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Light bows out of the smartphone camera industry

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It’s been an interesting journey for Light, the company that brought us that crazy 16-lens camera five years ago. It garnered a lot of hype when it was first announced, and once word got out that the company had secured $30mil in funding and the Light L16 camera was going to see a big storage increase, a lot of people got excited. It wasn’t until 2017 that they actually started shipping, but the reception was somewhat cold.

In 2018, it seemed Light was teaming up with a company (which turned out to be Nokia) to make smartphones, and in 2019 they announced partnerships with both Xiaomi and Sony. Now, Light has announced they are “no longer operating in the smartphone industry”. Exactly what this means for Light’s future is unclear.

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Light has announced a new partnership with Xiaomi for future multicamera smartphones

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Well, even though Light’s L16 wasn’t the critically acclaimed success that the hype hoped it would be, it looks like Light’s technology is definitely being taken seriously by the smartphone world. After some heavy investment from Leica, a partnership with Sony, and the new Nokia 9 PureView containing Light tech, Light has now announced a new partnership with Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi.

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Nokia’s rumored five-camera smartphone will be launched this month, reports say

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A few months ago, leaked photos showed that Nokia was working on a five-camera smartphone. The company hasn’t launched any official details yet, but a video recently published by MySmartPrice suggest that Nokia 9 PureView could be launched as early as January 2019.

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Nokia cancels Ozo VR camera, will lay off up to 30% of staff

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It probably won’t come as much of a surprise that Nokia have pulled the plug on their $25,000 Ozo VR camera. At least, not as much as it has come to the up to 310 Nokia employees (30% of their workforce) that are about to be laid off. Nokia blame the “slower-than-expected development of the VR market”, apparently.

Basically, we aren’t buying VR gear fast enough. So, it’s all our fault. Well, what did they expect when they put out a special use niche camera for $25K? Although, to be fair, this is less than half of its initial launch price of $60K. Still a little high, even for the somewhat higher end of the VR market.

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Video Showing How Light Travels In a Digital Camera

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http://youtu.be/ezIZjFt80kQ

Even with digital images existing for over 40 years, the process of light becoming an image inside a box still somewhat magical. This movie takes the Nokia Lumia 1020 and breaks down how light transverses the lens, shutter, hitting the sensor, goes into the imaging processor and finally arriving at the LCD. Some of the early stages if entry also show the different lens elements and the images stabilization mechanism.

While the process of smartphone-photography is not 100% similar to the process on a DSLR, it gives a pretty good idea on the light path while keeping it magical.

[Behind the lens of a 41MP Nokia Lumia 1020 via popphoto]

P.S. If you are a Lumia fan, you can see 50 of them in action here.

Canon and Microsoft Announce Patent Cross-Licensing Agreement: Future Windows Phone Camera Plans Ahead?

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Yesterday, Microsoft and Canon announced a new broad patent cross-licensing agreement, which will essentially grant the two giant companies licenses to each others patent portfolios.

While Microsoft and Canon have been known to partner up in the past, this time around the situation looks pretty different. There’s a number of reasons this agreement took place, and the top possibilities revolve around the mobile industry. Microsoft and Canon may not have disclosed the terms of the agreement, but they did mention that “certain digital imaging and mobile consumer products have been included in the agreement.”

With Microsoft’s recent business ventures with Nokia, the patent agreement may very well be the beginning of an involvement by Canon in Nokia’s Windows Phone line. With how heavily focused the mobile company is on its smartphone cameras in the Lumia line, Canon would be a great company to get support from.

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See The Streets of New York, Captured Through an Arc of Fifty Lumia 1020 Smartphones

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For a while now, Nokia’s had a bit of a rough time breaking through again into the US Pokédex market; with such a solid and well-built UI, it’s a shame that the developer support for Windows Phone isn’t what it could be at this point. But if we know one thing for sure, it’s that the market is definitely growing. With Microsoft’s new CEO and the success of the Lumia line only growing, it seems Nokia’s starting to find its way in marketing. With how advanced the Lumia line has been in terms of photography, you can say the company’s definitely found its niche when it comes to advertising. Take this newly released video, for example. With 50 cameras phones put together side-by-side in the form of an arc, the crew behind the advertisement capture the streets of New York in a way you probably haven’t envisioned before.

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The Sony Xperia Z2 Now Has the Highest Rated Mobile Camera on the Market

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A few months ago, Sony unveiled its new flagship smartphone: the Xperia Z2, which is still awaiting its release. One of the taglines for the phone called the Z2’s gear “the world’s best smartphone camera”. And it seems like the company may not be exaggerating at all. The phone just scored a 79 out of 100 on the DxOMark Mobile Scale, which puts it above Nokia’s 41 Megapixel 808 PureView as the highest rated smartphone camera out there.

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