Mirrorless and Lensless is the future :)

At Caltech, engineers have developed a new camera design that replaces the lenses with an ultra-thin optical phased array (OPA). The OPA does computationally what lenses do using large pieces of glass: it manipulates incoming light to capture an image.

Nikkei reports that “Ricoh is facing its biggest crisis ever”

Nikkei reports:

Ricoh is staring at huge losses as the market for multifunctional printers, Ricoh’s cash cow, evaporates and its global sales network racks up high costs.

Ricoh will have to go through a cost reduction target of 100 billion yen ($912 million) for the three years through March 2020. And this means job cuts. It’s unclear how this will affect the camera business from Ricoh-Pentax.

Luminar Neptune has a new special artifical intelligence filter

MacPhun announced the new Luminar Neptune software (Click here). The big new feature is an “artificial intelligence” filter which does all the basic changes on your photos for you. You get $10 off if you use the checkout code “MIRROR”.

New feature highlights in Luminar Neptune:

Accent AI filter – Uses artificial intelligence to create stunning images with a single slider movement, tapping into the power of dozens of filters.
Quick & Awesome workspace – A workspace consisting of the Accent AI Filter, Saturation & Vibrance and Clarity filters. Perfect for achieving great results in a fun and easy way within seconds.
Plug-in integration with Creative Kit and Aurora HDR 2017 – Seamlessly access favorite features from Macphun’s other photo editing tools.
Brush, Gradient and Radial Gradient tools – Dramatically faster performance yields smoother selective editing.
Vignette filter – Addition of Vignette Styles, Place Center and Pre- and Post-Crop modes delivers even more flexibility to this popular photo finishing tool.
Memory management – Increased overall performance for large files and 5+ simultaneous open images.
User Interface changes – Extensive improvements to in-app animation and mode transitions make for a more pleasing editing experience.
Crop tool update – Ability to specify custom crop sizes bring the ultimate usefulness to cropping.
Local history – Provision for reviewing separate history while in Transform, Denoise, Clone & Stamp modes helps optimize editing.

Notice of Impact of Inappropriate Accounting & Notice of Revised Consolidated Earnings Forecast for the FY Ended March 2017

Oh no Fuji! The company discovered some “inappropriate accounting” in New Zealand and Australia. Today they released that statement (PDF here)

“[…] in addition to Fuji Xerox New Zealand Limited (“FXNZ”), an overseas sales subsidiary of Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. which is a consolidated subsidiary of FUJIFILM Holdings , Fuji Xerox Australia Pty. Limited, an Australian sales subsidiary of Fuji Xerox, also conducted inappropriate accounting similar to that conducted by FXNZ. As a result, the accumulated impact of the inappropriat e accounting regarding our consolidated subsidiaries on the “net income” on a consolidated basis of the Comp any for the past few years has become a loss of 37.5 billion yen from a loss of approximately 22 billion yen […]. Further, the accumulated impact on the “net income attributable to FUJIFILM Holdings” is a loss of 28.1 billion yen“

“Although sales in areas such as electronic imaging field of the optical device and electronic imaging business have increased, our sales and operating income has decreased due to a decrease in sales in the healthcare business and the document business.

At the same time, as a result of the review of the cross-shareholding, a gain on sales of investment securities has been recorded in non-operating income and expenses so there have been increases in income before income taxes, net income attributable to FUJIFILM Holdings, and net income attributable to FUJIFILM Holdings per share, which has resulted in a record high in the net income attributable to FUJIFILM Holdings.

Further, the impact on the amount in the consolidated earnings for the fiscal year ended March 2017 relating to the accounting problem at overseas sales subsidiaries of Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. […] is minor.”

We don’t know yet if there will be any legal consequences of this “misbehaviour”.

via Fujirumors

New Lydith 30/f3.5 lens form Meyer Optik Görlitz

The German company Meyer Optik Görlitz announced the revival of their Lydith 30/f3.5 lens. You can buy one on Kickstarter:

The new Lydith fulfils all of this criteria. However, in our prototype test shootings, photographers came back and said: Wow, this little art lens outperformed my expectations so much that we had trouble finding words to express how special it performed.

Sharpness? Contrast? Yes, the Lydith is maybe the sharpest and most contrasty lens in our historic art lens portfolio and of course, as a Meyer-Optik lens, it can produce extraordinary bokeh. But in combination with its ability to capture light – it grows to its full potential.

And we have another treat for you: The Lydith has an extremely low minimum focusing distance of 0.16m. So you can get very close to your object, while still displaying a good portion of the surroundings. If you have a lens at a focal length, you might have things in mind you want to shoot with it. But due to the Lydith’s performance, you will try out setups you wouldn’t have shot with any other lens at this range. Come on, join us on the journey where the Lydith takes us.