You’d be forgiven for thinking that Camera Intelligence’s Caira, with its human name and on-board AI, was a concept dreamt up for Joaquin Phoenix sci-fi flick, Her. But fortunately or unfortunately (depending on who you ask), it’s very real indeed.
In fact, it’s the first mirrorless camera with on-board AI and is available for pre-order via Kickstarter right now. However, I’ve just finished watching a very interesting video from YouTuber Emily Lowrey from Micro Four Nerds – who’s very impressed by the hardware, but has mixed feelings about the AI capabilities of this latest device from the creator of the Alice Camera.
I recommend watching her video for yourself below, as it raises some interesting and also terrifying points:
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I personally think the hardware is pretty neat. The Caira is an interchangeable-lens camera, which Emily explains is rather impressively built around the same Micro Four Thirds sensor found in the Panasonic Lumix GH5S.
It connects to a compatible iPhone via MagSafe (Android isn’t currently supported), which is used to provide the live view interface. But here’s the thing: it’s not designed for photographers. *Wait… what?*
This is where the camera’s AI features, powered by Nano Banana, come in. As you can see in the video, Emily is able to use voice prompts to literally change the subject that she’s framed with the camera, and the results are, as she puts it, “terrifyingly, terrifyingly accurate.”
At one point, she photographs a plush toy on a shelf in her studio and gets the AI to change it to what appears to be a scarily accurate representation of a different plushie. It’s very hard to tell which one is real. It’s at this point that she poses the question: “Is this photography any more?”
To find out Emily’s thoughts, her musings on where artificially enhanced photography will end up (a scary thought to say the least), and what she thinks about the Caira’s hardware, make sure you watch the full video above.
The photographer and content creator does make a point of saying that she is impressed by the tech and that: “There had to be a camera company that did this first (…) I’m under no illusions, within the next months, and years, all of these AI features are probably going to be in big-brand cameras.”
However frightening that thought may be to the photography faithful, I think Emily might be right.
Are you an MFT fan? Here are the best Micro Four Thirds cameras. Perhaps you’d like to check out the best camera phones. And for more AI thoughts, in this new world of AI, photography will live and die by how transparent we photographers choose to be about the images we create.