For a limited time you get the Lexar 320GB Type A card for the lowest price ever at Amazon US (Click here).

More limited time deals:

• V90 fast 256GB SD card from Lexar is now available for $197 only at Amazon US.
• $70 off on the Samyang 12mm f/2.0 APS-C E lens at Amazon US
• Lowest price ever on the Lexar 2 TB portable SSD storage drive at Amazon US.

REMINDER: This is a deal you cannot miss: Tamron 28-75mm III lens for $699 only at Amazon US (Click here). This is the lowest price ever on an excellent and much beloved kit lens!

Chris from ThePhoBlographer reports about a short discussion with Sony he had on one of the past Kando trips:

Engineers asked me about the RX1R and what I’d want to see in a camera like that.

This was Chris answer:

• The camera would need a new lens because Sony and Zeiss don’t work so closely together anymore
• It would need a new battery to keep up with Sony’s current processors and sensors
• The camera definitely would need weather resistance that’s as good as the A1 and A9 III
• It would also need things that completely separate it from the other cameras in the lineup that make it unique.

He also said:

I hope that Sony looks at the market and realizes that they’d need to make something unique.

In my dreams the Sony RX1rIII should have those unique features:

• B&W switch like on the Nikon ZF
• Kodak filmstyles. I know this is NOT going to happen :)
• Curved sensor

What’s on your wishlist?

Just recentlz I told zou that Topaz has completely redone the website for their AI software. Chekc out the new pages at Photo Ai, Video AI, GigaPixel AI. And now we got updates:

Photo Ai Full changelog since version 3.0.0:

• Multiple exporting and batch optimizations, improving performance and significantly reducing memory usage with large batches of images
• Fixed an issue where external editors did not work with RAW or DNG files
• Fixed an issue where flipping the aspect ratio shrunk the selection in the crop tool
• Added a camera profile for the Sony ILCE-9M3
• Fixed an issue where the feathering slider did not appear
• Removed old carousel images to reduce application size
• Updated multiple components, tooltips, and icons to match Wonder UI
• Fixed typos, sentence casing and icons in multiple locations
• Automatic Lensfun update

GigaPixel AI Full changelog for version 7.1.2:

• Gigapixel’s EULA 14 was updated for commercial usage
• Add camera profile for the Sony ILCE-9M3
• Updated components and icons to bring them in-line with Wonder UI
• Disabled zoom shortcuts when the Recovery mode is active
• Disabled the tooltip for comparison in recovery
• Fixed an issue with Photoshop sometimes returning 1 for the PPI
• Fixed an issue with some TGA files not being able to open due to mismatching format
• Fixed an issue where clicking preview caused re-rendering
• Fixed an issue with scale resetting after rotation in crop
• Fixed an issue where certain DNGs would cause the app to crash
• Fixed an issue where deselected faces were not showing
• Fixed an issue with status sticking while blending faces in Face Recovery
• Fixed an issue that caused the cache to exceed normal memory usage limits
• Fixed an issue where flipping the aspect ratio in the crop tool shrunk the selection
• Fixed an issue where no scale was selected on custom width and height
• Fixed an issue with the plugin not closing if no images are loaded
• Fixed an output size misalignment issue in the open file view
• Fixed zoom levels being reversed in recovery for small images
• Fixed multiple text and icon misalignment issues
• Fixed some dialogs overlapping the title bar on windows

Just recently Sony officially discontinued the RX1rII. And now they have no camera that can compete against the hot selling Leica Q3 and Fujifilm X100VI. And it looks like the first company that could enter the booming market is Panasonic. They are rumored to announce a new fixed lens Full Frame camera this month!

Hopefully Sony will hurry up and undertsand they have to make a new compact FF too!

Ther German company released the new Excire Foto 2024 update (Click here to get it).

Press text:

Excire Foto 2024 Update Adds Timesaving Features and Improved Search Functionality
PRC’s Revolutionary Photo-Organizing Software Receives Major Enhancements in Free April 2024 Update

Lübeck, Germany – April 23rd, 2024 – PRC, the AI company behind the award-winning Excire software, has today unveiled a major update to its flagship program, Excire Foto 2024.
Known for its futuristic image-management tools – including a prompt-search AI that allows users to instantly retrieve images by inputting text descriptions and an X-tetics AI that intelligently rates each image based on its aesthetic qualities – Excire Foto 2024 has propelled photographers into a new era of image organization. Now, thanks to enhancements included in the April 2024 update, Excire makes it easier than ever to find, cull, and catalog images so photographers can spend less time behind the computer and more time on their craft.

Improvements to Excire Foto 2024 include:

• New filters to sort and locate images more effectively (including an option to identify files that have not yet been analyzed by the program)
• Refinements to the Find by Keyword search selectors; users can now apply OR and NOT operations for increased precision when searching
• Extension of the text-search feature to selectable metadata so users can locate images from the file path, file description, file headline, and more
• Additional keywording features, including the option to select, copy, and paste a subset of keywords; drag-and-drop functionality when assigning keywords to photos; and automatic copying of keywords to the clipboard when performing keyword copy-paste operations
• Significant enhancements for a more streamlined duplicate-search workflow, including a duplicate statistics dialog with intuitive flagging functionality; the option to exclude photo sequences from the AI-powered Find Duplicates search; and the option to select the first photo of each duplicate-search-result cluster to save time when cleaning up folders

Smaller upgrades include:

• The option to change the loading behavior for lens model metadata
• An “Invert selection” menu option
• Keyword tree multiselection
• A “Manage profiles” option in the “Renaming Profiles” dialog
• Minor bug fixes, design changes, and improvements

Importantly, the update resets the 14-day trial period. Photographers who previously tested – but did not purchase – Excire Foto 2024 can once again download a 14-day trial of the program and evaluate the software’s updated features.
For customers who already own a copy of Excire Foto 2024, the April 2024 update is complimentary. Users will be prompted to download the update package upon launching Excire Foto 2024. It is recommended that users make a catalog backup before installing the new software.

Tamron Q1 financial report has been published. The operating Income increased significantly by approximately 1.7 times YoY with Significant record-high profits for the 1st quarter. Tamron writes:

Interchangeable lenses market showed double-digit growth on both volume and value basis, reflecting the strong performance of the camera market.

Those are their sales based on the region:

• Japan…2.07 billion yen (1.434 billion yen in Q1 2023)
• North America… 1,307 million yen (1,412 million yen)
• Europe… 1,299 million yen (1,417 million yen)
• Asia…8,836 million yen (4,977 million yen)
• Others…430 million yen (373 million yen)

As you can see it’s Asia and Japan that are driving the sales. Europe and North America actually had a decline in sales.

And the forecast looks great too:

Both in Own-Brand products and OEM products, double-digit upward revision of Original Forecast to double-digit sales growth. Despite of increase in materials costs due to higher raw material costs, planned to achieve double-digit Operating Income growth with high profitability.

Tamron also stated that a total of 7 lenses will be launched in 2024. Two of them have been already announced:

• 28-75mm Z-mount
• 11-20mm RF-mount

I guess some of the remaining 5 lenses will be new Z/X/RF mount versions of current E-mount lenses. But hopefully they will also launch some exciting new E-mount lenses they patented in the past years:

24-110mm f/4.0
25-50mm f/2.0
28-100mm f/2.8
28-120mm f/4.0
28mm f/1.4
30mm f/1.4
35mm f/1.4
40mm f/1.4
50mm f/1.4
75mm f/1.4
60mm f/2.0 macro
70-130mm f/2.0
90mm f/2.8 macro
135mm f/1.8
150mm f/2.8 macro
180mm f/3.5 macro
350mm f/4.5
200-400mm f/4.0
200-800mm f/5.6
13mm f/1.8 (APS-C)
18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 (APS-C)
18-500mm f/3.5-6.5 (APS-C)

Fingers crossed 1-2 of those designs will be coming in 2024!

The Chinese E-commerce platform JD.com released its report on brand sales in the camera and lens category in the past year:

UPDATE: The grey subtitle on the top left says “unit: million yuan”. So if we take Sony as an example, it means Sony sold 4269 million yuan, which is roughly 590 million USD.

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Found via Weibo (Thanks to the messenger for the translation!)