Meet the ‘new’ camera, same as the old camera.
Yes, trends come and go – and come back again – and reviving old ideas isn’t always bad. There’s a reason something worked well in the first place, even if it was subsequently deemed surplus to requirements prior to being revived.
Using existing camera bodies and tech is also profitable, avoiding the need for fresh R&D time, expense and guesswork.
And yet it seems, of late, that many of our favourite camera companies’ ideas aren’t just recycled: they’re actively worse than the originals – while delivering an additional punch in the gut for photographers by being more expensive with it.
We’ve seen it so far this year with reissue of the six-year-old PowerShot G7 X Mark III, Canon’s only photographer-focused compact of 2026, in a special 30th anniversary edition, leading to cries of ‘Is that it?’
At the same time, Panasonic’s ‘new’ travel zoom compact, the Lumix TZ300 / ZS300, is identical to the TZ200 before it, yet at the same time worse. Frustratingly, it’s jettisoned an eye-level electronic viewfinder – just like the series-reviving TZ99 / ZS99 the previous year.
And don’t get me started on whether its lauded Lumix L10, itself recycling ideas from Panasonic's LX100 series, last seen in 2018, qualifies as the zeitgeist-y compact camera its manufacturer claims it is.
And that’s just those who have released cameras in 2026. At the time of writing, I’ve yet to see anything new, old or recycled from Nikon or OM System (no, I’m not counting the astrophotography-enhanced OM-3 Astro variant).
I could also add in that there’s been nothing new from Fujifilm’s X or GFX ranges – if dismissing various Instax launches as revenue generators with an accent on fun, rather than serious photographic tools. Which I think is fair.
Yes, there is a camera market slowdown happening currently. There is a shortage of memory chips, too. The two facts are related. And they’re pushing up prices. At the same time, more people have less money in their pockets to spend than before.
So, I can see why camera companies are looking to make savings and are either electing to currently release nothing at all – or, alternatively, having a root around in whatever their equivalent of the back of the cupboard is and finding old gear to reissue with minimal tweaking.
I just miss the days when there was something new and genuinely exciting to write about – and when each new launch was a cause to learn a whole new, brain-expanding, technological vocabulary.
Come on, camera companies – surprise us!
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