Alice Camera, the AI-enhanced Micro Four Thirds camera, ready to ship: Digital Photography Review
Photo: Photogram
The Alice Camera, a phone-driven Micro Four Thirds camera that creates AI-enhanced images, is about to ship to customers who placed pre-orders.
The camera, which is operated using an app on a smartphone that connects to the main camera unit, is designed to deliver social media-ready imagery without the need for manual editing.
Image: Photogram
It’s underpinned by powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon and Google Edge TPU processors. Edge refers to AI algorithms running on the end device, rather than in the cloud. These are tasked with optimizing color, white balance and image brightness to automatically give the polished end image, more like the computational output of a modern smartphone, rather than the relatively neutral photographic representation of most dedicated cameras.
However, unlike a smartphone, the Alice Camera is built around the Micro Four Thirds lens mount, allowing the use of a wide range of lenses, which significantly boost the creativity and flexibility that the camera can offer.
It’s built around a Sony-sourced four thirds sized sensor which the company describes as featuring Quad Bayer HDR and 4.63μm pixels. This almost certainly makes it the same sensor used in the Panasonic GH5S, which would give around 10.5MP images. The Quad Bayer design placed four photodiodes under the same filter color of a Bayer array (there are actually around 42 million 2.3μm photodiodes on the chip).
Alternate rows of the sensor can be read out early, giving a reduced exposure to capture highlights, and this data is easily combined with the full exposure given to the other half of the pixels, to deliver wider dynamic range.
As well as stills, the Alice camera can shoot 4K video at up to 30p and 1080 at up to 60p.
Photo: Photogram
Development of the Alice Camera has been delayed by Covid lockdowns and the chip shortages that followed but Photogram says cameras will ship to customers starting with UK customers next month.
Alice Camera, a novel AI-powered Micro Four Thirds camera, Prepares for Delivery
London, UK – June, 2024 – After three years of dedicated development, Photogram is thrilled to announce that the Alice Camera, a novel AI-powered Micro Four Thirds camera that attaches to iOS and Android smartphones, will begin shipping to pre-order customers from 15th July 2024 (see proposed delivery dates below). Designed to streamline high-quality social media content creation for creators, businesses and everyday users, Alice Camera aims to bridge the gap between mirrorless cameras and smartphones. Users will be able to capture content with interchangeable lenses, a smartphone-like user experience and on-camera AI-driven computational photography.
As an official Micro Four Thirds system partner, Photogram has built the Alice Camera to meet the standard’s specifications and requirements. Alice Camera utilises the Micro Four Thirds lens mount and a Sony 4/3″ HDR, dual-native ISO CMOS sensor. However, what sets Alice Camera apart from other mirrorless cameras is its use of a Qualcomm Snapdragon and Google Edge TPU chips as its primary processing units. These processors accelerate the calculations necessary for running Photogram’s proprietary AI-driven computational photography algorithms and software-based image signal processing (ISP) pipeline directly on the camera. Unlike hardware-based ISPs in traditional mirrorless cameras, Photogram’s AI-driven software-based ISP is an innovative approach as it enables additional AI features and improvements to be brought to their existing cameras over time. In 2023, Photogram joined Google Cloud’s program for AI startups in London, where they received credits and mentorship to further train and develop their pipeline, which automates essential functions like white balance, exposure and colour grading.
Alice Camera’s smartphone app offers an intuitive design for camera control, file management, and content sharing. Alice Camera OS, a Linux-based camera-specific operating system, allows for over-the-air software updates and open-access development, opening up new creative possibilities. Developers and businesses interested in building their own AI algorithms and custom apps on the Alice Camera platform are encouraged to contact the team.
“We’re incredibly excited to finally bring the Alice Camera to the world,” said Vishal Kumar, CEO at Photogram. “We set out to build the Alice Camera because we wanted to offer our customers a new type of mirrorless camera built specifically for a new era of content. We’ve developed a fundamentally new engineering paradigm for mirrorless cameras, with significantly novel implementations on hardware, software and with AI algorithms. Alice Camera represents an innovative step forward in how mirrorless cameras are designed and how our users will process, capture and share their experiences. We can’t wait to see the amazing content created with the Alice Camera.”
The journey to launch was not without its challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic and global lockdowns in 2021 and 2022 caused severe chip shortages impacting Alice Camera’s manufacturing. Further delays arose in 2023 as the product underwent rigorous consumer electronics regulatory testing. Despite these hurdles, Photogram persevered, thanks to the support of its backers and investors. “We are deeply grateful for the belief and patience our community has shown throughout this journey,” added Vishal Kumar. “As a new entrant in the camera industry, we hope to bring fresh perspectives. All the difficult development work over the last three years is now done. Now, we’re ready to deliver and start to scale manufacturing. Our journey begins from today… We’re just getting started.”
PROPOSED DELIVERY DATES
Cameras for the UK will begin shipping from 15th July 2024.
Cameras for US, Japan, EU, Australia are scheduled to start shipping from 15th August 2024.
Cameras for Canada, France and Rest of the World are scheduled to start shipping from Sept 2024.
