This is genious! Or maybe stupid…don’t know. Sony tried this in the past with the QX series and it didn’t work out well.

A British company made the “Alice camera” that has MFT mount and a new 11 Megapixel Quad Bayer Sony sensor. It uses your smarpthone as a screen and controller through the Alice own APP. This is the spec list:

Press text:

Alice Camera™ is an AI-accelerated computational camera being built in Britain from the ground up for content creators. An interchangeable lens camera with a dedicated AI-chip that elevates machine learning and pushes the boundaries of what a camera can do. Alice is in concept prototype stage and will be available on Indiegogo in Autumn 2020.

Alice is a compact and low-profile camera which can be mounted onto the back of almost any standard smartphone. An ergonomic handle enables better hand placement and stability whilst capturing your scenes.
Alice uses the Micro Four Thirds lens mount, the most flexible and compact interchangeable lens system around, with over 50 professional-quality lenses available. Attach an adapter to use lenses with different mounts too!

Alice’s Micro Four Thirds sensor excels in low light conditions and allows you to capture high-quality 4K video with no crop. Large pixel sizes and an innovative Quad Bayer structure enable exceptionally low noise and high dynamic range.

Artificial Intelligence is transforming photography in the 2020s like digital technology did back in the 1990s. Alice has been designed from the ground up to harness AI and computational photography for modern content creators, offering you new capabilities and techniques for autofocusing, autoexposure, colour science and more.

The Alice Camera native app will provide you with a familiar smartphone user interface and experience. It will be easy to use and navigate with touchscreen interface and customisation. The camera system and firmware will improve with future software updates through our app.

We want to give creatives as much control as possible. We will be providing open-source software access to Alice allowing you to deeply customise your creative process, encouraging collaboration and software development. Regular software updates means Alice will stay up-to-date with the latest computational photography technology and features.

Fast wireless data transfer between camera and phone gives you a seamless real-time viewfinder on your smartphone. Instantly share your content to social media and live stream directly to your favourite platform. A selfie screen will appear when you turn your phone around so that you can view yourself at all times. Alice will even work when your phone is not attached. You can set up across the room and have your phone in your hand and content will still stream. Double whammy!

Here is a video showing how it works:

Some real world images:

You like this???

–
Thanks Mike!

ThePhoblographer writes:

Speculation about a new 90MP Canon EOS R5s hit the internet this week, and while this interesting, one has to wonder just how much longer the megapixel wars between camera manufacturers will go on. More megapixels are great, but it seems as though this is all camera makers are focusing on these days. When it comes to new innovations, all seems to be quiet. When will we see Canon, Sony, Nikon, Panasonic, and the rest introduce new features that really get the heart racing again? Have we reached peak camera in 2020? Join us as we discuss the unconfirmed but certainly plausible Canon EOS R5s and what new technologies we would like to see in cameras that can drive them forward. Honestly, megapixels alone aren’t doing it.

We got three new lenses this week:

1. Laowa 14mm f/4 FF RL Zero-D for all FF mirrorless systems (news here).
2. Voigtlander 50mm f/1.5 for Leica (news here).
3. Speedmaster 85mm f/1.2 for Nikon Z and Canon R mounts (news here).

Imaging Resource published a very interesting interview with Sigma CEO Yamaki. Here are some interesting points:

Foveon:

So we continue the development of the sensor, but we cannot commit [to] when we will release the product. There are two issues. The first one is there are some design errors in making the full-frame Foveon sensor. We already have several generations of the full-frame Foveon sensor prototypes. But none of them work properly because of the design error. So we have to correct the design error. The Second problem is a challenge in manufacturing.

Starting from this project, we started working with a new sensor vendor. Yes, a new foundry in the US. They are based in a small city called Roseville (California), which is close to San Francisco. They were the subsidiary of NEC, a Japanese company.

[Ed. Note: Some quick Googling suggests this is TF Semiconductor Solutions, previously TSI Semiconductors (2012-2014), and Renesas Electronics America (2010-2011). As Yamaki-san says, the foundry was originally built in 1998 by NEC. Please note, though, that this is just my guessing, based on a Google search :-)]

FP sales

We are doing extremely good in Japan. The sales here are quite good. But in other markets, sales are not as good as I expected.

24-70mm lens:

We still cannot catch the demand. Because the price is half of the Somy version and it’s also one of the top performing lenses in this category, f/2.8 standard zoom lenses for Sony E-mount and L-mount. I believe it’s the top performer, but to be fair, [I should say] it’s one of the top performers. But the price is half that of the Sony 24-70mm.

APS-C L-mount lenses:

we will probably develop brand new lenses for Leica L-mount APS-C cameras.

Sigma APS-C cameras:

No plan to make APS-C L-mount cameras yet. If we continue the fp concept, probably we will stay with full-frame. But this is just an assumption. We don’t have such a plan right now. But just making an assumption for the future, if the sensor has large pixel numbers like 50, 60, 75 megapixels, you can take a very, very good image using APS-C with a crop mode. So in this case, you can use a very compact lens.

Future of the market:

I guess the market would shrink in 2020, even if we didn’t have coronavirus. Probably the coronavirus issue will escalate the problem. Without coronavirus, I assumed that the market would shrink but probably toward the end of this year to next year, I expected it to hit the bottom, and then level out.

Last year, the quantity of interchangeable-lens system cameras sold in the market was 8.5 million units. But actually, the peak time was 17 million units. So last year was about half. But before digital cameras, film SLR sold about four million to five million units. So it was originally a very small market. So I think it was kind of a boom economy starting from mid-2000 to the beginning of 2010, and then it’s going down to the normal level.

I think probably five to six million is a good number to be stable. Thanks to smartphones, more people are interested in taking better pictures, and some of those people would like to buy high-end cameras. So probably, I think the market size for digital interchangeable-lens system cameras would be higher than for film SLRs. And also because the learning cost is very low compared to the film camera.DE: Oh, yeah, much lower costs than film, that’s a good point. Because now, you can see your picture right away. I remember I would shoot a 36-exposure roll, and sometimes none would come out.

But now my feeling is we’re coming back to more like a five-year cycle maybe, for people getting cameras.

Mirrorlessrumors roundup:

1. I find it interesting to learnt hat they did change the partner for the production of their new FF sensor. The bad news is that it sounds we will not get the camera in 2021 :(
2. Sigma believes the market for APS-C is small. They will clearly go for Full Frame with the sole excpetion of some new APS-C lenses
3. I hope he is right in the prediction that says that the market will bottom out by end 2020