The world has waited five years for this retro camera to make a comeback, but customers in Japan will have to wait a little longer – the brand new OM System PEN has received so many orders that it is currently facing delays in Japan.

Parent company OM Digital Solutions has just announced that, due to overwhelming demand for the aggressively priced and excitingly specced camera, some pre-orders "may be delayed until November or later" in the region.

While orders are currently unaffected in other territories, the new PEN has been so well received that it wouldn't surprise me to see similar demand across the globe.

This Micro Four Thirds camera is not only one of the most stunning-looking bodies on the market, it's also comparable in size to the ever-popular (and ever out of stock) Fujifilm X100VI – making this a great option for anyone seeking a compact, capable camera.

Moreover, the PEN represents unbelievable value for money; for just $999 / $849 / AU$1,499 it offers weather sealing, in-body image stabilization and an electronic viewfinder, a combination virtually unheard of at that price.

It also possesses a suite of impressive features. While its native resolution is 20.4MP, it can shoot 50MP and 80MP high-resolution stills, boasts advanced features like 30fps pre-capture (aka Pro Capture), as well as computational photography tools such as software-driven neutral density filters to achieve slow shutter speed effects without the need for a physical ND filter.

I'm a big fan of the camera, calling it "the best bang-for-buck body on the market (not to mention one of, if not the, best-looking) and without a doubt the best everyday carry camera available for photography purists" in my OM System PEN review.

It's available for preorder now, shipping in late September across Europe and late October in the US – and judging by demand in Japan, you should probably get in early if you want one at launch!

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Looking for a rugged, waterproof, and adventure-ready compact camera for your next hike, five, ski, or biking excursion? Two great budget outdoor cameras are now available at a discount from Amazon.

The Ricoh Pentax WG-8 in green is now just £429 on Amazon – you save £55.99 off its original £479.99 price.

The OM System Tough TG-7 in red is now just £398.98 on Amazon – you save £100.02 off its RRP of £499.

• The Ricoh Pentax WG-8 in black was £479.99, now £441.28 on Amazon

• The OM System Tough TG-7 in black was £499 and is now £416.59 on Amazon

Ricoh Pentax WG-8

A real Captain Scarlet of a compact camera

The Pentax WG-8 is built tough to survive water, dust, drops, freezing temps – you name it. It's perfect if you want a camera that's truly adventure-proof, without spending big. With a 20MP sensor and 5x optical zoom (approx. 28-140mm in 35mm terms).

It shoots decent photos and 4k video at 30fps. It also shines in ultra-close-up shots, and it performs well underwater and in extreme conditions where other cameras might fail. It's a solid budget-friendly choice for anyone needing a tough, reliable camera for travel.

OM System Tough TG-7

Indestructible camera, impressive results

The OM System Tough TG-7 is built to be a companion on any adventure. It's waterproof, shockproof, and dustproof, so you never have to worry about weather or terrain. Sure, its 12MP sensor is smaller than some other cameras, but that actually helps underwater photos by capturing more light where it's often dim. Plus, it shoots RAW and bursts up to 20fps – perfect for catching fast moments.

The TG-7 has a handy 4x zoom (approx. 25-100mm in 35mm terms) with a bright aperture and a standout macro mode that lets you snap amazing close-ups and 4K video. It's simple, durable, and versatile – the perfect point-and-shoot to toss in your bag when you need a reliable camera that won't quit.

Discover more and browse the best travel cameras, best compact cameras and best point and shoot cameras

Small enough to slip in your pocket and affordable enough for almost any budget, these trendy compact cameras make everyday photography fun.

They don't often go on sale, but these three models are currently slightly reduced in price. The discounts are modest, but they make already budget-friendly cameras just a little more appealing.

The Kodak Pixpro C1 is now £77.96 on Amazon – you save £13.76 off its £91.72 RRP.

The Kodak Pixpro FZ45 is now £91 on Amazon – you save £17.40 off its £108.40 RRP.

The Chuzhao Digital camera is now £26.64 on Amazon – you save at least £5.32 off its listed £31.96 price. This camera is priced between £30 and £50, depending on the retailer.

• The Kodak Pixpro C1 is also available in brown for £79.99 on Amazon

• The Kodak FZ45 is also available in silver for £93.99 on Amazon

Kodak Pixpro C1

Kodak's Pixpro C1 is the brand's best budget selfie compact right now – thanks to its flip screen and wide-angle lens, making it more convenient than the FZ45 or Chuzhao for self-recording and vlogging-style clips.

However, it trades on image quality and flexibility, so if you care more about zoom or detail, the FZ45 is the stronger pick. If you want ease and selfies over everything else, the C1 is the camera for you.

Kodak Pixpro FZ45

Compared to the C1 and Chuzhao, the FZ45 is the most traditional camera here – it's the only one with real optical zoom, which makes it more versatile for travel and distance shots.

You lose the flip screen and retro charm, but gain reach and a more familiar shooting experience. The FZ45 is the camera for you if you want a simple holiday or everyday camera rather than a novelty or selfie device.

Chuzhao Digital Camera

The Chuzhao Digital Camera is the most characterful camera of the group – and all about enjoying the process of taking photos. The square format, waist-level viewfinder and TLR-inspired design make shooting feel playful – in a way none of the Kodak compacts really replicate.

While the FZ45 is about straightforward practicality and the C1 leans into selfie convenience, the Chushao is all about atmosphere, nostalgia and creative expression in your pocket.

Browse the best compact cameras, the best retro compact cameras, and the best cheap cameras.

Tripods tend to be purpose-built for different shoots, which means some photographers will own more than one – one for travel, one for maximum stability, one for tabletop shooting, and maybe even a separate monopod. But 3 Legged Things' latest invention is a build-your-own modular tripod system that replaces several purpose-built supports in one.

The new 3 Legged Thing James and Jason is a tripod system with swappable parts. While most tripods can swap out for different heads or feet, the two new modular systems can swap out legs, canopies, flat plates, rings – along with heads and feet.

The idea is that by building a modular system, creators don’t need to own several tripods for different purposes. The James and Jason are full-sized tripods, but they can convert to travel tripods or studio tripods, and the swappable legs can also double as monopods and boom poles.

The heart of the system is the canopy. Both options can handle up to 30 kgs / 66 lbs, but one is built for portability, and the other is built for strength and features.

James uses a smaller, slimmer profile that creates a tripod that can still fit in the water bottle pocket of a camera bag. Jason, on the other hand, is a bit larger, but has a ballast hook and is built for strength. Both canopies have an extra accessory mount for attaching arms for adding lighting or a mic.

With those two canopies come three different swappable leg types, all built with carbon fiber. The five-section legs are the most compact, folding down to 42.5 cm / 16.7 inches and reaching a maximum height of 123 cm / 48.4 inches. The three-section legs are built for maximum height and stability, reaching 154 cm / 60.6 inches – but probably won’t fit in carry-on luggage. The four-section legs are the happy medium between the two.

Those legs can be adjusted to different angles for a wider stance and lower shots using a new trigger-pull design that the company says is easy to use even when wearing gloves.

Along with the swappable legs, the tripods launch with three options for feet to accommodate different terrain – and the tripods can also be used with the canopy and feet (no legs) to replace a mini tabletop tripod. The legs can also be used without the canopy as a monopod or light boom.

The modular tripod series also launches with a newly designed head that 3 Legged Thing has dubbed the Airhed Orbit. The ball-style head uses one main control to level, adjust, and lock the camera in position.

Beyond the versatility, the modular design also means that creators can break apart the tripods for upkeep and cleaning.

With multiple different setups possible, 3 Legged Thing has built several different bundles for the tactical tripods, including some basic setups with the canopy and feet to bundles with multiple pieces.

3 Legged Thing is bringing James and Jason to creators using Kickstarter, where the campaign has already surpassed its original funding goal. Pledges take as much as 20 to 25 percent off the expected retail price, starting at £269 (about $365 / AU$506) for a canopy and legs, £669 (about $907 / AU$1,257) for a kit with all three leg variations, with the new Airhed Orbit head a £152 ($207 / AU$286) add-on.

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Most consumers aren’t even aware, but each year market-leading camera manufacturer Canon embarks on what it terms ‘Camera Store Week’ in the UK. The name reads like its own spin on the popular annual Record Store Day for the music industry, which is much bigger and gets greater media coverage.

Different industries, yes, but some aspects are the same, in that the focus is on the retailer – and driving custom and sales. Both are commercial enterprises after all.

But unlike Record Store Day, which involves the participation of tens of different record labels, hundreds of individual musical artists and hundreds of individual record shops in the UK alone – leading to an industry-wide boost that now has an international reach – Canon’s Camera Store Week is chiefly all about Canon.

I believe that is a great shame and a big missed opportunity. During my decade spent editing the UK’s only photo trade magazine, I often suggested that our industry should learn a lesson from Record Store Day – initially set up to stem the closure of independent record shops – and do something similar for specialist photo retailers, who have long faced their own existential crisis.

My idea was mostly met with silence. And, sadly, over the past decade the amount of independent UK photo retailers in business has decreased in number from around 300 to as few as 50 or 60 today. That means photography has far less visibility on the local British high street than it ever used to. That doesn’t benefit anyone. It’s slightly better news currently in the USA, however, where over 1,000 photo independents remain; but then it is a much, much larger country.

In any event, retailer-focused events organized by major manufacturers to help the former increase footfall, and the latter boost sales, can only be a good thing. Canon has print workshops, photo walks and tutorials focused on its RF lens range planned for Camera Store Week 2026.

I’m not dismissing any of that, but inevitably it does mean that participating retailers will be prioritizing customers getting hands-on with Canon product for the duration of the promotional activity.

A step in the right direction is that Canon says it is collaborating with complementary accessory brands this year, which widens the scope. Though I think that leaves plenty of room for it to go wider and more inclusive of other brands still. Much more inclusive, if it truly does feel that, as Canon UK’s marketing blurb states: ‘specialist camera stores are an essential part of the photography community’.

After years of camera manufacturers attempting to sell and market direct to customers and increasingly sidelining the retailer, it does feel a bit rich to hear one say, at this very late stage, it wants to ‘support the high street and give customers more reasons to visit their local store.’

That said, any action is better than inaction. Plus, in fairness, while it is the market leader, it should not be down to ‘just’ Canon to boost photo retail. Yes, some rival brands will do their own promotions, with in-store experts dispatched here and there throughout the year. But I still feel turning around the fortunes of the photo retailer and camera manufacturers alike needs an industry-wide banding together to make a concerted effort. And there must be enough big names that consider it worthwhile and valuable to band together to make it a success.

Incidentally, Canon’s Camera Store Week is a misnomer this year, as in fact it runs for two weeks, from September 14-27, at participating retailers. But we can – and need to – do more before there are no local camera stores or shops left trading to hold such an event in.

The Camp Snap is the camera that arguably sparked a screen-free camera movement – but the small business’ latest refresh brings an even more Y2K look to its retro budget compact camera. The Camp Snap 2 just launched in an all-clear Arctic Frost colorway.

The second-generation Camp Snap launched earlier this summer with a refreshed design that provides access to built-in retro filters without a computer, a slimmer design and less shutter lag. Those updates come with the same concept that Camp Snap is built around: a screen-free shooting experience.

Despite only launching in June 2026, Camp Snap has been steadily adding to the second generation’s color options.

While a handful of semi-transparent models arrived with the initial launch, the latest option in the lineup removes the color from the semi-transparent series, creating a frosted white look that shows off some of the camera’s inner workings.

The fresh look brings a clear option for those who aren’t fans of the semi-transparent bold colors in the lineup, like the lime green, icy blue, bright pink, or purple that are already part of the Jelly Edition options.

Arctic Frost brings the semi-transparent design without the bright color, bringing a hint of the Y2K-era transparent tech trend to the viral compact camera.

When I tried the Camp Snap 2, I loved the new ability to swap filters at the press of a button – but I could still disable this feature when I handed it over to my 6-year-old.

The Camp Snap CS-Pro is probably my favorite in the lineup for adults, but the Camp Snap 2 comes in a hard-to-resist $70 / £54 / AU$130 price point and blends the charm of a disposable camera with the convenience of digital.

The new Arctic Frost colorway is already available from Camp Snap, where the compact camera sells for about $70 / £54 / AU$130. Like the other Camp Snap 2 colors, a memory card is included in that cost and pre-installed.

The company also offers stick-on gemstone packs to add personalized flair to the camera.

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The BCN Awards, sourced using data from major Japanese electronic retailers, has published its 2026 results and Nikon features in three categories: Mirrorless, DSLR, and binoculars, coming third, second and third in each category, respectively.

Nikon Rumors has posted BCN’s findings along with a short analysis of the brand’s fortunes. The rumor outlet praised Nikon’s presence within a very competitive market, while stating: “to climb higher, focusing on entry-level mirrorless or hybrid video capabilities could help.”

I couldn’t agree more! I’ve been saying for years that Nikon’s decision to focus on enthusiast and pro gear will hurt its imaging business in the long term, because brand loyalty is such a huge deal in photography.

The profit margin on an entry-level camera might not be as good as premium offerings, but it captures consumers at the very beginning of the funnel. Once you’ve bought into a system and got used to it, you’re likely to stick with that system when you eventually upgrade.

If Nikon isn’t fostering beginner photographers, it’s missing a crucial moment in which to build that connection. And I believe it’s even more important for Nikon to catch consumers early than some other camera manufacturers, because it’s competing directly with Canon and Sony. Let me explain…

Direct competition

Nikon, Canon and Sony are all going after the same corner of the market. They all build full-frame mirrorless cameras, boast huge collections of mirrorless glass, are jostling for the next big innovation in camera technology and are focusing increasingly more of their resources towards video cameras.

As such, they’re the go-to choice for professional landscape, portrait, wildlife and sports photographers, as well as run-and-gun video creators. The problem is that their customer bases are extremely loyal – fanatical, if you will.

Of course there are always exceptions to the rule, but most people who want to buy a serious mirrorless camera will choose one of the above manufacturers, not two, not three, just one. After all, they all pretty much do the same thing.

If you have a Nikon Z8 and buy a Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S II for $2,797 / £2,599 / AU$4,599, what’s the point of also investing in a Canon EOS R5 Mark II and then having to buy a Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8L IS USM?

But other manufacturers such as Fujifilm, Leica and OM System don’t have to play by the same rules. You could very much own a Z8 and fancy picking up a Fujifilm X100VI, a Leica D-Lux 8 or the just-announced OM System PEN as an everyday carry.

Maybe the Nikon Zf and Nikon Zfc fill the role of something slightly different, but the majority of Nikon’s catalog is standard enthusiast- to pro-grade fare.

Entry-level gold

As a huge Nikon fan, every single Black Friday it pains me to see the utterly fantastic Canon EOS R100 become even more ridiculously good value, only to wonder why Nikon doesn’t have a camera like that. And while the Nikon Z30 and Zfc get close, they’re not truly affordable beginner cameras in the same vein as the EOS R100 or Nikon D3500.

Extenuating circumstances such as component shortages, the memory crisis, Trump tariffs and general economic instability mean it’s a difficult market out there for every camera manufacturer. And while Nikon isn’t in trouble, its financial results haven’t been where they ought to be of late.

Don’t get me wrong, Nikon is a huge company and its imaging division isn’t the only area it’s focused on. But to ensure a steady stream of Nikon photographers from now until well into the future, please, Nikon, don’t neglect entry-level photographers any longer.

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Only yesterday I wrote an article claiming that people still want full-frame DSLR cameras, and now Pentax & Ricoh Rumors has highlighted data from the BCN Award 2026 whereby Ricoh’s domestic Japanese DSLR market share has gone from 9.7% to 17.7%. And while that’s good news for a camera company that’s still supposedly developing DSLR cameras, it’s not necessarily an indicator of renewed interest in DSLR tech.

Canon and Nikon still command the largest market shares, with 44.3% and 38% respectively, but it’s not exactly surprising that their grip has relaxed slightly. After all, neither manufacturer is actively pursuing new DSLR releases, and despite many Canon and Nikon DSLRs still being available to buy new, both appear to be quietly winding down production, with the mighty Canon EOS 5D Mark IV being the latest high-profile DSLR to be officially discontinued. Canon Rumors also references the fact that “the DSLR market shrank dramatically last year”. With all of that in mind, it’s not surprising that Ricoh is mopping up a little more market share.

What about other camera formats?

When it comes to mirrorless market share, BCN’s statistics have Sony on top with 29.9%, Canon slightly behind at 27.4%, and Nikon trailing at 15.1%. Nothing overly surprising there.

When it comes to compact cameras, or what BCN calls the digital camera (integrated lens) department, I was surprised that Kodak comfortably beat Fujifilm at 24% and 13.9% respectively, with Kenko Tokina at 13.3%.

So, there you have it. Pentax reaches for more DSLR market share, but that’s likely because Canon and Nikon’s attention is elsewhere.

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The organization tallying all the latest numbers from Japan’s camera makers is predicting that camera sales could slow for the first time in two years in 2026 – and the latest numbers show a serious slump in summer camera shipments.

According to the Camera and Imaging Products Association, or CIPA, camera shipments for July 2026 were 93.3 percent of the month before and just 76.7 percent of the same time a year ago.

That’s the fourth month in 2026 that camera sales have shown slight declines compared with 2025 numbers, suggesting that CIPA’s prediction for a camera slowdown this year wasn’t off base.

While shipments for cameras overall declined, the trendy compact camera shipped 110.1 percent more cameras in July than in June. But, even the fixed lens category – which includes compact cameras as well as bridge cameras – shows a decline when compared to the same month in 2025, with a 96.9 percent change. Despite the monthly decline, the compact camera category is still showing growth for 2026 with a 112.7 percent change for the first seven months of the year combined.

Interchangeable lens camera shipments fared even worse. Overall, Japan’s camera makers shipped 86.6 percent of the previous month’s numbers. The drop is even more severe compared to July 2025 at 69.4 percent. That brings the first seven months of 2026 to 91.2 percent of last year’s numbers.

The DSLR is the worst offender, shipping just 33.5 percent of the number from the previous month and 24.2 percent compared to the same time last year. So far this year, DSLR shipments are 65.4 percent of last year’s data.

The mirrorless category understandably fared much better, but still saw a drop in July, shipping 91.9 percent of the previous month's numbers and 74.4 percent compared to the same time last year.

Crop sensor cameras remain the most popular interchangeable lens category, shipping around 295,500 bodies, which is 85.8 percent of June’s numbers. Meanwhile, full-frame (and larger, such as medium format) shipped over 146,000 bodies, 88.2 percent of the previous month’s numbers.

Tallying the numbers from the first seven months of the year, that leaves every category except for compact cameras in decline for the year – lower than both the 2025 and 2024 numbers. But, the decline wasn’t unexpected and falls within CIPA’s predictions for the year. CIPA’s predictions, however, still expect growth for the compact camera, a category which has now declined slightly for three months in a row.

Another interesting insight from the numbers is that compact camera production – not just shipments – continues to grow. Production for fixed lens cameras was at 107.4 percent of the previous month, and for the first seven months of the year is up by 123.1 percent.

The compact camera went viral at a time when many camera makers had put the category on the back burner, and the most viral cameras are hard to find in stock. Some camera brands have increased production as a result, including Canon, and that is reflected in the latest statistics from Japan.

Interchangeable lens shipments also saw a drop in July compared to 2025, shipping 90.1 percent of the previous month’s numbers and 76.7 percent when compared to the previous year. So far this year, that puts lens shipments at 95.8 percent compared to 2025.

CIPA only tallies numbers from participating Japanese camera brands, but that list includes the biggest movers and shakers of the camera industry, including Canon, Sony, Nikon, Fujifilm, Panasonic, OM System, Ricoh, and Sigma. That notably excludes brands like Leica and Hasselblad.

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If the OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III seems familiar, that's because we've seen it at least three times before (there was the original lens, a mark II and a mark II "R" before this one).

It's always tempting to overlook a kit lens, but in the case of the OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III that would be a mistake. You see unlike most kit lenses, this one is weather sealed – which is both a breath of fresh air and a case of OM putting its money where its mouth is.

After all, every camera in its lineup boasts weather sealing – including the new and technically entry-level OM System PEN. But what good is a sealed camera if the lens that comes with it isn't sealed as well?

In addition to IPX1 certification, the OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III also boasts a new look and refined operation – eschewing the cumbersome lock switch for an elegant and satisfying twist-and-click mechanism.

Yes, the optical formula is the same – but this lens is a far better performer than most give it credit for. If you're thinking of picking up the latest PEN, or you just want a compact and budget-friendly weatherproof lens to complement an existing OM camera, this deserves your attention.

OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III: Specifications

OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III: Specifications

OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III: Price & availability

The OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III carries a standalone price of $350 / £349 / AU$479. However, it's really designed to be bought with a camera – where it effectively only costs $100 / £100 / AU$300.

If you pick up the lens in a kit with the OM System PEN, it will cost $1,099 / £949 / AU$1,799.

OM also makes another lens with the same focal length and aperture range, but with a non-weather sealed pancake design and a motorized zoom – the OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 EZ, which is priced $349 / £329 / AU$429.

OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III: Build & handling

First of all, in case you've ended up here while searching for OM's other 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 lens, this is a very different proposition to the electronic zoom pancake lens!

The OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 EZ is a much smaller optic, thanks to its collapsible pancake design, and also boasts a motorized zoom – which can be handy for remote shooting as it enables you to zoom in and out. However, it's not a weather-sealed lens.

This new OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III is a much larger lens, though it still collapses to palm-size when not in operation. It is, as noted, IPX1 certified to dust and splash resistance, but the zoom is not motorized – meaning you have to manually 'telescope' the barrel, upon which the lens extends about an inch.

Unlike older versions of the lens, which had a lock switch that had to be disengaged during the twist-and-deploy motion, the mark III has a more elegant click mechanism that simply locks and unlocks as you turn the barrel.

Generally this lens was a joy to use and shoot with – the only downside is that, because you have to extend it in order to start shooting, I was occasionally a step slow off the mark because I'm used to just turning the camera on and stabbing the shutter. You get used to it, but it still trips me up occasionally!

OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III: Performance

I primarily tested the OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III with the OM System PEN, though I also tried it out with the OM System OM-3 and Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II.

While the form has certainly changed, the function hasn't. This lens has the same optical formula as its previous iterations – and, as I expect our lab results to bear out as soon as we can read OM's latest RAW format, its optical performance is also essentially identical.

I certainly didn't experience any huge difference from the earlier versions I've used in years past – but that's not the end of the world. While most people sleep on kit lenses (and, for some reason, this lens in particular), it's a surprisingly pleasing performer.

It performs best, as you'd might expect, at its widest focal length – and honestly, at 14mm f/4 is has a brilliant amount of bite. Sharpness does drop the longer you go, but this is compensated by the correspondingly ascending apertures. Honestly, I'm happy with the performance of this lens anywhere it lands in its zoom range.

The first sample image below is a great example of what the OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III can do; the details of the dayglo gnome and the hairy leaves at his feet alike are piercingly sharp.

Focusing is impressive in all respects, too. Autofocus is nice and snappy, the ability to focus as close as 0.13m comes in very useful for an everyday lens, and the fact that it supports focus stacking makes it a very versatile performer for anyone looking to get creative.

OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III: Sample images

There are dozens more sample images in my OM System PEN review, but here's a selection of shots I took with the OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III in various conditions and situations, indoors and outdoors, using a variety of settings, filters and profiles.

OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III: Lab tests

We've put the OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III through our battery of lab tests, but we are currently unable to analyze the results (until we can process OM's newest RAW format).

I will update this review as soon as we've completed the lab analysis.

Until then, given that this lens has the same optical formula as the previous iterations, you can expect almost identical performance.

OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III: Early verdict

While I need to wait until we can process our lab tests before I can officially assign a score to this lens, I'm familiar enough with its predecessors (with which it shares the same optical formula) and happy enough with the thousands of frames I've shot to say that the OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III performs well.

In real-world use I'm impressed with its sharpness, particularly wide and wide open at 14mm f/3.5 where it gives satisfying levels of crispness and crunch – dial it down to f/5.6 and you get pretty much all the bite you could possibly want.

However, I don't think sheer sharpness alone is really the metric by which this lens should be judged. It's a lens that costs you $100 / £100 / AU$300 if you buy it with a camera or $350 / £349 / AU$479 when bought on its own – for that price, the fact that it's impressively sharp and weather sealed is pretty dang amazing.

After thousands of shots on multiple camera bodies, I can safely conclude that I would be delighted to use this lens as my daily driver – which is its intended purpose. Yes, when I'm setting out to shoot something intentionally, I'll snap on a dedicated lens – like the M.Zuiko 45mm or 75mm f/1.8 for portraiture.

But as an everyday companion for my everyday carry camera, the the OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III does everything I could possibly ask of it – and does it well. It is the perfect lens to pair with the OM System PEN, but honestly I think it's an even better partner for the slightly chunkier OM-5 family.

The equivalent 28-84mm focal range is perfect for everyday shooting, with enviable close focusing, fast and faithful autofocus, and even support for in-camera focus stacking. If you want a cheap, compact, capable lens that shoots whatever you want, whatever the weather, you just found it.

As major camera brands shifted to mirrorless, Pentax has remained, perhaps a bit stubbornly, committed to the longstanding DSLR. But now, Pentax has discontinued production of every DSLR in its lineup – in order to make way for the development of “a new series of digital SLR cameras based on an entirely new concept.”

In an announcement shared on September 09, Ricoh announced that it is discontinuing production of all Pentax K-series DSLRs “in preparation for our transition to a new stage.”

The announcement reads: “Currently, we are re-examining the value of photography and developing a product that will allow more people to enjoy the act of taking pictures itself.

“It will still take some time before this product is released, but it will be a completely new concept digital SLR camera that will make full use of the assets of K-mount lenses that we have accumulated over more than half a century.”

Ricoh did not drop many hints as to what that “completely new concept digital SLR camera” will be, but made it clear that it will use the existing K-Mount lenses, will honor the SLR design and will be a digital – not film – camera.

A “completely new” concept built around the DSLR that has been around for 35 years will not be an easy task. The Pentax K-series originally launched in 2003. While the company remained committed to DSLRs as the biggest brands went mirrorless, the more recent Pentax cameras were known for sensor-shift stabilization – a design that also powered an unusual astrotracer feature.

The company’s comments also seem to hint that the upcoming DSLR will also be beginner-friendly:

“At Ricoh Imaging, we will continue to pursue the ideal style of SLR photography, and we want to deliver products that allow everyone who is interested in photography and wants to try using a camera to experience the joy of SLR photography and the wonder of photographs.”

The “joy of SLR photography” hints that Pentax’s upcoming “new concept” DSLR will likely be built heavily around the shooting experience. The idea that a camera should be fun to shoot is a growing concept amid the rise of screen-free cameras and retro camera designs. More smartphone users seem to be drawn to the idea of having a dedicated camera without the distractions of a smartphone.

While the DSLR now lags behind mirrorless technology in terms of features like resolution and subject detection autofocus, one of the DSLR’s endearing features is the optical viewfinder, rather than the mirrorless’ electronic one. The viewfinder is in the very definition of DSLR – digital single-lens reflex – as “reflex” refers to the reflex mirror that bounces the image from the lens up into the viewfinder.

With the rise of screen-free cameras and retro designs, perhaps the optical viewfinder could be poised for a comeback. But, the company is stressing that the upcoming camera will be “a completely new concept,” and new digital cameras inspired by old film cameras certainly are something that’s been done before – no matter how happy I would be to see a digital remake of the Pentax K1000.

The Ricoh brand certainly isn’t a stranger to creating a highly successful line of niche cameras. The Ricoh GR IV series of APS-C sensor compact cameras has repeatedly hit bestseller lists and sells so well that stock remains limited. But the launch was also perfectly timed amid the growing compact camera trend.

While Pentax is not the only camera maker still producing DSLRs, the brand was along in insisting that it wouldn’t move into the mirrorless space. (Or, at least, not again, as Pentax once offered the small-sensor Pentax Q mirrorless series).

Despite remaining committed to the DSLR, numbers from Japan hint that Pentax only shipped around 10,000 DSLRs last year compared to industry leader Canon’s 580,000 – a number that pales in comparison to Canon’s 2.3 million mirrorless cameras shipped.

DSLRs have been steadily declining over the last few years. In 2025, the number of DSLRs shipped out of Japan was just 11% of that of mirrorless cameras.

Pentax noted that the new concept DSLR “will take some time” and did not give an estimated arrival for the new launch.

While Pentax has now ended production of its K-series of cameras, the announcement does not include other non-DSLR cameras, like the Pentax WG-8 waterproof compact camera and the Pentax 17 half-frame film camera.

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Anamorphic lenses are well-loved for the cinematic quality of the wider view squeezed onto the frame, oval-shaped bokeh, and iconic horizontal flare – but most anamorphic lenses aren’t made for the social media era that demands vertical videos. But lensmaker Sirui wants to change that with a new trio of cinema lenses that are built to shoot anamorphic in horizontal or vertical positions.

The Sirui Saturn V2 is a trio of three prime lenses at 35mm, 50mm, and 75mm that are purpose-built to support 1.6x anamorphic shooting in both horizontal and vertical orientations. That dual orientation is made possible through a rotating anamorphic mechanism in each lens, so when the camera rotates, the lens can actually rotate too.

Traditional anamorphic lenses are built to fit a wider view onto the image sensor – and that ultra-wide view would need to be heavily cropped to fit in the vertical design for Reels and TikToks.

While most lenses work just fine when turning the camera to vertical, that’s not the case with anamorphic. The de-squeeze isn’t built for vertical shooting and isn't supported on the camera monitor, and the classic horizontal flare would then become vertical.

Sirui’s new trio of lenses – which are built for Sony E, Canon RF, and L-Mount, with Z mount arriving at a later date – use rotating optics in order to create the anamorphic look in the vertical format in-camera.

The Saturn V2 series – which was originally teased last month – isn’t the only anamorphic built for the content creator era. The Balazar Beetle series also supports rotation, and some PL-mount lenses also have a mount that allows them to be turned and re-mounted for vertical shooting.

But the Saturn V2 series arrives in this relatively new rotatable anamorphic category with a trio of bright T/2.9 lenses, a wider 1.6x anamorphic squeeze, along with an all-metal construction.

The lenses' design is built so that all three share the same focus ring position, so cinematographers don’t need to adjust the follow focus rigging when swapping between different focal lengths in the series. All three lenses also use the same 62mm filter size.

The lenses are priced at $599 / £529 each or $1,699 / £1,589 for a three-lens set. Australian pricing has not yet been announced, but that converts to about AU$830 for one lens or AU$2,354 for all three.

The lenses will be available in Sony E, Canon RF, and L-mount at launch, with a Nikon Z version expected to arrive with the second production batch.

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OM System has officially brought one of photography’s most recognizable camera names back into the spotlight, and the new OM System PEN is now available to pre-order.

In the US, the camera body is currently listed for $999.99 at both B&H Photo and Adorama, while photographers in the UK can pre-order it for £849 from Wex Photo Video, Park Cameras and London Camera Exchange.

It marks the first camera to be launched under the PEN name since OM System took over the Olympus imaging business – and on paper at least, this looks like far more than simply another retro-inspired mirrorless camera.

The PEN name has always been closely linked with small, beautifully designed cameras, and OM System is clearly keeping that philosophy alive. The new model uses a 20.4MP Micro Four Thirds Live MOS sensor paired with the TruePic IX processor, all packed into a body weighing just 393g with the battery and memory card installed.

There is also a built-in 2.36-million-dot OLED electronic viewfinder, something that immediately makes this new PEN feel like a more complete photographic tool rather than simply a compact interchangeable-lens camera designed around its rear screen. Better still, the body is IPX1 weather-resistant when used with an appropriate weather-sealed lens, bringing another genuinely useful feature to a camera designed to be carried everywhere.

Autofocus also represents a serious step forward. The new PEN features a 121-point all-cross-type phase-detection autofocus system, alongside AI-powered subject detection capable of recognizing people as well as cats and dogs. OM System has even included Starry Sky AF, while continuous shooting can reach an impressive 30fps at full resolution.

Combine that with 5-axis in-body image stabilization, which offers up to 5.5 stops of compensation at the center of the frame, and this suddenly becomes a small camera with specifications that should make it capable of considerably more than casual holiday snapshots. Street photography, travel, family photography and even fast-moving subjects are all firmly within its remit.

What interests me most, however, is how heavily OM System has leaned into getting photographers away from the computer. The camera features dedicated Color and Monochrome Profile Controls that let you adjust the look of your images in-camera, with a front-mounted Profile Control switch providing quick access.

Color profiles allow individual adjustment of 12 colors across 11 levels, while the monochrome controls enable photographers to play with filters, grain, tone, highlights, shadows and vignetting. It feels like OM System understands exactly why cameras with distinctive JPEG looks have become so appealing, particularly among street and everyday photographers who want to create a recognizable look without spending hours processing RAW files afterwards.

There is plenty of OM System’s computational photography technology packed inside as well. The PEN includes Handheld High Res Shot for producing 50MP images, alongside Tripod High Res Shot for 80MP shots, Live ND from ND2 through to ND16, Focus Stacking, HDR and Multiple Exposure modes.

Those features can be accessed using the dedicated Computational Photography button, making techniques that would traditionally require filters, a tripod, or considerable post-production work available directly inside the camera. For a body this compact, that is an impressive creative toolkit – and one that gives the PEN considerably more depth than its simple rangefinder-inspired exterior might initially suggest.

OM System has not forgotten video, either. The PEN can record DCI 4K at 24p and UHD 4K at up to 30p, along with Full HD at up to 60p and Slow & Quick-motion options. There is a 3.5mm microphone input, vertical video support and a recording tally light, while face and eye detection can help keep subjects in focus. But I suspect photography will remain the biggest attraction here.

At $999.99 in the US and £849 in the UK, the new OM System PEN lands in a fiercely competitive part of the camera market, but its combination of compact dimensions, interchangeable Micro Four Thirds lenses, an electronic viewfinder, weather resistance, powerful stabilization and extensive in-camera creative tools gives it plenty of personality. The PEN has always been about making serious photography easier to carry – and this new generation appears determined to keep that idea very much alive.

I recently wrote about how crap cameras are being snapped up in droves by a younger audience. This appeared to confirm image quality was no longer the be-all-and-end-all when seeking a dedicated capture device, as opposed to a smartphone.

While its toughened snapshot cameras have found fans in families with children and action shooters wanting a waterproof option, Ricoh cameras have typically been more closely associated with photography specialists than generalists.

Its GR1 camera from 1996, to choose one pertinent example, was a portably lightweight 35mm film compact. Its portable size, no-nonsense design and robust magnesium alloy build, complete with 28mm f/2.8 lens, made it a favourite of street and travel photographers wanting an alternative to a bulkier SLR set up.

Image quality was the aspect that most impressed. It delivered high contrast, detail-rich results for almost a decade before its GR Digital successor arrived in 2005. That it took almost ten years to be replaced highlights just how highly photographers rated it. Ricoh only stopped servicing the GR1 in 2014.

So, it’s no surprise that the digital GR series was well received in its wake and continues to be so. Successive iterations, including even more specialised black and white capture-only spin-offs, are currently bagging multiple placings in top ten camera sales listings, edging aside the likes of Canon and Nikon.

While we’re constantly told by industry watcher CIPA that the fixed lens compact is the only camera category still growing, I can’t imagine the same youthful Gen Z audience that is snapping up cheap and cheerful point-and-shoots is routinely adding a prosumer-grade GR camera from Ricoh to their online basket.

Instead, I’m encouraged and believe there’s still a large enough number of true photography enthusiasts wanting something portably compact, which doesn’t compromise on image quality, to propel Ricoh GR cameras to the top of the best seller lists.

What was once considered niche or specialist, has, in a shrinking market, risen to the top. Or something near it. Japan’s financial institution Nikkei recently reported Ricoh had boosted its camera market share from 0.8% to 2.1%, with its 210,000-unit sales triple that of the previous year.

The GR series’ unassumingly boxy design and serious all-black finish may not be as flashy as the Fujifilm X100IV, but for street photography, it’s the more sensible option.

I’m looking forward to seeing more of Ricoh’s recently teased 40mm f/2.8 GR IVx compact, promising a 25.74MP APS-C sized sensor, when it arrives at the back end of this year. Such spec will tempt photographers looking for something with a viewpoint sufficiently close to human vision for street photography. As well as highlighting that not all digital compacts need to be plastic-y, low-res toys to find favour in challenging times.

Ricoh also gives credence to the belief that sometimes by specialising, rather than attempting to be all things to all men, you can generate just as much, if not more, success.

Leica Camera Group has revealed its financial results for the 2025/26 financial year, reporting revenue of €573 million ($667m / £492m) despite what the company describes as a challenging international market.

While that represents a 3.8% decline from the record-breaking €596 million generated in the previous financial year, Leica says it has maintained its strong position in the global premium imaging market.

The results cover the period between April 2025 and March 2026, with Leica pointing towards geopolitical uncertainty, unfavorable exchange rates, and increasingly strict customs regulations as some of the major pressures facing the business. Photography remained the company’s primary revenue driver, while its Mobile division continued to deliver strong growth and demand across Leica’s Sports Optics business remained stable. The company also reported positive developments across its watches and accessories, Smart Projection home cinema products, and spectacle lens businesses.

The year was also an important one for the Leica brand itself, following celebrations marking 100 years since the introduction of the first Leica camera. Leica says strong demand for its limited-edition anniversary models, the reception to 24 international exhibitions, and continued interest in Leica Pre-Owned products helped demonstrate both the strength of the brand and the loyalty of its worldwide community. The company’s Leitz Photographica Auction business also continued to underline just how collectible historic Leica equipment has become, with a rare Leica prototype selling for a price that placed it among the most expensive cameras ever auctioned.

Product development was another major part of Leica’s strategy during the financial year. October 2025 saw the introduction of the Leica M EV1, the first M-series camera to feature an integrated electronic viewfinder, while January 2026 brought the Leica Noctilux-M 35, a compact and exceptionally fast M-System lens that uses elements manufactured through Leica’s precision glass molding technology. Leica also expanded its camera range with the rugged Leica SL3 Reporter and the Leica Q3 Monochrom, a dedicated black-and-white version of its popular fixed-lens full-frame camera.

Andreas Voll, CEO of Leica Camera AG, says:

“Leica is a company that stands for precision, craftsmanship, design, and photographic culture like almost no other. The company’s business performance demonstrates the Leica Camera Group’s successful strategic direction, with innovative premium-segment cameras and efforts around appealing to new target groups. With the Leica M EV1 – the first camera in the iconic M series to feature an integrated electronic viewfinder – as well as Leica’s first internationally available smartphone, the ‘Leica Leitzphone’, and the Leica Cine Compact 1 smart mini-projector, we have added key innovations to our premium product portfolio.”

The company is also continuing to invest heavily in its physical retail presence. Leica reported particularly strong growth in its home market of Germany and expanded its international store network into regions previously without a dedicated Leica presence.

Its combination of Leica Stores, e-commerce, auctions, and other direct sales channels has been refined over the past two decades, with online business contributing around 5% to the Group’s year-on-year revenue increase.

Open gate is the video buzzword nowadays, and despite the Nikon ZR boasting supreme image quality, internal 32-bit float audio, and a huge four-inch rear screen, I couldn’t help but be disappointed about the lack of open-gate recording. Well, not anymore! Kind of…

You see, Nikon’s big announcement yesterday was the development of a range of nine Z Cinema lenses, but it’s a firmware development announcement that’s really got me champing at the bit. Nikon has said that it’s developing firmware 2.00 for the Nikon ZR, and beyond that it’s developing several requested features, including open-gate recording and a de-squeeze display for anamorphic lenses. Nikon is aiming to roll these out at some point next year.

This is huge news for both existing and prospective Nikon ZR owners. Due to the ZR’s fanless design, I had assumed a lack of open gate was the compromise since it produces more heat, but clearly Nikon has found a workaround.

Nikon ZR: Firmware 2.00

What’s destined to arrive before then is firmware 2.00. This is currently scheduled for release before the end of the year and, according to Nikon, is set to feature…

• Support for Log3G10 and REDWideGamutRGB in H.265 video file type for a greater ability to stand up to color grading while keeping file sizes minimal
• A new [High ISO NR] option available with H.265 Log recording that enables imaging tailored to filming intent and the tone of the work
• Support for the focus peaking display with recording at an R3D NE1 video file type setting for more precise focus confirmation

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When OM System split from Olympus, the revived camera brand narrowed its focus to cameras built for the outdoors – and the company’s latest lens makes that outdoor push exceptionally clear. The new OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III, on the surface, is just a refreshed kit lens – but it also means that even some of the brand’s cheap optics are coming with weather-sealing now.

Launched alongside the long-awaited OM System PEN on September 09, the 14-42mm is a compact, budget kit lens. But while the lens comes at a $349 / CA$499 price – and even less when part of the PEN kit – the lens carries the same weather-sealed rating as the new camera body.

The new kit lens is IPX1 rated. That’s not as robust as OM System’s IP53 rating across its pricier camera bodies and lenses, but it’s impressive considering the price point. The X in the rating means it wasn’t tested for dust resistance, but the lens is sealed against rain and snow.

Mixed with the OM System PEN launch, there’s an obvious theme here – that even the brand’s most affordable options are beginning to arrive with some level of weather-resistance. The newly announced PEN is rare in its mix of weather-sealing and stabilization for the price point, but of course, the camera needs a sealed lens to go with it – and the M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III is that lens.

The lens continues the brand’s compact, lightweight kit lens design, coming in at 50.5mm / 1.98 inches long when retracted and 125g / 4.4 oz.

Beyond the zoom range, the kit lens aims for versatility by allowing autofocusing as close as .13m / 5.2 inches from the front of the lens. Adding in the Micro Four Thirds crop factor, that creates a magnification of up to .53x in 35mm equivalent.

An affordable kit lens launch like this probably won’t make many Micro Four Thirds shooters immediately rush out to buy one – but a weather-sealed camera without a weather-sealed lens isn’t really rain-resistant at all, so it’s nice to see OM System build an affordable sealed lens to go along with its new sealed camera.

The new kit lens will add $100 / £50 / CA$150 to the body-only price of the OM System PEN, but the new lens will also be sold separately for $350 / £349 / CA$499. Like the new camera, shipping is estimated to begin in late October in the US and late September / early October in Europe.

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The popular retro Olympus PEN series is entering its OM System era. The OM System PEN is a compact mirrorless camera mixing the PEN legacy with simple controls and a design that’s small enough – and durable enough – to want to carry every day.

The OM System PEN, announced on September 09, carries the same unstacked 20.4MP Micro Four Thirds sensor and TruPic IX image processor as cameras like the OM-5 Mark II, but revives the longtime favorite PEN series with its retro, rangefinder-inspired design and yet sits on the more affordable end of OM System’s lineup.

Take a look at a guided tour of the camera:

The PEN has an unusual mix of stabilization and weather-sealing for the price

Price-wise, the PEN slots in between the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV and the OM System OM-5 Mark II, making the new camera one of the brand’s most affordable options, second only to the last remaining camera to carry the Olympus name.

Priced at $999 / £849 / AU$1,499, the OM System PEN brings two features that are difficult to find in this price bracket of mirrorless category: weather-sealing and in-body image stabilization.

The OM System PEN isn’t just weather-sealed but rated as IPX1 splashproof. That rating isn’t as robust as the IP53 rating for most of OM System’s higher-priced cameras, but weather-sealing is rare among budget-priced cameras and rarer still to come with an official IP rating. The IPX1 rating means the camera is rated to withstand rain (but not water spraying from every direction), while the X means that the camera wasn’t tested for dust resistance.

The OM System PEN also houses a stabilization system rated for 5.5 stops.

Weather-sealing and stabilization are arguably the two biggest features that OM System is known for, as the camera brand has positioned itself as an outdoor camera brand in the wake of the split from Olympus. With the launch of the PEN, even the cheapest mirrorless camera that carries the OM System name has those two features.

Finding both stabilization and weather-sealing in a mirrorless camera under $1,000 is hard to do without picking up an older or used model – though not impossible. The similarly priced Nikon Z50 II is weather-sealed but doesn’t have IBIS. Canon’s cheapest mirrorless with both weather-sealing and IBIS is the EOS R7 ($1,499 / £1,349 / AU$1,799); Sony’s is the A6600 ($1,399 / £1,450 / discontinued in AU), and Fujifilm doesn’t get to both features until the X-T5 ($1,699 / £1,399 / AU$2,699).

The biggest competition to the PEN for bringing both stabilization and weather-sealing is fellow Micro Four Thirds camera maker Panasonic, which offers five-axis sensor-shift stabilization with splash and dust seals on the Lumix G97 at about $850 / £899 / AU$1,499 with a lens.

The OM System PEN is the first in the PEN series to include weather-sealing, a move that makes a lot of sense for what the camera is meant for. OM System is targeting this camera both towards beginners and photographers looking for an everyday carry camera – and it’s hard to carry a camera every day if that camera can’t withstand a little rain.

The OM System PEN still maintains a gap between the brand’s next camera up in the lineup – the OM-5 Mark II – however. The OM-5 Mark II has better IP53 weather-sealing and up to 7.5 stops of stabilization, but also faster performance at 10 fps with a mechanical shutter to the PEN’s 6 fps. The PEN’s electronic shutter can also reach 30fps, but focus is fixed on the first frame.

Both the PEN and OM-5 Mark II share a 121-point autofocus system, though the PEN also has pet and human eye subject detection (albeit in stills only).

The OM System PEN keeps a retro but easy-to-use design

Like earlier PEN cameras, the newest addition to the series uses a viewfinder that’s placed off in the corner, rangefinder-style rather than the SLR-style centered placement. While the camera favors a retro design, the dials and controls are geared more towards simplicity and usability, featuring a more traditional mode dial. OM System describes it as “a timeless design for the joy of photography.”

But, like earlier digital PEN cameras, the 2026 PEN still has a dedicated control dial for creative control to easily switch between different color or monochrome looks. The PEN has the same color profiles as the OM-3, including the ability to customize different looks, but OM System is also launching an update to the OI.Share app that allows tweaking color recipes in the app and uploading to the camera – including creating new recipes based on an inspiration photo.

The PEN’s touchscreen is tilt-capable and includes a selfie mode that triggers shots with the touchscreen when flipped forward.

Alongside weather-sealing and stabilization, computational photography remains a big push for OM System, and the PEN features a dial just for those modes as well, including high-res mode, live NDs, and focus stacking. Additional modes, such as multiple exposures, are available inside the camera’s menu.

The OM System PEN is more geared towards stills, but the camera does offer 4K shooting, both vertical and horizontal videos, and the wider dynamic range modes OM-Cinema1 and OM-Cinema2, along with supporting the same creative controls for stills for shooting video.

The Olympus PEN series has long been a favorite among retro camera fans, spanning both the original film camera in 1959 to modern digital options like the 2016 Olympus PEN-F. The OM System PEN aims to pay homage to that inspiration as a camera that’s beginner-friendly, but that more serious photographers may want to reach for as a compact, everyday carry camera – and the weather-sealing and stabilization mixed with the retro design will go a long way towards those goals.

The weather-sealing makes the new OM System PEN slightly thicker than the PEN F, but the mirrorless still comes in at a compact 43.4mm depth and a lightweight 393g – including a new battery that’s rated to 410 shots.

The OM System PEN is expected to begin shipping in late October in the US, or late September / early October in Europe, along with the newly announced kit lens, the M.Zuiko Digital 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III.

Pre-orders have already opened at several retailers. The camera, available in black or silver, retails for $999 / £850 / AU$1,499.99 / CA$1,399 body only, or $1,099 / £999 / AU$1,799.99 / CA$1,549 with the kit lens. In North America, the camera will also be offered in a two-lens kit for $1,299 / CA$1,799 with 14-42mm and 40-150mm lenses.

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In my heart of hearts, I knew that the OM System PEN wasn't going to be a named successor to the Olympus PEN-F. But while it doesn't carry the "F", this new PEN is absolutely a spiritual successor to the PEN-F. And in every way possible – perhaps including its looks – it's a better camera.

I know that OM System can be a tough sell for some people, so let's quickly take an objective look at what the OM System PEN offers for the price.

For just $999 / £849 you get a camera that's weather-sealed, has in-body image stabilization (IBIS) and an electronic viewfinder (EVF), is loaded with pro features like 30fps Pro Capture, has computational photography tools like simulated ND filters (Live ND) and 80MP High Res Shot, has algorithmic autofocus (including astrophotography) and packs a stack of film-inspired picture profiles.

On top of all that, the OM System PEN is one of the best-looking retro cameras on the market. Seriously, aside from a sensor size prejudice, what's not to like about it?

Okay, there are a couple of things – like the 8-bit video, though honestly this is a stills-first camera to its core – but overall this is a frankly obscene amount of firepower in a camera that's sublimely small and effortlessly cool.

Take a look at my quick guided tour of the camera:

OM System PEN: Specifications

OM System PEN: Price & availability

The OM System PEN will be available in both silver and black in late September / early October with a price tag of $999 / £849 / AU$1,499 body only.

It will also be available in a bundle with the new, weather-sealed OM System M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III kit lens (a 28-84mm equivalent) for $1,099 / £949 / AU$1,799.

In the US and Australia, a double-lens kit that adds the M.Zuiko 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 R lens (80-300mm equivalent) will also be available for $1,299 / AU$2,099.

For reference, Fujifilm's cheapest body with weather sealing, IBIS and an EVF is the Fujifilm X-T5 at $1,999 / £1,699, while Canon's cheapest is the Canon EOS R7 at $1,649 / £1,449. (Call me churlish, but I'm discounting the Panasonic Lumix G97 due to its primitive contrast-based AF system.)

OM System PEN: Build & handling

The OM System PEN is almost identical in size to the PEN-F, with handling that's very familiar all-round – from the rangefinder-like positioning of the EVF on the left shoulder to the presence of the Profile Control switch on the front.

While it doesn't boast the same premium heft and construction as the PEN-F (as in, don't expect a single block of milled aluminum), in the hand it drives much as the F did – only this time you have the benefit of IPX1-certified weather sealing and operation in environments from 32°F / 0° to 104°F / 40°C.

Another big upgrade from the PEN-F is the presence of a dedicated memory card door on the side of the body – rather than stowing the card in the battery compartment, which these days is a mark of entry-level cameras.

Another upgrade for many, and something that has been adopted from the Olympus PEN E-P7 (a brilliant 2021 camera that was only released in Europe), is the repositioning of the power switch to the right-hand side of the top plate.

This makes it possible to turn on and operate the camera one-handed, for quickfire street shooting – or, as my friend Emily from Micro Four Nerds calls it – "Festival Mode". I personally never use a camera this way, but I know how important it is for a lot of photographers.

Also making its way across from the E-P7 is the aforementioned Profile Control switch, rather than the full Creative Dial from the PEN-F.

This is a simple flip switch that enables you to access the picture profiles menu while shooting, giving you access to the Color and Mono profiles, along with Color Profile Control and general recipe settings. (The Creative Dial offered dedicated positions for Color, Mono, Art (Filters) and CRT – the Color Creator / Profile menu.)

The battery compartment at the bottom contains a brand new battery design for OM, the squat (almost square) BLS-7. CIPA rates the battery as good for 410 shots (or 80-130 minutes of video), but I've got well over 600 shots out of a battery before recharging.

OM System PEN: Performance

The OM System PEN embodies everything that I've always loved about the PEN family, dating all the way back to the original E-P1 in 2009 (which was Olympus' first ever mirrorless camera).

It's a quick, nimble camera with agile autofocus that enables you to react instantly to the world around you. Paired with the compact new M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 III kit lens, it's a weather-sealed and near-pocketable marvel – making this a truly take-anywhere, shoot anything, whatever the weather setup.

True to the PEN ethos, "as simple as pen and paper", this camera can be used as a straight-up point-and-shoot; stick it in auto or semi-auto and it's a fire-and-forget snapper that gives you great results. But the more you investigate the many magic tricks up its sleeves, the more you realize what a creative powerhouse this thing really is.

Like Fujifilm cameras, the OM System PEN is loaded with film-inspired picture profiles and a slew of Art Filters. So, if you want to level up your images, you can enable a profile or filter and effectively "pre-produce" your image – giving you gorgeous JPEGs, straight out of camera, with no need to tinker in post production.

Want to jazz things up even more? You can fine-tune these profiles or dive into the Color Creator to customize the presets or make your own photo recipes.

You can even upload and share these using the OI.Share app (which, for my money, is the best companion camera app on the market if for no other reason that it actually works – and is brilliant for transferring files and remote shooting).

Want to get even more creative? Use the CP button to unlock a suite of computational photography features, including Live ND – a software-powered set of neutral density filters, enabling you to shoot long-exposure movement shots without the need for physical lens filters.

Or how about High Res Shot mode, which enables you to capture 80MP RAW images for those moments when you want hyper texture and detail – but without being bogged down by the everyday bulk of a medium format camera.

Experiment with in-camera focus stacking, shoot a spot of astrophotography with Starry Sky Autofocus, try light painting with Live Composite, shoot fast action like a professional with 30fps Pro Capture (which records the 12 frames before you fully press the shutter, so you never miss the magic moment)…

There is so much creative potential packed into the OM System PEN that you will become a more versatile and more adventurous photographer almost by osmosis.

But there are, of course, some limitations. The biggest one, as is ever the case with OM System and Olympus cameras, is the resolution; while Panasonic has graduated to 25MP sensors, OM is still using trusty 20MP affairs (for reference, this is the same one found in the OM-5 Mark II).

Personally, this makes no odds to me. As I've said before, ad nauseum, this is more than enough resolution for anything shy of larger physical prints; I have magazine covers and double-page spreads shot on 20MP and even 16MP OM / Olympus sensors. And if you do need the extra pixels for printing, High Res Shot gives you 80 million of them.

Really, though, the biggest limitation comes in terms of video; given that this camera uses the OM-5 Mark II sensor, you can only shoot 8-bit video. And while the OM System PEN adds the subject detection AF (for humans and animals) that was sorely missing from the OM-5, it only works for stills – not video.

In short, this isn't a vlogging camera; it's a pretty pure photography camera. If you want to shoot a bit of video for social media, or you need to snag a bit of B-roll, it's ideal – but moving pictures are absolutely secondary to still images. But make no mistake, those still images are stunning.

OM System PEN: Sample images

OM System PEN: Lab tests

While we've put the OM System PEN through our battery of lab tests, we are currently unable to process the results (until we can adequately de-crunch OM's newest RAW format).

I will update this review as soon as we've completed the lab analysis.

Until then, given that it uses the same sensor, you can probably expect the same ballpark performance as the OM System OM-5 Mark II's lab results.

OM System PEN: Verdict

I've been waiting half a decade for this camera; it's the first new member of the PEN family since the E-P7 launched way back in 2021 (which, incidentally, was also the first camera released after OM System splintered off from Olympus).

Some will opine that the OM System PEN isn't a PEN-F II. And I hear that, because few people wanted a PEN-F II more than me. But I'll be absolutely honest – this camera pretty much is a PEN-F II in everything but name.

The image quality is better. The stabilization is better. The autofocus is leagues better. The video, while limited, is also way better. It's IPX1 weather-sealed. And it's stuffed to the gills with clever computational features.

Heck, it's arguably better looking, too – though I'm sure plenty of people will pick a fight with me over that one.

Truthfully? There is now precisely zero reason for me to pick up my PEN-F. This new PEN does everything the F could, just bigger, better, more.

In terms of function, this camera feels a lot like the OM-5 Mark II – though I'd argue that the PEN is actually better thanks to the addition of the Profile Control switch and especially subject detection autofocus (which was the only real weakness of the OM-5, though it does boasts slightly better sealing).

However, as much as I'm inclined to compare it to other OM offerings, my biggest takeaway is actually how the OM System PEN compares to the Panasonic Lumix L10. And I should preface this by saying that I love shooting with the L10.

But the PEN is smaller and lighter. It's weather-sealed. It has IBIS. It's got dual exposure dials. In other words, it ticks all the boxes that the L10 missed – and of course, you can also change the lenses. Sure, the L10 absolutely annihilates it for video, but let's be real – nobody is buying the Lumix primarily for video, and the same is true of the PEN.

I would argue that anyone considering the L10 would be better off (quite literally, where cash is concerned) opting for the PEN. Not only does it offer acres more creative capacity, you'll also struggle to outgrow it – unlike the Lumix, which will leave you wanting the moment you fancy trying macro or telephoto photography.

The OM System PEN is the best bang-for-buck body on the market (not to mention one of, if not the, best-looking) and without a doubt the best everyday carry camera available for photography purists.

It’s like I always say: “You can’t put a good full-frame DSLR down!” Despite mirrorless cameras dominating the interchangeable-lens market, people are still buying up full-frame DSLR cameras. And while many have disappeared from the shelves of official retailers completely, a select few stalwarts are still available to buy new.

And it’s not hard to see why. The best DSLR cameras are reliable and of high quality, and in the case of Canon and Nikon especially, they open you up to a veritable smorgasbord of used lenses that you can pick up for some very low prices indeed. If you’re a photographer on a budget looking for a decent lens platform, a full-frame DSLR may still be the way to go.

It’s true that a lot of DSLR tech now lags behind mirrorless offerings, such as burst speeds, autofocus and video, but provided you’re happy with the resolution, image quality has remained largely unchanged, and plenty of full-frame DSLRs boast premium pro-grade features such as extensive weather sealing and optional battery grips.

Personally, if you’re working on a budget and want to pick up a full-frame DSLR, my recommendation would be to visit a reputable used retailer such as KEH (US), MPB (US/UK) or LCE (UK). That’s because even very good condition used DSLRs tend to be a lot cheaper than new retail prices.

What full-frame DSLRs can you buy new?

I decided to look at US retailer B&H Photo and UK retailer Wex Photo Video to find out what full-frame DSLRs are still available to buy new, and I was surprised by the choice.

Even though some of the models, such as the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV and Nikon D750, have been officially discontinued, stock is still lingering on shelves in some cases. My own personal favorite DSLR of all time is the Nikon D850, a camera I used to own and in my mind – and in the mind of many others – one of the greatest cameras ever made.

Ultimately, we really are in the twilight years of the DSLR. As it stands, Pentax remains the last bastion of modern DSLR development, with both Canon and Nikon having quietly shelved DSLR development in favor of a mirrorless future. Still, if you’re a stills photographer first and foremost and don’t need all of the cutting-edge tech, you could do a lot worse than a full-frame DSLR and a good set of compatible lenses.

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Want more camera buying guides? Take a look at the best Canon cameras and the best Nikon cameras, as well as the best Pentax cameras.

Fujifilm’s cinema camera just got both a dedicated eyelevel viewfinder and support for controlling and monitoring the camera with an oversized iPad screen. On Tuesday, September 09, Fujifilm announced two key updates to the GFX Eterna 55: an upcoming viewfinder as well as a new mobile app for both iOS and iPadOS.

The two updates create additional workflow options for working with Fujifilm’s first dedicated cinema camera, the GFX Eterna 55. The launches bring both a distraction-free viewfinder option and the ability to control focus and zoom and monitor what the camera sees using a mobile app.

Eterna ProRemote brings monitoring and remote controls to iPhone and iPad

The app, Eterna ProRemote, is set to launch first, with an arrival slated for mid September 2026. While the cinema camera comes with a detachable 5-inch monitor that can be rigged to the camera’s box-style design from multiple attachment points, the app offers filmmakers another option for monitoring and control, even when the camera’s controls may be inaccessible, such as in certain crane and rigged setups.

The Externa ProRemote can connect in three different ways, depending on what the filmmaker needs to control. A simple Bluetooth connection allows for a quick connection and access to controls to start and stop the recording, control zoom, and save or copy settings, but doesn’t offer live view.

An advanced single-camera Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connection mode adds live view without requiring an access code, while an advanced Wi-Fi or Wired LAN connection requires an access code but supports live view for up to four cameras, as well as remote recording.

Fujifilm says that the app can also adjust the camera’s focus, iris, and zoom parameters. But the app also supports multiple advanced monitoring tools, including waveform, vectorscope, and histogram.

The app will also allow creators to save and load custom camera settings.

The Fujifilm VF-GFXC2 is a new viewfinder built for the Eterna 55

While the new app is expected to arrive by the end of the month, the Eterna 55’s new viewfinder, the VF-GFXC2, is expected to debut sometime before the end of 2026. The electronic viewfinder offers a 2048x1536 resolution in a native 4:3 aspect ratio, built for the cinema camera’s open-gate shooting.

Adding the viewfinder to the cinema camera supports enhanced visibility in bright scenes, where reflections may make the camera’s screen more challenging to read. An eyecup helps block light, while the viewfinder itself is designed with a cylindrical shape for gripping and the same machined aluminum exterior as the camera body itself.

Along with a diopter, the viewfinder also has several function buttons built in, giving filmmakers quick access to shortcuts like a 1.0x magnification mode to check focus.

Fujifilm has not yet announced a price or shipping date for the VF-GFXC2.

The simultaneous launch of both a dedicated viewfinder and a mobile app shows Fujifilm is continuing to expand on the GFX Eterna 55, the brand’s first dedicated cinema camera that boasts a 102MP medium format sensor.

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Sony has made just about every conventional lens you could ask for at this point, so perhaps it was inevitable that things were going to get a little more niche.

The Sony FE 8-14mm F3.5 Fisheye G is Sony’s first fisheye lens for its full-frame E-mount system, and rather than starting with a straightforward prime, Sony has gone straight for a zoom capable of switching between circular and diagonal fisheye perspectives.

At 8mm, the lens offers a 180-degree field of view with the familiar circular fisheye image, and zoom up to 14mm, and the image gradually expands until it fills the whole frame. It's definitely more flexible than the typical fisheye prime, but it's still a unique perspective and is going to complement rather than replace any of the best Sony lenses already in your bag.

Specifications

Price

The Sony FE 8-14mm F3.5 Fisheye G is set to cost $1,599 / £1,499 / €1,700 at launch.

Calling $1,599 cheap would clearly be stretching things, but I actually think Sony pitching this as part of the G series is a smart move, rather than being transformed into a G Master lens with a corresponding price tag. Fisheyes are maybe a lens that comes out more occasionally for most photographers, so perhaps not worth dedicating a large portion of a lens budget to.

If you do only want to dip a toe in extreme wide-angle, there are plenty of much, much cheaper fisheyes from third-party manufacturers. The Laowa 8-15mm f/2.8 FF Zoom Fisheye lens offers a nearly like-for-like focal length (albeit without autofocus) for around $700, or 7Artisans will sell you a fixed 7.5mm f/2 Fisheye lens for about $150.

Sony’s advantage is that this is considerably more sophisticated than most of those alternatives, particularly thanks to its autofocus, internal zoom, and flexible focal range, but you'll pay for those advancements.

Design & Handling

The first thing that struck me when the Sony 8-14mm arrived was just how impressively small it is. I knew the dimensions beforehand (314g and 82.8mm long), but I was still shocked when I actually pulled it out of the box. Mounted on the Sony A7 V, it looks petite.

Fortunately, Sony hasn't achieved that by stripping everything useful from the barrel. This has the usual reassuring G-series build quality with dust and moisture resistance. Alongside the zoom ring, there is an aperture ring that can be de-clicked for video, a manual focus ring, a zoom lock switch, a customizable button and a focus-mode switch.

The lens also uses an internal zoom, which is particularly welcome for videographers, as nothing changes externally as you move between 8mm and 14mm, which makes balancing the lens on a gimbal considerably easier.

My only irritation with the design is the lens hood. At 8mm (up until around 11mm), it has to be removed entirely because otherwise it would encroach on the circular image. That is understandable because, well, physics, but repeatedly taking the hood on and off becomes a little frustrating. You could leave it off permanently, but I would be reluctant to, as that large curved front element looks extremely vulnerable without anything protecting it.

That bulbous front element also rules out conventional screw-in filters, so Sony has included a rear filter holder instead. I’m glad it is there, although anyone already invested heavily in conventional circular filters may find themselves having to buy a few more accessories.

Performance

A fisheye lens is always a unique one to review, as it really comes down a lot to how much you like the fisheye look. Fisheyes also can't really be so easily judged by the same metrics as other lenses – distortion is basically the entire point.

At 8mm, the Sony produces the full circular fisheye effect, surrounded by the characteristic black border around the image area. As you zoom through the range, the image circle expands until it fills the frame, hitting the corners at around 13-14mm. Basically, there is still an obvious fisheye look through most of the zoom range, although the effect becomes progressively less dramatic toward the long end.

Optically, I was pleasantly surprised. Sharpness in the center is very good, but what impressed me most was how well detail holds together toward the edges. Given how aggressively the lens is bending the scene, I expected considerably more of a drop-off.

At 8mm, zooming right into images reveals slightly less crisp detail than I saw at 14mm around the edges, especially wide open, but in real-world viewing I don't think most people would notice. Fringing and chromatic aberration are also remarkably well controlled for something this wide, although there is a telltale blue ring around the outside of the circle, but this can be tackled in post if you don't like the look.

One thing to note: at 14mm, the lens is a diagonal fisheye by design. This lens does not have the flat rendering of a conventional rectilinear 14mm prime. So there is still noticeable distortion toward the corners. Lightroom can pull some of this back, although not completely.

Autofocus is excellent. It feels every bit as quick and reliable as any other recent Sony G lens I have used, and it had no issue tracking human subjects in my testing. Sony also says it can keep up with 120fps stills shooting and 240p video autofocus on compatible cameras.

The 0.15m minimum focusing distance also lets you get extremely close. Whether you actually want an extreme fisheye close-up is another question entirely, but if it works for you creatively, then it's possible.

My only minor disappointment is when it comes to video. While I can't fault the autofocus speed or the image quality, video cropping does spoil the perfect circular fisheye look.

Slow to embrace open gate, most Sony cameras use a 16:9 crop for video, which cuts off the edges of the image circle at 8mm – and that's without any electronic image stabilization on.

If you do need Sony's Active or Dynamic Active stabilization – for example, shooting sports like skateboarding, which this lens is perfect for – then it cuts into the circular image much further. You still get a unique look, but I wish I could preserve that perfect circular image.

Note: If you are looking for our usual lab testing results, unfortunately, we are unable to test fisheye lenses, as it's impossible to frame our testing chart with a 180º field of view!

Verdict

Sony's first-party full-frame lineup has been sorely missing a fisheye, but it has finally delivered one, and I think it was worth the wait. The Sony FE 8-14mm f/3.5 Fisheye G is surprisingly small, reassuringly well built, quick to focus, and optically much better than I expected from such an extreme design.

The real advantage, though, is the zoom. Being able to move from a circular fisheye at 8mm to a full-frame perspective at 14mm gives it considerably more creative flexibility than a fixed fisheye prime. I found that made it much easier to experiment with different compositions, and it was just a lot of fun to shoot with.

Although there is no getting around the fact that this remains a niche optic. At $1,599, it is a significant investment for something many photographers may only pull out occasionally, and there are far cheaper ways to experiment with fisheye photography. But I am glad Sony resisted the temptation to turn this into an even more expensive G Master.

For photographers, filmmakers, and content creators who genuinely want/need these extreme perspectives, the FE 8-14mm f/3.5 Fisheye G is a compact and impressively polished addition to Sony's lineup.

Alternatives

Sony’s early push into full-frame mirrorless means the E-Mount lens family has a wealth of different options, but one category has remained suspiciously absent until now: A fisheye. The Sony FE 8-14mm f/3.5 Fisheye G is the first Sony-branded fisheye for the mirrorless E-Mount system.

Announced on September 8, the Sony 8-14mm brings the ultra-wide distortion the lens type is known for into the E-Mount system with a bit of control. At 8mm, the lens shoots the classic round fisheye image on a black border, but at 14mm, the zoom becomes a rectilinear fisheye that fills the frame yet still has that extreme curved barrel distortion.

The lens can also shoot two different looks – equidistant or equisolid. Under the default distortion compensation-off settings, the lens is more “equidistant,” with a more even image distribution and less enlargement at the center. The lens creates an ”equisolid” look where the center looks larger, and the edges look more compressed with distortion compensation set to auto. (Shooting in RAW, the distortion settings can be adjusted after the shot with Sony Imaging Edge Desktop.)

The E-Mount system has a small handful of third-party fisheye options, but the lenses that mix a circular and rectilinear look in one using zoom are manual-focus-only options like the Laowa 8-15mm f/2.8 FF Zoom Fisheye.

That’s not the case with Sony’s first mirrorless fisheye, which uses two autofocus motors that Sony says are capable of keeping up with cameras with 120fps autofocus readouts.

The lens can focus as close as .15m / 5.91 inches from the front of the lens, creating some .22x closeup opportunities mixed with unusual fisheye distortion.

The Sony 8-14mm Fisheye is unusually narrow and compact, considering the optics needed for an ultra-wide view tend to create bulky lenses. But Sony’s streamlined design for the new fisheye is very much on purpose.

Besides the 314g weight making the lens easier to carry around – and smaller and lighter than the Laowa fisheye zoom – the lens is unusually narrow. That’s in part because Sony built the lens to also work with the Venus extension system to create a 3D VR setup with two lenses side-by-side.

For video, a 16:9 aspect ratio will crop the top and bottom of circular images, but cameras with 3:2 Open Gate can preserve the full circle.

The lens’ design also includes a focus lock switch for shooting astrophotography, as well as a zoom lock switch and seals for dust and moisture resistance.

I was able to shoot a few photos on the new Sony 8-14mm Fisheye mounted on the A7 V. Fisheye lenses create a bit of a quirky look that doesn’t work for every genre, but I found shooting with Sony’s fisheye to be far more fun than I expected.

Images are sharp and colorful, but mixed with the highly exaggerated perspectives of a fisheye. The only problem that I ran into is that the hood does need to be removed for shooting at 8mm – that and, as someone who doesn’t normally shoot with a fisheye, I had to constantly check the edges and make sure I didn’t accidentally get my own feet inside the ultra-wide 180-degree perspective.

The Sony FE 8-14mm f/3.5 Fisheye G will begin shipping in early October, with an expected list price of about $1,599 / £1,499 / CA$1,999.

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Leica has released a new firmware update for the Leica Sofort 2, bringing improved Bluetooth security and a handful of under-the-hood fixes to its hybrid instant camera.

Firmware version 1.2.1 is now available to download, and while this is certainly not the sort of update that suddenly transforms the Sofort 2 with new Filmstyles, Lensstyles, or photographic features, it is still an important update for owners – particularly anyone who regularly connects the camera to the Leica Fotos app.

The headline change is encrypted Bluetooth communication. Leica says the new firmware makes the Sofort 2 fully compliant with Article 3.3 of the EU Radio Equipment Directive (2014/53/EU), with the Bluetooth security update forming the most noticeable part of the release. There is one thing owners need to know before installing it, however: once firmware 1.2.1 has been installed, the Sofort 2 will need to be paired with your device again.

That is particularly worth knowing with the Sofort 2 because connectivity is quite a big part of what makes this camera interesting. The hybrid instant camera can pair with the Leica FOTOS app via Bluetooth, allowing images to be transferred to a smartphone while also enabling remote control. Images stored on a smartphone – including photographs captured using other Leica cameras and stored inside the Leica Gallery – can also be transferred to the Sofort 2 and printed.

Beyond the Bluetooth changes, Leica simply lists "bug fixes in the firmware," without going into detail about exactly which issues have been addressed. So, don't expect firmware 1.2.1 to dramatically alter how the Sofort 2 shoots. Instead, this looks to be primarily a security, compliance, and stability release – but considering how much the Sofort 2 relies on its digital connectivity, I would still consider this an update worth installing.

For those unfamiliar with Leica's instant camera, the Sofort 2 takes a rather different approach from a traditional instant model. It is a hybrid digital and instant camera built around a 4.9MP sensor and a Leica Summar lens providing approximately a 28mm full-frame equivalent field of view. Crucially, you can review your photographs before deciding which ones deserve to become physical prints, rather than committing a sheet of instant film every time you press the shutter. It also offers 10 Filmstyles and 10 Lensstyles for adding different looks and effects.

Firmware 1.2.1 can be installed conveniently through the Leica Fotos app or manually through the Sofort 2's camera menu. Leica notes that registered users and Leica Fotos users should also receive notifications about new firmware releases. Those installing manually should make sure the battery is fully charged and avoid switching the camera off or removing the memory card or battery while the update is running.

The Leica Sofort 2 firmware 1.2.1 update and its accompanying release notes are available now from Leica's official download page.

Shop Leica Sofort 2

Designed as a true hybrid all-rounder, the Sony A7 V delivers flagship-inspired speed and autofocus (AF) in a more affordable body – and these deals at Park Cameras let you save up to £1,448.90.

The Sony A7 V + 24-105mm f/4 G OSS is now £3,399 – save £329 off the original £3,728 price.

The Sony A7 V + 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II is now £3,999 – save £699 off the original £4,698 price.

The Sony A7 V + 70-200mm f/2.8 GM II is now £4,399 – save £799 off the original £5,198 price.

The Sony A7 V + 50-150mm f/2 GM is now £5,699 – save £519 off the original £6,218 price.

Deals

Offers

• Eligible for £200 Trade in Bonus : Trade in any Interchangeable Lens Camera and get a £200 bonus. Click here to get your quote
• Free 2 year warranty: 1 year extended warranty + standard 12 months warranty when you register with Sony

Top choice: Sony A7 V

The Sony A7 V is Sony's latest full-frame all-rounder, combining fast performance with some of the smartest AF technology the brand has produced to date.

It features a new sensor and AI-powered subject detection system, delivering faster burst shooting and more reliable tracking for everything from portraits to wildlife.

In our review, we praised its major AF upgrades, blackout-free 30fps shooting, and refined handling.

While rival cameras offer stronger video specs, the A7 V remains one of the most capable hybrid cameras for photographers who want a single body that can do almost everything.

Browse the best lenses for the Sony A7 V

It’s been a slow year for Nikon. I’ve been champing at the bit for a big release, and while I’ll have to settle for a development announcement, it doesn’t come much bigger than this. Nikon has just announced the development of not one, but nine Z Cinema lenses. The news comes almost a year after the launch of the ‘Big N’s’ first cinema camera, the Nikon ZR, making this a huge step forward for the legendary Japanese manufacturer’s video ambitions.

What we know about Nikon’s cine lenses

Only one of the nine lenses has been confirmed thus far: the Z Cinema 50mm T1.9 VV. However, Nikon has confirmed that the entire range will feature the same T-stop and “highly precise” autofocusing mechanisms.

The eagle-eyed will notice the ‘VV’ designation at the end of the lens series’ name. This is because each lens in the series will have an image circle that can accommodate RED’s large-format V-Raptor [X] VV sensor, measuring 40.96 x 21.60mm.

This is a clever move. Accommodating both formats opens up the possibility of cross-compatibility between Nikon and RED products. Presumably, this would mean that if you’re shooting with a V-Raptor [X] Z Mount, you’ll be able to pick up a Nikon ZR as a second body and share the same lenses without having to worry about vignetting.

Nikon ZR is getting open gate?

And that’s not all; the news comes alongside the announcement that Nikon is developing firmware update 2.00 for the Nikon ZR, and is also developing future firmware in a bid to convert the camera to open-gate recording.

Nikon has only released two lenses this year and no cameras, while also announcing the development of the Nikon Z 120-300mm f/2.8 TC VR S. And while I’d still love to see a big camera release before the year is out, this latest development announcement is proof that Nikon’s got plenty in the works. Roll on 2027!

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Retro is a much-bandied-about term in photography nowadays – but it isn't that often we see something that actually looks like it has been beamed from another era entirely. The latest lens from SG-Image is different. With its metal body, the AF 35mm f/1.4 prime for APS-C mirrorless cameras looks like something that has come the 1950s, with a crenellated focusing control that makes it look like something you'd find in an antique store.

But despite its looks, this is actually an autofocus lens - and has a wide maximum aperture of f/1.4. We have read from reports from Asia, that will be first be available for Fujifilm X-mount mirrorless cameras – taking their already-retro aesthetic to a whole new level of vintage nostalgia.

According to a report on Technetbooks, the lens uses an optical design with seven elements in six groups. There will also be a choice of three different colors – 3 silver, black, and a two-tone black-and-silver design. The lens has a closest focusing distance of 0.35m and takes a 52mm filter.

The lens retails for 649 yuan in China – which translates to around $98 / £72 / AU$135. A bundle version that comes with a metal lens hood will sell for 699 yuan (around $105 /£78 / AU$145).

Available initially in Fujifilm X mount, Sony E and Nikon Z options are expected to follow.

Most people don't realize this, but Sigma has never made an 85mm f/1.2 lens. The fastest it has ever gone is f/1.4 – until now. After teasing its development back at CP+ 2026 in February, the Sigma 85mm f/1.2 DG Art is finally here – and it's every bit as beautiful as I'd hoped.

This focal length and aperture combination produces, for my money, the best lens for portraits. And with Canon and Nikon having set incredible standards, Sigma had a lot to live up to. But, boy oh boy, did it live up to them.

The first thing that hit me when I took the Sigma 85mm f/1.2 DG Art out of its box is how small it is. For reference, the Canon RF 85mm f/1.2L weighs 1,195g and is over 117mm long – while the Nikon Z 85mm f/1.2 S tips the scales at 1,160g and is even longer at over 141mm.

The Sigma? It's a mere 950g and 120mm – making it the world's smallest and lightest 85mm f/1.2 (with autofocus). Seriously, seeing it next to my Canon is like a before-and-after commercial for Mounjaro.

So, it's small and light – but that's far from all that the Sigma 85mm f/1.2 DG Art has going for it. I don't usually put much stock into press release noise, but Sigma brags that, "In addition to two SLD glass elements, glass with high anomalous dispersion is used to suppress the axial chromatic aberration inherent to large-aperture lenses to the utmost limit."

Well, in our own tests for this lens, our lab manager concluded that, "Control over both axial and lateral chromatic aberrations is pretty epic at all aperture settings", adding that, "Center sharpness is spectacular in the f/2 to f/11 sector of the aperture range and holds up really well even at the widest aperture".

That's what 17 elements, 12 groups and 13 aperture blades from Sigma will get you, I suppose, powered by dual High-response Linear Actuator motors for fast and accurate autofocus.

"I feel that the Sigma 85mm f/1.2 DG Art comes as close to portrait perfection as any lens in its class," said my colleague Matthew in his Sigma 85mm f/1.2 DG Art review.

"That makes it a really top-class lens, combining its essential 85mm focal length with a highly desirable and super-fast f/1.2 aperture. It’s an aspirational, heady mix but one that’s more attainable than with Canon and Nikon equivalent lenses, in terms of purchase price."

The Sigma 85mm f/1.2 DG Art review will be available from September 30 for Sony E and L-Mount, with a price tag of $1,599 / £1,299 / AU$2,225 (for reference, that's half the price of Canon and Nikon's offerings!).

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Sigma just dropped one of the best lenses you never knew you needed – and once you know it exists, you may not be able to do without it.

The Sigma 20-60mm f/2.8-4 DG Contemporary is a not-so-standard zoom that delivers prime-level sharpness while minimizing the footprint of full-frame cameras – which means that those small bodies like the Sigma BF, Lumix S9 and Sony A7C II actually stay small.

Yes, the Lumix heads among you may be pointing out that Panasonic already made a lens like this. But while the Panasonic Lumix S 20-60mm f/3.5-5.6 was a very good lens, it's a stop slower – and it's only available for L-Mount, whereas Sigma's lens is also available for Sony E (but not, alas, Canon RF or Nikon Z).

Take a closer look in the launch video:

Topping and tailing the 24-70mm standard zoom lens, Sigma's 20-60mm f/2.8-4 DG Contemporary offers a much more useful ultra-wide starting point of 20mm – which is rapidly becoming the new normal, thanks to smartphones changing the game.

And it's that extra width that makes this such a useful everyday, walkabout, travel and even vlogging lens – ideal for those situations such as indoor photography, taking pictures of church ceilings and presenting pieces to camera where you can never "get far back enough". Focus breathing is well controlled, too, further buttering its bread as a video optic.

Indeed, the bottom-heavy zoom range also makes this a very practical zoom for APS-C shooters, where it offers an eminently practical 35-90mm equivalent focal range, with a minimum focus distance of 158mm at 28mm for versatile close-up shooting.

Positively palm-sized at just 72 x 88mm and weighing a mere 375g, this little lens packs 15 elements in 13 groups – including a trio of aspherical lenses and a trifecta of special low dispersion glass elements.

"I'm really impressed that Sigma has been able to design this lens with its ultra-wide-angle potential, while delivering excellent image quality in a package that's refreshingly compact and lightweight," said my colleague Matthew in his Sigma 20-60mm f/2.8-4 DG Contemporary review.

"Sure, the inner barrel extends at longer zoom settings but that's only natural. And although it has a variable aperture rating, it's faster than is often the case. All in all, I think this Sigma lens is a small wonder, and a bargain at the price."

The Sigma 20-60mm f/2.8-4 DG Contemporary will be available from September 30, priced $849 / £749 / AU$1,179.

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Take a look at the best Sony lenses and the best L-Mount lenses.

APS-C vs full-frame is a tale as old as time, and as a photography journalist, I’m definitely guilty of stoking the flames. But recently, I watched a YouTube video from a fantastic creator called Cam Mackey, and he simplified the whole debate into two words that have stuck in my mind ever since: “different looks”.

On a shoot where he was comparing the Leica M11 and Fujifilm X100VI, he talked about the different formats. Granted, he did acknowledge that there’s a big difference between the two, stating: “people out there that say: “Oh, full-frame vs crop sensor, it doesn’t matter,”” agreeing that in some cases it doesn’t, before continuing, “But those same people will also say: “Oh, medium format’s superior to full-frame””.

And as a predominantly full-frame photographer, I’ve definitely heard that argument time and again. But here’s the real thing I took away from the video: “So, you definitely get different looks, and you get different image quality, and you get a whole different feel from each sensor size.”

I absolutely love this sentiment. It’s such a simple way to think about sensor size, but creatively, it’s a healthier way than simply dismissing one or the other as better or worse. After all, they do supply you with different looks and different advantages. That’s why different sensor sizes exist – variety is the spice of life!

APS-C vs full-frame

The biggest difference between an APS-C image and a full-frame image is the crop factor. If both images are shot with the same lens, in the same position, with the same exposure settings, the APS-C image will appear zoomed in. If you cropped the full-frame image down to the exact composition of the APS-C image, it will look identical.

A big difference you usually hear people talk about is that full-frame cameras will give you a shallower depth of field and APS-C cameras will compress the image. But technically, an APS-C camera doesn’t produce a larger depth of field, nor does it produce more compression. The perceived difference is simply due to the crop factor.

Use the same lens on both bodies, and you’ll have to get closer to the subject with the full-frame camera, producing a shallower depth of field. And due to the cropped field of view on the APS-C camera, the image might look more compressed at a glance, but if you cropped a full-frame version of that image to the size of the APS-C image, the compression would look identical.

Another point that I often think about is that a lot of full-frame photographers heavily crop their images. But if you know a photographer uses a full-frame camera, you never question it. Ultimately, there’s no doubting that there’s a different quality to a medium format image, a full-frame image, and a crop-sensor image, but at the end of the day, there are way too many variables to simply crown one better than the other. It’s kind of like ranking the greatest bands of all time: everyone has a different taste in music, even if it's definitely Queen. I digress...

Different cameras for different purposes

There’s a reason why so many photographers end up having multiple cameras with multiple sensor sizes, and that’s because they’re different tools that excel at different applications. A lot of street photographers favor crop-sensor cameras, and a lot of professional portrait photographers favor medium format or full-frame cameras.

In recent years, APS-C has become more and more popular. A lot of this is down to Fujifilm’s excellent selection of X-series cameras. APS-C is also the choice of format for a lot of very popular Instagram photographers, especially those who capture street or travel photography.

So, if you’re choosing between an APS-C and full-frame camera or feel you need to ‘upgrade’ to a full-frame camera, think to yourself: you can still capture incredible imagery on both. At the end of the day, you’re getting “different looks”.

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Insta360 jumped headfirst into the pocket gimbal camera market all guns blazing with the spectacular – but premium – Luna Ultra camera. The company is now teasing features for a less costly single-lens edition called the Luna Pro, and the latest news is that it will boast true vertical 4K video.

Insta360 first teased the camera three days ago, based on a joke that the number of product launches from the company could be a bit much for the marketing team!

The gimbal camera pictured in the teaser looks like the company's recently launched Luna Ultra camera, except that the camera at the top seems to only have a single lens.

The implication is that we're about to see, on September 10, the Luna Pro, which has already been released in China.

The camera still boasts a 1-inch sensor, 8K video and the detachable remote control screen, enough for Insta360 to describe it as a "flagship" even though it clearly plays second fiddle to the Ultra.

Insta360's real competitors, though, are the DJI Osmo Pocket 4 (with one camera) and Pocket 4P (with two).

As well as distinguishing itself with the detachable remote, Insta360 has given the camera the ability to shoot in 4K vertically as well as horizontally (at up to 4K60). Both of DJI's offerings switch to a 3K mode in vertical operation.

Although there is only one physical lens, the Insta360 Pro's digital zoom will be boosted to 4x, which the company says represents "80mm portraits."

While the Luna Pro has been seen at IFA Berlin, so it isn't just confined to China, the show is still running as I post this. It does at least confirm the name as well as the spec, but we don't expect to hear final pricing until September 10, a little behind Bejing's August 20.

Unlike DJI, which has been forced by US import law to stick to the Pocket 3, the Luna Ultra is and, presumably, the Luna Pro will be available to American customers. Soon we'll see the result on our guide to the best pocket gimbal cameras.

Even if you take a hidden camera detector with you on your travels, a study has shown that more than half the time you'll miss a hidden camera – but a new device might be the solution.

The University College of London study, by Akhil Polamarasetty, was presented last month, and showed that 59% of the time, the typical hidden camera detector was unsuccessful because they are "often difficult to operate and hard to interpret."

In fact the comparison is even worse when you compare the success in finding hidden cameras with a device against simple common sense – 66.7% of hidden surveillance devices were missed when participants in the study searched without a detector (so 33% were found), with that only improving by 7% to 58.8% missed when a detector was used.

How do these detectors work, you might ask? There are a number of methods covered in our best hidden camera detector guide, but the main technique is to shine light around the room, and it is up to the user to spot reflections from lenses.

The study also pointed out that these confusing detectors come with an emotional cost. If you're likely to be troubled by the idea of a concealed camera, a confusing device will leave a user troubled. As they put it, "missed surveillance devices can leave [users] at continued risk, while false positives may trigger unnecessary anxiety."

After all, many things can reflect light, so when something is flagged as suspicious even though it is not, "participants sometimes became trapped in anxiety spirals, repeatedly searching the same area without finding an explanation."

Others also look for the RF signals from Wi-Fi, but that can only detect an active camera, not one recording.

Dr Leonie Tanczer, Associate Professor in International Security and Emerging Technologies, suggested that "companies have a responsibility to think about how their products can be misused at the design stage rather than after the harms emerge."

The flip side of this discussion is that AI could be pressed into service to help minimise the mistakes, and a combination of an app and a device – SweepLED – is presenting itself as the solution.

Developed by KAIST, the Korean Institute for Science and Tech, Iand possible to construct for $7, the 'sweep' in question is a small array of LEDs that move the light while using a phone's camera. The result is that a short video is available for an AI-model to examine and, according to the study, 94% detection accuracy is achieved (because the shape of a camera means it responds differently to reflection).

Whether this model will be refined into a product remains to be seen, but the National University of Singapore and Singapore Management University were involved too, so it seems eminently possible.

Nikon silly season is beginning to heat up. As we head into the final third of 2026, the ‘Big N’ has only released two lenses, plus a development announcement for the Nikon Z 120-300mm f/2.8 TC VR S. And with a history of releases in September, October and November, the anticipation is high. So, when Nikon Rumors posts about an “exclusive product presentation” from Nikon UK on September 25 at Grays of Westminster, it’s hard not to get a little bit excited about potential camera rumors.

The event, hosted by Nikon and RED creative, Bruno Murari, is even more curious given that no products are mentioned in the event schedule. What will be on show is simply referred to as “product highlights” or “the products,” which Nikon Rumors has described as "a bit strange" and "cryptic," and I have to agree; it does sound a little coy.

A string of rumors

All of this comes off the back of another Nikon Rumors post that I reported on last week. An Internet sleuth noticed gaps in the schedules of various Nikon Ambassadors, with a series of Nikon events to follow later in September, and theorized that this could point towards a possible product release. Complete conjecture, of course. It wasn’t all that long ago that Nikon Rumors reported on “almost everything” being supposedly delayed until next year, so at this point it’s anyone’s guess.

A release could happen, but it’s far from certain

I keep coming back to the same conclusion: it’s certainly the time of year for a big release, so nothing is beyond the pale. But if the rest of the year is anything to go by, not to mention some less-than-stellar financial results and ongoing market turmoil due to various factors, including Trump tariffs and component shortages. Suffice to say, I’m cautiously optimistic about a major Nikon release this year but heavily tempering my expectations.

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Interested in all things Nikon? Check out the best Nikon cameras and the best Nikon Z lenses. Plus, here's the latest camera news.

The big three camera market leaders are Canon, Nikon, and Sony. Now, fresh sales numbers from major Japanese retailer Kitamura are in, and one global player accounts for 50% of the Top 10 best-selling cameras in August 2026, while one brand is nowhere to be found.

According to Kitamura, Sony takes 5 out of the Top 10 spots. Nikon didn't make the ranking with a single camera.

At No.1 sits the Sony A7C II, "recommended for users who want to carry a full-frame camera with them at all times and don't want to compromise on performance," as Kitamura explains. Right behind is Sony's A6700 in No.2, followed by the A7 IV. Sony's latest full-frame release, the A7 V, takes No.6 and the ZV-E10 II comes ninth.

Canon has two models: the Canon EOS R6 Mark II and Canon EOS R6 Mark III, placed fourth and tenth.

OM System and Fujifilm fill the remaining three spots in the sales ranking. The OM System OM-5 Mark II 12-45mm f/4 Pro Lens Kit comes fifth; the OM System OM-1 Mark II is seventh, and the Fujifilm X-M5 XC15-45mm Lens Kit is eighth.

Kitamura's 10 best-selling cameras, August 2026

1. Sony A7C II
2. Sony A6700 High-Magnification Zoom Lens Kit
3. Sony A7 IV Zoom Lens Kit
4. Canon EOS R6 Mark II
5. OM System OM-5 Mark II 12-45mm f/4 Pro Lens Kit
6. Sony A7 V
7. OM System OM-1 Mark II
8. Fujifilm X-M5 XC15-45mm Lens Kit
9. Sony ZV-E10 II Power Zoom Lens Kit
10. Canon EOS R6 Mark III

Sony's chart-topping cameras

No.1 Sony A7C II
Kitamura says, "The successor to the A7C, which debuted as the world's smallest and lightest full-frame mirrorless camera. Packed with the latest features into a compact body, it delivers performance that exceeds its appearance."

No.2 Sony A6700
"This kit includes the A6700 camera and the high-magnification zoom lens "E 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 OSS".

"Despite its compact size, this lens can zoom up to the equivalent of 202.5mm, allowing you to shoot a wide range of subjects, including landscapes, snapshots, flowers, animals, and sports, all with just this one lens," explains Kitamura.

No. 3 Sony A7 IV
Kitamura says, "This camera is Sony's most standard full-frame mirrorless camera. With high-precision real-time tracking, it keeps track of your subject, ensuring you never miss a moment for both still images and videos."

No.6 Sony A7 V
"The A7 series has finally reached its 5th generation.

"By adopting a newly integrated partial-stacked sensor and the next-generation image processing engine "BIONZ XR2," it achieves highly accurate AI subject recognition and blackout-free continuous shooting at up to approximately 30 frames per second.

"It is a high-performance camera that is hard to believe is a basic model," explains Kitamura"

No.9 Sony ZV-E10 II
Kitamura says, "This is the successor to the ZV-E10, which has gained popularity as a video camera for shooting vlogs and YouTube videos.

"It features the same BIONZ XR image processing engine as higher-end models, resulting in improved video capabilities and autofocus performance. It's a recommended camera for anyone who wants to shoot cinematic videos."

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Spypoint's Flex-S-Dark isn't the only trail camera on the market to combine a cellular connection and a solar panel built into the case, though the brand was certainly an early pioneer of the design.

And it makes sense – the appeal of the best cellular trail cameras is being able to leave them in a remote location and have clips and images sent to your phone from afar. But that's no good if your batteries keep dying, so a solar panel is there to top up the power – again to stop you having to keep checking and maintaining the camera.

The Flex-S-Dark is the successor to the original Flex-S, and keeps the core chassis, dual-SIM cellular connectivity and built-in solar tech of the original model – but upgrades the unit by adding invisible No-Glow LEDs for nighttime shots and the ability to trigger the camera on-demand from the app, rather than waiting for the next scheduled sync interval.

These improvements make it a real all-rounder, and the Flex-S-Dark sits at the top of Spypoint's flagship trail cam lineup. Its specs also position it at the premium end of the cellular market: 40MP stills, FullHD video with sound and a fast 0.3-second trigger speed.

To me, its main selling point is total hands-off maintenance. The solar panel (in theory) feeds an internal lithium battery to power the camera indefinitely without blowing through batteries, while a pre-installed SIM automatically latches onto whichever mobile network signal is strongest in your local area.

Still, it faces stiff competition from the recently reviewed Browning Defender Pro Scout Max Solar (46MP stills and smoother 30fps FullHD video) and the Tactacam Reveal SK (with a slower 0.5s trigger speed). But while Browning relies on a separate solar panel unit wired to the camera, Spypoint is pitching the Flex-S-Dark as a cable-free, cellular option.

But does it really offer a seamless solar setup and smartphone integration? And is that enough to offset the trade-offs in image specs?

As is usual for my trail camera reviews, I left the Flex-S-Dark camped out in a local UK woodland for several weeks to see how it fared capturing the badgers, foxes, deer and squirrels of the habitat – night and day.

Spypoint Flex-S-Dark: Specifications

Spypoint Flex-S-Dark: Price

The Spypoint Flex-S-Dark is near the top of the cellular trail cam market at about $190 / £220 / AU$550, depending on where and when you shop.

For that higher initial investment, you get a combination that fewer rivals can match: an integrated solar panel with a built-in rechargeable lithium battery and invisible, customizable no-glow dark LEDs.

The closest direct competitors are the Tactacam Reveal X-Pro and the Browning Defender Pro Scout Max Solar (a camera I tried and liked).

Browning’s solar setup offers a higher native image resolution, but comes with a much stricter, cap-heavy video transmission plan (something I really didn’t like). The Tactacam offers reliable cellular connectivity for slightly less money upfront, but lacks an integrated solar panel out of the box.

Some competitors require you to buy solar add-ons separately, but the built-in panel here handles daily charging automatically.

Spypoint also offers a free 100-photo per month plan, which I think makes ongoing costs more optional rather than mandatory if you have fewer triggers. Paid plans scale to $15 / £10 per month for unlimited photos (videos aren't mentioned), which is cheaper than rival Browning.

Spypoint Flex-S-Dark: Design & Handling

Older cellular trail cameras sometimes added bulk and size to house their radios, but the Spypoint Flex-S-Dark has a relatively compact footprint.

The main camera body actually sits slightly lower on a tree trunk than non-cellular units like the Bushnell Core S-4K, though its screw-on antenna at the side adds some extra vertical clearance (and is best removed when the camera is travelling to its location in your bag).

As trail cameras spend most of their lives strapped to trees and posts, not living in a camera bag, I don’t think a few extra grams or centimeters will bother most buyers – and the Flex-S-Dark is still low-profile and easy to tuck into cover.

The unit is clad in a utilitarian matte gray casing, a stark change to the traditional patterned camo print on many trail cams. Obviously, users aren’t all going to be using it in the same location as me.

Still, I found it far more noticeable to a passerby skirting the woodland footpath than other camo-printed models like the Browning Strike Force HD Pro X1080 – and that made me nervous to leave it alone.

To me, the unit feels reassuringly solid for life outside – and it doesn’t have any brittle plastics or rattly latches that I often notice on budget alternatives.

The defining physical feature is its roof-integrated solar panel. Unlike the Browning Defender Pro Scout Max Solar, which has a separate solar panel and runs a trailing wire up a trunk, the Flex-S-Dark builds the solar array into a top sloping face of the camera body.

It’s a clean, wire-free design that eliminates dangling cables that squirrels or weather could damage. You can also drop a tray of eight AA batteries or an optional LIT-22 lithium pack into the bottom compartment as a secondary backup, and this too feels solid.

There’s no button to eject the battery compartment, so it’s a case of yanking it out and back in again – a less smooth and satisfying experience. At the back of the cam, you’ll find a rubber-sealed 12V DC external power jack.

A flexible cellular antenna screw securely onto the side of the unit, and can be rotated and angled through 360° rather than being fixed in place. I found this flexibility practical in the field, allowing me to adjust its angle so it didn't get snagged on nearby branches.

Opening the heavy-duty latch reveals a departure from many traditional trail cam control panels. There’s no LCD screen for framing shots or navigating menus, which helps with keeping the overall size down.

Spypoint has stripped the layout down to a bare-bones interface: a power switch, a battery level indicator, a network signal meter, a format button for the microSD card and a physical Test button.

This minimalist layout meant I could prep in the field is thus: turn it on, wait for the LED bars to confirm cellular connection and format the card. But as ever, not having a screen means mounting the camera is a bit of a guessing game.

To check if the lens is pointed where you want it, you have to hit the Test button, wait for the photo to transmit to the Spypoint app on your phone, check the image and adjust the strap accordingly.

It’s not too much of a hassle during initial setup, as long as you have the Spypoint app set up and don’t leave it until you’re standing out in the rain like me. Once the camera is anchored with the included nylon strap (and excellent clamp), the unit does feel locked down and ready for long-term deployment.

Spypoint Flex-S-Dark: Performance

ABOVE: Sample clips from the Spypoint Flex-S-Dark trail camera

After woodland-testing the Spypoint Flex-S-Dark for several weeks, I’m left feeling both impressed and disappointed. The camera is mostly a reliable, well-connected scouting unit, but its video and stills performance fell short of my expectations.

The dual-SIM connectivity is the camera’s strongest asset. When I deployed it in a mixed woodland, I simply added it to the Spypoint app by adding in a serial code, and it picked up local UK networks without fuss.

The camera will automatically lock onto the strongest available signal without requiring manual configuration and let you know the status of the signal in the app.

There’s built-in GPS, too, which can plot exact camera placements onto an in-app map to help you keep track of camera deployments. Not something I needed, but I can imagine this being very helpful on larger estates and areas of land.

The headline roof-integrated solar panel needs some realistic expectations. When I had it mounted in my open garden with direct summer sunlight, the solar roof kept the internal battery sitting at 100% indefinitely.

Once it was tucked under woodland trees and a few days of overcast weather, the panel generated more than a trickle charge, but the battery status was still listed as High (and showing as full) after a week or so.

Being a cellular trail camera, the Flex-S-Dark required navigating via the Spypoint app.

This offers a really smooth and neat experience, with clear dropdown menus that make it simple to adjust sensor sensitivity, toggle capture modes, or even build weekly operational schedules to pause triggers during high-traffic human hours.

I liked being able to check the remote status tab of the camera from the app’s main screen; it instantly reports on signal strength, storage and levels for the internal solar battery and the backup AA tray.

What’s less pleasing is that setting changes made on your phone don't apply instantly, and updates are applied during the camera's next scheduled cellular transmission cycle.

Spypoint advertises a rapid 0.3-second trigger speed, a metric that applies to still photos. When set to record video, I felt like the camera suffers from a wake-up delay.

In several of my test videos, animals crossing the detection zone were already mostly out of the frame by the time the recording started – noticeably different to the Browning that caught subjects squarely in the center.

The Flex-S-Dark may well boast 40MP photo resolution and 1080p video capture, but like many trail cams, I think these numbers feel (and look) artificially inflated by sensor interpolation and heavy digital processing.

On captures where the woodland was in bright daylight, the scene suffered from highlight clipping and sunlit leaves becoming blown-out. And in flatter, evening light, the color saturation dropped off, giving mid-tones an unnatural yellow-green tint.

In the video footage, which I set to the maximum setting, artefacts are visible in the moving background vegetation, and the low 15fps frame rate created some motion smearing.

The Flex-S-Dark offers you the choice of two flash options: No-Glow for total stealth or Low-Glow, which can be detected but generally ranges further. Using the invisible No-Glow IR array, I was able to capture a foraging muntjac calm and unaware.

However, here the IR beam has a narrow hotspot in the center, rendering nearby foreground brambles as harsh, blown-out highlights. Subjects looked a bit soft and hazy unless they passed directly through the central sweet spot of the frame.

I don't think anyone would buy a trail camera for award-winning picture quality, but I was still left unsatisfied with the hit rate of my triggers – how often animals were blurred, cut off or hard to identify.

Spypoint Flex-S-Dark: Verdict

The Spypoint Flex-S-Dark definitely delivers on the promise of the best cellular trail cameras: easy, long-term deployment.

Its roof-integrated solar panel means no wires or cables to consider, and the multi-carrier connectivity and an intuitive companion app make remote monitoring simple. What takes the model further than competitors is also having those invisible No-Glow IR LEDs (or Low-Glow if you want them) and on-demand app triggers.

But while all this convenience is fantastic, I’m still underwhelmed by the overall image quality. My daylight captures often looked overexposed (where other cameras have handled the same high-contrast woodland scene well) and heavily processed.

And despite the unit's undetectable night flash, uneven illumination created some bright central hotspots that left surrounding areas hazy and prone to motion blur. Fast-moving subjects occasionally slipped past the frame, too.

I thought the camera's app was great – streamlined, responsive and easy to use. It also incorporates Spypoint's Buck Tracker AI species recognition, a feature that automatically scans and tags photos as they arrive.

North American users might appreciate the free antler-detection filter for quickly sorting deer; however, UK wildlife enthusiasts (like myself) will need a paid Insiders Club subscription to unlock tags for other animals or human activity filters.

If your priority is pure set-and-forget utility with long battery and simple app management, the Flex-S-Dark is a highly practical choice.

But for wildlife enthusiasts who want tack-sharp stills good enough to identify individual animals, fluid video clips, or wide dynamic range may find the overall image output underwhelming compared to class rivals.

Alternatives

Check out our full guides to the best trail cameras, and also the best cellular trail cameras

A valid way to express our creativity? Or, now we can recreate a filmic look digitally, more of a hipster gimmick? Whichever, it’s certainly true that various pundits have been declaring that ‘film is back, baby!’ for some time now. Without it quite ever feeling conclusively so.

While everyone at one time went nuts for digital cameras and then smartphones, independents like analog-obsessive Lomography kept the flame alive with quirky, plastic-y roll-fed contraptions – and continue to do so.

But there has been a noticeable ramping up of both film-based product and positive rhetoric in the past couple of years – and I’m wondering why.

Our phones are already full of digital filters that deliver a film ape-ing retro appearance, complete with grain and light leakage – the kind of ‘nostalgic’ artefacts that digital photography promised to rid us of.

When old-school filters aren’t selectively applied, and our phones are left to automatically and heavily process images for us, we can sometimes end up with too sterile a look.

Imperfections can be what subconsciously prompts us to engage with an image. Something too pristine, or too overtly ‘digital’, repulses. See also the debate around heavy use of AI.

Phones aside, today’s dedicated cameras are also exploring our current relationship with film capture.

Interesting if niche releases – including the Pentax 17, a half-frame film camera, and Fujifilm X Half, with its Film Camera mode – remove digital photography’s immediacy and encourage us to slow down and (re)consider every image. And in principle, these are no bad thing. Even if they feel like gimmicks in search of an audience.

See also Fujifilm’s Instax Mini Evo Cinema, with its deliberately deteriorating images relative to how far back we turn its Eras dial, plus additional ring to degrade the image further, which I’ll admit is fun for five minutes.

But it was the so-called digital darkroom (essentially a computer, card reader and editing software), a term much trumpeted in the early 2000s but sounding positively prehistoric now, that was supposed to free us from all that, getting rid of the trays of smelly processing chemicals that haunted school photo clubs.

Ultimately, it’s all too easy to fall back on the drug that is nostalgia without making the effort or feeling the need to nudge the dial forward and create something wholly new.

So, I’m hoping we’ll see increased ambition from our favorite camera companies before the year is out.

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The old Chinese curse that states “May you live in interesting times” seems particularly apt right now. The idea of a period of uncertainty, instability and chaos being a curse is still pretty spot-on.

The global uncertainty is certainly making for interesting times in the camera world. For a few reasons, supply chains are again disrupted – including the rapid increase in AI data centers creating a global shortage of memory chips.

The result has been a distinct slowing in the number of new cameras that have been launched this year, at least as far as the mainstream categories are concerned.

Yes, there have been a few significant arrivals such as the Panasonic Lumix L10, Canon’s EOS R6 V and the Sony A7R VI, but you’d have to say it’s been very quiet otherwise – no new Nikon, Fujifilm or OM System mirrorless bodies (the specialized OM-3 Astro aside) and no new photo-orientated Canon RF bodies.

Nikon’s last major new camera release was the ZR back in September 2025 and, like the EOS R6 V, it’s aimed at video shooters. And this looks to be a shiny new category of hybrid camera… with, of course, the potential for extra sales. Even better for the camera makers, there are various levels of video user.

Content creators working solo on output mostly for social media; more advanced operators producing for corporate presentations or perhaps a YouTube channel; professional or semi-professionals working at the standard of TV broadcasting or cinematic productions…

There’s plenty of crossover between these various breeds of video-first cameras. And even with the more purely hybrid models, such as Canon’s EOS R6 Mark III and Nikon’s Z6 III, targeting a specific group of potential buyers is obviously Marketing 101.

I have recently been testing the R6 V and the ZR – and what an informative and enlightening experience it turned out to be. Coming from a photography perspective, both were far more enjoyable to use than expected – but the Nikon ZR was a revelation with its rangefinder-style body and yet a very contemporary, monitor-based user interface.

Consequently, it’s quite similar in operation to Hasselblad’s X2D II 100C and it also has a big, high-brightness, high-contrast monitor screen which makes everything work quite efficiently and effortlessly.

Given Nikon’s tendency to stick with design conventions with its Z mount bodies so far, the ZR is out there but it’s brilliant. And, notwithstanding the absence of an EVF, it has the potential to be a great stills camera.

However, it’s as a compact cine camera that it obviously excels. And Nikon has packed so much into it – including superior audio recording – that it does the job without needing to be connected to numerous accessories in a cumbersome rig. What’s more, it’s ridiculously affordable given what it can do.

With its acquisition of US cine camera-maker Red, Nikon clearly sees this arena as an important part of its future business. So where does all this leave photographers? Is the video / cine business going to be more profitable in the future than building cameras that put photography first?

Video is now everywhere because it’s a powerful means of communication, but it’s also a very different discipline to photography if you want what’s on screen to look good.

Many professional photographers now shoot video, too, but there are commercial returns that make any investment in additional equipment and the time taken to learn new skills worth doing (including editing).

In reality, you can’t just ‘dabble’ in video. It must be a commitment – and there’s a lot to learn if you’re going to do it well. Understandably, putting all this effort into bettering your photography will often look like a better plan.

Unless you have the luxury of affording a photo-only Leica or Hasselblad, today’s hybrid mirrorless cameras enable us to still have state-of-the-art cameras for photography.

So even if you have absolutely no interest in video, be thankful that it’s driving a more diverse and constantly developing camera market that is actually good for all of us. And that clever video-first models like the Nikon ZR can inform future designs, which will benefit both video makers and photographers.

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Take a look at our full Nikon ZR review along with our pick of the best lenses for the Nikon ZR.

What do Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Robert Downey Jr, Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Jet Li, Jack Nicholson, Barbra Stresiand, Sean Connery, Al Pacino, Nicolas Cage, Nicole Kidman, Pierce Brosnan, Michael Douglas, Steven Seagal and DMX have in common?

They've all had a camera pointed at them by Andrzej Bartkowiak, the award-winning director and cinematographer renowned for his visual flair.

The Polish filmmaker – whose credits span everything from Schwarzenegger vehicles like Twins to flims about exploding vehicles like Speed to videogame adaptations like Doom and Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li – recently sat down with Panavision to share some stories from his sets.

"Action – it has to be executed that it looks real. [That] objects, people are in real jeopardy. They’re as truthful and as dangerous as possible."

He relates the case to 1994's Speed, which catapulted Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock to superstardom, noting that "there are big challenges, of course."

ABOVE: Watch the Andrzej Bartkowiak sitdown

He points out that the interior shots on the bus all look like natural lighting, but in fact the vehicle is rigged with about 10 HMI lights on the roof with giant 8x10ft cells to bounce the in illumination – because otherwise the exposure on set would blow out the buildings outside.

"If you look at [the] bus, it looks real to the eye, but for the film, we had to build it up, right? If you see the rigging… on the front of the bus for the frontal shot, we have five cameras on the bungee cords with what we call the Popemobile. We have to put a plexi around for the window to hit Keanu and Sandy."

Movie magic for the lighting aside, though, the verisimilitude is achieved by shooting practically; when the bus is whipping around, with the actors slamming into the sides, it's because the bus is whipping around and the actors are slamming into the sides.

"But that's what makes it good… To me, [there’s] no substitute for the real thing. You know it."

The coverage, though, very much depends on the production. On Speed, Bartkowiak only had thirteen cameras – a maximum of seven for first unit shooting. But on Dante's Peak, starring Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo, it was a different story.

"We had full 27 camera crews, including focus pullers, second assistants. I mean, we could outvote any union meeting we wanted to on the set. [Because there] was more people on the set than in the union meetings!"

And of course, some directors are more efficient than others, such as frequent collaborator Sidney Lumet, who essentially only shot two takes: "The first take was the first take for Sidney. Second was just a backup for focus."

Efficiency was likewise a hallmark of John Huston. On Prizzi's Honor, starring Jack Nicholson, Bartkowiak only shot 180,000 feet of film for the entire movie. On Doom, starring The Rock, he shot 150,000 feet in a single day!

His affinity for Panavision goes back to the start of his career, when he was filming commercials for the likes of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, American Express, Chrysler and Toyota. He graduated from the old Mitchell cameras to the Panaflex Lightweight system.

"I started shooting with that camera. That's the camera that, in Hawaii, I dipped under the wave, brand new! Oh, we sent it back [and] it came back. That’s why Panavision [is] always incredible."

The whole video is only short and is a treat for fans of cinematography, so is well worth a watch.

The DSLR market may be dying, but Canon seems to be the camera’s life support right now. While the company has already moved decisively toward mirrorless cameras, new industry figures reveal that it’s still producing DSLRs in surprisingly large numbers.

According to data from market research firm Techno System Research (TSR), published in Toyo Keizai's Company Shikiho Industry Map 2027, Canon produced approximately 580,000 DSLRs in 2025.

That dwarfed production by the other two active DSLR manufacturers, Nikon (which produced 60,000) and Pentax (which produced just 10,000).

Overall, Canon’s figure represented almost 90% of the 650,000 DSLRs produced by the manufacturing triumvirate combined, despite the company's DSLR lineup having shrunk drastically in recent years.

In 2021, the company announced that it would no longer develop new DSLR models – and the only models remaining on sale are the flagship Canon EOS-1D X Mark III, mid-level EOS 5D Mark IV and entry-level Canon EOS Rebel T7 / 2000D.

While Canon recently confirmed the discontinuation of the EOS 5D Mark IV – after the recent TSR data was collated – it’s unclear whether it will stop production of new EOS-1D X Mark III and EOS Rebel T7 / 2000D units any time soon.

After all, Go Tokura, Canon's executive vice president, confirmed to our editor-in-chief, James Artaius, at CP+ earlier this year that the company is continuing mass production of DSLRs while sales remain strong.

However, Canon’s 580,000 figure also represents a substantial decline from the previous year. TSR data puts Canon’s 2024 DSLR production at approximately 790,000 units, a 27% year-on-year fall.

Nevertheless, Canon's continued output demonstrates that the DSLR market has not disappeared entirely – and that there is apparently still enough demand for it to keep production lines running despite its near-total focus on mirrorless development.

TSR's figures are production estimates rather than retail sales or shipments. The company's Digital Still Camera Production Statistics research is published quarterly and tracks camera production by manufacturer and camera type.

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Here’s our pick of the best DSLRs, along with the best Canon lenses for DSLRs and the best Nikon lenses for DSLRs.

In 1967, Olympus (now OM System) unleashed its Trip 35 on an unsuspecting world. It was a simple, compact point-and-shoot camera with an absolutely stellar 40mm f/2.8 lens, programmed autoexposure and a selenium exposure meter.

As the name implies, it was intended for those who wanted a simple, easy-to-use, compact camera for vacations. Though nothing about it was revolutionary, it shaped a generation – and it ended its lengthy production run in 1984 with over 10 million Trip 35s sold!

It all started back in 1956, when a young Yoshihisa Maitani (1933–2009) joined Olympus fresh out of university.

After spending a couple of years rotating through all the firm’s departments, learning the company's manufacturing processes, he was given a challenging assignment: design a camera that could retail for just ¥6,000 (about $17 / £6 / AU£7 8s 10d at the time), at a time when Olympus's least expensive camera cost more than triple that amount.

To meet that target, Maitani rethought camera design from the ground up, choosing the half-frame format (18 x 24mm) that produced 72 exposures on a standard 36-exposure roll of 35mm film.

He insisted on a high-quality, 4-element (Tessar-style) 28mm f/3.5 lens despite the low price. And he simplified the camera's mechanism dramatically, reducing the number of gears and using a thumbwheel film advance instead of a more expensive rapid-wind lever.

The result was the original Olympus PEN, introduced in 1959 when Maitani was just 26 years old. It was inexpensive, compact enough to fit in a jacket pocket, and capable of image quality comparable to much larger and more expensive cameras.

The Pen became an enormous success and established the design philosophy that Maitani followed throughout his career: small size without compromising photographic performance. That philosophy enabled him to design many of Olympus' most famous cameras.

The PEN was followed in 1962 by the PEN EE (for “Electric Eye”), which used a circular selenium meter cell around the lens (so exposure compensation when using filters would be automatic) and a simple, programmed autoexposure system. The lens was the same Tessar-type, fixed-focus Zuiko lens.

The PEN EE-S arrived in 1963 and was identical to the EE, except that it added zone focusing. In the end, many more PEN models were produced between 1959 and 1983. It was a remarkable 24-year run and, in all, some 17 million were made!

In the mid-1960s Olympus saw a growing demand for a compact full-frame (24 x 36mm) camera that was as easy to use as the PEN series. Which brings us to the Trip 35, introduced in 1967, where Maitani took the experience gained with the PEN and applied it to a full-frame, 35mm camera.

Again Maitani insisted on a top-quality lens, still a Tessar-inspired design but a faster 40mm f/2.8 Zuiko topic. This time the lens was not just good, but astounding given the camera’s price.

The Trip had the trademark Maitani look, with simple controls, and as with the PEN-EE it had a circular Selenium photocell around the lens.

(This arrangement was pioneered by the little-known “Lord Martian” of 1960; though Canon’s Canonet, which came a year later, is often thought of as the first with the design.)

The Trip 35 featured fully automatic, program exposure control and a simple, but effective, zone focusing system marked with four pictograms: the solo subject, two subjects, group and mountain symbols corresponded to approximately 3ft / 1m, 5ft / 1.5m, 13ft / 4m and infinity.

Unlike many later compacts, the Trip 35 was built largely of metal yet weighed just 390g (roughly 14oz). It was replete with both a hot shoe and a PC flash socket, while the exposure system handled films from ASA (now ISO)25 to 400, though a few early examples handled only 25-200. Like the PEN series, the Trip 35 did not require a battery.

This simplicity made it ideal for beginners while delivering negatives that rivalled those from much more expensive cameras, thanks to its very impressive lens. Thus it was often a constant companion for many more experienced photographers.

The Trip 35 remained in production from 1967 to 1984, a remarkable 17-year run. In that time, between 5.4 and 5.6 million Trip 35 cameras were made.

(The larger, 10 million camera number mentioned earlier – and often quoted by Olympus / OM System – included some later, plastic-bodied variants that also bore the “Trip” name.)

While there were some 17 million PEN cameras made, that number was divided among 19 models. The 5.4 to 5.6 million number was for just the original Trip 35 model alone, making it one of the world’s most successful compact film cameras ever.

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

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Take a look at the best Olympus / OM System cameras and the best Olympus / OM System lenses you can buy today.

Getting camera gear repaired is always a nerve-wracking process – especially when you're dealing with an unfamiliar company, trusting your valuable equipment with people that you hope are experts who will do a good job.

Thankfully, for users of Zeiss photographic equipment, that process just became a whole lot more relaxed. Zeiss has named KEH Camera the exclusive authorized repair partner for photography equipment in the US and Canada.

This expands KEH's frankly remarkable repertoire for repairs, as the company also boasts manufacturer-approved repair capabilities for both Sony and Sigma – the only such reseller in the entire camera industry.

KEH, in case you didn't know, is North America's leading pre-owned camera equipment specialist. Not only has it carved a reputation for offering expertly-graded gear at great prices, but its ability to service and repair products means that the retailer can live up to its tagline of selling cameras and lenses that are 'better than new'.

"We are honored that Zeiss recognized the quality and scope of our repair capabilities and asked us to serve in this exclusive capacity," said KEH's chairman and CEO, Glenn Kaufman.

"And, we are excited to extend our best-in-class standard of care to all the owners of Zeiss lenses, some of the finest optics in the industry. It’s also a natural extension of what KEH has always stood for: keeping great gear in circulation and out of landfills."

The new partnership will see KEH handle both in- and out-of-warranty repairs, using genuine parts and manufacturer-approved tools and procedures, for both new and legacy Zeiss kit.

"Because treasured optics require specialized care, we are pleased to partner with KEH Camera who has set the bar for lens repair," added Zeiss Photography Americas' senior manager, Tony Wisniewski.

"We strive to partner with organizations that provide excellent customer support for our products the world over. Be they new or legacy ZEISS cameras and lenses, we are confident that KEH Camera has the skills necessary to provide value to our loyal optics owners, and we look forward to a long partnership."

You can find more information on the Zeiss partnership, KEH's repair and servicing facilities, and of course shop for camera gear over at the KEH website.

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Zeiss makes some of the best Sony lenses and many of the best cine lenses, as well as the integrated lenses for cameras like the Sony RX1R III and Sony RX10 V.

The Leica M11 might be gone, but I don’t think it will be forgotten anytime soon. In fact, I would argue that the original Leica M11 will eventually be remembered as one of the most important digital M cameras Leica has ever made.

Not necessarily because it reinvented the rangefinder, but because it appeared to be the camera that convinced a much wider generation of photographers to finally take the plunge. For many people watching from the sidelines, the M11 became the camera that started their Leica journey.

When Leica launched the M11 in 2022, it also made a very deliberate attempt to show that an M camera could compete technologically with the best full-frame cameras from Sony, Canon and Nikon.

At its heart was a new 60MP full-frame BSI CMOS sensor, giving photographers the sort of headline resolution normally associated with some of the most technically advanced mirrorless cameras on the market.

Yet Leica being Leica, it did things slightly differently. Its Triple Resolution Technology enabled you to shoot at 60MP, 36MP or 18MP while still using the entire sensor area – meaning you could have maximum detail when you wanted it, without being forced to deal with enormous files every single time you pressed the shutter.

That might sound relatively ordinary today, particularly as the same technology has continued throughout the wider M11 family, but at launch it helped change the perception of what a modern Leica M could be.

This was still the beautifully simple, manually focused rangefinder that photographers had loved for decades, but underneath it was a thoroughly modern digital camera.

There was internal storage, USB-C connectivity, vastly improved battery life and enough resolution to crop aggressively without immediately destroying your image. Leica hadn't abandoned what made the M special; it had simply dragged the digital side of the camera firmly into the modern era.

But I think the M11's biggest contribution had very little to do with specifications.

Around its launch, something interesting started happening online: more content creators, YouTube photographers and prominent photography personalities seemed to be talking about Leica, buying Leica cameras and, perhaps most importantly, showing what it was actually like to live with one.

Suddenly the M-System wasn't being discussed exclusively by lifelong Leica owners and rangefinder devotees. The M11 was appearing alongside Sony Alpha cameras, Fujifilm bodies and Canon EOS models in videos watched by photographers who may never previously have considered spending Leica money on a camera.

The hype surrounding the M11 undoubtedly helped Leica reach a different audience.

Sample images

And I think that mattered enormously. Leica has always carried a certain mystique, but mystique can also create distance. The M11 somehow made the brand feel more accessible without actually becoming affordable.

Watching photographers that you followed online forget about autofocus, pick up an M11 and start talking about slowing down, manually focusing and rediscovering photography created a surprisingly powerful pull. It made people curious.

Some undoubtedly bought into the hype, while others discovered that rangefinder photography genuinely suited them, but either way the M11 seemed to become a gateway into Leica ownership for a new generation.

The standard Leica M11 has now bowed out, with the Leica M11-P becoming the natural successor and taking the same basic formula further with additional refinements. Yet I think the original deserves its own little chapter in Leica history.

There will always be technically important M cameras, and there will always be collectible ones, but the M11 arrived at exactly the right moment, when photography culture was increasingly being shaped by creators, YouTube and social media.

It was the Leica that caused a stir, convinced photographers to jump ship and made an entirely new audience wonder whether their next camera should have a red dot on the front. The M11 might be gone but, for a lot of photographers, it was where Leica began.

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Take a look at the best Leica cameras along with the best Leica M lenses for rangefinders and the best Leica SL lenses for mirrorless bodies.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take my dedicated camera and lenses out with me if I’m confident it’s the best tool for the job. Or if I want to record something for posterity at the best available quality.

But, like most of us, on all the other occasions when a photo opportunity presents itself, it’s my camera phone that comes out of my pocket.

I recently took a summer vacation and, though I’d packed a decent mirrorless camera in my trusty Olympus PEN E-PL7 with catch-all zoom lens, I found myself decidedly unmotivated to use it. I’m not 100% sure why it came out of the rucksack far less than the family’s water bottles, snacks, sunscreen and sun hats that I was also tasked with carrying.

It’s not that I didn’t find anything to photograph. It’s perhaps more that when I did, I’d be asked to share it on our family WhatsApp group. My daughter also had a friend accompany her on holiday this time, so there was another person to share group shots and portraits with.

In this respect, the phone was just more convenient and immediate for the sharing of images than two teenagers having to wait for me to transfer shots to my laptop, attach them to email or generate a Dropbox link, by which time the moment of excitement / urgency of request would have passed. And possibly be considered no longer relevant.

In short, convenience won out.

This also raises a question about the importance of a curated set of images.

If I’m shooting to card on a dedicated camera, I’ll delete some images in situ if I consider them disappointing, before I even get to downloading. I’ll then do another edit and image selection later when I’m home, only keeping the best shots.

Often the ‘best’ ones are just those I’m fond of at the time – if I haven’t already deleted them, I’ll often come back years later and start preferring alternative images I’d originally discounted or overlooked.

When I’m not shooting ‘properly’, I’ll happily let my phone fill up with images until it tells me that if I don’t create some space by deleting existing files then various apps and functions will go on the fritz. I’ll then do it begrudgingly, just so I can continue viewing vintage synthesizer demos on Instagram.

If social media and private apps are where most of my images ‘live’ these days, then convenience is king. Maybe I need to go on less vacations and spend more time with my dedicated camera instead, to rekindle the creative spark.

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Check out the best travel cameras and the best lenses for travel photography.

Peter Parker is arguably the most famous fictitious photographer to grace the silver screen.

While complicated comic-book continuity and the evolution of the character mean he’s not always working as a plucky photojournalist, the most well-known incarnation of the character is with camera in hand, supplying the repugnant J Jonah Jameson with exclusive Spidey pics for the Daily Bugle.

When it comes to Peter Parker’s many big-screen adventures, he can be seen wielding a wide variety of cameras from the likes of Nikon, Canon and even Yashica.

However – very small *SPOILER ALERT* – Tom Holland’s most recent MCU portrayal isn’t a photographer and, despite some fans hoping he’d finally pick up a camera in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, alas Peter is still cameraless.

The Amazing Spider-Man (1977)

The web-crawler’s first feature-length outing was in 1977’s The Amazing Spider-Man, starring Nicholas Hammond as the titular character. This was a straight-to-TV outing in the US, but was released in cinemas in other countries.

According to YouTuber Azriel Knight, this version of Spidey carried an all-black Nikon F2. But if you thought that would be the only film camera to feature in Peter’s arsenal, think again…

Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy (2002-2007)

I’m a child of the Nineties, so Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films are firmly within my era. My mom took me to the cinema to see Tobey Maguire’s debut outing as the webslinging superhero, and I’ve seen it countless times since, but the real treat was 2004’s Spider-Man 2.

I still consider this sequel to be one of the best superhero films ever made and, if you’ve not seen it, Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock might just be the best Marvel supervillain to grace the big screen. The less said about Spider-Man 3, though, the better…

Throughout Raimi’s trilogy, Peter is seen out and about with a camera an awful lot – but the manufacturer’s label is usually covered with black tape.

That said, I watched Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 again around Christmas, and I’m sure I noticed at least one moment where the Canon logo was visible. Still, the F-1 logo is very much visible, with Azriel Knight pointing out that it’s the Canon New F-1 released in 1981.

Tobey’s Spidey continued to shun digital tech throughout his tenure. And when Andrew Garfield took on the mantle in 2012’s excellent The Amazing Spider-Man and continued in 2014’s less-than-excellent The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Peter still hadn’t made the jump to digital. If anything, he’d gone backwards!

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Azriel Knight has identified the little film camera as the Yashica Electro 35 GSN, following a truly admirable amount of research and investigation (watch the video above to find out how he came to that conclusion). This Yashica is a rangefinder camera with aperture priority, released in 1971.

That brings us right up to Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If you ask me, it’s a real shame that Peter hasn’t yet returned to his roots and picked up a camera. After all, he’s been a photographer since The Amazing Spider-Man issue #2 way back in 1963!

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Want more Marvel and camera links? Here are 8 Marvel movies shot on Canon cameras. For something a little more based in reality, here are 29 movies about real photographers. And if you're a vintage camera nerd, but film is simply too expensive, check out the best retro cameras.

The long-rumored GoPro mirrorless camera is real, and it’s here – the GoPro Mission 1 Pro ILS blends GoPro’s classic design with a one-inch sensor and a Micro Four Thirds mount. However, while that mount that has hundreds of options, not every Micro Four Thirds lens is compatible with the ILS.

So, when choosing lenses for the GoPro Mission 1 Pro ILS, there are a few key caveats to keep in mind.

First, the ILS doesn’t have electronic contacts – which means it doesn’t support focus-by-wire lenses. In turn, that means that autofocus lenses won’t work with the ILS, even in manual focus mode, which removes popular MFT options like the best Olympus / OM System lenses and Lumix lenses from the list of possibilities.

Secondly, GoPro recommends using an external lens support system for optics over 250g – a compromise that comes with using the smallest yet mirrorless camera. While larger lenses can be used with the ILS, those heavier optics will need a third-party support such as SmallRig's lens support, rods, and base plate.

Finally, creators need to go into the ILS menu and tell the camera which lens is mounted – otherwise, the HyperSmooth stabilization won’t work – so it’s best for creators to choose a lens that comes from GoPro’s official compatibility list.

Another worthy note? GoPro's lens testing for the ILS has focused on lenses 50mm and under, so telephoto lenses may have varied performance.

Those caveats remove a lot of lens options for GoPro’s first mirrorless – but there’s still a long list of manual-focus Micro Four Thirds lenses to choose from. Using a mix of hands-on reviews and GoPro’s confirmed compatibility list, these are the best lenses for the GoPro Mission 1 Pro ILS.

Best lenses for the GoPro Mission 1 Pro ILS: Under 250g

The ILS' crop factor makes getting a wide shot tricky, especially if you don't want the curved barrel distortion of a rectilinear fisheye. But the Lawoa 6mm T/2.1 Zero-D Cine is built to minimize barrel distortion and does a remarkably fantastic job at it.

The optics on this lens are fantastic with minimal barrel distortion, little abberation, and no vignetting.

The other reason that the Laowa 6mm makes an excellent pair with the GoPro ILS? The lens meets that under-250g requirement. The lens is compact, yet it still has a lovely metal construction.

Serious filmmakers will appreciate that this lens is built for cinema, including two geared control rings for focus and aperture that are designed to work with accessories like follow focus.

Read our full Laowa 6mm T2.1 Zero-D review

The Laowa 7.5mm f/2 Compact Dreamer is the lens that I used when testing out the GoPro Mission 1 Pro ILS. The lens is remarkably small and lightweight, but it still feels well-built.

The 7.5mm creates a rectilinear view that's rare to get without distortion. I did spot some noticeable barrel distortion occasionally when the camera moved, and perspective distortion is still apparent, but overall this is a very wide lens that doesn't have an overly obvious fisheye look to it.

What I really loved about this lens, though, was the lens flare. I was able to get colorful rainbows and streaky bursts of light when directing this lens towards the sun.

Read the GoPro Mission 1 Pro ILS review for more sample shots taken with the ILS and the Laowa 7.5mm

The Laowa 4mm f/2.8 Fisheye is one of the widest GoPro-recommended lenses for the ILS. This 4mm will create a 12mm full-frame equivalent with HyperSmooth off.

The Laowa will look a bit different on the Mission 1 Pro ILS than it did in our hands-on testing, however. The crop factor on the ILS will cut off most of the circular fisheye look. The ILS has a 1.5x crop factor to get to a Micro Four Thirds equivalent (rather than the full-frame equivalent of 3x).

By our calculations, that will crop off almost all of the black frame except right at the very corners. But while the 4mm won't look like a standard circular fisheye, that extreme barrel distortion will still be in effect on the ILS.

That, combined with an affordable price point and lightweight design, still makes the Laowa 4mm a contender if you don't mind the crop and darkened corners.

Read our full Laowa 4mm F/2.8 Fisheye review

Best lenses for the GoPro Mission 1 Pro ILS: Over 250g (require support)

Any lens over 250g should be paired with an external support system – the GoPro ILS body is just too small to handle the heavy optics. GoPro doesn't make its own, but recommends a model from SmallRig.

GoPro's first mirrorless camera isn't submersible like earlier action cameras, but the camera is splashproof if paired with a lens that also has weather-sealing. There are very few weather-sealed lenses that sit on GoPro's compatibility list, but the Irix Cine T1.5 is one of them – and it's a fantastic lens.

Its lens' T1.5 aperture will go a long way in helping the ILS' 1-inch sensor to gather the most light and create background blur. This 30mm creates an excellent cinematic look with minimal focus breathing.

The biggest complaint coming from the Irix 30mm review is that the lens is a bit soft when shooting at T1.5; while the sharpness was still plenty enough for 8K footage, the ILS' crop factor will exaggerate that softness a bit. That means scenarios requiring the very sharpest subjects will want to step down a bit.

This lens is also a hefty one and will require using an external support system; otherwise, the heavy optics will stress the ILS mount.

Read our full Irix Cine 30mm T1.5 review

Cine lenses are pricey, but the 7Artisans Vision 50mm T1.05 is rather affordable considering its full metal construction and bright T1.05 iris.

The Vision 50mm has large gears built for accessories like follow focus systems, and that focus adjustment is buttery smooth – though we did spot some focus breathing in our testing.

But the footage coming from this lens has lovely character. Bokeh has a bit of a swirl to it, and contrast is excellent.

While the lens performs well for the price point, there is some colored fringing. The lens tends to look sharpest at T2 rather than wide open – but the crop factor on the ILS may warrant pushing that a bit narrower.

Again, this lens weighs more than 250g, so be sure to factor in the cost of a lens support, rods, and baseplate.

Read our full 7Artisans Vision 50mm T1.05 review

One area where the Mission 1 Pro ILS crop factor comes in handy is with close-ups. This macro lens is one of the most affordable macro options that still sits with a focal length under 50mm for the best performance on ILS.

Reviews Editor Gareth Bevan actually rigged this affordable lens up to a film scanner, but didn't notice a difference in sharpness compared to pricier optics.

Image quality won't be perfect coming in as an ultra-affordable option, but this lens is well-built, extremely well priced and works with the ILS when using an added external support system.

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Read the GoPro Mission 1 Pro ILS review, or check out the Mission 1 Pro for a fixed-lens option.

Nick Woodman, CEO of GoPro, has shared a letter with the world – and especially the company's customers – promising that the $285 million / £211 million / AU$396 million merger with Starman Optical will not be the end of the GoPro camera and other consumer products.

On September 01, the company entered into an agreement with the little-known, privately held US optical-photonics company. The deal clears GoPro's $92 million / £68 million / AU$128 million cash debt and pays shareholders $1.14 / 0.84 / AU$1.58 per share to acquire GoPro, but not much was known about Starman Optical in the camera community.

What was known is that the company concentrated on delivering equipment for military purposes (national security was mentioned in the GoPro statement), so understandably a lot of people started putting two and two together and concluded that the GoPro consumer brand might not be long for this world.

This despite the fact that Starman does bring US-based production facilities to the table, potentially enabling GoPro cameras to be produced despite the ever-tightening restrictions on foreign imports facing American consumers – restrictions that make it harder to choose the latest action cameras from brands like DJI, which is based in China.

Nick Woodman also confirmed that the Starman deal meant GoPro would "grow across consumer, commercial and defence markets," although the fact that consumer is only a third of that list was already chipped away at by his own addition that GoPro would "continue to fully support its existing consumer products and its subscription and cloud platform."

The use of the word 'existing' is the key warning sign for anyone; it suggests that GoPro might not be developing any new devices for the consumer / pro photographer market, which is never a good place to be with a brand.

The speculation fueled by that news, shared through GoPro's investor relations, no doubt explains Woodman's subsequent letter.

In it, he says, "Making amazing cameras for all of you is our core DNA and reason for being and that will never change!" He goes on to suggest that Starman shares the 'passion' for the GoPro brand, and the improved finances should boost innovation at the company.

He doesn't roll back on his previous statement, but does acknowledge consumers' concerns. "Our goal is to become a more diversified company which can make us stronger financially, enabling GoPro to become as awesome as we (and you) want us to be."

Signing off "with respect and admiration," GoPro's founder promises that following up on capturing life's moments is "what we were founded to do and it’s what we will always do."

Whether he has that power in the new corporate structure remains to be seen, but it seems unlikely that recent customers need be unduly concerned; support for the cloud services continues.

Arguably, replacing the cameras iteratively every year made little sense in the action camera space anyway. People don't even replace their phones each year, so GoPro was always going to face a limited market for a product that – for most – is used far less frequently than a phone.

Perhaps some smarter decisions are inbound and need not threaten the consumer division.

If you're interested in checking out the best action cameras, you'll see, by the way, that GoPro has some serious competition in any case.

When I first started writing about photography in any professional capacity, Nikon was widely seen in the camera business as one of the unassailable ‘big two’ brands, alongside Canon. But in recent years it’s slipped behind not only Canon, but also Sony and, most recently, Fujifilm, in terms of market share.

The above is no surprise as it’s neither released, or, at the time of writing, even announced, anything new for 2026.

The most recent significant Nikon cameras to appear were the Z5II, an entry-level full-frame mirrorless announced way back in spring 2025, plus the video-first ZR, a collaboration born out of its acquisition of the brand RED, announced last September. So, there’s been nothing new for a full year, at best.

That’s left the rumour mill wide open and commentators scrambling to share ideas of what Nikon could, or should, release next. Might there, for example, be a photography first version of the ZR on the way, or something with its form factor?

Or might, given the demand for fixed-lens compact cameras which we’re constantly told are outpacing all other categories in terms of sales and shipments, Nikon resurrect the idea of a Nikon DL series with a 1-inch sensor, mooted a decade ago but which, unusually for the brand, never made it to market? Back then the demand for compacts was seemingly shrinking. But, however, the opposite is now true.

Something that outwardly resembles the Nikon Zf and Zfc, or at least scoops up some of its DNA, would surely go further towards helping seal the deal for any photographers seeking a retro-styled compact that’s portable, practical, takes great pictures, but moreover, looks to die for. Or could we see a mini-Nikon Z9?

Given the success of high quality, fixed lens compacts including Fujifilm’s much-in-demand X100VI, it feels like a no brainer for Nikon to release something that might come close to competing, satiating Nikon fans seeking a high-quality, street-photography-enabling compact. Moreover, it feels slightly criminal that it hasn’t already released a ‘Fuji X100VI killer’.

Potentially more concrete, but for my money less exciting ‘new’ camera rumors, including potential Z9II and Z7III upgrades, have a greater chance of becoming true before we see anything resembling the above from Nikon. But we can dream.

For my money, away from higher-end, more prestigious models, Nikon is already missing a trick by not reimagining or even re-introducing snapshot cameras from its pocket-sized CoolPix range. Like Panasonic and Canon have done, Nikon could conceivably re-hash formerly discontinued examples in a flashy titanium colored shell, or, failing that, blush pink, and have a new TikTok-watching Gen Z photographer audience immediately on board.

Let’s hope we see a late 2026 release from what continues to be one of the biggest names in the photography business, to save us all guessing. Come on Nikon, what are you waiting for?

The new episode of Bokeh Face: The Digital Camera World podcast is now live on our YouTube channel and available to stream from Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all your favorite podcast services.

New episodes of Bokeh Face are released bi-weekly, every other Friday, so our next episode will be released on September 18.

DCW's How-To Ed, Mike Harris, joins me, James Artaius, DCW Editor in Chief, for our usual format where we discuss a burning issue in the world of imaging, dive into the kit bag to examine what we've been shooting with lately, and then troubleshoot a technical or creative camera issue.

You can watch the episode in full below:

First, we Gear Up with one of the strangest cheap cameras we’ve ever seen: the Godox C100. This compact camera/light meter is cheap as chips and features a huge optical viewfinder.

In Focus we take a retrospective look at the flawed but forward-thinking Nikon 1 System and pose the question: Would things be any different if these compact interchangeable-lens cameras were released today?

In Trouble Shooting, James and Mike are put on the spot with a question about dual- and triple-base ISO. What is it? When would you use it? And is it essential?

We'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback on the show, along with any questions or troubleshooting queries you might have, so please get in touch with us at bokehface@futurenet.com. We hope you enjoy the episode!

• Watch on YouTube
• Listen on Spotify
• Listen on Apple Podcasts

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Check out all our previous episodes of Bokeh Face, take a look at our ISO cheat sheet, and see if any of the best compact cameras take your fancy.