Latest news with #Leica
India Today
a day ago
- India Today
Redmi Note 14 SE 5G announced, launching in India on July 28: Details inside
Xiaomi is back in business. After taking a brief hiatus, the company has announced the Redmi Note 14 SE 5G, a new budget phone with seemingly 'killer specs and killer price.' Only, it doesn't seem all that new basis of all the specs that Xiaomi is sharing ahead of its India launch on July 28. So far, it seems like a repurposed Redmi Note 14 is not the first Redmi Note phone with SE branding. Xiaomi has previously launched the Redmi Note 11 SE which was at the height of when it was making these phones literally by the dozen. The Redmi Note 11 SE itself was a rebranded Redmi Note 10S without a charger in the box. This was in 2022. Over the course of time, Xiaomi went on to streamline and cut down on launches, admitting too many Redmi Note phones were confusing the customer. Since then, it has also gone on to try and break into India's premium smartphone space with top-tier camera phones with Leica partnership – while at the same time, increasing the prices of the Redmi Note last Note models to launch in India were the Redmi Note 14, Redmi Note 14 Pro, and Redmi Note 14 Pro Plus with a starting price of Rs 18,999. The Redmi Note 14 SE is expected to be more affordable, though whether it comes at the expense of in-box charger (or something else entirely) remains to be seen. The upcoming phone is confirmed to launch with a 6.67-inch 120Hz display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 and capable of clocking up to 2,100nits of peak brightness, MediaTek Dimensity 7025 Ultra processor, and a 5,110mAh battery. The Redmi Note 14 SE is also set to get an in-display fingerprint reader and dual speakers supporting Dolby Atmos. The main camera uses a 50-megapixel Sony LYT-600 main sensor with optical image all this sounds familiar, it is because it is what's inside the Redmi Note 14 as well. Given that some specs are still under the wraps, it would be interesting to see where Xiaomi plans to go with its next Redmi Note which, per the company, is being launched to celebrate its 11 years in design of the Redmi Note 14 SE is also remarkably like the Redmi Note 14, the only difference is that it is set to launch in a burgundy-red option. More details are awaited.- Ends
GSM Arena
2 days ago
- GSM Arena
Xiaomi 15 Civi isn't coming, new report claims
Last year Xiaomi brought the Civi line into India with the Xiaomi 14 Civi, an upper-midrange smartphone that aimed to capture some of the magic of the Chinese Civi series, paired with a Leica-branded camera experience. How successful it was in doing that isn't clear, but if you've anxiously been waiting for its successor, we have some bad news. A new report claims the Xiaomi 15 Civi has been canceled. No reason is given, but obviously lackluster sales of the 14 Civi may be to blame. That model is in fact now heavily discounted. Xiaomi 14 Civi The Xiaomi 15 Civi was in fact in active development before it got the axe. It was to feature a 6.55-inch "1.5K" resolution screen with micro-curves on all four sides, a 120 Hz refresh rate, and a 3,200-nit peak brightness. It was going to be powered by the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 SoC, paired with up to 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage. The Leica camera branding would have returned, with a 50 MP main shooter, a 12 MP ultrawide, a 50 MP telephoto, and a 50 MP selfie snapper. Keeping the lights on was supposed to be a 6,000 mAh battery with support for 67W wired charging. What do you think about this decision? Let us know in the comments. Xiaomi 14 Civi Source
Scoop
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scoop
A New Zealand Photographer's 'Poetic Journey' Into Papua New Guinea's Past
, RNZ Pacific senior journalist Forty-eight years ago, a young New Zealand photographer set off on a brief solo journey into the remote Papua New Guinea Highlands. Victoria Ginn is now in her seventies and has a gallery in the small Taranaki town of Normanby. That trip, almost five decades ago, was the first in a series of exotic trips she undertook and resulted in a remarkable collection of photographs of the indigenous people, which she has called 'A Welcome Adventure'. Victoria Ginn spoke with RNZ Pacific. (This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.) Don Wiseman: So when you were 23 years old, and I guess, a fairly inexperienced photographer, you took yourself off on your own into the Papua New Guinea Highlands. Why did you do that? Victoria Ginn: Well, I probably wasn't as inexperienced as you state. I began photography when I was about 14 years old, in the 1960s, after a friend of mine realised I could take good photographs. He gave me his Leica camera, and I self taught. I was interested in human culture and nature right from day dot really. Why I took myself into the Papua New Guinea Highlands at the age of 23, probably a yearning to connect with a deeper part of my own self and also a deeper part of the human culture, than was represented in my own modern culture, in terms of 1970s modern Melbourne, Australia, and that sort of system. I was probably a natural photographer in terms of my yearning to use a camera as a way to connect with people. It is a form of connection, photography, or was. Nowadays it is a form of intrusion and narcissism. But back then it was an art form, and it mesmerised me to know that you could translate a moment in reality into something that was a beautiful essence of somebody through black and white portraiture and a moment in time, where you saw an emotion or an expression or a sense of the self that was portrayed In another person. It was never intrusive photography. When photography became fashionable in the 1970s, art photography became fashionable in the 1970s through the production of a book by Diane Arbus, and everyone had to be a photographer, sort of thing. But photography in a way, became corrupted by wide angle lenses and people not realising the sensitivity of the other, meaning the subject, and a lot of deceitful photography happened that was calling itself art photography at that time. DW: It's still very difficult on a number of levels to access the Papua New Guinea Highlands. But in 1977 and on your own, it would have been very, very difficult. VG: Yes, it was. But I was an adventurer. I enjoyed the attraction of the unknown and the challenge of finding a way into an area of such remoteness in the world, where there was not a pollution of modernity, if you like, upon the peoples that I wanted to meet. So yes, it was difficult. It was basically bussing up the Highlands into the Highlands, and then finding ways to get around. And I did have some fairly hairy encounters, not with the local people, but with imports, imported construction managers and things like people from Australia. Papua New Guinea was only two years into its independence at that time, so there was still a very raw aspect to the confusion between what was meant to be and what was, where you have an important psyche, like the Australian mentality, wanting to civilise and develop a country, and you had the indigenous people who had stayed sane and intact and culturally together and had a very rich, beautiful culture that was kind of timeless. DW: How did you communicate? VG: That is an interesting one, because I discovered the art of non verbal communication, and it sounds stupid or nonsensical, but there is a way. I developed it later, when I was travelling through other remote regions of the South Pacific and Southeast Asia, particularly. There's a way to communicate that does not require speech in terms of your tongue, and it becomes a very basic, essential, means of communication, which involves gesture, but it also involves something that is unspoken, and it is very difficult to describe that, and you connect. It is about someone connecting to you, and you connecting to them on a level that is not cerebral, and it is not through your tongue, so not through speech. I used that method. It grew on me. It developed. I was not there long enough to become adept at that sort of thing, but I got a taste of it, and I learned how you can communicate without language. I have spent time in a lot of different cultures using that means. DW: This happened back in 1977, so 48 years ago. Why has it taken you so long to bring a book out? VG: I have gone backwards, looking at my work, in a way, I'm going backwards. I am in my 70s now, and I mean, I have had other work that propelled me to do other creative essays that I was prompted to do by my own artistry, and that has come to an end. I am no longer a photographer, so I am more a writer now, and I am looking backwards and tidying up my life, you could say. And it is a beautiful little essay. It is a very poetic essay which portrays a form of gentleness, contrary to what is happening in Papua New Guinea today. It is a counterbalance to what is what is occurring in the Highlands today, which is now a lawless place where people have had their essential culture stripped from them by the incursion of missionaries and what have you, and mining companies and so on. It gives voice to a portrait of a people. DW: You've visited a number of places, as you say, remote areas around the Pacific, particularly, where does this adventure into the PNG Highlands in 1977 sit? VG: That is a hard one. I think the last big work I did in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia was called The Spirited Earth, which was subtitled dance, myth and ritual from South Asia to the South Pacific, which was a philosophical look at the religious and spiritual forms of expression through performance art and ritual in those regions. Mostly color photography. Back in 77 you could say this was a stepping stone to my awareness of the depth of understanding of the spiritual aspects of the human psyche within a people that were so called prehistoric and primitive. It's candid work. It is more portraiture, portraiture in terms of face rather than form or body, which my book, The Spirited Earth, looks at the complete picture of face and form and body and environment. This is mainly a portrait, and it's a poetic portrait which involves the poetry of the people, but also the more prosaic sort of day to day, here am I sitting in a marketplace, or here am I pulling my bow and arrow, carrying my grasses from the fields and so on. It is more a documentary portrait than an artistic portrait, but it contains artistry, of course.
RNZ News
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
A New Zealand photographer's 'poetic journey' into Papua New Guinea's past
From A Welcome Adventure by Victoria Ginn. Photo: Supplied Forty-eight years ago, a young New Zealand photographer set off on a brief solo journey into the remote Papua New Guinea Highlands. Victoria Ginn is now in her seventies and has a gallery in the small Taranaki town of Normanby. That trip, almost five decades ago, was the first in a series of exotic trips she undertook and resulted in a remarkable collection of photographs of the indigenous people, which she has called 'A Welcome Adventure' . Victoria Ginn spoke with RNZ Pacific. Kabo – the Sorcerer, from A Welcome Adventure into the PNG Highlands, 1997 by Victoria Ginn. Photo: Supplied (This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.) Don Wiseman: So when you were 23 years old, and I guess, a fairly inexperienced photographer, you took yourself off on your own into the Papua New Guinea Highlands. Why did you do that? Victoria Ginn: Well, I probably wasn't as inexperienced as you state. I began photography when I was about 14 years old, in the 1960s, after a friend of mine realised I could take good photographs. He gave me his Leica camera, and I self taught. I was interested in human culture and nature right from day dot really. Why I took myself into the Papua New Guinea Highlands at the age of 23, probably a yearning to connect with a deeper part of my own self and also a deeper part of the human culture, than was represented in my own modern culture, in terms of 1970s modern Melbourne, Australia, and that sort of system. I was probably a natural photographer in terms of my yearning to use a camera as a way to connect with people. It is a form of connection, photography, or was. Nowadays it is a form of intrusion and narcissism. From A Welcome Adventure by Victoria Ginn. Photo: Supplied But back then it was an art form, and it mesmerised me to know that you could translate a moment in reality into something that was a beautiful essence of somebody through black and white portraiture and a moment in time, where you saw an emotion or an expression or a sense of the self that was portrayed In another person. It was never intrusive photography. When photography became fashionable in the 1970s, art photography became fashionable in the 1970s through the production of a book by Diane Arbus, and everyone had to be a photographer, sort of thing. But photography in a way, became corrupted by wide angle lenses and people not realising the sensitivity of the other, meaning the subject, and a lot of deceitful photography happened that was calling itself art photography at that time. DW: It's still very difficult on a number of levels to access the Papua New Guinea Highlands. But in 1977 and on your own, it would have been very, very difficult. VG: Yes, it was. But I was an adventurer. I enjoyed the attraction of the unknown and the challenge of finding a way into an area of such remoteness in the world, where there was not a pollution of modernity, if you like, upon the peoples that I wanted to meet. So yes, it was difficult. It was basically bussing up the Highlands into the Highlands, and then finding ways to get around. And I did have some fairly hairy encounters, not with the local people, but with imports, imported construction managers and things like people from Australia. Papua New Guinea was only two years into its independence at that time, so there was still a very raw aspect to the confusion between what was meant to be and what was, where you have an important psyche, like the Australian mentality, wanting to civilise and develop a country, and you had the indigenous people who had stayed sane and intact and culturally together and had a very rich, beautiful culture that was kind of timeless. From A Welcome Adventure by Victoria Ginn. Photo: Supplied DW: How did you communicate? VG: That is an interesting one, because I discovered the art of non verbal communication, and it sounds stupid or nonsensical, but there is a way. I developed it later, when I was travelling through other remote regions of the South Pacific and Southeast Asia, particularly. There's a way to communicate that does not require speech in terms of your tongue, and it becomes a very basic, essential, means of communication, which involves gesture, but it also involves something that is unspoken, and it is very difficult to describe that, and you connect. It is about someone connecting to you, and you connecting to them on a level that is not cerebral, and it is not through your tongue, so not through speech. I used that method. It grew on me. It developed. I was not there long enough to become adept at that sort of thing, but I got a taste of it, and I learned how you can communicate without language. I have spent time in a lot of different cultures using that means. DW: This happened back in 1977, so 48 years ago. Why has it taken you so long to bring a book out? VG: I have gone backwards, looking at my work, in a way, I'm going backwards. I am in my 70s now, and I mean, I have had other work that propelled me to do other creative essays that I was prompted to do by my own artistry, and that has come to an end. I am no longer a photographer, so I am more a writer now, and I am looking backwards and tidying up my life, you could say. And it is a beautiful little essay. It is a very poetic essay which portrays a form of gentleness, contrary to what is happening in Papua New Guinea today. It is a counterbalance to what is what is occurring in the Highlands today, which is now a lawless place where people have had their essential culture stripped from them by the incursion of missionaries and what have you, and mining companies and so on. It gives voice to a portrait of a people. DW: You've visited a number of places, as you say, remote areas around the Pacific, particularly, where does this adventure into the PNG Highlands in 1977 sit? VG: That is a hard one. I think the last big work I did in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia was called The Spirited Earth , which was subtitled dance, myth and ritual from South Asia to the South Pacific, which was a philosophical look at the religious and spiritual forms of expression through performance art and ritual in those regions. Mostly color photography. Back in 77 you could say this was a stepping stone to my awareness of the depth of understanding of the spiritual aspects of the human psyche within a people that were so called prehistoric and primitive. It's candid work. It is more portraiture, portraiture in terms of face rather than form or body, which my book, The Spirited Earth , looks at the complete picture of face and form and body and environment. This is mainly a portrait, and it's a poetic portrait which involves the poetry of the people, but also the more prosaic sort of day to day, here am I sitting in a marketplace, or here am I pulling my bow and arrow, carrying my grasses from the fields and so on. It is more a documentary portrait than an artistic portrait, but it contains artistry, of course.
Tom's Guide
6 days ago
- Tom's Guide
I tested the Leica Q3 43 for a week and fell in love — there's just one problem
I test some of the best mirrorless cameras here at Tom's Guide. I've tested ones from Sony, Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, you name it. And I own a Nikon and Fuji for personal use too. And when you think real hard about cameras, there's one name that always comes up, and that's Leica — premium, classic, sharp, and usually out of most people's budgets. But as is the nature of my job, I'm very lucky that I get to test Leica cameras too. I recently reviewed the Leica M11-D rangefinder and the Leica Q3 43 compact camera. Both of them got glowing recommendations for me, and when I had to return the loan units, I had tears in my eyes (slight exaggeration but you get the sentiment). Pin-sharp precision is what the Leica Q3 43 is all about. Featuring a 60.3MP CMOS sensor and utilizing Leica's best-in-class autofocus system, the Q3 43 captures stunning images with beautiful color reproduction. The new 43mm lens has a standard field of view and comes with a dedicated macro mode. The camera itself is compact and comfortable to use, and for those who like shooting video, it can record 8K/30fps and 4K/60fps footage. Leica cameras are the pinnacle of sharpness and image quality, as my in-depth testing has proven. And I, for one, wish I could get one for myself. But there is a very big hurdle here: four figures that usually come after or before a currency symbol. So what makes the Q3 43 worth the premium? Let me show you. If you were active back in the good ol' days of Tumblr, remember how everyone used to say things like, "That's sharper than Benedict Cumberbatch's cheekbones"? (Or Tom Hiddleston's or Cate Blanchett's, fill in the blanks with your celebrity of choice.) That's how I'd describe the Leica Q3 43's image quality — it's sharper than all the knives in my kitchen. The Q3 43 has a 60.3MP sensor and utilizes Leica's latest Maestro IV processor to make images feel almost ethereal yet lifelike. Color reproduction is absolutely fantastic with a great balance between shadows and highlights. Plenty and plenty of detail is packed in these images, even when you zoom in. Just take a look at the photo of the swan in the gallery above. Feathers? Sharp. Water droplets? Crystal clear. You could use these images straight out of the camera without having to do any post-processing. That's the beauty of the Q3 43. It is a ridiculously good camera that gives you barely anything to complain about. The Leica Q3 43 won me over as soon as I took it out of the box, to be honest. Its ability to capture gorgeous photos and video were the cherries on top of an already delicious cake. There aren't many cameras I test that make me go, "That's a beautiful camera," but the Q3 43 did. It made me actually gasp when I unboxed it. It looks like a million bucks, sporting a compact yet premium look, its front wrapped in a leather-like material. It's as comfortable to hold as it is a treat for the eyes to look at. If you think the Q3 43 is good for stills only, think again. This camera can shoot 4K/60fps and 8K/30fps video, making it great for casual video — I say "casual" because it doesn't have a 3.5mm headphones/mic input/output port, limiting its use out in the field for videography. "So, Nikita, should I buy the Leica Q3 43?" I hear you ask, and I say yes, you should. But if you aren't familiar with the vast world of cameras and have heard whispers about Leicas being great, I have some news for you. These cameras do not come cheap. The Q3 43 retails for $7,380 / £5,900 — but at least it's a fixed-lens camera so you won't need to spend extra on glass over the years. If money is a concern, I completely get it. If you can afford it, though, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't buy the Q3 43. I wouldn't let the price tag put me off because this camera is so ridiculously easy to use with a straightforward control scheme. If it's pure power and image clarity you're after, I can't think of a better camera to recommend. I'm transferring some extra money to my savings account every month now so that I can eventually, one day, get the Q3 43 for myself. That red dot sure costs a lot but to me, it feels like it's worth every cent.
