If you’ve really been paying attention to the Instagram profile grid over the last couple of days, you will have spotted that your vertical images that you meticulously cropped to 4:5 aspect ratio are now having the sides trimmed just a little bit. That’s because Instagram has switched to a 3:4 grid ratio on profile pages as it introduces support for images with a 3:4 aspect ratio—i.e., the aspect ratio of the vast majority of smartphone sensors.
The change comes only four months after Instagram did away with their square profile grid, causing many carefully crafted profile pages to no longer look quite so cool. Presumably, the latest move will result in a new wave of similarly incensed users—who spent the last four months perfectly lining up their 4:5 aspect images—but the support for the 3:4 aspect ratio is an eminently sensible decision given that an overwhelming majority of users are trying to make full use of the available screen real estate by posting vertical images shot on their phone.
Of course, users of Micro Four Thirds cameras—underwater shooters included—can also pop the champagne, as their days of cropping vertical images are now officially behind them. Meanwhile, everyone else can at least celebrate the little bit extra in our photos we get to show the world. (Instead of a maximum size of 1080 by 1350 pixels, vertical images can now be 1080 by 1440 pixels.) Before you get too excited, though, keep in mind that there’s a very good chance Instagram will not be switching to a 2:3 grid ratio anytime soon, given the ubiquity of the 3:4 smartphone sensor. Still, one can always dream!
My first camera had no battery. Its metering was done by a selenium cell that produced its own power when the light fell on it. Even by the standards of the time, it was as basic as it came.
This was in the early 1980s, and state-of-the-art then would have been cameras with shutter and aperture priority and perhaps a center-weighted metering system powered by a small coin-sized battery. Often, the shutter mechanism would also be powered by this, so if it ran out, the camera would not work.
All of this, in a roundabout way, leads me to say that I have seen a lot of technological advances in cameras and photography in general.
I am also aware that those technological advances come in peaks and troughs. I think that at the moment we are entering one of those troughs. Let me explain why.
Camera Revolutions I Have Seen
The first big photographic revolution that I witnessed was the introduction of autofocus. It was both pretty amazing and pretty slow. This innovation by Minolta led to most of the other manufacturers scrambling around trying to create their own autofocus systems. There were some odd attempts to build autofocus into lenses to save people from buying new cameras, but over a period of a few years, focusing developed into pretty much what we see today.
Perhaps the next revolution was the integration of CPUs into cameras. This allowed for more advanced metering and exposure modes and made life significantly easier for photographers.
The big one, of course, was the move from film to digital. This was, perhaps, the greatest single advance in the history of photography. It revolutionized and democratized photography.
The advent of sensors and CPUs has allowed camera manufacturers to push the boundaries of camera capabilities. The first digital cameras were basic compacts, but soon moved to the more familiar SLR, renamed DSLR. We moved from CCD to CMOS sensors, we entered a megapixel race, we saw the introduction of stabilization, first in lenses, then in camera bodies.
In 200,7 Steve Jobs stood on stage and showed us an iPhone. Little did we know then that it and its rivals would effectively kill the compact camera market and at the same time bring an entirely new generation to photography.
Just as smartphone cameras were becoming mainstream, mirrorless cameras arrived, signaling the long, slow, drawn-out death of the DSLR.
All of these were great leaps in camera technology. Yet none of them happened in the last decade.
It seems that at the moment, we are on a treadmill of yearly camera updates, each with incremental improvements but no revolutionary new features.
Two of my recent cameras demonstrate this. The Fuji X-H2 moved from a 26MP to a 40MP sensor and had better video codecs compared to the previous generation Fujis. Nice, but nothing special.
My Sony a7RV used the same sensor and better processing power as its predecessor. Again, it made it a significantly better camera but without being leaps and bounds ahead of the previous generation.
It feels like the camera manufacturers are trying to feed our FOMO by pushing out frequent new models offering “amazing” new features that actually offer the photographer very little in practical terms.
I suspect that whilst camera manufacturers have the ability to innovate, at the moment, there are some aspects that are holding them back. Chief amongst them is the way we view images.
The vast majority of images these days are seen on the screen of a smartphone. Some will be seen on a decent-sized monitor, and very few will be printed.
Pretty much any camera produced in the last 10 years is capable of way more quality than even computer monitors can display. This has effectively slowed down the megapixel race, as for the vast majority, huge megapixel counts are not needed.
Innovation in areas like autofocus and video output still continues but there is nothing revolutionary. It’s step by step, incremental improvements. Even Sony’s AI autofocus, whilst excellent, is not exactly a game-changing feature.
The fact is that modern cameras are “good enough” for the vast majority of photographers, and any new features tend to be overhyped in order to maintain sales of newer models.
There is one area where I think we will soon be seeing a technological advance, however, and we can see it happening already.
Computational photography is not a new thing. It has been an integral part of smartphone photography for many years now. It uses the power of a processor and programming to overcome the physical limitations of the smaller sensors and lenses found on phones.
Using this technology, smartphones are able to produce better images in low light and create shots with a shallow depth of field despite tiny sensors and wide angles.
This technology is ripe for modern mirrorless cameras. There is one area in particular, I think we will soon see advances – lenses. Fast, large-aperture lenses are both expensive to make and heavy to use. The advances in computational photography will allow manufacturers to produce smaller, slower lenses that are much lighter and use processors to improve low-light performance and give a shallow depth of field. Lenses already communicate a lot of information to the camera, and computational photography can use that data to create similar effects that we see in smartphones.
Purists will, of course, balk at this idea, but I am pretty confident we will be seeing it fairly soon. The profit margins on these lighter, more sophisticated lenses will be higher than on bigger glass. I suspect that in 10 years time we could well see a point where multiple focal lengths will not be needed, instead, the power of a processor combined with AI will enable us to zoom in, even after the fact. Rather than a simple sensor crop, these will be full-resolution zooms that maintain the correct perspective and compression, all from a single focal length.
For now, I suspect the cost of the processors is the main factor holding back mainstream camera manufacturers. That’s why, for me, at the moment, it feels like we are very much in a technological trough when it comes to cameras. When I moved from Fujifilm to Sony, it was more about quality control issues than camera technology. Both systems are great,t but neither offers anything revolutionary over the other.
I suspect it will be a few years of incremental improvement in technology. That will end when one of the major manufacturers has a big bang moment and puts powerful computational photography into a mainstream camera. My money is on Sony, let’s meet up in a few years to see if I am right.
Tickets for the second Go Diving Show ANZ in Sydney are on sale—and there’s a two-for-one early bird special on now for a limited time. The show happens to coincide with Australia’s Father’s Day weekend—September 6th–7th—so it’s the ideal opportunity to grab dad and show him lots of mesmerizing gadgets—and awesome dive vacation deals! (Bring mom, too, obviously.)
Of course, one of the big highlights is the announcement of the winners of the Underwater Awards Australasia 2025, the Australasia-focused competition organized by DPG, Underwater Australasia and UW Images. Underwater photographer and UW Images owner Brett Lobwein will return to the Photo Stage for the big reveal. Once again, alongside the Photo Stage, we’ll be exhibiting stunning metal prints of the finalist entries in the photo categories. Like last year, the prints, made by the competition’s Printing Partner PhotoMart, will be available for purchase at the show, with the proceeds going to Environmental Partners Australian Marine Conservation Society and Take 3 for the Sea.
Organizers are expecting 100-plus exhibitors and the show will see dozens of speakers giving talks across the four stages (Main Stage, Photo Stage, Tech Stage and ANZ/Inspiration stage) as well as try-dives and in-water skills demonstrations in the on-site dive pool. If you’re in the area, make sure to swing by the DPG booth (#304)—which is shared with The Underwater Club—and say hello!
The latest comprehensive revision includes all of the new features found in the X-H2, X-H2S, and revised/expanded information about all of the other current X Series models, including the X-T4, X-T3, X-Pro 3, X-E4, X-S10, X-T30/30 II, X100V and the X-T100.
If you’re a Fujifilm shooter, then this is the most definitive guide to the X Series cameras you can get. It explains every single feature and every single function, and it does so with clear descriptions, real world examples and a very easy-to-follow format.
X SERIES UNLIMITED – October 2022 Edition
It teaches you everything you need to know in order to become a better, more proficient, more creative photographer with your Fuji camera.
It has full coverage of all current and past models, all the way back to the 1st generation X Series cameras, and if you purchase the book, you’ll be entitled to free updates in the future when Fujifilm releases new models and firmware updates.
Click here to see what other people have said about the guide, and then let me help you get the most from your Fuji camera. Join thousands of other Fuji users around the world who have downloaded the guide and benefitted from the vast amount of knowledge and expertise I’ve put into it.
If you’re on the fence. rest assured; it comes with a 100% money back guarantee. If you don’t like the book for any reason, I’ll refund your purchase.
DxO Software’s flagship photo editing program PhotoLab 6, (v.6.4) now features full support for Fujifilm X-Trans sensor cameras, including the new X-T5, X-H2 and X-H2S, as well as previous models. It’s also fully compatible with Nikon Z9 NEF RAW files.
Fuji and Z9 users now have full RAW-processing capability, with PhotoLab 6, and can thus take advantage of DxO’s updated DeepPRIME XD denoising algorithms, which uses machine learning to remove noise and preserve an exceptional amount of detail and color clarity in your image.
I’ve been using DxO PhotoLab for the past two years, and I’ve been highly impressed with its array of powerful image editing tools and relatively easy user interface. The comprehensive tool palettes offer everything from quick adjustment options, to in-depth processing options for everything from exposure, color, lens correction and retouching.
A powerful local adjustments menu allows you to perform precise edits with masks, brushes, control points/lines, graduated filters and erasers.
In addition, you can also incorporate other DxO programs seamlessly into your workflow, such as FilmPack, which produces classic film effects from the past, andthe entire NIK Collection of 8 powerful and popular processing plugins, like Silver Efex, Color Efex, Viveza and HDR Efex.
One of my favorite components of DxO PhotoLab, is that it contains an integrated library/digital asset management module, which allows you to browse, search and organize your images, without the hassles of having to actually import all of your images.
This has long been my issue with so many photo programs. If you have a massive library of images, it can take many hours, or even days to build an image database from scratch… that is, if it even finishes without freezing or crashing the program and forcing to you to start over. And even if you do get it all imported, browsing a database can be much slower and way more computer intensive than simply looking at individual folders
That’s what PhotoLab does; it’s simply a browser, and much like Photo Mechanic, which is my all-time favorite image browser, it just looks at whatever folder you point it to. And you can choose how to sort or display your images, set tags (picks/rejects) view EXIF and metadata for your images and also add/sort by keywords and add/sort by color and star ratings as well.
PhotoLab 6 also has a new Soft Proofing feature, which uses paper and ink simulations to help ensure even greater accuracy when preparing your image files for printing.
I’ve used a lot of photo editing programs over the years, and for me, DxO PhotoLab 6 ticks all of the boxes. It has all of the power I would ever need, whether I’m doing full RAW conversions, deep editing or just adding some life to my straight Fuji JPEGs, it has a simple, straightforward user interface, a built-in image browser, and none of the frustrations that I’ve found with other software.
Now, with full Fujifilm support, I’m able to use PhotoLab to bring out maximum detail from my X-T5 images and make them look as good as they can possibly be.
And finally, no subscriptions with PhotoLab 6. One-time purchase and it’s yours.
