After a few years of little innovation in the camera market, 2022 has been a year full of exciting new releases and announcements in the digital camera market. Cameras are becoming lighter, faster and most of all: smarter. In this article, we will take you through the ins and outs, must-haves, and must-tries in digital camera technology.
Intelligent auto-focus
Autofocus speed and accuracy have long been among the main factors in camera buying decisions. Modern lenses have extremely wide apertures that result in beautiful out-of-focus background rendering. The downside of such optics is the fact that the area in focus is razor-thin. Only the best autofocus systems on the market are able to keep the subjects completely in focus, which makes the bokeh (out-of-focus background and foreground) ever more beautiful.
Until recently, cameras solely relied on contrast or phase detection technology to find the optimal focus. While this was mostly accurate, this technology isn’t the fastest and isn’t reliable for moving subjects. Once the subject starts moving (or turning their back to the lens) the camera would quickly lose focus.
The latest generation of digital cameras uses AI technology to identify subjects (such as humans, animals, and vehicles) to trace the relevant part of an image (such as an eye in a face). This allows the photographer to continuously shoot without ever loosing the ‘sticky’ auto-focus.
Video recording capabilities
While travelling, you might want to shoot videos as well as still photos. The latest generation of digital cameras excels in shooting both photography and videography. Several years ago, cameras were already able to shoot ‘some’ videos but the quality wasn’t nearly as good as nowadays. The greatest developments in terms of video recording have been in the areas of resolution (now 4k instead of HD), colours (much more like cinema cameras), bit rate (now 10bit colour which is four times as much as the old 8bit standard), and video codecs.
Live streaming
Streaming video live has been a complicated endeavor until just a few years ago. It would require a camera, a video encoder, and a dedicated internet connection, to transfer any video live over the internet. The latest generation of digital cameras is able to live stream HD videos without any additional at all. Simply connect your camera to a mobile phone hotspot and you are ready to go. The camera will automatically encode the video to the required specs and send the stream directly to the video streaming platform of your choice, such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, etc.