According to the rumor mill, the newly-announced Sony FX5 was supposed to launch alongside a purported Sony 100-400mm f/5.6-8 FE, but that hasn’t exactly materialized. I know I’m operating with the benefit of hindsight, but I’m not at all surprised that the two products weren’t launched together. After all, they’re completely unrelated. The much-anticipated Sony FX5 would have completely stolen the Sony 100-400mm f/5.6-8 FE’s thunder. How could it not?

But on a personal level, I’m extremely excited for the proposed release of this lens. Sure, the supposed aperture range of f/5.6 to f/8 might seem slow as molasses, but for the reported asking price of €899 (approx $1,020 / 769) by way of Sony Alpha Rumors, it’s shaping up to be an accessible supertelephoto zoom in a class that’s fraught with expensive glass. My mind immediately goes to the Canon RF 100-400mm f/5.6-8 IS USM, which launched back in 2021 for an extremely good-value price of $649 / £699 and is a lens that’s frequently discounted.

This class of lens isn’t for everyone, but I like to think of it as an alternative option to a bridge camera. Take the recently released Sony RX10 V for example; you get an equivalent 24-600mm f/2.4-4 reach, but the compromise is that 1-inch-type sensor.

If the Sony 100-400mm f/5.6-8 FE launches, you’d have another Sony option. A slightly smaller zoom range and narrower aperture range, but the option to stick that lens on an APS-C or full-frame body that’ll deliver much better image quality. There isn’t a right or wrong answer, but it’s nice to have the choice.

A supertelephoto lens this slow would come with some concessions. Camera shake is the enemy of the supertelephoto lens, and with narrower apertures making it harder to accommodate fast shutter speeds, you would need to make sure you’re shooting in ample light to get the best out of this class of lens.

As such, you’ll want to be operating in bright, daytime conditions. This won't be a lens to accompany you in a dark forest. And while that does limit its uses, it would still be a great option for daytime nature reserve trips and safaris, as well as daytime sporting events. Motorsport is a great shout, given you work at slower shutter speeds when panning.

Another benefit from this class of lens is size. The Canon weighs just 635g, which in comparison to pro-grade 400mm optics is very light indeed. Could Sony beat it? Only time will tell. Other information is thin on the ground, although according to Digital Camera Info, which cited tipster how2fly, the lens could have “a focus limiter that doubles as an AF/MF switch”.

In all honesty, I don’t think Sony has to do very much at all to make this 100-400mm lens a winner. As long as the image quality is decent and the price is right, I can see wildlife and sports enthusiasts on a budget swiping these off online shelves left, right and center. If Sony does indeed announce this lens, Digital Camera World will be right here reporting on it.

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Many of the biggest achievements in photography’s history came from photographers and chemists, but the invention of color photographs wasn’t initiated by a photographer at all but a physicist obsessed with the science of colors.

James Clerk Maxwell was a mid-1800s physicist credited for early work in electromagnetism, but one of Maxwell’s key interests was color. Maxwell's research focused on unearthing how people see colors and different color combinations, but his work led to a theory on how photographers could create color images by mixing light.

Maxwell built an eight-foot-long box that allowed him to mix light and test his theory that mixing the three primary colors of light would create other colors. As a biography noted, the oversized box “excited the wonder of his neighbours, who thought him mad to spend so many hours staring into a coffin.”

In 1855, Maxwell theorized that a color photograph could be possible by using three black-and-white slides, each with a different color filter, and projecting the three images together. Maxwell wouldn’t put the theory to the test until 1861, when he commissioned the help of photographer Thomas Sutton.

Unlike Maxwell, Sutton was both an inventor and a photographer – he literally wrote the Dictionary of Photography in 1856 and invented both the first panoramic camera and the first single-lens reflex camera.

To test Maxwell’s theory, Sutton took three photos of a tartan-patterned ribbon, each with a different color filter. Maxwell later projected those three images together onto a screen while giving a lecture in London.

The photography isn’t exactly a color image by modern standards – the image was, after all, projected by combining three photos together – but the research was key in the development of true color photography down the road. Maxwell’s theory on mixing colors to create a full-color image held water – in fact, even modern computer and TV screens still use the concept of mixing red, green, and blue light in each pixel.

But while the theory held, the actual photograph shouldn’t have worked at all. The chemicals on the glass plates that Sutton worked with were not sensitive to green, yellow or red – so the images taken with the red- and green-filtered photos shouldn’t have rendered a photograph.

The answer as to why the black-and-white chemicals were able to render some color in the 1861 photograph didn’t come until a researcher at Kodak revisited the process a century later. Kodak’s Raph Evans, working with similar chemicals, realized that the red filter image was picking up ultraviolet light, and that’s what led to the first color image.

While Maxwell’s first image to test the theory worked almost by accident, the theory itself held and led to further research into chemicals that could record those colors.

Maxwell’s idea that mixing red, blue, and green light could create other colors is still used today. Modern color camera sensors use red, green, and blue filters arranged in a pattern over the sensor that allow the sensor to “see” in color.

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Vintage cameras carry the look of the era in which they launched. So when Red Bull cinematographer Khyber Jones got the opportunity to record a 1958 Douglas DC-6B aircraft in midair, the creator reached for a camera from the same decade: a Bolex H16 cinema camera.

The DC-6B, part of the Flying Bulls' vintage fleet of airplanes, was built in Santa Monica in 1958, but the plane hadn’t returned to American soil since. When Red Bull brought the 1958 aircraft for a flight across the US, the team opted to record the flight with vintage camera equipment.

Jones captured in-flight footage of the aircraft from an even older airplane – a World War II-era A26 bomber. These planes had a glass-domed nose, which gave the videographer a wider view than a typical airplane window to work from.

The Bolex H16 series dates all the way back to 1935, but in the 1950s the Swiss-made video camera gained the H16 Reflex – which used a beam-splitter prism to enable the creator to see what the lens sees through the viewfinder.

Despite the camera’s age, the two Bolex H16s on board – both from Jones’ collection – didn’t need any modifications. One was loaded with Kodak Vision3 50D and one with Kodak Vision3 250D.

They weren't the only vintage cameras on board

Along with the 1950s-era video equipment, the aircraft’s journey was also photographed by Colin Kerrigan with a Canon AE-1 Program with Kodak Ektacolor Pro 400. The Canon was the newer of the vintage equipment on board, dating back to 1981.

“The biggest challenge was getting comfortable and overcoming the uneasiness that comes with flying in a plane that is from WWII,” said Kerrigan, a Red Bull photographer.

“Your mind tends to wander, but once we were airborne and the cameras were rolling, all the anxiety went away, and we focused on filming the beautiful plane and setting.”

The resulting work – both video and stills – is a mesmerizing look at not only the plane, but modern New York City through a vintage lens. The film and retro lenses give the modern city an old-school feel – and one that matches well with the aircraft.

The team also shot some footage with an iPhone – offering a sharp contrast between the cameras of the 1950s and modern camera phones.

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Way back in 1912, a Dutchman living in the German city of Dresden, Johan Steenbergen, started Industrie und Handelsgesellschaft (the Industrial and Trading company) that made cameras under the Ihagee brand name.

Ihagee is the pronunciation of the abbreviation of the company’s name, IHG in German, so pronounced "eehagáy".

The company was quite successful and spent more than 20 years building a variety of folding, plate and reflex cameras. But it didn't become widely known outside Europe until 1936, when it brought the world its first 35mm mirror reflex camera: the Kine Exakta.

Before that, Ihagee produced a variety of folding, box and, most importantly, reflex cameras. The most important of these was the Roll-Paff Reflex, which was introduced in 1932. It was a relatively simple 6x6 SLR using 120 roll film and is often regarded as an important step in the development of the Exakta concept.

The next year, Ihagee introduced the first truly compact SLR – the Vest Pocket Exakta – which made 8 exposures, each 4x6.5 cm on a roll of 'vest pocket' 120 film. It featured a waist-level finder and a focal plane shutter with speeds to 1/1000, which enabled the use of interchangeable lenses.

The Vest Pocket (VP) Exakta was designed by Karl Nüchterlein (1904-1945), the brilliant, 29-year-old chief designer at Ihagee. He developed the camera around 1930-1933 and it was introduced at the Leipzig Spring Fair in 1933.

Then came the camera that put Nüchterlein and Ihagee on the world stage, the Kine Exakta, in 1936. It was the world's first 35mm SLR and was derived directly from the VP Exakta.

It was called the “Kine” Exakta because that's the German word for the 35mm cine film it used. It had a folding waist-level finder, an unusual left-handed, front-mounted shutter release and a rapid film-wind thumb lever.

It had a focal plane shutter with speeds from 1/2 to 1/1000 sec and sported an array of high-quality interchangeable lenses. Fewer than 30,000 Kine Exaktas were made before the Second World War stopped production in 1940.

As the war approached, the political climate in Germany became difficult for Steenbergen – a Dutch national with a Jewish-American wife. After being detained for a period by the Nazis, they fled Germany through Switzerland in 1941.

In 1943, even though the Ihagee factory was by then part of the war effort, Nüchterlein patented a TTL (through-the-lens) metering version of the Kine Exakta. That camera was never built, as he was drafted into the German Army during the war and was later declared “missing in action”.

During the devastating Allied air raids on Dresden on the night of February 13-14 1945, the Ihagee factory was hit and the destruction was total.

After the war, Dresden fell into the Soviet occupation zone. The Soviet authorities were eager to restart industrial production, though they neglected to develop Nüchterlein‘s TTL patent. Had they done so, Exakta might still be a leading brand today.

The first postwar cameras were essentially continuations of the prewar Kine Exakta design. Many collectors can identify these early postwar cameras by subtle changes caused by wartime shortages and reconstruction. Some cameras exported abroad even carried markings such as "Soviet Occupied Germany."

Production of improved models soon started and, until the arrival of the Japanese SLRs in the mid-to-late 1950s, Exakta dominated the 35 SLR field, with a market share of more than 95%!

In 1949 the Exakta II was introduced, an improved version of the original, which was followed by the Exakta Varex in 1950. The Varex was arguably the most influential Exakta model, as it was the first with a removable / interchangeable viewfinder system, offering a choice of an eye-level pentaprism or a waist-level finder.

This series quickly became one of the world's leading professional and scientific camera systems, with an enormous range of accessories and lenses.

In the early 1950s, Ihagee realized that it needed a more competitive, lower-priced camera to bring people to the Exakta brand – so it created the cheaper Exa series.

The original Exa model (1950-1959) used a guillotine shutter with a metal blade that dropped as the mirror rose, then “popped” back up. It was simple to make, reliable and compact enough to fit in the low-cost camera’s smaller body, but suffered from slightly uneven exposure, increased vibration and a top speed of just 1/150 sec.

It also featured an unusual “stick shift” or “four-on-the-floor” shutter speed selector, for a focal-plane shutter with speeds of 1/25, 1/50, 1/100 and 1/150 sec. as well as 'B'. The Exa’s bayonet accepted all Exakta lenses and it featured the interchangeable finders of the Exakta.

It was for these reasons that the Exa II was released in 1960, with a more conventional focal-plane shutter and a shutter speed selector mounted concentric with the film rewind knob. Shutter speeds now went to 1/250 sec.

Ironically, the factory survived the bombing better than it survived the Cold War economy. By 1970, Ihagee had effectively been absorbed into Pentacon and Exakta production ended around 1971. While the Exakta RTL 1000 was produced from 1969 through 1973, many regard it as essentially a little modified, rebadged Praktica.

The cheaper Exa series continued until 1990, through various somewhat improved models. Exact production numbers are unknown, as many records were lost when the factory was destroyed, but best estimates suggest that over one million of each had been made.

Read more of David Young's ongoing series on classic cameras, as well as his book A Brief History of Photography.

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There will be tons of articles on where to see and how to photograph a solar eclipse, with the next one due on August 12. I have been chasing solar eclipses for 47 years, so I thought I'd write about what has changed over that time.

A solar eclipse is the closest thing I can think of to what some people call a “religious experience”. The sky goes dark in the middle of the day. The birds go to roost, while cows head back to their barns. The winds die down and there is a remarkable hush.

If you’re in the path of totality, you’ll get to see the sun’s corona, which is visible to us only during the few seconds or minutes of a total solar eclipse. If you’re in the path, and on high ground, you can watch the shadow of the moon race towards you, across open fields or open water, at 1,500 miles per hour.

Observers within the Moon's umbra (the darkest part of the shadow) see a total solar eclipse, while those in the penumbra see a partial solar eclipse. If the Moon is slightly farther from Earth and appears too small to cover the Sun completely, an annular eclipse occurs, leaving a bright ring of sunlight visible around the Moon.

It’s a sight like no other. I should know. I’ve now watched and photographed seven of them.

Eclipses only happen due to a quirk of nature. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, but the sun is also almost exactly 400 times further away. When things line up just right, during a new moon when the sun, moon and Earth are in nearly a straight line, the moon's shadow falls on the face of the Earth.

If the moon is closer on its orbit (its perigee), it casts a bigger shadow and the eclipse lasts longer. If it is further from the Earth (its apogee), its shadow is smaller and the eclipse is shorter.

A total solar eclipse occurs about once every 18 months, but most are over water, or Siberia in winter, or over the Arctic or Antarctic or similarly hard or expensive places to get to.

Eclipses that occur over land that you can affordably get to are that not common. If you don’t want to travel, one happens over any given spot on earth every 350 to 400 years. So, all you need to do is wait… and then remember to go outside when it happens!

My first eclipse: February 26 1979

My first eclipse happened rather spontaneously. We’re talking decades before the advent of the internet, when only readers of astronomy magazines had any inkling that it was coming.

So, a week before, my then brother-in-law suggested I join a small group of 'keeners', who were going to Toppenish, Washington. I checked with my photo dealer, rented a Celestron C-90 with a solar filter and an adapter to my camera, and away we went!

We arrived in the small town of Ellensburg, Washington, late the day before, popped into a local motel and booked a room with no trouble. We dined at a local cafe that night and the waitress told us she couldn’t understand why there were so many people in town!

Mobility is key, then or now, for eclipse viewing. The morning of the eclipse, my brother-in-law and myself were racing down gravel section roads looking for holes in the cloud. We got to an intersection and stopped to consult the clouds. I chose right, while he went left. Totality was to start in less than ten minutes. I saw the eclipse, he did not.

Back then I had no idea how to use the telescope, and my tripod was not sturdy enough for it, so my photos were blurry. Totality was just 2 minutes 25 seconds. But I was hooked.

In the aftermath, I learned something rather important. Cheap Mylar filters have a blueish cast and the photos look awful. Spend a little extra coin and get filters with a golden tone. It’s not the real color, either, but it's much more pleasing.

I had a pair of electronics stores to run, and thus neither the time nor budget to gallivant around the world after eclipses. So I had to wait 12 years.

My second solar eclipse: July 11 1991

After a 12-year wait, we drove from southern British Columbia to San Jose Del Cabo, in Mexico’s Baja – a 5,000-mile round trip.

This was “The Big One”, the longest totality for some 300 years, either side of now. At its maximum eclipse, some distance further south, totality was a full 6 minutes 53 seconds, of which we got to see 6 minutes and 47 seconds from San Jose del Cabo.

A couple of evenings prior to the eclipse, we met a lady in the lobby of our hotel who taught English and wanted to chat – most likely to improve her own English. The Mexican government had worried about people damaging their eyes, watching the eclipse without proper eye protection.

So they were setting up solar filter-equipped TV cameras all along the path, and would broadcast it live over and over, as the shadow moved down the coast.

I asked her if she was going to watch the eclipse on TV, but she told me that she was going to watch it in the time-honored Mexican way. “And what is that?” I asked. “From under the bed!” she replied.

On the morning of the eclipse was 100% cloud cover. Many folks opted to drive an hour north, to Santiago, hoping they’d gain an extra seven seconds of totality, and that the skies it would be clearer inland.

We opted to set up on the grounds of a condo where some of our group were staying. We were really roughing it, as we had to suffer being on a cool, manicured lawn, 20 feet from the whirlpool, 30 feet from the swimming pool, 50 feet from the ocean and 100 feet from the bar. And we had lots of company!

The best bit was that roughly 30 minutes before totality, the clouds vanished and everyone had a spectacular view. Still we suffered through with only 6 minutes and 45 seconds of umbral time. Life was rough!

In contrast, many Americans flew to Hawaii, as it was also on the center-line. But Hawaii had severe clouds and – unless you were one of the exalted few allowed above the clouds, on the grounds of the telescopes atop Mauna Kea – nobody saw a thing!

A PBS documentary of the Hawaiian version of the 1991 eclipse interviewed one family who could not find accommodation, so flew into Honolulu, stayed awake for 36 hours and flew home. All without seeing the eclipse! Getting clouded out is a risk that all eclipse chasers take.

What surprised me more than anything else was that, after totality ended, even though the partial phases still had an hour or more to go, within minutes the people cleared out and the town was empty. You could have shot a cannon down the main street and not hit a soul. Absolutely amazing!

So, two eclipses down and five to go. In 1998 the internet was in its infancy, with dial-up modems and slow connections, having very little influence on people’s lives. Cellphones would not become mainstream for another three to five years. But before long, the internet would take hold of the world – and everything would change…

The next installment of David Young's 47-year diary of a solar eclipse photographer will be published soon

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ISO is a complicated subject that’s often contorted into an overly simple solution: keep it as low as possible.

But many mirrorless camera sensors feature something called dual-gain, dual-native or dual-base ISO – and if that doesn’t sound particularly familiar, it could change the way you shoot forever.

How low can you go? The ISO myth

I personally think that photography journalists (*ahem* like me…) are to blame for the oversimplification of ISO.

Back in print publishing’s heyday, landscape photography was the magic sauce. Stick a stunning vista on the front cover of a magazine with a tasty landscape-themed coverline and the issue would sell like hotcakes.

As such, a lot of beginner photography techniques are biased toward landscape photography. And when you’re set up on a tripod it makes absolute sense to keep your ISO as low as possible, because you’re less bothered about your shutter speed.

But if you’re capturing street snaps or fast-moving wildlife, suddenly a low ISO becomes impractical.

I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve judged over a hundred photography competitions, and the number one mistake that I see again and again is soft images from photographers who evidently think that noise is more egregious than camera shake. It’s not.

Dual-native ISO

There’s another reason why you shouldn’t fear raising your ISO. Many modern mirrorless cameras feature dual ISO technologies, often referred to as dual gain, dual native or dual base. Let’s get some jargon out of the way first…

• Native ISO: A camera’s ISO range in which the analog signal is boosted.
• Expanded ISO: Sits either side of the native ISO range, expanding the signal digitally beyond analog means, making noise much more apparent.
• Base ISO: At the bottom value of the native ISO range, this is an unboosted ISO value that creates the cleanest images. In a dual or triple-base ISO setting, it acts as a baseline in which to provide the best image quality possible but will still be amplified to a degree.

A conventional camera features one analog circuit, which is boosted to increase light sensitivity. Dual-native ISO features two analog circuits. The idea behind this is that it allows for two base ISOs. For example, you might have a base ISO at ISO64 and ISO800.

This can even mean that shooting at the second base ISO will provide better image clarity than some lower ISOs. For example, if you’re shooting at ISO640, you might as well bump it up to ISO800 so you can benefit from a faster shutter speed and still end up with no noticeable drop in image quality – and possibly end up with even better results.

Different cameras have different circuits and can even differ from stills to video or between video formats. For example, the Nikon Z9 has base ISOs of ISO64 and ISO500 for stills, and ISO800 and ISO4000 for video when shooting in N-Log.

Some manufacturers aren’t particularly good at promoting their cameras’ dual-native ISO capabilities – and Nikon is one such manufacturer. A recent article on Nikon Rumors highlights this. I was well aware of the Nikon Z9, Nikon Z8, Nikon Z6 III and Nikon Zf, but had no idea that the Nikon Z6 II, Nikon Z7 II, Nikon Z7 and Nikon Z6 had dual-gain sensors.

This is likely because the technology is much more prevalent within the video sphere, which makes sense.

Videographers are more exposed when it comes to noise-reduction techniques. Photographers can capture long exposures, exposure stack to capture more dynamic range, implement flash, and noise-reduction is much easier for photographers.

Not to be confused with DGO

There’s another technology called Dual Gain Output [DGO], but this operates differently to dual-gain or dual-native ISO by essentially using the dual circuit simultaneously.

This means that the camera captures two images, one on the low-gain circuit and one on the high-gain circuit, before blending them into one image. The theory is that by using the low-gain circuit to capture the highlights and the high-gain circuit to capture the shadows, you end up with better image quality.

And that’s not all; the Canon EOS C400 cinema camera introduced the world to triple-base ISO, which works exactly like the aforementioned dual-base ISO, but features three analog circuits for even greater noise-reducing capabilities.

So, as always, for besty results you need to really familiarize yourself with your camera and its capabilities. Look up what your sensor can actually do and you might be astonished at how you can use it in the real world, not just abiding by "old magazine logic"!

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Carbon monoxide and other greenhouse gases are invisible, but photographers are capturing the effects of a warming planet in a way that’s impossible to ignore. As several regions struggle with record-breaking heat, drought, and wildfires, photojournalists are turning their lenses to document the very visible effects of a global issue with an invisible cause.

I’m a photographer and a journalist, and as I was looking through the top news photos of this week, I couldn’t help but notice a pattern. Photojournalists are capturing the effects of a warming planet in a way that turns an invisible cause into a very tangible photograph – and it echoes the top photos from last week as wildfire smoke created eerie photographs with an apocalyptic feel.

These are the best photos from photojournalists that I’ve spotted this week.

A striking image of a melting glacier

This photograph by Sean Gallup shows two researchers walking across the sediment left by a melting glacier, the Isunnguata Sermija in Greenland. A group of researchers began a six-week campout where the scientists will document the changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet.

The photograph is an excellent example of powerful framing that tells a story. The low angle highlights the sediment with the glacier misted in the background. Including two researchers in the photo rather than just an empty but changing landscape gives the photograph a human element.

Firefighters silhouetted by a wildfire in France

This photograph by Romain Perrocheau stopped me in my tracks. I can’t see the firefighter’s faces, but I can feel the exhaustion radiating off them in their stance alone.

The photograph is a powerful example of what a minimal, tightly-framed photograph can do. The pattern of the bright orange smoke instantly conveys the subject, yet leaves space for the eye to go immediately to the firefighter’s stance in the middle of the composition.

An empty river bed

In this photograph by Nikolay Doychinov, boats and a bridge lie in the dry river bed of the Danube River between Bulgaria and Romania.

The aerial view of the river helps demonstrate the scale of the issue, as record temperatures had led to low water levels. But it’s color that creates a strong composition here. All three boats have the same blue that helps them stand out against the dull colors of the dried riverbed.

A perfectly-framed shot of rain in NYC

According to the United Nations, climate change is exacerbating water-related crises like both drought and flooding. This photograph was taken while New York and New Jersey were under a flood watch. The image is a color shot (as evidenced by the red in the clothing and the yellow sign on the rocks), but the weather and moody exposure make this image feel nearly like a black-and-white photograph.

Photographer Spencer Platt could teach a class on composition with just this image. The archway uses the frame-within-a-frame technique that immediately draws the eye to the subject. Placing the couple holding umbrellas against the gray skyline rather than a dark background helps the subject stand out. Then, there are even leading lines as the Brooklyn Bridge further draws the eye into the photo.

A striking night shot

There are three light sources in this image – manmade lights, stars, and a wildfire. The photograph by Thibaut Durand of Abaca Press depicts the historic Horloge des Hermes clock tower and the lights of the town of L'Argentière-la-Bessée, France, as a wildfire burns on the French Alps in the background.

As a photographer, I know just how difficult it is to capture astrophotography mixed with manmade lights, as artificial lights tend to wash out the stars. Not only did Durand capture both, but a wildfire as well. The sparks coming from the wildfire almost feel like additional stars.

Photographs have power, and these five photos demonstrate how a good photograph can draw attention to key global issues.

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I think it’s fair to say that Elon Musk isn’t a fan of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. The world’s richest person has been rather critical of Nolan’s cinematic retelling of Homer’s epic poem since before its release.

The businessman has been particularly active on X where he’s accused Nolan of chasing awards, mocked the casting of Elliot Page and replied “I’m down” to a post suggesting that he should give Mel Gibson $100 million to create another version of the epic.

Which would actually be a bargain, given that The Odyssey’s budget was reportedly $250 million.

But what really piqued my interest was Musk’s claim that his AI platform, Grok Imagine, will make a “historically accurate” feature film of the Greek epic “true to the art of Homer”. This was accompanied by a link to a three-minute showreel of an AI-generated Odysseus, posted by X user Heavy Pulp.

It’s important to note that this doesn’t appear to be the AI film that Elon is talking about and is presumably designed to showcase Grok’s capabilities. After all, we're only halfway through the year.

But I do find it rather amusing, given how hypercritical the Tesla CEO has been about Nolan’s efforts, that he would link to an AI recreation that’s about as accurate as a Star Wars Stormtrooper with vertigo.

I mean, the first time we get a mid-length shot of the perpetually sweaty Charlton-Heston-like lead, he clearly has a medieval-style sword in his scabbard, with a lengthy guard, a long handle and a circular pommel.

I’m no historian, but I’ve also noticed ancient Greek helmets that look more like the early imperial variety worn by Roman Legionnaires. As well as Sirens clad in yellow dresses that wouldn’t look out of place in Abercrombie & Fitch.

Then there's a scene with water travelling over Odysseus’ back in the opposite direction to the lapping sea. A version of Hermes that looks like he’s stolen his wings from a Victoria’s Secret runway.

And perhaps the most egregious gaffe, a close-up of Odysseus wearing modern-looking earplugs.

Firstly, the crew plugs their ears with beeswax in the myth. And secondly, Odysseus doesn't use the beeswax and is instead tied to the mast of his ship so he can be the first person to hear the Siren’s call and live to tell the tale. And I'm not the only one to have spotted such gaffes, with a thread dedicated to various inaccuracies on Bluesky.

I’ll give Elon the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was too busy preparing for SpaceX’s Starship Flight 13 to pour over the footage like me, but still, a glowing example of historical accuracy it is not.

I’m also rather confused as to why he is so critical of Nolan’s epic, but appears to enjoy 2004’s Troy – a film that deviates from the source material by removing the presence of the gods.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Troy, but it’s hardly 12 Years a Slave or Downfall when it comes to historical (and mythological) accuracy.

Confusing historical accuracy with good filmmaking?

I watched The Odyssey in the theater last weekend and I think it’s an immeasurably lovingly crafted movie that’s an absolute treat to experience. More than that, though, it’s a bastion of traditional filmmaking – an art form besieged by changing audience appetites and increasingly cynical studios.

If you’re even a little bit of a movie fan, The Odyssey is a hugely important cinematic event. Sadly, it’s not often that a new release drums up this much interest, so it’s imperative that we support these movies where we can.

I couldn’t agree more with The Rest Is History co-host, Tom Holland (the other Tom Holland), who praised on X those who waited until after seeing the movie before passing judgment.

The way I see it is that good filmmaking and historical accuracy are two different things and one doesn't necessarily constitute the other. Grok Imagine can go and make the most historically accurate movie ever made, but I've yet to witness anything from any GenAI platform to suggest that it won't be a soulless rendition filled with sweaty waxworks come to ‘life’.

I mean, I’m willing to be proven wrong, but GenAI severely limits the human element, and I believe that the human element is without doubt the most important component of any art form.

Nolan's The Odyssey was shot on IMAX 70mm film, with gorgeous Panavision and Hasselblad lenses, featured a real production crew, real actors, real sets and real practical effects.

Could there really be a more egregious affront to Homer’s timeless classic, spawned from generations of oral retellings, than removing the human element?

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German court rules against photographer whose 'original' image was used to create AI slop – give me a break. Tom Cruise really knows cameras: “We want flaws. You want things that have an emotion. It just has a different kind of feeling to it,” he says gushing over his latest movie's use of the Beaumont VistaVision. I grew up idolizing George Lucas, but his passive stance on AI is deeply wrong.

The word “amateur” is often treated as an insult in photography. It is used to suggest inexperience, poor technique or someone who has yet to reach the supposedly higher level of becoming a professional.

But I think we have it entirely backward. Being an amateur photographer might be the most creatively freeing position you can ever find yourself in.

There is no client waiting for a particular image, no editor expecting a certain style and no deadline rapidly approaching while you desperately check whether you managed to get the shot. Instead, the photographic world is your oyster – and you can explore it in any way you choose.

You can photograph landscapes one weekend, portraits the next and then suddenly decide that you want to spend the following month photographing nothing but shadows falling across buildings.

You can buy an old film camera, experiment with intentional camera movement, try street photography or spend an entire afternoon attempting to make an interesting photograph of something completely ordinary. Nobody is waiting to tell you that it does not fit your portfolio.

More importantly, nobody on Instagram is demanding that you bring back the “old you”. That might sound slightly ridiculous, but photographers can quickly become trapped by the work for which they are known.

Once people begin following you for a particular look, subject or editing style, it becomes increasingly difficult to change direction without attracting questions about why you have stopped photographing landscapes, started shooting black-and-white, changed cameras or allowed your work to look different.

As an amateur photographer, you do not have to answer any of those questions. You can change direction simply because you feel like it – and your photography does not need a clear brand identity, a content strategy or a recognizable visual formula. It only needs to interest you, which is an incredibly powerful place from which to create.

Photography also remains what it was probably meant to be when you first picked up a camera: a hobby that you enjoy enormously.

I was incredibly fortunate that my hobby became my full-time career for many years. Photography paid my bills, gave me access to extraordinary places and enabled me to build a life around something I genuinely loved doing – and I will always be grateful for that.

However, when your hobby becomes your nine-to-five job, your relationship with it inevitably changes. That does not mean you stop loving photography, but there is suddenly far more riding on the outcome.

You are no longer taking photographs purely because you find something interesting. You are taking them because somebody needs them, because a publication is expecting them or because a client has paid you to deliver them, and that places a responsibility on every press of the shutter.

Looking back, there were many creative ideas I could have explored – but professional photography rarely gave me the freedom to push those ideas particularly far.

I had to get the shot and it had to be sharp, properly exposed, correctly framed and ready to be sent out. There was very little room for failure, because failure could mean missing the defining moment or returning without the image that somebody had commissioned.

When I worked as a professional sports photographer, I could not decide halfway through an event that I wanted to experiment with slow shutter speeds or unusual compositions if doing so might cost me the photograph that mattered.

The creative idea might have been exciting, but the safe photograph was the one that would be published, satisfy the client and ultimately pay the bills.

Professional photography teaches you consistency, reliability and discipline, and those are enormously valuable skills. However, they can also make you cautious.

Because when your reputation and income depend on producing usable images, experimentation can begin to feel like an unnecessary risk rather than an essential part of the creative process.

An amateur photographer has no such limitation and can afford to take that risk. You can deliberately overexpose a frame, miss focus, use the wrong lens, choose an awkward composition or try a technique that you do not fully understand.

You can return home with an entire memory card of photographs that did not work, and absolutely nothing terrible will happen because you can simply learn from the experience and try again next time.

That lack of consequence makes failure useful again. Instead of seeing a failed photograph as a missed deadline or a disappointed client, you can see it as part of the process. You can work out what went wrong, make an adjustment and continue experimenting without worrying about whether the result is commercially viable.

Occasionally, everything comes together. The light works, the composition feels right, and the idea that had been living inside your head suddenly appears on the back of the camera.

Because there was no guarantee of success and no pressure to deliver it, that moment feels even more rewarding because you created the photograph entirely for yourself.

I also think that amateur photographers often put far more effort into their work than the label suggests. They wake up before sunrise, drive for hours to reach a location, spend evenings learning new techniques and carefully edit their photographs after finishing a completely unrelated day job.

They are not doing it because they have been commissioned; they are doing it because they care deeply about the images they are trying to create.

That enthusiasm is incredibly difficult to manufacture, because it comes from curiosity rather than obligation – and curiosity is often where the most interesting photography begins.

An amateur photographer is free to become completely obsessed with an obscure subject that may never attract a large audience – and there is something wonderfully pure about that.

They can spend years documenting their local coastline, photographing family life, recording changes within their community or perfecting a photographic process that very few other people understand. The work does not have to be commercially viable, satisfy an algorithm or even be shown to anyone else for it to carry meaning and value.

In fact, some of the most meaningful photographs are created without any expectation that they will be sold, published or celebrated. They exist because the photographer felt compelled to make them – and perhaps that is the real meaning of being an amateur photographer.

The word comes with assumptions about ability, but it should really describe somebody who practices photography out of love – and there is nothing inferior about that.

Professional photographers deserve enormous respect. They work under pressure, solve problems quickly and consistently produce images regardless of the conditions. I know firsthand how much skill, preparation and resilience that requires, but professionalism is not the only measure of photographic success.

You do not need to earn money from your camera to justify owning it – and you do not need thousands of followers to prove that your images matter. You do not need to specialize, build a brand or turn every creative interest into a business opportunity, because sometimes photography can simply remain photography.

Being an amateur photographer means that you can put maximum effort into an image while accepting that it might fail. You can push the boundaries because there is nobody standing behind you demanding the safer version. And you can follow your curiosity wherever it leads while changing direction whenever you please.

You might be disappointed when an experiment does not work, but you are not professionally damaged by it. When it does work, you can be completely ecstatic because the success belongs entirely to you – and that freedom is something many professional photographers spend years trying to rediscover.

Perhaps being an amateur photographer is not simply the stage before becoming a professional. Perhaps it is its own destination – and, for many photographers, the most creatively rewarding destination of all.

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I used to chase megapixels. Now I would rather chase photographs that mean something.

Megapixels once had an extraordinary hold over me. Every time a new high-resolution camera appeared, I convinced myself that its larger files would somehow make me a better photographer. More resolution meant greater detail, greater flexibility and, I assumed, greater opportunities.

It is an easy trap to fall into, particularly when camera manufacturers have spent years presenting megapixel counts as one of the clearest measurements of progress.

A larger number always looks impressive on a specification sheet, especially when modern cameras now comfortably push beyond 50, 60 or even 100 megapixels. Yet somewhere along the way, many of us began paying more attention to our cameras' resolution than to the quality of the photographs we were producing.

My own journey began with film, using simple Kodak point-and-shoot cameras before eventually working with SLRs such as the Nikon F5. When I moved into digital photography, I used everything from the 4MP Nikon D2H to the 36MP Nikon D800.

The D2H might sound almost laughably modest by modern standards, but it was an exceptional professional camera: fast, responsive and perfectly capable of producing photographs that were published internationally.

Nobody looking at those images cared that they had been captured with four megapixels. The photograph either worked or it did not. By the time I owned the Nikon D800, however, I had started wondering what even more resolution might offer.

I looked towards digital medium format cameras such as the Hasselblad H6D-100c and Phase One XF 100MP, believing their enormous files might improve my work or make it more attractive to clients.

Both systems were magnificent, and I particularly enjoyed using the Phase One. I even photographed an entire event across Ireland and the UK with it, to understand how the system performed outside the controlled environment of a studio.

The files were extraordinary, but the photographs were not automatically extraordinary because of them – and that distinction took me longer to understand than it probably should have.

A camera can record more detail, but it cannot decide where you should stand. It cannot recognize a fleeting expression, anticipate a moment or tell you when the light is about to change. It cannot develop your sense of composition or give an image emotional weight.

Those decisions still belong entirely to the photographer, regardless of how advanced the camera might be.

For a while, I waited for Nikon to produce the high-resolution answer I thought I needed. Canon had released the 50MP EOS 5DS and I expected Nikon to respond with something similar. Instead, I gradually realized that the 36MP D800 I already owned was more than capable of producing everything I needed.

The problem was not the camera; it was that I had allowed technical specifications to distract me from photography.

Once I stopped worrying about what other photographers were using, my work began to change. I started looking for different positions rather than standing shoulder to shoulder with ten other photographers producing almost identical frames.

I thought more carefully about timing, perspective and what was happening beyond the obvious subject. I stopped chasing megapixels and started chasing memories, and that change in mindset eventually led me towards older Leica cameras.

I have used the Leica M-E, with its 18MP full-frame CCD sensor, with great success. On paper, 18 megapixels might appear limited in 2026, but the camera has produced images with wonderful character, depth and color.

More importantly, it has produced photographs I care about, which is ultimately worth far more to me than an impressive number on a specification sheet.

I now regularly use a Leica M240, another camera that can hardly be described as new. Its 24MP CMOS sensor looks positively restrained next to today’s high-resolution mirrorless cameras, but its files continue to hold up remarkably well.

For social media, 24 megapixels is more than enough, especially when platforms such as Instagram and Facebook reduce and compress images so heavily that much of the original resolution is discarded before anybody sees it.

Even fairly significant crops from the M240 can comfortably provide enough detail for online use, while the same files can also produce impressive physical prints.

A successful large print is not simply a matter of sending the original file to a printer and hoping for the best. It requires careful preparation, including appropriate resizing, output sharpening, soft proofing, and the correct ICC profile for the chosen printer and paper.

When that process is handled properly, a well-exposed and carefully focused 18 or 24-megapixel image can print beautifully. Viewing distance also matters, because a large print is intended to be appreciated as a complete image rather than examined from a few centimetres away with a magnifying glass.

File preparation, printing technique and the quality of the original photograph often matter far more than the headline resolution.

Of course, high-resolution cameras have genuine advantages. Commercial, architectural, landscape and studio photographers may require enormous files, particularly when clients need extensive cropping or very large reproductions.

There are situations where every additional megapixel is useful, but most photographers are not regularly producing billboard-sized prints or advertising campaigns that demand huge amounts of resolution.

Many of us are sharing our images online, creating books, making moderately sized prints, or simply documenting the people and places around us. For those purposes, an older camera can still be more than capable.

I would rather use a camera that encourages me to go out and photograph than own the latest high-resolution model simply because its specification sheet is more impressive.

The Leica M240 does that for me. It feels direct, uncomplicated and involving, and its 24-megapixel files give me all the resolution I realistically need. A photograph does not become more meaningful because it contains more pixels; it becomes meaningful because of the moment it preserves, the story it tells or the memory it brings back.

That is why I no longer judge a camera primarily by the number printed beside its sensor resolution. I judge it by whether I want to carry it, whether it encourages me to look more carefully and whether it helps me capture the world as I see it.

Megapixels matter, but they are not the photograph. And I would take a memorable image from an old 18-megapixel Leica over a forgettable 100-megapixel file every single time.

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Oh boy, I’m going to have some fun with this one. A German court has ruled against a photographer who (rightly, in my opinion) sued when her original photograph was uploaded to a GenAI and used to generate an AI-slop cartoon that looks incredibly similar.

In relation to the case, German outlet MIR (Medien Internet und Recht, or 'Media Internet and Law') has published the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf’s guiding principles, of which the first paragraph states:

“The scope of protection for a photographic work is generally limited to the choice of image composition, perspective, lighting, and the sharpness or blur achieved through the correct combination of aperture and exposure time. The subject matter and motif are generally not eligible for protection.”

Ultimately, I do understand this. After all, artists and illustrators frequently use reference images that they don’t own. But where I personally think the court ruling falls apart is that copyright law predates the genAI boom. And genAI is a completely different ballgame.

We’re not talking about a human interpreting an image; we’re talking about the actual photograph being fed directly into an AI. Regardless of the final outcome or how much human involvement there was regarding prompts, the AI is given free rein to process the original work.

You can’t take a copyrighted image and display it on a website for no reason, so why can you take an original image and ram it through the digital embodiment of a meat mincer to be churned into AI slop? Probably because the AI industry doesn’t want to admit that scraping and processing creative content is completely unethical…

This is a fine example of how content credentials just aren’t enough. I want to see a system implemented where images are granted and / or GenAI platforms feature built-in protections, so that an original work that the user doesn’t own cannot be fed into an AI generator in the first place.

Let’s take Andy Warhol, for example. He did not seek permission to use Gene Kornman’s famous photograph of Marilyn Monroe for his Marilyn Diptych and you can certainly argue that he should have done. But you can also argue that Kornman’s original photograph became much more well known because of Warhol's genius.

The same can be said when a musical artist covers another artist’s song; crucially, the paper trail is there. And that’s one of my biggest gripes with GenAI; there’s no paper trail. It’s a deceitful medium that presents unoriginal work as original. Frankly, I applaud and admire the few creatives who are actually taking a stand.

I’ll hold my hands up and admit that I’m not sure I could be bothered to go through the courts over an issue such as this, especially when the outcome is likely going to be unfavorable. But just going through the process is fighting back; it raises awareness and gets people talking.

I can’t help but wonder what the outcome would have been if the original image was a fictional character like Mickey Mouse… Why should a real-world image created by a talented photographer be any different?

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I grew up idolizing George Lucas, but his passive stance on AI is deeply wrong. “AI dilutes what is impressive” – Robert Irwin hits the nail on the head when it comes to artificial intelligence in wildlife photography. How on earth did this obvious AI image get past the judges and win a photography competition?

Photography is a wonderful hobby and profession. It should come as no surprise, but I love it! It’s also an absolute privilege to write about cameras for a living. But the part of my job that I hate most is how sedentary it is and that’s largely due to the high levels of screen time. I reckon I spend a minimum of six hours every single working day, looking at my computer screen. That’s not even counting time spent on my phone, watching TV, playing video games, and capturing photographs with my mirrorless camera.

A recent IPA survey put the average British adult’s daily screen time at nearly 7.5 hours. I nearly hit that at work! Let alone all the other screens that are vying for my attention. Now, in the grand scheme of things, my mirrorless camera’s EVF is a drop in the ocean. But my unhealthy obsession with screens might go some way to explaining why I lament the death of the optical viewfinder.

It’s not the EVF’s fault, but I find myself, especially later in the day, feeling screen fatigue. And honestly, when I’m taking a few fun snaps on a dog walk or during a day out, sticking my retina millimetres away from yet another screen can feel like a headache-inducing drag. I’ve said it before, but I miss optical viewfinders. And it’s not like the industry hasn’t come up with a solution, and by industry, I mean Fujifilm…

What’s a hybrid viewfinder?

A hybrid viewfinder is both an optical and electronic viewfinder, allowing the user to switch between the two. Fujifilm debuted the technology in 2010 with the Fujifilm FinePix X100 and thus kickstarted the legendary X100 series of fixed-lens compact cameras that has, thus far, culminated with the ever popular Fujifilm X100VI.

Fujifilm’s X-Pro series of cameras also features hybrid viewfinders. Both the X-Pro and X100 series are rangefinder-style cameras, but the X-Pro range features interchangeable-lens cameras. Fujifilm’s solution to a fixed rangefinder style optical viewfinder when changing lenses was to introduce digital rectangular indicators as a visual aid to illustrate the new focal length’s parameters.

Fujifilm managed to advance its hybrid viewfinder tech even further with the Fujifilm X100T by introducing a third option, Electronic Rangefinder Mode. This merges both technologies by providing an optical view with a small, picture-in-picture EVF, so you get the best of both worlds.

This is exactly the kind of innovation I like to see from an industry where technical specs are beginning to feel oversaturated and therefore underwhelming. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that a workhorse mirrorless camera like the Canon EOS R6 Mark III, Sony A7 V or Nikon Z8 should have a hybrid viewfinder.

The EVF has transformed the pro-grade sphere for the better, but for enthusiast-level cameras, especially retro cameras, where nostalgia is king, I’d love to see more manufacturers experimenting with hybrid viewfinder tech. And if it gets my screen time down just a little bit, well, that’s just a healthy byproduct.

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The Fujifilm X-M5 finally delivers on the compact promise of the mirrorless camera. I’ll die on this hill: The Nikon F5 is the best 35mm SLR camera you can buy – and it's a secondhand bargain! “AI dilutes what is impressive” – Robert Irwin hits the nail on the head when it comes to artificial intelligence in wildlife photography.

I’ll die on this hill: the Nikon F5 is the best 35mm SLR camera you can buy.

Camera opinions are rarely worth dying over, but I have one that I will defend for as long as there is breath in my body and film in my refrigerator: the Nikon F5 is the best 35mm film camera out there. It is not the prettiest, the lightest, or the most discreet film camera ever made, but I firmly believe it is the best.

Furthermore, it can be bought surprisingly cheaply secondhand – I have seen bodies on sale recently for around £300 / $400 (although obviously actual prices will vary hugely depending on condition).

I know that statement will immediately upset the Leica faithful, Nikon F3 owners, Canon EOS-1V devotees, and anyone who believes a “proper” film camera should be fully mechanical, covered in brass, and operated entirely through dials. That is fine. You are welcome to meet me on this hill, but I am not moving.

The Nikon F5 represents the moment when 35mm photography reached its professional peak. It arrived in 1996 as Nikon’s flagship autofocus SLR, built primarily for photographers who had to return with the picture rather than those who simply enjoyed the process of trying to take it. Nikon designed the camera around speed, reliability, and professional use, giving it five-area autofocus, Dynamic AF, 3D Color Matrix Metering, and a 1,005-pixel RGB metering sensor.

With the dedicated MN-30 battery, the F5 could advance film at up to eight frames per second. That might sound financially irresponsible now that every press of the shutter carries a noticeable cost, but you do not have to burn through an entire roll in a matter of seconds to appreciate what that specification represents. It tells you that the F5 was engineered without compromise.

This was not a camera designed to look attractive on a shelf or appear tastefully beside a flat white on Instagram. It was built for sidelines, press pens, racetracks, war zones, fashion studios, and any other environment where missing the photograph was not an acceptable outcome. That is why I believe it remains the best 35mm camera to buy today: the F5 does not ask you to romanticize inconvenience. It simply gets out of the way and lets you take photographs.

Film photography has become strangely obsessed with limitations. We praise cameras for slowing us down, forcing us to concentrate, and making every frame more deliberate. There is truth in that, of course, but sometimes I think we confuse inconvenience with creativity.

A camera does not make you more artistic simply because it lacks autofocus. A light meter that requires a separate handheld device does not automatically produce better photographs, and manually winding the film does not make the final image more meaningful. Those things can make the experience enjoyable, but they do not necessarily make the camera better.

Sample images

The Nikon F5 gives you the character, latitude, grain, color, and unpredictability of film without requiring you to abandon the practical advantages of a modern professional camera. Its controls feel familiar, its autofocus works, its metering is remarkably dependable, and the body is shaped like something designed to be held for hours rather than admired through a glass cabinet. It is, in many ways, the perfect bridge between analog and digital photography.

That matters because the F5 allows someone accustomed to a DSLR to begin shooting film without first having to relearn the entire process of operating a camera. Load a roll, set your exposure mode, select your focus point, and start shooting. The image is still being recorded onto 35mm film, but getting it there does not have to be unnecessarily difficult.

Some film photographers will consider that a weakness, but I consider it one of the F5’s greatest strengths. I have owned and used mine for more than 15 years, and during that time I have never felt creatively restricted by it.

I have used the F5 with relatively modest lenses, fast primes, professional zooms, a Nikon 200mm f/2, and even a huge 600mm f/4. The fact that a camera released in the mid-Nineties can still communicate with such a wide selection of Nikon F-mount lenses remains one of its greatest practical advantages.

That enormous lens selection means the F5 can become almost anything you need it to be. Fit a 50mm prime and shoot everyday documentary work, add an 85mm lens and use it for portraits, attach a 70-200mm and photograph sports, or put a 600mm lens on the front and turn it into an analog wildlife machine. There are more romantic cameras, but few are more versatile.

Naturally, the F5 has its critics. It is big, it is heavy, and it requires eight AA batteries in its standard configuration. Nobody is going to mistake it for a pocket camera, and carrying one around your neck all day will certainly make its presence known. However, I would argue that its size is part of the appeal.

The grip is substantial, the controls fall naturally under your fingers, and the integrated vertical shutter release makes portrait-orientation shooting feel just as natural as holding the camera horizontally. With a larger professional lens attached, the body provides the balance needed to make the entire setup feel manageable. It feels purposeful because it is purposeful.

The use of AA batteries is often presented as another sign of the camera’s age, yet it may be one of the most practical power solutions ever fitted to a professional camera. You can find AA batteries almost anywhere, with no discontinued proprietary battery to hunt down, no specialist charger that becomes useless when it fails, and no need to worry about whether a decades-old rechargeable pack can still hold a meaningful charge.

Put eight batteries into the F5 and get on with taking photographs. It really can be as simple as that, and there is something reassuring about using a camera that does not depend on an increasingly rare power source to remain functional.

Yes, the F5 relies heavily on electronics, and eventually every electronic camera carries the possibility that something will fail. However, mine has endured years of use and abuse, while other cameras I have owned have long since given up. The F5 was never intended to be disposable technology; it was a professional investment designed to survive the demands of photographers who worked every day.

There is also the question of the Nikon F6. On paper, Nikon’s final professional film SLR is arguably the more technically advanced camera. It is newer, more refined, and equipped with a more sophisticated autofocus system, but I would still choose the F5.

The F6 feels like an exceptional film camera created at the beginning of the digital age. The F5 feels like the camera that conquered the film age, and there is something gloriously uncompromising about it.

Nikon did not build the F5 as a nostalgic tribute or a luxury object. It built the camera to become the new professional standard, and almost three decades later, that intent remains obvious every time you pick one up.

Other cameras may offer a purer analog experience. A Nikon F3 provides beautiful simplicity, a Leica M offers discretion, precision, and one of the greatest viewfinder experiences in photography, while a compact camera can fit into a coat pocket and accompany you everywhere. However, if you asked me to choose one 35mm camera to photograph everything for the rest of my life, I would take the Nikon F5.

I could use it for portraits in the morning, street photography in the afternoon, and professional sports in the evening. I could attach decades of Nikon glass, rely on its autofocus when the subject started moving, trust its metering when the light became difficult, and know that the body was built to handle more punishment than I would ever reasonably give it.

That, to me, is what makes a camera the best. The best camera is not always the one that creates the most romantic shooting experience; it is the one that gives you the greatest chance of making the photograph you saw in your head.

The Nikon F5 might not make you look like a fashionable film photographer. It might not match your vintage camera strap, and nobody will describe it as small or elegant, but it will take the photograph. I will die on the hill that, when it comes to 35mm film cameras, nothing does that job better.

Shop the Nikon F5

Telephoto lenses make you a lazy photographer. There, I said it. That might sound like a strange admission from someone who spent years working as a professional sports photographer, particularly when I was fortunate enough to use some of the finest long lenses ever made. At different points in my career, I had access to a 600mm f/4 lens and a 200mm f/2, and both were absolutely fantastic lenses in their own right.

They were fast, sharp, beautifully made, and capable of producing images with a level of clarity and subject separation that cheaper lenses could only dream of matching. When you are standing beside a sports field and need to deliver a certain photograph, there are few better tools for the job.

However, what those lenses offered in optical quality, I sometimes felt they took away from my imagination.

A 600mm lens could bring almost any part of the action straight to me. During a show jumping competition, I could stand in one position and photograph as many as six different fences around the course. That sounds fantastic, and in many ways it was. If I needed a strong image of a particular rider, having six opportunities to capture the perfect moment dramatically increased my chances of delivering the shot.

For a working sports photographer, that reliability matters. Clients are not always interested in how hard you worked to get an image. They simply want the photograph. A long telephoto lens gives you reach, consistency, and the ability to cover more of the action without constantly changing position. The problem is that it can become too easy.

Once I knew I could photograph most of the course from one place, there was less incentive to move. I did not need to walk to the far side of the arena, crouch beside a fence, search for a cleaner background, or think about how the light might change from another angle. The lens solved the problem of distance, but in doing so, it sometimes removed the challenge that forced me to be creative.

Earlier in my career, when I was working with a 70-200mm f/2.8 or even a simple 50mm f/1.8, I had no choice but to move. I had to anticipate where the action would happen, decide which fence might produce the most dramatic image, and physically put myself in the best possible position. Those limitations made me work harder, but they also made me see more.

With a shorter lens, I would look for ways to include the atmosphere around the action. I might photograph a rider approaching through the crowd, frame a horse against the architecture of the venue, or use foreground elements to give the photograph greater depth. I was not simply trying to fill the frame with the subject. I was thinking about the entire scene.

That is where telephoto lenses can make us lazy. They encourage us to believe that getting closer is the same as making a better photograph. It is not. A tightly framed image of a rider clearing a fence can be technically perfect, but technical perfection does not automatically make it interesting. If every photographer is standing in the same position with a similar long lens, everyone is likely to come away with a variation of the same photograph.

The images that stand out are often the ones created by photographers who were willing to move, experiment, and occasionally risk missing the safe shot in pursuit of something better.

This is not an argument against telephoto lenses. I loved using the 600mm f/4, and the 200mm f/2 remains one of the most extraordinary lenses I have ever worked with. Both were professional tools that helped me deliver photographs under pressure, and there were plenty of situations where nothing else would have done the job as effectively. However, I also think photographers need to recognize when a tool begins to dictate the way they work.

A long lens can quickly become a comfort zone. You find a suitable position, attach the biggest lens in your bag, and wait for the action to arrive. The photographs might be sharp, correctly exposed, and commercially usable, but the process can become repetitive. You stop exploring because the lens allows you to remain exactly where you are.

Photography should involve more than pointing expensive glass at a distant subject.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is leave the telephoto lens behind. Take a 50mm lens, move closer, and accept that you might miss a few photographs. Force yourself to think about backgrounds, light, composition, and timing rather than relying on reach to solve every problem.

You may not come away with six safe opportunities at the same image, but you might come away with one photograph that nobody else saw. Telephoto lenses are incredible tools, but they should not become substitutes for movement, curiosity, or imagination. The moment a lens makes photography feel too comfortable is probably the moment you need to take it off the camera.

The Canon EOS M50 Mark II was a firm favorite among vloggers, creators, casual and travel photographers. However, after half a decade of service (including the original M50), it and the entire EOS M system was discontinued in 2023. 

Not only was it Old Yellered, but the Canon EOS M50 Mark II was replaced wholesale by its EOS R system equivalent, the Canon EOS R50 – a more advanced camera using more advanced Canon RF lenses.

All of which means that the Canon EOS M50 Mark II is dead and buried, right? Actually, I disagree with the 'buried' part. In fact, I disagree with the 'dead' part, too. This camera may have been discontinued, but I think there's plenty of life left in it.

Obviously there's no doubt that the EOS M system is finished, but only as far as Canon is concerned. While the manufacturer hasn't made any lenses for it in years, you still see third-party companies releasing the occasional new optic for the EF-M mount.

But I don't think the mount even needs any new lenses. There are plenty of fantastic EF-M lenses already on the market, and the mount can easily adapt EF and EF-S glass from DSLRs – so there are literally hundreds of other optics you can use on the Canon EOS M50 Mark II. 

On top of that, I'll absolutely grant that the best Canon RF lenses are generally superior to the best Canon EF-M lenses, with one crucial exception: size.

The RF mount is physically much bigger than the EF-M mount, which means that even the most compact EOS R glass is never going to be as small and light as the EOS M lenses can be. 

This is a massive win for the Canon EOS M50 Mark II, whose primary selling point is its tiny size. Yes, the R50 is technically a better camera – newer sensor, more advanced AF, uncropped 4K – but it's not a better camera if you want the smallest and lightest setup possible.

For those of us who want a small body and lenses to throw in a sling bag or handbag while going out on a walk, or to keep in the glove compartment on a road trip, or want the lightest possible load around their neck on vacation, the M50 Mark II is a more suitable solution that its RF sibling.

As you can see from the above shots, this is a perfect carry-everywhere camera for spontaneous shooting with fantastic image quality. It's such a good companion for those outings where you wouldn't want to lug around your full-frame kit, but you always want to be able to take a great picture.

And an upside of it being discontinued is that you can get the Canon EOS M50 Mark II super cheap from the likes of MPB and KEH. It's a camera that I still happily take out for shoots precisely because of its smaller footprint, but it still delivers photo quality that's indistinguishable from the R50. 

So, it's not a fashionable take, but yes – the Canon EOS M50 Mark II still has plenty going for it. Don't mistake "discontinued" for "dead" or "no new lenses" for "no more use". After all, people still buy old film cameras – and they haven't made new lenses for those in decades!

You might be interested in our Canon EOS R50 vs M50 Mark II head to head, as well as our round-up of the best travel cameras and best cameras for beginners. 

The Spanish national football team’s well-deserved second FIFA World Cup victory has been somewhat overshadowed by the Argentinian team’s conduct before and after the final whistle, drawing criticism regarding the defending champions' behaviour. But another incident has dominated headlines: footage of US President Donald Trump appearing to overstay his welcome during the sacred lifting of the trophy.

And now, some outlets are reporting that the US President has been intentionally cropped out of official photographs of the historic moment, including an image posted on the official FIFA World Cup X account (formerly Twitter) .

What happened?

The POTUS was given the honor, alongside FIFA President Gianni Infantino, of handing out medals to both teams as well as presenting the fabled trophy to Spain captain Rodri, during the ceremony at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium. Rodri appears to gently guide the US President to one side, but he stalls right on the edge of the crowd as the team prepares to lift the trophy.

Even Infantino appears to coax Trump further away, but the beaming President faces the cameras and claps the victors as Rodri launches the trophy into the sky amidst a hail of golden confetti. Only then does Trump head off.

Of course, plenty of photographers were on hand to immortalize the moment, intent on capturing that initial burst of jubilation. However, an official photograph posted on the FIFA World Cup X account (above) depicting the initial celebration features an extremely tight 4:5 crop, which only includes what appears to be a very slim portion of the President’s suit. The news comes following a hot-mic moment during the broadcast when Australian commentator Claudio Fabiano could be heard saying: “They can edit him out of that,” seemingly referring to Trump.

Was the crop intentional?

I can only comment on the situation as a photography expert. And firstly, I should address a few things. I’ve seen the word ‘edited’ thrown around a lot, which can conjure images of subject removal, cloning, etc, but from the images I’ve seen, it simply looks like they don’t extend far enough to include Trump.

Now, there’s two ways to crop, the photographer can either crop in-camera by altering the framing, or you can crop in post-production, by using a cropping tool to physically reduce the borders of the image. It’s therefore entirely possible that some of the images being shown were not cropped, but simply never framed the President in the first place.

Still, the image on FIFA’s X account is so tightly framed, my best guess is that it was cropped in post-production (although I cannot be sure). This isn’t necessarily a political move, however. In the world of photography, it’s rather common to crop out distractions that detract from the main subject of the image. And while Trump is very often the main subject, he stood to one side and was therefore secondary to the subject matter, the Spanish national team’s hard-fought victory.

While politicians come and go, this was a very specific moment to be immortalized in the annals of football history. Looking at the bigger picture, it certainly makes sense from a narrative and compositional perspective, to crop out any distractions beyond the team itself, whether that be Trump, Infantino or anyone or anything else.

This contrasts sharply with a very similar situation that happened a year ago, when Donald Trump also stayed put during Chelsea’s FIFA Club World Cup trophy lift at the same stadium. Rather than stand to one side, he found himself right between captain Reece James and goalkeeper Robert Sánchez for the brunt of the celebration. In this instance, the script is flipped, the situation is so unusual and Trump is so integral to the composition that he becomes the subject matter and from a photographer’s standpoint that only adds to the interest and intrigue of the imagery.

So, do I think Donald Trump was intentionally cropped out of the image? Yes, and if I was editing it, I would have done the same because his presence detracts from the subject matter. However, if I’d been photographing Chelsea’s FIFA Club World Cup victory, I’d have been frantically capturing image after image of the President among the players, knowing I was photographing a bizarre yet historic moment in its own right.

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While shipments across all camera categories reveal a slight dip in the latest May figures from Japan-based industry watcher CIPA, until now fixed lens compacts have been growing 30% year on year, outperforming all other camera formats.

However, for a long while now – at least two or three years – the popularity of said snapshots (a figure that doesn’t even include Kodak, Yashica or other licensed brand models that aren't made in Japan) has been dismissed as a short-lived trend by major manufacturers, including notably Canon.

But is it now time to declare that a steady, ever-growing rise in sales over that sort of extended period is no longer an anomaly? I think so.

So why haven’t the likes of Canon, Nikon, Sony, OM Digital Solutions and Panasonic responded with more affordable, pocket-sized compact offerings of their own? Especially when it increasingly does feel like they’re missing a trick?

I believe there’s a number of reasons for their continued abstinence.

For one, larger, more corporate organisations take much longer to pivot their operations to take advantage of whatever is hot property right now. Look how long Canon and Nikon stubbornly resisted switching production from DSLR to full-frame mirrorless, letting Sony steal their thunder and market share. Or how the once mighty Kodak failed to respond decisively to the digital camera boom and instead faced insolvency.

On the rare occasion that a major manufacturer has responded to the current fixed lens compact camera resurgence, it has felt a little half-hearted and ‘will this do?’. For example, re-issuing a special edition of the existing Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark III, to take one example.

All the while cheap and cheerful Kodak PixPro Travel Zoom, Astro Zooms and Friendly Zoom series point-and-shoots are shipping by the bucketload and showing up higher in sales charts than the bigger boys.

Yes, Canon, Nikon, Sony et al originally abandoned production of basic point-and-shoot cameras because they felt competition from smartphones rendered such standalone snappers redundant. But additionally, in recent years their focus has almost exclusively been on ‘video first’ content-creator targeted cameras, AI-enhanced autofocus and tweaks to specification and performance, via which they can justify ever-increasing price tags.

In other words, the focus has distinctly not been on low-end, basic snapshots; the type that are currently appealing to Gen Z.

This resurgence has happened while the traditional, well-established camera manufacturers were looking elsewhere. And, having already missed the boat, the impression I get is they feel there is little point chasing after it now.

Especially if, as they originally suspected it might, the current fixed lens compact trend wanes… just as they are belatedly joining the party.

I don't want to sound like a DJI apologist, but when a corner of the internet laid into the camera company for an AI-generated ad for its 'Mic Mini', I wondered if it might be quite such a terrible thing?

Don't get me wrong. It's unsettling enough to think that the creative industry I love is at risk of being replaced by AI, and when a company that is meant to support creatives (or, at least, provide products for creatives) gets in on the act, that is more of a worry.

I fully understand why podcasters took the opportunity to jump up and down on the incident and create as much controversy as possible, and it certainly can't have done creators any harm in the short term.

At the same time, though, if we're absolutely honest, posting an AI-generated (so not real) TikTok person showing the DJI Mic is probably not the most serious of crimes.

It definitely sounds more worrying for us all that it was a so-called "dark post" – there is just something about that phrase. In truth, that only means it was a paid ad, so delivered to targeted users (people that fitted target demographics), rather than appearing on DJI's own feed.

Sure, that means it's harder to find after the fact, but Jakob Owens / @buffnerdsmedia managed to record it and share it.

In terms of openness, it was clearly labelled 'AI-generated', so it certainly wasn't 'dark' in that sense.

Perhaps a more serious worry for the future is that – had it been without a label – no one might have spotted it at all.

But there are two positives I can see.

First, the backlash that resulted in the commercial being promptly deleted by the camera firm will undoubtedly keep humans in work for a little longer, and, as a human, I do feel the need to keep back the rise of the machines (and not just because Terminator 2 was the better movie).

Secondly, well, as a consumer, if DJI want to avoid paying an influencer a pile of money for a video, I'm not actually as upset as all that.

I don't especially love photographers and videographers losing out on paid work, but when the shot is a camera (or a phone) in a fixed position and someone talking to it, I'm uncertain just how much creativity would have been involved had it not been AI-generated.

When I'm buying cameras, there are two kinds of content I want to be able to access. One is impartial reviews, ideally from a traditional source.

I'm not just saying that because I write reviews (and participate in some video ones). It is because it's important to me to learn about a device from testers who are entirely outside the company's budget. Call me old-fashioned, but if they're sponsored by the company, they're not really reviews so they're not guidance.

On the other hand, when it comes to usability, I'm perfectly happy for the company to show me how to use a device.

Videos that show features, settings and reveal functions are uesful and, to be honest, if that can be generated by A.I. I don't find that upsetting at all.

In fact, given that influencers can ask for surprisingly large amounts that I'd prefer a company spend on R&D for the next exciting product, I don't really mind A.I. for that specific scenario at all.

But that's just me.

You can see some of our impartial ratings of DJI products in the best action cameras and best camera drones guides.

Chilean Patagonia, an area famed for its towering granite peaks, crystalline glaciers, and vast, rugged wilderness so beautiful it almost seems like the picture-perfect South American region was crafted by an artist.

Yet two of the most highly commended images from this year’s Patagonia Photo Contest shed light on something much more personal than these iconic vistas.

Timothy Dhalleine's Another Day at the Office, crowned king of the “Culture & Travel” category, and Adolfo Molina Soto's On-Site Purchase, an honorable mention in the same category, reveal the local communities whose livelihoods continue to shape one of the world's most remote landscapes.

Above: Adolfo captured his honorable mention using a Sony A6500 paired with a Sony E 15mm f/1.4 G lens, opting for ISO 100, 1/350sec and f/6.7

An exchange on the southern channels

As two fishing boats drifted alongside each other in the glacial channels of Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire) in Southern Chile, Adolfo was ready and waiting aboard one of them with his camera in hand. He'd already witnessed this scene on a previous trip, but, in his words, failed to capture the “essence” of the moment.

"I wanted to show not only the fishermen, but also the surroundings, the boat, the hands, the interaction, and the vastness of the landscape. More than a portrait, I was looking to tell a story,” said Adolfo.

Used the backdrop of the glacier-capped Darwin Range mountains to frame the maritime interaction rather than overwhelm it, Adolfo ensured the fishermen trading their shellfish catch for supplies remained the center of attention.

Shellfishing has been a traditional way of life in Patagonia's southern reaches for thousands of years. The original specialists were the Yámana (or Yahgan) women, who would brave the sub-Antarctic waters of the Beagle Channel foraging for mussels, limpets, and sea urchins. These days, fishermen still dive to the depths of the icy waters, albeit with modern wetsuits and breathing apparatus.

“The photograph speaks as much to the fishermen’s work as it does to a tradition of connection, trust, and exchange that still thrives in those southern channels,” said Adolfo. “They [the fishermen] represent a way of life that still exists in very isolated parts of Patagonia—a way of life we rarely have the opportunity to experience up close.”

Above: Timothy used a Nikon D750 and a 200-500mm f/5.6 lens to shoot his award-winning frame, opting for a focal length of 240mm, f/6.3, 1/4000sec and ISO 250

The most spectacular office in the world

Gazing upon the majestic landscape from Estancia Cerro Guido, one of the largest ranches in Chilean Patagonia, Timothy watched as thousands of sheep flowed across the rolling plain, directed by local cowboys, or gauchos. Dominating the scene, and dwarfing the cowboys, were the towering, iconic peaks of Torres del Paine.

“I stepped back to create a composition that emphasized both the sheer scale of the 8,000 sheep and the immensity of Patagonia,” said Timothy. In doing so, he transformed the photograph into a story as much about the people in the frame as the landscape itself. “The contrast between the tiny figures of the gauchos and the vast wilderness was exactly what I hoped to convey,” he added.

The seasonal movement of sheep across Patagonia's ranches (called "estancias") before the arrival of winter is, according to Timothy, one of the region's “most remarkable” events to photograph. Each autumn, gauchos guide thousands of sheep to lower, warmer grazing areas before the harsh weather sets in.

Sheep ranching has played a central role in shaping Patagonia’s history since the late 19th century, but this traditional way of living off the land and livestock has become more contentious in modern times.

While farmers hunt native predators like pumas, who frequently kill their sheep for food, as well as herbivore species like the guanaco (similar to a llama), who compete with livestock for the nutrient-poor steppe grasses, conservationists aim to protect these species, who bring balance to and restore ecosystems.

The people and the place

Rather than capturing single-dimensional depictions of a remote yet beautiful wilderness, the photographers delved into the layers of work, relationships, and traditions which animate the region. "We often think of Patagonia solely in terms of its landscapes, but behind them there are also communities, trades, and ways of life that deserve to be known and valued," said Adolfo.

For Timothy, there is hope that these communities and their traditions can “coexist” with nature rather than be seen as obstacles to conservation."I hope this award helps bring greater visibility to the human story that exists alongside the pristine wilderness of southern Patagonia," said Timothy. "[..]People can preserve their cultural heritage and continue making a living from traditional livelihoods while protecting the natural world around them," he said.

Instead of celebrating Patagonia simply for its dramatic landscapes, these commended photographs invite us to see it as a place also defined by the people who continue to fish its southern channels, herd sheep across its plains, and maintain traditions that have endured for generations. In doing so, they reveal a richer, more complete portrait of Patagonia—one in which spectacular scenery and human stories are inseparable.

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The Nikon Z6 is trending on Google and I think I know why... There’s a point in many a photographer’s journey where they decide: I want to go full-frame. Now, going full-frame isn’t a fast-track to becoming a better photographer and it certainly isn’t a necessity, especially in 2026 when APS-C cameras, MFT cameras and even compact cameras are boasting some very serious specs indeed. But in the same way that many people gush over medium format, the full-frame ‘look’ is something that a lot of photographers aspire to capture, and as a full-frame photographer myself, I only have good things to say about full-frame cameras.

However, the system’s biggest shortcoming is price. Not only are larger camera sensors more expensive to make, but full-frame cameras tend to be stuffed with the latest mod cons and specs, not to mention full-frame glass tends to be more expensive than comparable crop-sensor lenses. This can sometimes make full-frame photography feel out of reach for photographers on a budget. That’s why I always suggest looking at the used market and buying from a reputable seller such as MPB or KEH Cameras.

Nikon Z6: Specs

• Sensor: 24.5MP full-frame BSI CMOS sensor
• Image processor: EXPEED 6
• AF points: 273-point phase detection AF, 90% coverage (horizontal and vertical)
• ISO range: 100 to 51,200 (exp. 50 to 204,800)
• Max image size: 6,048 x 4,024px
• Video: 3,840 x 2,160 at 30p, 25p, 24p
• Viewfinder: EVF, 3,690k-dot OLED, 100% coverage, 0.8x magnification
• Memory card: XQD/CFExpress Type B
• LCD: 3.2-inch tilting touchscreen (2,100k dots)
• Max burst: 12fps (focus locked on first frame)
• Connectivity: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi
• Size: 134 x 100.5 x 67.5mm (body only)
• Weight: 675g (body only, with battery and memory card)

Usually, I recommend an older DSLR camera as a great full-frame starting point, but when I noticed that the Nikon Z6 was trending on Google, I was shocked to see some very affordable used prices. The Nikon Z6 tends to fly under the radar a bit nowadays. It was released alongside the Nikon Z7 as a part of the ‘Big N’s’ first full-frame foray into mirrorless camera tech when it launched the Z mount back in 2018.

The biggest difference between the Nikon Z6 and Z7 was that the former was built around a 24.5-MP sensor and the latter a 45.7-MP sensor. Both cameras were relatively well received, but drew criticism from professional photographers because they only had a single card slot and did not launch alongside a battery grip.

They didn’t boast the greatest AF, either, although this was eventually patched by a firmware update that improved it significantly. Ultimately, the Nikon Z6 and Z7 would be succeeded by the Nikon Z6 II and Nikon Z7 II, which essentially fixed the aforementioned shortcomings. And thus, the Z6 and Z7 were consigned to the annals of camera history.

But if you’re looking for a budget leap into the world of full-frame mirrorless cameras, or are looking for a second backup body, I think the Nikon Z6 is still a great buy. Prices start at just $609 / £434 over at MPB, which is the price of an entry-level camera.

The beauty of Nikon’s mirrorless Z mount is that you don’t have to ditch your DSLR glass, either. You can pick up the Nikon FTZ II adapter, allowing you to mount hundreds of compatible DSLR lenses on a mirrorless Z-mount body. Obviously, APS-C lenses are going to initiate crop mode, but full-frame F-mount lenses should work seamlessly.

If your budget is very tight, it’s worth noting that the Nikon Z6’s single card slot is an XQD/CFExpress slot, so if you don’t have one of these cards already, expect to pay in and around $100 / £100 for a suitable memory card. Ultimately, the Nikon Z6 isn’t going to compete with current-gen full-frame cameras when it comes to specs, but for those looking to simply get their foot in the full-frame door, you simply cannot argue at this price point. The ability to continue using existing Nikon DSLR glass is the icing on the cake.

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What makes a memorable photograph? Is it the way in which it was taken, or the lasting impression the scene itself makes? This is an age-old question in photography, and one which I think Australian photographer and photography historian Peter Adams answered definitively back in 1987.

Around this time, Adams said something so simple yet monumental that it has become one of the most-recognized quotes in photography today: “Great photography is about depth of feeling, not depth of field.” With these 11 words, Adams, in my view, made it starkly clear that a composition is only as good as the emotional reaction that it evokes in viewers.

Nowadays, it’s too easy to become caught up in technique. With an internet awash with photography influencers pushing monster-megapixel cameras and the same videos of taking “tack-sharp images”, we can become overwhelmingly concerned with dialing in the right settings, rather than choosing scenes that stay with viewers long after they look away.

Adams’ advocacy for creating images that evoke strong emotions rather than striving for technical perfection is an approach I've been practicing for some time now. And it's what I think all photographers, especially those at an early stage in their photography journey, should be focusing on.

Above: this landscape shot is technically and compositionally brilliant, but it's the sense of adventure and awe that it inspires I like most

Don't take this as me saying I'm just as wise when it comes to composing a photo as Peter Adams. Far from it. This man became a master of portraiture throughout a monumental 39-year-long project to document the defining photographers of the 20th century, which he published in 2021 as the book A Few of the Legends.

Above: Peter Adams interviewed about his monumental book A Few of the Legends

But Adams' message is something I'd become familiar with before I came across the renowned quote, thanks to another and fellow Australian photographer, Mitchell Kanashkevich, who perhaps himself was inspired by Adams’ words.

Kanashkevich is a celebrated travel and portrait photographer whose work, reminiscent of Steve McCurry's, is, in my eyes, up there with the best of the best. I can't think of another photographer who's inspired me more recently than Kanashkevich, and something he always talks about is the “visual communication” of your image.

For me, this is essentially the same message that Adams put across in 1987, albeit phrased differently. Strong images communicate a message with the viewer, and that message is an emotional one, be it curiosity, admiration, sympathy, or awe.

Above: this portrait leaves less breathing room around the subject than people normally do, but the tension this creates makes for a great image of this 96-year-old D-Day veteran

While Adams made his stance in the composition vs. technique debate clear with his quote, I don't think he would ever say not to pay any attention to technique. After all, depth of field, shutter speed, and focal lengths, for example, all play a role in the meaning and “feel” of your image.

But the essence of Adam’s quote is that focusing on camera settings and sticking to well-defined rules of composition shouldn’t come at the expense of evoking an emotional response in your viewer. Because, it's the latter they'll remember, not how sharp the frame was, nor if it adhered to the rule of thirds.

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Want more inspiration? Here’s our mega list of the 120 best quotes about photography by famous photographers.

Adobe finally put AI into something photographers actually want: help with choosing the best images in the form of early access to AI Assisted Culling. This Lightroom Classic panel sits over everything else on the right panel of the Library module like it’s the most important thing in your photo management world. I’m not saying this placement has rubbed me the wrong way, but.. It has. Why? Well because the idea of AI photo culling software is to save you time. Not waste more time by checking if the rejects were actually good, or that the selects are actually bad.

So, let’s put it to the test on a segment of a shoot and see how it fares, and then look at another tool that claims to do the same thing.

Lightroom’s AI culling is based on a scoring system of subject focus, eye focus and and eyes open, as well as options for exposure issues, misfires, and documents. At the defaults of 50 and 50 for focus, all photos in this set (above) are Selects.

Looking at the selects, there are clearly photos with eyes closed that are not rejected. Older version of Eyes Open had a threshold which was 41 in this photo, but the eyes are clearly at the end of a blink. There are less flattering shots in the set that are mid blink that hit high Eyes Open marks in the older system – they’re just ‘The eyes appear open’ now.

All this leads me to not quite trust this tool yet. I also have exposure issues on and the subject is overexposed in some, but they remain selected. If I have to check the result of AI, then it hasn’t saved me time and is fruitless. If I can trust it to remove blinks and blurs, then it’s time-saving.

So are there other options? Roll in Excire Search 2026. This lifetime license product adds both AI Culling and AI Search to Lightroom Classic. This isn’t a full review by any means, but a comparison (so not including search). This is a well-established product, with a great track record. Once installed, you access it from the Library>Plugin-Xtras menu.

To begin choose ‘Initialize Photos’. A dialog will come up with options. With filmstrip, this is very quick to initialise and get your feet wet. For ‘whole catalog’, this is most likely an overnight affair for those with large catalogs. There is a bit of a learning curve, but some of that is the initialization commands are in Lightroom, not in Excire itself.

You have a lot of control. Once initialized, you can choose Start/Adjust Culling Project from the menu. This is very configurable and will create collections to segregate by visual similarity, group etc as well as choosing how to apply the selection via flag, rating or label. You can even use smiling as a requirement for selection!

The people option is good, for example, on nightclub shots, it still picked out someone whether they had a jacket on or not. I wouldn’t have even known there were 8 shots of that person shot that night.

In terms of using Excire with Lightroom, with two monitors for editing, you could have Lightroom on one, with Excire on the other, but you could also have them side by side on a larger screen. The beauty of Excire’s detection is that it uses colour to indicate sharpness. It shows the detected faces surrounded by a rectangle. The greener it is, the more in focus.

Yellow, like the one above, means that it’s not great. Red means completely out of focus. Faces do need to be towards the camera, with both eyes visible. As you arrow right in Lightroom, Excire also moves to the next image. The colour will change to reflect the focus. Group shots will also show all faces detected with corresponding focus colours. This does speed up choosing compared to Lightroom because the information is on the photos right where you’re looking.

As visual creators, we can decide what level is good enough for our application. You can decide the level of focus you need. For instance, when I did nightclub work, I was working with a fixed aperture of f/4–f/5.6 at most. This was because I used bounced flash and didn’t want to go above ISO1600. This allowed me to maximize my flash recycle time and also save batteries. Large groups could have rows, and sometimes people would start to blur in back or front rows depending of focus. Because these images were being viewed on the web and sharpened for that purpose, almost yellow focus photos were acceptable for this job. In a wedding, this wouldn’t work for formal groups, but it would be acceptable for the dance floor.

So does Excire beat Lightroom’s AI Culling? Well, the detection results are fairly similar. Neither will tell you that you have a masterpiece. Lightroom will detect half faces better than Excire, which needs a full face (it even tells you this if it can’t find one). However, Excire’s use of colour on the image is better than Lightroom’s green tick because you can see the degree of focus immediately, whereas with Lightroom you have to hover to see scores.

With multiple faces, it’s even better seeing it on each face, so you know you can ignore photo bombers or non involved people as they say in the drone world. The option for smiling in social photos is handy, especially if that is what the client asked for. Excire will also sort the images and rate them, something you have to do manually in Lightroom-just a button press though. All in all the process is handled better in Excire Search 2026. And we haven’t touched on the extensive AI search and AI keywording! If you shoot a lot of people photos, especially groups, this will help.

Excire Search 2026 is an additional cost though. It’s $199/£199 or $299£299 in a bundle with Excire Foto 2027. No subscription; this is a lifetime license. Previous version users get a discount code for upgrading, so it’s a very traditional purchase model. Don’t want to upgrade? Just use the version you have forever.

I can still remember the first time that, standing with a camera around my neck and aching feet, one of the members of the bridal party told me that I had done a great job. I must have looked confused. The wedding wasn’t even over yet, the photographs had yet to leave my camera – how did she know my photographs weren’t terrible?

The bridesmaid wasn’t complimenting my photographs; she was simply thanking me for something quite simple: Not being rude.

Photographs should never come before people. But perhaps no one has expressed that idea more eloquently than the iconic photojournalist who used the camera to create historical poetry: Alfred Eisenstaedt.

Perhaps you’ve never heard the name Eisenstaedt, but you’ve seen his work. The German-born photographer who went on to spend 40 years at LIFE Magazine was the photographer behind the historic V-J Day photo in Times Square of a sailor kissing a woman in a nursing uniform at the end of World War II.

“Never boss people around,” Eisenstaedt said. “It’s more important to click with people than to click the shutter.”

There are two key ways that this statement from a legendary photographer, who lived from 1898 to 1995, applies to modern photography.

The first is simply that hiding behind a camera does not permit photographers to be terrible human beings. As a wedding and portrait photographer, how I connect with the people in front of my lens has a strong correlation to how the images turn out. If my actions make that person uncomfortable, angry, or frustrated, those photographs won’t be loved, no matter how technically perfect they are.

But I think there’s another way this iconic quote can be applied to modern photography, in that good photographs don’t just “click” with the person in the photograph. Great photographs “click” with the people who view them.

I can’t count the times I’ve seen “terrible” photos go viral with poor composition or bad lighting, but what’s more important is that those photos click with people; they trigger an emotional response. Creating an emotional connection with the viewer matters more than technical perfection. In fact, people may connect more with photographs that aren’t perfect, after all, humans are imperfect creatures.

Eisenstaedt’s connection to the people he photographed is undoubtedly why the photojournalist’s work remains some of the most impactful images in history. When he stood in Times Square on V-J Day, he wasn’t just a photographer, he was also a Jewish soldier who served in World War I, but moved to America in 1935 amid increasing persecution. I bet standing behind the camera on that day in 1945, he clicked with the soldier and the nurse in the iconic photograph.

Yes, the technical side of photography is important, but never more important than “clicking” with both the people in front of the camera and the people viewing the photographs.

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I’ve been flying drones for years. From toy drones that fall down if you take your hands off the controls to my current camera drone, the DJI Air 3. It’s getting long in the tooth, so when the Antigravity A1 drone was announced, I was intrigued.

Because I own an Insta360 X3 and X4 (bought just before the X5 was announced… still not over that), I know how easy it is to just make the shot with a 360 camera and then reframe any way I like, then repurpose it for any medium – vertical, square or horizontal.

Add that tech to a drone? Amazing.

Doing drone sequences involves planning and practice. Reveal shots that come up from the ground require precision flying, combined with precise movement of the camera to get the shot. With a 360° drone, you just make the flight and frame the shot comfortably later at your computer or tablet.

Need a sequence that shows the subject on approach and then on retreat? That’s two shots with a normal drone – and you may need to do it a few times to get it right. With 360º framing you only need a single pass, as long as you’ve tracked the line correctly.

Not only that, you can get a cool transition passing over and no shot interruption. I’ve done this look with mountain biking on the Insta360, so I know it’s very achievable.

So what more is there to the Antigravity A1? It’s an 8K drone that weighs in at 249g to sit in the lower weight class. You can optionally get a heavier battery that extends the flight time from 24 minutes to 39 minutes, but changes the class.

The pricing still matches the DJI pricing, but you’re swapping a gimbal for another camera to get that 360º view. Not to mention that it includes the FPV goggles in the price.

The controller is more like a flight controller than the regular two-handed drone controller, akin to FPV drones, making flying feel more natural. It’s a small learning curve, but if you’ve ever played a flight sim game on a joystick, you can already fly one.

Me? All I gotta do now is save and order one!

What's the best 360 drone? Antigravity A1 vs DJI Avata 360

I have a confession to make: I was wrong about the Leica M EV1.

Before I had the opportunity to use one, I made no secret of my concerns about Leica replacing the traditional optical rangefinder with a built-in electronic viewfinder. I worried that an M-System camera without a rangefinder might no longer feel like a proper M.

Worse still, I thought removing that beautifully-engineered mechanical system could leave the camera feeling strangely hollow, as though Leica had retained the familiar shell while removing part of its soul.

Well, after finally getting my hands on the Leica M EV1, I think it is time to serve myself a generous slice of humble pie. I was wrong. The Leica M EV1 absolutely is an M camera – and it might be precisely the kind of M camera that many photographers have been waiting for.

I have used every digital M camera the company has produced since the Leica M9, so I have watched Leica’s full-frame digital journey develop almost from the beginning.

I know where the modern M-System started, how it has evolved and, to some extent, where it might be going next. I have seen resolutions increase, batteries improve, screens become more useful and sensors become far more capable, but the basic M experience has always remained remarkably consistent.

That is why the M EV1 seemed like such a risk. The rangefinder is not merely another component inside an M camera. For many photographers, it is the defining component. Remove it and, on paper at least, you appear to remove the very thing that makes an M an M.

Except that is not what has happened.

The first surprise is how familiar the Leica M EV1 feels in the hands. It does not feel like an imitation of an M camera, nor does it feel like a Leica Q3 that has somehow been modified to accept interchangeable lenses. It feels like an M because, in almost every physical sense, that is exactly what it is.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that the M EV1 feels better balanced than the Leica M11-P. It sits beautifully in the hand and retains that reassuring sense of solidity that Leica does so well. Leica currently lists the M EV1 at approximately 495g with its battery, compared with 530g for the black M11-P.

That difference is noticeable, but it does not make the EV1 feel cheap or insubstantial. Attach a lens, and the camera's entire character changes. It becomes balanced, purposeful, and every bit as satisfying to hold as an M should be.

Whether I mounted a compact Summicron, a faster Summilux or something considerably larger, the camera maintained that sense of balance. I had worried that the reduced weight might make it feel like a paperweight with a heavy lens hanging from the front, but that simply was not the case. Once a lens is attached, the M EV1 feels complete.

Then we come to the most controversial part of the camera: the electronic viewfinder.

I have plenty of history of criticizing EVFs. I have argued that they cannot reproduce the clarity, depth and almost three-dimensional “pop” of an optical finder. I have found some electronic viewfinders slow, unresponsive and uncomfortable, and prolonged use has occasionally left me with eye strain or a headache.

The EVF inside the Leica M EV1 gave me none of those problems.

It activates incredibly quickly when I raise the camera to my eye, even when I have previously been composing via the rear screen. Movement looks natural, too. I did not experience that unpleasant, Jell-O-like effect where the image appears to smear or distort until the camera stops moving.

The 5.76-million-dot OLED finder refreshes at 60fps, offers 100% frame coverage and includes a sensor that automatically switches to and from the rear display. More importantly, it feels responsive in actual use rather than merely impressive on a specification sheet.

The ability to magnify the live image is also genuinely useful, particularly when working with some of my more unusual lenses.

Something like the Leitz 135mm Elmarit-M f/2.8 can be challenging to focus critically through a traditional rangefinder, but the M EV1 enables me to punch directly into the sensor image and confirm focus with far greater confidence.

That does not necessarily make the experience better than using an optical rangefinder, but it does make it different – and in certain situations, it is unquestionably easier. Long lenses, ultra-wides, close-focus designs and extremely fast glass all become more practical because you are seeing the image through the lens itself.

Quite frankly, after using the M EV1 properly, I struggled to find the major problem with its viewfinder that I had expected to encounter.

Even battery life has been excellent during my time with it, enabling me to concentrate on taking photographs rather than watching the remaining percentage disappear.

I particularly like what Leica has done with the traditional frameline selector. On a rangefinder-equipped M, that lever previews the different frameline pairs. On the M EV1, it can be configured to control focusing assistance and digital zoom.

With the camera I used, pushing the lever one way allowed me to toggle focus peaking, while moving it in the opposite direction activated the 1.3x or 1.8x digital crop. Those produce approximately 39MP and 18MP images, respectively, giving the old mechanical control a genuinely useful new purpose.

One complaint among some members of the Leica community is that this camera should not carry the M name at all. Without the rangefinder, the argument goes, Leica should have created an entirely separate product category.

From a marketing perspective, I understand that position. The M name has always been closely associated with rangefinder photography – and Leica buyers tend to care deeply about tradition.

But make no mistake: the M EV1 is an M-System camera through and through. It has the body, controls, sensor philosophy, manual focusing experience and direct connection to the catalog of M lenses. It simply places an EVF in front of your eye instead of a mechanical rangefinder.

That does not mean I have no complaints, though.

My first is the internal storage. The M EV1 provides 64GB, matching the original Leica M11, while the Leica M11-P offers a much more generous 256GB. In practice, 64GB is plenty for the way I shoot – and an SD card can always be inserted when more space is required.

Even so, considering where the M EV1 sits within Leica’s current lineup, I would have preferred to see the 256GB capacity carried across.

My second complaint could potentially be addressed through firmware. I frequently shoot DNG+JPEG, with the JPEG set to black-and-white. When that configuration is selected on the M EV1, both the LCD and EVF display the monochrome preview.

I would love the option to show the black-and-white preview on the rear screen while retaining a color image in the EVF. That would enable me to assess the monochrome interpretation when reviewing on the LCD, while the finder could provide a more natural, optical-style color view when the camera is raised to my eye.

It would be a small change, but one that could make the EV1 feel even closer to the traditional rangefinder experience.

Those are relatively minor complaints, however. The bigger question is whether replacing the optical rangefinder has taken away the spirit of the M-System.

No, it has not.

In some respects, I think the M EV1 strengthens the system. It creates a more accessible route into M photography for people who may be intimidated by rangefinder focusing. It also offers a natural next step for existing Q-series users who love the compact body, manual controls and EVF experience but want access to a wider range of lenses.

Would I buy one instead of my optical rangefinder-equipped Leica? Put it this way: if Leica releases the M EV1 in silver, the answer could very easily be yes.

I adore my Leica M Typ 240, and I am not ready to abandon the optical rangefinder. But when that camera eventually becomes too long in the tooth, the M EV1 may well be in my sights.

I have been genuinely blown away by how well its EVF performs and by how little the camera compromises the feeling of shooting with an M.

I thought removing the rangefinder would leave the Leica M EV1 feeling hollow. Instead, it has shown me that the soul of the M-System may not be contained in one mechanical component after all.

Perhaps it was hiding in the lenses, the proportions, the simplicity and the act of slowing down to focus for yourself.

Whatever it is, the M EV1 still has it.

Shop the Leica M EV1

The release of a covetable new Leica camera is always of interest. Yes, these are luxury products. But even so, I drew an intake of breath on learning of the Leica SL3-P’s $6,690 / £5,150 AU$10,500 body-only price.

Ah, here’s another exciting development in Sony’s first new bridge camera for almost a decade. But if wanting the Sony RX10 V, that’ll be a princely £ 2,300 / $2,200 / AU$3,499 for its 1-inch sensor and monster zoom, please.

At one time, bridges were affordable alternatives to a DSLR or mirrorless camera – a one-lens-covers-everything solution if photography enthusiasts didn’t want to have to swap the optic in use. But Sony clearly didn’t get that memo.

It would be different if such prices were isolated occurrences, but I’ve watched in increasing horror in recent years as they’ve become the norm. Our major camera manufacturers have stealthily stopped offering a breadth of product for a range of budgets and skillsets, as they once did.

That’s because fewer people are buying cameras, for sure. But if there are less affordable cameras to buy, then that has its own impact on sales.

That same lack of affordability is driving more people to seek out secondhand options, with the result that the global value of used cameras across all categories is surging.

And if even the ‘cheapest’ current compact cameras from the major manufacturers are the Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark III or Panasonic TZ300 / SZ300, both retailing at around $899 / £869 / AU$1,599 new, there are clearly bargains to be had when hunting ‘pre-loved’ alternatives.

Obvious online destinations include eBay, KEH and MPB. But there are a host of bricks-and-mortar photo specialists selling secondhand, too. That makes sense, as they can make a bigger profit margin when selling used, as opposed to brand new.

And that secondhand strategy is even more sensible for retailers and consumers alike when the latest must-have camera is regularly out of stock, because its manufacturer has underestimated demand.

If I don’t want to chance used options, then alternatively I can find affordable entry-level cameras via the current licensees of Yashica and Kodak cameras. Additionally, there are growing number of ‘toy’ camera options at near pocket money prices from the likes of Camp Snap, or Chuzhao, if wanting a distinctly retro camera fix.

Even so, for me the more sensible option remains exploring the used market before buying new. A much more fully featured camera with a bigger sensor can be found for a similar price to the latest tiny chip-incorporating snapper.

Sometimes by simply spending less, believe me, you really can buy better.

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As a professional portrait and wedding photographer, I’m constantly trying to one-up myself, to make the next gallery of photographs even better than the last. But, there’s one genre that I will continue to shoot even if I’m absolutely terrible at it: wildlife photography.

I don’t consider myself a professional wildlife photographer, which is perhaps why heading out to a nature preserve with my camera feels liberating. There’s no pressure to get a perfect shot, there are no wedding timelines and there are no unwilling family members to contend with.

Heck, it’s highly likely that the “subject” may never even show up for the photo shoot at all, wildlife being, well, wild. It’s just me, my camera, and (possibly) some nature.

Wildlife photography is my form of self-care. Perhaps a spa day might be a better form of self-care than hauling the heaviest lenses on a multi-mile hike, and yet, I emerge from the woods sweaty, muscles aching, but a smile plastered on my face.

My use of wildlife photography as self-care dates back to the COVID-19 pandemic, when my usual escapes were all shut down at the same time that I had virtual school placed on top of an already precariously balanced to-do list.

I very quickly realized that if I am both a better mother and a better artist if I take the time to step away and spend some time outside. My creative brain needs time to wander aimlessly, bored, and there’s no better place than a walk through the woods (or a row on the lake).

Sometimes, I head out on a wildlife shoot and I never see anything more exciting than the typical birds that surround my bird feeder at home. Sometimes, I see unusual wildlife and I’m not fast enough to bring my camera up to my eye, so I shoot empty branches instead.

And yes, sometimes I do get some wildlife shots that I’m proud of.

I turned both of my creative hobbies – writing and photography – into a career. But I think every professional artist needs a creative outlet that doesn’t come with the pressures of a creative career. For me, that outlet is wildlife photography.

Even if the subject never shows up, I’m more grounded, my brain more apt to think outside the box, with some time in the woods with my camera.

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In 1994, Carl Zeiss unleashed their Contax G1 on the world. While it pioneered the concept of an autofocus rangefinder, its passive-only focusing system struggled in low light.

The solution was the Contax G2, which followed a couple of years later. The G2 resolved the problem by implementing a hybrid autofocus system combining active infrared triangulation with passive contrast detection, making it significantly faster and more reliable.

Both cameras were beautiful and beautifully made. The titanium bodies were entirely designed and built by Kyocera, in Japan, while the body was styled by Germany’s Porsche Design Group.

Each model was offered in black and silver, though the silver (often described as a “champagne color”) with its dark grey accents was by far the more popular of the two. An array of seven lenses was offered, and all were designed and made by Carl Zeiss in Germany.

The G1 came equipped with a Planar 45mm f/2 lens, while the G2 came with a wider 35mm Planar f/2. Also on offer were a 16mm f/8 Hologon, a 21mm f/2.8 Biogon, a 28mm f/2.8 Biogon and a Sonar 90mm f/2.8.

These were followed, in 2000, by the Vario-Sonar 35-70mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom – the first zoom for a rangefinder camera. All were autofocus except the Hologon, which was manual focus with a fixed aperture.

Optically, the Zeiss G-mount (unique to the Contax G1 and G2) lenses were widely considered equal to their Leica counterparts. No third-party lenses were ever made for the G-mount.

Now, I’ve said that the 35-70mm Vario-Sonar was the first zoom lens for a rangefinder camera – but some will point to Leica’s 28-35-50mm Tri-Elmar that came out in 1998, a full 24 months earlier.

While it’s true that the Tri-Elmar is essentially a zoom design under the hood, it has click-stops and is only really usable at the three preset focal lengths – as opposed to the Zeiss Vario-Sonar, which was a true zoom lens and able to be used at any focal length in its range.

The Contax G1 and G2 had unique, highly electronic viewfinder displays that were radically different from traditional rangefinders. Unlike all earlier rangefinder cameras, they had no “focusing patch” as focus was done by an AF system that used rangefinder-esque triangulation, rather than mechanical rangefinding.

Both models featured a sophisticated electronic viewfinder, which automatically adjusted magnification and frame lines based on the attached lens, offering 90% coverage with full parallax correction.

When the Vario-Sonar was mounted, the optics in the viewfinder zoomed to match – showing you the exact framing at every focal length.

The G2’s viewfinder was considered a significant upgrade over the G1, featuring a green readout below the main viewfinder display (which showed the focused distance and AF confirmation) and a manual focus aid (showing small dots on a line scale, to indicate the direction to turn the lens for correct focus when it was in manual mode).

The G2 has often been compared to the Leica M6. In build and optical quality, that’s likely a fair comparison – but they offer fundamentally different experiences.

The G2 had an "electronic rangefinder", featured auto-loading, auto-rewind, aperture priority autoexposure and a motor drive capable of 4fps. So, while the Leica offered a brighter viewfinder and a much wider selection of lenses (including faster apertures like f/1.4 and even f/1), the G2 provided superior convenience.

Unfortunately, all the electronics and motor drive capabilities have become, over time, their Achilles heel. Sadly, in the near 30 years since they came out, the G series has proved a wee bit failure-prone.

Despite its high-quality titanium build, the G2 in particular has been vulnerable due to its complex electronics and a scarcity of replacement parts.

Common failure points include an autofocus mechanism that can fail due to dried lubricants or stripped plastic gears, while the vertical metal focal plane shutter is known to develop issues. And the viewfinder’s electronic overlay can become faint or flicker over time.

Because few technicians are equipped to repair these electronic rangefinders, repairs are expensive and difficult (though not impossible) to find. Thus, examples in good working order now often sell for more than their original new price!

If you’re looking to purchase a used G2, buy only in person or with full return / refund privileges. Check the autofocus at multiple distances (namely infinity and 5m), verify that the frame counter LCD stays lit with the power off, and confirm that the film advances properly through a full roll and rewinds properly.

The number made is not known, but production continued until 2005 when Kyocera abruptly discontinued the entire Yashica / Contax camera division. This left both Zeiss and Leica (for whom Kyocera also made the superb Vario-Elmar-R 80-200mm f/4) in the lurch, while Kyocera concentrated on camera modules for smartphones.

This instantly transformed the G2 from a modern tool into a collector's item. If you have one, you have my envy!

Read more of David Young's ongoing series on classic cameras, as well as his book A Brief History of Photography.

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With a $10 spend on an off-brand accessory, and judicious use of a compressed air cleaning can, I've solved the problems that were starting to put me off Apple's AirPods forever.

I'm on my second set of AirPod Pros, and my third set of AirPods overall, because when they're working they sound great and are so handy that it's difficult to imagine anything else. But, until I discovered this little accessory, I was reaching my limits.

When I spend that much on a product, I expect it to be perfect. Part of that, of course, is having a very long (if intermittent) memory.

I don't think the legendary MDR-W10 headphones for the 'Sport Light' Sony Walkman cost as much as Apple's – though they're pushing $100 on eBay for retro collectors these days.

The AirPods, though, aren't just for listening to music – or even just content on your phone. The AirPods Pro include a microphone that can be used to record audio, which is useful when combined with some of the best action cameras.

(A word of caution here – the latest DJI Osmo Action and Insta360 Ace Pros are in this list, but not all action cams are – so check first).

There are problems with the AirPods – especially the AirPods Pro – though.

Not in the first moment. Opening the box and putting them on has all the lustrous joy of any new Apple product. This is a company that understands how to make its customers feel as premium as the pricing and the product line.

Over time, though, the ear tips – the piece of the AirPods Pro that fits into the ear (there are several sizes in the box, so you get the right fit) inevitably picks up natural dirt. This seems to seep into the rubber, too, so that the grip on your ear lessens and the pod itself seems a little looser.

That just means you need to push it back in a little more often as you're on the move. A minor irritation.

Much more serious is the fact that, eventually, I found both of my AirPods Pros started whistling and squealing at me. The left one at first, though after a while both were guilty.

Not because of temporarily confused Active Noise Cancellation or Bluetooth interference – issues that can be fixed with a quick reset – but presumably because dust or debris was making its way inside the pod itself.

This does not seem an easy fix for a device that has already left me feeling guilty simply because I, like virtually all humans, produce cerumen (ear wax). I find myself starting to understand why some, like my wife – a recording artist – opt for big headphones (these still include a microphone).

She has to be able to listen back to her work (Apple Music, Spotifty) reliably at quality and probably doesn't need the headphones screaming and whistling to her just for being human. Not, of course, that she has any earwax!

Nonetheless, I didn't want to buy new headphones and I prefer the compact AirPods anyway – easier to use while filming. So…

The $8 solution

I decided to replace the ear tip, to remove any stray dried wax that might be vibrating inside the headphones and confusing them.

I found the "Inesore 5 Pairs Replacement Ear Tips for AirPods Pro 3 with Hole for Noise Reduction" (admittedly, I don't think that's a great bit of product naming), which included a "cleaning pen."

• 🇺🇸 Inesore 5 Pairs Replacement Ear Tips for AirPods Pro 3 (Amazon USA Link)
• 🇬🇧 5 Pairs Replacement Ear Tips for AirPods Pro 3 with Hole for Noise Reduction (Amazon UK Link)

In a matter of moments I popped off the old earbuds. I've done this in the past but, crucually, this time I used the "pen" – actually a tool with fold-out brushes and a silicone point.

This enabled me to clean the inner meshes where there was visible wax buildup. I also gave them a bit of a blow with a can of compressed air (in the past this has, on its own, bought me a few days without the annoying whistling).

After a few moments of loving attention, I popped the AirPods back into my ears… and they sounded entirely new again.

This brush tool that I hadn't even been looking for (it was the new ear tips I had been searching for) feels like it has restored my faith in these products just as I was on the verge of giving up.

And it was a lot cheaper (proportionally) than maintaining my camera when the viewfinder was cracked!

Sitting at my desk, a flash of movement outside my window caught my eye. When I looked up, my hands reflexively went for my wildlife photography gear. Right outside my cabin, a flock of cedar waxwings decided to feast on the moths, mayflies, and dragonflies right outside my window.

I’ve always loved cedar waxwings because their wings look impossibly smooth, almost plastic. But perhaps even more importantly for wildlife photography, the birds didn’t seem to mind at all at a human presence, darting right over my head to catch bugs in mid-air.

Birds are the great equalizer in wildlife photography. I can’t photograph a wild giraffe or monkey without a plane ticket. But, from the pigeons on a New York City apartment balcony to cardinals at a country bird feeder to puffins in the Arctic, birds are nearly everywhere.

Sometimes, I plan my wildlife photo hikes – which I often use as a much-needed mental health break – well in advance. I research the best spots and rearrange my schedule so that I can head out when wildlife tends to be the most active.

But other times, wildlife photography opportunities present themselves when I least expect. I’ve often longed for my wildlife gear when spotting a bird that I haven’t photographed before in a grocery store parking lot.

I can’t count the times that I wish I weren’t driving when I spotted wildlife, like the kestrel I saw scoop up a field mouse or the eagle that swooped right out of the fog towards me one morning, his wings feeling nearly as large as my windshield.

I consider myself only a hobbyist wildlife photographer (because when you turn both of your creative passions into a career, something needs to remain a sacred hobby). Thankfully, the cedar waxwings were enjoying the feast of bugs in my yard for more than an hour. That gave me the opportunity to watch, wait, and try for some action shots.

I wasn’t quite fast enough to get the birds swooping midair, but I managed to photograph a few wings poised in mid-flight, along with a few bugs clutched in beaks. A bald eagle even flew overhead while I was out photographing the cedar waxwings.

I walked back in the door, memory card bursting, and a smile plastered on my face – sometimes it’s the most unexpected photo shoots that bring the most joy.

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An awful lot of photographers have never used lens filters and, thanks to the ever-increasing dynamic range of modern mirrorless cameras, the frankly mind-boggling capabilities of the latest photo editing software and even a few clever in-camera effects (I’m looking at you, OM System), there have never been fewer reasons to ignore lens filters altogether.

But if any of that sounds at all familiar to you, and especially if you’ve never used a lens filter before, then I’m here to tell you: that is a great shame. Using lens filters isn’t just fun; I think it’s an important step in almost every photographer’s journey.

Don’t get me wrong, how often you use lens filters will depend on the genre(s) that you shoot. But if you’re a prolific photographer, you’ll almost certainly encounter a situation where a physical lens filter would fit the bill at some point.

For example, I capture a lot of motorsport photography and a neutral density filter is a useful asset when capturing pans with extremely slow shutter speeds. Because many races take place during the brighter months and in the middle of the day, it can often prove impossible to reach shutter speeds such as 1/20 sec without using an ND.

But I digress; the whole point of this article is to explain how using a lens filter changed my whole relationship with photography.

How a simple lens filter changed my relationship with photography forever

Perhaps the most cliched piece of photography advice is "get it right in-camera".

I generally agree with the sentiment, but there are times when I oppose it. For example, if your image is sharp, you’ve got enough resolution to play with and you didn’t have time to refine your framing, I see nothing wrong with heavy cropping at all.

However, you should absolutely aim to get it right in-camera where possible. That’s where lens filters come in.

Filters enable you to produce all manner of effects in-camera. And I believe that to be extremely important for several reasons, but by far the most important is that it enables you to realize the image you have in your mind’s eye as you take it.

I remember the first time I used a filter; unsurprisingly, I was using an ND filter to restrict the amount of light entering my camera, so I could use a very slow shutter speed to blur a body of water. It was like watching a magic trick happen right before my eyes.

I couldn’t believe that I’d managed to create what I was seeing on my camera’s playback screen without the use of digital editing software. It was all me and my camera!

That was a huge confidence booster – and boy did it ramp up my love for photography. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that using a filter for the first time can transport you right back to when somebody first handed you a camera as a child.

I love photo editing more than most. But at its core, photography is about using a device that exposes a light-sensitive material to light, enabling you to capture a moment in time.

A lens filter doesn’t take away from that process; it adds to it. It interacts with the light as it enters your camera – shapes the light, if you will – and leaves you to marvel at the results.

If you’ve never thought about using a filter before, get yourself a cheap one I don’t care whether it’s an ND, ND grad, polarizer, diffusion filter or anything else; every photographer should try a physical lens filter at least once.

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Since the point at which most manufacturers conspired to get us to re-buy all our interchangeable lens camera equipment in more compact mirrorless form, DSLRs have been portrayed as bulky, lumpen and very much yesterday’s news.

That perception persists, underscored by the fact that former DSLR stalwarts Canon and Nikon have stopped releasing anything new with a mirror box. Along with everyone else, except possibly Pentax.

While I’ve shared prior opinions on why I feel that’s short-sighted and a shame, any connection of mine to DSLRs isn’t nostalgic, emotion-based or a kneejerk reaction to manufactured hype.

There are tangible, practical reasons for choosing a DSLR in 2026. Yes, still. And, if choosing a DSLR, for choosing a Canon DSLR above all others.

Why? Well, for starters, the golden rule of buying an interchangeable lens camera still holds – namely, I shouldn’t just consider the specific body I have my eye on, but the whole system that surrounds it, including all lenses and accessories.

Even before DSLRs were no longer cool, Canon still enjoyed the most far-reaching and comprehensive support out of any camera brand.

And still, if buying a Canon DSLR today, users not only have access to lenses produced since the first digital EOS, but also film-era lenses stretching back decades (if, in some cases requiring an adaptor).

Buying a Canon DSLR therefore becomes the most cost-effective, value-added solution, as I explore the wealth of compatible Canon EF and EF-S lenses for DSLRs – numbering over 200 since 1987 – available on both the new and second-hand market.

Last year Canon claimed it had manufactured 170 million EF and EF-S lenses in total. So, tracking down a perfect match for both intended subject and DSLR in use won’t be an issue.

Couple this with over 110 million Canon EOS cameras produced – with the caveat that this figure does include some mirrorless – and it shouldn’t be a stretch to find either a mint unboxed DSLR or a good quality used option.

At the time of writing, I can still buy a flagship EOS-1D X Mark III or EOS 5D Mark IV camera body direct from Canon’s online store. Or, at the other end of the price scale, snap up an EOS 2000D DSLR plus standard zoom for less than is currently being asked for most compact travel zooms.

So yes, as well as a DSLR’s imaging performance, functionality, battery life, optical viewfinder and durable build, sheer stock numbers work in Canon’s favor. As they do for anyone considering one of its DSLRs in 2026.

DSLRs might not be the cool kids anymore, but sometimes sensible is the smarter option.

Check out our full guide to the best DSLRs you can still buy today. If you want to follow in Gav's footsteps with one of the best Canon cameras, check out the best Canon lenses for DSLRs to go with them.

The Nikon ZR is trending on Google today, and just yesterday I was thinking about buying one and doing the unthinkable… using it exclusively as a stills camera! I know, I know: “What heresy doth the man speak?” But hear me out on this one.

I was answering a comment on the latest episode of the Digital Camera World Podcast, where James and I were talking about the Panasonic Lumix L10 compact camera, and in that video we compared it with the Panasonic Lumix S9.

The S9 is a full-frame interchangeable-lens camera with no viewfinder and you can find it for some exceptionally good prices.

ABOVE: Watch the discussion that prompted by Nikon ZR temptation

I was busy browsing various camera retailers, daydreaming about what color I’d have, and then I noticed something that’s always been a big turnoff for me: no rear dial where your thumb naturally rests.

I’m used to operating cameras with front and rear dials, exactly where your index finger and thumb naturally sit. It is without doubt the most comfortable control layout, for me at least. And if a camera doesn’t have this, I find it very hard to get on board with it. But then I saw something I couldn’t unsee – a Nikon ZR.

The ZR has a Red-infused, video-first design, but also shares quite a few similarities to the Lumix S9 in that it has no viewfinder and is essentially a rectangular box with a shallow grip.

The Nikon ZR is bigger, but accommodates two memory cards (CFexpress B and microSD) and also has a rather unusual ace up its sleeve in that it has a giant four-inch rear LCD screen. For a camera without a viewfinder, that’s definitely a boon.

Still, buying one of the best cinema cameras on the market for photography seemed like a bit of a stretch, so I turned to Reddit to find out if other users had thought the unthinkable – and I was surprised to find they had.

A post by amcreativca shared a photograph they took with their Nikon ZR and it turns out they’re certainly not the only one. To my surprise, somebody even said: “I'm also thinking about switching to the ZR, I currently have an S9.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’d still recommend the Nikon Z6 III as the ultimate stills option out of the two, given that it’s essentially the blueprint for the Nikon ZR and features a nice deep grip and a viewfinder.

But as somebody who already owns a stills-focused Nikon and is on the hunt for something a bit more portable, why not take photos on a Nikon ZR?

So long as you’re not a flash photographer, of course; the ZR has a flash sync speed of just 1/60 sec due to its electronic-only shutter. It’s a very capable device for everyday photography, though. You get the same excellent AF system as the Z6 III, burst speeds of 20fps (RAW) and 120fps (JPEG), as well as a full-frame partially-stacked 24.5MP sensor.

I guess the lesson to take away from this is that both marketers and, indeed, ourselves impose limitations on cameras – but in reality, any camera you’re comfortable with is fit for purpose.

Sure, the Nikon ZR is a video monster. But with its large rear LCD and relatively portable form factor, I see no reason not to use it as a stills camera. I’d be interested to know what you think. Absolutely crazy idea? Or do you think the people of Reddit and I are onto something?

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There's a particular kind of shot that's a gift, in theory at least, to photographers. The lone building, boarded up and improbable, standing on its own with nothing else around it. Dramatic irony and geometric symmetry in equal measure.

Ben Marcin's been shooting this kind of scene for the best part of two decades. And his debut photobook, The Holdouts, published by GOST on 1 August, is a great example of what elevates a good idea to a good body of work.

The premise is simple. Marcin, a photographer based in Baltimore, Maryland, has spent almost 40 years photographing the places people live, and for the last 20 or so he's trained that attention on his own city and its hinterland.

The Holdouts brings together three projects he originally shot as separate bodies of work: solo row houses in Baltimore that survived demolition around them, abandoned farmhouses on Maryland's Eastern Shore, and homeless encampments that rarely last more than a year. It's only recently, he says, that he worked out the thread connecting them.

That thread is spelled out by the title. A holdout is a real estate term for an owner who refuses to sell to a developer, forcing a project to be built around their property or eminent domain to be invoked against them.

Actually, Marcin concedes, almost none of his subjects are holdouts in that strict sense; no shopping center or highway ever displaced the people who once lived in these houses. But the looser meaning – the act of resisting or refusing to accept what's on offer – fits these pictures rather well.

Buildings as portraiture

What's most interesting to me isn't the premise so much as the discipline of it. Marcin isn't chasing novelty; he's applying the same visual treatment to building after building, for years. Always a single structure shot dead-on and centred, and letting small variations in light, decay and context do the storytelling.

It's the kind of repetition that separates a typology (a series of photographs that all use the same formal approach) from a collection of snapshots.

Editing masterclasss

It also means the book rewards close looking rather than a quick flick-through. A shuttered row house in Baltimore, an abandoned farmhouse in Worcester County, and a tarpaulin shelter strung with an American flag and a Ravens banner... These are all, formally, the same kind of picture: a solitary structure, centred, facing the camera, with nothing to distract from it. But look closer, and the differences in detail are utterly compelling.

The editing story behind this project is also a fascinating one. Marcin shot these three strands independently – without any plan to unify them – across roughly 15 years and locations spanning Baltimore, Philadelphia, Camden and the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland, Delaware and Virginia. It was only in hindsight, with the help of his publisher, that a coherent book emerged from what had been three separate filing cabinets of work.

That's worth knowing, if you're the sort of photographer who feels obliged to know your project's thesis before you've finished shooting it. Because the lesson of The Holdouts is that sometimes, the unifying idea only becomes visible once there's enough material to see a pattern. And a long-term project doesn't need a name on day one to earn its place in a book further on down the line.

The Holdouts is published by GOST Books on August 1 2026, hardback, 144pp, $65/£50/€55.

These days we see some absolute behemoth full-frame camera sensors packing 50, 60 and now close to 70MP (megapixels). While these specs are certainly attractive, and do contribute towards the overall quality of your images, they’re only as good as the lens you pair them with.

Megapixel counts can create a false perception, with many photographers – especially newcomers – falling into the trap of thinking the higher the number, the better quality their images will be.

To an extent, this is correct. After all, a top-tier full-frame model – such as the Sony A7R VI with its 67MP sensor – will enable you to crop in closely in post-production without losing definition or degrading image colors. Given you use the same high-quality lens, you'll get much more leeway than if pairing it with an older DSLR with, say, a 24MP sensor.

However, if you stick a poorly made lens onto that same Sony full-frame beast then it’s a different story – and you won’t even need to crop the image tightly to see the difference.

What you need to keep in mind is that lenses are what determine the sharpness, clarity and even the color rendering, as well as suppressing aberrations and distortion.

So if your lens doesn’t handle these tasks well, then a high-resolution sensor will only highlight the flaws of your poor-quality lens. On the other hand, a great lens can make even a modest sensor perform better.

Then there's the physical size of the camera sensor to consider, which, arguably, is more important than pixel count too. Cramming too many megapixels onto a physically small sensor can result in smaller individual pixels, which may yield noisier, less detailed photos in low-light conditions.

While this issue is best exemplified by smartphones, some APS-C cameras, like the Canon EOS R7 and Fujifilm X-T5, have been criticized for it.

All this isn’t to say that you should completely ignore MP counts and only buy the most expensive lenses. Not at all. In fact, cheaper third-party manufacturers like Tamron, Sigma and now Viltrox produce lenses that give premium native glass like Sony G Master and Nikkor S lenses a close run for their money.

But the point I am making is that you shouldn’t splurge on a camera body because of its attractive sensor, only to then cheap out on the lens you’re going to pair it with.

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If you go to any photo trade show, the number of LED makers far exceeds the number of strobe and flash makers. We’ve had brands like Bowens fold in recent years, even though their mount is the de facto standard for lighting modifiers. Even small flash makers aren’t immune to this, with Cactus, one of the first to get a trigger and flash combo that worked across a huge range of camera makers. This triggers the question, is flash, be it studio strobes or hotshoe flashguns, dead?

Well, it might be for some photographers. When working with flash, you can’t see the results before you shoot. Even in a controlled studio environment, where you have the modelling lights mimic the flash power, it’s still an approximation. You also need to communicate between the camera and the strobe, meaning expensive wireless triggers, or awkward cables. Not to mention learning how to use the flash, set groups and channels, turn on and off beeps – it’s kind of a steep learning curve for a beginner. And at high power you have to wait patiently for the recycle time.

With LED, you just turn it on and look through the lens (now that we’re nearly all mirrorless) or live view. What you see is what you get. Need more, or to balance two lights? Just look and use the handy remote to change each one from where you are, no camera connection required. Need them to be different colors? Well, just change that too. If you’re also creating content as well as photographing, you get to use the same light for photos and for video. Sometimes that will mean a tripod and longer exposures, but that's easy. It’s not looking good for flash, really.

But wait, does flash have anything going for it? You mean like really fast duration, over 1/10,000sec bursts to freeze motion? Capturing droplets and splashes? Freezing athletes in mid air? Yes, it can do that. LED not so much.

Flash easily overpowers sunlight, even with modifiers. You’d need hefty and very expensive lights to do that. Cinema does that using 10,000-watt HMIs and large scrims, but at $15,000, you’d be better served with flashes for photography. Speaking of modifiers, these are mature in the flash space and highly engineered. LEDs don’t get as hot as traditional bulbs, but they are half heatsink and do need cooling-not all modifiers are designed for this.

Of course, good flash also has perfect color rendition from shot to shot, whereas that can really vary with LED. Even the same setting on two lights might not be exactly the same colour-it might be subtle, but noticeable. Not all flashes are equal, but most current ones have this consistency.

On the portability front, I get 650 full power flashes from my Godox AD600. I can go shoot after shoot before needing to charge, even shooting all day. An LED? Maybe two hours if I’m lucky. Battery tech is improving, but still hard to touch strobes for battery longevity. A good day in the studio will fix any issues, and another day outside learning to balance flash and ambient and the learning curve is done.

So is flash dead? For video/photo creators working inside, especially at the low end of the market, probably. For those shooting higher end, requiring accurate color and control, indoors and outdoors, flash is still king.

See our guides to the best flashguns, the best LED light panels, and the best lighting kits for photography

Camp Snap’s screen-free digital cameras launched as a way for kids to take a camera to a screen-free summer camp without the cost of disposable film – but thanks to the craving to curb screen addiction, the company’s retro cameras have found a following across generations.

With the small business’s success, however, comes more options to choose from. What’s the difference between the Camp Snap 2 and the Camp Snap CS-Pro?

I’ve personally used both of these cameras – I even went a week on a screen-free camera challenge and loved it so much that I went nearly two weeks instead. Both cameras share the same retro, screen-free charm, but there are several key differences to note.

Camp Snap 2 vs. Camp Snap CS-Pro: Specs

Camp Snap 2 vs. Camp Snap CS-Pro: Design

• The Camp Snap 2 is smaller and has a child-proof lock on the filters
• The Camp Snap CS-Pro is larger but has a classic design, filter dial, flash toggle, and battery life indicator

The Camp Snap 2 and the CS-Pro may both be screen-free retro compact cameras, but the two have drastically different designs.

The Camp Snap 2 design feels like a slightly more luxurious disposable camera. The camera looks a bit like a disposable, but it has a nice textured wrap that comes in a lot of different colors, and the plastic feels a bit sturdier than a disposable.

The CS-Pro, on the other hand, takes on the silver-and-black retro design that feels a bit more grown-up. The design is still plastic despite the silver color, but the silver and a black wrap feel like a classic.

The design differences span beyond just looks, however. The CS-Pro is the larger of the two, sitting taller and wider, as well as heavier. Both are pocketable, but the CS-Pro needs a bit more generous pockets.

The controls between the two also have a few notable differences. The CS-Pro has four filters available through a top dial. The Camp Snap 2 swaps filters with a button on the back, but this button can also be locked when using it as a kid camera.

Both compact cameras have a built-in flash, but the CS-Pro's is more powerful and has a toggle to turn it on and off. The Camp Snap 2's flash on is located right on the camera's on-off switch.

Another design feature that the CS-Pro has that the Camp Snap 2 doesn't is a battery life indicator. Four small green LED lights show an approximate estimation of the remaining battery. The Camp Snap 2 doesn't have this, but a low battery warning will flash on the screen when that point is reached.

Both cameras can use circular lens filters, but I think the CS-Pro's 37mm size is easier to find different options for than the Camp Snap 2's 30.5.

Camp Snap 2 vs. Camp Snap CS-Pro: Image Quality

• The Camp Snap CS-Pro has a higher resolution and a more powerful flash
• But the Camp Snap 2 does have 6 filters instead of 4

At 16MP, the Camp Snap CS-Pro has twice the resolution of the Camp Snap 2. Images from The Camp Snap CS-Pro are sharper, with more detail and larger files.

The CS-Pro also has the more powerful flash, which makes a difference when photographing something indoors from a distance.

While the CS-Pro has better resolution, it still has some retro charm, thanks in part to a cheap lens. The built-in filters also create images that feel a bit more retro, including black-and-white.

The one image quality perk that the Camp Snap 2 has is that there are six different built-in filters, where the CS-Pro has four on the filter dial. But, both cameras allow those built-in presets to be edited, so it's possible to create your own filters if you don't love the ones that come with the camera.

Another key difference to note is that there is some shutter lag -- or a delay between pressing the button and when the image is taken. The CS-Pro does a bit better at minimizing this, but there is still a small lag.

Camp Snap 2 sample images

Camp Snap CS-Pro sample images

Verdict

To put it simply, I would choose the Camp Snap CS-Pro for myself and the Camp Snap 2 for my kids.

But, of course, there are a few nuances between the two that help determine which is the right one. The CS-Pro has better image quality and a classic design for not much of a price difference.

The Camp Snap 2, however, is smaller and more affordable and comes with a child lock for those filters. Using the Camp Snap 2 certainly didn't feel like using a kids' camera if you want the smallest option and don't mind the lower 8MP resolution.

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There are few creatives I admire more than George Lucas. He’s heard it all before, but I’m not sure I could put into words just how much Star Wars and Indiana Jones have meant to me over the years. Heck, I even crack out American Graffiti every now and then and have always been a strong proponent of the Prequel Trilogy (I just don't get the Jar Jar hate...). That said, I will always stand up for what I believe in, and I’m not keen on the legendary filmmaker’s latest take on AI.

In a very interesting long-form interview with film, art and culture magazine A Rabbit’s Foot, Lucas discusses the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which he co-founded with his wife Mellody Hobson and is set to open in September, why he thinks so many older Star Wars fans didn’t resonate with the Prequel Trilogy, and his stance on artificial intelligence.

It’s the latter that really piqued my interest, given that I’ve written an awful lot about AI and its impact on both film and photography. His first point is that AI makes filmmaking easier, and I can’t argue with that. He then likens opposing AI to opposing the invention of the car “they break down, they need gas (...) pretty soon they’ll be making them into tanks,” going on to say “There’s nothing you can do about it (...) That’s progress, it’s the future.”

For me, that’s the kicker. This notion that you can’t do anything about AI, or on the other side of the coin, that AI is inherently bad and it shouldn’t exist at all. Both arguments are extremes, but what about the middle ground? What about a world where AI exists, but we do indeed do something about it?

I don’t have a hatred of AI. I have a hatred of unethical, generative AI. The kind of artificial intelligence that scrapes existing works, regardless of copyright and MacGyvers them into AI slop. My problem with generative AI is that it removes the human element and to me, it’s the human element that makes art, art.

I'd go so far as to suggest that George skewers his own argument, because he mentions several times during the interview that movies are about emotion. “You go to the movies because the stories move you emotionally,” he says. The article finishes with him stating: “Steven and I always agreed on that: what you’re selling, in the end, is emotion.” I couldn’t agree more!

But the whole problem with generative AI, in my mind, is that it strips out the emotion and leaves behind little more than a creative husk. I get that Lucas’ whole deal when it comes to moviemaking is pushing the envelope. The Original Trilogy wouldn’t have been made if it wasn’t for the filmmaker’s faith in both technology and indeed his own ability.

Lucas famously founded Industrial Light & Magic during the production of Star Wars: A New Hope, going so far as to actually build custom tech to deliver the film’s ground-breaking special effects. Love it or loathe it, the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition was a bold, groundbreaking move. And Star Wars: Attack of the Clones was famously the first Hollywood blockbuster to be shot digitally in its entirety, with the film also landing an Academy Award nomination for its visual effects.

It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that George is a proponent of AI when it comes to filmmaking. I just wish the medium’s supporters would take a more proactive approach to AI’s involvement in a bid to preserve the emotion that George Lucas himself covets so much. It’s worth noting that I’m adding my two cents to a few words provided in an interview. I’m sure Lucas would have much more to say on the matter in an open discussion. Maybe our views are more aligned than I think… If you’d like to weigh in yourself, leave a comment below.

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The Sony RX10 V refreshes a nearly decade-old design with modern autofocus smarts, but the new super zoom also comes with another key change: it’s the priciest bridge camera that I’ve seen yet.

I tried the Sony RX10 V and loved the mix of wide-angle, telephoto and macro all in one camera instead of a bag full of gear. But considering the price change that comes with the new luxury super zoom, I had to ask: is there a mirrorless combination that has a similar reach for a lower price point?

Enter the Sony A6700 with an all-in-one superzoom, like the Tamron 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di III-A VC VXD, which brings a 27-450mm equivalent focal length, or the Sigma 16-300mm f/3.5-6.7 DC OS | C with a 24-450mm equivalent range.

No, those all-in-one zooms don’t reach as far as the RX10 V’s 24-600mm equivalent lens, but the A6700’s larger sensor (APS-C versus 1-inch on the RX10 V) and higher resolution can help make up for that difference.

The Sony A6700 has a 23% boost in megapixels, 26MP versus 20.1MP. If you cropped in the A6700 by 23%, you’d end up with a view that looked more like 550mm – a much closer perspective to the RX10’s telephoto 600mm reach.

The Sigma 16-300mm f/3.5-6.7 DC OS | C still hits 24mm on the wide end and comes in at a similar weight of 615g / 1.4lb and price point to the Tamron.

The Sony RX10 V comes with a $2,299 / £2,200 / AU$3,499 price. That’s about $600 higher than the 2019 Sony RX10 IV in the US. While that seems steep, the number actually matches quite close to inflation.

According to inflation calculators, the $1,700 that the RX10 IV cost in 2019 would be about $2,160 today. (And in the US, the discontinued RX10 IV was going for even higher in mint condition.)

But while the price change isn’t too far removed from inflation, over the last several years there seems to be a growing trend for mirrorless optics that fall in the all-in-one / superzoom category.

The Tamron 18-300mm, introduced in 2021 for E-Mount, covers wide to telephoto and also shoots half macro, all without swapping lenses. Sigma's option is even newer, launched in 2025.

A superzoom won’t be smaller than the RX10 V, as the lens doesn’t collapse when powering the camera off, like with the bridge camera. But the two options do have a similar weight.

The RX10 comes in at 2.4 lbs / 1110g. Combining the weight of the A6700 (17.4 oz / 493.2 g) with the weight of the Tamron 18-300mm (21.86 oz / 620g) comes to 2.45 lbs / 1,113g. The sigma 16-300mm is about 5g less, putting it actually under the weight of the RX10 V with the A6700.

Of course, there are mirrorless lenses that can get that 600mm reach on the A6700 – like the Tamron 50-400mm f/4.5-6.3 Di III VC, which creates a 75-600mm 35mm equivalent on an APS-C body. But that lens doesn’t fall under the cost of the RX10 V unless paired with a more affordable body like the Sony A6400, which doesn’t have as robust an animal detection autofocus system.

The capabilities of the Sony A6700 aren’t a direct match with the RX10. On the one hand, the A6700 has the larger sensor and higher resolution, but the RX10 V wins in burst speed with 30fps over the mirrorless camera’s 11fps.

Am I glad that Sony revived its super zoom from the dead? Yes. Did I love shooting with the RX10 V? Also, yes. The RX10 V is a great camera for packing only one fixed lens camera and still hitting every genre from wide angle to telephoto to macro.

But, like with the compact camera trend, it’s worth pointing out that the RX10 V doesn’t necessarily save money over a mirrorless system.

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Tamagotchis were back, the Colts were Super Bowl champions and, on every radio station, Rihanna could be heard singing “Umbrella, ella, ella.” What nobody could have predicted in June 2007 was how deliveries of Apple’s very first smartphone, announced at the beginning of the year, would change the face of consumer tech forever.

The end of June marked the 19th anniversary of those first US deliveries. And when I cast my mind back to that golden age of consumer tech, it’s stark just how much things have changed – and not just in the camera industry.

But of course, here at Digital Camera World, the iPhone launch is infamous for one specific reason: it killed the compact camera. Or at least, that’s what we thought…

The camera that's always with you

In reality, it’s hard to select which specific iPhone landed the killing blow (possibly the iPhone 4) but that initial 2007 release was the beginning of the end.

The irony, of course, is that the original iPhone, while groundbreaking in many aspects such as Apple’s slick Multi-Touch functionality, didn’t actually have a great camera. Not only was it 2MP, it didn’t have autofocus and it couldn’t even record video.

For context, the Nokia N95, which was released just prior to the iPhone, had AF, a 5MP camera, built-in flash and video.

It wasn’t until 2010’s iPhone 4 that Apple really took its camera seriously. But I wouldn’t call any iPhone camera particularly groundbreaking. The quality of the camera was never the main draw. It was ever-present and accessible, and that’s what mattered most.

You didn’t have to check that the memory card was inserted and formatted. You didn’t have yet another battery to charge. And you didn’t have to remember to pick it up as you left the door and assign it a pocket.

The camera was your phone, a device that had already weaseled itself into most people’s everyday lives. You now had a camera that didn’t take up any extra space and didn’t require any extra thought. And on top of it all, the iPhone’s incredibly responsive touch controls made taking pictures effortless.

In 2009, Chase Jarvis produced a book called The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You, and the title has become a modern proverb of sorts among photographers. Well, I guess you could call Chase an iPhone photography pioneer and his book perfectly illustrates the merit of merging camera and phone.

The killing blow had been landed. So how on Earth has the compact camera managed such a successful comeback?

The compact comeback kid

When the iPhone launched, smartphones were a novelty. And the camera was a huge part of that. Selfies were a breath of fresh air (kind of) and, for the first time, people could upload pictures of their holiday or dinner onto Facebook in an instant.

Look no further than that entirely pointless app that would turn your iPhone into a virtual flip lighter to know that early iPhone culture was about experimentation and, above all, fun.

But this was a time when we were enjoying smart technology in moderation. Like any addiction, smartphones are no longer fun. The dopamine rush fools us into the feeling, but the pleasure is fleeting and the comedown is real.

We rarely interact with smartphones in a playful manner. They’ve become our bank card, road map and authentication device. Bloated by medical, insurance and grocery store apps.

They’ve seeped into the workplace, too. Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder how this personal and private computer that was bought and paid for by me has become such an integral part of my working day. So much so that I simply couldn’t function without it.

And what of the smartphone camera? Well, when it’s not scanning my face, it’s reading QR codes and occasionally I take a picture.

And yet, I don’t like taking pictures with it. Not any more. There’s a laziness in the way that I operate my camera phone. No effort. I simply hold it up, tap the virtual shutter button a few times and move on.

What’s the point? As long as I’ve vaguely framed a composition, I know that the computational photography will ensure that it’s headache-inducingly sharp with exposure blended to within an inch of its life. And… Oh look, I’ve got a WhatsApp message. Urgh, it’s just another PCP scam. Now what was I taking a photo of? Oh, the moment’s passed…

So the camera that’s always with you is now attached to something that’s serious and essential. A vessel for brain rot. In 2026, your smartphone has baggage and it’s impossible not to place that baggage on every aspect of the device – including the camera.

Some look at a dedicated camera, a CD or a vinyl, a Blu-ray or a book and think: What’s the point? It’s all on your phone. That is exactly the point! I am certain we are seeing a rise in these trends because people are consciously or unconsciously separating themselves from their smartphones.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a compact camera, a keychain camera, an instant camera or, most tellingly, a screen-free camera, people are choosing dedicated devices not just to reconnect with photography, but to reconnect with life.

Can your smartphone offer the sensory experience of tactile buttons and switches, the therapeutic benefits of slowing down and the joy of capturing moments with intent?

You cannot doomscroll on Fujifilm X100VI. You won’t get a WhatsApp message on a Kodak Pixpro FZ55. And a Polaroid Go Gen 3 won’t notify you of that work email that can wait until after the weekend.

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The vlogger-oriented Sony ZV-E10 cameras have gone largely unchallenged since the original was released in 2021. Any search for the best cameras for vlogging, content creation or travel photography now seems to bring up these models, and justly so.

However, I also think that a certain competitor camera, the Canon EOS R50, which came out in 2023, subsequently gets overlooked in this debate – and it’s actually a pretty solid rival to the ZV-E10.

These cameras boast similar specs and cost around the same. So if you’re looking for a small, nimble, creator camera, I want to make the decision easier for you.

The big question, then: which one would I choose? I’d go with Sony, simply because it's more versatile.

While both cameras pack a decent but respectable 24MP APS-C CMOS sensor, can record 4K 30p and FullHD 120p, and have a 3.0-inch fully articulating touchscreen, the Sony E-mount system has a much wider array of compatible lenses and better battery life.

There are over 80 native Sony E-mount lenses compatible with its cameras, whereas Canon can has over 50 native RF and RF-S lenses.

You’re sure to find the Canon lens you need from that range, but it’s the third-party options that boost Sony's appeal – swelling the total catalog to over 300. With Canon restricting third-party manufacturers' ability to release RF / RF-S glass, there are far fewer to choose from.

The Sony camera battery, the NP-FW50, also significantly outperforms Canon’s LP-E17 battery, powering approximately 440 still shots versus 310 on a full charge.

Of course, there are things about the Sony I don’t like, notably the lack of an electronic viewfinder. I get that this is because the ZV series is aimed at video, but it’s annoying if you shoot stills as well.

I also give the ergonomics points to the Canon. Its grip has more depth and, in general, the camera seems to fit in your hand more snugly. The Sony is way too thin for that snug feel, which is a criticism I’ve had of all Sony Alpha cameras – even my beloved Sony A7 III.

Still, the ZV-E10 is the winner for me – but not by a country mile. It's smaller and lighter, has a better selection of lenses and more juice in the battery – though I still wish it had an EVF for stills.

The Sony ZV-E10 II is also available, which brings a few extra megapixels of resolution and almost double the battery life thanks to the new NP-FZ100 (though it will set you back around $300 more than its predecessor).

And there's also the Canon EOS R50 V, a vlogging-oriented version of the R50 that's more of a direct competitor to the Sony options… but again you lose the viewfinder…

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There seems to be a growing belief that enjoying film photography in 2026 requires a Leica M6 around your neck, a bag full of Kodak Portra and a bank account healthy enough to cover the cost of every shutter press.

I love beautiful cameras as much as anyone, but film photography does not have to be an exclusive club reserved for those willing to spend thousands on equipment. In fact, I think the best way to enjoy film today might be with the cheapest compact camera you can find.

Cheap compact film cameras are fantastic. They fit inside a coat pocket, weigh almost nothing and are generally ready to shoot the moment an opportunity presents itself.

Many have surprisingly sharp fixed lenses, while others offer autofocus, automatic exposure, built-in flashes and zoom ranges that would have looked incredibly impressive when they were first released.

They might not have the mechanical romance of a classic rangefinder camera, but they make taking photographs wonderfully simple.

That simplicity is important. Film already forces us to slow down because every frame costs money, so I do not necessarily want to spend even more time worrying about light meters, interchangeable lenses or whether I have selected the perfect aperture.

Sometimes I want to pull a camera from my pocket, point it towards something interesting and press the shutter. A cheap compact enables the photograph to take priority over the equipment used to capture it.

I was recently reminded of this while visiting a car boot sale and swap meet, where I found a black Konica Minolta Pop in amazing condition, both inside and out. The asking price was a mere $4 / £2.

It is the sort of camera that could easily be overlooked beneath a pile of cables, old phone cases, and forgotten household electronics, but that is exactly what makes hunting for these cameras so enjoyable. You never quite know what might be sitting at the next table.

On the same stall, I also found a Samsung Vega 140S. This little compact has autofocus and a huge 38-140mm zoom lens made by Schneider-Kreuznach, giving it far more versatility than its unassuming appearance might suggest.

Its other party trick is the ability to “shoot” panoramic photographs, using a cropped panoramic format that gives your images a wonderfully cinematic shape. That camera cost me the enormous investment of $6 / £3.

For a total of $10 / £5, I walked away with a pair of compact film cameras that I can genuinely use and enjoy. That is less than the price of a camera strap from many premium brands, yet I now have two completely different photographic experiences waiting to be explored.

One can live in a jacket pocket, the other can offer everything from wider everyday views to tightly framed details with its built-in zoom. Even if one eventually stops working, I will have had more than my money’s worth from it.

Of course, the camera is no longer the most expensive part of this process. Film itself has become a heavy investment, particularly if you are buying popular color emulsions and paying a laboratory to develop and scan every roll.

However, even this can be made more affordable if you are willing to learn a little about home development. You do not need a professional darkroom or a room filled with expensive equipment to get started.

I love shooting black-and-white film, and my own development setup is incredibly simple. All I really needed was a developing tank and a monobath solution, which enables the film to be processed without juggling a shelf full of different chemicals.

Once the negatives are dry, I place them into my Canon CanoScan 9000F Mark II, scan them and take the images into my digital workflow. From there, the rest is history.

There is also something satisfying about being involved in the entire process. I choose the camera, load the film, take the photographs, develop the negatives and scan the finished frames myself.

It makes each photograph feel more personal, yet it does not require an extravagant collection of premium equipment. There may be imperfections, missed focus and the occasional strange exposure, but those are all part of the charm.

The best film camera is not necessarily the most expensive one, nor is it the camera currently attracting the most attention online. It is the camera you are happy to carry, the one you are not afraid to use and the one that encourages you to take photographs.

A $4 compact can do that every bit as effectively as a camera costing hundreds or thousands.

There is nothing wrong with owning a Leica M6, and there is certainly nothing wrong with loading one with Kodak Portra. Both are desirable for very good reasons. But they are not the entry ticket to “proper” film photography, and they should never make anyone feel that shooting film is financially out of reach.

Film photography can still be cheap, spontaneous and enormous fun. Search through car boot sales, charity shops, swap meets and the forgotten camera drawers of relatives. Pick up something inexpensive, check that it works, load it with a roll of film and put it in your pocket.

You might be surprised by how much photographic enjoyment $10 / £5 can buy.

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Sony shocked the videogame and consumer tech industries last week by announcing that physical disc production for new PlayStation games would end in January 2028. Cue an almighty furore from gamers and proponents of physical media alike – and an ominous note for camera users.

I joined the growing number of gamers cancelling their PS Plus Subscription in what I’m sure will amount to a vain attempt at telling the tech giant that a digital-only future isn’t appealing to everyone. And that train of thought brought me right back around to the camera industry.

Specifically, how the compact camera, which most manufacturers had all but abandoned, came back with a vengeance. Film, reduced to being the preserve of a few darkroom nerds, was thrust back into the fore. As well as instant cameras, camcorders and Y2K-style point-and-shoots, all brought back from the brink in surprising circumstances.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to remember that when we talk about these resurrections, they rarely compare with the popularity of the technology in question’s heyday.

I’m well aware that the way photography journos (like myself) bang on about film, if you lived under a rock, you’d be forgiven for assuming that every person and their dog was carrying around a film camera. Which just isn’t the case.

However, it is interesting to me that Sony is choosing to abandon discs at a time when physical media is enjoying something of a resurgence. For example, last year 4K Blu-Ray sales actually increased and vinyl sales exceeded $1 billion.

And we all know that the camera industry is seeing a similar appetite for aging tech, with retro-cool compacts regularly topping Japanese sales charts and the rise and rise of Fujifilm’s Instax, an instant camera brand.

Forging ahead and forgetting the past

As upset and angry as I am that the videogame industry may never be the same again, I’m well aware that however surprising the timing is, it’s not at all unlike Sony to commit to a big decision like this.

Sony isn’t what I’d call a retrospective company. It doesn’t tend to linger upon its past successes, choosing instead to forge ahead. Once again, its camera division is a great microcosm of that ethos.

Sony was the first camera manufacturer to release a full-frame compact camera in the Sony RX1. It was also the first to commit to full-frame mirrorless cameras, when it launched the Sony A7 and Sony A7R in 2013. It wasn’t until Canon and Nikon launched their respective full-frame offerings nearly five years later that the coveted Alpha series had any true competition.

The Sony A9 debuted the world’s first blackout-free shooting. The Sony A9 III was built around the world’s first full-frame consumer global shutter sensor. Sony also pioneered animal autofocus and of course, it’s a well-known fact that the tech giant manufactures the lion’s share of the world’s camera sensors.

And yet, it rarely looks back. You could argue that it doesn’t have the same imaging heritage to dip into as many of the other camera companies, but I still question whether it’d ever go the retro route anyway.

Historically, Sony hasn’t always got it right (remember Betamax or cameras that recorded onto floppy discs?) but it’s certainly not afraid to make big decisions. Even if this latest big decision involves axing a technology that it codeveloped. History suggests that Sony knows what it’s doing, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

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This might be the most fun $45 I've ever spent on camera stuff.

Last month, Godox launched its first-ever camera: the Godox C100 "transparent viewfinder camera". Over half of its tiny 104 x 71.7 x 19.1mm frame is taken up by an "intelligent transparent display" that's basically a see-through LCD screen with a UI that shows your image frame, battery and shooting mode.

Basically, it's like taking pictures with a credit card that has a hole in it. And it is ludicrously good fun – definitely one of the best screen-free digital cameras you can buy right now.

I took it for an outing recently to put together a quick video, so below is a whistle-stop guided tour of the camera with some samples. (Yes, I know that my hands are shaky. I had mild dehydration and sunstroke from running around in the 90°F heat so I could post this video as soon as possible.)

So, you aim through the giant optical finder and do your best to frame your composition – which isn't quite as hit-and-miss as you might expect.

We've seen cameras like this before – namely the Canon Ivy Rec and the Instax Pal, both of which have fairly clumsy optical finders that give a vague approximation of your image frame (given that they are so far away from the camera itself) and, crucially, no feedback as to where your fingertips are!

The G100 is much more accurate, given that the camera is positioned literally just above the finder. In addition, it can be set to shoot 16:9, 4:3, 3:2 or 1:1 images – essentially cropping down the base 1920 x 1080 image each time.

Changing the aspect ratio superimposes a different frame on the display, to help you compose your shots. I haven't experimented too much with this, yet, as it seemed better to shoot "full frame" 16:9 and just crop later on.

Image quality is surprisingly good, given that this is just a 2MP camera with a tiny sensor. It's certainly better than other sub-$50 screen-free cameras like the Kodak Charmera, where images feel very lo-fi and crunchy.

You still wouldn't exactly shoot a wedding on this, but take a look below – with a touch of editing, the images are perfectly respectable:

The C100 also shoots 1080p video, which as you can see above registers all the jitters of sunstroked hands – so I'll do a couple more tests now that I'm not cooked by the heat. The audio is still pretty blown out and the image quality isn't remotely going to rival your camera or phone, though.

But I think the C100's coolest party trick is the fact that it also doubles as a light meter, which is a stroke of genius and might make this an essential pickup for film photographers. This week I'm going to test its accuracy against my trusty Sekonic meter to see how it performs. Either way, it's a cool little bonus feature to have.

Of course, as noted in my original story, the elephant in the room is that the Godox C100 takes "a great deal of inspiration" from the Escura InstantSnap – an almost identically functioning camera that debuted at CP+ 2025.

Escura's camera is only 1.3MP (with correspondingly inferior image quality), only shoots 480p video and doesn't have a light meter – but still, it's important to note that it likely served as the blueprint for Godox's device.

I'll have my full Godox C100 review up very soon, but in short I had low expectations for this camera – and yet it's been the most fun I've had taking pictures in forever. I also think that this is a brilliant camera for kids, as it's tiny, loads of fun and also cultivates patience, as you have to wait to get home to see what you shot. Not bad for 30 bucks!

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Like many photographers, I like to make prints to adorn the walls at home. And some years ago I invested in a poster-sized printer so that I could do so at will.

Specifically, I got a Canon Pixma Pro 9000 Mark II, which was the 2009 version of a printer that hasn’t significantly changed from its 2006 release.

When I tried to print something this weekend with no success for the first time, I wasn’t sure what to do.

There are obvious steps that everyone goes through, obviously. Checking that all the ink tanks are full is step one. They weren’t, of course. It had been a few months, and I suspect a degree of evaporation may have played its part.

The current heatwave and the fact that I keep the printer upstairs won’t have helped matters. However, it was not a cheap printer – well over $500 – so I don’t mind forking out $30 for a set of replacements from a brand of compatible inks I have come to trust: Inkredible (unlike, sadly, some of the ‘compatible’ brands on Amazon).

Each of the ink tanks for this printer has a chip and the printer senses them. I’ve never had an issue with these, whereas some ‘compatible’ inks have proven not to be. Some will tell me I should continue using Canon’s own inks, but their price is somewhat off-putting by comparison.

Two days later, when the inks arrived, I swapped them out and reassuring lights indicated that the printer recognized them; however, it was still not inclined to print a page for me.

At this point, I had to resort to attempting to understand the printer’s problem via its only means of communication – an orange LED that flashes a number of times in sequence.

This felt positively archaic in an era where my portable battery pack has a small color display, but casting my mind back to 2006 (before the iPhone was announced) perhaps this wasn’t so unlikely.

I can connect to my computer, of course, and hope that the software understands the error, but that doesn’t actually solve it either. Plugging into my Mac did remind me of the printer’s age, though, with a dedicated USB-A cable forcing me to find an adapter for the USB-C ports on my computer.

My MacBook reported a print head error via the Print Center, and ChatGPT concurred when I described the flashing light. Unlike the computer, though, the AI chatbot wanted to help out – suggesting a load of things to try.

While every one of the eight ink colors is a small replaceable tank, the whole print head is attached beneath them and is also removable and replaceable.

The ever-sympathetic chatbot initially suggested a series of parts of the printer to clean – buttons, paper feeds and the like – all of which, it felt, could lead to the same issue.

Eventually, it decided that it was time to remove the print head – but before replacing it, suggested some ways to clean it. In other words, lint-free cloth and rubbing alcohol were additional investments that ChatGPT thought were worth consideration. Not to mention a lot of time.

Sadly, though, AI wasn’t totally on-side with my problem, wanting me to perform a nozzle check – which the printer was refusing to do because the print head wasn’t working.

After a lot of back-and-forth in a chat, though, it gave me odds (about 90%) of an electrical failure of the print head, which brings me to my next choice. Do I source a new one – there are compatible options out there, even if Canon ones are hard to come by – or is it time to call it quits?

I think the answer is starting to become apparent. I’ve already lost a good amount of money and time – and ended up with very inky fingers several times.

I was, I have to admit, impressed with the amount of knowledge that AI had to offer about the printer’s error messages given its age. But at this stage I start to measure the value of my time (no, really, it has some).

There is also a point at which being told “We’re getting there” or “That’s a good sign” by a cheery and positive AI is increasingly frustrating as a human. ChatGPT is a bot, after all, and doesn’t quite appreciate that getting eight different colors over your fingers every time you get all the tanks out to access the print head to try “one more thing” is a bit annoying.

And it takes a long, long time to clean printer ink off your fingers.

So the final question should perhaps be “What is the best large-format printer?” That is a question I’ll still trust to humans with experience, but I did appreciate AI lending a hand in making me feel that I won’t be slapping down the cash on a whim.

Landscape photography is one of the most accessible forms of shooting. So long as you can get yourself to a local park or woodland, you can capture great landscape photos.

You don’t need thousands of dollars worth of expensive photography equipment, either. Plenty of landscape photographers have built formidable portfolios with a camera, a single lens and a sturdy tripod. Maybe add in a filter or two and you’re set for life.

You can capture great landscapes with almost any camera. But if you’re really serious about landscape photography, you will probably gravitate towards a high-resolution full-frame body. And the Nikon Z7 II is a last-generation mirrorless camera that's a diamond in the rough for landscapes.

Pro body, enthusiast price point

This isn’t a beginner recommendation, it’s an enthusiast-to-pro recommendation. After all, the Z7 II was essentially the brand’s unofficial flagship until the Nikon Z9 came out.

It launched for around $2999 / £2,999 back in 2020 and with no Nikon Z7 III to replace it (yet…), it’s only recently that the price has dropped significantly. At the time of writing, I can see the Z7 II for as little as $2,196 / £1,699 – and on the used market, MPB is selling the camera from $1,229 / £954.

That’s a very good price indeed for a high-resolution, full-frame mirrorless camera. The downside of the Nikon Z7 II for modern photographers is that it isn’t the fastest camera in the world.

The last-gen autofocus is no match for Nikon’s current-gen AF system, present on cameras such as the Nikon Z8 and Nikon Z6 III. Burst speeds max out at 10fps and while it can capture 4K / 60p footage, it applies a slight crop.

But here’s the thing. Landscape photographers don’t need class-leading AF systems. They don’t need lightning burst speeds. And they don’t need pro-grade video features. What they need is a robust, reliable body that’s capable of capturing gorgeous imagery.

And the Nikon Z7 II is just that. It’s extensively weather-sealed for the rigors of outdoor photography, boasts a robust magnesium-alloy chassis and a supremely good-quality 45.7MP sensor that can deliver images akin to the mighty Nikon D850. That’s almost everything a landscape photographer could need.

The only mod con that the Nikon Z7 II doesn’t have, which is present on newer Nikon cameras such as the Z8 and Nikon Zf, is pixel shift shooting.

This moves the sensor in tiny increments to capture massive multi-shot images that can be stitched together to form mammoth 96MP+ (the Z8 can hit 180MP) photographs. This is a useful tool for a landscape photographer, but far from essential.

I actually considered the Nikon Z7 II before I purchased a Z8. At the time, the price difference between the two cameras wasn’t huge and since I photograph sports and wildlife, the Z8 won out. But now, with Nikon Z7 II prices having plummeted, I could have gone the other way.

Ultimately, the Nikon Z7 II might be over half a decade old, but it’s still a fantastic choice for landscape photographers. It’s great value, robust and most importantly capable of capturing gorgeous images.

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In the summer of 2006, I had the privilege to be a pre-production tester and reviewer for Leica’s then-new M8. Introduced later that fall, the M8 is thought of by many as the first digital rangefinder camera. But was it really? Not quite.

The first commercially produced digital rangefinder camera was the Epson R-D1, launched a couple of years earlier in March 2004. As it arrived well before Panasonic’s Lumix G1 of 2008, it became the world’s first interchangeable-lens mirrorless digital camera – long before that term was ever used!

[Many in the industry, myself included, don't class the R-D1 as a true mirrorless camera due to its lack of live view or electronic viewfinder. But technically speaking, it is the first! – Ed]

The R-D1 was developed in partnership with Cosina, which modified its well-made and well-respected Voigtländer R-2 Bessa body for the purpose. Epson provided the electronics, while Cosina had the task of fitting it all into the R-2 chassis. Great effort was made by both firms to preserve the film “feel” in the R-D1.

The resulting camera had a Leica M lens mount and a 6.1MP, APS-C sized Sony CCD sensor. This same sensor was used in the 2003 Pentax *ist D. Because CCDs consumed more power than modern CMOS sensors, battery life was noticeably shorter than that of newer digital cameras. But, for the era, it was pretty good.

Photos were stored on SD cards, though the FAT16 file system limited them to 2MB of storage – which works out to roughly 100 RAW and JPEG images or 200 RAW files per card. Later Japan-only versions added SDHC support, which offered higher capacities.

Use of the Leica M mount (long out of patent protection by that point) meant that hundreds of lenses could be used with the R-D1.

However, Leica's Visoflex series of reflex adapters would not fit the Bessa / Epson bodies, so without “live view” (which only arrived years later, the Lumix G1), R-D1, photographers were pretty much limited to the three main focal lengths (28mm, 35mm and 50mm) marked in the finder. For most, this was not a great problem.

The R-D1 mimicked an analog camera a closely as possible, using the rapid wind lever to cock the focal-plane shutter – although there was no film to wind.

And it featured a rather nifty “Seiko watch-inspired” analog indicator on the top plate to show the shots remaining, image quality, white balance and so on. This “inspiration” is not surprising, as the Seiko Epson Corp also makes Seiko watches!

Unlike a film camera, however, the R-D1 had a fold-out 2-inch (diagonal) reversible screen that featured 235,000 dots. Later models increased this to 2.5 inches, though the resolution remained the same.

For those who wanted the classic film experience and preferred not to “chimp”, the display could be reversed and folded inwards to protect the screen. Doing so then revealed a Leica-like ISO reminder dial, but in fact it was a small conversion table between the three focal lengths and their equivalents on the APS-C sensor.

An interesting wrinkle is that the “rewind knob” is the jog dial, for reviewing images. You simply pressed the “monitor” button and rotated the dial to move between the images. To see the information on a particular shot (EXIF data, histogram and such) you pulled it up and rotated it.

In 2006, the R-D1s arrived. Physically unchanged, it had upgraded firmware for RAW + JPEG mode, the ability to shoot in Adobe RGB as well as SRGB, and a few other perks. Owners of the original R-D1 could upgrade to the latest standard. The 12-bit RAW files could be captured at ISO200-1600.​

Production continued until 2014, with some 10,000 cameras produced. The later models, with the 2.5” fixed rear screen, were sold only in Japan.

There is one more interesting wrinkle to the R-D1 story. In November 2021, while Epson was reorganizing its warehouse, it discovered 30 brand-new, in-box R-D1 cameras that had been sitting there for 12 years! (I have seen similar situations with other suppliers, over the years.)

The company refurbished them and then offered them via lottery to verified, Japanese R-D1 owners rather than discarding them.​

The reason for limiting the lottery to previous owners was that the batteries in the “newly discovered” R-D1’s had not withstood the test of time and new ones were no longer available. So the winners needed to be able to use their existing R-D1 battery.

The winners got to purchase an otherwise-new camera for ¥2,000 (about $18 USD). It was an unusual, but wonderful way to end the series!

Read more of David Young's ongoing series on classic cameras, as well as his book A Brief History of Photography.

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Sony has now brought back its popular super zoom bridge camera from the dead, reviving the discontinued series with the launch of the new Sony RX10 V. The super zoom has the same sensor and processor as the discontinued RX10 IV, but brings Alpha-series level autofocus smarts.

But the super zoom category is unusual in that it tends to find its way into the hands of photographers across every skill level – and across multiple generations. Inspired by the super zoom’s beginner-friendly design, I decided to do something I don’t normally do with a four-figure priced camera: I put it in auto mode and handed it to my eleven-year-old daughter.

The only instruction I offered (besides “please don’t drop this”) was what button to press to take a photo and how to use the toggle to zoom in and out. (She is a photographer's daughter with a hand-me-down DSLR, so she kept trying to twist the lens to zoom).

I walked the lake shore with my pre-teen as she photographed a loon, a dragonfly and a rabbit. Despite the camera being in auto mode, this is what she captured:

Did she also take some photos with motion blur and missed focus? Of course. But the camera’s auto mode simplicity speaks to the lower bar of entry for the bridge camera.

With the same sensor and processor as the previous version, the Sony RX10 V isn’t a major overhaul, but the upgrades enhance what I already love about this kind of camera: how easy they are to use. Sony has brought its Alpha series wizardry into the super zoom, which brings several subject detection autofocus modes. The camera is essentially smart enough to focus for you (most of the time).

Animal eye detection autofocus is one of my favorite wildlife photography tools, so to see Sony boost the feature in a camera made for multiple skill levels is refreshing. Those simpler autofocus capabilities are paired with a 30fps burst to help budding photographers increase the odds of getting a perfectly timed shot.

The super zoom category is one that is meant for a wide range of hands, in both skill levels and ages. I can’t in good conscience call the RX10 V a “compact” camera, but the camera is both far smaller and far simpler to use than a mirrorless camera with a 600mm lens.

I’ve recommended super zoom cameras to everyone from kids interested in wildlife photography to Baby Boomers who are more serious about birds than about photography. That’s why I’m particularly excited that the RX10 series that Sony previously discontinued has been brought back to life.

The RX10 V, of course, isn’t the only super zoom camera available – there’s the Nikon P1100 with its massive 125x zoom, for example.

But, the super zoom is a category that seems to be slowly diminishing at a time when, based on the compact camera trend, I feel like it should be doing the opposite. Give a camera a massive zoom range, and there aren’t a lot of types of photographs that it can’t capture.

The bridge camera is a casual and enthusiast camera that touches on multiple genres. Outside of wildlife photography, the RX10 V also has close focusing for macro, a wide 24mm for landscapes, and a bright f/2.8 aperture for portraits.

The same zoom and focus that boosts the camera for wildlife also means the RX10 V should be a good choice for photographing kids' sports games without the complexity of pro sports cameras.

The RX10 V isn’t made exclusively for beginners. There’s a full manual mode, and camera geeks will appreciate the larger 1-inch sensor and the f/2.8-4 aperture capabilities on the lens.

I was worried that the pocketable camera trend may kill the beloved super zoom that suits a wide range of genres and photographers – which is why I was so excited to see Sony announce the RX10 V.

But there is one feature that may discourage casual users and enthusiasts: the price. The RX10 V’s larger sensor and brighter aperture lens make it a premium bridge camera option with a price that reflects that. The camera is set to retail for $2,299 / £2,200 / AU$3,499.

That’s more than the list price of the earlier version. But it’s worth noting that, since Sony discontinued the RX10 IV, 'like-new' cameras from reputable used dealers have sat closer to the $3,000 mark.

Still, that price puts the camera at a similar cost to picking up a larger sensor Sony A6700 with a 70-350mm (105-525mm equivalent) or an 18-300mm (27mm-450mm equivalent) lens. The choice is yours, but I for one am glad that the choice exists.

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The Nikon D810 is trending on Google, which is slightly surprising in that it’s usually the Nikon D800 or Nikon D850 that gets all the attention. And I’m partially guilty in that I’ve written loads about those DSLR camera classics, but comparatively little about the Nikon D810. The problem is that it was a rather unremarkable entry into the D8XX series because it was essentially the Nikon D800 2.0.

It fixed a major problem and added a few small but decent upgrades, but the D800 (however flawed) remains the ground-breaking camera. The Nikon D850, then, was the proper follow-up and is considered by many, myself included, the greatest DSLR of all time. So, the poor old D810 is often forgotten about, but the thing is, it was actually an incredible camera. Let's explore why...

Nikon D800 vs Nikon D810

Let’s start with what the Nikon D810 fixed. The D800 / D800E was marred by a pretty catastrophic problem that reminds me a little of the high-profile ‘Red Ring of Death’ that plagued Microsoft’s Xbox 360 games console. Some early units featured an autofocus bug that affected left-sided AF points, reducing their accuracy. Nikon was able to fix the offending cameras, as well as the production line, but the problem stuck with the D800 and is still talked about regarding used models today.

And while the D810 wasn’t a huge advancement from the D800, Nikon did imbue it with a few spec upgrades. You might assume that both cameras’ 36.3-MP sensors are identical, but the D810 actually featured a new sensor with no anti-aliasing filter. It also had an upgraded EXPEED 4 image processor and a lower base ISO of ISO64 instead of the D800’s ISO100. This included a wider native ISO range of 64-12,800 as opposed to the D800’s 100-6,400 and a broader expanded ISO range of ISO32-51,200, up from ISO50-25,600.

The Nikon D810 also received a boost in burst speeds, delivering up to 5fps (up from 4fps) and maxing out at 7fps (up from 6fps) with the MB-D12 battery grip. It also introduced Group-Area AF to the series and provided marginally better video, thanks to its ability to shoot full HD up to 60p instead of 30p. There were other marginal upgrades, including an increased rear LCD resolution, but those are the main differences.

I myself still use my Nikon D800 on occasions, and I’ve never had any problems with it. However, I am guilty of often overlooking the Nikon D810, and while it doesn't occupy the same ground-breaking place in Nikon’s history as the Nikon D800, it is the better camera. You can pick used Nikon D810s up from as little as $449 / £384 from MPB at the time of writing and while it’s over a decade old, there’s still a little life in this old DSLR yet.

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**UPDATE** In the poll so far (bottom of page) a whopping 65% of you have said that you own a DSLR camera and use it regularly, while just 7% have said you’ve never owned one. Evidently, there’s a healthy dose of nostalgia at play here, but look no further than the best retro cameras to know that nostalgia is a huge deal in photography. It’s easy to forget that film photographers were very skeptical of the DSLR when it was first introduced. It wasn’t until the Nikon D1 launched in 1999 that the tide started to turn and professional photographers began to adopt the new system.

... ... ...

I miss my DSLR camera. But before you assume it’s purely sentimental, I actually started to learn photography using SLR film cameras. I still own a film camera, but I don’t miss film like I miss DSLRs. In fact, I miss my DSLR camera so much, I’ve actually considered selling my mirrorless kit and going back to the Nikon D850, a ‘holy trinity’ of F-mount glass, a couple of choice primes and a supertelephoto, and never worrying about upgrading my setup ever again. Of course, I’m not going to do that (I don’t think…), but that’s how much I MISS MY DSLR!

I miss my DSLR like a ghost misses being opaque. And it gets worse. I swear I took my best photos ever on my DSLR cameras. I understand how ridiculous that sounds, given the insane specs of almost any enthusiast-level mirrorless camera nowadays. I’ve thought about this a lot and the conclusion I’ve come to is that I was less precious as a DSLR user. Let me explain.

My DSLR camera made me a better photographer?

When you shoot with an optical viewfinder, you’re less bothered about getting the perfect exposure. You understand the limitations of your camera’s light meter, and you deal with it. It’s kind of freeing. When I use mirrorless cameras, I’m almost constantly fiddling with the settings, hyper aware of the preview on the EVF.

I find myself retaking the same photos over and over again, ad nauseam, striving for perfect exposure and absolute sharpness. With a DSLR camera, I’d take a few shots, glance at the rear screen and move on. There’s also this expectation with modern cameras that they’re so good, anything other than sheer perfection isn’t good enough. As such, I think my DSLR shots were more characterful and featured more variation.

I miss the more tactile experience of using a DSLR camera, too. Mirrorless cameras are silent, free from vibrations, and to this day that bothers the heck out of me. I miss the reassuring vibration that AF was engaged and that visceral clunk of the reflex mirror and shutter dancing in tandem. I could operate my DSLR with my eyes closed. Mirrorless? No such luck.

Perhaps the best way I can describe it is that mirrorless cameras feel like picture-making computers, whereas DSLR cameras feel like picture-making machines. I’m a bit of a romantic at heart; I’ll be gushing about my Nikon Z8 again next week, but I can’t be the only one to feel this way. I’m sure a lot of photographers won’t get it, and that’s totally fine. But man, you cannot put a price tag on the bond I built with my Nikon D800 and Nikon D850.

Do you agree? Do you long for the DSLR camera's heyday? Do you still shoot on a DSLR camera? Let me know in the comments below, and fill in the poll below!

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