The RED V-RAPTOR [X] ($29,995) and V-RAPTOR XL [X] ($39,995) are the first RED cameras released since the Nikon-RED acquisition. The new cameras feature large format 40.96 x 21.6-millimeter image sensors, insane video quality, and an impressive dynamic range. Needless to say, RED’s new tech is worth being excited about. But, the most interesting thing about the new RAPTORS isn’t their new sensor or new video capabilities. Rather, it’s the fact that Nikon now has access to this new tech, which interests me, as it suggests we may see some of this tech returning in a future Nikon Z camera.

The first Nikon – RED cameras

Visually, the RED V-RAPTOR [X] and V-RAPTOR XL [X] don’t look much different than the cameras RED made before the acquisition. That much is to be expected, as their design was most definitely finished by the time the acquisition took place. It will take time until we’ll see a RED camera that looks a bit more “Nikon-like”.

RED V-RAPTOR [X] and V-RAPTOR XL [X] – the first global-shutter, large-format cinema cameras

The RED V-RAPTOR [X] and V-RAPTOR XL [X] utilize the new large-format V-RAPTOR [X] 8K VV and V-RAPTOR XL [X] 8K VV sensors, respectively, alongside a global shutter. As we saw with the Sony a9iii, the world’s first full-frame global-shutter camera, the global shutter offers a massive speed improvement when compared to the traditional rolling shutter. While a rolling shutter reads sensor data line-by-line, a global shutter reads all the sensor data simultaneously. This means you’ll have a much faster image read speed, allowing you to avoid effects like rolling shutter distortion. You can read more about the differences between the two shutter types in this great post by Studiobinder.

RED’s Global Vision

With the new V-RAPTOR [X] and V-RAPTOR XL [X], RED introduced their Global Vision, “a new suite of tools that use the global shutter sensor to provide even more flexibility and ease of use throughout the production process. Global Vision’s Extended Highlights allows the camera to see even further into highlight detail, providing more detail for HDR finishes or softer and more subtle highlight roll-off for SDR.

RED’s Phantom Track

RED also introduced the new Phantom Track feature, a new recording option for cinematographers who work in virtual productions that utilize tools like Unreal Engine or Ghostframe:

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RED V-RAPTOR [X] and V-RAPTOR XL [X] – dynamic range

According to RED, the new RAPTORS have 17-plus stops of dynamic range in normal shooting modes and a whopping 20-plus stops when the new “Extended Highlights” feature is enabled.

“Extended Highlights is a beta feature designed to capture more color and detail in the extremely bright portions of your image. It uses multiple exposures to reconstruct previously clipped details in the most faithful way possible. There are no adjustments or levers for the Extended Highlight process; it is simply an On or Off feature,” explains RED on their Extended Highlights feature support page.

Price and availability

The RED V-RAPTOR [X] and V-RAPTOR XL [X] are available starting at $29,995 and $39,995, respectively.

RICH CREEK, Va. — Gene Herrick, a retired Associated Press photographer who covered the Korean War and is known for his iconic images of Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and the trial of the killers of Emmett Till in the early years of the Civil Rights Movement, died Friday. He was 97.

In 1956, Herrick photographed Rosa Parks being fingerprinted after refusing to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. That same year, Herrick captured an image of King smiling while being kissed by Coretta Scott King on the courthouse steps after being found guilty of conspiracy to boycott the city’s buses.

In a 2020 interview with The Associated Press, Herrick said it was rare to get a photo of King smiling.

“I knew he was going to be let out of jail that morning,” Herrick said. “And all these people were out there on the steps waiting for him, including his wife, who reached out and gave him a big kiss.”

Herrick’s longtime companion Kitty Hylton said he died at a nursing home in Rich Creek, Virginia, surrounded by people who loved him.

“He was so proud to be a journalist. That was his life,” Hylton said. “He loved The Associated Press. He loved the people of the AP. He was so grateful to have had all the adventures that he had.”

Herrick also covered the trial of two white men in the killing of the 14-year-old Till, a Black youth who was abducted, tortured and lynched in Mississippi after being accused of flirting with a white woman. The two men were found not guilty in 1955 by an all-white jury, and admitted to the murder a year later in an interview with Look Magazine.

Herrick was particularly proud of his Korean War coverage. “Good journalists want to go where the action is, wherever it is,” he said for an AP article in 2018.

In a 2015 interview for AP’s corporate archives, Herrick acknowledged the danger of war photography but added, “So is civilian photography. I’ve come pretty close to getting killed many times with guns and having guns put in my chest in the riots in Clinton, Tennessee and places like that.”

He also covered sports including Major League Baseball, Elvis Presley and five U.S. presidents.

“God and the AP have given me opportunities I could never have had,” Herrick said in the 2018 AP story. “I mean, I’m the luckiest kid in the world to have done what I’ve done.”

AP Executive Editor Julie Pace said Sunday that Herrick “captured history for the AP. We, and so many people around the world, benefited from his sharp eye and the power of his visual storytelling.”

Herrick joined the AP at age 16 in Columbus, Ohio, as an office assistant. Two years later he transferred to Cleveland, where he lived with an AP photographer and often assisted him. Herrick got his big break when his roommate was unable to cover a Cleveland Indians game, and he was asked to take his place.

“They’ve got to be stupid,” Herrick said he thought at the time. “Me cover a ball game for the AP?”

Herrick was equally stunned when, not long after, he was promoted to AP photographer in Memphis. He still didn’t have much experience when he volunteered for Korea in 1950, and found himself at the front lines, standing in the middle of a road, totally exposed.

“It’s a beautiful war going on. I mean, the planes are coming in, dropping napalms, and machine guns, and right there on the mountainside, and I’ve got a picture here of wounded being carried on a litter, coming up the road right at me, and, oh, I thought, man, this is great,” Herrick recalled in 2015, laughing at the memory. “I’m bam-bamming with the old four-by-five Speed Graphic, the film pack in those days. And I look around, and some GI over in a ditch says, ‘Sir?’ I said, ‘Yes?’ He said, ‘Do you see that dirt popping up there … do you know what that is?’

And I said, ‘No. What is it?’ He said, ‘Those are bullets!’ … so I got off the road and got in the ditch with him. But I got some really nice pictures.”

He retired from the AP in 1970 to start a second career working with the developmentally disabled in Columbus, and later in Rocky Mount, Virginia.

At age 91, Herrick was inducted into the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame at Virginia Commonwealth University – an event he considered a highlight of his life.

Herrick, who was born in Columbus and was previously married, is survived by two sons, Chris and Mark Herrick of the Indianapolis area, daughter Lola Reece of Peterstown, W. Va., five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Have you been taking the same images with slight variations over the last few years? Have you seen new technologies shake up the photography world, yet largely kept your distance from them? Today, the esteemed Kristina Sherk from Shark Pixel shares with us one such tool that can revamp the work you’ve been putting out. Following her tutorial written for us below, I decided to try it out myself. I encourage you to break out of your comfort zone, give it a try, and share your photos with us in the comments.

One great thing COVID gave me was the time to finally start seeing what I could actually do with Photoshop composites. I mean… I had been teaching Photoshop for years through my business SharkPixel.com, but I was always petrified of even the word composite. Having all my DC headshot and portrait work disappear turned out to be somewhat of a blessing as it started me on a path (which I am still on) of creating interesting composites.

Within the past year, since Adobe announced Firefly and integrated Generative Fill into Photoshop, my composites have taken a little less time to complete thanks to this amazing (but still growing) tool. Designer Mark Heaps comically refers to Firefly as a “genius toddler.” In this article, I’ll show you a few tips on using Adobe Firefly and Photoshop Generative Fill to speed up the time it takes to create composite images. 

Why Firefly Has a One-up on Generative Fill

A lesser-known fact about the new Generative Fill features within Photoshop is that its big brother is an AI engine on the web called Adobe Firefly, located at firefly.adobe.com. This platform is more similar to other AI engines out there since you create the entire image from a written prompt.  This model is newer than the one in Photoshop proper, and  Adobe is constantly updating Firefly’s AI engine. To do this, they use feedback from Firefly and Generative Fill users to better improve the next AI model that gets rolled out inside Photoshop.                      

I often use Firefly to create elements for my composite. For example, in “H is for Hijack,” I used Firefly to create the reindeer, the background, and Santa. Now, I did have to use multiple body parts from multiple Santas and reindeer to get the final characters, because as we stated earlier, AI is like a genius toddler. It gets some things right, but it might also go off the rails. So, there’s a lot it also does not so right.     

One thing that I love about Firefly is that as you’re writing your prompt, you can check a little checkbox that will allow Firefly to autofill additional context at the end of your prompt. That’s how I learned I can add “on a black background for Photoshop clipping mask” to my prompt, and it will create a solid background to make masking out your objects a breeze. One significant thing I hope to see with the next version of Firefly is the ability to export as a PNG. This would make the process infinitely easier as I, and many others, tend to get sucked into the mask-perfecting rabbit hole often, meticulously perfecting mask edges at 400% zoom. Not good for productivity or my mental health.

Another thing that I love about Firefly is all the easy-to-use buttons that can help you determine style, orientation, depth of field, focal length, and so much more. These buttons make the act of writing literary prompts much easier for us non-reader, visually minded folk. 

If you want to start your composite from an image instead of a written prompt, Firefly provides the option to upload a reference image to base your generation on. I used this image on the left to draw out a horribly rudimentary sketch in Photoshop of what I wanted my image to look like. I then I uploaded it to the reference image spot in Firefly within the style section which helped show Firefly the kind of image I was looking for. Because my initial reference image was so bad, it took me a few revisions to do this. Each time, I got a more realistic version of what scene I wanted to use. I would then replace the previous reference image with that one. After the fifth round of re-generations (and updated reference photos), I was able to achieve what I wanted in my final realistic shot. You can see the process here.

Another way Firefly differs from Generative Fill inside Photoshop is that it’s running its second-generation AI model. Here’s a great quote from Andrew KavanaghL “Though I tend to use Generative Fill in Photoshop to add extra elements, it is limited to using version one of the Firefly engine. Adobe Firefly is using version two, which generates higher-quality images and better human renderings with more realistic features. The images created with version two of Adobe Firefly have better details, richer colors, and improved dynamic range.” Andrew runs the wildly popular Photoshop and Lightroom Facebook group and recently started the AI Art and Digital Art Facebook group too. 

Firefly Can Create Directional Lighting

Adobe Firefly can also be helpful when trying to create items that need to fit into an image you already have. For example, when I generated the reindeer for “H is for Hijack,” I explicitly told the AI to light the reindeer from the bottom. I also incorporated the vantage point into the prompt. I knew the reindeer would be flying up and away into the night sky, so the perspective and lighting needed to match for the final image to look right. Knowing the physics and qualities of how light reacts is a really important skill when compositing images together.

There’s no easier way to screw up a composite than to try and merge images without consistent lighting. That means the direction of the light and the light qualities (ie. harsh/soft/warm/cool) need to match for the composite to look realistic. Firefly even has a dropdown menu just for this! 

But you also need to know the rules of photography lighting to be a good compositer. For example, in “B is for Burnt Out,” the match in the before image did not cast any light onto my face, so I had to relight my skin closest to the match manually using layers and blending modes. It’s important to think about what areas of my face the match would illuminate naturally if the fire from the match was bright enough to do this. Whenever I’m not sure about the proper way to make the lighting look realistic, I always either take a reference image or search stock for examples. I would either take a frame of the lit match in my mouth without the key light firing so I could see where the fire actually illuminated, or search stock for the terms “lit match, fire, face” to help me get a sense of what the light looks like from a real illuminated match. 

Ultimately, since this was made pre-AI, I had to use the brush tool and play with layer blend modes to help create the illusion of the match casting light on my chin and cheek. I created the drips from scratch too. This is why learning how to replicate realistic lighting is such an important skill to know when working on composite photos. Here’s a close-up look.

Thankfully nowadays, Generative Fill in Photoshop does this proverbial spellchecking for you! When you use Generative Fill, it actually sends a larger portion of your image up to the cloud. To assess the image attributes so it can best replicate them in the generation it gives you, it will reference the lighting quality and direction, the vantage point the photo was taken from, and other important qualities to generate the best match.  

I often get asked when Firefly version 2 will be integrated into Photoshop. While I’m not sure of an exact date, I would speculate that it will be released sometime in the first half of this year (2024). 

Will Firefly Replace Us?

The more I use Photoshop’s Generative Fill and Adobe Firefly, the more I am assured these tools will not replace true creatives. Although it may seem impressive the kinds of images that AI can produce, I view these programs as generative tools. I know the image in my head, and while these tools can help me get there faster, they aren’t able to envision what I conceptualize. Additionally, in Photoshop, all the Generative Fill layers that are created include elements of the background to seamlessly integrate the produced items into the picture. But if you are anywhere near as wishy-washy as I am regarding item placement, color, lighting, and perspective within the image, you’ll still need to have a hefty toolbelt full of Photoshop tools to appropriately bring your images to life. 

In “D is for Dreams,” I created all of the items within the head using original compositing techniques but added the birds, clouds, and bottom beach rocks on either shoulder area with AI. 

As a project for a masterclass I created on AI, I attempted to create an entire image only using AI in Photoshop. I suggest you try the same. It was really fun, insightful, and it opened my eyes to all the ways I could use Generative Fill to my advantage. This is how I created “O is for Overlensed.” Everything is generated using Photoshop AI, except my son, of course.  

There’s a lot of bad press about AI currently, but I want to take a moment to reflect on a quote from one of my headshot clients a few months back. He said, “We could be on the verge of the next new art movement. AI is creating so many new tools for creatives to use and the future could be very, very bright for all artists who choose to adapt to this new art form.” 

In the end, it’s imperative to learn both traditional Photoshop tools as well as AI in order to take your composites to the next level. Learning just AI isn’t going to help you when you need to change the color of something you generated, or you need to slightly tweak the perspective of the object. The way to be the most proficient in this new era of photo retouching is to make sure you have extensive knowledge in both fields. Because if you do, the opportunities are absolutely limitless. 

A Challenge to You!

Having worked regularly with Generative Fill and being pretty handy in Photoshop, I expected Firefly to be a breeze when I gave it a test run. It proved to require a little more patience than I had anticipated. I challenge anyone who says that using such technologies is cheating to give it a try. Actually. Come up with a concept, visit Firefly, and try it. When using it, I kept coming back to Sherk’s reference to the technology as being a genius toddler. Indeed, sometimes it listened, sometimes it was stubborn and decided to absolutely ignore my prompts. The part I did like about it was its ability to generate photo-realistic elements which I could use in my work. At times, stock platforms don’t have the exact element I’m looking for. Firefly allowed me to tweak the result over and over again until it was close enough to my vision. 

Here is our challenge to you: try it, just once. Step outside of what you know, maybe even into something you despise, fear, or feel overwhelmed by. Why? Because you’re an artist and it’s an interesting challenge. You can make a piece like Sherk from scratch using prompts. Maybe you create a fantastical landscape you would love to photograph but don’t have the miles to fly to. Or perhaps, you create elements to export and composite them into base image you have. 

We challenge you! Give it a shot and share your creation results below in the comments. It just may end up being the biggest tool you haven’t been using in your work. 

Images provided by and used with permission of Kristina Sherk.

The Amon Carter Museum of American Art (the Carter) in Fort Worth has announced the appointment of María Beatriz H. Carrión as the museum’s Assistant Curator of Photographs. Ms. Carrión joins the museum following the 2023 departures of Kristen Gaylord, Associate Curator of Photographs, and John Rohrbach, Senior Curator of Photographs. 

María Beatriz H. Carrión. Image courtesy of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.

Ms. Carrión is a PhD candidate in the History of Art at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). She specializes in the history of photography in the U.S., with a focus on image-making as it relates to race, gender, and ecology. Her dissertation, Picturing Americans: Indigeneities and Modern Visualities, 1873 – 1929, explores how works by Edward Curtis, Eadweard Muybridge, and Carlos Endara have shaped the relationship between image and viewer, and how photography relates to issues of race and the history of colonialism. Her previous research endeavors have investigated American and European women photographers working during World War II, the history of photography in Latin America, and contemporary Indigenous and Latino photography.

Ms. Carrión holds a BA in Liberal Arts from Ecuador’s Universidad San Francisco de Quito, an MA in History of Art from Tulane University, and an MPhil from CUNY. Prior to joining the Carter, Ms. Carrión served as the Terra Fellow in American Photography at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, a Mellon Global Programs Fellow at the Amie and Tony James Gallery at CUNY, and the Elaine Goldman ArtTable Curatorial Fellow at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. During her time at the Rijksmuseum she organized the symposium Interrogating Western Americana: Photography, Indigeneity, and Intersectional Ecology. She has also held positions at the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Saint Augustine Cloisters in Quito, Ecuador.

In a press release, Andrew J. Walker, Executive Director of the Carter, said, “María brings a global perspective and a demonstrated interest in interdisciplinary collaboration to the Carter’s curatorial team. Her meticulous scholarship, experience forging meaningful connections with local communities, and passion for the American artistic tradition and its evolution will serve to advance our institution’s mission of telling a multifaceted story of creativity throughout the United States’ history.”

Ms. Carrión will begin her position at the Carter on May 6, 2024.

My friend Robin Browne, who has died aged 82, was a cinematographer specialising in aerial photography and special effects. His was not a name in lights, but he consistently excelled without the razzmatazz of Hollywood. I doubt there is anyone who has seen one of his films and not marvelled at the skills and dangers involved.

He started out as a clapper boy in the late 1950s, and worked on dozens of distinguished films over the next five decades, as camera assistant, operator and as director of photography leading specialist units. A few titles give a flavour: Battle of Britain (1969); Catch 22 (1970); the television series The Adventures of Black Beauty (1972-74), on which he was camera operator for all 52 episodes; three Bond movies in the 1970s; A Bridge Too Far (1977); Krull (1983); A Passage to India (1984); The Jewel of the Nile (1985); King Kong Lives (1986); Gorillas in the Mist (1988); and Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (2009).

For me, the one that takes the breath away, and is truly described as an epic, is the award-winning biopic Gandhi (1982), produced and directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Ben Kingsley, on which Robin was in charge of aerial photography. Robin’s bywords – “go easy on the lighting and not too much camera movement” – imbued the crowd scenes often shot from above with special impact.

View image in fullscreen

He and I were friends from boyhood. Robin was born, just a month after me, in Aylesbury, and later moved to north London, where we went to Highgate school and grew up together. In those days there were more open fields than houses and we joined with another friend to form the three musketeers. All our holidays were preoccupied with adventures plotting the course of the Dollis brook through its many manifestations until it reached the Thames and setting challenges for each other to conquer known and imagined fears.

Robin’s mother, Diana (nee Mannering), was a well-known fashion model under the name Diana Jones. His father was Bernard Browne, a director of photography who worked with Alexander Korda at Denham studios; Robin was clearly talented and destined for the film world. He joined it as soon as he could, at 16, with an apprenticeship at Merton Park Studios in south London before moving to work at Shepperton. Unusually he had a tiny dark room at his home and I was able to witness the mysteries of photography, development, and editing at close quarters. At school he ran the photography club.

He ended up settling in the US, moving in 1991 to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, with his wife Judy (nee Doetze), whom he had married in 1978. This meant that he and I would meet less often, but we never lost touch. He was respected and well known for his unassuming manner, his caring generosity of spirit, his thoughtful and considerate intellectual approach at work and at home.

Latterly he turned his hand to research into historic documents in preparation for a book about to be completed relating to Shakespeare authorship and Francis Bacon. Undoubtedly Robin would have had plans to turn it into a novel film.

He is survived by Judy, and their children, Justin and Debbie.

The Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year 2024 competition, awarding amateur and professional photographers for excellence in food photography has unveiled the delicious images from the finalists.

The contest celebrating the art of photography and film through the universal language of food garnered thousands of photos from more than 65 countries across the globe for the competition’s 13th edition,

The winners will be announced on June 4 at an awards evening in London. The Overall Winner will take home £5,000 prize.

An exhibition of all the finalist’s images will premiere at The Mall Galleries in London. The free-to-enter exhibition runs from June 5 – June 9 and is one component of the first Plate! St James’s, a new festival celebrating food, drink and photography from June 5 – June 23.

View all the shortlisted images here.

Bon appetit!

Women photographers

“My Egyptian mother once told me: ‘My mum used to say you’ll never go hungry if you have a tin of tomatoes in the pantry,’” explained Alana Dimou. “The beauty of tinned foods is often revered for its package and label design. In this case, I wanted to give prominence to the textures and abundance of tomatoes in a familiar setting, lauding this essential ingredient in Egyptian cooking.”

Ready for close up

This Italian Oyster Mushroom was locally grown indoors on straw at Bramble Hill Farm in Unity, Maine. It has an earthy, mild flavour. The texture of the large fluted light brown cap and white gills is accentuated by the soft natural side light.

Food portraiture

A hand rises from deep inside the grapes at Maison Vulpin winery in Villeneuve, Switzerland.

Sweet temptations

“During the Covid pandemic lockdown,” said Jacki Gordon, “I started photographing tiny railway model figures (just three-quarters of an inch high) positioned with everyday items – usually food – in order to entertain my family and friends on social media. By the time the pandemic passed, I had developed an insatiable appetite for creating these little scenes.

The idea for this image came from me taking a bite out of a tea cake and being presented with its inner snow-like mallow – the perfect terrain for my tiny Nordic walkers to feel at home.”

A delicious cake topped with fresh figs and drizzled with syrup, all set against a clean white background inviting viewers to indulge in the rich flavours and textures of this mouthwatering dessert.

Bringing on the joy of food

“I was on a family holiday in Hanoi, Vietnam, and wandering through the many narrow side streets in the city when I came across this old bicycle full of fruit,” said David Cotsworth. “The colors against the dark background and rusty old bike made it really stand out.”

A father and son catch fish by using bamboo basket traps inside a karst cave in South Vietnam during the monsoon season. Cave fishing can only be done in monsoon season when the cave chamber is flooded by rain water.

This picture of the Karo tribe was taken in a village in Ethiopia. Here, Karo women work together with stone grinders to prepare a rice grain paste for their fellow villagers.

For some people, two of the most relaxing things in life are hanging out with their dog and going for a drive. That’s why when a Thailand-based photographer Kuttiya Kanchanasopawong, known as ArtWood, shares videos of his life featuring both, his followers can’t help but daydream of a life like the one he leads. It’s just him, his camera, his beloved dogs, and the road. What else could one ask for?

One of Kanchanasopawong’s most popular clips shows him driving on a dirt road, with the afternoon sun lighting up the scene. Beside him, two of his Labrador retrievers—a pup and an adult—sleep belly up and cuddled together. They truly appear to be having the best nap of all time.

But for all of the scene’s endearing qualities, Kanchanasopawong’s followers know this is rarely how his adventures go. Actually, many of his posts show the adult dog in the driver’s seat. Since the vehicle seems to be moving forward, he’s created the illusion that the pooch is really driving. Meanwhile, the photographer and his other dogs get to doze off in the backseat or enjoy the view from the truck bed. The retriever is such a responsible driver that it even secured the pup in a child seat. Good dog!

Kanchanasopawong also likes to play with his dogs in different settings. They seem to enjoy riding a motorcycle together, although sometimes there’s no room left for him, or he has to settle for the back seat. The pups have even taken over the photography duties, having ArtWood pose for the camera with the other dogs while they work behind the lens.

While the photographer has yet to reveal his secrets for achieving these beautiful images, we can only guess that having a huge expanse of land is the perfect environment for letting a dog “drive.” To stay up to date with Kanchanasopawong and his dog family, make sure to follow him on Instagram.

Thailand-based photographer Kuttiya Kanchanasopawong seems to lead a perfect life. It’s just him, his camera, his beloved dogs, and the road.

While Kanchanasopawong loves to drive around with his Labrador retrievers, some of his most popular videos actually feature a pooch in the driver’s seat.

Since the vehicle seems to be moving forward, he’s created the illusion that the pooch is really driving.

Kanchanasopawong also likes to play with his dogs in different settings.

The dogs also seem to love going for a motorcycle ride—although the photographer has to settle for a backseat.

Kuttiya Kanchanasopawong: Instagram | Facebook

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Google‘s Long Exposure photo mode is actually decent. There, I said it. Photographer me is putting his neck on the line by saying that another smartphone computational photography mode, recently given its own tab in Google’s revamped Camera app, is one less reason to use a ‘proper’ camera – and mine’s a TechRadar-approved best mirrorless camera, no less.

I was on a short family break at the coast recently and set an early alarm to sneak out for a little solo time at first light at a secluded cove nearby. It would be me, the gentle lapping waves, and hopefully a little color in the sky. Of course, I would take a camera too. 

Hot tea in a travel flask, banana, notepad and pen, mirrorless camera, two pro lenses covering the 24-200mm focal length between them, an ND filter plus a tripod, and I was good to go. Oh, and the Google Pixel 6 was in my pocket.

Image 1 of 3

A steep descent through a wooded area and the sheltered east-facing cove came into view. I’ve learned the importance of enjoying nature first before taking a camera out of the bag, especially given my screen-intensive day job. 

After grounding myself in the peace and unrushed pace of the quiet sunrise I started moving around the beach looking for compositions that caught my eye, for photos that would transport me back to what it was like being there. 

Sunrise was lovely – not award-winning, but adding a splash of color. The outgoing tide was steadily revealing more of the beach. Small waves crashed against the clay-red sandy incline, climbed up the beach a little, and then retreated around small rocks, creating interesting patterns. 

I’ve taken a few long exposure seascape photos down the years, and love the technique, especially for accentuating the movement of water as it retreats around rocks. I take a quick snap of the scene on the Pixel 6 and it occurs to me that I’ve not properly used its Long Exposure photo mode yet, now prominent in the camera app with its own tab. 

Image 1 of 2

The Long Exposure photo mode blurs movement, while keeping still objects sharp. The creative technique can be used in several ways, with blurring moving water a popular choice. Having observed the water trails, I line up the picture and take the snap. 

It works a little like Night Sight – you need to keep your phone as steady as possible while the long exposure is captured. That way the still objects – in this case the rocks, cliff faces, and untouched sand – remain sharp. This computational photography mode is like a pro mirrorless camera’s in-body image stabilization on steroids.  

The phone stores both the regular photo and the long exposure effect image (I’ve included both versions of every image for comparison). I have to say, the effect in this scenario is convincing (see above), similar to what I’d expect from my mirrorless camera which remains in the bag 50 meters away up the beach. 

Whatever camera you use for long exposure photography (be it mirrorless or a cameraphone) – in this context of accentuating retreating ocean waters – you need to keep trying and trying and trying to get the shot. Timing is so hard. 

Your best bet is starting the capture with the wave at its peak up the beach and just as the water starts to retreat. That way the natural path back to the ocean, be it straight or snaking around rocks, is accentuated and depicts the tidal energy.

Image 1 of 2

Google Pixel’s Long Exposure mode isn’t perfect – detail is usually softer than in the standard version – but it’s pretty darn good and convincing enough that I didn’t really need to bring my mirrorless camera, tripod, and ND filters along for the ride. If I owned the OM System OM-1 II (or OM-1), I could use that camera’s Live ND computational photography mode instead and leave the tripod and ND filters behind. 

I haven’t lost faith in my ‘proper’ camera, far from it. Towards the end of my time at the beach, while still alone, a playful seal popped its head up like a floating rock. I steamed back up the beach to my bag, grabbed the camera with a 70-200mm lens, and got a few photos that far exceed what I could possibly hope to get with the Pixel 6 – though some of today’s best cameraphones might have done a decent job. 

I’ll also still use my ‘proper’ camera with tripod and ND filters for long exposure photography, too. It’s just that now I might think twice if lugging all of that gear to get the creative effect is worth it when I have the computational mode in a device that slips into my pocket. 

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