Dickies, the Fort Worth-based workwear retailer, will soon shoot all of its product photography in its hometown.
The company will work with Backlot Studio at 305 S. Main St.
“We are excited for our partnership with Backlot to take flight in the New Year,” said Dickies’ global creative director, Matt Lambert, in a release. “Fort Worth is home to a diverse community of makers committed to making their mark and it was important to us that we tap authentic, local talent to help bring our brand vision to life.”
Backlot is a 4,000-square-foot combined studio and workspace for creatives to work and collaborate.
Dickies product photography will take over the building’s second floor where Backlot will house samples of Dickies clothing collection. Backlot’s team will photograph products with upgraded LED studio lighting and camera gear.
“At Backlot, we’re striving to make Fort Worth a beacon for the creative class,” founder Red Sanders said in a release. “Bringing Dickies’ product photography home to Fort Worth is a huge step in our mission. This project is a testimony of both the promising future for the Backlot community and the creative community of Fort Worth as a whole.
Dickies has been in Fort Worth since its 1922 founding and is the world’s No. 1 work apparel manufacturer.
Throughout its 100-year history in Fort Worth, Dickies has operated out of 509 W. Vickery Blvd. and the historic schoolhouse at 319 Lipscomb St. In January, the Star-Telegram reported that Dickies plans to move its global headquarters into downtown Fort Worth in mid-2023. The offices will occupy 75,000 square feet of the top floor of a six-story building that’s next to The Tower.
Williamson-Dickie, a family-owned company, was acquired in 2017 by North Carolina-based apparel manufacturer VF Corp., which also owns the brands Vans, North Face and Timberland. VF paid $820 million in cash for the company.
“We have been part of this community since the infancy of the brand, and this move will allow us to collaborate more freely, build deeper relationships with makers in our own backyard, and access top talent as we continue to grow,” Dickies’ global brand president Lance Mueller said in January. “We’re proud to call Fort Worth home and can’t wait for this new chapter to unfold.”
Backlot Studio opened in 2019 as a meeting place for Fort Worth’s diverse creative community. The cowering space offers long-term memberships and short-term rentals.
John Fielder is a brand-name photographer who is donating his life’s work to History Colorado. The 5,500 photos document 28 mountain ranges, 44 federal wilderness areas and 11 national forests, in addition to other landscapes, parks, ranches and trails in each of Colorado’s 64 counties. John Fielder/Courtesy photo
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct where John Fielder lives.
Brand-name Colorado nature photographer John Fielder will donate thousands of his photos, collected over 40 years of outdoor travels, to History Colorado.
The 5,500 photos — edited down from more than 150,000 negatives and digital scans — will be archived at the state’s official historical society and placed into the public domain, with a small licensing fee for commercial use.
“I reached out to History Colorado because I had started this process about three years ago with another institution, and it didn’t work out. So when I asked (executive director) Dawn DiPrince if she wanted my life’s work, History Colorado was highly motivated to get it,” Fielder told The Denver Post. “After she said yes, I was able the next day to deliver 5,500 scans and digital images to them, and then it was just a matter of the contract and working out details.”
The remarkably fast, three-week turnaround from proposal to signed contract with History Colorado is a result of Fielder’s eight months of preparation last year. He pored over 50,000 digital photos, which he started shooting in 2009 when high-resolution digital cameras finally matched his standards, and another 75,000 physical images.
The photographs document 28 mountain ranges, 44 federal wilderness areas and 11 national forests, in addition to other landscapes, parks, ranches and trails in each of Colorado’s 64 counties.
February’s full moon rises this weekend, and you can watch it shine brightly in the sky without having to brave winter’s frigid evening temperatures.
This Sunday (Feb. 5), the Full Snow Moon will rise at 1:28 p.m. (1828 GMT). By the time the skies darken, the moon will be joined by a few special guests: Mars and Jupiter will be positioned well for early-evening viewing, and early birds who get out to gaze upon the full moon just after dark can catch a glimpse of Venus before it sets around 7:24 p.m. EST (0024 GMT on Feb. 6) as seen from New York City.
For those skywatchers who are unable to get out to see the moon, the Virtual Telescope Project is hosting a free online livestream of February’s Full Snow Moon. The livestream begins Sunday (Feb. 5) at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) and can be viewed courtesy of the project’s website (opens in new tab) or YouTube channel (opens in new tab).
Related: Full moon calendar 2023: When to see the next full moon
February’s Full Snow Moon gets its name from the fact that, for many parts of the Northern Hemisphere, February is the month with the heaviest snowfall. However, other cultures and locations have their own names for the full moon for each month. The indigenous Tlingit people of the Pacific Northwest, for example, call February’s full moon “S’eek Dís (opens in new tab),” or “Black Bear Moon,” while the Ojibwe (or Anishinaabe) peoples likewise refer to it as the Bear Moon, or Mikwa Giizis. The Cree, meanwhile, call it the Great Moon.
In the Southern Hemisphere, where February is a summer month, the Māori of New Zealand refer to the month as Hui-tanguru, or “the foot of Ruhi now rests upon the Earth,” in reference to the star Ruhi found in the Scorpio constellation.
If you’re interested in taking photographs of the full Snow Moon, check out our helpful how to photograph the moon guide for the best lunar photography tips and tricks. We also have guides to the best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography if you need to gear up for this or other celestial events.
Editor’s Note: If you catch a great photo of the Full Snow Moon and would like to share it with Space.com’s readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to [email protected].
Follow Brett on Twitter at @bretttingley (opens in new tab). Follow us @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab), or on Facebook (opens in new tab) and Instagram (opens in new tab).
The vivo X90 Pro has been announced and marks the fourth collaboration between vivo and premium optic manufacturer ZEISS. While the previous vivo X camera phones have excelled in imaging quality, this latest release looks to raise the bar with a huge 1-inch sensor.
Straight off the block, vivo is pitching this new phone as enabling Pro Photography in Pocket, a bold claim that seems to be backed up by the latest technology and features the company has packed inside.
Specification
Rear Camera One: 50MP IMX989 (1-inch) (OIS, f/1.75)
Rear Camera Two: 50MP Portrait (f/1.6, IMX758)
Rear Camera Three: 12MP Wide-Angle (f/2.0, IMX663)
Front Camera: 32MP Main
Stabiliser: Autonomous and independent OIS Technology
Lens: ZEISS Optics with T* Coating
Processor: vivo V2 chip
Photography modes: 4K Ultra-Sensing Night Video, 4K HDR Night Video, Handheld Auto. ZEISS Cine-flare Portrait, Night Sports Mode, ZEISS Miniature Effect, Zero-Shutter-Lag Motion Snapshot, Super Moon.
Dimensions: 164.07 x 74.53 x 9.34mm
Weight: 214.85g
vivo is pitching the new camera with four big selling points; professional imaging, Ultimate design (It does look good), flagship performance (It’s their best phone) and smooth Experiences, that’s to do with the experience of using the camera/phone and the updates to the OS.
So, backing up the bit that we’re interested, imaging, inside the vivo X90 is a 1-inch ZEISS main camera, an IMX758 Large sensor for the portrait camera, a high-transmittance Glass lens and the vivo V2 Chip.
The cooperation with ZEISS is a powerful partnership and was first announced in December 2020. This partnership includes the T* Coating certification compliance in the hardware and lens effect simulation in software.
The X90 Pro is the fourth generation phone in the line and pushes the boundaries of what the collaboration has produced before and builds on the experience gained over the past three years.
In this iteration, the large 1-inch IMX989 sensor is the big selling point which to date is the industry’s largest imaging sensor used in a smartphone. Not only is it the largest imaging smartphone sensor, but it offers an f/1.75 aperture and 3.2 μm large pixel, which helps to increase the amount of light intake per pixel and enables brighter low light and night shots. This is a big boost over the previous GNV sensor in the previous generation and increases the photosensitivity by 43%.
Alongside the low light 1-inch sensor is the Portrait camera features an IMX758 50MP portrait sensor with f/1.6 aperture and OIS technology. This enables stunning bokeh and better HD algorithms for better portrait shots.
The main camera is where the ZEISS magic happens and is certified compliance to ZEISS T* Coating to enable light transmission, reduce lens flares and ghosting and features high transmittance glass lens as well as seven enhanced lenses.
The f/1.75 large aperture on the camera can offer better light collection, which helps with picture brightness and much-improved picture quality.
Powering the new phone is the vivo V2 chip with major enhancements over the previous generation that are all specially tuned to enhance image quality.
A new AI noise reduction algorithm helps to boost the quality and resolution of images shot in low light. HDR has also been a major consideration, and the V2 chip sees an upgrade in the HDR potential with an algorithm that helps to optimise tone while retaining natural tone from the highlights through to the shadows. The display has also been enhanced and now supports framerates of up to 120fps for smoother playback.
As with all smartphones with high-end imaging potential, vivo has added professional imaging features such as the 4K Ultra-Sensing Night Videoo, 4K HDR Night Video, Handheld Astro, Super Moon and AI Night View, all designed to make the most of the large sensor and low light potential.
The new ZEISS Creative Portrait camera offers ZEISS Cine-flare Portrait, Nautical Blue Portrait, ZEISS Style Portrait in Front Camera, and ZEISS Cinematic Video Bokeh.
Big ZEISS features continue alongside vivo’s image development with various other diverse creation experiences. Zer-shutter-lag motion snapshot, Night Sports Mode, AI Perception Engine 2.0, ZEISS Miniature Effect and Photo Frame with ZEISS Logo are all interesting additions.
For the pros, these next two features will stand out; ZEISS Natural Color 2.0 and ZEISS Natural Color Display. These two features combine to enable you to capture the scene before you with as true-to-life tone and colour as possible. Not only that, but the quality of the display means that you can preview your images as you would expect to see them without overly enhanced tone and colour.
The Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition showcases beautiful pictures of rare and remarkable creatures. To create these images, dedicated experts crawled through leech-infested swamps, sailed through ice-strewn seas and crouched for hours in cramped hides.
Coming home, I had just one thought: not bad for a bunch of professionals, but this lot would never make it as amateurs.
I know what I am talking about. I have been taking substandard nature photographs for decades. Some have even merited an exhibition of their own. We had to put something on the walls of our downstairs loo.
In my view, none of the contributors to the show at London’s Natural History Museum has grasped the basic principles of bad nature photography.
In this endeavour, the canonic image reduces the animal to a small, blurred blob in one corner of the frame. Ideally, it should be fleeing the snapper as he or she crashes through the undergrowth or roars up in a Jeep.
“Here are some more impala behinds,” I told friends proudly, showing them my safari photos.
“Is that a hairy caterpillar?” one of them asked, peering at another snap.
“No,” I said. “That is a rhinoceros. It was a long way off.”
I inherited my hobby from my father. He was a titan in the field. One evening every year he would produce racks of slides and corral the family together. Sitting in the dark, stupefied with boredom and lulled by the whirring of the projector, I would drift in and out of consciousness.
Some of my photos have even merited an exhibition of their own. We had to put something on the walls of our downstairs loo
“I think this might be one of a crossbill,” he would say.
“Isn’t it just a bit of fluff on the slide?” my mother would ask, brightly.
“No!” he would snap, blowing on the equipment. Miraculously, the crossbill would take flight.
Bad nature photography was easier then. Analogue equipment limited the number of shots you could take. Little of the process was automated. Long lenses were expensive.
Digital cameras do the bulk of the decision making these days. It costs nothing to junk shots that flop. Tolerable telephoto lenses retail for under £1,000. You can take decent landscapes and wildlife shots with a smartphone, too.
The democratisation of nature photography is welcome. You do not have to schlep to Tanzania or South Georgia to get pleasing results. A sharp picture of a garden blue tit is a thing of wonder. Just do not expect relatives to say so.
“It’s your children I feel sorry for,” my father-in-law observed sombrely, after I had shown him 43 snaps of identical godwits. “Think how many photos they’ll have to throw away when you die.”
I am fine with that. But I do fret over the beauty standards created by photo-editing software. This is causing a whole new genre of bad nature photos. It turns photography into digital painting by numbers. Taking pictures in the open air becomes a starting point, rather than an end in itself.
The naffest products of this technology are super-sharp, supersaturated landscapes. These crop up on the walls of some budget hotels and as starting screens on digital devices. Industrious photographers have stitched together multiple images and tweaked them into the fantasy of the rugged outdoors. This world is bathed in permanent sunshine, except at night. Then, constellations wheel overhead in perfect detail, at the same intensity as the street lights of a distant village.
Tweaked wildlife photos are equally common. I’m not referring here to obvious fakes like the “Norwegian blue owl” which did the rounds on social media recently. Instead, I’m referring to real animals that have been idealised. Typically, the animal is perfectly lit. It is looking directly out of the frame, as if making conscious eye contact with the viewer.
Nature is rarely like this, particularly during the British winter. Right now, the countryside is generally a study in low-contrast browns, greens and greys. Birds feature as hunched balls of feathers. Food is scarce. Animals are not at their best.
This was borne home to me by a trip to a seal haul-out on Tyneside. Scrutinising my photographs of a bull seal later, I noticed that moulting had given him a comical, moth-eaten tonsure. He had a long string of mucus dangling from one nostril.
He looked cold, hungry and fed up. The summer mackerel shoals and the mating season were a long way off. I hovered the cursor over the “match and patch” function. Then paused.
My feeling is that editing software is best used as an adjunct to taking photographs. It is not the main event. Clever tweakery must have gone into some of the images at the Natural History Museum. But not every cactus bee in Karine Aigner’s contest-winning shot of a spherical breeding cluster was in perfect focus.
Jose Fragozo’s outstanding picture “The Disappearing Giraffe” showed just the hindquarters of an animal galloping under a new elevated railway in Kenya. It said more about wildlife in the Anthropocene than any standard safari shot: space for nature is decreasing fast.
I would have automatically deleted this photo because the animal’s head is hidden. It is a matter of cliché that art is more about seeing than doing.
Next time a visitor goes to use our downstairs loo, I will tell them: “While you’re in there, look out for my photo ‘Disgruntled Seal with a Head Cold’. It really is one of my finest efforts.”
Jonathan Guthrie is head of Lex
Find out about our latest stories first — follow @FTProperty on Twitter or @ft_houseandhome on Instagram
Putting aside the 200-megapixel main camera for a moment, at first glance there’s not a huge amount of camera upgrades for the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.
It sports pretty much the same rear camera setup as its predecessor, the Galaxy S22 Ultra, which held a high spot on our best camera phones list. And given that the older phone takes great smartphone photos, it’s no surprise Samsung hasn’t messed with the formula too much.
But dig a little deeper and you’ll find that there are some solid camera upgrades, be it in hardware terms of some improvement on the software side and Samsung’s computational photography chops. So read on for 7 of the biggest Galaxy S23 Ultra camera upgrades.
8K at 30fps, 4K at 60fps, 1080p at 240fps, 720p at 960fps
A 200MP main camera
(Image credit: Future)
OK, let’s start with the biggest and most obvious upgrade: the 200MP main camera. That’s a jump up from the 108MP camera on the Galaxy S22 Ultra and now means the Galaxy S23 Ultra can capture more detailed and higher-resolution photos. And that also means more scope for editing and less of a loss in clarity when you crop into an image.
Unless you’re using a pro mode, the Galaxy S23 Ultra will deliver 50MP images by default, using a pixel binning process. But these will be higher resolution images than the 12MP shots provided as standard by the S22 Ultra. And with more details, and thus more information captured initially, the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s main camera should deliver crisper and clearer shots out of the box. Of course, we’ll need to test this for ourselves.
Improved low-light photography
(Image credit: Samsung via YouTube)
Samsung has improved the low-light and night photography shooting for the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Thanks to the new 200MP Adaptive Pixel sensor, the main camera can now combine 16 pixels into one larger one to improve the amount of light that the camera captures, to make for brighter and more detailed low-light photos.
By doubling the optical image stabilization (OIS) angles in all directions, the Galaxy S23 Ultra can take better low-light videos with less noise; this boost in OIS also helps in daylight in situations where blur can be a factor, like traversing rough ground. Multi-frame processing during low-light conditions also helps remove noise from videos.
And around the front, there’s a new night portrait mode for the selfie camera, which delivers an enhanced bokeh effect at night.
Better Astrophotography mode
(Image credit: Samsung via YouTube)
Improvements to low-light photography also benefit the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s Astrophotography mode, which is now in the phone’s camera app by default rather than just being a feature of the ExpertRAW app.
Thanks to the improvements in main camera resolution and OIS, as well as image processing, Samsung says you can capture shots of the Milky Way and the movements of the stars — when used in an Astro Hyperlapse mode — with no specialist equipment; we do suspect you’d need a tripod unless you have extraordinary steady hands and a lot of patience.
ExpertRAW gets Lightroom editing powers
(Image credit: Samsung via YouTube)
With the ability to snap high-resolution photos on the 200MP camera comes the scope for more editing. And rather neatly, Samsung’s ExpertRAW app on the Galaxy S23 range now has Lightroom baked in.
That means you’ll be able to snap 200MP RAW photos on the Galaxy S23 Ultra with all the extra controls enabled by the ExpertRAW app (which is a free download but has a lot of its features now in the Galaxy S23 camera app, like the ability to capture multiple exposures), and edit that image in Adobe’s Lightroom by default. This should make editing images into the photo you want a more seamless and powerful experience.
New selfie camera
(Image credit: Future)
Around the front of the Galaxy S23 Ultra you’ll find a 12MP selfie camera. At first, this would seem like a downgrade from the S22 Ultra’s 40MP one. But the camera uses Super HDR (also available on the rear cameras), which should deliver brighter and more colorful selfie snaps, as well as video up to 4K at 60 frames per second; that’s up from 30 fps on the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
Combined with an object-based AI that analyzes each detail in the frame, even down to minute facial features such as hair, eyes, and skin tone, Samsung says the camera should capture photos that are more “true to you.”
Boosted video
(Image credit: Samsung via YouTube)
The image stabilization upgrades and Super HDR should make the Galaxy S23 Ultra a rather good video recording device.
But the standout feature is the ability to capture 8K video at 30 fps, the latter some consider to be the best frame rate for video. But by making use of a wider camera angle and bigger pixel size, Samsung reckons the videos the Galaxy S23 Ultra will capture will be more cinematic than before.
It might be overkill for some, given 8K is hardly a widespread standard in TVs. But 8K at 30 fps is an added extra over the Galaxy S22 Ultra, which was limited to 8K at 24 fps and only in the 16:9 aspect ratio (not that you’d likely want very high-resolution videos at a different ratio). But 4K at 60 fps with Super HDR could be the sweet spot to deliver more colorful and dynamic videos than the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
360-degree audio recording in videos
(Image credit: Future)
For people looking at making cinematic or more immersive videos, the Galaxy S23 Ultra can be used with the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro to capture 360-degree audio by using the earbuds’ microphones as well as those on the phone.
As 360 Audio Recording was a feature introduced with the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, you’ll need to use these earbuds specifically. But it’s a smart example of Samsung better tying together its whole Galaxy product ecosystem. And it could result in some impressive directional audio in videos that the likes of the iPhone 14 Pro Max can’t match.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera upgrades outlook
(Image credit: Future)
These camera upgrades all look good on paper, but we’d need to test them out ourselves before rendering any in-depth judgments. So be sure to check back for our full Galaxy S23 Ultra review.
But given the Galaxy S22 Ultra put in some impressive photography and video results, we’d be quietly confident that the Galaxy S23 Ultra will build upon it, likely seeing the flagship phone enter the upper echelons of our best phones list, especially if the 200MP camera really delivers the photography goods.
Here are the 25 adorable curvy pregnant animals looking almost ready to pop. During pregnancy, female animals undergo a series of physiological and behavioral changes to prepare for and support the growth and development of their offspring. Some common examples of pregnant animals include cats, dogs, horses, cows, sheep, pigs, and primates. The duration of pregnancy varies depending on the species, ranging from just a few weeks in small mammals to over a year in elephants.
Here in this gallery you can find 25 adorable curvy pregnant animals. All photos are linked and lead to the sources from which they were taken. Please feel free to explore further works of these photographers on their collections or their personal sites.
Anna Faris just dropped a behind-the-scenes photo from her upcoming Super Bowl ad cameo.
In the photo, the actress showed off her super-toned body, going totally nude to promote Avocados from Mexico.
As a busy mom, Anna opts for walks and hikes instead of a strict gym schedule.
The Super Bowl is approaching, and Anna Faris just gave us all another reason to tune in to watch.
The TheHouse Bunny actress just shared that she’s posing nude for the brand Avocados from Mexico in an ad that will air during the big game. She posted a BTS photo from the shoot, and one thing is clear: Anna is really toned, from her head to her toes.
“Here’s some tasty news: I ‘m finally making my Big Game debut with @AvocadosFromMexico!” Anna captioned the photo of herself snacking on some burgers. In the pic, Anna’s long blonde hair cascades over her shoulders as she smiles and laughs with her costar. It’s definitely fun to see Anna having fun out there, and looking super strong while doing so.
The pic was a popular one, with friends and fans leaving all sorts of positive comments. “Love her. Totally here for it,” wrote one person. Another added, “Holy guacamole….” Clever!
While Anna doesn’t share too much about her wellness routine nowadays, she has shared some of her best practices in the past. In 2017, she told Women’s Health she loves to hike.
“I grew up in Washington, and my dad took us hiking in the mountains every weekend. I had a passion for it early on. We weren’t allowed to bring friends, and I ‘m really grateful for that time because it forced me to have conversations with my parents and appreciate nature. I hope to instill that in my son,” she shared in the interview.
And because she’s a super busy mom, Anna keeps her workout schedule flexible, and instead focuses on getting in daily movement. “I love to walk and hike,” she told Prevention. “I don’t want to portray myself as someone that’s like ‘I hit the gym every day at 5:30’ cause it’s not like that and I definitely don’t!”
Whatever Anna is doing, it is clearly working. Can’t wait to see this ad on Super Bowl Sunday!
Try 200+ at home workout videos from Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Prevention, and more on All Out Studio free for 14 days!
Putting aside the 200-megapixel main camera for a moment, at first glance there’s not a huge amount of camera upgrades for the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.
It sports pretty much the same rear camera setup as its predecessor, the Galaxy S22 Ultra, which held a high spot on our best camera phones list. And given that the older phone takes great smartphone photos, it’s no surprise Samsung hasn’t messed with the formula too much.
But dig a little deeper and you’ll find that there are some solid camera upgrades, be it in hardware terms of some improvement on the software side and Samsung’s computational photography chops. So read on for 7 of the biggest Galaxy S23 Ultra camera upgrades.
A 200MP main camera
(Image credit: Future)
OK, let’s start with the biggest and most obvious upgrade: the 200MP main camera. That’s a jump up from the 108MP camera on the Galaxy S22 Ultra and now means the Galaxy S23 Ultra can capture more detailed and higher-resolution photos. And that also means more scope for editing and less of a loss in clarity when you crop into an image.
Unless you’re using a pro mode, the Galaxy S23 Ultra will deliver 50MP images by default, using a pixel binning process. But these will be higher resolution images than the 12MP shots provided as standard by the S22 Ultra. And with more details, and thus more information captured initially, the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s main camera should deliver crisper and clearer shots out of the box. Of course, we’ll need to test this for ourselves.
Improved low-light photography
(Image credit: Samsung via YouTube)
Samsung has improved the low-light and night photography shooting for the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Thanks to the new 200MP Adaptive Pixel sensor, the main camera can now combine 16 pixels into one larger one to improve the amount of light that the camera captures, to make for brighter and more detailed low-light photos.
By doubling the optical image stabilization (OIS) angles in all directions, the Galaxy S23 Ultra can take better low-light videos with less noise; this boost in OIS also helps in daylight in situations where blur can be a factor, like traversing rough ground. Multi-frame processing during low-light conditions also helps remove noise from videos.
And around the front, there’s a new night portrait mode for the selfie camera, which delivers an enhanced bokeh effect at night.
Better Astrophotography mode
(Image credit: Samsung via YouTube)
Improvements to low-light photography also benefit the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s Astrophotography mode, which is now in the phone’s camera app by default rather than just being a feature of the ExpertRAW app.
Thanks to the improvements in main camera resolution and OIS, as well as image processing, Samsung says you can capture shots of the Milky Way and the movements of the stars — when used in an Astro Hyperlapse mode — with no specialist equipment; we do suspect you’d need a tripod unless you have extraordinary steady hands and a lot of patience.
ExpertRAW gets Lightroom editing powers
(Image credit: Samsung via YouTube)
With the ability to snap high-resolution photos on the 200MP camera comes the scope for more editing. And rather neatly, Samsung’s ExpertRAW app on the Galaxy S23 range now has Lightroom baked in.
That means you’ll be able to snap 200MP RAW photos on the Galaxy S23 Ultra with all the extra controls enabled by the ExpertRAW app (which is a free download but has a lot of its features now in the Galaxy S23 camera app, like the ability to capture multiple exposures), and edit that image in Adobe’s Lightroom by default. This should make editing images into the photo you want a more seamless and powerful experience.
New selfie camera
(Image credit: Future)
Around the front of the Galaxy S23 Ultra you’ll find a 12MP selfie camera. At first, this would seem like a downgrade from the S22 Ultra’s 40MP one. But the camera uses Super HDR (also available on the rear cameras), which should deliver brighter and more colorful selfie snaps, as well as video up to 4K at 60 frames per second; that’s up from 30 fps on the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
Combined with an object-based AI that analyzes each detail in the frame, even down to minute facial features such as hair, eyes, and skin tone, Samsung says the camera should capture photos that are more “true to you.”
Boosted video
(Image credit: Samsung via YouTube)
The image stabilization upgrades and Super HDR should make the Galaxy S23 Ultra a rather good video recording device.
But the standout feature is the ability to capture 8K video at 30 fps, the latter some consider to be the best frame rate for video. But by making use of a wider camera angle and bigger pixel size, Samsung reckons the videos the Galaxy S23 Ultra will capture will be more cinematic than before.
It might be overkill for some, given 8K is hardly a widespread standard in TVs. But 8K at 30 fps is an added extra over the Galaxy S22 Ultra, which was limited to 8K at 24 fps and only in the 16:9 aspect ratio (not that you’d likely want very high-resolution videos at a different ratio). But 4K at 60 fps with Super HDR could be the sweet spot to deliver more colorful and dynamic videos than the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
360-degree audio recording in videos
(Image credit: Future)
For people looking at making cinematic or more immersive videos, the Galaxy S23 Ultra can be used with the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro to capture 360-degree audio by using the earbuds’ microphones as well as those on the phone.
As 360 Audio Recording was a feature introduced with the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, you’ll need to use these earbuds specifically. But it’s a smart example of Samsung better tying together its whole Galaxy product ecosystem. And it could result in some impressive directional audio in videos that the likes of the iPhone 14 Pro Max can’t match.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera upgrades outlook
(Image credit: Future)
These camera upgrades all look good on paper, but we’d need to test them out ourselves before rendering any in-depth judgments. So be sure to check back for our full Galaxy S23 Ultra review.
But given the Galaxy S22 Ultra put in some impressive photography and video results, we’d be quietly confident that the Galaxy S23 Ultra will build upon it, likely seeing the flagship phone enter the upper echelons of our best phones list, especially if the 200MP camera really delivers the photography goods.
Scouted selects products independently. If you purchase something from our posts, we may earn a small commission.
In a world of Kindles, tangible books will forever have a place in my heart. Images of art and photography are just not done justice on a screen, thanks to the limited display capacity compared to print. Top-quality art and photography coffee table books are a wonderful way to display your interests in your home, but they can often be pricey. So, it’s an exciting time when one of the world’s leading publishers has a really big sale. Taschen has stores in international cities such as New York, Paris, and Hong Kong, but you don’t have to visit one in person to score a sweet deal on a luxury book. Whether looking for gifts, adding to a library collection, or something to leave on your coffee table, the selections of Taschen books now on sale are outrageously beautiful and historic–but don’t snooze since the sale is only live for a few days until February 5.
Aside from historic artists such as Hieronymus Bosch and Frida Kahlo, you’ll find premium books featuring popular culture topics like Star Wars and David Bowie. Topics from dogs to surfing are available in smaller formats as well. There’s plenty for photography and architecture enthusiasts, including the late Beijing photog Ren Hang. The books come in a variety of sizes, from pocket to XXL, and have expert commentaries and biographies accompanying the images. Some are as little as $8; scroll through to see a few of our top picks.
Frida Kahlo, The Complete PaintingsRegularly $200
“Frida Kahlo transcended art history like no woman artist before her. She was a key figure of Mexican revolutionary modern art and a pioneer of the politics of gender, sexuality, and feminism. This XXL monograph combines all of Kahlo’s 152 paintings with rare photos, diary pages, letters, and an illustrated biography.”
Buy Frida Kahlo, The Complete Paintings at Taschen, $120
Marilyn Monroe, Norman Mailer, Bert Stern Regularly $100
“Bert Stern’s “Last Sitting” photos of Marilyn Monroe – taken just weeks before her death – merge with Norman Mailer’s controversial 1973 biography of Monroe into this intimate portrait of an enigmatic woman – a global celebrity with a tragic end. With their work combined in one book, Mailer and Stern lift the veil on a film icon.”
Buy Marilyn Monroe, Norman Mailer, Bert Stern at Taschen, $60
Dalí, The PaintingsDown from $60
“The most complete study of Salvador Dalí’s painted works yet. After years of research, Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret located previously inaccessible works that epitomize Dalí’s depictions of the subconscious and its strange workings. Complete with updated captions, this opulent edition contextualizes Dalí’s paintings with his own writings, drawings, and archival material.”
Buy Dalí, The Paintings at Taschen, $40
Witchcraft, The Library of EsotericaDown from $40
“A spellbinding journey through the global history of witchcraft, the third volume in The Library of Esoterica follows this magickal tradition from its ancient roots to its modern incarnations. Through more than 400 artworks, and revelatory essays and interviews with modern practitioners, Witchcraft chronicles a cathartic evolution, from the craft’s emergence in ancient goddess worship to the embrace by today’s diverse witch community.”
Buy Witchcraft, The Library of Esoterica at Taschen, $25
Ultimate Collector CarsDown from $250
“This double volume is the ultimate collector car anthology, featuring 100 of the most remarkable and desirable cars of all time, from the landmark 1903 Mercedes-Simplex 40 hp to the radical 2020 McLaren Speedtail. Each model is presented in stunning imagery by the world’s leading car photographers.”
Buy Ultimate Collector Cars at Taschen, $150
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