California-based Skydio launched their R1 drone last year, and it was a very impressive piece of kit. 13 onboard cameras allowed it to be fully autonomous and virtually impossible to crash. The problem was, it was pretty huge and at $2,500 it wasn’t very affordable vs the likes of the Phantom and Mavic drones from DJI. Now, though, the Skydio 2 has been announced, a smaller drone with an improved 4K camera for shooting video, full autonomy, complete surround obstacle avoidance, more interactive control options, and only a $999 price tag....

Sky replacements are fairly common in photography these days. Not everybody is shooting a camera with a wide enough dynamic range to always capture a well-exposed subject without a blown out sky. Or, perhaps the sky on the day you were shooting is just a bit boring. Typically, we take to Photoshop to do the sky replacement and blend it in with our foreground scene. Luminar 4, though, is coming with a new AI Sky Replacement feature, first mentioned last month....

Echoing the words of Sony president and CEO, Terushi Shimizu, Qualcomm’s vice president of product management and cameras, Judd Heape, believes that AI-powered smartphones are going to overtake DSLRs in terms of image quality in the next few years. His estimate is a little longer than the 2024 date mentioned by Sony, offering 3-5 years as a timeframe, but he believes the sensors area already there and that now AI capabilities will push it over the edge....

Last week we reported on the Sony A1 that took its life into its own hands at the Beijing Olympics and launched itself on its own luge track down a snowy mountainside. It appeared from the footage that the camera would not be in good shape, with plastic pieces flying off it on its way down the slope. I know you’ve probably all been losing sleep awaiting news of the camera’s health so I’m pleased to be able to provide an update....

Following suit from the recently announced Canon G7X Mark III, Sony is finally adding a microphone jack to its RX100 series of cameras with the new Sony RX100 VII. It looks like both Canon and Sony have finally woken up to the fact that most people who buy their flagship compact cameras these days are vloggers and being able to plug in a mic is a bit of a big deal to many of them....