technically this process does not fall into the pure definition of computational photography according to Wikipedia — that is to say, the process of using digital computation instead of the optical process — it does get close and more falls into expanded definitions of the term. For example, the idea of computational photography now expands into computer vision, graphics, and applied optics. Since the tech would need to use some kind of algorithm to intelligently determine how to use its stabilization system, it could be argued that Canon’s Subject Blur Correction is a type of computational photography.

To date, outside of some HDR and panoramic capabilities, full-size cameras have done very little as far as advancing image processing to the degree that is seen in mobile devices and have mostly relied on physical corrections in camera or in lenses to achieve quality results. It could be argued that the hesitancy from dedicated camera manufacturers to adopt computational photography techniques that have led to vast improvements to image quality on mobile devices is a detriment to the advancement of the medium overall, and Canon’s patent here shows what could be possible if camera makers begin to do so more readily.

A Rapid Ascent Drone, or RAD, is basically an electric rocket ship. For now, they can be used to make unusual drone light shows that can replace fireworks and provide unique light painting opportunities, but the creator of the concept believes they may be able to eventually replace rocket ships.

Rammaxx is a RAD manufacturer that built its concept by working with small, electric rapid ascent rockets for electronic fireworks shows. The company built its autonomous drones with the ability to work in “swarms” and create unusual visual spectacles thanks to their ability to ascend extremely quickly and stay at altitude long enough to play a light sequence before returning to base. Rammaxx says that the rapid ascent capability is achieved via powerful motors, a streamlined hull, and special guidance fins.

“Rammaxx can be configured to ascend quickly, and noisily, or to ascend more slowly and quietly,” the company explains. “The system can work with one rocket, or with a small swarm of them, creating unique and highly — via App — configurable light displays for any occasion.”

A Rammaxx RAD drone can recharge wirelessly on a dedicated launch pad that is connected to a bus system. Up to five launch pads can be connected together to create more complex aerial light displays.

The drones weigh a scant three ounces (90 grams) and can fly for one minute with full LED power that can project light at up to 3,000 lumens of brightness. While that might not seem very long, the drones can land and recharge in just 30 seconds before they are ready to fly again.

These rapid ascent drones can fly into the air at a blistering 80 miles per hour (150 kilometers per hour) in what Rammaxx calls “rapid and noisy ascent,” but are also capable of doing so slower and more quietly.

These RADs are different than traditional drones in a number of ways. While they are battery-powered, Rammaxx’s CEO and Co-Founder Dan Lubrich tells PetaPixel that, unlike other drones, these are optimized for vertical flight and the electric circuits in them are optimized for a short duration but very high power, rather than long duration and low power.

Beyond a typical aerial light display, the RADs can also allow for light painting if exposure is set for at least five seconds. The shapes can be programmed into the app the company says that it is working on showing how to do this in upcoming tutorial videos. But in short, Lubrich says a user can draw on the screen to show the pattern and that shape can be uploaded to the drone and it will fly that path accordingly.

“Once launched, the pilot is out of the loop, so they can focus on taking pictures, or just enjoying the show. We are working on putting together a more detailed video that focuses more on the light show aspect of the system,” Lubrich says.

Lubrich has greater ambitions for its technology beyond light shows and tells PetaPixel that he believes RAD technology can assist in space exploration.

He says that the large size of a first-stage rocket is the main reason that space flight is so expensive, dangerous, and environmentally unfriendly. To address this, the Rammaxx RAD concept is a large powerful drone based on the design of the current light painting RADs. Early projections show that it should be able to accelerate with a rocket to around 300 miles per hour (500 kilometers per hour) up to an altitude of around 15,000 feet (5,000 meters).

“The important aspect for space flight isn’t so much the altitude gained — although that also helps a little bit — but rather the speed gained during the ascent,” he explains. “So, much less rocket fuel is needed to get off the ground and up to a few hundred miles per hour. That allows for smaller, cheaper, safer, and cleaner space rockets.”

“When flying as a swarm with a rocket in tow, we envision the drones to act as one super drone, rather than a true swarm, meaning the flight controllers of the drones link together creating one large drone with many rotors out of lots of small ones,” Lubrich says. “This is so that the flight is 100 percent precise.”

If the drones were independent, even if they were connected to each other via the rocket, there could be small differences in the way that they fly, which could create problems due to them being physically connected, Lubrich explains. Instead, there would be one designated master drone in the swarm that would — when all of them are linked together — control all the drones and turn the swarm into one large super drone, all controlled by the same master flight controller.

“Once the rocket has launched and the physical link between drones is broken, the software link is broken too and the rapid ascent drones independently descend back to the launch pad, staying out of each other’s way as they do so,” Lubrich says.

Lubrich and Rammaxx envision a future where these RADs would allow for much smaller ground to space rockets where the current first stage of space flight could be nearly completely eliminated. The space flight-enabled RADs would feature eight rotors with 300 horsepower each for a total of a 2,400 horsepower drone that is capable of carrying 13,000 pounds of payload 15,000 feet in 90 seconds. The RAD’s four-minute battery life would give it plenty of time to safely return to Earth afterward.

Ramaxx has already completed a few small-scale tests of the concept as seen in the photos below.

What is now just a neat way to provide a firework alternative and a different light painting experience could be a revolutionary shift in how humans approach space flight. Thanks to successful small-scale tests, Lubrich believes it is only a matter of time.

Image credits: All photos courtesy of Rammaxx and used with permission.

I am a professional wedding, portrait, and fashion photographer and have been photographing couples for nearly three decades and I have been teaching photography for over two years. My goal with this video is to provide simple but very effective posing tips when photographing a couple.

Most of the couples you will photograph are not used to being in front of the camera. That’s why a few simple directions can help make a couple look their best and it can mean the difference between a portrait looking stiff and unrealistic to instead looking emotional and beautiful. 

The easiest way to pose someone is by asking them to mirror you. If you give directions like “turn left” or “tilt right,” then you’ll almost always create confusion as your subject tries to work out which direction you mean. But if you ask them to mirror you and then demonstrate the pose while standing in front of them, they can copy what you are doing without thinking about it. It also avoids any uncomfortable contact being the photographer and the subject. But most of all, it is the fastest, most efficient way to pose someone. 

Read more: How to Photograph Couples: A Detailed Tutorial

Learning a bit of body language can make it so much easier to direct your couple. If you want to show that a couple is in love, you’ll want to make sure that the pose reflects that. You may want to begin by turning their bodies towards each other at a 45-degree angle instead of standing side by side flatly.

You also want their body language to match each other as well. If one partner is leaning in, but the other partner is standing stoic and straight with their hands in the pockets, then their “emotions” don’t match, and there will be a disconnect in the portrait.
  
Even the smallest of details is essential in making your portrait realistic. If a couple is very close together and you ask them to look at each other, it will look very awkward. That’s because they’re too close together to see each other’s eyes properly without going cross-eyed. When you look at someone’s eyes in a normal situation, you are always standing farther apart. But if the goal is to create an intimate portrait of the couple looking at each other, ask them to instead look at each other’s lips. If you are that close to someone you love, it usually suggests that a kiss is imminent. And if that is the case, then you would almost always be looking at your partner’s lips. 

You don’t have to remember a thousand different poses. You only need to learn some essential tips to finesse a pose that tells a story about the couple. What are you trying to say? Ultimately, repetition, experience, and practice will always be your best teacher. So keep practicing whenever you can. 

About the author: Widely regarded as one of the top five wedding photographers in the world, Jerry Ghionis’ theatrical and iconic images have redefined modern wedding photography. In 2013, he was named as a United States Nikon Ambassador. And he was the first Australian named in the first-ever list of Top Ten Wedding Photographers in the World by American Photo magazine. Jerry was also named as the Australian Wedding Photographer of the Year by the AIPP. Jerry is also proud to have won the WPPI (Wedding & Portrait Photographers International) Wedding Album of the Year for a record eight times among his long list of accolades and WPPI included Jerry in their Top Five Wedding Photographers in the World. In 2011, Jerry was also named by PDN magazine as one of the top photography workshop instructors in the world. To learn more from Jerry, visit his website here.

Leica has announced the M10-R Black Paint edition in what the Leica Store Miami is calling a “limited run.” The camera is functionally identical to a standard M-10R, but the colorway is a first for any M10-generation camera, standard or otherwise.

The original M10-R was announced in July of 2020 and features a 40-megapixel color sensor. At the time, Leica said that the M10-R would deliver significantly reduced image noise as well as a wider dynamic range than the original M10 and would perform closer to what one would expect from the M10 Monocrhom but with the added benefit of color. At launch, it was listed for $8,995.

With this new edition of the M10-R, Leica has employed a high-gloss black paint finish that hasn’t been seen at all in the M10 line, as Leica has opted to use more of a matte black and chrome finish. This new edition not only brings a classy, shiny black to the camera, but it also does away with Leica’s iconic red dot. Leica describes it as an homage to the Leica MP film camera, and the shutter release button has been trimmed out in polished silver chrome and the shutter speed and ISO dials on the top of the camera have received a “classic and easy-to-grip” cross-knurled machining on the sides.

According to Leica Store Miami’s Red Dot Forum, this particular paint finish will age differently than the standard M10.

“The more matte black chrome is electrochemically bonded with the underlying nickel-plated brass, but black paint is applied on top of the bare brass top and bottom plates,” Red Dot Forum writes. “So where the black chrome takes on a slight silvering in high-use areas, the painted finish will wear over time, exposing the brass underneath and demonstrating a lovely and sought-after patina.”

A similarly colored rare black painted Leica IIIg with an Elmarit 90mm f/2.8 recently sold at auction for $484,400.

The M10-R Black Paint is supposedly available in limited quantities, but Leica did not specify how limited in its announcement. In a bit of an unusual turn, the Black Paint edition isn’t markedly more expensive than the original M10-R, and will only cost $300 more than the standard — $9,295.

Most people don’t actually know what it means when I say I’m a “travel photographer,” it is usually met with a confused look and followed up by some variation of the question, “do you mean you travel for free?” or “who even pays you to travel?”

So to sum it up, my clients are various stakeholders in the tourism industry. These could be hotels, adventure experiences, tourism boards, and beyond. When travel suddenly ground to a screeching halt last year, tourism also slowed down and there were times during lockdown where it completely stopped. Since being a photographer is my career and my main source of income, I was extremely worried — and for good reason: it’s been a tough year, to put it mildly.

Connection with Tamron

You can imagine my surprise when in early January 2021, still very much in the middle of the pandemic, Tamron’s South African branch reached out in an email asking if I would be interested in being a brand ambassador for them going forward. Of course, I said yes.

There is some background here as I have been creating content for Tamron SA on occasion for the past two years. At their request, I’ve also spoken at multiple events on behalf of the brand about my experience using their lenses. From my personal experience, creating a relationship with brands you’d like to work with is the best way to get on their radar.

About a week after accepting Tamron SA’s offer, I got an email from someone at their headquarters in Japan who said they like my style and asked if I’d be interested in shooting a launch project for their new Ultra-Wide angle lens. I’d be one of only a handful of people in the world to have access to the lens, so it was an honor to be selected for an opportunity like this.

Project Brief

Once I’d agreed to do the project, I signed a non-disclosure agreement, Tamron sent some documents about the lens, and then sent a brief with the amount and types of images they needed me to create.

The brief was split into three main parts:

• Photos (photos taken with the lens)
• Lifestyle (photos of the lens)
• Video (Cinematic showcase of the lens in use including the resulting photos)

The brief they sent included some of my photos, which were pulled from my social media channels and website.

Planning Process

My process when shooting a big project always starts with planning and pre-production. At the time, South Africa was just coming out of its second COVID wave which added an extra dimension of complexity. My initial plan was to travel to a location I had never visited before but all the uncertainty quickly led to me deciding to opt for three familiar locations instead of a new one in order to ensure I could get all the necessary content.

Being one of the first Black brand ambassadors for Tamron, I decided it was important to show myself in the video, so I enlisted the help of my friend and fellow content creator Dean Cothill. We sat down, chose the locations with consideration for COVID restrictions, and put together a story, mood board, and shot list for the project.

Once Tamron approved the mood board, I spent two weeks traveling to the three locations I had chosen: Cape Town, the Garden Route, and Blyde River Canyon (the third largest canyon in the world).

Photography Process

Coming up with a good plan makes the process of actually creating the content a lot easier. As an added bonus, when a brand approaches you because they like your style, it means for the most part you just need to create something you love and would be proud of.

Once I was back home I got to work on editing. There were various rules from Tamron when it came to shooting and editing the images, as we were showcasing the capabilities of the lens and had to keep the following in mind:

• Minimal cropping in post
• Mild edits
• Shooting at various apertures
• An even ratio of landscape versus portrait orientation

Approval Process

I sent Tamron around 150 images from which they made their selections. After some back and forth, they were very happy with all the selected images. The video followed a similar process.

The team at Tamron was super organized, knew what they wanted, and were easy to work with. The only hurdle was working with the time zone difference (which is manageable). They were a dream client that was efficient, knowledgeable, and allowed me to just shoot images I am proud of.

Final Thoughts

After a year of being mostly indoors, it was amazing to travel around South Africa again, especially with the support of Tamron and a really great lens. It is truly one of the most beautiful countries in the world and I’m grateful to live here!

For more information and technical specifications of the Tamron 11-20mm f/2.8 Di III-A RXD, read PetaPixel’s coverage here.

About the author: Shawn Ogulu is a branded content creator, freelance Travel and Adventure photographer, and filmmaker based in South Africa. He is also a director and producer whose body of work includes projects for tourism boards and brands from around the world.

Instagram is reportedly testing a feature with a “small number” of users where its “suggested posts” feature will expand beyond just when you’ve reached the end of your feed and will be mixed throughout a browsing experience, possibly coming ahead of posts from those users follow.

In a confirmation to The Verge, Instagram says that reception to the “suggested posts” feature was so positive that the company decided to try and mix those suggestions in with the average viewing experience, sometimes ahead of photos and videos from people a user explicitly follows.

Additionally, Instagram is testing new controls that will allow users to add a specific topic of interest for suggested posts as well as the ability to “snooze” the recommendations for 30 days or hide them from a feed entirely. “Suggested posts” is a feature that Instagram added last year, but prior to this small test was only ever seen after a user saw everything from all people they followed that was shared.

This shift would make Instagram theoretically function similarly to how YouTube manages its “home” page, which highlights content that is a mix of videos made by those a user is subscribed to as well as videos that YouTube’s algorithm thinks are of interest. YouTube leans so heavily on this analytics-forward approach that subscriptions have fallen in importance over the years.

If Instagram were to adopt placing suggested posts for all users, it may have a dramatic impact on how the social network functions. Instagram has a vested interest in keeping users on the platform for as long as possible, and keep them coming back. As such, the social network should not necessarily need to put as much value on showing a user content from people they follow as opposed to delivering photos and videos that keep them engaged. As YouTube has shown, just because a person subscribes to a Channel doesn’t mean that the user necessarily wants to see all content that Channel produces.

That’s the theory, anyway, and it might have ramifications in the long term for content creators who rely on Instagram to reach an audience, especially if suggested posts become more popular and show higher engagement than that of specifically followed accounts.

Algorithm-focused approaches have generally superseded ones that focus on giving users complete control over what they see. Facebook and Instagram both ditched a timeline-based approach years ago, and Twitter defaults users to the “Home” view instead of “Latest Tweets” which uses an algorithm to determine the most interesting content. At least in Twitter’s case, switching back to Latest Tweets is an option.

Instagram did not specify how many people its “suggested posts” test would affect nor how long it intended to test the feature.

Panasonic has announced a firmware update program for its line of Lumix S full-frame cameras that includes the S1, S1R, and S5. Even though the S1 was announced over two years ago, the company will update it to capture 5.9K video at up to 30 frames per second in 12-bit RAW.

The age of a camera doesn’t seem to affect how Panasonic views if it should provide major support to it, as these updates add significant performance enhancements that could very easily be argued should be reserved for a next-generation camera body. While some of these updates are only available to those who paid for additional video enhancements at launch, this level of support so long after release is still worthy of praise.

The S1, S1R, and S5 will all receive major enhancements when the firmware becomes available on July 12.

For those who purchased the Upgrade Software Key DMW-SFU2 — an optional $200 video-focused upgrade that is currently included with new purchases of the camera — the Panasonic S1 will gain RAW video output over HDMI to a Blackmagic Video Assist 12G HDR and will be recorded as Blackmagic RAW. It will be able to record in full-frame 5.9K (5888×3312) at up to 30 frames per second in 16:9 aspect ratio. In a cropped APS-C mode, the S1 will be able to shoot in 4K (4128×2176) at up to 60 frames per second in 17:9 aspect ratio, and 3.5K at up to 50 frames per second in anamorphic.

The Panasonic S5 will get those same RAW recording capabilities, but without needing to have purchased any software upgrades like is the case on the S1. In both cases, 5.9K, 4K, and Anamorphic (4:3) 3.5K 12-bit RAW video data can be output over HDMI to a Blackmagic Video Assist 12G HDR to be recorded as Blackmagic RAW.

This means that Panasonic’s now $1,700 full-frame camera will be able to shoot in 5.9K 12-bit RAW for no extra cost, which rivals the performance of the significantly more expensive S1H.

Panasonic will also be adding L.ClassicNeo and L.Monochrome S as photo styles to both the S1 and S1R.

Additionally, Panasonic announced the Lumix HLG Photo for Adobe Photoshop, which is a plug-in software that will allow any hybrid log gamma (HLG) photo (which is a type of HDR image) shot by any Lumix S camera to be read and edited with Adobe Photoshop. After that, Panasonic says that it is possible to view those HLG photos back as HDR photos on an HLF-corresponding monitor of an HDMI connection with a Lumix S Series camera.

Previously, Panasonic HLG photos would cease to be HLG once brought into an application like Photoshop for editing, and the only way to enjoy the wider color gamut was to view them straight out of the camera. While viewing HLG photos is still complicated, at least now there will be a way to edit them without losing the HDR nature of HLG.

The firmware updates and HLG Photo plugin for Photoshop will be available from Panasonic starting on July 12.

Starting out in photography can be really confusing. There is so much stuff to learn, so many things to do, and so many resources to read, not to mention the insane amount of people screaming opinions at you all the time. It’s hard to fight through all the noise.

To make matters worse, there are so many resources out there that — while they may have great intentions — can often guide you down the wrong path, lead you to dead ends, or influence your mindset in a particular way. For example, if you put too much emphasis on gear or settings or focus on tips that are very domain-specific to a particular category of photography and not pertinent to you, you may not learn anything valuable to creating good photos.

In the video above, I aim to solve that. This video is the answer to all of the common questions I get from people who are in their first few years of photography. It’s not necessarily for people who are absolutely green and will be more useful to someone who has a firmer grasp on photography, but even if you are in their first few weeks with a camera, you can definitely grow into these tips.

These tips lay the foundation for solid photography skills and will help you set your basics up correctly. I’ll give you just enough detail to tell you about the point, but if you want to go deeper into the subject then, you know what to Google next!

Here are the first 10 points I mention in the video above:

1. Photography is 70 percent about what is in the photo, 20 percent how you take the photo, and 10 percent how you edit it.
2. The real secret to getting better at photography is vision.
3. Understand what “good” looks like as fast as you can.
4. Look to other forms of visual art for inspiration.
5. Style isn’t something you should really worry about at the beginning.
6. Understand the basics of the exposure triangle.
7. Photography “rules” are a bad way to think about them.
8. Take a lot of photos, make a lot of mistakes, and learn from all of them.
9. Create a habit to work on skills daily.
10. Get a firm grasp on the importance of light.

If those points look interesting to you, then check the video above for the explanations of each point, as well as the next 10 points that I think are important to understand.

About the author: Pat Kay is an award-winning travel photographer and multi-disciplinary content creator based in Sydney, Australia. With a passion for travel and adventure, Kay specializes in exploring the contrast between nature and urban, through landscape, cityscape, aerial, lifestyle, and street photography. He has worked with many of the world’s top brands such as Sony, Adobe, Microsoft, Samsung, Nike, Adidas, Ford, Toyota, Lexus, DJI, Razer, Instagram, and more. For more from Kay, follow him on Instagram and subscribe to his YouTube Channel.

NVIDIA has announced Canvas, an app that is available as a free beta that it says brings real-time painting tools to anyone with an NVIDIA RTX GPU. It uses artificial intelligence to make rudimentary sketches or doodles into photorealistic scenes.

Canvas is part of NVIDIA Studio, which is a program that provides artists and creators with both hardware and software tools to assist in bringing creative visions to life. Canvas appears to be the consumer-facing version of the app that NVIDIA showcased in 2019, but what is shown here is far more advanced than what was teased back then.

In Canvas, users can start sketching simple shapes and lines using a palette of 15 tools such as mountains, clouds, grass, or weather effects and the artificial intelligence model will turn those into a photorealistic scene in real-time.

What looks like a sketch made in Microsoft Paint is transformed into a lifelike scene instantly and with jaw-dropping quality.

“The tool allows artists to use style filters, changing a generated image to adopt the style of a particular painter,” NVIDIA explains. “NVIDIA Canvas isn’t just stitching together pieces of other images, or cutting and pasting textures, but creating brand new images, just like an artist would.”

The algorithm is aided by the tools palette in Canvas so that it understands what the artist is intending to show, but the results are still extremely impressive. NVIDIA says that the creative applications of the tool are “endless” and that it can help artists ideate faster than before, which is normally a far more time-consuming task.

“It can also bring time savings to a range of creators and designers,” NVIDIA explains. “Consider an art director on a time crunch who needs to refine the hero product in an ad campaign. A landscape will complete the shot. Using NVIDIA Canvas, the director is only a few clicks from generating several beautifully rendered images. In a matter of moments, the tool provides multiple options for the client to review, saving precious time before finalizing the featured product.”

Canvas uses a form of artificial intelligence called “generative adversarial networks,” or GAN. It is the same technology that NVIDIA has used in previous AI algorithms, like its tool that can create photorealistic faces. GANs consist of a generator and a discriminator that work together. A generator aims to convert material maps into images, and the discriminator understands certain aspects of what is generated. For example, the discriminator knows that water has reflections, and can tell the generator to create a representation of that.

“To deliver realistic portraits for artists, the GAN has been trained on an NVIDIA DGX system using over 5 million images,” NVIDIA says.

The Canvas beta can be downloaded for free now, and NVIDIA is soliciting feedback on its forums.

Electronics manufacturers in Taiwan including Canon and Foxconn supplier Innolux have been accused of “locking up” migrant workers amidst the COVID-19 outbreak taking place in the country.

The Financial Times reports that according to internal documents and staff communications that it has seen, multiple electronics manufacturers — including Canon — have responded to the outbreak by forbidding migrant workers from leaving the dormitories where they live except to go to work and banning them from speaking to one another.

Taiwan is responsible for the manufacturing of chips, servers, laptops, and other electronics for several international brands and has seen a boom in its economy over the last year as work from home orders have seen demand for such products skyrocket. In order to meet the increased demand, Taiwan has brought in a huge number of migrant workers — 713,000 as of April of 2021 — mainly from the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia. The Financial Times reports that this influx of workers now accounts for 8 percent of the total Taiwanese workforce and more than 60 percent of those migrants are working in factories to produce electronics components.

As part of their work agreement with migrants, employers are legally required to provide them housing accommodations and food, but reportedly mostly outsource those services to brokers and companies who try and keep costs as low as possible and will sometimes cram up to 12 people into a room together.

While the need for the migrant workers was clearly high, discrimination against them is reportedly systemic and the COVID-19 outbreak has only made that worse. In an attempt to prevent the further spread of the disease, Taiwanese health authorities have ordered companies to take certain steps, such as preventing workers from clustering together while on the job.

But the Financial Times reports that companies are going well beyond those rules and are imposing harsh restrictions on workers. Some employers — who were not specifically named by the publication — have been accused of scaring migrants with threats that if they were to die from COVID-19, their bodies would be immediately cremated, their families would not be able to see them, and the family’s finances would be immediately cut off.

Specifically, Canon is accused of telling its workers to never leave the dormitory except to go to and from work, and banned them from speaking to one another.

When reached for comment by Financial Times, Canon admitted that its rules may have been too strict.

“We cannot deny that the content and expression we used were excessive in some parts as a result of focusing too much on the safety of employees and the community,” Canon said in a statement to the publication. “In response to questions raised from within and outside the company, we have revised the content on June 18 in accordance with government advisory.”

At the time of publication, no Taiwanese government agency had spoken up against the treatment of migrant workers.

Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.

Lexar has announced that it is actively developing on the thus far unused SD Express specification to create SD memory cards that use PCI Express (PCIe 4.0) and will more than triple the speeds of current UHS-II cards, but it’s not clear who these cards will work for.

Lexar says that it is actively developing both regular SD Express as well as microSD Express memory cards. Its SD Express cards will have a capacity of up to 512 gigabytes while its microSD Express will cap out at 256 gigabytes.

Lexar SD Express and microSD Express memory cards will feature write speeds of up to 410MB/s and read speeds of up to 824MB/s, respectfully. Lexar is currently working with manufacturers of relevant host devices as part of its early development.

The SD Express specification is not new but was developed by the SD association several years ago in response to the Compact Flash organization’s CFexpress specification. The idea would allow for the format to theoretically reach greater capacities and much faster speeds all while maintaining the same current SD card format with the promise of backward compatibility.

While this sounds great, the SD Express specification has not been actively developed for a reason — it’s not perfect. In 2019, PetaPixel spoke with ProGrade Digital’s Wes Brewer who explained that there were many hidden drawbacks with the SD Express specification. For starters, SD Express cards would technically be backwards compatible, but only to UHS-I speeds.

“You can put it in there, and it’ll work, but it’ll only work as a UHS-I card,” Brewer said. “So if the camera requires full SD UHS-II performance, it won’t work right. It won’t work as well as it’s supposed to like an SD UHS-II card would work.”

At the time, Brewer noted that no camera manufacturer was interested in the SD Express format and none were making any cameras that would work with it. To date, that has not changed and it’s unclear who Lexar’s cards would be for.

What’s more, those looking to keep the SD form factor have already found a solution: CFexpress type A. Sony’s latest cameras accept both standard UHS-II SD cards and CFexpress Type A cards in the same card slot. Back in 2019, Brewer predicted this.

In 2020, the specification was updated and allowed for transfer speeds for up to 3,983 megabytes per second, a huge leap in performance. It wasn’t clear though if the backward compatibility issue had been solved nor if any camera or device manufacturer was even interested in supporting cards made with the specification.

Even if all the issues with SD Express were solved by the new specification and camera makers decide to support them, SD Express is a long way from challenging CFexpress. The read and write speeds promised on Lexar’s coming SD Express cards may be up to three times better than UHS-II SD cards, but they are still well below current CFexpress speeds. Current Type B cards typically reach read speeds of 1,700 MB/s and surpass 1,400 MB/s write speeds thanks to their two lanes of PCIe. Type A cards are slower due to their single-lane design, but still promise 800 MB/s read speeds and 700 MB/s write speeds. While SD Express appears to be competitive on read speeds, Lexar’s SD Express cards will only reach about half the write speed performance.

Lexar appears undeterred, however. The company plans to launch its new line of SD Express cards in 2022, but it is not clear what devices will support them or how much they will cost. That last note will be the most important, as SD Express may only be able to compete by undercutting the currently astronomical price of CFexpress.