November 29, 2022
A concise round-up of new product updates, international snippets and other interesting stuff from the wonderful world of photography: Fujifilm giving cash back… Getty doing AI ‘responsibly’… Black & white success…
From November 18 (Black Friday, apparently) Fujifilm has been offering substantial cash refunds up to $1300 on Fujifilm GFX cameras and GFX and X-series lenses.
The $1300 cashback only applies to the GFX 50S II camera. The promotion runs until January 6.
Here’s the full range:
For more information and full T&Cs, visit https://www.fujifilmpromotion.com.au/EOY2022-capture-more-for-less.
Getty doing AI ‘responsibly’
We reported last month that a rift had developed between Shutterstock and Getty Images, with S’stock first to the draw in offering AI-generated images via the DALL-E platform, while Getty Images occupied the high moral ground – for a few weeks at least – in warning of ethical issues around the emerging technology and banning the upload and sale of AI-generated images on the Getty platform.
‘There’s a lot of questions out there right now—about who owns the copyright to that material, about the rights that were leveraged to create that material—and we don’t want to put our customers into that legal risk,’ Getty Images CEO Craig Peters said in an interview with The Verge.
But this month, Getty Images announced a strategic partnership with Israeli-based BRIA, developer of proprietary AI visual content tools, and characterised the move as a ‘Business Highlight’ in its 3rd Quarter financial results.
‘BRIA is committed to responsible AI, with focus on respecting copyrights, bias mitigation and exploring this unmapped territory with our partners and colleagues,’ said Ravit Dotan, PhD and AI Ethics Expert at BRIA.
It’s not entirely clear how BRIA’s AI is more responsible than that of other AI image generators. The page on the website which addresses ethics lacks the kind of transparency and clarity you might expect with all the questions which Getty’s Craig Peters alludes to.
Black & white success
You might think a business dedicated to supplying black and white silver photography consumables would be struggling 20 years into the digital photography era, but Harman Technologies – Ilford film and silver-based photo paper and chemicals – is still kicking goals.
For the year ending December 31, 2021, net revenues were up about 20 percent, and profit was three times that for 2020.
Film sales grew by 15 percent from 2020, reflecting the emergence from Covid lockdowns and the re-opening of bricks -and-mortar stores and, Harman says, the continued resurgence of interest in analog photography, ‘particularly among those under 35 years old’.
Paper volumes recovered by 23 percent when compared to 2020, but ere still down on 2019 levels. Harman attributed this to school lockdowns, particularly in the US.
Revenue for processing chemicals grew by 10 percent and darkroom accessories by 30 percent.Meanwhile we have Fujifim and Kodak claiming that they are being forced to gouge increase silver halide product prices every six months or so because of, among other things, declining demand.
Good to see Ilford still going well, I have been retied for 27 years now and in my working life Ilford was the top choice of professional photographers for its very high quality product . The media seemed to go for Kodak newspapers ran on price.
Having used Ilford products during my film days of 21 years, I find myself still using their digital paper and also their film for my film cameras, never a complaint. Great work Ilford, keep up the excellent products.