Frequently Asked Questions

People usually ask us these questions but if you'd like more information then please email us below.

What even is AI? Is it anything more than empty hype and marketing buzzwords?

When we talk about AI we are specifically talking about a new generation of image processing techniques which use deep neural networks and machine learning to provide a revolutionary leap in performance and capability over the previous generation. They have been a key driver in the enormous improvement in image quality and usability in smartphone cameras over the last few years but barely feature in modern camera systems despite their huge potential. Alice Camera has been designed to combine these new techniques with the superior optical systems of professional camera systems to offer new creative possibilities to content creators and drive the photographic art form forward. What we absolutely do not mean when we talk about AI is a general computational intelligence built to replace human creativity, manipulate reality and homogenise photography. For more about how we are using AI with Alice Camera keep an eye on our blog.

Does Alice Camera use the phone’s camera processing hardware and software or does it have its own?

Alice Camera has its own hardware and software processing pipeline inside the camera tightly coupled to the image sensor, allowing fast readout speeds and enabling cutting-edge multi-exposure AI-based computational photography techniques such as those found in high-end smartphones like the Google Pixel. The attached phone is used to run the Alice Camera app which acts as an electronic viewfinder and control interface, taking advantage of the extraordinarily high-quality screens found in modern smartphones, and can also be used to post-process and share images and video taken with Alice Camera using popular third-party apps such as Adobe Lightroom and Youtube. Alice Camera will be compatible with a wide variety of phones including Android and iOS irrespective of the phone’s native camera capabilities or CPU power. A full list of compatible phones will be available soon.

Does Alice Camera work in a standalone way without a phone attached?

Yes, Alice is able to record images and video without a phone or other WiFi enabled device connected to it, however functionality will be limited without access to the controls and electronic viewfinder provided by the app running on the phone.

Why does Alice Camera connect to the phone via WiFi rather than a wired connection such as USB C?

All modern smartphones support fast 5GHz WiFi, while there is no standard cross-platform wired interface for smartphone peripherals. Further, using a wireless interface allows the phone to be mechanically decoupled from Alice Camera while still acting as the viewfinder and control interface, opening up novel usage scenarios. In photography communities WiFi has developed a reputation for being slow and unreliable which is not unjustified, however Alice Camera integrates modern 5GHz IEEE 802.11ac WiFi hardware with a maximum theoretical bandwidth of over 1Gbit/s, closer in specification to the WiFi hardware found in modern smartphones rather than a typical entry-level DSLR or mirrorless camera. This enables a responsive and seamless user experience.

Does the Camera come with a lens?

No, the camera is body only. The Alice Camera has a Micro Four Thirds lens mount, so you will be able to use the widest range of interchangeable lenses made by Panasonic, Olympus, Leica, Sigma, and others for that system, in addition to other lenses such as vintage lenses, Canon, and Nikon with an adapter. The Alice Camera does not come with a lens itself.

Do you have any lens recommendations?

There are many native Micro Four Thirds lenses over 79 that are shown on the official website The website is very helpful in filtering lenses depending on the requirements you have for a shoot. In addition to these native lenses, there are many more manual lenses that are compatible with the Micro Four Thirds lens mount that will be on Alice. Having such a wide range of lenses available for the MFT system was one of the main reasons for choosing this format for Alice.Personally, I would recommend the Lumix 14-140mm as it covers a wide range of focal lengths in one compact lens. Both Lumix and Olympus offer a great variety of prime and kit lenses, such as 25mm f/1.7 or 14-42mm f/3.5, which are great lenses to begin with.

Why did you choose a MFT lens mount?

We chose the Micro Four Thirds system because MFT lenses are the most compact professional-quality lenses available, because there are a huge variety of lenses available from many different manufacturers with a huge range of different focal lengths, apertures and prices, and because it is very easy to adapt older lenses such as EF mount, A mount or 35mm film lenses using either a cheap "dumb" adapter or a speed booster for ultimate quality. We are using the same sort of AI-powered computational photography algorithms that smartphones use to make their tiny & poor quality optical systems behave like much larger professional cameras to make our already large, professional-quality MFT optical system behave like a full-frame camera with a much lower cost, size and weight.

With the full size of the sensor, what is the crop factor of Alice Camera?

The answer to this is a little complicated as the sensor in Alice Camera is an oversized multi-aspect-ratio sensor which uses different parts of its full area in the different readout modes it offers. In video mode with 17:9 aspect ratio and pixel dimensions of 4096 x 2160 (or binned down to 2048 x 1080) the sensor has an effective area of 189.6mm^2 and a diagonal of 21.44mm, giving it a crop factor of 2. In stills mode with 4:3 aspect ratio and pixel dimensions of 3704 x 2778 the effective area is 22.55mm^2, the diagonal is again 21.44mm so the crop factor is again 2. In full readout mode with 3:2 aspect ratio and pixel dimensions of 4096 x 2778 the effective area is 243.83mm^2, the diagonal is 22.9mm and so the crop factor is 1.9. This mode comes with a catch though, in that the corners of the sensor lie outside of the MFT image circle and so you may see heavy vignetting with native MFT lenses. It does work perfectly with adapted APS-C / FF / 35mm SLR lenses though.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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