In Europe alone, there are 20 million income-generating content creators, which include Photographers, Videographers, YouTubers, Instagrammers, TikTokkers, and Twitch streamers to name a few, yet most are working with devices that do not maximize their potential – smartphone sensors are not up to spec, yet DSLR or mirrorless cameras lack computational photography capabilities.

Photogram, the organization behind the eagerly awaited Alice Camera has today announced that you can pre-order the AI-accelerated computational camera now for a super early bird price via its online pre-order campaign. As content platforms evolve, the camera market needs to adapt – the Alice Camera brings together the experience of a smartphone with the quality of a DSLR camera to shoot, edit and share high-quality 4K content instantly.

Photogram was founded in June 2019 when its co-founders Vishal Kumar and Dr. Liam Donovan met on the Entrepreneur First London 12 cohort. The company secured a £175k innovation grant from Innovate UK, the UK government’s innovation agency, and joined the Micro Four Thirds System standard run by Olympus and Panasonic. The Alice Camera will be manufactured in Britain and is the first device launched by Photogram.

The Alice Camera gives total control to the user and works with their smartphone to shoot and share better content in a fraction of the time – simply point, shoot and share or live stream to your audience on social media in high-quality full-width 4K video.

Its sleek design mounts to the back of most smartphones (although it can also work unattached) and its native iOS and Android app will connect to and control the camera via the touchscreen interface, giving users a smooth user experience and a faster production workflow. Fast wireless data transfer between camera and phone gives users a seamless real-time viewfinder on their smartphone screen.

Vishal Kumar, CEO, and Co-founder of Photogram said, “Today’s announcement comes after 18 months of liaising with over a thousand content creators, taking part in extensive accelerator programs, and building prototype Alice cameras. We are so pleased that we can bring to market a product that has been built from the ground up by creators for creators. Over the next decade, the creator economy driven by the passion economy is set to grow rapidly. Creators are growing at 15% annually and the market for digital photography more broadly will reach $150bn by the end of 2026. Creators need a tool more suitable for our new world of content creation; imagine the future for creators and the industry with the Alice Camera’s features and functionality?”

Alice says its sensor is the same quad-Bayer, dual native ISO Micro Four Thirds sensor found in the Panasonic GH5S, which means it’s especially suited to better low light performance. And while it isn’t quite going to give you the highly-sought-after bokeh of a full-frame camera, it will be a noticeable improvement over what a smartphone camera can capture, with the benefit that it will also be real bokeh, not artificially defocused.

The Alice Camera also offers the ability to attach your favorite Micro Four Thirds lens, the most flexible and compact interchangeable lens system around, with over 50 professional-quality lenses available, or attach an adapter to use lenses with different mounts too; a dedicated AI-chip will run the company’s patent-pending end-to-end deep learning pipeline on-device for innovative computational photography features to automate scene capture and enhance image processing.

Being a computational camera, Alice will be regularly updated via software updates, meaning that content creators can stay on top of their game without constantly purchasing new devices – just lenses of their choice. In addition, Alice’s open-source software can be customized like no other camera — others will be free to build add-ons and features that will benefit all Alice Camera users. An open-access environment means creators can deeply customize their creative process, encouraging collaboration and software development.

The Alice Camera will be shipped to pre-order customers in the Autumn when the RRP will be £750 for the body only. However, content creators can order the Alice Camera via the Indiegogo campaign which launched today, and benefit from a special pre-order price starting from £550 (26% discount).

More info on Alice Camera’s Indiegogo campaign.