Camera
Canon Photo Culling is a new iOS app that uses artificial intelligence to evaluate your photos
![Canon Photo Culling is a new iOS app that uses artificial intelligence to evaluate your photos Canon Photo Culling is a new iOS app that uses artificial intelligence to evaluate your photos](https://4.img-dpreview.com/files/p/E~TS940x788~articles/0301330122/canon-ai-powered-photo-culling-app-ai-tech.jpeg)
When you have many photos on your smartphone, like hundreds or even thousands, it can be challenging trying to locate images and keep your files organized. Different companies are working on using AI technologies to help identify, organize and even cull images. Canon is the latest to join the fray with its new Photo Culling app for iOS.
Underpinning the app is Canon’s computer-vision artificial intelligence engine, PHIL. PHIL is an abbreviation for Photography Intelligence Learning. The Photo Culling app helps users pick out their best images by evaluating photos based on sharpness, noise, emotions, and closed eyes.
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Canon’s new Photo Culling app has numerous features in addition to its ability to evaluate and grade images. Click to enlarge. |
In its announcement for the Photo Culling app, Canon cites a report by Keypoint Intelligence that states people captured 1.4 trillion photos in 2020 and stored 7.4 trillion images in total. It’s easy to see how some users end up feeling overwhelmed.
The app includes two culling options. The first is ‘whole culling,’ which determines the best photos by scoring against the four models: sharpness, noise, emotions and closed eyes. The user can set a score threshold, and the app will recommend that any images below that threshold be deleted. The second option, ‘similar culling,’ organizes similar images into groups and identifies the group’s first and second-best images. The rest of the images are marked for culling. Canon gives an example of a user selecting 20 total images, 10 photos of a dog and 10 sunset photos. The app will automatically sort the images into two groups and identify the best dog photo and best sunset photo of the bunch.
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In addition to culling features, the app offers additional organizational features. The app shows users its total photo count and storage. Further, the Photo Culling app features dynamic event albums. The app categorizes and places images into albums based on events/dates throughout the year. Albums with large numbers of photos will be recommended for culling evaluation. The app also includes dark and light mode options.
Of the app, Tatsuro “Tony” Kano, executive vice president and general manager of the Imaging Technologies & Communications Group of Canon U.S.A., Inc., said, ‘In today’s ever-changing and overwhelming world, where thousands of photos are captured and stored in a person’s smartphone, consumers need an expert, reliable and intuitive photo tool to help them decide the best photos based on years of trusted knowledge and technology.’ Kano continued, ‘Canon U.S.A.’s new Photo Culling App is the answer, and we are proud to see how the company’s Computer Vision technology within this app can assist consumers with finding and keeping their best photos of their fondest moments.”
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If you want to evaluate your images, the app can give each of your photos a unique score. Users can also adjust how the individual scoring parameters are weighted when generating a final score. You can also use the app to find images captured on specific dates quickly.
Canon’s new iOS app only supports .JPG files and images captured with your smartphone’s camera. The app is available now and includes a three-day free trial. If you want to use the app beyond this trial period, you will need to subscribe monthly or annually. A monthly subscription is $2.99 per month, and an annual subscription costs $14.99.
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If you’re interested in AI-powered photo culling, there are numerous applications available now for different uses. In November, we wrote about Kodak Professional Select. For macOS, there is CullAi. This app rates photos by face quality, filters based on automatically-generated ratings, and groups similar images, among other parameters. Optyx is a similar app that promises to cull thousands of photos in a minute using advanced artificial intelligence to rate images based on facial expression, sharpness, composition, exposure and more. Artificial intelligence used to cull photos is not quite as new of a thing as it may seem, either, as we wrote about an AI-powered culling app, Picturesqe, way back in 2016. Unfortunately, Picturesqe doesn’t seem to exist anymore.
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Camera
Pentax K-1 and K-1 II firmware updates include astrophotography features (depending on where you live)
![Pentax K-1 and K-1 II firmware updates include astrophotography features (depending on where you live) Pentax K-1 and K-1 II firmware updates include astrophotography features (depending on where you live)](https://2.img-dpreview.com/files/p/E~TS590x0~articles/0154890027/Pentax-K1-II.jpeg)
Yesterday, Ricoh quietly released firmware 2.50 for its Pentax K-1 and K-1 II DSLRs. However, the features you can expect to gain from this update may depend on your geography.
Ricoh’s English-language firmware pages for the K-1 and K-1 II state that firmware 2.50 delivers “Improved stability for general performance.”
However, astute Pentax users noted that Ricoh’s Japanese-language firmware pages (translation) indicate that the update also includes a limited feature called “Astronomical Photo Assist,” a collection of three new features designed for astrophotography: Star AF, remote control focus fine adjustment, and astronomical image processing.
Star AF is intended to automate focusing on stars when using autofocus lenses. Rather than manually focusing on a bright star and changing your composition, it promises to let you compose your shot and let the camera focus.
Remote control fine adjustment allows users to adjust focus without touching the lens and requires Pentax’s optional O-RC1 remote. Astronomical image processing will enable users to make in-camera adjustments to astrophotography images, including shading correction, fogging correction, background darkness, star brightness, celestial clarity, and fringe correction.
According to Ricoh, Astronomical Photo Assist is a premium feature that must be purchased and costs ¥11,000 for an activation key (about $70 at current exchange rates).
Although these astrophotography features appear to be Japan-only for now, a Ricoh representative tells us, “Ricoh Imaging Americas confirmed that the premium firmware features for the PENTAX K-1 and PENTAX K-1 Mark II will eventually be available to US customers.”
Firmware update 2.50 for both the K-1 and K-1 II is available for download from Ricoh’s website.
Camera
On this day 2017: Nikon launches D850
![On this day 2017: Nikon launches D850 On this day 2017: Nikon launches D850](https://2.img-dpreview.com/files/p/E~TS590x0~articles/3742168247/Nikon_D850_lead.jpeg)
As part of our twenty fifth anniversary, we’re looking back at some of the most significant cameras launched and reviewed during that period. Today’s pick was launched seven years ago today* and yet we’re only quite recently stepping out of its shadow.
The Nikon D850 is likely to be remembered as the high watermark of DSLR technology. We may yet still see impressive developments from Ricoh in the future (we’d love to see a significantly upgraded Pentax K-1 III), but the D850 was perhaps the green flash as the sun set on the DSLR as the dominant technology in the market.
Click here to read our Nikon D850 review
Why do we think it was such a big deal? Because it got just about everything right. Its 45MP sensor brought dual conversion gain to high pixel count sensors, meaning excellent dynamic range at base ISO and lower noise at high ISOs. Its autofocus system was one of the best we’ve ever seen on a DSLR: easy to use and highly dependable, with a good level of coverage. And then there was a body and user interface honed by years of iterative refinement, that made it easy to get the most out of the camera.
None of this is meant as a slight towards the other late-period DSLRs but the likes of Canon’s EOS 5DS and 5DSR didn’t present quite such a complete package of AF tracking, daylight DR and low-light quality as the Nikon did. With its ability to shoot at up to 9fps (if you used the optional battery grip), the D850 started to chip away at the idea that high megapixel cameras were specialized landscape and studio tools that would struggle with movement or less-than-perfect lighting. And that’s without even considering its 4K video capabilities.
In the seven years since the D850 was launched, mirrorless cameras have eclipsed most areas in which DSLRs once held the advantage. For example, the Z8 can shoot faster, autofocus more with more accuracy and precision, across a wider area of the frame and do so while shooting at much faster rates.
But, even though it outshines the D850 in most regards, the Z8 is still based around what we believe is a (significant) evolution of the same sensor, and its reputation still looms large enough for Nikon to explicitly market the Z8 as its “true successor.”
Nikon D850 sample gallery
*Actually seven years ago yesterday: we had to delay this article for a day to focus on the publishing the Z6III studio scene: the latest cameras taking precedence over our anniversary content.
Camera
Nikon Z6III added to studio scene, making image quality clear
![Nikon Z6III added to studio scene, making image quality clear Nikon Z6III added to studio scene, making image quality clear](https://2.img-dpreview.com/files/p/E~TS590x0~articles/9570948051/Nikon_z6iii_sensor_main.jpeg)
Photo: Richard Butler |
We’ve just received a production Nikon Z6III and took it into our studio immediately to get a sense for how the sensor really performs.
Dynamic range tests have already been conducted, but these only give a limited insight into the image quality as a whole. As expected, our Exposure Latitude test – which mimics the effect of reducing exposure to capture a bright sunrise or sunset, then making use of the deep shadows – shows a difference if you use the very deepest shadows, just as the numerical DR tests imply.
Likewise, our ISO Invariance test shows there’s more of a benefit to be had from applying more amplification by raising the ISO setting to overcome the read noise, than there was in the Z6 II. This means there’s a bigger improvement when you move up to the higher gain step of the dual conversion gain sensor but, as with the Z6 II, little more to be gained beyond that.
These are pushing at the extreme of the sensor’s performance though. For most everyday photography, you don’t use the deepest shadows of the Raw files, so differences in read noise between sensors don’t play much of a role. In most of the tones of an image, sensor size plays a huge role, along with any (pretty rare) differences in light capturing efficiency.
As expected, the standard exposures look identical to those of the Z6 II. There are similar (or better) levels of detail at low ISO, in both JPEG and Raw. At higher ISO, the Z6III still looks essentially the same as the Z6II. Its fractionally higher level of read noise finally comes back to have an impact at very, very high ISO settings.
Overall, then, there is a read noise price to be paid for the camera’s faster sensor, in a way that slightly blunts the ultimate flexibility of the Raw files at low ISO and that results in fractionally more noise at ultra-high ISOs. But we suspect most people will more than happily pay this small price in return for a big boost in performance.
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