Remote camera apps enable photographers and videographers to use a smartphone as a remote control for a mirrorless camera, along with essentials like wirelessly transferring photos.

But a popular third-party app now supports three camera brands in a single app, along with adding advanced tools like a waveform monitor. Shutter is now Shutter+, an iOS and iPadOS camera app that supports Sony, Canon and Fujifilm cameras.

I tried an earlier version of Shutter last year – I loved that the app didn’t drop connection to the camera, but I also really loved that it had more advanced tools that the native Fujifilm X App didn’t have, including an intervalometer for timelapses and self-portraits.

Shutter has three separate apps for each of its supported camera brands, but Shutter+ now supports all three brands from one app (and one cost). The developer says that photographers working with all three brands see the same features and updates.

But along with supporting all three brands without an app swap, the update for Shutter+ also introduces additional tools. Chief among these is a waveform monitor, a tool for monitoring the brightness of a video.

This joins existing tools like histograms, zebras, false color, focus peaking and LUT previews to give creators more data as they shoot.

The upgrade also updates the windowing for iPadOS, which helps the app to display better across the tablet’s different window sizes and multitasking views.

It adds support for more cameras, too, including the Canon EOS R6 V and Sony A7R VI, and supports new Fujifilm firmware. Canon’s live view using a USB tether has also improved.

Shutter+ continues to offer the features from the older version that made the app popular, including automatically switching from Bluetooth and wireless for the best connection and maintaining it when switching apps or locking the screen.

The app supports tethered and USB connectivity and includes tools like bulb timers, an intervalometer and live view overlays.

While the Shutter+ apps can now support cameras across three brands, the App Store will continue to offer three Shutter+ apps branded for Canon, Sony and Fujifilm.

The developer says this is in order to prevent interruptions for previous subscribers, but all three apps will now support every compatible camera.

The app’s pricing remains the same – after a 7-day free trial, users can continue to use the app with a $65 / £69 / AU$99 lifetime license, or choose a $3.49 / £2.99 / AU$5.99 monthly or $24.99 / £24.99 / AU$39.99 annual subscription.

Shutter+ is available from the App Store.

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The founder of a new photo curation app has said that her creation is the solution to the ever-growing camera-roll clutter crisis: where people are taking more photos than ever, but revisiting fewer and fewer.

Charlotte Riddley, founder and CEO of Yoree, has said that the “memory platform” uses “emotional AI” to intelligently curate personalized image displays from device galleries, enabling us to revisit only the most “meaningful” memories stored on our phones.

“This isn't about taking more photos, or storing them somewhere new,” said Charlotte. “It's about finally getting back to the ones we already have, in a way that feels good, private, and entirely in your control.”

These comments and the release of the Yoree beta app come at a time when people are taking more photos than ever before, but hardly ever revisiting them. In fact, according to research recently published by Popsa, a photobook curation platform, close to 70% of images are never looked at again.

According to Yoree’s creator, the underlying AI functionality, which the company says is based on neuroscience, goes beyond competing apps, enabling us to “drop back into a memory whenever you want to, not just when an anniversary or an algorithm reminds you to.”

What the company hasn’t specified, however, is how Yoree’s AI functions differently from other similar services, such as the AI functionality built into Apple and Android phones. Among other techniques, these use facial recognition and metadata analysis to resurface photos from your galleries.

The Yoree beta app is now available for download on both the App Store and Google Play for Apple and Android devices with a full app rollout expected in February 2027.

At the moment, only one plan is available, which currently costs £3.99/month (approximately $5.50 / AU$7.50), and features the ability to store images—which Yoree calls “memories”—in a private vault and use the AI Story Builder to turn these into stories.

What are your thoughts? Will Yoree truly help us to better manage our backlogs of photos? Or will the camera-roll clutter crisis only be solved by taking fewer images? I think Yoree is a nice idea, but that the latter is the real solution…

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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.

Sigma has released free firmware updates for 13 Sony E-mount lenses, bringing compatibility improvements for photographers using the new Sony A7 V.

The rollout covers a range of Contemporary and Art primes, including six of the company's premium I Series lenses.

While the firmware versions vary between Version 3 and Version 7 depending on the lens, they all deliver the same fix: resolving a rare issue that could cause the camera's monitor to black out and freeze during shooting when paired with the Sony A7 V.

Firmware

Updates: 17mm, 20mm and 24mm

1. Sigma 17mm F4 DG DN | Contemporary Sony E-mount – Ver.03
Download link for Windows and Mac OS

2. Sigma 17mm F4 DG | Contemporary Sony E-mount – Ver.03
Download link for Windows and Mac OS

3. Sigma 20mm F2 DG DN | Contemporary Sony E-mount – Ver.04
Download link for Windows and Mac OS

4. Sigma 20mm F2 DG | Contemporary Sony E-mount – Ver.04
Download link for Windows and Mac OS

5. Sigma 24mm F2 DG DN | Contemporary Sony E-mount – Ver.04
Download link for Windows and Mac OS

6. Sigma 24mm F2 DG | Contemporary Sony E-mount – Ver.04
Download link for Windows and Mac OS

Updates: 35mm, 45mm, 65 and 90mm

7. Sigma 35mm F1.4 DG DN | Art Sony E-mount – Ver.05
Download link for Windows and Mac OS

8. Sigma 45mm F2.8 DG DN | Contemporary Sony E-mount – Ver.07
Download link for Windows and Mac OS

9. Sigma 45mm F2.8 DG | Contemporary Sony E-mount – Ver.07
Download link for Windows and Mac OS

10. Sigma 65mm F2 DG DN | Contemporary Sony E-mount – Ver.04
Download link for Windows and Mac OS

11. Sigma 65mm F2 DG | Contemporary Sony E-mount – Ver.04
Download link for Windows and Mac OS

12. Sigma 90mm F2.8 DG DN | Contemporary Sony E-mount – Ver.04
Download link for Windows and Mac OS

13. Sigma 90mm F2.8 DG | Contemporary Sony E-mount – Ver.04
Download link for Windows and Mac OS

Pro Advice

If you caught Episode 4 of Bokeh Face: Digital Camera World podcast, above, we discussed the best time to install firmware updates, why they matter, and what issues they can cause. It's a helpful listen if you're unsure when – or whenever – you should update.

It's smart to wait a week or two after release to see if any users hit snags. In the past, brands have had a few hiccups with major updates – for instance, introducing memory-setting bugs or minor interface glitches before being reissued.

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A new start-up is building a wearable that transforms into a stationary smart device at home as tech for creating a daily journal. The start-up behind iKairos is calling the device a “journal for daily reflection and meaningful memories.” The kicker? Those memories are all AI-generated.

iKairos has an unusual design for a wearable – teaser photos show the device worn as a necklace outside. But once the user returns home, the gadget can be returned to a docking station that looks a bit reminiscent of smart home speakers like the Amazon Echo Dot or Google Home.

The design isn’t the only unusual approach iKairos is making for wearables – the device is meant to follow you around to create a daily journal, but unlike traditional wearables and POV cameras, iKairos makes AI-generated images to remember the day by.

On the one hand, Kairos solves a problem with the wearable camera – the limited fixed perspective from body-worn POV cameras isn’t always the best perspective for capturing memories. After all, sometimes I want to be in photos too. The built-in camera also has a cover for privacy.

But is GenAI capable of creating “meaningful memories?” The sample photos that are on iKairos’ website seem like obvious AI generations. But the sample images are all designed for a certain style – and aren’t necessarily made to look like genuine images but rather sketches, comic book art, cartoons, and even crocheted characters.

iKairos is trying to create an AI-generated journal of the day at a time when consumers are becoming increasingly weary of modern tech. We're getting so weary of modern tech that analog cameras are resurging alongside lo-fi digicams and screen-free digital cameras.

iKairos comes from a start-up called Lingverse – but the company isn’t entirely new to the tech world. Lingverse’s founder Jiawei Gu was a board member and investor for Jibo, a social robot that could also take family photos and was one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2017. But after financial struggles, Jibo shut down, turning off its servers in 2019.

iKairos is only in the early stages, but has already secured $29 million in a pre-A funding round. Details on pricing, specs, and the launch date aren’t yet available this early in the start-up's journey – and with the tech in the early stages, the wearable could look quite different closer to launch.

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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?

The world mostly knows Robert Irwin as a wildlife media personality. But what few realize is that the son of the late “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin is also a wildlife photographer, and a pretty good one for that matter.

In fact, Irwin, who first picked up a camera around the age of 13, has won a Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award, and, in a recent interview with Parade, said that photography is “probably the most formative part of his life” so far.

Above: watch Irwin's interview with Parade

Safe to say, when he started to share his opinions on artificial intelligence (AI) in photography during the same interview, my ears perked up. But while most photographers seem to be focusing on Irwin’s point about AI taking away from the “artistry” of the craft, his point that “AI dilutes what is impressive” is what truly hit the nail on the head for me.

In the not-so-distant past before AI, a photographer would have to go and do impressive things to create an immersive image. Take a phenomenal picture of a sunrise over a remote landscape: the photographer would actually have to hike one of the mountains, lugging their gear up with them, to create it.

Or take Irwin’s own specialty, wildlife. A fantastic portrait of a leopard hauling its prey up a tree normally requires locating the animal through the help of a local guide and waiting patiently for the right moment to arrive.

But knowing that someone sitting at a computer using an AI tool can now achieve the same results takes the sheen off the real deal, mostly because it means you really have to dig deep to find out the story behind the image, instead of being able to take that at face value.

I fear that, in the not-so-distant future, the internet will be so awash with AI fakery that most people who see a real image won’t even consider what went into creating it – the backstory – which, in my view, is a huge part of what makes it impressive.

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Photography is subjective. At least, that is what we tell ourselves when nobody likes a picture we were particularly proud of. But if you have ever wondered what an entirely impartial, unfeeling robot thinks of your pictures, Adobe’s Project Indigo camera app is ready to offer an opinion.

Adobe has added an experimental AI Playground to Project Indigo, its iPhone camera app designed around manual controls, computational photography, and a more natural, SLR-style image. One of its headline features is Photo Guidance, which analyzes a photo and explains what worked, what did not, and how the image could be improved.

It also features a Pixel-esque mode that can suggest how to reshoot the scene while you are still standing in front of it, potentially recommending a different position, framing, lens, or approach to the light. Adobe says it is refining the system so that it understands the limitations of individual phones and does not suggest impossible changes, such as adjusting the aperture on a fixed-aperture smartphone lens.

In theory, this sounds genuinely useful. Photography books, courses, and camera clubs have been offering constructive criticism for decades, so putting a virtual tutor inside a camera app makes a certain amount of sense. Feedback while you are still at the location could be far more helpful and genuine than an AI editor “fixing” everything later.

However, yes, there is something slightly bleak about taking a photograph and immediately asking an algorithm whether it approves. Photography is not a science, and some of the most memorable images succeed because they ignore conventional rules. An AI trained to spot familiar ideas about composition, lighting, and subject separation could easily reward technically tidy photographs while discouraging anything genuinely original.

More Gen AI

Adobe is also adding other AI Playground features to the app, including object removal, simulated shallow depth of field, lighting adjustments, artistic styles, and a Custom Edit box for text prompts. Adobe is initially using Google’s cloud-based Nano Banana model, with generated results limited to roughly 2K pixels per side and an internet connection required.

For now, access is free, requires no Adobe sign-in, and is being offered to only a small percentage of Project Indigo users for a few weeks. The feature appears after updating to version 1.1, but only works with photographs captured inside Indigo.

Adobe says the experiment could be expanded, extended, or eventually turned into a paid feature. Until then, a lucky group of iPhone photographers can discover whether AI thinks their masterpiece is genuinely inspired, or whether they should take two steps left and try again.

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 know that AI tools are becoming better and better at producing lifelike imagery, but how on Earth this image, which was recently disqualified after winning a Chinese photography competition, even made it past the judges has baffled me.

The image depicting three sanitation workers enjoying a laugh together while taking a break recently won first place at the July edition of the Hohhot Mass Photography Bi-monthly Competition, a multi-series event hosted in the city of Hohhot, North China.

However, just days later, on July 14, amid fierce public backlash citing clear AI usage, the event organizers, the Hohhot Federation of Literary and Art Circles, disqualified the image following an investigation confirming it had, in fact, been generated with AI.

The literary and art circles federation announced the disqualification on WeChat (China's social media platform), in the same post stating that the Northern Frontier Light and Shadow of Qingcheng photography competition would be suspended immediately.

“This incident has exposed issues in our work, such as lax vetting during the review process and imprecise definitions of evaluation standards,” the statement read.

From the identical faces of all three subjects in the offending image, along with their exaggerated laughter – not to mention the strange way in which one of them is throwing water overhead from a kettle – to my eye, this image is clearly AI.

I'm sure it won't be too long until we can no longer distinguish between an AI-generated image and one taken by a photographer using a real camera, but this AI fakery isn't convincing at all, at least not to me.

In the WeChat statement, the competition organizers also vowed to “deeply absorb this lesson” and said that review checkpoints would be “strictly” enforced for all future competitions.

What are your thoughts? Is this image convincing in any way, or were the competition judges simply too naive?

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Nikon filmmakers and photographers can now take advantage of a third-party remote-control app designed specifically for Z-Series cameras. Parallax Monitor or ZR Ctl, depending on whether you’re using iOS or Android, respectively, allows users to take full control of a compatible Nikon camera, using both the app and their chosen smart device as a live view monitor and control station.

I first learned about Parallax Monitor / ZR Ctl via Nikon Rumors and immediately likened it to Nikon's existing proprietary app SnapBridge, which allows users to wirelessly connect a smart device to compatible Nikon cameras as well as share images via file transfer. However, Parallax Monitor / ZR Ctl isn’t an alternative to SnapBridge, it’s a completely different piece of software that’s directly aimed at serious videographers.

The app uses a range of live view overlays to help maintain correct and consistent exposure, including ‘traffic lights’ and zebras, as well as waveforms and histograms that are said to be calibrated for R3D, N-Log and SDR. It also claims to allow users to pull focus via a touch-controlled ‘Pull tool’, aided by focus peaking while also providing a ‘Cinematic AF’ trigger.

A simple function that I’m sure many videographers will make use of is the ability to switch between multiple aspect ratios via the live view screen, so if you’re trying to shoot a scene for multiple aspect ratios, you can ensure your subject is adequately framed for each. If you use anamorphic lenses, the anamorphic desqueeze function will allow you to ‘desqueeze’ at 1.33x, 1.5x, 1.8x, 2x, or any custom ratio in real time, so you can preview what the end product will look like.

Users can also access a variety of Playback features. You can preview LUTs during Playback, check audio, stream clips, and more. And finally, Parallax Monitor / ZR Ctl might be marketed towards videographers, but it also boasts a remote stills photography featureset, allowing you to review photographs over Wi-Fi, fire the shutter remotely, refine settings and more. Parallax Monitor is available via Apple’s App Store for $19.99 / £19.99 or ZR Ctl via Google Play for $19.99 / £17.99.

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Forget "Hand of God" is this football's "Camera of God"? Why a cable-suspended camera is being blamed by Norway for its World Cup defeat. Nikon launches ingenious Nikon Zf bottle holder among other camera-related swag – but they're only available in Japan. Arri just gave live broadcasts the Hollywood slow-motion treatment with its latest Xtreme camera.

More than 15 years after medium format powerhouse Hasselblad first launched an iOS app, the Phocus Mobile app is finally arriving on Android devices. Hasselblad, the medium format camera powerhouse, has officially brought its Phocus Mobile app to Android devices beginning.

Phocus Mobile now enables photographers working with the Hasselblad X2D II 100C, X2D 100C, 907X and CFV 100C to review, edit and organize images from an Android smartphone.

The app, importantly, supports Hasselblad’s heralded color science (Hasselblad Natural Color Solution or HNCS), enabling mobile photo editors to preserve the medium format colors and gradations from camera to edit to export.

On the X2D II 100C and supported HDR Android devices, that also includes full-spectrum HNCS HDR – which Hasselblad says more closely matches what the eye sees.

Another key feature is that the Hasselblad-built AI noise reduction algorithm is also coming to the mobile app. The AI was built entirely on images from Hasselblad’s medium format sensors and comes in two different modes, one for the cleanest result and one for preserving the most detail.

Beyond editing, the Android app can also be used to review photos, rate the best shots and even batch edit multiple images at once. Files can be transferred from the camera to the smartphone using Wi-Fi or, for the X2D II 100C with updated firmware only, USB-C wired connection.

Phocus Mobile first arrived on iOS in April 2012, with an overhaul big enough to be dubbed Phocus Mobile 2 arriving in 2019 – but again as an iOS exclusive.

The update is the second time that Hasselblad has launched a feature to play nice with more brands in nearly as many weeks. Earlier this month, Hasselblad also announced support for Capture One.

The Phocus Mobile app requires at least 12GB of RAM and is compatible with Android 12 and newer devices, though the company recommends Android 16 with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 or newer for the best performance.

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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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Adobe has just launched a seriously tempting offer on two of its most powerful Firefly subscriptions, giving creators the chance to save 30% every month for an entire year.

Until August 26, Adobe Firefly Pro Plus is available for just $34.97 per month, down from its usual $49.99 monthly price, while the top-tier Adobe Firefly Premium plan has dropped from $199.99 to $139.91 per month for the first year.

That means Firefly Pro Plus saves you a cool $15.02 every month, or $180.24 across the first year. Firefly Premium delivers an even more impressive saving of $60.08 per month, adding up to $720.96 over 12 months. Considering how quickly the cost of creative AI subscriptions can mount up, especially for anyone regularly producing images, videos and branded content, these are some seriously substantial savings. Now that is an outstanding deal.

Adobe Firefly Pro Plus is likely to be the sweet spot for photographers, designers, social media creators, and smaller production teams. It includes 10,000 monthly generative credits, unlimited access to standard image features such as Generative Fill, Generative Expand and Firefly Boards, as well as premium tools for generating video, producing sound effects, translating audio and accessing third-party AI models.

Adobe says the plan can provide enough credits for up to 100 five-second videos or around 33 minutes of translated audio and video each month, depending on the features and models being used.

There is plenty of additional value bundled into Firefly Pro Plus, too. Subscribers receive full access to Adobe Photoshop on the web and mobile, Adobe Express Premium, Adobe Fonts, and unlimited access to Firefly Boards.

For the first year, the plan also includes unlimited generations using all supported 1K and 2K image models and selected video models, making it easier to experiment with different prompts, styles and concepts without constantly worrying about burning through credits.

Adobe Firefly Premium takes everything much further and is designed for creators, studios, and businesses producing content at scale. It supplies a massive 50,000 generative credits every month, along with unlimited access to Adobe’s Firefly Video Model within Generate Video.

Premium subscribers can also use their credits for partner models, audio translation, sound-effect generation and other premium tools, with capacity for up to 166 minutes of translated audio and video or as many as 5,000 generated sound effects per month. Photoshop on the web and mobile, Adobe Express Premium, Firefly Boards, and Adobe Fonts are also included.

Firefly Pro Plus should offer more than enough creative freedom for most individual creators, particularly if you regularly generate images and occasionally experiment with video or audio.

Firefly Premium makes more sense for high-volume video production, advertising teams, and businesses that need to create hundreds of assets without repeatedly running into credit limits. Both offers end on August 26 and apply to the first year, after which the subscriptions return to their standard monthly prices, so this is definitely one deal worth considering before it disappears.

I can’t count the times that I’ve heard the phrase “AI is inevitable,” but a recent reversal by Instagram’s parent company proves there’s still power in the voices decrying AI. Meta has pulled the controversial tool that enables the new Meta Muse Image generative AI to tag public profiles to use their likeness and style in fake images.

Last week, Meta unveiled its first in-house built image generator called Meta Muse. Among the different features, however, was a tool that enabled users to use an “@” tag on any public account to generate images that looked like that person as well as images that could copy the user’s style.

The tag feature wasn’t live for a week before Meta pulled the plug following backlash over the tool. Critics cited privacy concerns, as the AI could generate fakes that resembled real people using a basic “@” tag.

Much of the public outcry came from the fact that the tool was on by default, and users had to adjust their privacy settings to prevent others from creating images based on their Instagram profile.

As a photographer, I opened Meta Muse last week to see just how dangerous the AI really was – and found that using an “@” tag didn’t just copy someone’s face, but could also copy a specific photographer’s style, all based on their Instagram profile.

Meta’s quick reversal of the tagging feature inside Muse Image hints at the power of the public voice in the AI era. While many have said that AI is inevitable, the outcry following the controversial feature hints that the resistance to AI isn’t just limited to artists who make a living creating what a computer is now trying to imitate.

Meta isn’t pulling the entire Muse Image platform, but it has removed the tagging tool. While the tool’s willingness to take anyone’s likeness was a concern among a wide variety of Instagram users, its willingness to steal a particular style is disconcerting for artists.

While many AI platforms have no issues with generating an image based on an artist’s style, Instagram has long been a social network that artists have used to reach new audiences. Deleting social media accounts to protest the feature would have meant losing a valuable tool for reaching and cultivating new fans.

Meta’s reversal of the tagging feature is only one small win in the age of AI, but the reversal proves that people’s voices still have power – and sharing ethical concerns in the AI era isn’t shouting into an empty void.

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Movavi Video Editor 2026 is a non-linear video editor [NLE] that enables you to quickly trim and reorder a sequence of video clips to tell a more succinct and entertaining story on your YouTube channel or social media feed. I started editing video back in the late 80s. Before the invention of NLE apps such as Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro, I had to play unedited RAW footage from a videotape player and record the good bits onto a videotape recorder.

If I needed to swap the order of any clips, then I had to tape over edited footage with the new clips (which could mean starting the whole edit from scratch if the change occurred near the beginning of the programme). This meant that it took me far longer to edit a programme using a tape-to-tape linear edit suite than it does using today’s drag-and-drop digital non-linear apps. And if I needed to create a transition, such as a dissolve or wipe between two clips, then I needed to hire in an extra video player and a vision mixer.

If the younger 1980s version of me could have glimpsed an NLE such as Movavi Video Editor 2026, it would have blown my mind, especially as it enables one to swap the running order of clips in seconds and drag and drop in titles and transitions instantly. And as for the ability to use AI to make a title or graphic track the movement of a subject! Brain-melting stuff.

Movavi Video Editor 2026: System requirements

Movavi Video Editor 2026: Price

I found the pricing models for Movavi Video Editor 2026 to be a little confusing at first, but here are your options. For starters, you can subscribe to Movavi Video Editor 2026 on a monthly basis at $23.95 / £17.95 per month. A much cheaper option is to pay $69.95 / £53.95 per annum for the Movavi Video Editor Plus plan. With the subscription options, you’ll get any updates to the software.

If you’re not a fan of subscribing, then you can purchase Movavi Video Editor for a one-off payment of $99.95 / £89.95. However, this lifetime purchase version won’t receive any updated tools or effects. Oh, and if you want to access all the available effects packs, it’ll cost you an additional $139.95 / £80.95 per year (or $49.95 / £28.95 per month).

Given that you can subscribe to Adobe Premiere Pro for $22.99 / £21.98 per month, Movavi’s monthly subscription is a little cheaper, but the annual subscription is much better value for money, and you’ll get to enjoy any upgraded tools and effects. It’s worth noting that Movavi Video Editor 2026 is available for a free 7-day trial, so I’d certainly recommend taking it for a test drive (if you don’t mind being bombarded with emails offering tutorials!).

Movavi Video Editor 2026: Interface and usability

If you’ve used any non-linear video editing apps before, then you should be able to jump right in and start using Movavi Video Editor, as it hasn’t reinvented the wheel when it comes to interface design. The general interface is black and grey, with icons and text labels rendered in easy-to-read white. This makes the app resemble most other NLE apps such as Final Cut Pro.

The clean and neutrally coloured interface design enables you to focus on the art of editing your raw clips into a slick show. Along the bottom is the obligatory timeline, where you can drag and drop clips from the bin and then drag the cursor to trim their duration and rearrange their running order. Above the timeline is a collection of icons that enable you to summon tools such as the Blade, which cuts a clip into two with a click in the timeline.

You can view your programme as it takes shape in the main viewer, which can be expanded so that your programme fills the entire frame. On the far left is a toolbar that gives you access to a suite of extra post-production assets such as Audio (which includes music tracks), Text (animated banners and graphics), and Elements (which contains eye-catching stickers that are helpfully grouped into themes such as Gaming and tech or Family and kids).

Movavi Video Editor is packed full of assets, but many of these belong to effects packs that you need to subscribe to (see 'Price' section). Usefully, you can set the All items drop-down to Free, so only free effects are displayed. You can use paid effects for free in your project, but there’s little point in doing this as a Movavi watermark pops up in the middle of the screen in your exported edited footage. Fortunately, there are plenty of animated effects and assets for you to enjoy using without paying extra for an effects pack, as you’ll see from my supporting video tour of Movavi Video Editor.

Movavi’s most powerful and useful post-production tools can be found by clicking on the Tools icon. Here you’ll find tools such as Chroma Key and Stabilisation, plus a time-saving Scene Detection tool that takes a long, rambling clip and automatically cuts it into separate clips when it notices a change in the scene. We’ll look at some of the key tools in the Performance section (below).

Movavi Video Editor 2026: Performance

To test Movavi Video Editor 2026, I decided to create a ‘day in the life’ video of model Maryna Sedin. I had shot some raw footage of Maryna dragging her suitcase full of clothes to London's Barbican Centre for a photo shoot, where I also interviewed her about her modelling career.

It was a simple matter to swipe the cursor over clips in the bin to preview their content, drag in the thumbnails to trim a clip’s start and end point, and then drag it into the timeline. I was then able to drag clips around in the timeline to swap their running order until I was happy with the unfolding story. I added parallel clips on multiple video layers, which enabled me to add cutaways that illustrate what the subject is talking about (as well as hiding cuts to the interview footage on the main video layer).

Editing clips on the Movavi timeline was very intuitive, especially as I’ve been using apps such as Final Cut Pro for years. However, one small behavioural detail did bug me. In Final Cut Pro, you can click anywhere in the timeline, and the playhead will jump instantly to this point. You can then tap the space bar and play the footage from that selected point in the timeline. With Movavi, you need to click on the duration bar above the timeline to manually reposition the playhead. This slowed me down quite a lot as I was used to the click-anywhere-in-the-timeline option from Final Cut Pro.

That small shortcoming aside, I was very impressed with Movavi’s AI-powered features as they saved the day in relation to my edit’s audio quality. When I’d interviewed Maryna, I’d forgotten to turn on my wireless mic’s noise cancellation feature. As a result, we could hear unwanted background sounds such as a cleaner hoovering in the distance. Maryna’s voice also sounded echoey thanks to reverberation from the location’s concrete walls.

Fortunately, the Sound autocorrect tools panel had an AI-powered Recording Studio tool. One click on this tool’s icon, and the background noise disappeared from Maryna’s audio track, and her voice sounded much clearer too! This tool did a much better job than Final Cut Pro’s Voice Isolation tool when applied to the same footage.

Another even more impressive AI-powered Movavi tool is the Auto subtitles feature. A few years back, it would take me many hours to listen to footage and then manually type up the subject’s speech into text. It only took a few seconds for Movavi’s AI-powered Auto subtitles tool to generate accurate subtitles from Maryna’s interview and place them above the appropriate footage in the timeline. I could then fine-tune any mistakes (of which there were few) and change the look of the captions in the Subtitles settings panel.

You can even choose an option that highlights each word as it is spoken by the subject - karaoke style. Final Cut Pro can also transcribe speech to captions, but I found that it was not as accurate as Movavi Video Editor. A few years ago I charged hundreds as a freelance video editor to create subtitles for a programme. Thanks to AI, this task takes minutes, so those lucrative subtitling gigs are well and truly over!

Another very useful AI-powered tool comes in the shape of motion tracking. You can drop a graphic onto the timeline and then use AI to make it track the movement of a subject on the main video layer. If the video clip isn’t on the main video layer, then the AI motion tracking feature isn’t available. This took me a while to work out, as you can place clips on multiple video layers above the main track, but AI will only motion track objects on main layer clips.

Movavi Video Editor 2026: Verdict

Today’s generation of video editors is well-used to the convenience of editing video on a computer, and free apps such as iMovie make it an inexpensive task. However, in the crowded field of non-linear video editing apps, Movavi Video Editor 2026 stands out thanks to a combination of powerful post-production tools and an intuitively designed and easy-to-master interface.

You then have the option to pay an additional subscription to gain access to Movavi Effects if you want to expand your choice of graphics, transitions, and music tracks, but as you’ll see from my supporting video, the basic version of Movavi is generously packed full of sophisticated post-production tools that will enable you to create eye-catching videos. And while there are free feature-packed video editing apps available, such as the extremely impressive DaVinci Resolve 21, Movavi Video Editor is much easier to master.

Alternatives

Meta has announced its first in-house created AI image generator. But, Muse Image comes with the ability for anyone to go into the AI, use an “@” tag with an Instagram username, and generate realistic images of that person for anyone with a public account and loose privacy settings. But, when I tried the AI generator, Muse Image was also able to copy a photographer's style by tagging a specific profile.

The Muse Image tagging feature was met with immediate backlash and privacy concerns, with one user calling the feature a “privacy landmine waiting to detonate.” But the tool may be particularly problematic for artists because the same tool can also be used to copy a photographer’s style using a simple @ tag if privacy settings aren’t in place.

Much of that Meta AI backlash comes, in particular, from the fact that it seems to be on by default for public profiles of users over age 18.

Both intrigued and worried, I opened Meta AI to see if the feature is really as terrifying as it sounded. To my relief, the limited privacy and reuse settings I already had in place prevented the AI from generating photos of myself – and even after downloading the necessary Instagram update, that “reuse” toggle was still turned off.

Public profiles can turn off Meta Muse’s ability to generate photos that look like them or use their grid to copy a certain style by going into the Instagram settings, navigating to the “share and reuse” section, then turning off the toggle that says “Allow people to reuse your content on Instagram and with AI features.”

When I opened Meta Muse and tagged myself, the AI refused to generate a photo of me, even though logging into my own account was required to use the AI.

I tried three user names (including my own) before I found a public profile with loose enough settings. The AI then generated a fake image of someone who looked a lot like the real person. The AI does this without notifying the user, and the resulting image does look quite a bit like the person whose username I had tagged.

But Muse Image can also use tags to copy a certain style. The AI copied my own style when I was logged in, but thankfully, when I logged into a different account, the AI said it couldn’t use my public photography account as inspiration. Instead, the AI advised me to describe in words the style that I wanted, telling me, “I can match that look without needing the specific account.”

While I was relieved to see that the privacy settings seem to work to prevent using my Instagram grid as an AI’s inspiration, it’s disappointing that the ability to copy a user's style even exists in the first place.

Muse Image is rolling out to Meta AI first, but has also popped up in AI Instagram Story tools and chats with Meta AI in WhatsApp in some regions. The company says that Muse will be coming to Facebook and Messenger, as well as additional Instagram tools, "in the coming weeks."

How to prevent Meta Muse from using your face and photos for AI

1. Open Instagram and log in.
2. Navigate to your profile and select the settings menu (the three horizontal line icon).
3. Scroll down underneath “How others can interact with you” and tap “Sharing and reuse.”
4. Toggle off the option that says “Allow people to reuse your content on Instagram and with AI features.”
5. Don’t see that option? Try updating your app. If the option still doesn’t show, turn off the option that says “Allow people to create with and reuse your original audio on Meta AI” instead.

How to disable Meta Muse AI on individual posts

Instagram also allows users to turn off AI re-use on individual posts, which is also a good tool to see if the overall privacy settings have taken effect.

1. Navigate to your profile and tap on one of your posts.
2. Tap the “...” menu.
3. You’ll see “allow reuse” if your general settings don’t allow reuse, or “turn off reuse” if your general reuse settings are on. Tap to adjust.

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Tamron has released the latest firmware for its 35-150mm f/2-2.8 Di III VXD Sony E-mount lens, one month after the rollout was initially set to happen.

The company had originally promised firmware version 6 for Sony shooters by mid-June, but cited autofocus tracking and connectivity bugs on certain Sony camera bodies, such as the A9 III and A7 V, for the delays.

Firmware version 6 for the 35-150mm f/2-2.8 Di III VXD brings support for Tamron Lens Utility version 5.0 for both computer and smartphone devices.

Tamron Lens Utility is the accompanying app enabling you to control your lens settings and functionality from an external device. With the app, it's possible to program custom physical buttons on your lens, set A-B focus points, and adjust aperture using your smartphone or computer.

Released in February of this year, version 5.0 of the app enables you to do this wirelessly, as long as you have the Tamron Link Bluetooth adapter connected to the lens, while previous versions required a wired USB connection.

Tamron Firmware Version Download

Firmware updates for Tamron lenses are carried out through the Tamron Lens Utility app, which you can download here.

It’s a good idea to hold off downloading the latest firmware for a few weeks. This should give enough time for any new issues to arise in community chatter, and for Tamron to address them. Keep an eye on Digital Camera World, and we'll let you know about any problems.

Note: you cannot downgrade a Tamron lens to a previous firmware

Nikon shooters need not worry about this firmware update. The Z-mount version of the 35-150mm f/2-2.8 Di III VXD was already compatible with Tamron Lens Utility version 5.0, having gained support with firmware version 3 earlier this year.

That’s it for this Tamron firmware update. Although it brings just the one change for Sony users, it’s a seemingly impactful one, enabling easier control of your 35-150mm f/2-2.8 Di III VXD lens, especially for videographers.

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Nikon has released the latest firmware for the Z50II – an affordable APS-C shooter geared towards beginners and vloggers – with the update expanding shutter priority (S Mode) controls when recording video along with several label and location changes to settings menu items.

While the name and location changes of settings menu items alone might not justify updating to firmware version 1.10 for stills photographers, videographers will want to consider the added creative controls over exposure and depth of field.

The most impactful new feature of the firmware update is the ability to manually adjust aperture when recording video in S Mode, enabling filmmakers to dial in depth of field and adjust exposure by eye. Prior to firmware version 1.10, the Z50II would make all the ISO and aperture decisions for you when recording in S Mode.

It’s a seemingly minor update that moves S Mode towards more of a hybrid auto-come-manual mode, but one that puts an end to any unwanted sudden and drastic exposure changes.

Nikon Firmware Download

Download firmware version 1.10 (Nikon Z50II)

It’s a good idea to hold off downloading the latest firmware for a few weeks. This should give enough time for any new issues to arise in community chatter, and for Nikon to address them. Keep an eye on Digital Camera World and we'll let you know about any problems.

Nikon has also rejigged the settings menus in the Z50II. In Picture Controls, “Cloud Picture Control” is now called “Imaging Recipe” and “Add Cloud Picture Control files” under the Set Picture Control setting has changed to “Download Imaging Recipes”.

You’ll also notice changes to the Setup Menu, including an added option to save your current focus settings to the U1, U2, or U3 positions on the top mode dial.

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Back in December last year, Fujifilm teamed up with Japanese musician and fashion icon Hiroshi Fujiwara to release the GFX100RF Fragmented, an ultra-exclusive, designer edition of the GFX100RF medium format compact camera.

Aside from a unique Film Simulation profile, some lightning-bolt logos and a glossy matte finish, the Fragmented edition – named after Fujiwara’s agency, Fragment Design – is essentially the same as the standard Fujifilm GFX100RF featuring a 102MP sensor and a fixed f/4 lens.

However, this camera is so exclusive that you couldn’t even buy it in shops; the only way to get your hands on one was through lotteries and specialist camera platforms.

Fujifilm Firmware Download

Firmware version 1.13 download (Fujifilm GFX100RF)

It’s a good idea to hold off downloading the latest firmware for a few weeks. This should give enough time for any new issues to arise in community chatter, and for Fujifilm to address them. Keep an eye on Digital Camera World and we'll let you know about any problems.

But just like any standard camera, it's not immune to bugs and defects. GFX100RF Fragmented users were facing an issue where the camera would fail to reconnect to the Fujifilm XApp if the camera was turned off and back on while already paired.

Fujifilm hasn’t stated why this was happening, and my wider research hasn’t turned anything up either, but the company says that this new firmware release for the GFX100RF Fragmented fixes this issue.

So, if you're lucky enough to own one, congratulations! It now works as it should. And the rest of us can keep looking on in envy.

If you want to get hold of one of these cameras, then you'll have to keep an eye on resale platforms, notably those in Japan, such as MapCamera and Fujiya Camera, as the GFX100RF Fragmented was sold exclusively in the this country.

It's unlikely that a GFX100RF Fragmented will crop up for resale anytime soon as it was only recently released. However, you could email these platforms asking to be notified if one does come in. Also be sure to ask about international shipping, as resale platforms in Japan may require you to use a forwarding service.

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Check out our review of the best Fujifilm cameras: from X-mount retro cameras to 100MP medium format cameras. And if you want to see how the brand's premium compacts compare, take a look at our Fujifilm GFX100RF vs Fujifilm X100 VI head-to-head.

The latest version of the Sony Creator’s App has been released, with the newest update bolstering the options for transferring motion photos from your camera to your smartphone.

The Sony Creators' App is the mobile companion application for Sony cameras, designed to connect your body to your smartphone, tablet and Sony's Creators' Cloud platform. It replaced the older Imaging Edge App for most models from 2023 onwards.

Creators’ App Version 4.3 has now been released and enables users to transfer three-second “Motion Photo” clips. These clips are taken from high-quality video files recorded on your camera and can be transferred to your smartphone or tablet.

Motion Photo has been available to Creator’s App users since 2023, when Sony released the feature in version 2.3. However, until now, you could only capture 15, 30 and 60-second segments. While the new 3-second addition is seemingly minor, it is well-suited to social media creators who post ultra-short-form clips.

There are two ways to create Motion Photos. The first is to mark the sections of footage that will comprise the shot while recording with your camera by pressing the Shot Mark Button. The segment will then be auto-transferred to the app. The other option is to select the segment after shooting directly in the app, by loading the footage and pressing the Create Motion Photo button.

The new Motion Photo update only applies to the Sony Creator’s App. Anyone using the older Imaging Edge App doesn’t need to update as this app does not support the feature. You can check which cameras support the imaging Edge App and Creator’s App here.

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Here’s our take of the best Sony cameras, all of which we’ve put through rigorous testing. And here’s our review of the Sony A7 III – the camera I currently use.

DxO PhotoLab 9 is a powerful photo-editing application with the focus firmly on image quality. It starts with DxO’s bespoke lens correction profiles, which are applied automatically as you browse your images and it continues with its DeepPRIME XD3 noise reduction, which can achieve near-miraculous results with high-ISO images. For quality-conscious RAW photographers at least, this has to be considered one of the best photo-editing software applications on the market.

You also get extremely powerful global and local adjustment tools for enhancing your images, and these now include Lightroom-style AI masking tools. These did cause early issues with graphics drivers on some Windows machines, but that’s been addressed with free updates, and hopefully these technical issues are over (I am actually reviewing the Mac version, which worked fine from the start).

AI masking is a real time-saver, but not without its issues. As Adobe Lightroom users will know, the masks are typically hard-edged and don’t always blend well with surrounding parts of the image as you increase the strength of the adjustments. DxO is on the case, adding diffusion and feathering controls for AI masks, which I think might be a first.

The new AI masks can be used alongside DxO’s regular mask types, including Control Points and Control Lines, which are unique to DxO and extremely fast and effective once you understand the principles.

There’s another change under the hood which might not sound exciting but has profound practical benefits. You can now save your images as part-processed ‘High Fidelity’ Linear DNG files up to four times smaller than before, and often smaller than the original RAW file. This means you can export a DNG RAW file with DxO’s lens corrections and DeepPrime denoising applied, which can be opened and edited just like a regular RAW file in other programs.

DxO PhotoLab actually comes in two versions: Elite (reviewed here) and Essential. The Essential edition offers DxO’s lens corrections, but not the DeepPRIME processing and sundry other features, so really it’s the Elite edition that’s the better buy, even if it is more expensive.

DxO PhotoLab 9: Specifications

DxO PhotoLab 9: Price

PhotoLab 9 costs $239.99/£219.99 (about AU$342) for a new license or $119.99/£109.99 (about AU$171) to upgrade. This makes it a similar price to a year’s subscription to the Adobe Photography Plan, though cheaper than a perpetual license to the pro-oriented Capture One.

PhotoLab 9 is certainly not cheap, then, but it’s not the most expensive ‘serious’ photo editor on the market either. You can elect to buy DxO’s separate FilmPack analog simulation and ViewPoint perspective control tools, too, and these will then be integrated into PhotoLab’s non-destructive workflow – though of course this does push up the price.

DxO PhotoLab 9: Design & Handling

The PhotoLab 9 interface comes in two parts, or windows. The PhotoLibrary panel is where you do all your large-scale photo browsing, organizing and searching. The PhotoLibrary is essentially a folder browsing tool, with star ratings, flags and keywording to help with organizing.

There is also a Projects panel, where you can create a nested hierarchy of projects (albums, in other words) for organizing images ‘virtually’ by theme or subject, even when they are stored in different locations on your hard drive. (One of the changes in the latest version is to make these projects visible in the Customize (editing) view, just as you can view Collections in Lightroom Classic’s Develop module.

There’s a search box at the top of the left sidebar of the PhotoLibrary. This is clever and odd at the same time. As soon as you start typing, it will try to match what you’re typing with image filenames, EXIF data and keywords, but it appears to draw on an index built automatically from folders you visit, which isn’t under your control.

The PhotoLibrary panel is effective in a slightly crude and scatty kind of way that’s fine for basic organizing but will be irritating to anyone used to more powerful cataloguing options. The main editing work, though, is done in the Customize panel.

Here, you get a stack of editing tools organized into tabs for Light, Color, Detail, Geometry and FX, though what you see in the last two will depend on whether you also have DxO ViewPoint and FilmPack installed. There are quite a few different adjustment panels and you may not always remember where to find them, so DxO has included a little search box for finding specific tools and you can also ‘favorite’ the ones you use most often. You do still have to remember which tools are in which tabs, though.

There’s a separate tab for local adjustments, and this is where you find the new AI masking tools. You can select areas using an eyedropper, a marquee or choosing a named subject type from a menu. This includes skies, though PhotoLab struggled to pick out more than a couple of straggly clouds in the images I tried it on, which is odd, and the eyedropper approach worked a lot better.

DxO’s Control Points work around a circular mask that targets the tones in the center, and Control Lines are like gradient masks with an eyedropper for more selective adjustments – great for darkening skies in outdoor shots without darkening your subjects at the same time.

You can combine masks to add, subtract and intersect your mask selections, and given that the masks themselves can be adjusted for sensitivity and diffusion, this can all get quite complicated – but this kind of control is there if you need it.

The DeepPRIME XD3 denoising is highly effective but also hardware-intensive – it can take a few seconds even on a fast computer – so this means previewing the effect as you work is not straightforward. DxO does offer a loupe panel that floats over the image to optimize a small area in real time as you work, and there’s also a full-screen live update option for machines that are quick enough.

Remember that PhotoLab is a non-destructive editor, so all your adjustments exist only within the software. If you want to produce a version to share, you will need to use the Export button to produce a processed JPEG or TIFF file.

DxO PhotoLab 9: Performance

In terms of quality of results, PhotoLab 9 is about as good as it gets. DxO’s lens corrections don’t just tackle the usual suspects – chromatic aberration, vignetting and distortion – but also apply lens-specific global sharpness and edge softness corrections. There’s nothing you need to do. PhotoLab will find matching profiles automatically and, if they’re not installed yet, will download them for you – it only takes a few seconds.

DxO’s DeepPRIME XD3 processing is pretty remarkable, too, and it now handles both regular Bayer sensor RAW files and X-Trans images, too. I can’t say I see much difference in the results between this and the previous DeepPRIME version, but I’ve yet to see a rival denoising tool that can match DxO’s combination of denoising effectiveness and fine detail recovery. You won’t always see a huge difference with the latest and best camera gear, but older models, smaller sensors and cheaper lenses get a whole new lease of life.

I’m less convinced about the AI masking. Quite apart from the strange sky masking issues in my tests, I’m not sure DxO’s AI masking is quite as quick as Lightroom’s, for example, or Capture One’s.

DxO PhotoLab 9: Verdict

PhotoLab 9 is for the image quality purist who is unfazed by technical processes and who simply wants the best possible output from their RAW files. It’s not Photoshop, so you can’t produce layered composites, and it doesn’t do one-click effects like the Nik Collection or ON1 Photo RAW. It’s an image editor in the truest, most traditional sense. It’s probably not ideal for a busy, high-volume professional workflow, but perfect for fine-art photographers, print makers and exhibitors.

Alternatives

With rumors rife that the Sony FX5 is arriving next month with a similar feature set, Canon has released firmware version 1.0.4.1 for the Canon EOS C50 – bringing a host of usability and workflow improvements to its newest Cinema EOS model.

The new firmware focuses on operational features rather than image quality, introducing a new Ease In / Ease Out option for digital zoom speed and expands the range of camera functions that can be controlled externally via a USB connection.

These additions are designed to improve both shooting ergonomics and production flexibility, particularly for filmmakers working with gimbals, remote-control systems and compact crews.

Canon Firmware Download

Download firmware version 1.0.4.1 (Canon EOS C50)

I advise holding off downloading the latest firmware for a few weeks. This should give enough time for any new issues to arise in community chatter, and for Canon to address them. Keep an eye on Digital Camera World and we'll let you know about any problems.

The new Ease In / Ease Out setting for digital zoom operations is the standout feature of the update. When enabled, the camera smooths the beginning and end of a zoom movement, creating more natural-looking transitions.

Canon says this will help operators achieve more polished zoom effects without abrupt starts or stops, making digital zoom a more practical creative tool for shoots such as documentaries, corporate videos and live events.

Beyond zoom performance, the firmware also expands USB-based camera control. Users can now operate key functions from an external device while in video mode, including recording start/stop, One-Shot AF, manual focus adjustment, shutter speed, ISO and white balance.

This matches Canon's broader push towards deeper integration with external accessories and control ecosystems, including gimbal-based operation.

With firmware version 1.0.4.1 for the EOS C50, Canon continues to focus on practical improvements that streamline production workflows and enhance shooting efficiency, mirroring some of the benefits seen in recently released firmware version 1.0.6.1 for the EOS C80.

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Canon has released new firmware for its EOS C80 full-frame cinema camera, bringing a series of workflow and connectivity improvements aimed at filmmakers, broadcasters, and content creators using the compact cinema rig.

As production workflows become increasingly collaborative and remote, the ability to control and monitor cameras from a distance has become evermore important. Firmware version 1.0.6.1 homes in on this, introducing monitoring, streaming and camera operation enhancements.

Canon firmware download

Download firmware version 1.0.6.1 (Canon EOS C80)

I advise holding off downloading the latest firmware for a few weeks. This should give enough time for any new issues to arise in community chatter, and for Canon to address them. Keep an eye on Digital Camera World and we'll let you know about any problems.

The primary update is a new USB control protocol that enables external devices, including compatible gimbals, to remotely control key camera functions such as recording start and stop, iris, shutter speed, ISO, and focus. This is a step forward for single-operator productions and multi-camera live setups, where quick access to camera settings can streamline workflows.

Beyond USB control, firmware version 1.0.6.1 introduces automatic Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) streaming reconnection, helping maintain transmissions during live broadcasts if the network connection drops. Canon has also redesigned the electronic level display so its appearance changes when the camera is perfectly level, giving operators faster visual confirmation during setup.

Overall, the update reflects Canon's broader goal of evolving the EOS C80 beyond a compact cinema camera into a more versatile production platform. Rather than focusing solely on image quality, firmware version 1.0.6.1 addresses the more practical demands of modern production environments, where connectivity and flexibility are increasingly key.

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Until now, Sony had a solid track record of implementing artificial intelligence (AI) into its cameras. Starting with Real-Time Eye Autofocus (AF) in the Sony A7R II, it laid the groundwork for modern AI subject recognition in its latest cameras such as the A7R VI.

However, the latest AI photo assistant feature that has been rolled out in the new Sony Xperia 1 VIII camera phone feels like another spoonful of unnecessary AI cough medicine being force-fed to us, just like every other tech company on Earth seems to be doing since the AI gold rush began a few years ago.

Essentially, the new Xperia 1 VIII AI assistant suggests four different shooting settings at moment you capture the shot, each offering a distinct creative aesthetic based on the scene or subject.

According to Sony, the assistant helps you “discover new ways of shooting” all while “expanding the joy of creating”. Jesus, I’m cringing.

ABOVE: the new Sony Xperia 1 VIII and its AI assistant explained

As you can expect, this hasn’t resonated well with photographers, who've made it clear in forum chatter and publications that this AI assistant is nothing but a waste of battery life dressed up as a creative outlet.

And I couldn’t agree more. What a load of baloney about it helping you to “discover new ways of shooting”. The AI assistant essentially adds post-production edits only during production, which hardly broadens your compositional horizons.

Having the AI analyze the scene before you press the shutter and suggest compositional changes would be impressive. I'd prefer to come to the conclusion myself without the help of AI but, admittedly, a feature like this could help you explore new angles.

But the Xperia 1 VIII AI assistant is far from this and, at best, its achievement has been compressing production and post-production into a single click of the shutter.

Was this necessary? Perhaps, if you’re in the game of saving time when taking photos. But for anyone who actually enjoys the traditional photographic process, it brings nothing to the table.

I’d like to think that Sony’s new AI assistant could help photographers develop their editorial eye by explaining what edits it actually made when coming up with its suggestions. However, as it simply creates these at the click of a button, you don’t even get the educational benefit.

To me, it’s simply creative outsourcing to a machine and the complete opposite of “expanding your range of expression” (another quote that came directly from the mouth of Sony).

As a longtime Sony shooter, I’m disappointed by this new AI assistant and can feel my gag reflex kicking in as I regurgitate the thought of this unnecessary feature.

I’m really hoping Sony doesn’t have the bright idea of bringing it to Alpha cameras, as I’m currently looking to upgrade from the A7 III to a newer model – and I have a slight suspicion that a future firmware update could see my next camera infected by this trash.

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Fujifilm has released the latest firmware update for the X-E3 and X-H1 mirrorless cameras, with both models getting a fix for a somewhat minor but highly frustrating Bluetooth connectivity issue.

Firmware version 1.32 for the X-E3 – a compact rangefinder-style camera – and version 2.15 for the X-H1 – the former flagship APS-C X-mount camera – resolves a bug blocking Bluetooth pairing between these cameras and Android 16 devices with the Fujifilm Camera Remote app installed.

Fujifilm firmware download

Download Firmware version 1.32 (Fujifilm X-E3)

Download Firmware version 2.15 (Fujifilm X-H1)

My advice is always to hold off downloading the latest firmware for a few weeks. This should give enough time for any new issues to arise in community chatter, and for Fujifilm to address them. Keep an eye on Digital Camera World and we'll let you know about any problems.

Camera Remote is the Fujifilm app enabling wireless connection between devices and Fujifilm cameras released up until 2018. The primary benefits include wireless image transfer to social media, remote live-view shooting, and camera setting backups.

The main issue users have reported is getting stuck in a “constant pairing loop” where the app states that the connection already exists and needs to be deleted in order to be re-established, despite the nonexistent connection.

It remains unclear whether Fujifilm created the bug with a previous firmware release or if Android 16 was simply incompatible with Camera Remote until now, however users began reporting issues soon after the release of Android 16 in June 2025.

This isn’t the first issue X-E3 photographers have faced using the Camera Remote app. Previously, the camera could freeze while attempting to connect to the app, although Fujifilm fixed this with firmware version 1.31.

More recently, photographers have faced a similar issue trying to connect their phones to newer Fujifilm models, including the X-T5, via the XApp, Fujifilm’s newer, default app for modern X and GFX series cameras.

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AI this, AI that – I can’t scroll through anything on the internet without being inundated with generative AI. As both a photographer and a writer – two art forms that generative AI attempts to imitate – I’m AI-exhausted. But here’s the thing – I’m not the only one, and the latest data seems to suggest around half the population is just as frustrated with AI as I am.

Around half of all adults in the US are wary of AI’s impact, according to a June 2025 PEW survey – a sharp increase from the 37 percent of AI-weary humans in 2021.

A new YouGov survey suggests that British adults share a similar stance, with 42 percent saying that they would get rid of generative AI entirely and 22 percent not even sure if they like the technology.

Only around 18.3 percent of US adults call themselves artists (and only 1.6 percent professional artists), which suggests that the artists whose jobs are most threatened by generative AI are far from being the only humans wary of the technology.

My stance on AI comes as someone who has tried out bits and pieces of the technology. As a journalist, it’s my job to explore the pros and cons of generative AI in order to better inform my readers, so I’ve done everything from asking ChatGPT to generate images that still look like me to testing out Photoshop’s new AI assistant.

Yet, even after all this testing, I’ve turned off Apple Intelligence on my iPhone, I leave generative AI off on most Photoshop tools where possible, and I continue to use the camera and the keyboard to create.

The problem is – and probably why so many adults agree with me – AI feels impossible to turn off. I can’t keep it out of my social media feeds, and Google doesn’t have an off switch for its AI Overviews. I can ignore generative AI, but I can’t ignore the rising prices on memory cards and hard drives that it has created. Artists have just been told to accept that AI is the norm and move on – or get left behind.

To be clear, I don’t think all AI is bad. Eye-detection autofocus is one of my favorite features on modern mirrorless cameras, and, yes, that’s an AI technology. Lightroom’s auto mask features to select skin, teeth, or eyes in a portrait have saved me a lot of time. The ability to search through the photo library on my phone is one of my favorite iPhone updates.

But, while those tools are AI, they are not generative AI. I don’t mind an AI that’s going to help save me from tedious tasks. But I’m a creator because I love creating, and I don’t want a computer to do it for me.

I’m not against AI, I’m wary of generative AI, the type of AI that creates something from nothing. (Or, more accurately, that creates something from a library of work created by real human artists that, in many cases, was stolen without permission.)

Generative AI also tends to have a much larger impact on the environment than non-generative AI. Generative AI is the technology that requires massive data centers, creating noise nuisance in small communities and driving up the cost of any technology that requires digital storage.

But these views are perhaps unsurprising coming from someone who earns a living as a creator. What’s giving me hope is the number of non-artists who are just as frustrated by AI as I am.

Even Gen Z – the generation with the highest adoption of generative AI – is becoming more wary of the technology. A recent Gallup poll has found that the number of Gen Z-ers excited about AI has dropped while the number reporting anger has increased.

All of this is happening at the same time as some Big Tech companies are reporting that the cost of generative AI is higher than having human employees.

At the same time, “AI Slop” was the Word of the Year for 2025, hinting that many would prefer to see human-created content in their social media feeds.

All of the data on the increasing number of people wary of AI technology gives me hope that even non-artists are going to continue to value human-created art. I don’t think AI is going anywhere, but my hope is that the number of people wary of AI will temper its growth – and that even non-artists will continue to appreciate human artwork.

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Last week, Panasonic refreshed the popular compact mirrorless Lumix S9 with fresh firmware for more mobile app controls and expanded custom LUT options – but the smartphone app is to blame for the firmware getting temporarily pulled.

Panasonic has suspended the Lumix S9 firmware 2.0 via the Lumix Labs app after identifying a bug with the update. But, Panasonic is only pulling the firmware from being updated wirelessly through the Lumix Lab app; users can still update the camera using the more-traditional computer method.

“We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause,” Panasonic Japan wrote in the notice.

Panasonic says that creators who have already updated and have experienced no bugs do not need to take any further action.

Firmware 2.0 expands the S9’s capabilities with the Lumix Lab app with faster and more stable transfers, as well as wired support with the app.

A key part of the update is to Real Time LUTs, Panasonic’s systems for saving custom looks to the camera to essentially apply edits as a photo is being taken. The update added the ability to intentionally add grain and color noise for creators looking to emulate film.

Panasonic did not specify what glitch was identified with the firmware update, but the traditional method of updating using a computer is still available. That seems to hint that there was an issue with updating the firmware using the mobile app – one of the faster ways to update a camera’s firmware on models that support the feature.

The temporarily halted app support for the firmware isn’t the first time a camera company has suspended a firmware update for a bug shortly after launch. Digital Camera World recommends waiting a week or two after a new firmware is launched in order to allow enough time for any potential bugs to be spotted and remedied.

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Just weeks after releasing one of the most feature-packed firmware updates for the Canon EOS R5 Mark II, Canon has issued another update to fix a problem introduced by the previous firmware.

The fix arrives for the hybrid flagship camera that we described in our review as "still the best damn camera you can buy."

Firmware Ver. 1.3.0 added a range of new capabilities, including an American Football Action Priority mode, improved people detection and tracking, DPRAW support, expanded video monitoring tools, and the ability to transfer AF (autofocus) settings between cameras.

However, the update also introduced an issue that could cause the camera to stop functioning properly when Touch & Drag AF was used with Whole Area AF.

The new Firmware Ver. 1.3.1 specifically fixes the AF problem – but also adds the features introduced in the previous update – good news for users who chose to wait and see whether the firmware would introduce any unexpected issues.

New firmware

Firmware Ver. 1.3.1
US: Download link for Microsoft and Mac
UK: Download link for Microsoft and Mac

This firmware includes fixes for the following issues identified in Version 1.3.0: Fixes an issue in which the camera may stop functioning properly when Touch & drag AF is used with the [AF area] set to "Whole Area AF".

This firmware also incorporates the changes that were introduced in Firmware Version 1.3.0 – so if you have not updated your R5 Mark II yet, Version 1.3.1 gets you all the benefits of the last firmware too.

Please perform the firmware update with only the firmware file to be updated stored on the memory card.

Pro Advice

If you caught Episode 4 of Bokeh Face: Digital Camera World podcast, above, we discussed the best time to install firmware updates, why they matter, and what issues they can cause. It's a helpful listen if you're unsure when – or whenever – you should update.

It's smart to wait a week or two after release to see if any users hit snags. In the past, brands have had a few hiccups with major updates – for instance, introducing memory-setting bugs or minor interface glitches before being reissued.

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Panasonic's compact full-frame camera – the Lumix S9 – has received a fresh free firmware update designed to push it further into a faster, more in-camera creative workflow. The update strengthens its role as a creator-focused tool built for instant shooting and sharing.

Firmware Ver. 2.0 introduces deeper smartphone integration, enabling faster and more stable transfers between camera and phone. With wired connection support via the Lumix Lab app, the S9 moves further into a connected mobile editing ecosystem.

The update also expands Panasonic's Real Time LUT system, adding more granular creative controls and pushing the S9 closer to a "shoot-in-style" approach that reduces the need for post-production. Users also gain improved control over My Photo style, allowing more personalized in-camera looks and faster creative output.

Firmware Update

Firmware Ver. 2.0
Download link for Microsoft and Mac

Support for LUMIX Smartphone App, LUMIX Lab Ver.3.0.0 (or higher)
- Wired connection is now supported
- LUTs created with additional parameters such as grain, color noise, sharpness, and noise reduction can be applied using REAL TIME LUT
* Grain and color noise are only supported for photos
- My Photo Style can now be edited within the app for greater customization

More details: Operating Instructions for the Change of Specifications

After updating the firmware
Make sure to use the latest version of the application for your smartphone or the software for your PC of:
- Lumix Lab
- Lumix Sync
- Lumix Tether

Pro Advice

If you caught Episode 4 of Bokeh Face: Digital Camera World podcast, we discussed the best time to install firmware updates, why they matter, and what issues they can cause. It's a helpful listen if you're unsure when – or whenever – you should update.

It's smart to wait a week or two after release to see if any users hit snags. In the past, brands have had a few hiccups with major updates – for instance, introducing memory-setting bugs or minor interface glitches before being reissued.

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The Nikon Z 70‑200mm f/2.8 VR S II is the latest generation of Nikon's professional telephoto zoom, designed for high-performance stills and video work – it's one of Nikon's most advanced telephotos to date.

While the lens is widely regarded as a strong option in its class for sports, wildlife, and event photography, photographers noticed that the autofocus (AF) response slowed down when the telephoto was used with the Nikon Z Teleconverter TC-2.0x.

The new firmware version 1.10 resolves the issue, ensuring consistent AF performance with or without a teleconverter.

Firmware update

Nikon Z 70‑200mm f/2.8 VR S II

Firmware Ver. 1.10
Download link for Windows and Mac OS

Updates:
- Fixed an issue where autofocus was slow to respond when used with the Z teleconverter TC-2.0x

How to update this lens firmware

1. Download the following firmware file to your computer.
Please make sure you have the downloaded firmware file on your computer.
• MLZ70_200F28VRSII_0110.bin (the lens firmware)

2. Using a card slot or card reader, copy “MLZ70_200F28VRSII_0110.bin” to a memory card that has been formatted in the camera.
Note: Be sure to copy the firmware to the root (top-most) directory of the memory card. The camera will not recognize the new firmware if it is placed in a folder under the root directory.

3. Insert the memory card into the camera and turn the camera on.

4. Select [SETUP MENU] > [Firmware version] and follow the on-screen instructions to perform the firmware update.

5. When a message is displayed stating that the update is complete, turn the camera off and remove the memory card.

6. Turn the camera on and confirm that the firmware has been updated to the new version.

Pro Advice

If you caught Episode 4 of Bokeh Face: Digital Camera World podcast, we discussed the best time to install firmware updates, why they matter, but also what issues they can cause. It's a helpful listen if you're unsure when – or whenever – you should update.

It's smart to wait a week or two after release to see if any users hit snags. In the past, brands have had a few hiccups with major updates – for instance, introducing memory-setting bugs or minor interface glitches before being reissued.

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Fujifilm is known for both its mirrorless cameras and its line of instant film cameras – but thanks to a free firmware update, two of Fujifilm’s most affordable mirrorless cameras can now print directly to Instax printers. The Fujifilm X-M5 and X-T30 III have gained a handful of new Instax features in a firmware update launched on June 4, while new X-E5 firmware doesn’t add features but fixes minor bugs.

The Fujifilm X-M5 and X-T30 III could already print images to an Instax printer, but the process required using apps to transfer photos from the camera to the printer. With the firmware update, however, the mirrorless cameras have gained the ability to print directly from the camera’s playback menu without messing with apps.

The feature supports Instax Link models such as the Link 3 and the Link+, as well as the Instax Evo and LiPlay hybrid cameras; the older Instax SP-1, SP-2, and SP-3 are not supported. While many portable photo printers use dye-sub tech, Instax printers transfer the images onto real instant film.

The camera first needs to be paired with the printer in the camera’s Bluetooth settings, but once connected, Fujifilm says the printer will automatically connect.

Photos can then be printed by selecting the “Instax Printer Print option” in the playback menu, then finding the right picture and pressing the menu or OK button. The camera will then even allow photographers to adjust how the image is cropped into the Instax frame, and a final press of the OK button sends the image to the printer.

The firmware update will also allow users to customize the button and dial settings to allow the record button to double as a shortcut to print images while in playback mode.

The direct printing for the X-M5 and X-T30 III is not the first time that Fujifilm has supported direct printing from its mirrorless cameras to Instax without an app. However, earlier firmware updates removed the direct print feature from several mirrorless cameras last year. A firmware update removed support for Fujifilm’s older SP series of printers, requiring an app instead.

The new firmware restores direct print functionality, supporting newer Instax printers as well as hybrid cameras. Interestingly, Fujifilm is bringing the direct print feature to more affordable cameras first. The X-E5 had already previously gained the feature, but the direct print to newer Instax models remains available on a short list, including the X-E5, X-T30 III, X-M5, and X Half.

The Fujifilm X-E5, which previously gained the direct print feature, also received a small firmware update on June 4 to correct bugs.

The firmware updates are available directly from Fujifilm for the X-M5, the X-T30 III, and the X-E5.

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Last week, the Tribeca Film Festival announced that, at this year’s edition of the event, it will screen a documentary film about the struggles of Iranians living under the oppressive regime in their country.

But this isn't just another feature about struggle and survival amid political turmoil. The documentary is the first feature-length production entirely created using AI to be showcased at a major film festival.

Dreams of Violets is a 75-minute docudrama inspired by real events that happened earlier this year in protests in Tehran. Thanks to AI, was generated on a budget of just $2,000 (approximately £1,500 / AU$2,800), involving no actors or a single set being built.

Above: Dreams of Violets trailer

In a statement, director Ash Koosha admitted that he would have preferred to make the film with more traditional methods. But, as an Iranian in exile, the director said that AI was the only way that he could tell the story.

"The film exists because the dead deserve to be witnessed and because the families inside Iran, who cannot speak, deserve someone outside who refuses to forget," the director wrote. "I am not certain that this is the right form for this story. I am certain that this story needed a form, and this is the form that was available to me."

AI technology is making it possible to create works based in regions where travel is dangerous. But, the project's inclusion in the film festival is a controversial one.

The inclusion of a fully AI-generated film at a major film festival could mark a monumental turning point in filmmaking: one that sets off a steady slide toward widespread public acceptance of fully AI-generated movies and, subsequently, the vast majority of production companies cashing in on the budget-saving benefits of using the technology instead of real people and locations.

If you watch the Dreams of Violets trailer, you can clearly tell that the movie is an AI creation, with some characteristic jerky movements and the sometimes jarring stares of people who were conjured up by an algorithm.

However, to my eye, it isn't far off from passing for real live action, which is frightening to think about, considering that the gold rush to develop AI film generation platforms capable of creating realistic footage only began a couple of years ago, spearheaded by the release of tools such as OpenAI’s Sora in 2024 – which was recently shut down.

If, after just two or so years, AI is now advanced enough to create a documentary deemed worthy of screening at a major film festival, are we just a few years away from completely AI-generated films hitting the big screens in our local cinemas too?

Perhaps so. Only recently, Disney laid off some 1,000 staff members in what it claimed was a move toward a “culture of efficiency."

And, even more recently, esteemed director Martin Scorsese publicly embraced AI, becoming an advisor to an AI movie-generation tool startup.

Will we ever reach a point where mainstream cinema completely does away with real humans and locations appearing on screen? I don't think so.

For that to happen, AI tools still need a lot more refinement, and I think there will always be an audience and production companies that will only ever want to immerse themselves in human cinematography, regardless of whether AI films become the norm in a not-so-distant dystopian future.

But with Dreams of Violets already proving just how close AI tools are to replacing even the most skilled camera operators, actors, and editors, and the Tribeca Film Festival redefining what is accepted as cinematography, I’m absolutely certain that, as a 30-year-old writing this, fully generated AI movies could become the norm within my lifetime, more likely within the next couple of decades.

The 25th Tribeca Film Festival is set to run 03-14 June in New York City, with Dreams of Violets premiering on June 10.

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There was a time when buying a camera felt simple. You handed over your money, opened the box, charged the battery, put in a memory card and went out to shoot. Nine times out of ten, the thing just worked.

Yes, firmware updates existed, but they were usually reserved for odd problems that appeared after a camera had spent some real time in the hands of working photographers.

Maybe a strange card compatibility issue. Maybe a rare autofocus glitch. Maybe a small bug that only appeared in a very specific shooting situation. That was fair enough. No camera is perfect, and no manufacturer can predict every single real-world scenario.

But in 2026, firmware no longer feels like an occasional fix. It feels like part of the ownership experience – and frankly, it is bloody exhausting. Buy a new camera today and you are not just buying the product in the box; you are buying into a promise. This feature is coming later.

That video mode will arrive in a future update. This autofocus issue will be improved. This recording option will be unlocked. This sharpness problem will be fixed. This bug will go away if you download version 2.1, unless, of course, version 2.1 creates another issue, in which case version 2.2 will be along shortly to rescue you from the rescue.

The most frustrating part is that camera manufacturers have managed to dress this up as generosity. We are told that firmware updates are exciting, that they add value, that they show a brand is listening. Sometimes that is true. There are genuinely useful updates that extend the life of a camera and reward loyal customers.

But there is a very big difference between improving a product and finishing it after the customer has already paid for it. Too often now, firmware feels less like a bonus and more like a quiet admission that the camera was rushed to market before it was properly complete.

The Nikon Z9 is a perfect example. It was, and still is, a hugely impressive professional camera. But when it launched, one of its headline video promises – internal 8K RAW recording up to 60p – was not actually there in full on day one. Buyers were told it would come later through a firmware update.

That is a remarkable thing when you stop and think about it. This was not a cheap enthusiast model. This was Nikon’s flagship mirrorless camera, aimed at professionals, with a flagship price to match. Yet part of the headline capability was effectively sold as a future promise rather than a finished feature.

And before anyone screams that Nikon eventually delivered it, yes, it did. Firmware 2.0 brought major upgrades, including 8K 60p RAW capture, and many Z9 owners were rightly pleased. But that does not change the wider point. Customers should not be expected to celebrate receiving a feature months later that helped sell the camera in the first place.

When a manufacturer uses a feature to generate launch excitement, build pre-orders, and justify a premium price, that feature should be ready when the camera ships. Otherwise, what are we really buying? A camera or a roadmap?

This is not just a Nikon problem, either. That would be too easy. The entire camera industry has become far too comfortable with the idea of shipping first and finishing later. Firmware has become the safety net, the marketing tool, the apology letter, and the upgrade path all rolled into one.

It enables manufacturers to rush a camera out into the market, keep pace with rivals, grab headlines, and then tidy up the mess after real photographers have become unpaid testers. The modern buyer is expected to spend thousands of dollars and then patiently wait while the camera becomes the product it should have been from the beginning.

What makes it worse is the language around it. We are constantly told that firmware “unlocks” new features, as if the manufacturer is handing us a gift. But if the hardware was already capable of doing it, and the feature was part of the sales pitch, was it really a gift? Or was it something deliberately held back, unfinished, or not ready?

There is a fine line between innovation and manipulation, and right now the camera industry is dancing all over it.

For working photographers and filmmakers, this is not just annoying. It can directly affect trust. If you rely on a camera for paid work, you need to know what it can do today – not what it might do after three updates, two bug fixes, and a revised manual.

A future firmware promise does not help you on a job tomorrow. A promised recording mode does not help if you have already planned a shoot around it, and the update has not arrived. Better autofocus “coming soon” does not help when the camera misses focus on the assignment you are being paid to deliver.

There is also a growing mental load that comes with modern camera ownership. Keeping up with firmware has become another job.

You have to check which version you are on, read what has changed, see whether anyone online is reporting new bugs, decide whether to update now or wait, download the file, charge the battery, format the card, install the update, and then hope nothing breaks.

This is not the romantic side of photography. This is the software admin. And it is being pushed onto photographers who simply want to get out and make pictures.

I am not against firmware. Done properly, it is brilliant. It can fix genuine issues, improve performance and breathe new life into older cameras. But it should not be used as a crutch for unfinished products, and it should not be used to normalize the idea that expensive professional cameras can launch with major promised features missing.

If a camera is not ready, delay it. If a feature is not finished, do not make it central to the marketing. And if customers are paying full price on day one, they deserve a full product on day one.

The camera industry needs to remember that trust matters. Photographers are not asking for perfection, but they are asking for honesty.

We can accept the occasional bug. We can accept genuine improvements. What is harder to accept is being asked to pay premium money for a camera that arrives with a list of “coming soon” promises attached to it. Firmware should be there to support a camera, not complete it.

Because right now, too many photographers are being held to ransom by updates. Buy the camera now, get the full feature set later. Buy the body today, wait for the fix tomorrow. Spend the money upfront, then hope the manufacturer delivers what it promised.

That is not progress. That is not customer care. That is the software industry’s worst habit creeping into photography, and we should not pretend it is acceptable just because it arrives with a version number and a download link.

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Sadly, we all have to jump through firmware hoopes. Here's how to update your Nikon camera's firmware and how to update your Canon EOS firmware.

Aftershoot has just delivered a huge update and it’s clear that the only time it wants you to leave is when you head out on another photo shoot. Instead of marketing itself as an addition to all the other photo editing software that’s installed on your computer, the AI-infused photo organizing software has been relaunched as an all-in-one solution that allows you to cull, edit, retouch and manually tweak RAW files within the app.

But that’s not all. The Delaware-based outfit has also launched Aftershoot Galleries, meaning that this one-stop shop now provides you with a delivery solution beyond merely exporting your images, via albums or galleries that are designed to be easier and more enjoyable for clients to digest.

Aftershoot: What's new?

Aftershoot launched in 2019 as a photo culling app and AI-assisted culling is still a core feature. But professionals such as wedding photographers are protective of their work, so you can choose to allow the AI to automate the culling for you or simply assist your culling without removing your creative agency. And now, the software has improved its UI by telling you just that within the software, ensuring that you always know the difference between AI Automated Cull and AI Assisted Cull.

Culling is also smarter when selecting duplicates. Burst sequences and minor differences in expressions are now grouped together, while the AI chooses the best shot from each group. It’s also said to be smarter at understanding intentional variations, so two identical images that feature different crops will be grouped separately. Aftershoot has calculated that this results in culls that are 20% tighter.

The Edit tab has been upgraded with improved white balance consistency as well as improved crop and straighten modes via Aggressive Cropping. This mode is designed to result in tighter crops that really focus on the subject. The Retouch tab has received similar treatment, with upgrades to Acne, Freckle and Blemish, and Stray Hair sliders. A Background Replacement beta also allows you to quickly replace backgrounds in single-person images, and comes with a variety of background presets while allowing you to also upload your own.

But perhaps the most exciting addition to the software is the all-new Raw Editing tool. This is the meat of Aftershoot’s desire to provide an all-in-one solution, providing a familiar selection of sliders to apply manual tonal edits to individual images or batches à la Adobe Lightroom. You’re also editing the RAW file itself for maximum pliability.

During the software company’s virtual premiere, wedding photographer Esteban Gil said: “And we’re only getting started, we’ve now got a ton of powerful editing tools already in the pipeline, there’s histogram support, tone curves, grid sliders, a much deeper masking workflow and a lot more coming soon.” So, judging by that, the Raw Editing tab is just the beginning.

Perhaps the biggest surprise for existing users is the launch of Aftershoot Galleries. Aftershoot’s culling roots have made it popular with wedding photographers dealing with huge numbers of images per shoot. But part of the wedding package is delivering large collections of images to customers.

As photographer Anna Roussos put it during the launch: “Nobody is emotionally invested in the user experience of Google Drive. You send the link, they download the photos and everyone moves on with their lives. So quite early in your career you realise something important, the photos are not the final product, the gallery experience is.”

Aftershoot Galleries is all about enhancing that experience. Photos are displayed in a more attractive and intuitive manner, while also containing built-in print stores that link to WHCC, Bay Photo, and Atkins Pro Labs, allowing clients to order prints via their gallery. As it stands, Galleries is free to access and users are treated to 100GB of free storage to boot.

Aftershoot is also particularly keen to shout about its AI policy, with CEO and founder, Harshit Dwivedi, explaining that the company made an early decision to commit to on-device AI as opposed to cloud-based AI, stating: “We understood that as a creator, you care about your work, you care about the privacy and the ownership of the work that you produce and we wanted you to be the complete custodian of your work.”

This latest version of Aftershoot is available now, with the option to purchase a ‘Complete’ $45 per month plan, or pay for just the tools you need, starting from $10 per month for AI culling.

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Sometimes, an event feels so outrageous or unlikely, it's difficult as a journalist to resist the well-worn cliches we're trained to avoid: "You couldn't make it up!"; "It's like something out of Black Mirror!" and so on. Well, such an event has just taken place, and I have to be honest: I'm lost for words. So I'm just going to skip the formalities, and simply tell you what took place.

One of the most famous photographs ever taken, taken by a man who spent his life fighting for photography to be taken seriously as fine art, has now been AI-colorised, printed in editions of ten, and offered for sale at a prestigious New York gallery. Without anyone bothering to ask if that was okay.

As reported by Art News the Danziger Gallery, a well-regarded photography dealer in Manhattan, exhibited what it described as an "A.I. Generated" color version of Ansel Adams' Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico at the Association of International Photography Art Dealers' annual show, The Photography Show, at the Park Avenue Armory last month. The show ran from April 22-26 2026. Works at this event have previously sold for tens of thousands of dollars.

The image was created from the prompt "Make a realistic color version of Ansel Adams' iconic 'Moonrise Over Hernandez'" and was then, according to its own description, "proofed, regenerated, and photoshopped" over several months before being printed by master printer Esteban Mauchi in three sizes.

There's just one problem: nobody thought to tell the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust it existed.

Why his legacy matters

Here's some context for the uninitiated. Ansel Adams (1902–1984) was a photographer and environmentalist whose large-format black-and-white landscapes, particularly of the American West, are among the most recognised images in photographic history. He pioneered the Zone System, a technical framework for controlling exposure and development to achieve a full tonal range, and co-founded the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

More than perhaps any other photographer of his era, he dedicated his career to the argument that the camera was as legitimate an artistic tool as a brush or a chisel. Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, shot in 1941, is his most famous single image, and originals have sold at auction for over half a million dollars.

Interestingly, the Trust's public statement, published on Instagram over the weekend, isn't quite the AI-bashing screed you might expect. They were at pains to point out that Adams himself would have been fascinated by AI tools. "Ansel was an innovator who expanded the expressive and technical possibilities of his medium," the statement reads. "He was remarkably prescient about, and excited by, the potential of computers to transform photography."

Their issue, then, isn't the use of AI itself. It's the use of creative content without permission. That's something I obviously feel strongly about myself as a writer, and I'm pretty sure most photographers do too. However James Danziger, the owner of the gallery, doesn't believe he's done anything wrong. “As the image is in the public domain I had every right to create a new and transformative work,” he wrote in a public statement.

Legally speaking, he may well be right. But morally, I'm not so sure. The Trust's statement noted that "few figures fought harder than Ansel to secure photography's place as fine art, or contributed more to the cultural conditions that gave rise to today's photography market." James Danziger talked of his "love of the iconic image"; it's a shame that love didn't extend to a courtesy call.

Adobe’s Agentic AI – the AI that runs tasks for you – has only just arrived on scene, but Adobe is already bringing the ability to use apps like Photoshop and Premiere into Google’s AI. During Google I/O, the two companies announced that Adobe apps will soon connect to Gemini.

The move will allow Gemini users to describe what they want while the agentic AI moves through the steps inside Adobe apps, including photo, video, and design software. Adobe says that users will also be able to continue working on the project inside the Adobe app itself or with Adobe Firefly.

The Gemini-Adobe integration will arrive “in the coming weeks” and Adobe hasn’t spelled out details on exactly what the agentic AI can and cannot do yet. But a few examples of how the integration has been used in existing agentic options offers hints that using Gemini will allow photographers to edit images without the back-and-forth between Lightroom and Photoshop.

Photographers can already use Firefly AI Assistant to edit photos across both Lightroom and Photoshop without the constant switch between the apps. As Adobe explains, one photographer using Firefly AI Assistant “let the assistant work through it step by step, connecting the right Adobe tools, checking in for feedback, and moving forward only when he approved.”

The example of getting feedback at every step is an important one. I’ve tested the agentic AI inside the beta version of Photoshop Web, and it felt a bit like an overenthusiastic photo intern – I didn’t always get the results I had asked for.

I’ve also tried ChatGPT’s Photoshop integration and was surprised at how the chatbot leaned towards a learning experience rather than an easy fix – and I’m hopeful that the ucpming Adobe-Gemini could similarly be used to learn the steps of more complex edits.

Another important distinction is that while Agentic AI is built on generative AI, Agentic AI can be used without generating a new image. The AI assistant in the beta Photoshop Web, for example, walks through the same steps in Photoshop that I would manually adjust – it doesn’t generate new pixels unless using a generative tool like Generative Fill.

Gemini will soon join Adobe’s own Firefly AI Assistant and Claude as AIs that are capable of carrying out steps inside Adobe apps, including Premiere, Illustrator and Express as well as Photoshop.

Adobe says that “we’re just getting started" with agentic AI. “There’s tremendous momentum around agentic creativity and we have a great roadmap that we’re bringing creators,” Adobe’s Forest Key, Vice President for Agentic AI for Creativity & Productivity Business, wrote in a blog post. “But what excites us most is what creators are already doing with these tools. The workflows you’re inventing. The ideas you’re bringing to life that simply weren't feasible before.”

Adobe hasn’t yet shared the cost of the tool. However, it’s based on the existing connector that works with Claude, which includes around 40 tools free, with additional tools for creators with Adobe subscriptions.

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Google’s Nano Banana brought an AI photo generator that could create images that resembled real people – and now Google is giving the same treatment to generated video. During Google I/O, the tech giant announced Gemini Omni, a new AI that allows users to generate video from existing videos, photos, or text.

Like Gemini 2.5 Flash Image – better known by its viral code name Nano Banana – Gemini Omni aims to keep the likeness of the person in the inspiration photo or video intact, a task that generative AI has historically had difficulty with.

Gemini Omni – a name that’s just as much of a mouthful as Nano Banana – can generate ten-second video clips, including audio, using existing photos, videos, text prompts, or a combination of those three. Google calls it “Like Nano Banana, but for video.”

The ability to generate videos from existing videos allows users to reimagine footage. Google says that Gemini Omni can transform a character, an object, or the environment “without ever losing the thread of your original scene." That even includes changing the camera angle, as well as the style of the video.

The launch notably comes after OpenAI shuttered its video generator Sora. Google says that Omni will replace its earlier video generator, Veo, inside the Gemini app.

One of the reasons that Google says that Omni is the video version of Nano Banana is that the new AI tool uses avatars. Like with Nano Banana, Google says that digital avatars allow creators to generate videos that still look like themselves.

I tried generating images of myself using Nano Banana when it first came out, and the experiment was both impressive and a bit terrifying. I still haven’t forgotten the images that resulted from that experiment.

The ability to generate videos that look like real people – and have a realistic look to them, as Google says – likely come with some risks. The launch is already raising questions, introducing more “AI slop” in an era where many social media users already complain about AI-generated content.

In a Reddit forum, one user said that making four videos took up an entire Pro Plan usage window. Another commented that “censorship is crazy tight,” suggesting there’s at least some guardrails in place to prevent AI misuse like generating fake political news or graphic content.

But, the slew of AI-related announcements coming out of Google I/O also includes more ways for users to detect if something is AI-generated. The Gemini app already has the ability to detect AI-generated images and videos that use the SynthID watermark, and Google is now rolling out the feature to Search. It will also be added to Chrome “in the coming weeks.”

The Omini-generated videos will come with a SynthID watermark, which means that a check in the Gemini App, Gemini inside Google Chrome, or a check using Google Search will indicate that the video is AI-generated.

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I was fortunate enough to see The Rolling Stones in 2018 and I can tell you that they didn’t need ‘deepfaking’ then. It would seem that 82 is just a number for Mick, in particular, who is known for being incredibly dedicated to maintaining his fitness so he can strut his stuff when the band goes on the road. So, when The Stones released the music video for their latest track In The Stars, I was somewhat surprised to find that they’d been digitally de-aged.

As a bit of a music nerd, I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what period the music video is set. Ronnie Wood joined the band in 1975 to replace the outgoing Mick Taylor, so I think the mid ‘70s is a safe bet. So, let’s get the not-so-controversial bit out of the way first. In The Stars is an absolute banger. It really does sound like a forgotten deep cut from the band’s heyday.

I was invested right from the opening piano riff and falsetto chorus of “oohs”, but when the video cuts to Keith picking up his famous butterscotch Telecaster ‘Micawber’, and Mick pouts “One, two, free, and…” I knew I was in for a treat. The punchy riff that kicks in afterwards, guitars right on the edge of breakup, transports you right back to the ‘70s. And you know what else does? The youthfulness of Mick’s face.

In the video, Mick, Keith and Ronnie have all been transported back in time via the power of deepfake technology from Deep Voodoo, founded by none other than Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park. This is the same technology that was used on Kendrick Lamar’s 2022 The Heart Part 5 music video, transforming the rapper’s face into various likenesses including OJ Simpson, Kanye West, and Kobe Bryant.

It was also used to de-age Billy Joel in his music video for his first song release in over 15 years, 2024’s Turn the Lights Back On. I'm not an animation expert, I don't know how these deepfakes were created, but Deep Voodoo describes itself as an "artificial intelligence entertainment startup" and AI is heavily used in deepfake technology.

Anything AI related is going to cause heated discussions and I’ve repeatedly stated that I’m no fan of many generative-AI uses. As much as I like Kendrick Lamar, superimposing other likenesses onto another person’s face just doesn’t sit right with me. However, in the case of both Billy Joel and The Rolling Stones, I find the usage to be less offensive.

Retaining the human element

Firstly, the deepfakes are depicting the artists themselves. They’re fully aware of what’s being done to their likenesses. And that’s important, because a huge ethical question mark hanging over genAI is the scraping of other artists’ works. However, these deepfakes aren’t sampling creative works to form a rival creative work, they’re reproducing the likeness of a person who already exists. To me, that hits differently than, say for example, if the videos depicted a stylized, animated cartoon.

Cartoons have art styles, they require concept artists, animators, etc, so I’d question where that deepfake is getting its artstyle from. As an aside, I couldn’t help but notice that the likeness of The Stones’ late-great drummer, Charlie Watt, has not been reproduced for the music video. Now, I didn’t know Charlie personally and I don’t know The Stones, so this is pure conjecture, but I can only assume this was intended as a mark of respect.

Another big reason why I’m less annoyed by this usage of genAI is that all three videos have one thing in common. They are all real. They weren’t simply created using a prompt. Judging by the long list of contributors including DPs, directors, makeup artists, actors, etc, there is a strong human element to these videos.

The deepfakery was applied to real footage of real people and captured in a setup designed and produced by real people. I’ll leave you to watch the video and decide for yourself: A time-travelling celebration of The Stones, a creative faux pas or simply a step too far into the uncanny valley?

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Thought the article was over? When you start me up, I'll never stop, so here are a few more article recommendations for you. On the subject of AI: Even Marvel artists aren't immune to being replaced by AI – and I believe Disney is on the cusp of another ‘Dark Age'. Why the AI ick means retro-style photos, videos and cameras are here to stay. Plus, an owl photo was dethroned from wildlife comp amid backlash: GenAI paranoia is ruining photography contests.

Canon has expanded its major firmware rollout, with updates for the PowerShot V1 and EOS R50 V alongside seven other EOS R-series cameras already covered in our earlier report.

These two creator-focused cameras are part of the same broader update cycle, bringing new features to Canon's flagship compact camera and its first V Series interchangeable lens model. The updates go beyond routine fixes, adding meaningful video and workflow improvements aimed at content creators.

Both cameras gain expanded support for Canon's "AF for close-up demos" mode during manual movie shooting, while the EOS R50 V also receives advanced filmmaking tools like False Color exposure assist and grid display during recording.

PowerShot V1

Canon PowerShot V1 – Version 1.2.0
UK: More information & download link
US: More information & download link

Improvements
1. Adds the ability to set [AF for close-up demos] during movie recording in [Movie manual exp.], [Movie auto exposure], and other Creative Zone modes to allow for its use in combination with exposure and AF area settings
2. Adds support for the Wireless Remote Controller BR-E2
3. Adds [Live Switcher Mobile Streaming] to Communication Settings
4. Fixes an issue that may impact the camera's ability to operate properly when shooting with the touch shutter in an extremely dark environment
5. Fixes an issue that may cause the camera to not be recognized when connected to a smartphone via USB
6. Improves other system stability

EOS R50 V

Canon EOS R50 V – Version 1.2.0
UK: More information & download link
US: More information & download link

1. Adds the ability to set [AF for close-up demos] during movie recording in [Movie manual exp.], [Movie auto exposure], and other Creative Zone modes to allow for its use in combination with exposure and AF area settings
2. Adds [Wi-Fi freq. band] to [Communication Settings], allowing the user to select the 5 GHz or 2.4 GHz band when transferring from Bluetooth to Wi-Fi
3. Adds the ability to set [False Color Settings] to [On] when [HDR/C.Log View Assist] is selected
4. Adds the option for grid display during movie recording
5. Adds support for the Wireless Remote Controller BR-E2
6. Improves display settings when using the RF-S7.8mm F4 STM Dual lens and adds [3:2] and [1:1] as new selectable options for [Still img. aspect ratio]
7. Adds support for the Software Development Assistance Kit (EDSDK/CCAPI)
8. Fixes an issue that may impact the camera's ability to operate properly when shooting with the touch shutter in an extremely dark environment
9. Fixes an issue that may cause the camera to not be recognized when connected to a smartphone via USB
10. Improves other system stability

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A few months ago, photographers and filmmakers were mourning the closure of a little-known color-grading program called Color.io. And now, its development company Patchflyer GmbH has been bought by Apple. News of the acquisition, which took place with little to no fanfare, was broken by MacRumors and follows the company’s Founder and CEO, Jonathan Ochmann, announcing that he was moving to an undisclosed company, as reported on at the time by CineD. Well, now we know that undisclosed company was Cupertino’s most famous resident.

What was Color.io?

While Patchflyer GmbH is over a decade old, Color.io was only released in 2023. It was billed as a browser-based all-in-one RAW-image processor, 3D LUT creator and film emulator, with the latter proving a particularly big hit with its user base. The software was coveted for its realistic-looking film presets and halation effects, allowing filmmakers to turn out cinematic colors and photographers to give their digital imagery an authentic analog-era look.

What is Apple planning?

It’s not hard to ponder why Apple moved to acquire Color.io. And indeed, MacRumors has already theorized that the software could be integrated into existing Apple software such as Final Cut Pro or Pixelmator Pro. The move comes at a time when Apple seems to be shoring up its creative software offering. At the beginning of the year, Cupertino announced a subscription bundle, Creator Studio, which includes Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, and various other apps. And back in March, MacRumors also reported on the company's acquisition of video-editing plugin company, MotionVFX.

Despite Apple’s status as an absolute titan of consumer tech, its creative software offerings face fierce competition in what has become a crowded and highly competitive sphere. Not only do you have established big hitters like Adobe’s Creative Cloud and Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve, but Canva’s decision to make Affinity free has certainly made waves within the industry, and that’s before you consider the raft of AI-editing programs that are popping up. Anything that could potentially make Apple’s established creative software suite stand out seems like a good idea to me.

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Sony has released firmware version 2.0 for the Sony A7 V, introducing a suite of new features – most notably support for 32-bit float audio recording and expanded filmmaking tools, further positioning the camera as a professional hybrid production rig.

The update adds 32-bit float and 96kHz audio recording support when the camera is paired with Sony’s XLR-A4 audio adapter.

If you're unfamiliar, 32-bit float is widely used in professional filmmaking as it enables significantly greater dynamic audio range and reduces the risk of clipped recordings – especially when filming in unpredictable environments such as live events or while running and gunning.

Firmware version 2.0 highlights Sony’s increasing focus on hybrid creators demanding advanced stills, video and audio capabilities in a single camera.

Competition in the mirrorless market has shifted towards creator-oriented features, with manufacturers increasingly focusing on improving professional video capabilities without requiring users to buy a dedicated cinema camera.

Sony has also expanded “Preset Focus” functionality to support zoom lenses without power zoom capability. The feature enables users to save and instantly recall focus positions, making repeatable cinematic focus transitions and interview setups easier when using standard zoom lenses.

Additional changes include decimal-point focal length display for more precise framing, as well as a fix for a recording issue affecting the Sony ECM-M1 microphone. Sony also said that the update includes broader operational stability improvements but, as usual, didn’t expand on what this line means.

Firmware version 2.0 doesn’t fundamentally affect the A7 V’s hardware capabilities. It does, however, bolster Sony’s broader strategy of turning its Alpha lineup into ever-more capable hybrid production tools for creators wanting compact alternatives to larger and more expensive cinema-focused cameras.

The firmware update is available to download directly from Sony.

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Canon has released a broad range of firmware updates for seven EOS R-series mirrorless cameras, including significant feature updates for two flagship models.

Firmware updates overview
Canon EOS R3 – Version 2.1.0
Canon EOS R10 – Version 1.8.0
Canon EOS R6 Mark II – Version 1.7.0
Canon EOS R8 – Version 1.6.0
Canon EOS R100 – Version 1.3.0
Canon EOS R5 Mark II – Version 1.3.0
Canon EOS R1 – Version 1.3.0

While cameras like the EOS R100 and EOS R8 mainly receive smaller fixes and system stability improvements, the EOS R5 Mark II and EOS R1 gain more substantial upgrades. These include the first major update to Canon's Action Priority mode, alongside additional features and performance enhancements.

R3

Canon EOS R3 – Version 2.1.0
UK: More information & download link
US: More information & download link

Improvements
1. Adds [Wi-Fi freq. band] to [Communication Settings], allowing the user to select the 5 GHz or 2.4 GHz band when transferring from Bluetooth to Wi-Fi
2. Adds the ability to switch the group settings of a receiver camera from the sender camera when using the EOS Multi Remote app
3. Fixes an issue that may cause Err49 to be displayed repeatedly during communication with an SFTP server
4. Improves other system stability

R10

Canon EOS R10 – Version 1.8.0
UK: More information & download link
US: More information & download link

Improvements
1. Adds support for the Software Development Assistance Kit (EDSDK)
2. Fixes an issue that may cause Err70 to be displayed during Bluetooth communication due to interference from other Bluetooth devices
3. Fixes an issue that may cause Err70 to be displayed when repeatedly shooting in the "High-speed continuous shooting +" mode
4. Fixes an issue that may cause the camera to not be recognized when connected to a smartphone via USB
5. Improves other system stability

R6 II

Canon EOS R6 Mark II – Version 1.7.0
UK: More information & download link
US: More information & download link

Improvements
1. Adds [Wi-Fi freq. band] to [Communication Settings], allowing the user to select the 5 GHz or 2.4 GHz band when transferring from Bluetooth to Wi-Fi
2. Adds support for the Software Development Assistance Kit (CCAPI)
3. Fixes an issue that may cause image transfers to an FTP server to fail and for Err41 to be displayed
4. Fixes an issue that may cause Err49 to be displayed repeatedly during communication with an SFTP server
5. Fixes an issue that may cause the camera to not be recognized when connected to a smartphone via USB
6. Fixes an issue that may cause a horizontal line to appear momentarily in the viewfinder
7. Improves other system stability

R8

Canon EOS R8 – Version 1.6.0
UK: More information & download link
US: More information & download link

Improvements
1. Improved operational stability
2. Fixes an issue that may cause the camera to not be recognized when connected to a smartphone via USB

R100

Canon EOS R100 – Version 1.3.0
UK: More information & download link
US: More information & download link

Improvements
1. Adds support for the Software Development Assistance Kit (EDSDK)
2. Improves other system stability

R5 II

Canon EOS R5 Mark II – Version 1.3.0
UK: More information & download link
US: More information & download link

Improvements
1. Adds [American Football] in [Action Priority] to optimize human subject detection for individuals wearing helmets and shoulder pads
*For an overview and instructions on using [Action Priority], please refer to the Instruction Manual or the AF Settings Guide
2. Improves tracking and detection performance for [Register people priority] in challenging conditions-including profile views, blurred or partially obscured faces, small subjects in the frame, and children-even when the feature is set to [Off]
*Performing a firmware update will delete registered data stored in the camera. If necessary, save the data in advance using [Save/load registered data on card], and reload it after the firmware update. For details, please refer to the Instruction Manual
3. Adds the ability to set [AF for close-up demos] during movie recording in [Movie manual exp.], [Movie auto exposure], and other Creative Zone modes to allow for its use in combination with exposure and AF area settings
4. Adds [Wi-Fi freq. band] to [Communication Settings], allowing the user to select the 5 GHz or 2.4 GHz band when transferring from Bluetooth to Wi-Fi
5. Adds [No. of connections] to [FTP transfer settings], allowing the user to select the number of transfer threads for [FTP transfer]
6. Adds the ability to store up to four [Color temp] values in [White balance setting] and to assign [Switch color temperature] to [Customize buttons for shooting]
7. Adds the ability to set [False Color Settings] to [On] when [HDR/C.Log View Assist] is selected
8. Adds the ability to assign [Pre-continuous Shooting] to [Customize buttons for shooting]
9. Adds the ability to transfer AF-related settings between cameras of the same model by adding [Save to card] and [Load from card] to [Register/recall AF-related settings]
10. Adds the ability to display the electronic level during movie recording
11. Adds the option for grid display during movie recording
12. Adds the ability to display playback screens and menu screens when outputting to two screens via [HDMI Display During Connection]
13. Adds the ability to switch the group settings of a receiver camera from the sender camera when using the EOS Multi Remote app
14. Adds support for DPRAW shooting
15. Adds support for the Software Development Assistance Kit (EDSDK/CCAPI).
16. Fixes an issue that may cause Err49 to be displayed repeatedly during communication with an SFTP server
17. Fixes an issue that may impact the camera's shooting ability if the auto power-off function is activated during interval timer shooting
18. Fixes an issue that may cause the camera to restart when the shutter button is pressed while deleting images
19. Fixes an issue that may cause the camera to not be recognized when connected to a smartphone via USB
20. Improves other system stability

R1

Canon EOS R1 – Version 1.3.0
UK: More information & download link
US: More information & download link

Improvements
1. Adds [American Football] in [Action Priority] to optimize human subject detection for individuals wearing helmets and shoulder pads
*For an overview and instructions on using [Action Priority], please refer to the Instruction Manual or the AF Settings Guide
2. Improves tracking and detection performance for [Register people priority] in challenging conditions-including profile views, blurred or partially obscured faces, small subjects in the frame, and children-even when the feature is set to [Off]
*Performing a firmware update will delete registered data stored in the camera. If necessary, save the data in advance using [Save/load registered data on card], and reload it after the firmware update. For details, please refer to the Instruction Manual
3. Adds [Wi-Fi freq. band] to [Communication Settings], allowing the user to select the 5 GHz or 2.4 GHz band when transferring from Bluetooth to Wi-Fi
4. Adds [No. of connections] to [FTP transfer settings], allowing the user to select the number of transfer threads for [FTP transfer]
5. Adds the ability to store up to four [Color temp] values in [White balance setting] and to assign [Switch color temperature] to [Customize buttons for shooting]
6. Adds the ability to set [False Color Settings] to [On] when [HDR/C.Log View Assist] is selected
7. Adds the ability to assign [Pre-continuous Shooting] to [Customize buttons for shooting]
8. Adds the ability to transfer AF-related settings between cameras of the same model by adding [Save to card] and [Load from card] to [Register/recall AF-related settings]
9. Adds the ability to display the electronic level during movie recording
10. Adds the option for grid display during movie recording
11. Adds the ability to display playback screens and menu screens when outputting to two screens via [HDMI Display During Connection]
12. Adds the ability to switch the group settings of a receiver camera from the sender camera when using the EOS Multi-Remote app
13. Adds the [Night Display Mode] menu option
14. Fixes an issue that may cause Err70 to be displayed in live view when the user captured a multiple-exposure shot in a dark environment
15. Fixes an issue that may cause Err49 to be displayed repeatedly during communication with an SFTP server
16. Fixes an issue that may impact the camera's shooting ability if the auto power-off function is activated during interval timer shooting
17. Fixes an issue that may cause the camera to restart when the shutter button is pressed while deleting images
18. Fixes an issue that may cause the camera to not be recognized when connected to a smartphone via USB
19. Improves other system stability

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Fresh off earning an iF Design Award for delivering "superior performance, including advanced shooting functions from higher-end models," the Nikon Z5 II is now getting a firmware refresh.

While the release doesn't add major new features, Nikon has quietly refined the camera's lens and aperture behavior during standby operation – a subtle improvement for the camera's shooting performance.

If you use the Nikon Z5 II, this is one update worth knowing about. Here are the notes from Nikon:

New firmware: Nikon Z5 II

Firmware Ver.1.11

Update
The firmware update Ver.1.10 to Ver.1.11 incorporates: Changed the way the aperture was adjusted on a lens when the standby timer expired.

Caution: Updating the Firmware
Do not update the camera firmware with lenses other than Z-mount Nikkor lenses or mount adapters other than FTZ II / FTZ attached; failure to observe this precaution could result in camera malfunction.

Pairing the SnapBridge App with Your Camera (Bluetooth)
A camera previously registered to SnapBridge may not automatically reconnect after the camera "C" firmware was updated from version 1.00. This does not indicate a malfunction as it is due to the change in camera display name following the "C" firmware update to version 1.01. Select [Forget camera] on the SnapBridge app and pair your camera with the app again.

Pro Advice

If you caught Episode 4 of Bokeh Face: The Digital Camera World podcast, we discussed the best time to install firmware updates, why they matter, but also what issues they can cause. It's a helpful listen if you're unsure when – or if – you should update.

It's smart to wait a week or two after release to see if any users hit snags. In the past, brands have had a few hiccups with major updates – for instance, introducing memory-setting bugs or minor interface glitches before being reissued.

Such problems are less likely this time, as Ver. 1.11 is a very minor update, but it always pays to be safe!

You can check out the episode for more insights, potential risks, and expert advice on our YouTube channel,Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all your favorite podcast services.

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VSCO has launched a new brand campaign in what it says reaffirms the company’s commitment to photographers amid claims that "photography is dying" as social media platforms push trends and AI-generated imagery proliferates.

Launched May 12, the campaign aims to inspire photographers to remain dedicated to the craft at a time when VSCO says photography has “never mattered more.” Along with staving off fears of an AI takeover, VSCO also hopes to shine a “rare spotlight” on the creative process and rigor that goes into crafting photos and videos.

The in-house campaign revolves around the work of two New York-based photographers, Jared Thomas Tapy and Ivana Cajina, both VSCO users who were chosen for their "distinct visual perspective,” with a combination of digital, 35mm, and medium format film cameras employed for the project.

Spearheading the campaign messaging is a letter from company CEO, Eric Wittman who says: “Your eyes, the way you see the world, can't be generated. It can't be prompted. It's irreplaceable,” with Cajina reflecting the sentiment in an interview: “I truly don't believe AI can replace us.”

These words, and the campaign as a whole, take flight as the industry sees huge shifts, with photographers, including myself, lamenting the use of AI to generate images, but increasingly using the technology to make lighter work of the more repetitive, less-creative tasks in post-production.

In fact, VSCO recently published the results of a survey it conducted that highlighted 83% of photographers now use AI in their workflows in some capacity. The VSCO mobile app includes several AI tools, but in a letter to photographers, Whittman reaffirmed the company's commitment to "workflows that get out of your way."

Now, just to be clear, something tells me VSCO did not launch this new initiative purely out of goodwill, as speckled throughout the campaign webpages is a healthy number of opportunities to sign up to one of the platform’s subscriptions.

However, from my perspective, the company seemingly strikes a balance between championing photographers and pushing commercial aims.

The new VSCO campaign rolls out in May across TV, social, and digital out-of-home placements in major U.S. cities, including Austin, TX, New York, NY, and San Francisco, CA.

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It was Star Wars Day on Monday and, as I sat watching the second season of Andor on Disney+, I felt numb. I don’t just like Star Wars, I love it. I’ve always loved it. But this was a May 4th I’d rather forget.

The previous evening, I’d watched an Instagram Reel released by Evangeline Lilly (embedded below) who played Wasp in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

She commented on last month’s news that Disney had laid off 1,000 employees in a move that, according to Variety, CEO Josh D’Amaro said would “streamline” operations.

But Lilly, who had consulted friend and affected Disney employee, Andy Park, alleged that “the people who invented these characters in the first place, who designed them in the first place are now being replaced by AI.”

Now, let me be clear here. Disney has not attributed the layoffs to AI and in the video’s description, Lilly states: “***I can not confirm or deny that the motive for these layoffs was AI replacement.”

But it’s not exactly surprising that artificial intelligence has emerged as a keen subject of interest. This Guardian article highlights how Marvel Studios has come under the microscope for its treatment of creatives in the past.

And let’s not forget when Industrial Light & Magic revealed the horrendously tactless Star Wars Field Guide during a TED Talk this time last year.

A frankly embarrassing selection of clips of ‘alien creatures’ or what I consider to be an AI-generated mess of various animals spliced together to create a line-up of creatures that has more in common with a cabinet of curiosities than a galaxy far, far away…

You might be wondering what all this has to do with photography and videography. Well, everything. All creative industries are intrinsically linked and, should companies decide that artists are expendable, photographers and videographers (and journalists) should be very worried, too. I know I am.

Again, we don’t know exactly why Disney has downsized so rapidly – but I would like to remind Josh D’Amaro of a very troublesome period in Disney’s history.

Dubbed Disney’s Dark Age, the Seventies and Eighties weren’t kind to the House of Mouse. Various factors contributed to a decline in feature-length quality, most notably a loss of leadership due to Walt’s death, and the adoption of a faster and cheaper method of animation.

With an overreliance on live-action remakes and the directionless cash cows that both Marvel Studios and Star Wars have become, it’s hard not to feel like Disney is experiencing another creative slump. Getting rid of human creatives is not the answer.

This week my colleague, Alan Palazon, reported that Instagram is testing the ability for AI content accounts to label themselves as an “AI creator,” along with his opinion: “I think the platform needs to enforce it.” I couldn’t agree more.

And it’s not just the presence of unlabelled AI-generated content that’s a problem; the presence of genAI is affecting how people see photography, videography, art, CGI et al. Time and again I’m seeing photographs and other creative works being accused of being AI generated, when they’re genuine.

I’m not delusional. I know that AI is here to stay and I think it has the ability to bolster and embolden creatives. But genAI should never be considered as an alternative.

Huge creative companies like Disney pave the way – everyone else follows suit. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that the future of the West’s creative industry is – to a large degree – in Mickey Mouse’s gloved hands.

On the other hand, Jim Lee, CCO of DC Comics, spoke at New York Comic Con 2025, where he stated: “DC Comics will not support AI-generated storytelling or art. Not now, not ever, as long as Anne DePies and I are in charge.”

Disney, I have no interest in AI-generated slop. Let me know what you think in the comments below. Creatives, assemble!

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Want to hear more of my ramblings on AI? I think restoring this iconic photo with AI is heresy and sets a dangerous precedent. I'm also certain that in this new world of AI, photography will live and die by how transparent we photographers choose to be about the images we create. And for something a little lighter: Nikon Coolpix S9300 compact camera is Gen Z approved. Bright, bubbly, cheap and… heck now I want one, too!

We all know that retro-style imagery and video footage are in right now, and I don’t see this supposed craze dying down anytime soon. If anything, I think people are going to be craving retro-style imagery increasingly and it’s largely because of AI. I hate to sound like a broken record, but AI-generated imagery is giving a lot of people the ick. In fact, only recently did I finish writing an article where I claimed that GenAI paranoia is ruining photography contests.

In a world where social media is perpetually drenched in a soupy broth of AI slop, retro-style imagery feels safe, genuine, real. But genAI isn’t to blame entirely. Before the generative boom, we had already reached image-fidelity oversaturation.

The megapixel race had become a bore, the very latest editing trends dominated Instagram, and computational camera phones were presiding over an era of headache-inducing sharpness and HDR imagery that made even family snaps look like a commercial advertising campaign. In short, the industry was ripe for a retro style reckoning.

Cue influencers flocking to buy up retro compact cameras and inflating prices, Fujifilm’s penchant for retro cameras bolstering its brand to the forefront of Gen Z’s radar, and a renewed interest in film photography. Heck, last week, I wrote about the Nikon Coolpix S9300, a camera I forgot existed the day after its release way back in 2012, yet it was trending!

And let’s not forget society’s lust for retro style in general. Throwback entertainment such as Stranger Things and Guardians of the Galaxy, not to mention retrospective fashion trends. My hope is that we’ll continue to search for ways to stay more connected to image making, beyond our computationally driven camera phones and soulless genAI prompt text boxes long into the future.

If I’m right, vintage cameras and retro-style cameras will continue to sell as a bastion of authentic image making. But if I’m wrong, and retro style is largely superficial, I guess it won’t be long until people start turning to ‘low-fi’ AI imagery. The technology already exists.

Only time will tell.

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I’ve had the pleasure of judging a lot of photo competitions in my time, and I can tell you that the most contentious category to critique by far is wildlife. That’s because it’s fraught with potential rules violations that are often extremely difficult to investigate: captive subjects, baiting, harassment, compositing, and more recently, generative AI.

So you can imagine the furore when the National Wildlife Federation selected a stunning image of a great horned owl, perched in front of an aurora in Oklahoma as the winner of its Garden for Wildlife Photo Contest. It didn’t take long for the comments to whip up a storm. The original Instagram post has since been removed, but PetaPixel reported that these included accusations of both AI involvement and compositing.

Particular attention was directed towards the owl’s talons, which appear to show too many digits – often a hallmark of generated AI imagery. And while the aurora has been explained away as a geomagnetic storm, a well-lit image of a wildlife subject in front of a well-exposed night sky would be extremely challenging to achieve in a single frame.

This is an important point, because the Garden for Wildlife Photo Contest does not allow composite imagery. And indeed, to the competition's credit, the image has since been disqualified due to it being deemed a composite and an incredible image of a Yellow garden spider by Nicole Land has been announced as the deserved winner. As far as I can see, to date, the competition has offered no conclusion as to whether or not generative AI was involved in the offending image's creation.

Now, I’m generally very sympathetic to competition judges. Frankly, it’s a thankless job and you can’t please everyone. Heck, it’s pretty hard to please yourself, because when you’ve sifted through thousands of images and ended up with tens of potential winners, you rarely feel wholly satisfied with your choices.

And situations like this aren’t entirely on the competition. Images are judged in good faith, that’s why there tends to be a very carefully worded list of rules. But in this instance, I cannot understand why the offending image wasn’t flagged, immediately. To me at least, it screams further investigation.

However, this entire situation has highlighted another ugly side of genAI imagery. And I don’t believe it’s being talked about enough. AI accusations. I don’t know whether or not the image in question was partially or entirely AI generated or not. But it still breached competition rules and in doing so it still caused an AI uproar.

Every time something like this happens, people get a little bit more paranoid about AI, to the point that we now live in a world where photographs, videos and artworks are constantly assessed for even the slightest hallmark of genAI involvement.

Whether or not the content in question is genAI is kind of superfluous to my point. The rot has already set in. The world is more skeptical of photographs and videos than ever before. Heck, you can’t even come across a funny video of a cat – mid doomscroll – without ditching the laughter for a second to really analyze the footage.

Hmm, is that AI? Or is that…

Too late, the moment – the impact – it's gone...

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Instagram has announced that it’s currently testing a new feature enabling creators who “often create with AI” to self-identify with an “AI creator” label. The announcement was made yesterday, May 04, by the official Instagram creators account, mentioning that the label will appear on your profile as well as alongside any AI-generated content if toggled on in your account settings.

With this new optional feature, Instagram says that it’s making it easier to "understand how content is made, who's behind it, and what’s worth your attention." In principle, this is a move that I, and I’m sure millions of others, welcome as we see more and more AI-generated content that’s becoming increasingly indistinguishable from material generated by a human.

However, being optional, at least for now, is seemingly the obvious flaw in Instagram’s plan to “increase transparency” on the platform. Coming clean as an “AI creator” could lead to losing out on revenue or diminishing trust with followers, and it’s inevitable that a percentage of AI creators won’t self-identify, which is why I think Instagram needs to enforce relevant accounts to activate the feature.

I don't want to see people losing out on income, but if that income has been built on misleading, dishonest content that doesn't give viewers the option to decide whether they want to consume AI material, then I’m all for Instagram outing accounts, but this can’t be maximized through optional policies.

Admittedly, enforcing AI creators to self-label poses more questions, especially as Instagram has said that it’s testing the “AI creator” label on accounts that "regularly create content with AI." What constitutes “regularly,” but also, to what extent does AI have to have been used in creating the content for it to be considered AI-generated?

While I really want to see all social media—and all internet platforms for that matter—enforce rigorous AI content labeling, platforms would also need to ensure guidelines explicitly outlining what they consider to be AI-generated content.

This is particularly important for photographers who regularly use AI to make minor edits to images they took themselves, and who have already been bitten by automatically added AI-content labels, which was the case when Meta introduced the “AI info” tag in 2024.

Ironically, Meta’s own AI bots scan the company’s ecosystem of apps (Instagram, Facebook, and Threads), looking for “industry standard” clues of AI usage to automatically apply the label. However, tests conducted by PetaPixel showed that photos edited with Adobe's generative fill tool in Photoshop would trigger the label even if the edit was only to a "tiny speck." Subsequently, the feature evoked backlash from users, forcing Instagram to tighten its policy.

Yesterday’s announcement highlighted that if an “AI info” label has already been applied to an Instagram post by a self-identifying “AI creator,” then any automatically added “AI info” label would remain in place.

Some users have responded in the comments supporting Meta’s latest AI-labeling move, while others have vented their anger at AI content as a whole. One respondent commented: “Nuke AI in general actually, make a whole diff platform called AInstagram for them.”

I actually think that this comment makes a valid point. AI-content labeling managed by AI systems with inherent flaws will always face issues, so perhaps a separate platform for AI content, or even an option to switch between viewing only human-generated and AI-generated content, would be the optimal solution.

Anyway, according to the latest announcement, the new “AI creator" label doesn’t impact “how your account or content is distributed across Instagram," which will hopefully encourage those relying on AI-generated imagery to let their audience know without fear of repercussions.

So far, Instagram has said that only some AI creators will have access to the new labeling feature, but that it will be “expanding” this in the coming weeks.

Meta hasn't said anything about potentially enforcing it in the future, but I hope the social media monopoly will, along with strengthening the systems it has in place to detect AI usage. Although, I doubt it will happen anytime soon.

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Two years ago, Instagram rolled out algorithm changes that cut traffic to accounts that reposted Reels from other accounts, prioritizing original content from creators. Now, the social media platform is finally giving that same treatment to photos and carousels.

In a Reel, Instagram’s Adam Mosseri shared that, over the next month, Instagram will begin flagging accounts that post unoriginal photos, reducing reach to only followers and not recommending the content to new followers. The move echoes what Instagram already does for Reels – and has already had in place for two years.

The move shifts the algorithm away from aggregators who post other people’s content to help push more traffic to the original creator, which will now be applied to photos and carousels as well as Reels.

Mosseri explains that the change is on an account-wide basis, rather than post-by-post. Instagram algorithms will look at an account, and if the account is posting a majority of what Instagram calls “unoriginal content,” then the platform will no longer recommend that account to non-followers.

Users will have the ability to appeal if they believe their account was flagged in error, as well as the opportunity to remove the unoriginal content for reconsideration.

Of course, on any social media platform, memes make up a portion of those photos. But Instagram says that if a meme is “meaningfully enhanced,” then it won’t fall under that “unoriginal label.” Reuploading someone else’s photo with a different caption, border, watermark, or subtitles will be flagged as unoriginal content, Instagram says.

Users who wish to share another creator’s content may use the Repost button instead, Instagram says. Adding a collaborator to a post or a paid partnership label is another option Instagram recommends for sharing original content to multiple accounts without penalty.

Instagram notes that the algorithm guidelines for original content are separate from the company’s intellectual property policies. The social media platform also notes that the change won’t impact publishers with licensing agreements.

Creators can check to see if their account is affected by going to their profile, tapping the three-line “hamburger menu” and tapping Settings. The Account Status option is under “More Info and Support” in the Settings menu.

Instagram did not indicate why the feature that rolled out to Reels in 2024 has taken two years to come to photos. However, Instagram says that "75 percent of recommendations in the US are now coming from original posts.”

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