If the science behind photography stops you from picking up a proper camera and kneel in submission before a smartphone, then a new service called Relonch is here to help. First, it wants you take the bold step in using an actual camera without you actually owning one. How’s that going work, you ask? Well, the Palo Alto-based company will loan you camera and to ensure you won’t get dizzy and/or distracted by all the buttons on a typical shooter, the camera, which in this case is a Samsung NX, is all wrapped up in leather and leaving you with just two buttons for power and shutter. That’s it. You need to be bothered by how to set exposure, ISO or whatnot.
Even the LCD screen is covered, so you won’t be distracted by the result of your shoot. If there’s nothing to see, there will be nothing to compel you to fiddle with the settings, which if you recall, it has none at all. You literally just point-and-shoot. Now, this is the part where Relonch’s hardware feels like a Lomography camera; though, it needs no action from you beyond hitting the shutter button. The camera will push the images you captured, via 4G network, to Relonch servers and supposedly, the AI will pick the best images on your behalf and enhance them automatically.
Processed images are then pushed but to you, to your smartphone the following morning. Ok, that part is also very much like analog camera which, as we all know, keeps you in suspense. While you may have a modern, digital camera, instant gratification is non-existence with Relonch’s “camera as a service” program. I seriously don’t see how this will go well with photography-loving human race, especially when all the above mentioned service demands a $99 per month subscription.
For that price, you get the said hardware, presumably wrapped in leather with the color of your choosing and a photography ‘butler’ of sort which takes care of selecting the best image, edit the shortlisted images and even churning out a monthly printed book of your favorite photos. 99 dollars a month works out to $1,200 which, to be honest, could get you a pretty decent camera and so, we are not entirely sure how well receive this photography for dummies will be, but we are going to go with ‘lukewarm at best’, because 99 dollars.
And here a couple of sample photos of what you can expect:
Images courtesy of Relonch.
