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This new app helps you to create the perfect Instagram poses

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There’s a new camera app in town. It’s called SOVS and it’s designed to help you get those perfect Instagram photos whenever you hand your phone to somebody else to get a shot for you. Now, you no longer need to worry if that person clutching your phone knows how to shoot a decent photo. There’s also a SOVS2 app for group photos, too.

I’ve no idea what they’re saying in their promotional videos, but the point is quite obvious and they’re pretty funny. Whether the humour is by design, I don’t know, but I got a good laugh out of this one.

Forgotten app shares abandoned places for photography, killing urban exploring for everyone

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This is one of those things that’s definitely going to split people up into two camps. In one, there’s those who’ll think it’s awesome, and in the other, there’s those who believe that the types of locations to which this app allows access should remain secret.

You guys can discuss the camps to which you belong in the comments, but let me introduce you to Forgotten, a new mobile app for iOS and Android. It’s an app to help you discover new place to shoot or “sell” your locations. It’s the latter part of that which Forgotten says makes them different from similar apps and services that have popped up in the past.

Yongnuo’s new Android-powered mirrorless camera is Micro Four Thirds with an EF mount

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When Yongnuo teased a new mirrorless camera the other day, there wasn’t really any information to go along with it. Pretty much the only thing we new for sure was that it had 4G capability. But we could make a few assumptions based on what we saw and prior Yongnuo history.

Now, some of those assumptions have been confirmed as Yongnuo has released the specs for the yet-to-be-named new camera, which currently bears the code YN450. And there are a couple of surprises…

Yongnuo is releasing a new Android mirrorless camera with built-in 4G

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A year ago, I called out Yongnuo for not being able to keep up with Godox. Their flashes seemed to have stalled in development and they had randomly switched from making inexpensive, but not completely terrible, speedlights to cheap copycat lenses. Now, though, it looks like they’re trying to break into the camera market.

Lexar announces 512GB A2 microSD card for smartphone photographers and filmmakers

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Although this won’t be of much to iOS users, Lexar has announced a new 512GB 633x (100MB/sec) A2 microSD card for smartphones. Designed for lots of fast read and write operations per second, this card is ideal for Android smartphones. Especially those used by photographers and filmmakers shooting lots of photos and footage.

Since Lexar’s move from Micron to Longsys, their future has been in doubt. But it looks like they’re finally back and ready to get serious.

Lenovo teases QUAD cameras in its Z5/S5 Pro smartphone

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Just when you already think that three rear cameras in a phone is a bit excessive, Lenovo comes along and teases this. Oh yes, the Z5/S5 Pro will have four cameras. One 2x telephoto, one regular, and two unknowns. Maybe wide-angle, black & white, depth sensor or a telephoto with a longer reach, who knows?

But what we do know is that one of them is a 2x telephoto, and Lenovo has released a few sample photos shot with it. Officially, the phone’s name is the “S5 Pro”, but people are apparently also calling it the Z5 Pro? So, yeah, no idea.

These are the 10 most important Android apps I use for my photography

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I recently received my shiny new ASUS ZenFone 5, which just went on pre-order in the UK today. As an ASUS Brand Ambassador, I can’t exactly review this phone without it being perceived as a little biased (even if I’m being completely objective), so I’m not posting a review. But what I can do is show you how I use it to help me with my photography and the apps I use to do that.

These apps aren’t specific to the ASUS ZenFone 5. They should be available to users of just about any modern Android device. And some are even available for that other mobile platform. To illustrate the features of some of the apps, I went out over the weekend to shoot a video of them in use. If you want to miss my unboxing and get straight to the apps, then skip ahead to about 4:10.

The bezel-free Oppo Find X smartphone has weird popup cameras

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It kinda looks like a phone from a decade ago, except it runs a modern Android operating system with a bezel-less design. And that design does look quite sleek. But what makes me immediately think of flip phones and slide out keyboards is that it has these strange popup cameras. That phone is the Oppo Find X.

You might not have heard of Oppo before, but they’re owned by the same company behind the OnePlus You probably have heard of those guys. Oppo is a big smartphone brand in China, and the Oppo Find X is their new flagship phone. A first for Oppo, though, this phone will be launched globally.

Visual search engine Google Lens will be available on Android soon

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Google Lens is an AI-powered platform that enables you to search using your phone camera in real time. It was only available through Google’s newest Pixel phone when it was launched last year. But today, the tech giant has announced that it will expand to Android phones very soon.

Google finally opens up Visual Core chip for HDR+ to third party apps on the Pixel 2

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Google have now announced the availability of the final Developer Preview of Android 8.1. While the finalised version won’t roll out until December, the new preview features “near-final” system images. The new preview actives the Pixel Visual Core chipset in both the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2XL.

Essentially, this is an 8 core system on chip (SOC) which can run three trillion operations per second. Android Central reports that Google’s HDR+ routines will be five times faster using less than a tenth of the energy over using the standard image processor. This means better dynamic range and reduced noise through computational imaging.

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