Vishal Kumar is the founder of Caira Camera — a camera that bridges the gap between your smartphone and professional equipment. Before launching his business, Vishal worked as a data scientist at Sotheby's, where he started creating his own content and quickly discovered the frustrations that come with traditional photography workflows. His experience led him to ask a simple question: why should getting quality photos mean spending hours editing on a laptop? Caira is his answer—a camera that combines the image quality of a Sony with the ease of a smartphone, powered by AI to handle the tedious bits you'd rather skip.

What We Talked About

• Why smartphone cameras have hit a wall – The iPhone 17 Pro has identical sensors to the 16 Pro. Incremental improvements don't match the marketing hype, and tiny sensors can only get so good.
• The graduation dilemma – Content creators and small business owners are buying professional cameras for better quality, but the complicated menus and outdated workflows make them a nightmare to use.
• Why big camera brands can't innovate – Canon, Sony, and Nikon control 90% of the market but are trapped serving professional photographers who resist any change.
• The real pain point isn't taking photos – It's spending hours afterwards dragging files to your laptop and editing in Adobe Lightroom. That's where most people give up.
• AI for the boring stuff, not the creative stuff – Caira handles post-processing automatically—applying colour grades, cutting videos, adding subtitles—whilst you stay in control of the actual photography.
• The controversy around generative AI – Caira is the first mirrorless camera with Imagen built in. Vishal's solution to concerns? Add "nutrition labels" to AI-generated content so everyone knows what they're looking at.
• Data ownership and health tech – Vishal's been tracking his health data on Apple Watch for 10 years and believes we should take more control of our own health information.

Ready to Hear More?
If you've ever felt frustrated by the gap between your smartphone and "proper" cameras—or if you're curious about how AI might actually make your life easier rather than just generating weird images—this episode is for you. Vishal doesn't hold back on the challenges facing his business or the controversies around AI in photography. Tune in to hear how one entrepreneur is betting that the future of cameras isn't about more megapixels, but about less faff.
Listen now on your favourite podcast platform.

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