The media award season — a time for applause — also highlights an irony of the fast-changing marketplace: the winners could be gone.
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The media award season — a time for applause — also highlights an irony of the fast-changing marketplace: the winners could be gone.
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This sale ends today!
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The post Canon EOS R6V: A Filmmaker in a Photographer’s Body appeared first on Luminous Landscape.
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Nikon Z9 | Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 VR S @ 800mm | F7.1 | 1/4000 sec | ISO 720
Photo: Alan Randle
Alan Randle, known as AJR Images in the forums, has been capturing striking images for decades, with a particular passion for fast-paced subjects. Originally from the UK and now based in Southern California, he has built a body of work that spans airshows, surfing, wildlife and more. Over the years, his photography has evolved from early film experiments to high-precision digital work with top-tier equipment, allowing him to get in close and capture subjects with remarkable clarity and detail.
If you are interested in air show photography, check out Alan’s work below.
This story is part of our What’s in your bag? community spotlight series. The series showcases the diverse gear and photography of our community, and shares their stories of how that gear helped them to capture the perfect shot.
Have your photography featured on the DPReview homepage! Find out how.
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| “A dramatic shot of a Red Bull display aircraft taking off at a steep angle. The smoke adds to the drama.”
Nikon D5 | AF-S Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 @420mm (35mm equivalent) | F8 | 1/1600 sec | ISO 400 |
Home base: Southern California, USA
“I’ve been taking photographs since the early 1960’s, but more seriously for the last 15 years. I moved to California from the UK in 2000, and am now lucky to have great subject matter and good light. I’ve been fortunate enough to acquire some of the best equipment and now like to get in close to my subjects with the use of long telephotos.”
Favorite camera and lens: Alan primarily shoots with Nikon Z9 bodies. For airshows and wildlife, he relies on super-telephoto lenses like the 400 F2.8 TC, 600 F4 TC, and 800 f/6.3 to capture subjects up close with exceptional detail. For travel or more general photography, he uses a Z6III with a 24–120mm F4. Alan values this setup for its versatility and reliability, allowing him to adapt quickly to different environments.
I love the Nikon Z 400TC. A fabulous lens with the versatility of two focal lengths.
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| Alan’s camera bag
Photo: Alan Randle |
“I was a professional aerospace engineer for nearly 50 years, so I keep up my interest by attending airshows around Southern California. I’ve been fortunate to acquire some of the best super telephoto lenses over the last few years and have practiced honing my panning skills to the point where I can capture sharp images of aircraft with good prop blur. I look back at some of my older images, and certainly modern equipment has made it easier to get great images.”
“Oh yes. I started out with a Praktica camera and then an Olympus OM2 system, but got serious when I bought a Nikon F4S in the 1980’s. I then moved from F to D to Z systems. Since investing in Nikon Z9s and Z lenses, my output has improved to no end.”
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| “A nice, sharp close-up image of the Patriots display team with the smoke imparting a sense of action.”
Nikon D4S | AF-S Nikkor 300mm f/2.8D IF-ED II @420mm (35mm equivalent) | F5.6 | 1/4000 sec | ISO 320 |
“I also enjoy shooting zoo animals. I like to take portraits rather than the whole of the animal, again making good use of my telephoto lenses. Carrying big equipment around a zoo can be tiring. I’ve even been asked by staff if I want to check my ‘luggage.'”
“Living close to the beach, I shoot championship surfing (people and dogs). You need to take care of your equipment in this environment of saltwater and sand. I’ve seen photographers so engrossed in the action that they miss a rogue wave that drowns their equipment. Electronics and salt water don’t mix!”
“In the past, I’ve shot motor sports, tennis, and cycling. Unfortunately, as sports become more commercialized, it’s getting harder and harder to get good images unless you are credentialed. Not only are you kept further away from the action, but there are often limits as to the equipment that can be taken into a venue.”
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| “The Blue Angels show in near-perfect light, showing the aircraft at speed.”
Nikon Z 9 | NIKKOR Z 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S @400mm (35mm equivalent) | F5.6 | 1/6400 sec | ISO 900 |
“I try to understand the type of subjects I’ll be shooting, like typical aircraft maneuvers, animal behavior, the way that sports are played, and so I try to get ‘ahead of the game.’ Knowing how the subject will react at any moment keeps my fingers on the right controls. On that point, do learn how to use your equipment. Read the manuals and understand what all the controls do so that setting up becomes second nature.”
Alan really enjoyed writing the content for this spotlight article and would be grateful for you to join him in discussion in the forums. Thanks, Alan, for being featured!
If you’d like to share your photography, tell us about your main camera, lens choices, key settings and strategies. Your photos and story could be featured in the next article!
Editor’s note: This article continues a series, ‘What’s in your bag?’, highlighting DPReview community members, their photography and the gear they depend on. Would you like to be featured in a future installment? Tell us a bit about yourself and your photography by filling out this form. If you’re selected for a feature, we’ll be in touch with next steps.
Submit your photos and story to be featured in ‘What’s in your bag?’
]]>Sponsor of this Episode is NANLITE: Check out the section at: 14:07
Canon EOS R6 V Unveiled – 7K Full-Frame Video Hybrid with IBIS, Active Cooling, and No EVF
(04:05 in the episode)
Canon’s new EOS R6 V takes the same sensor and processor found in the EOS C50 cinema camera and the EOS R6 III and packages them into a video-focused body aimed squarely at content creators — all for $2,500. Johnnie sees it as Canon’s direct answer to the Nikon Z f, a camera that opened up a new sub-$2,500 category that other manufacturers can no longer ignore.
What the R6 V adds over the C50 is IBIS, which the cinema camera lacks. What it gives up compared to the R6 III is the mechanical shutter and — most notably for Johnnie — the EVF. There is also no in-camera anamorphic de-squeeze, though it does support open gate recording, which is useful for cropping vertical content from a horizontal frame. An active internal cooling fan is built in, directly addressing the overheating issues that plagued the photo-oriented R6 line.
Nino points out that skipping the de-squeeze makes sense for a content-creator camera — very few in that audience shoot anamorphic — and that open gate plus IBIS is actually the right combination for creators who need both horizontal and vertical delivery from a single take. The camera also features a dedicated vertical mounting port so it can be locked to a tripod in portrait orientation without adapters.
Alongside the camera, Canon introduced its first L-series power zoom lens: the RF 22-50mm F4 IS USM PZ. It’s a compact, stabilized zoom with a body-mounted zoom rocker, designed to complement the run-and-gun style the R6 V encourages. The lens retails for around $1,399–1,499, and the body-and-lens kit is priced at approximately $3,699. Johnnie says he would personally reach for the R6 V over the C50 for most work — he gets 90–95% of the functionality at roughly half the price, without the overheating concern.
Sony Alpha 7R VI Announced – 66.8MP Stacked Sensor, 8K 30p, 4K 120p and Sensor-Level Dual Gain
(15:08 in the episode)
The Sony Alpha 7R VI is primarily a photographer’s camera, but its video credentials are substantial enough to make it a genuine hybrid. The new 66.8-megapixel stacked sensor brings dual gain modes to the Alpha series for the first time — something previously reserved for Sony’s cinema-line FX cameras. One circuit is optimised for low noise, the other for dynamic range, and the camera selects between them automatically based on exposure.
On the video side: 8K at 30p from 8.2K oversampling (with a 1.2x crop), 4K at 60p from 5K oversampling, 4K at 30/24/25p from 5K oversampling, and 4K at 120p from 5K oversampling — also with a 1.1x crop unless the ‘4K angle of view priority’ setting is enabled, which removes the crop entirely. Nino notes the latter should arguably be the default. All modes are 10-bit 4:2:2 All-I; there is no internal raw and no open gate.
The dual gain mode is only available in 4K — not 8K — and tops out at 4K 30p. Sony has not disclosed the native base ISOs, though the lab test (conducted at firmware 1.01 before launch) measured dual gain performance. The new processor, Bionz ZR2, drives a host of other improvements: 32-bit float audio across all four channels (a first alongside the Nikon Z f), AI noise reduction on the internal microphone, a front tally lamp, and an updated autofocus system with automatic subject-type switching between humans, animals, birds, vehicles, and insects.
Physical updates include illuminated rear buttons, a 9.44-million-dot OLED EVF that is three times brighter than the predecessor with DCI-P3 coverage, and the same 4-axis multi-angle LCD. IBIS moves from 8 stops to 8.5 steps (centre) or 7 steps (periphery), and a new dynamic active stabilisation mode adds enhanced roll-axis correction. The camera also gains Wi-Fi 6 GHz, dual USB-C ports (one USB 3.2 Gen 2 with screw-lock), and full-size HDMI. A new battery standard is introduced — not backward compatible with previous Alpha packs.
Sony also announced the FE 100–400mm F4.5 GM OSS alongside this camera — a constant-aperture refresh of its most popular super-telephoto zoom, now with internal zoom, four XD linear motors, and autofocus three times faster than the predecessor.
Sony a7R VI Lab Test – Rolling Shutter, Dynamic Range and Exposure Latitude
(35:24 in the episode)
In what may be a first for CineD, the full lab test for the Sony a7R VI was completed and published on launch day, with the camera running final firmware 1.01. Gunther and Florian conducted the tests across the three standard CineD categories: dynamic range, exposure latitude, and rolling shutter.
The headline findings: shoot in 4K rather than 8K to get the best video quality this camera offers. With dual gain enabled, dynamic range reaches up to 14 stops — among the best results the team has measured. Rolling shutter is acceptable but roughly doubles when dual gain is active, because the sensor reads out twice. That makes dual gain unsuitable for handheld work but excellent for locked-off interviews and high-contrast scenes.
Exposure latitude, however, lands at around nine stops — modest compared to cameras with internal raw recording. The a7R VI is tested using internal codecs only, which is the team’s standard methodology. Bottom line: for the best results, use 4K oversampled, and choose dual gain based on whether you prioritise dynamic range or rolling shutter performance.
Panasonic LUMIX L10 Announced – Leica 24-75mm F1.7-2.8 Zoom, 5.6K 30p Video, V-Log, and More
(43:23 in the episode)
The third camera announcement of the week comes from Panasonic: the LUMIX L10, a compact four-thirds camera with a fixed Leica-branded 10.9-34mm (24-75mm equivalent) F1.7-2.8 zoom lens. Johnnie describes it as a smaller-sensor cousin of the Lumix S9 — but with an EVF, which makes a significant practical difference. It delivers up to 5.6K open gate video at 30p, 4:2:0 10-bit recording, V-Log, Power OIS, and autofocus.
Pricing is $1,499 for the standard version, with a titanium gold 25th-anniversary special edition at $1,599. In the titanium version, only the Leica logo is visible on the lens from the front — Lumix branding is absent.
Johnnie sees it as Panasonic’s answer to the Fujifilm X100VI: a stylish, compact, fixed-lens camera that prioritises portability. One limitation for video: dual gain is available for photos only, not video. Availability is expected in June via pre-order, with the titanium edition arriving first.
DJI Osmo Pocket 4P Teaser Shows the New Two-Camera Pro Version
(49:15 in the episode)
DJI’s Osmo Pocket 4P has been an open secret for weeks after the company posted a teaser on Chinese social media. The official announcement came via an event at the Cannes Film Festival — CineD received a last-minute invitation but could not attend given the busy week. From the pre-announcement material, the 4P features a one-inch sensor and a second camera with approximately 3x magnification, which Nino estimates equates to roughly a 75mm equivalent field of view.
The key question Johnnie raises: can both cameras record simultaneously? If so, that opens up interesting possibilities for wide-plus-tele capture in a single device. Full specs were expected to be public by the time the episode aired on Thursday.
(51:28 in the episode)
Nino is currently embedded with ARRI at the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna as part of a media cooperation CineD entered into a few months ago. This is the first year ARRI — via its parent company Riedel Communications — has supplied cameras to the event, with 24 Alexa 35 Live cameras deployed across the venue, alongside two or three flycams, two Steadicams, and three robocams.
ARRI is the new entrant to broadcast, and Eurovision is the pressure test: 150 to 180 million viewers worldwide, 43 seconds between each performance setup to strike and reset the stage, and no margin for error. Nino describes the quality difference between the Alexa 35 and a traditional broadcast camera as immediately visible — particularly in how fire and pyrotechnics render, and in skin tone reproduction. Side-by-side comparisons with previous performances shot on broadcast cameras have already convinced a number of broadcaster and streamer representatives who toured the venue.
The full behind-the-scenes documentary — shot entirely on the Alexa 35 with Alura zooms — is being produced jointly by CineD and ARRI and is going through the EBU and ORF approval process. It will be published once clearances are in place. Two short reels were already available at the time of recording.
(1:04:32 in the episode)
Sony has announced a joint venture with TSMC — the Taiwan-based contract manufacturer that makes chips for Apple, Samsung, Huawei, and many others — to handle image sensor production. For the first time in its history, Sony will not be manufacturing all of its sensors entirely in-house.
Nino explains the economics: the lithography machines required for leading-edge sensor fabrication cost upwards of $400 million each. That is simply beyond the capital investment that most companies can justify independently, which is why so much of the world’s chip manufacturing is concentrated at a handful of foundries. Sony is following the model Apple pioneered — specifying the design while outsourcing fabrication to the entity best equipped to execute it.
Johnnie notes that on the CineD Japanese-language site, the story went viral — the Japanese audience reading it as another sign of Sony retreating from vertically integrated manufacturing, alongside earlier moves in consumer electronics and automotive. Whether it signals strategic vulnerability or sensible focus is an open question, but both hosts agree the direction of travel in global manufacturing is clear: the best production capability in the world is now concentrated in Asia, and the infrastructure and institutional knowledge simply do not exist elsewhere to replicate it quickly.
Flying with Batteries in 2026 – What the New Global Power Bank Rules Mean for Filmmakers
(1:10:52 in the episode)
Lufthansa Group was among the first airlines to ban the use of power banks on flights entirely — not just the carriage of them, but the act of using them in-cabin. This followed a fire incident onboard a flight. Camera batteries with USB ports are in a grey area, but Nino expects those to be caught up in the same restrictions before long.
American Airlines has implemented a two-power-bank limit per passenger since May 1st, each rated under 100 watt-hours. In general, North American airlines currently apply more relaxed rules and offer more carry-on space than their European counterparts. Ross Canerac, CEO of Core SWX, sent a newsletter to customers alerting them to the changing landscape — something both hosts appreciated as a practical heads-up from within the industry.
The practical advice from Nino and Johnnie: check the specific rules of your airline before booking if you are travelling with camera gear. Rules are changing rapidly across carriers, and enforcement is tightening — Lufthansa Group now checks bag weight and contents at the gate. They both recommend opting for budget carriers where possible, since those airlines tend to be more accommodating as long as the carry-on fee is paid.
You can watch and listen to the full video episode of Focus Check ep116 embedded on top, and find all episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts.
]]>If you work in the photography world but aren’t the one doing the actual editing, you occupy a curious middle ground when it comes to gear. You need screens. You need them on the go. But you don’t always need the pixel-perfect, colour-calibrated precision that a retoucher or photo editor demands. That’s exactly the niche the Espresso Lite 15 fills — and for my particular workflow, it fills it brilliantly.
When I’m away from home I use one of two Espresso displays depending on the task. When I know I’ll be doing serious visual work — reviewing final edits, checking colour grading, or approving campaign imagery — I reach for the Espresso 17 Pro, with its stunning 4K panel that gives me confidence in what I’m seeing. But that’s not always necessary.
Size matters, sometimes. Below you can see the 15 and the 17 behind it, not a whole lot in it, but as I’ve said, they do different task, you get to choose which one works best for you.
I will say that for basic edits on the go, this monitor is 100% fine – a quick holiday drone flight and some Final Cut Pro over a coffee, sure.. A spot of Lightroom before you share some frames with the world – it handles it easily! It’s just not the 4K behemoth of its more mature siblings.
For day-to-day social media management — scheduling posts, writing captions, reviewing content calendars, monitoring analytics, responding to comments, and coordinating with photographers and clients — I carry the Espresso Lite 15. And it’s been a genuinely excellent companion.
The Lite 15 comes in five colour options — black, white, soft mint green, light purple, and a vivid orange — and while the colour lives mainly on the back panel (you’re looking at the screen, after all), it gives the monitor a personality that no other portable display on the market quite matches. Mine is the white model, and I won’t pretend it doesn’t spark a little joy every time I pull it out at a café or a studio. I may have also opted for orange, sexy, but the white is classic!
The body is plastic rather than the aerospace aluminium of Espresso’s premium models, but don’t let that put you off. It feels solid and well-constructed, with a symmetrical bezel on the front that actually looks cleaner than some of its more expensive siblings. It’s slightly thicker than the aluminium Display 15, but it’s also marginally lighter.
Included in the box is Espresso’s magnetic Stand+, and it’s one of the smartest bits of monitor hardware I’ve come across. The display clicks onto the stand magnetically — no fiddling, no screws, no latches — and the stand itself can be positioned to sit level with your laptop screen or elevated above it. For social media work, having that elevated second screen means I can keep my content calendar or Hootsuite dashboard up top while my laptop handles everything else below. Switching between portrait and landscape is equally effortless; the magnets handle everything.
The stand does require a flat, stable surface to work at its best, but for desk setups — in an office, a co-working space, or even a clean café table — it’s ideal. I think I have mentioned before that I’d love to see a 1/4 20″ mount hole in the bottom of the base to help with some wild mounting ideas, a boy can dream!
Let’s be clear about what the Lite 15 is and isn’t. Its Full HD 1920×1080 panel at 60Hz is not the display you want for final colour approval on a photography campaign. For that, I use the 17 Pro. But for everything else? It’s genuinely sharp, bright (up to 400 nits), and more than capable for reading text, reviewing social media drafts, managing CMS platforms, and watching reference videos.
Colours are vibrant and pleasing to the eye, even if they’re not the rigorously colour-accurate output you’d need for print or professional retouching sign-off. For social media previews — checking how an image looks at Instagram crop ratios, or how a carousel flows — the screen is entirely adequate, and I’ve never felt let down by it in that context.
Plug in a single USB-C cable to your laptop and you’re running. No drivers, no software install required (though the optional Espresso Flow app lets you configure screen positioning, brightness, and colour mode with a clean interface). There are two USB-C ports on the monitor, you can pass power through the display to your laptop (with a charger connected), though most users will still prefer plugging directly into their laptop for full-speed charging
Because the Lite 15 draws less power than Espresso’s higher-specced models, it’s also gentler on your laptop battery — something I noticed on longer days away from a power point.
If you’re a photographer, retoucher, or anyone whose livelihood depends on pixel-level colour accuracy, the Lite 15 is not your primary work monitor. (Though it does fine in a pinch!) The Espresso 17 Pro or 15 Pro (with its 4K panel) is the right tool for that job. But if you’re like me — working in photography adjacent roles like social media management, marketing, agency production, or content coordination — this monitor is a near-perfect daily driver. It gives you the productivity of a dual-screen setup without the bulk, cost, or weight of a premium display you don’t actually need for your tasks.
It’s also worth noting: there’s no touchscreen on the Lite 15, which keeps the price down. For social media work, I haven’t missed it.
The Espresso Lite 15 is a smart, well-priced (check it out here) portable monitor for photography industry professionals who need a capable second screen for everything except colour-critical editing. The magnetic Stand+ is genuinely excellent, the one-cable setup is effortless, and the colour options make it one of the few monitors with a bit of personality.
If you already own or are considering a premium 4K Espresso display for your editing work, the Lite 15 makes an ideal companion for your day-to-day screen — lighter on your bag, lighter on your budget, and more than up to the task.
Key Specs at a Glance
The post Espresso Lite 15 Review: The Perfect Portable Second Screen for Photography* appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Sime.
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The design immediately brings to mind the hugely popular Kodak Charmera toy camera. Unlike the Charmera, though, the new Go 3S Retro Bundle is capable of recording proper 4K video and capturing 12-megapixel still images.
The biggest change in the Retro Bundle is the redesigned Action Pod. Insta360 gave it a retro-inspired body along with a built-in optical viewfinder positioned at the top of the unit.
The optical finder allows users to shoot from waist level similar to vintage film SLRs and TLR cameras. Insta360 also says the viewfinder doubles as a selfie mirror for easier self-recording.
To complete the retro experience, Insta360 added three retro filters and eleven color profiles to the system.
Users will need to use the Insta360 smartphone app to change shooting modes or adjust camera settings, as the Action Pod itself does not include a touchscreen or extensive physical controls.
Because of the compact size of the new Action Pod, there was not enough space to include a large internal battery. To compensate, Insta360 bundled the camera with a dedicated external battery pack.
The battery pack adds 393mAh capacity on top of the camera module’s built-in 310mAh battery. Together, the system can record up to 76 minutes of video, while the camera module alone can manage around 38 minutes.
The camera module itself remains unchanged from the standard Go 3S. It still uses a 12-megapixel 1/2.3-inch image sensor capable of recording 4K video at up to 30fps and 1080p slow motion at up to 200fps.
Users can operate the camera with simple button presses on the module itself. A single press captures a photo, while a double press starts video recording.
The Go 3S camera module weighs just 39.1g, while the Retro Viewfinder attachment weighs around 39g as well. The included battery pack weighs 33g, and the Retro Viewfinder measures 92mm long. Altogether, the setup remains extremely compact and portable.
The Retro Bundle includes the Go 3S camera module, Retro Viewfinder, NFC Custom Skin, battery pack, strap, magnetic pendant, USB-C to USB-A cable, and a pre-installed lens guard. The accessories are clearly aimed at users who want a more casual, lifestyle-focused shooting experience with a nostalgic feel.
The Insta360 Go 3S Retro Bundle is now available for purchase from the Insta360 online store and major retailers for $281.99.
The post Insta360 Go 3S Retro Bundle Brings an Optical Viewfinder to Action Cameras appeared first on Imaging Resource.
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Most photographers will tell you the same thing: don’t use a fisheye for portraits.
It distorts faces. It bends lines. It makes people look weird. And honestly, they’re not wrong.
But they’re also not thinking about it the right way.
For one of our recent shoots, we built an entire portrait concept around the Sigma 15mm f/1.4 DG DN Diagonal Fisheye | Art. Not in spite of what it does, but because of it. Instead of trying to control or minimize distortion, we designed everything to work with it.
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Action cameras have come a long way from simply being strapped to helmets, surfboards and bikes. These days, many creators are using them for travel, behind-the-scenes content, vlogging, family adventures and everyday storytelling. SJCAM’s latest release, the new SJ30, seems to be leaning heavily into that idea.
The new SJ30 is an 8K dual-lens action camera designed not just for extreme sports, but for real-world use. Rather than focusing purely on adrenaline-fuelled activities, SJCAM says the SJ30 has been built as a “daily recording camera”, aiming to deliver good image quality, strong battery life and simple operation without needing a PhD to figure it out. That alone may appeal to many content creators.
One of the more interesting additions is the dual-lens system. The SJ30 combines a 1/2.0-inch daylight sensor with a larger 1/1.8-inch starlight sensor, designed to improve low-light performance, something action cameras have traditionally struggled with. If you’ve ever tried filming evening street scenes, camping trips or travel footage after sunset, you’ll know that action cams and darkness haven’t always been best friends.
Video specs are certainly ambitious too, with support for up to 8K recording at 20fps and 4K at 60fps. Whether 8K becomes part of your everyday workflow is another discussion entirely, but having the option for extra detail and flexibility certainly doesn’t hurt.
For vloggers and solo creators, SJCAM has included a 2.51-inch flip screen that rotates up to 180 degrees, making self-framing a whole lot easier. Pair that with voice control and it starts to sound like a camera designed for creators who often work alone, whether that’s travel shooters, riders or anyone juggling camera gear while trying to stay in frame.
And yes, vertical shooters haven’t been forgotten. The SJ30 supports native vertical video capture at up to 5K, which means no awkward cropping later and no sacrificing image quality just to fit social media formats.
Keeping footage steady is handled via SJCAM’s SteadyMotion 2.0 stabilisation system with a six-axis gyroscope, along with a 45-degree horizon lock to help keep footage level while moving. Whether you’re walking, cycling or filming on less-than-perfect terrain, stabilisation is still one of those features you quickly appreciate.
Battery life also looks surprisingly solid on paper. The SJ30 features a 2000mAh battery and, when paired with an optional power handle, can reportedly record for up to seven hours at 4K. Long travel days and content shoots can chew through batteries quickly, so extra endurance is always welcome.
Audio gets some attention too, with a detachable wind guard and support for the SJCAM M4 wireless microphone for cleaner voice recording outdoors. A magnetic quick-release mount rounds things out, making it easier to jump between setups without constantly wrestling with mounts and screws.
The SJ30 also arrives with IPX8 waterproofing and can handle depths of up to 5 metres out of the box, or 30 metres with an optional housing. It also claims operation from -20°C to 60°C, making it suitable for everything from winter adventures to warmer climates.
I’ve used action cameras for everything from behind-the-scenes workshop footage to travel content, and honestly, simple can sometimes be underrated. Not everyone needs a complex setup with endless menus and accessories. Sometimes you just want something small, reliable and easy to pull out when a moment happens.
The SJCAM SJ30 is available now and starts at $264 USD. Visit the website for more specs and features.
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The Sony a7R VI is a high res, high speed full-frame mirrorless camera, built around a 66.8MP Stacked CMOS sensor, able to shoot at up to 30 frames per second.
The a7R VI will be available in June, and will retail for $4499, a $600 increase from the a7R V’s launch price, which has since risen to $4199.
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The heart of the a7R VI is a new, 66.8MP Stacked CMOS sensor. Unlike the sensors in Sony’s previous high-end bodies, the second layer of the sensor isn’t DRAM memory, to buffer the data coming off the sensor, instead it’s described as a processing layer.
Noticeably, this means that the full sensor readout speed is slower than in the likes of the sports-focused a1 II; instead, it’s able to combine the output of its two conversion gain modes, using both the low noise and high capacity modes to give wider dynamic range.
The net result is a sensor that’s much faster than its predecessor (around 5.6x quicker than the a7R V, according to Sony) but with better dynamic range. This should significantly expand the range of photographic situations the a7R VI can lend itself to, without a negative impact on the areas where the a7R V already performed well.
The faster sensor allows the camera to shoot bursts at up to 30 frames per second, using its electronic shutter. This is a huge step forward from its predecessor, which took around 100ms (1/10th sec) to read its sensor in e-shutter mode.
The a7R VI is built around a “Bionz XR2” processor, similar to the one in the a7 V (though not necessarily identical). This brings features and AF capabilities, including the Auto subject recognition mode, introduced in cameras such as the a9 III, and the ability to recognize subjects from further away, without the need for a dedicated coprocessor for the AI-derived algorithms.
The faster shooting is backed up with all of Sony’s latest support tools. For a start, the 30fps shooting is blackout-free, to let you follow the action. The camera also offers an adjustable pre-capture mode that starts buffering images when you half-press the shutter or hold down AF-On, then saves up to 1 second’s worth of images from before you fully press the shutter. This can be tuned down to as little as 0.03 seconds (ie: a single pre-capture frame, in 30fps mode), so that you can compensate for your reaction times without filling your cards with preemptive nonsense.
The a7R VI is not, nor is it intended to be, a sports camera
However, despite all of this, the a7R VI is not, nor is it intended to be, a sports camera. Sony talks about the camera being well disposed toward wildlife shooting, but doesn’t list sports as one of its target applications. Having used it in a sporting setting, we found a significant real-world difference between the a7R VI and the a1 II, despite the superficial similarities.
Why the a7R VI isn’t a rival to the a1 II
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| Sony is including a dual charger with the a7R VI to help ease the pain of the new battery not being backwards-compatible with the old one. |
The a7R VI becomes the first camera to use a new ‘SA’-type battery. It’s slightly larger than the existing Z-type batteries and delivers a higher voltage. It has a capacity of 20.9Wh, a 27% increase over the capacity of the batteries in previous high-end Sonys.
The new unit isn’t much larger than the FP-Z100, with the locationing rails and contacts more tightly integrated into the body so that approximately 30% more cells can be incorporated into the case without increasing the overall size too much.
The faster sensor also allows for much improved video, even though that’s not immediately obvious from looking at the specs. The 8K mode now stretches to 30p, but still comes with a 1.2x crop, much like its predecessor’s. However, while the a7R V needed a 1.22x crop to achieve 4K/60, the a7R VI can do full-width 4K/120, provided you activate “Field of View Priority,” which comes at the cost of noise reduction.
Like the a7R V, the VI has visible light and IR sensors designed to help produce more accurate and consistent exposure and white balance. The company says it has upgraded the algorithms that handle both parameters to better interpret things like shaded subjects and light sources, to reduce exposure or WB errors.
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The new, larger battery, which sits longitudinally down the grip, rather than the transverse arrangement of the previous design, means the camera’s grip has been reworked. It’s a subtle change, but the lip around the top of the handgrip is slightly more prominent and the recess on the mount side of the grip, where your fingertips rest, has been reshaped.
Sony stressed that it’s not the same as the a1 II/a9 III design (the shutter button isn’t at nearly so steep an angle, for a start), but it seems more comfortable than even the recent a7 V’s shape.
Another a9 III feature that’s absent from the a7R VI is the C5 function button on the front plate of the camera. This is a shame, as we found it worked well for operating the Speed Boost function that the a7R VI has gained. It’s a function we used most often in combination with using AF-On for back-button focus, so the absence of a front button makes it more awkward to find a control point that can be readily used while also using AF-On and the shutter button.
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While the a7R VI’s viewfinder resolution remains the same as its predecessor’s, the underlying OLED panel is different. It can go much brighter and offers a wider color gamut than before, making it the first camera we’ve encountered with a viewfinder bright enough to preview HDR imagery. Sony also says it can achieve this brightness even when you’re using both its 120fps refresh and highest quality modes.
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| Many of the buttons on the back of the a7R VI light up if you press the new illumination button on the top plate. Brightness can be set to low, mid or high, and they can be set to remain lit up. |
Another brilliant addition (in the sense of light being emitted) is the provision of back-illuminated buttons. This is a first for Sony and makes a lot of sense for what is its leading landscape camera. A small button on the top plate lights most of the camera’s buttons up, though you’ll need to learn to locate it by touch, as it’s not itself illuminated. This button can be reconfigured if you need, and illumination can be set to always-on, if you prefer this to battery endurance.
The camera uses the same pair of combined CFexpress Type A / UHS II SD slots, letting you choose between fast, warm storage or the better-established, slower, less rugged format.
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| The a7R VI moves to a dual USB-C arrangement, with the upper one offering fast data transfer and the lower one Power Delivery for charging or powering the camera. |
The a7R VI’s main USB port is a 10Gbps USB-C socket that can be used for data or power. Just below it is a second USB-C port. Despite the new shape, it’s essentially a continuation of the USB 2.0 (480Mbps) port used for connecting accessories on previous models. The second port is compliant with the USB Power Delivery standard, though, and utilizes high enough power options that it can be used to charge or power the camera.
Every time you connect a USB cable to the camera, it’ll ask you which function you want (eg: Live Steaming, MSC Image Transfer, MTP Image Transfer, etc), and remind you of the data rates of each port, and which port you’re connecting to, though you can set the default behavior if you always want a specific mode.
The downside of this change is that any external accessories you have that used the Micro-B ‘Multi-interface’ socket won’t now work, even though the second socket is still a USB 2.0 port at heart.
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The new NP-SA100 has a capacity of 20.9Wh, a 27% increase over its predecessor. This powers the camera to a CIPA-rated endurance of 600 shots per charge if you use the viewfinder and 710 if you use the rear LCD.
Even when you bear in mind that CIPA ratings tend to significantly underestimate most people’s real-world experiences – double the rated value isn’t unusual, more if you shoot a lot of bursts – these are numbers that are likely to push into the realms of ‘beyond needing to worry about it,’ for a lot of users, with perhaps only wedding shooters having to make use of the two-battery charger that comes with the camera.
That said, it’s worth noting that the charge level will diminish over time if you’re just offloading data over the fast USB port: you’ll want the PD port connected too for prolonged tethered shooting.
The a7R V was a high-resolution studio and landscape camera, but the VI’s Stacked CMOS sensor expands its range of capabilities to something much closer to those of Nikon’s Z8 and Canon’s EOS R5 II, which offer both resolution and speed.
Not included on this chart, but still in the conversation, is the Panasonic S1RII. It targets a similar market of hybrid shooters, with a similar set of stills features and the most complete set of video features. It’s not as fast as these rivals but accepts the more widely supported L mount.
We’ve also left off the Sony a1 II. On paper, it seems very similar to the a7R VI, raising the question of whether Sony has just obsoleted its top-tier sports/action camera. However, the actual shooting experience is quite different on the two cameras, in ways we’ve covered in more depth in a separate article.
| Sony a7R VI | Canon EOS R5 II | Nikon Z8 | Sony a7R V | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSRP (current) | $4499 / | $4399 / £4399 | $4299 / £3999 | $4199 / £3999 |
| Resolution | 66.7MP | 44.8MP | 45.7MP | 61.0 MP |
| Sensor type | Stacked CMOS | Stacked Dual Pixel CMOS | Stacked CMOS | BSI CMOS |
| Burst shooting rate | 30fps, e-shutter 10fps mech |
30fps, e-shutter, 12fps mech | 20fps e-shutter (no mec) 30fps JPEG only |
7fps e-shutter* 10fps mech* |
| Pre-burst capture? | Variable, up to 1 sec | Yes, up to 0.5 sec (20 images) | Yes, up to 1 sec JPEG only | No |
| Viewfinder Res / mag/ eye point | 9.44M dot 0.9x 25mm |
5.76M dot 0.76x 24mm |
3.69M dot 0.8x 23mm |
9.44M dot 0.9x 25mm |
| Rear screen | 3.2″ 2.1M dot Tilt / articulating |
3.2″ 2.1M dot Fully articulating |
3.2″ 2.1M dot Two way tilting |
3.2″ 2.1M dot Tilt / articulating |
| Image Stabilization | 8.5EV center, 7EV peripheral | 8.5EV center, 7.5EV peripheral | 5.5EV | 8EV |
| Stills rolling shutter rate (ms) | 19.6ms | 6.3ms | 3.7ms | 100.5ms |
| HDR still output | HLG HEIF (no Raw) | HDR PQ HEIF | HLG HEIF | HLG HEIF (no Raw) |
| Video resolutions | 8K/30 (1.2x crop) 4K/120 |
8K/60 (30 non-Raw) |
8K/60 (30 non-Raw) 4K/120 |
8K/30 (1.24x crop) |
| Video options | H.265 H.264 (All-I / L-GOP) |
Canon Raw H.265 (All-I / L-GOP) H.264 |
N-Raw ProRes Raw HQ ProRes 422 HQ H.265 H.264 |
H.265 H.264 (All-I / L-GOP) |
| Video assist tools | Corrected Log preview Custom LUT preview Auto framing |
Waveforms Corrected Log preview False color |
Waveforms Corrected Log preview |
Corrected Log preview |
| Media types | 2x CFexpress type A/UHS-II SD | 1x CFexpress Type B 1x UHS-II SD |
1x CFexpress Type B 1x UHS-II SD |
2x CFexpress type A/UHS-II SD |
| Connectivity | 1x USB-C 10Gbps 1x USB-C 480Mbps Wi-Fi 6E |
1x USB-C 10Gbps Wi-Fi 6E |
1x USB-C 10Gbps 1x USB-C 480Mbps Wi-Fi 5 |
1x USB-C 10Gbps 1x USB-B 480Mbps Wi-Fi 5 |
| Battery life EVF / LCD | 600 / 710 shots | 250 / 540 shots | 330 / 340 shots | 440 / 530 shots |
| Dimensions | 133 x 97 x 83mm (5.2 x 3.8 x 3.3″) |
138 x 98 x 88mm (5.5 x 3.9 x 3.5″) |
144 x 119 x 83mm (5.7 x 4.7 x 3.3″) |
131 x 97 x 72mm (5.2 x 3.8 x 2.8″) |
| Weight | 713g (25.2oz) | 746g (23.6oz) | 910g (32.1oz) | 723g (25.5oz) |
As for autofocus and handling, the differences between the a7R VI, Z8 and EOS R5 II will all come down to your preferences and use cases (eg, whether you like a top-panel display, need illuminated buttons or both). All three cameras will outperform each other in different scenarios, and some people will prefer one camera’s way of doing things over the others.
Autofocus was the main area where we found the S1RII fell behind this extremely capable competition, especially in terms of tracking reliability, but it offers a less expensive route to resolution if action isn’t a regular feature of your photography.
The one major callout for the a7R VI is its rolling shutter speeds in its e-shutter modes; while it uses a Stacked sensor like the Z8 and EOS R5 II, it’s the slowest of the kind we’ve seen. This means rolling shutter will put an upper limit on how fast the action it can follow is.
Our test scene is designed to simulate a variety of textures, colors, and detail types you’ll encounter in the real world. It also has two illumination modes, full even light and low directional light, to see the effect of different lighting conditions.
We’re only able to publish the JPEGs of the test scene at the moment, but hope to be able to follow them up with the converted Raw images very soon. But even if we only look at the JPEGs, we can see that the higher resolution sensor is resolving detail that its predecessor couldn’t, putting more of a gap between it and the Canon and Nikon.
The a7R VI’s image quality is truly impressive. 66MP offers the best resolution this side of medium format and is backed up by very high dynamic range. In mechanical shutter mode, the camera appears to be combining the low and high-gain readout modes of its dual conversion gain sensor, something that’s made explicit as an option in 4K video mode.
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The s7R VI’s autofocus system is able to consistently deliver 66.7MP’s worth of detail. Sony a7R VI w/ FE 85mm F1.4 GM II | F2.0 | 1/320 sec | ISO 100 |
Sony says the camera captures 14-bit Raws, even at its fastest shooting modes, but doesn’t make clear whether the equivalent of the ‘Dual Gain Shooting’ video function is being applied to e-shutter stills. Our measurements show that electronic shutter images have slightly higher noise levels in the shadows, and a sensor readout rate that’s consistent with the 8K video mode (in which the “Dual Gain Shooting” option is not available), suggesting it’s not.
The real-world impact of the difference is extremely subtle, though, with the differences really only visible in direct side-by-side comparison. And in charts of DR numbers.
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The faster sensor in the a7R VI not only allows it to shoot stills much faster than its predecessor, it also allows much more extensive video capabilities. As usual for Alpha-series cameras, all the options are in the 16:9 aspect ratio, and there are also no options for Raw capture. You can output a Raw stream to an external recorder, if you wish.
| Resoluion | Rates | Crop | Compression type | Rolling shutter | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HS | S | S-I | Standard | Dual Gain | |||
|
UHD 8K |
24, 25, 30 | 1.22x | Yes | 13.7ms | |||
| UHD 4K (3840 x 2160) |
24 | 1.00x | Yes | Yes | Yes | 7.2ms | 15.8ms |
| 25, 30 | Yes | Yes | 7.2ms | 15.8ms | |||
| 50, 60 | Yes | Yes | Yes | 7.2ms | |||
| 100, 120 | 1.1x / 1.0x | Yes | Yes | 5.6 / 6.2ms | |||
| Full HD (1920 x 1080) |
24, 25, 30, 50, 60 |
Yes | Yes | ||||
| 100, 120 | Yes | ||||||
The most obvious difference is the much-improved rolling shutter rates, but the a7R VI also gains a mode, comparable to Panasonic’s DR Boost mode, that combines the low and high gain output of the sensor to deliver much wider dynamic range. As with the Panasonic S1II, this feature is optional, can only be maintained at slower frame rates and approximately doubles the readout times.
The 8K footage, taken from an 8.2K region of the sensor, is comfortably the most detailed. All the 4K footage is taken from the full width of the sensor and derived from 5.0K capture, according to Sony. Given the sensor is essentially 10,000 pixels wide, that would neatly correspond to 2:1 sub-sampling, which would certainly explain the significant increase in aliasing.
The rolling shutter numbers for 4K capture are very close to being twice as fast as 8K mode, which would also be consistent with 2:1 subsampling. This number then roughly doubles when Dual Gain Shooting is activated, but the sampling method and detail capture stay the same.
Like other recent Sony cameras, the a7R VI can record up to four channels of audio, if you connect a mic into the multi interface connectors at the front of the hotshoe.
It can also record, via an optional (and, at $780, quite costly) XLR adapter, 96kHz, 32-bit float audio. This is still relatively rare on hybrid cameras, but the dual analog-to-digital converters needed to exploit the much wider value range of the 32-bit Float notation live in the XLR adapter, so the capability is not built into the camera body.
Even so, the faster rolling shutter rates and the Panasonic-like option to opt for greater dynamic range at the cost of readout speed make the a7R VI a much more credible video camera than its predecessor, again boosting its utility for modern wedding and events shooting.
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The a7R VI is both the most polished camera yet in its series, while also very much being a camera of its series. So the familiar lag when the camera boots up, checks in with the lens, has a bit of a think and then lights up the screen is still present.
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| Some of the a7R VI’s menus and messages feel like the would have benefited from another round of regionalization. |
Similarly, the menus, while much more sensibly arranged and easier to navigate, are still creaking under the weight of the complexity of the camera, and aren’t helped by overly condensed titles and occasional messages that feel like they’ve been literally translated from another language, rather than being regionalized into comprehensible phrasing.
This sense is reinforced by little details such as pre-capture, which is one of the default options in the Fn menu, but doesn’t work until you first switch from mechanical to electronic shutter mode, then engage continuous shooting. Similarly, the camera offers three multi-shot modes that combine Raw files, two of them have menu settings to select which type of Raw file you want, the third simply defers to the camera’s main file type setting. It all feels like it’s become too large of a task to ever finish or refine.
Which is odd, because the camera has some lovely details, such as the fact that the e-shutter sound changes with your shutter speed. Rather than it being the exact same sound whether you’re shooting at 1/8000 sec or 1/8 sec, it’ll simulate changes in pitch, and even the sound of a shutter opening and closing, so that you have an audible cue about exposure time, even when in e-shutter mode.
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| We found the a7R VI more comfortable to hold than the a7 V. |
The camera’s grip feels like an improvement over its predecessor, but still isn’t as well optimized as Sony’s pro-targeting a1 II and a9 III models. For instance, they both have a custom button on the front, which is ideal for engaging the Speed Boost function that raises or lowers the burst rate when held. Without this extra button, the a7R VI has few choices that are easy to hold if you’re already using AF-On for back-button focus and have another finger on the shutter.
Pre-capture mode brings a distinct lag and jerkiness to the viewfinder, presumably held back by the camera having to operate in its slower, full-resolution mode while it’s buffering images. This is a shame, because the viewfinder is otherwise very good, combining both high resolution and a good refresh rate at most other times.
It’s a little disappointing that the first camera to offer an HDR-capable viewfinder is also the only mainstream brand to shoot HDR HEIF images but force you to turn off Raw capture to do so (you can shoot HEIF files with the HLG response curve and Raw, but it you want the camera to include the necessary metadata to display the images as HDR, then it’s Raw only).
The first thing that hits you is the camera’s seriously impressive image quality, backed up by excellent autofocus
All of which sounds like we disliked the camera, when that’s really not the case. There are aspects that we felt would benefit from a little more polish, but the fact that it takes so many words to describe them doesn’t mean they’re the main things we took away from the experience of shooting with the a7R VI.
Instead, the first thing that hits you is the camera’s seriously impressive image quality and the degree to which it’s backed up by excellent autofocus. It only takes a single sentence to write it, but that’s the thing that matters most.
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The a7R V wasn’t lacking in resolution, but the VI adds even more. |
The a7R VI isn’t as quick in practice as the Nikon Z8 or Canon EOS R5 II, but instead it offers higher resolution, excellent DR, a very customizable, multi-dial interface and by far the best battery life in class. There are plenty of people for whom that will (and should) matter a whole lot more than some of the menu phrasing needing another round of localization.
Anyone hoping for a cut-price a1 II will find themselves disappointed: you can definitely feel the limitations as you push towards the outer edge of what the camera promises to do. But, then again, it promises to do an awful lot, and it brings its image quality excellence to a much broader range of applications than previous a7R models could.
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Just to get this out of the way: the depressing aspect of Sophie Calle’s Catalogue Raisonné of the Unfinished is the fact that its least interesting ideas still are vastly better than anything we typically come up with.
I. Not we. No doubt, you, the reader of these words, has vastly more interesting and inspiring ideas than I do. Clearly. But we, yes, you and I, probably think of many (most?) of them the way the French artist does (as evidenced in the book): They’re either not interesting enough, or we don’t follow through, or for some reason they don’t pan out, or they go sideways or lead down the wrong path.
Life, after all, leaves behind a graveyard of those kinds of ideas. And who likes turning around to look at all of those corpses, some of them still festering?
Well, Sophie Calle does. Or maybe she doesn’t. Because that’s the thing with this particular artist: as a viewer, you can’t tell. Calle has never merely gone through the motions. Instead, when she engages with something in any of her works, she does so with genuine passion.
I had foolishly underestimated how interesting and engaging it would be to see what unfolds in Catalogue Raisonné of the Unfinished, buying it long past it was first published. It’s not even that all of the various ideas explored in the book are groundbreaking or even interesting. What makes it all interesting is the artist’s way of dealing with what had been left unfinished.
I have no way of knowing whether the following is true, but I think that creative people and all the rest will look at the book differently (I do not mean to imply judgment of any kind with this statement).
Creativity is unthinkable without ideas, and without ideas there can be no failure. Creative failure can take many forms — that much is clear from the book. For this reason alone you need to spend time with it if you’re one of those creative types. That graveyard of ideas comes with very different sections, and not all sections are the same.
For example, in Catalogue Raisonné of the Unfinished, sketches are separated from attempts. Sketches don’t necessarily fail because otherwise they’d be considered attempts. But they’re also less than attempts, given that they’re not intended to be the real thing.
It’s always easier to learn from other people’s experiences than from one’s own (what is obvious when seen from afar for all kinds of reasons becomes muddled and impossible to see clearly when it’s close). But as a reader, you do not have to figure out what happened with the various ideas in the book. Calle tells you.
“Lack of conviction” is one reason (in “Sketches”). “Wrong turn” is another. It’s hard to believe, but there also is “Self-Censorship”; but then that revelation says more about how as viewers/readers, the French artist has so successfully created the idea that she has no boundaries, that anything goes. No, that’s not the case.
It’s difficult not to confuse the art with its maker when said maker centers the art so much around herself and her vulnerabilities.
What Catalogue Raisonné of the Unfinished might demonstrate — and I’m aware that this contradicts the very sentiment I started out from (and why not?) — is not Sophie Calle has way more interesting ideas than the rest of us, but that her secret (if that’s the word) is to relentlessly pursue them and execute them.
After all, that graveyard of our past ideas (there it is again) is filled with our own murders, with neglect or lack of execution probably being the two most prominent causes of death.
(I once met a graduate student who did not really have a lot of photographs to show. Instead, they spent their initial crit only talking about all of the ideas they had in their mind. Owning a camera is not what makes you a photographer. Owning a camera is what makes you a person who owns a camera.)
But there is more. One of the most intriguing aspects of the book for me was to see the artist evaluate how some ideas turned out with time. Some ideas simply weren’t that interesting once they were pursued. Some went sideways. And then there were some that simply weren’t, to use the artist’s word, exhilarating.
Of course, you only learn about this once you pursue an idea. But ideas often lead to unexpected outcomes — unless, that is, you stick to the original idea, no matter what happens.
This gets at maybe my biggest problem with a lot of contemporary photography: too many books and exhibitions feature photography that illustrate an idea in the worst possible fashion. As a viewer, you can tell that someone had an idea (which is good) and then they faithfully produced it as if the idea where a paint-by-number piece of work (which is not good).
In other words, too much contemporary photography fails the very test that had certain of Sophie Calle’s ideas end in Catalogue Raisonné of the Unfinished.
Honestly, how much of contemporary photography really passes the “Entertaining, nothing more” threshold? Three quarters of, for example, Martin Parr’s career output fail that test. Which by the way isn’t even a form of criticism as much as an observation regarding one crucial shortcoming of the world of photography: we all want photography to be art, but we never talk about what we want our art to do.
From my teaching years I know that most photographers don’t bother dealing with Sophie Calle because photography doesn’t play a large enough role in her work but also because — and I know that people would never admit this in public — it is simultaneously too playful and sincere.
But that’s a huge mistake. If anything, if you want to take just one thing from Catalogue Raisonné of the Unfinished as a creative person (whether you’re a photographer or whatever else), it’s that creativity lives from everything that makes us human (which is why “AI” will only ever produce meaningful art for people who don’t understand the very essence of art itself).
So get yourself a copy of the book and then apply the criteria used by Calle to your own ideas, sketches, and projects: could anything have gone farther? Did anything not go far enough?
In the end, art is made by human beings. Without being afflicted by the vagaries of human life art is not art.
I’m sure that there are numerous ideas or projects that did not make it into this book. This is, after all, a fiction — much like the rest of Sophie Calle’s work. But just like the rest it holds up so well.
Recommended.
Catalogue Raisonné of the Unfinished; texts and images by Sophie Calle; 240 pages; Actes Sud, 2025
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Smartphone imaging continues to evolve at a rapid pace, remaining one of the most important drivers of user experience and product differentiation. From everyday photography to advanced video capture, users increasingly rely on their devices to deliver high-quality results in a wide range of real-world situations. As expectations continue to rise, the challenge for manufacturers is no longer just to improve performance, but to ensure that this performance is consistent, reliable, and meaningful in every use case.
While hardware innovation remains a key enabler, the nature of progress is changing. Advances in sensors, optics, and components still matter, but they are no longer sufficient on their own to deliver noticeable improvements. The real transformation today lies in how these technologies are combined and optimized through software, artificial intelligence, and system-level integration to produce images that meet user expectations across diverse and often challenging conditions.
To reflect both the recent progress of the smartphone industry and its future direction, DXOMARK recently hosted a webinar on smartphone imaging trends in collaboration with Counterpoint Research and ams OSRAM. Together, we explored the major forces shaping the industry and the technologies redefining smartphone camera performance.
Beyond market dynamics and component-level innovation, one major shift stands out: smartphone imaging is no longer about improving isolated specifications. It is about delivering a seamless, end-to-end experience across the entire capture-to-display pipeline.
Recent insights from Counterpoint Research highlight how broader market dynamics including component costs, supply chain pressures, and integration complexity are increasingly influencing smartphone design decisions. While these factors continue to shape product development, they are affecting how innovation is delivered rather than where it happens. At the same time, the race for higher megapixel counts is beginning to stabilize, with many devices converging around optimized sensor configurations designed to deliver balanced and reliable performance across common use cases.
Primary/Rear Camera Megapixels Distribution of Global Smartphone Sales – Counterpoint Research
Rather than focusing solely on raw specifications, manufacturers are refining camera systems to better address real user needs such as capturing clear photos in low light, preserving detail in high-contrast scenes, and enabling seamless zoom. This reflects a broader shift toward more practical and user-centric imaging system design.
As smartphone imaging technologies continue to advance, increasing resolution alone is no longer sufficient to deliver meaningful improvements in perceived image quality. While higher megapixel counts can enhance detail in ideal conditions, they do not address the broader challenges of real-world photography. Innovation is therefore shifting toward optimizing the entire imaging pipeline from light capture to final rendering.
Advances in sensor design, including improved light sensitivity, enhanced dynamic range, and more efficient pixel architectures, are enabling better results in increasingly complex shooting conditions. However, real-world camera performance depends on how effectively these technologies work together. Delivering natural colors, accurate exposure, preserved detail, and controlled noise requires balancing multiple parameters simultaneously. As a result, smartphone camera performance is increasingly judged by overall user experience rather than isolated technical specifications.
Over the past four years, smartphone manufacturers have significantly improved hardware light collection capacity (LCC) across camera modules, with flagship devices now offering at least twice the light sensitivity of previous generations. This reflects major progress in sensor technology, optics, and camera module design.
Chinese OEMs have been particularly aggressive in this area, with some of the latest flagship models capturing nearly twice as much light as the newest flagship devices from Apple across all zoom ratio. This highlights that hardware innovation remains a key differentiator in the premium smartphone camera market, with some manufacturers continuing to invest heavily in hardware to stand out.
Newer devices such as the Oppo Find X9 Pro and Huawei Mate 80 Pro Max also include advanced color sensors that can analyze different areas of a scene in greater detail. This helps the camera better understand lighting and colors across the image, enabling more accurate color reproduction and improved image quality. These additions show how manufacturers are going beyond traditional camera hardware to further enhance the photography experience.
While metrics such as megapixel count or sensor size remain important, they may not reflect real-world image quality. Camera performance increasingly depends on how well hardware, software and tuning work together to deliver strong results across a variety of shooting conditions.
AI has long been integrated across the imaging pipeline, supporting tasks from scene recognition and capture optimization to image fusion and final rendering. Its role continues to expand as manufacturers apply increasingly advanced AI models throughout the photography process.
Technologies such as multi-frame fusion, semantic scene analysis, noise reduction, and detail reconstruction allow devices to produce images that are more balanced, detailed, and visually accurate. In many cases, AI helps smartphones overcome hardware limitations by intelligently reconstructing missing information and optimizing image output in real time.
For users, this means more consistent results across everyday scenarios whether capturing images in low light, zooming into distant subjects, or photographing difficult lighting conditions. The objective is no longer simply to improve peak image quality, but to deliver dependable results across every use case.
One of the biggest challenges in smartphone imaging is maintaining consistent performance across the many situations users encounter every day. Consumers expect their devices to perform equally well in low light, bright outdoor conditions, fast-moving scenes, and high dynamic range environments.
No matter the scenario, users expect their photos and videos to look great bright but natural in low light, well-balanced in high-contrast or backlit scenes, and smooth with minimal blur or artifacts when capturing motion or zooming. To meet these expectations, manufacturers need to tune both hardware and software so that every image consistently delivers good contrast, accurate colors, and sharp detail. This consistency also allows them to create a recognizable visual style, whether emphasizing natural tones, vivid colors, or stronger contrast.
Still photography remains one of the most demanding areas of smartphone imaging because devices must constantly balance exposure, detail, and noise reduction. In low-light environments, brightening an image can improve visibility but may also introduce grain, while aggressive denoising can smooth out textures and reduce natural detail. Achieving the right compromise is essential to preserve realism while maintaining a clean image.
High dynamic range and backlit scenes create additional complexity. When shooting against strong light sources or bright skies, the device must preserve detail in both highlights and shadows while ensuring the main subject remains properly exposed. This remains one of the most challenging scenarios for smartphone cameras today.
Oppo Find X8 Ultra
Xiaomi 15 Ultra
Vivo X200 Ultra
Based on DXOMARK’s insights derived from user’s perception, backlit portrait rendering remains a key element with high user insatisfaction in smartphone photography. Devices that preserve background highlights at the expense of face brightness are often less well received by users, who tend to perceive these images as less flattering and less suitable for sharing. By contrast, smartphones that achieve a better balance between subject brightness and background preservation typically generate stronger positive user perception.
To learn more about our latest insights study, read the article
Jeddah Insight 2025 Preferences
Zoom performance combines optical hardware with computational processing, making it one of the most technically complex areas of smartphone imaging. While dedicated telephoto modules improve optical reach, digital and AI-based enhancement are still required at higher magnification levels to preserve detail and clarity.
One of the main technical constraints behind zoom performance is light collection capacity, which decreases significantly as focal length increases (digital zoom crop in sensor areas, meaning that effective surface decrease very quickly). This creates a fundamental challenge for manufacturers: they must deliver strong image quality across a wide range of zoom ratios, even though the amount of light and image information available can vary dramatically between camera modules.
As shown below, slight variation of focal lengths often introduces major differences in light collection capacity, making it difficult to maintain consistent image quality from one zoom level to another. At very high magnification levels, the challenge becomes even greater, as digital zoom must compensate for increasingly limited optical information.
Oppo Light Collection Capacity
Apple Light Collection Capacity
As a result, image detail typically begins to decline at longer zoom ranges, particularly beyond 10x magnification. While some flagship devices can maintain impressive detail at extreme zoom levels in bright lighting, performance often degrades rapidly in low-light conditions due to reduced light capture and heavier reliance on computational enhancement.
These limitations highlight why zoom quality remains one of the most difficult areas of smartphone imaging to optimize, requiring careful balancing of optical design, sensor performance, and AI-based image reconstruction.
As AI becomes more deeply integrated into smartphone cameras, maintaining a natural rendering is increasingly important. While computational photography can significantly improve sharpness, dynamic range, and detail, excessive processing may create images that appear artificial or detached from the original scene.
The challenge is therefore not only to enhance image quality, but to do so in a way that remains visually authentic. The most effective AI systems improve the final result while preserving the natural appearance users expect from the moment they captured.
The following illustrates how generative AI has become widely adopted for editing and ultra-zoom photography. Its impact is now increasingly visible even in more traditional telephoto zoom scenarios, enhancing image quality and detail across a broader range of zoom levels. However, some implementations overdo it, producing images that appear over-sharpened or artificially filled with details, which can reduce naturalness and realism.
Video remains one of the most demanding imaging use cases because all processing must happen continuously and in real time. Devices must maintain stable exposure, accurate color rendering, autofocus precision, and motion stabilization throughout recording even as lighting and scene conditions change. Any inconsistency, such as exposure flicker or sudden color shifts, becomes immediately noticeable to the user.
Despite major advances in smartphone camera hardware across the industry, video performance trends show that stronger hardware specifications do not always translate directly into better real-world video quality. Based on DXOMARK’s comparative analysis, devices with larger sensors or more advanced optical hardware can still struggle to match the consistency of competitors with more optimized video pipelines.
This is particularly evident in flagship comparisons, where Apple’s iPhone continues to maintain a leading position in video performance despite competitors often offering superior hardware specifications on paper. Its advantage comes from highly refined tuning across exposure adaptation, color consistency, autofocus reliability, and motion rendering demonstrating that video quality depends as much on software optimization and pipeline integration as on raw hardware capability.
Vivo X300 Pro
These results reinforce a broader industry trend: in video, overall system optimization often matters more than individual component specifications. Delivering a premium video experience requires not only capable hardware, but also tight integration between sensors, image processing, stabilization, and computational algorithms to ensure consistent performance in real-world recording conditions.
Despite the increasing complexity of imaging challenges across photo, zoom, and video, recent generations of smartphones continue to show noticeable improvements in overall image quality, with progress varying across manufacturers and use cases. In photo performance, several OEMs have made significant gains, with some brands such as Motorola demonstrating particularly strong improvements in overall consistency and image rendering across everyday scenarios.
In video performance, however, the competitive landscape remains more concentrated. Apple continues to set the benchmark for overall user experience, delivering the most consistent results in terms of exposure stability, autofocus reliability, color rendering, and motion smoothness across a wide range of recording conditions. This leadership highlights the importance of end-to-end video pipeline optimization, where tight integration between hardware and software plays a critical role in delivering a stable and premium recording experience.
As a complementary step to capture, display is becoming a fundamental component of the overall imaging experience. One of today’s key challenges is outdoor readability. While increasing peak brightness can improve visibility under strong ambient light, it introduces trade-offs in power consumption and thermal management, making brightness alone an insufficient solution.
Screen reflectance is equally critical: ambient light reflected from the display surface can significantly reduce perceived contrast, impacting overall readability. In response, OEMs are increasingly investing in advanced materials and anti-reflective coatings that minimize reflectance without compromising energy efficiency, reflecting a broader shift toward more balanced, holistic approaches to display optimization. Beyond readability, displays now play a central role in the overall imaging experience. As users primarily view their photos on their own devices, it is essential that the screen accurately reproduces the intent and quality of the captured scene. However, achieving this is challenging due to the variability in both scene conditions and viewing environments.
As a result, manufacturers are developing differentiated approaches to balancing image capture and display rendering. In this context, sensors are critical, not only for capturing accurate scene information, but also for enabling more consistent and faithful image reproduction on screen. To address this end-to-end challenge, the industry is increasingly adopting a “glass-to-glass” approach to imaging optimization. This strategy focuses on the entire visual pipeline, from capture and processing to display rendering, to ensure that what users see closely matches the original scene and intent. To read more about our study on the glass to glass experience, read the full article.
One of the most promising emerging technologies in smartphone imaging is multispectral sensing. Unlike conventional image sensors that capture only visible light, multispectral sensors can detect additional wavelengths, providing the device with richer information about the scene and ambient lighting conditions.
This enhanced sensing capability enables more accurate color reproduction, improved white balance, and more natural skin tones, particularly in complex or mixed lighting environments. By improving the device’s understanding of the scene, multispectral sensing helps produce images that more closely align with human visual perception. As smartphone imaging systems continue to evolve, multispectral sensing is expected to play an increasingly important role in delivering consistent, high-quality real-world image reproduction.
To read more about our study on the glass to glass experience, read the full article.
Smartphone imaging is entering a new phase of innovation one focused on delivering meaningful improvements in real-world user experience rather than isolated hardware advancements.
Artificial intelligence, advanced sensor technologies, computational photography, and end-to-end optimization are redefining how smartphone camera performance is measured and experienced. The ability to deliver consistent, reliable, and perceptually optimized results across every use case is becoming the true benchmark of imaging excellence.
As the industry continues to evolve, the next generation of smartphone camera innovation will not be defined by a single breakthrough, but by how effectively hardware, software, and intelligent processing work together to create seamless imaging experiences.
The post Next-Generation Smartphone Cameras: Trends Driving Innovation appeared first on DXOMARK.
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It’s like Canon 5D Mark II vs Panasonic GH1 all over again!
Canon got aggressive with the R8, and finally put the cripple hammer away. This is the bargain value for money full frame camera of our era, they had no choice but to do it – the Sony a7 IV exists. Indeed, the a7 V exists, but it lives in a higher realm of pricing – feature packed for sure, but does it actually offer a better image overall than the R8? I’d say… Debatable.
Then in the Lumix corner, we have the G9 II which on the face of it is not supposed to be a GH7, but it is.
And best of all, this Not A GH7 can be had for around 1200 euros, or less, if you shop around.
The G9 II is an underrated tool. The spec is more aligned with a flagship camera, like the Sony a1 II, than an enthusiast filmmaking tool, and it has far fewer compromises than the EOS R8. If you don’t mind the 2x crop sensor it’s the one to get – but it requires considerate thought in terms of glass. If you’re not careful it can end up looking a bit clinical, but that sensor – the same as the GH7 – is just such a bomb. It’s the closest Micro Four Thirds has ever been to full frame in dynamic range and low light performance, and surpasses all but the very best flagship full frame sensors in terms of speed. The quality of the 4K/120fps is outstanding.
The EOS R8 is a slower camera, and the most glaring omission is the lack of in body stabilisation. If you’re an avid collector of vintage glass or manual focus stuff, you might not miss it – the flagship R1 and R3 behave as if IBIS doesn’t exist when you’re not using native Canon RF mount lenses.
What I do like about the EOS R8 is the straight-forwardness of the body design, how small and thin it is, how good the ergonomics are – a big improvement on the RP – how decent the EVF is, how the cripple hammer was resisted in terms of autofocus and video – two areas where you can barely tell it apart from the much more expensive EOS R6 Mark II.
The lack of IBIS is in some ways a blessing – forcing you to get the sticks out and do stuff properly.
Whereas the G9 II is the closest you can get to the speed and specs of a flagship Sony A1 II, or Nikon Z8 for nowhere near as much money, and you’ll save on the lenses too – and the weight, and the size.
If I were to choose just one…
The EOS R8 does have the full frame image and all the advantages that brings, but to be honest it’s not all just about an ever more shallow DOF – it’s going out of fashion. The full frame advantage is in terms of lenses – a 35mm is a 35mm, a 50 is a 50. With Micro Four Thirds there’s always that nagging crop to factor in.
The G9 isn’t quite as good at very high ISOs, isn’t quite as creamy looking – but it’s a better documentary camera, faster, better battery times, far more feature packed.
And that’s why if I did pick one it would be the Lumix.
The post Battle of the $1000 filmmaking kit: Canon EOS R8 vs Panasonic G9 II appeared first on EOSHD.com – Filmmaking Gear and Camera Reviews.
]]>At AP, we take reviewing smartphones as seriously as we do testing the best cameras – after all, far more images are now shot on smartphones than anything else. I’ve personally reviewed almost every flagship phone in this list, looking at image quality, video quality, editing features, handling, durability, battery life, ease of use, and more, looking at each camera lens and feature in detail. To know more about our testing criteria and what to look for in a smartphone camera, I’ve put together an explainer on how to choose at the bottom of this page.
For most users looking for something for day-to-day photography though, the best smartphone cameras will achieve all that they need, often beating cheap compact cameras. See our smartphone camera photo of the week for inspiration.
So, let’s get stuck into the best camera phones you can buy and don’t forget to download one of the best editing apps for smartphones.
If you want to cut right to it, here’s a quick-reference list of the top rated camera phones me and my team recommend, along with links to get the best prices:
Looking for the best deal on premium camera phones? Not only will you find the best camera phones, but you’ll also find some of the best camera phone deals, as our ‘Buy now’ buttons are setup to automatically take you to the best prices, from trusted retailers, plus you’ll also find a list of other retailers below each phone, to find the right deal for you. Check out the Best Black Friday deals.
Read on to learn more about each of these phones, including key specs and the results of our review team’s testing…
We spend many hours testing every product we recommend, in detail, in a variety of situations and shooting scenarios, and only use experts for our reviews, so you can be sure that you’re getting the best products. Find out more about our expert writers.
This is the best all round Android camera phone on the market for both photography and video, with more cameras than most other phones.
| Rear cameras | 200MP f/1.7 main camera, with OIS, 1/1.3inch, 23mm 50MP f/1.9 ultra-wide-angle camera (0.6x), 13mm 10MP f/2.4 3x telephoto camera, with OIS, 69mm 50MP f/3.4 5x telephoto camera, with OIS, 115mm |
| Selfie camera | 12MP f/2.2 PDAF selfie camera (same on all S25 models) |
| Video | 8K 30fps video, 4K 120/60/30fps |
| Screen | 6.9-inch 3120×1440 pixel AMOLED, 2600 nits peak brightness, Corning Gorilla Armor 2 |
| Battery | 5000mAh battery with wireless charging |
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is a minor update to the S24 Ultra with an updated design, new ultra-wide camera and updated screen. The main camera has the same headline-grabbing 200MP sensor that uses pixel-binning technology as its predecessor.
The S25 Ultra builds on the AI introduced with the S24 Ultra, with a range of additional features for searching, including inside the photo gallery. There’s also been some improvements to video recording, with the ability to use AI to improve the audio quality as well as Log tools.
Overall, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is a great performing device, and it produces excellent photos and videos. It’s a big device, which will be to the tastes of some, but perhaps put off others – I’d love Samsung to introduce a smaller Ultra variety, but perhaps it believes the market isn’t there.
The native camera app has a lot going for it, including the AI editing suite which can really help to improve your photographs. Whether you’re shooting stills or making video content, the S25 Ultra is hard to beat.
Also good for: The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is going to provide excellent results in most situations, including landscapes, low-light and night, as well as video, vlogging, YouTube, and more. In fact many YouTubers use this camera for video thanks to the wide range of lenses available.
Read our full Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review to see what this smartphone is cable of.
Apple’s best iPhone ever made so far – the 17 Pro and Pro Max with new higher resolution 4x telephoto camera, and square 18MP selfie camera
| Rear cameras | 48MP wide camera, f/1.78 aperture, 24mm equivalent 48MP ultrawide camera, f/2.2 aperture, 13mm equivalent 48MP 4x telephoto camera, f/2.8 aperture, 100mm equivalent |
| Selfie camera | 18MP f/1.9, with AF |
| Video | 4K video up to 120fps |
| Screen | Pro Max: 6.9inch Super Retina XDR OLED screen Pro: 6.3inch Super Retina XDR OLED screen |
| Battery | Pro: 3998mAh battery, Pro Max: 4823mAh battery (more on eSIM versions) |
Whichever iPhone 17 Pro you go for (Pro or Pro Max), you’re getting the same updated camera system on both models, the only differences being the phone size (including the screen and battery). This year we’ve got an update to the telephoto camera, which now has a higher resolution 48MP sensor, a 4x telephoto lens, and offers an 8x “optical quality” digital crop/zoom option, that can give nice results. There’s also an updated 18MP selfie camera with a square sensor making it easier to shoot any way you hold the phone.
I reviewed the phone, and found the overall package extremely good in terms of camera features, but I’m still waiting for Apple to improve the macro performance, which has been overtaken by Android phones which now tend to use the telephoto camera (with a periscope design) to give more pleasing macro images.
These updates may be enough to persuade people to upgrade from the 15 and 16 series, but there have been questions raised about the durability of the new aluminium design.
The iPhone 17 Pro / Max offer the best iPhone cameras, and if you prefer the Apple way of doing things then this is a great choice. The main choice now, will be whether you want the larger phone, or the more compact phone.
Read our full iPhone 17 Pro review.
It was the best all round Android camera phone on the market for both photography and video until the new S25 Ultra came out.
| Rear cameras | 200MP f/1.7 main camera, with OIS, 1/1.3inch, 23mm 12MP f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle camera (0.6x), 13mm 10MP f/2.4 3x telephoto camera, with OIS, 69mm 50MP f/3.4 5x telephoto camera, with OIS, 115mm |
| Selfie camera | 12MP f/2.2 PDAF selfie camera (same on all S25 models) |
| Video | 8K 30fps video, 4K 120/60/30fps |
| Screen | 6.8inch screen, 1-120Hz, 2600nits, with Corning Gorilla Glass Armor |
| Battery | 5000mAh battery with wireless charging |
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra succeeds S23 Ultra as Samsung’s flagship model, and is Samsung’s top dog in terms of photography, until that is, the S25 Ultra came out (see above). Its main camera has the same headline-grabbing 200MP sensor that uses pixel-binning technology as its predecessor. However, the telephoto camera has been upgraded to a new 50MP 5x telephoto zoom from the previous 10MP 10x telephoto seen on the S22/S23 Ultra.
A new generation of AI technology is introduced with the S24 series, utilised during image capture and said to improve night photography, noise performance, zoom quality and HDR imaging among others. AI is also relevant in the new on-device and cloud-based editing features like its new Reflection removal tool. Speaking of reflection removal, which is really useful, the S24 Ultra also has one of the best screens on any phone, thanks to the anti-reflective coating on the screen.
The S24 Ultra records video up to 8K 30fps, and with AI can also be used to create slow-motion videos by generating interim frames in a video, letting you create slow-motion videos after you record them.
Following our full review, I noted the incremental improvements to the cameras and features in Samsung smartphones, but there were some areas where I’d like to see some additional improvements, namely in macro. I did conclude, though, that the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is one of the best camera phones currently available in the mainstream, and I stick by that. Now that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra has been announced, look out for S24 Ultra deals.
Read our full Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review to see what this smartphone is cable of.
Apple’s best phone for 2025 is the 16 Pro and Pro Max adding some additional camera updates, rather than anything ground-breaking
| Rear cameras | 48MP wide camera, f/1.78 aperture, 24mm equivalent 48MP ultrawide camera, f/2.2 aperture, 13mm equivalent 12MP 5x telephoto camera, f/2.8 aperture, 120mm equivalent |
| Selfie camera | 12MP f/1.9, with AF |
| Video | 4K up to 120fps |
| Screen | Pro Max: 6.9inch Super Retina XDR OLED screen Pro: 6.3inch Super Retina XDR OLED screen |
| Battery | Pro: 3582mAh battery, Pro Max: 4685mAh battery |
Whether you go for the iPhone 16 Pro or the 16 Pro Max, you’re getting the same camera system, the only differences being the phone size (including the screen and battery). This iPhone update sees the ultra-wide-angle camera updated, as well as a new photo control button on the side that helps give quicker access to photo settings (such as zoom, etc). Hardly as ground-breaking as Apple would make out, but a welcome addition.
I reviewed the phone, and found the new controls useful, but would have liked to see Apple improve the macro performance, which has been overtaken by Android phones, and I’d also like Apple to improve the selfie camera, which struggles in low-light.
These updates may not be enough to persuade people to upgrade from the 15 Pro Max, but if you want a very good iPhone, and don’t want to break the bank, then the 16 Pro / Pro Max is a good choice, especially as prices for used or refurbished are much lower than new models.
These are also the best iPhones available for zoom, thanks to the 5x telephoto camera.
Read our full iPhone 16 Pro review, as well as our 16 Pro Max review. JW
Previous folding phones have left me feeling there’s been too much of a compromise, but that’s all changed now with the Z Fold7, offering a great camera setup and an ultra slim folding body.
| Rear cameras | 200MP f/1.7 main camera, with OIS, 1/1.3inch, 23mm 12MP f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle camera (0.6x), 13mm, with AF 10MP f/2.4 3x telephoto camera, with OIS, 69mm |
| Selfie cameras | 2x 10MP selfie cameras |
| Video | 8K 30fps video, 4K 120/60/30fps |
| Screen | 8.0inch inner screen (folding), 6.5inch outer screen |
| Battery | 4400mAh battery with wireless charging |
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 is the latest folding phone from Samsung, and until this model, I’ve felt that there was not enough focus on the camera system to be good enough for photographers, however, that has changed with the Z Fold7. The main camera has the same headline-grabbing 200MP sensor that uses pixel-binning technology as the flagship S25 Ultra, and the ultra-wide camera now has auto-focus to enable some nice macro photography.
Like the S25 Ultra there are some nice AI features, with a range of additional features for searching, including inside the photo gallery. There’s also been improvements to video recording, with the ability to use AI to improve the audio quality as well as Log tools.
Where the Zold 7 really stands out is in the folding screen design, which gives you an impressive 8.0inch inner screen, where you photos look amazing, and your video recording and editing has plenty of room. When folded the phone still feels like a normal phone, thanks to the extra thin design. If your budget allows, this truly is a wonderful phone to use.
Read our full Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 review to see what this smartphone is cable of.
This is a great all-round phone from OnePlus with fantastic cameras, that deliver excellent image quality in a variety of conditions.
| Rear cameras |
50MP main camera, f/1.6, OIS, 1/1.4″ sensor 50MP 120° ultra-wide-angle camera, f/2.05, 1/2.75 sensor 50MP 3X Triprism Telephoto camera, f/2.6, OIS, 73mm focal length, 1/1.95″ sensor |
| Selfie camera | 32MP front camera, f/2.45, fixed focus, 1/2.74″ sensor |
| Video | 4K 60fps on all cameras including front, 8K 30fps video recording available to rear cameras |
| Screen | 6.82inch screen, 1-120Hz dynamic, 1600/4500 nits, Ceramic Guard glass |
| Battery | Silicon NanoStack 6,000mAh battery |
This flagship phone from OnePlus features an impressive array of specs that make it a worthy contender for the likes of Apple, Samsung and Google. And it does this at a significantly lower starting price of $899 / £899. It has everything you would expect from a high-end phone with AI features, a generous 6.82” screen, sturdy battery life and of course a capable triple-lens rear camera setup.
There is a 23mm wide angle, a 15mm ultra-wide angle and a 73mm triprism lens that provides approximately 3x optical zoom. All three lenses have a 50MP sensor, however, the main wide angle lens uses a larger, 1/1.4inch sensor whereas the others are smaller. Thanks to the firm’s continuing partnership with Hasselblad there’s a 1x, 2x, and 3x Portrait mode that emulates the look from Hasselblad camera lenses.
You can record up to 8K resolution at 30fps but keep in mind the space these videos will occupy, there’s also a 4K 60fps option and of course slow-mo at 1080p 240fps. The OnePlus 13 currently holds the position of highest peak brightness smartphone screen on the market with an incredible 4500 nits, so you can not just record high-quality video but enjoy watching even in very bright sunlight.
Thanks to a dual exposure algorithm that merges a regular and a long exposure shot, photos are sharp with very minimal motion blur, this makes the OnePlus13 ideal for shooting sports, action and fast moving subjects. Combine this with the Burst function in the dedicated Action mode and you won’t miss a shot.
Read our full review of the OnePlus 13
Apple’s best device so far, until the 16 came out, but most of it’s improvements come down to usability rather than a big leap in image quality
| Rear cameras | 48MP wide camera, f/1.78 aperture, 24mm equivalent 12MP ultrawide camera, f/2.2 aperture, 13mm equivalent 12MP 3x telephoto camera, f/2.8 aperture, 77mm equivalent |
| Selfie camera | 12MP f/1.9, with AF |
| Video | 4K up to 120fps |
| Screen | 6.1inch Super Retina XDR OLED screen |
| Battery | Pro: 3274mAh battery |
While not the biggest iPhone on the block – that being the iPhone 16 Pro Max – the iPhone 15 Pro offers a balanced set of features that make it realistically the best option for most users. It’s no great jump from the previous year’s iPhone 14 Pro, but the iPhone 15 Pro makes several clever usability upgrades that improve the experience for the smartphone photographer and videographer. Now that the 16 Pro is out (see above), this phone should be available for less, while stocks last.
For instance, portrait mode can now kick in automatically when the facial recognition system detects a human subject (or a pet, for that matter). What’s more, an image can also be turned into a portrait post-capture. Video shooters get new Log profiles, which allows for much more flexibility when it comes to colour-grading footage. And Apple has finally relented on the port and given us the widely used USB-C connection, rather than its proprietary Lightning port. At last!
In our full review, we concluded that the improvements to the iPhone 15 Pro over the iPhone 14 Pro are relatively marginal, and that it was another excellent device. Neither this model nor its bigger Pro Max cousin has quite done enough to dethrone the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, the current king of the hill when it comes to smartphone imaging.
Read our full iPhone 15 Pro review, as well as our comparison piece on the iPhone 15 Pro vs iPhone 14 Pro to learn more about this excellent camera phone. Plus read our comparison of the iPhone 15 Pro Max vs Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.
For photographers, the Google Pixel 10 Pro delivers exceptional photos, in the majority of shooting scenarios, plus has AI enhanced zoom. However, if you’re a macro fan, then others are better.
| Rear cameras | 50MP main camera, f/1.68, OIS 48MP ultra-wide, f/1.7, with macro AF 48MP telephoto, f/2.8, 5x telephoto, OIS |
| Selfie camera | 42MP f/2.2 selfie camera with AF |
| Video | 4K video recording, up to 60fps |
| Screen | 6.3inch screen, 1-120hz, 3300nits (peak), Gorilla Glass Victus 2 |
| Battery | 4870mAh battery with wireless charging |
The Google Pixel series has long been a choice for those who put the photography features before everything else. The Google Pixel 10 Pro continues that tradition with improvements being made to the cameras, as well as shooting features, with enhanced zoom as well, thanks to additional AI improvements.
There’s a great triple camera setup on the back with an ultra-wide camera with AF, a main camera with optical image stabilisation (OIS), and a 5x telephoto camera, also with OIS. The phone also provides a 2x zoom, and a 10x zoom, that uses Super Resolution Zoom to provide ‘optical quality’ zoom, and in my testing, I found this actually worked really well! Beyond 10x zoom the camera system will use AI to add additional detail to images, giving you images that look better than the blurry mess of digital zoom.
There’s also a great selfie-camera, with 42MP, which uses pixel-binning to give 10.5MP images. There’s auto-focus, and the selfie camera is wider than the 8 series, meaning you can get more in the shot. The ultra-wide-angle camera has a bright f/1.7 aperture, compared to the f/2.0 aperture on the Pixel 8 Pro.
As a Google phone, the HDR shooting has been updated, and is now more impressive, with the phone coping with high dynamic range situations incredibly well, whether that’s outdoors, or in low-light conditions. There are further improvements made to the AI features on offer as well, with Add-me being a particularly useful feature for people who want to be in the shot when taking group photos.
Unfortunately the phone doesn’t record 8K video on the phone directly, maxing out at 4K 60fps, so if high-resolution (8K) video is what you’re looking for, other phones do this better. There are also others that also offer 120fps 4K video. Other negatives, include the macro performance of the phone, which is lacklustre. Using the ultra-wide-angle camera and cropping into the shot gives an image lacking in detail.
Google give you a choice of size, with the larger 10 Pro XL, and smaller Google Pixel 10 Pro, both featuring the same impressive camera system, so you can choose which size is best for you.
Best for: AI features that are easy to use, plus night and astrophotography. Google phones have an impressive night mode, as well as support for astrophotography. The AI editing is particularly impressive as well, and Google have hit the ground running with this.
Read our full Google Pixel 10 Pro review to get all the details. JW.
One of the best performing smart phones on the market with an impressive array of cameras that deliver excellent image quality, however this comes at a flagship price
| Rear cameras | 50MP main camera with 1inch sensor and f/1.63 aperture 50MP f/2.2 ultra-wide (14mm equiv) 50MP f/1.8 3x telephoto (70mm equiv) 200MP f/2.6 4.3x telephoto (100mm equiv) |
| Selfie camera | 32MP f/2.0 camera without AF |
| Video | 8K 30fps / 4K 120fps video |
| Screen | 6.73-inch LTPO AMOLED, 3200 x 1440 pixels, 120Hz, 3200nits (peak) |
| Battery | 5410mAh battery (international) |
There’s an awful lot to like about the Xiaomi 15 Ultra, starting with the Leica branded camera system. It’s packed with a great range of features, including a one-inch main sensor, putting it ahead of most rivals. You can shoot using all three lenses in 50MP mode, and the telephoto camera has been upgraded to a 200MP unit for improved telephoto zoom. Video performs pretty well and it has a slew of options including slow motion, night video, video pro mode and a tracking mode.
While the Xiaomi 15 Ultra is not cheap, it fares well when compared to competing flagship models. It is also likely to drop in price more quickly – on the second-hand market too – compared with the likes of the bigger name (at least in certain markets) Samsung and Apple phones. Keep an eye out for an emerging gap in prices.
Our review found it to be an extremely capable smartphone which produces excellent results in a wide variety of different shooting scenarios, with some impressive close-up macro performance as well. In our opinion, it even gives the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra a run for it’s money, which is saying a lot! The only thing lacking is in the selfie-camera, which doesn’t feature auto-focus.
Read our full Xiaomi 15 Ultra review.
The X200 Pro has an exceptional set of rear cameras. If the Vivo X200 Pro had a selfie camera with auto-focus, this would be the perfect camera phone
| Rear cameras | 50MP f/1.6 main camera with 1/1.28inch sensor, OIS, 23mm, PDAF 50MP f/2.0 ultra-wide-angle camera, 15mm, AF 200MP f/2.7 3.7x telephoto camera, with close focus, 85mm, OIS, AF |
| Selfie camera | 32MP f/2.0 selfie camera, fixed focus |
| Video | 8K 30fps, 4K 120fps video |
| Screen | 6.78inch AMOLED screen with 4500nits |
| Battery | 6000mAh battery |
This flagship smartphone by Vivo comes with an impressive triple set of cameras created in collaboration with Zeiss. All cameras are equipped with high resolution sensors with auto-focus and OIS (optical image stabilisation), and the 200MP 3.7x periscope camera gives macro features. These specs make the Vivo X200 Pro a formidable competition for the well-known flagships.
The main 23mm f/1.75 camera features a 50MP 1/1.28inch sensor, which is larger than many other phones. It delivers consistently impressive results with plenty of detail, excellent colour reproduction, and reliable exposure. Moreover, the dynamic range is great with HDR automatically turning on when needed.
The Zeiss APO floating telephoto camera is a periscope design, and it gives you amazing looking close-up photos, even in poor lighting, with plenty of detail. It is also backed by a 200MP sensor, helping capture even more detail. Finally, the last ultra-wide-angle 15mm, f/2 camera provides nice results, with good colour and exposure, as well as good levels of detail. The camera app gives you quick access to 0.6x, 1x, 2x, 3.7x and 10x making it feel like you’ve got way more cameras than there actually are.
In use, the Vivo X200 Pro proved a highly capable camera phone that more than justified its flagship price tag. The larger sensor on the main camera means the high-ISO performance is excellent, making the phone immensely capable in low light. We noted in our review that the selfie camera is a little weak and lacks autofocus. It’s also worth noting that this phone is currently only available in some markets. If you can get hold of one though, it’s an amazing performer with highly capable cameras. Hopefully next years update will be more widely available.
Best for: Macros and close-up, with great low-light performance. This is the phone I use for product photography, with the telephoto lens producing great results.
Read our full Vivo X200 Pro review.
If you prefer a cheaper and slightly smaller phone, but don’t want to compromise too much on specs the S25 or 25+ could be a great choice. A solid all rounder, even without a dedicated macro mode.
Samsung Galaxy S25 (4000mAh battery, 6.2inch) / S25+ (4900mAh, 6.7inch):
If your budget is a bit tighter but you still want to get most of the S25 Ultra specs, the S25 or the S25+ is an ideal choice. The biggest differences from the S25 Ultra are the lack of headline grabbing 200MP super-high resolution main sensor, no dedicated macro mode, and only three lenses instead of four. But in reality both are very capable and well performing camera phones.
Both S25 and S25+ feature an identical camera set-up, with a 12MP ultra-wide camera, a 50MP main wide camera, 10MP 3x telephoto, and 12MP front selfie camera (with AF), and up to 8K video recording from the main camera. For video or vlogging, the S25/S25+ offer a great setup, as the selfie camera can also be used for 4K video recording.
The only difference between these two flagships are their size, price, and battery life. Both have a smaller body than the S24 Ultra, however the Samsung Galaxy S25+ measures 158.4 x 75.8 x 7.3mm and features a 6.7inch Dynamic AMOLED screen which is not far off from the S25 Ultra’s 6.9inch size. If you want to go for a smaller version opt for the Samsung Galaxy S25 with 6.2inch screen, it sits more comfortably in the hand, however its smaller size means smaller battery too.
If the Camon 40 Premier is available near you, then it’s well worth shortlisting, as it offers a lot of camera for the price
| Rear cameras | 50MP f/1.8, 23mm (1x) equivalent camera, 1/1.56” sensor, PDAF, OIS 50MP f/2.0, 14mm (ultrawide) equivalent camera, 1/2.76” sensor, PDAF 50MP f/2.4, 70mm (periscope 3x telephoto) equivalent camera, 1/2.76” sensor, PDAF |
| Selfie camera | 50MP f/2.5, 24mm equivalent selfie camera, PDAF |
| Video | 4K video at 60fps |
| Screen | 6.67inch screen |
| Battery | 5100mAh battery with fast charging |
The Tecno Camon series of phones is Tecno’s flagship range of smartphones designed for photography. The Tecno Camon 40 Premier 5G is the top of the range model (the Camon 40 Pro sits slightly beneath it), and offers a premium triple camera setup for roughly half the price of flagships from the likes of Samsung, Apple, and Google. However, it’s only available in certain markets, so if you find yourself in that market, count yourself one of the lucky ones. It’s priced so competitively it’s likely to fit both in this list of premium camera phones, as well as our list of the best budget phones.
All camera units on this feature a 50MP sensor, and on the back you get cameras that offer ultra-wide angle (14mm equivalent), wide-angle (23mm equivalent), and 3x telephoto (70mm equivalent), and on the front you’ll find a 50MP f/2.4 camera with auto-focus! The phone can also record 4K video at 60fps, has a generous 5100mAh battery, with fast charging, but unfortunately wireless charging isn’t included.
Read our full Tecno Camon 40 Premier review
Comparing the headline specs of camera phones can be a useful way of getting a sense of how they perform, and which ones might be better than others. Digital photography enthusiasts may gravitate towards comparing camera resolution (megapixels or MP for short), however this often doesn’t tell the whole story.
In short, no, not really. Most smartphones will use a higher resolution sensor, whether that’s a 50MP, 64MP, 108MP or 200MP sensor, and still give you a 12 or 16MP image. Nobody wants to get 108MP or 200MP photos emailed or shared to them anyway, so no, megapixel count doesn’t really matter on a camera phone, despite what the marketing might claim. There are some small benefits to higher resolution sensors, in the form of cropping and lossless zoom, but beyond that, there are also disadvantages.
Smartphone cameras generally use very small sensors, due to their physical size and shape, and this can mean a lot of image noise in high-resolution shooting, however, some use larger 1inch sensors. Modern phones make up for this by taking multiple shots and merging them together into one photo, allowing for lower noise, and greater dynamic range, so a small sensor isn’t as much of a disadvantage as it once was.
When we talk about a smartphone’s main cameras (i.e. the rear cameras), we’re really talking about more than one, as modern smartphones use a camera array made up of multiple lens modules. This is what allows smartphones to shoot at different perspectives; generally there will be a standard wide lens, an ultra-wide-angle lens, and then sometimes a telephoto lens or a macro-lens for close-ups.
The different lenses use their own sensors, and as such will tend to have different megapixel counts. Some of the latest smartphones even use quad camera arrays with four modules, while other manufacturers are experimenting with optical zoom lenses, though this tech is in its early days, with mixed results.
You should also consider battery life, as some phones last the day while others do not. Most flagship phones have a battery with 5000mAh which should give a good amount of longevity, however, smaller phones often have smaller batteries, so it’s something to be aware of.
The top video resolution will be of interest, almost all flagship phones will offer 4K video, but do they also offer it from the selfie camera? The best phones for video also offer 8K video, or 4K video at high frame rates of 120fps. You’ll also want advanced lens options and good quality audio recording. If you’re shooting video, battery size is particularly important, as it tends to eat away at a phone’s battery faster.
Check out the best smartphones for video if that’s your priority, but otherwise, continue reading.
One big thing to think about is whether you want to use a phone that runs iOS vs Android as its operating system. Both systems have their own advantages and disadvantages when it comes to smartphone photography, as well as general use as a smartphone.
If you already use a lot of Apple products like MacBooks then an iPhone will integrate better into your system. However, Android phones offer a lot more choice and flexibility with third-party apps. These days, Android phones from market leaders like Google and Samsung have some of the best cameras in the business.
When choosing a phone, whether Android or iOS, it’s worth checking how many years of updates you’ll get, as some phones give much longer than others, meaning better value for money for you.
You can check out our guide to iPhone vs Android: which is better for photography for a detailed comparison.
With smartphone camera technology continually advancing, you may be wondering whether they have equalled or even surpassed the quality of traditional interchangeable-lens cameras like DSLRs or mirrorless models. However, for the time being, the answer is no, and this is largely to do with physical hardware limitations.
A premium digital camera can pack in a physically larger imaging sensor, which allows it to produce images with higher quality, and lower noise without multi-shot processing. In bright sunny conditions, the difference may not be as noticeable, but in low-light conditions, this is where you’re more likely to notice it. The majority of mirrorless and DSLR cameras also provide more resolution, with 24MP, 40MP, 47MP and 61MP (etc) sensors giving the full-resolution, without pixel-binning.
Cameras also have the advantage of interchangeable lenses – being able to put on an 85mm f/1.4 lens is always going to give you better results than a smartphone’s portrait mode. Granted, if you were to look at the two images side by side on a small phone screen the differences might not be so obvious. But the moment you try to view the image on a larger display, or print it, the difference in quality will be obvious.
The acceleration of progress in smartphone cameras has certainly raised the question of whether they can replicate the quality of digital cameras and DSLRs. Ultimately, with their interchangeable lenses, larger sensors, and raw imaging capability, the answer is: not yet. Some genres and shooting situations, such as portrait photography and macro photography are certainly better served by a camera than a smartphone, but phones are catching up quickly.
And, smartphones have their advantages, of course, they’re convenient, they’re always online, and they’re the camera you always have on you. If you’re still not sure which is right for you, then have a look at our guide to Smartphone vs Digital Camera: Which is better?
We reviewed the flagship Sony Xperia 1 VI phone, and whilst we have seen a number of improvements in the phone from Sony, we found that the telephoto zoom camera on the phone gave disappointing images, and the portrait and low-light images couldn’t match other flagship phones. There are some unique features on the phone, such as a manual focus close-up macro mode, and a lot of manual controls, but for most people, this could end up being a frustrating shooting experience. However, if you do need a phone with a headphone jack and MicroSD slot, this is one of very few flagship phones with these features. Check out our full Sony Xperia 1 VI review to see if it’s right for you.
We have reviewed and tested every single phone on this list, thoroughly, using them extensively for at least 2 weeks (often longer), so you can trust our recommendations when deciding which phone to buy.
We review smartphones from the perspective of choosing a smartphone for its photography and camera performance, so we test every phone by looking at what it offers in terms of the cameras and what features are included for photography and video, and how it performs in real world use in a variety of different shooting situations. We look at video quality for both picture quality, smoothness of zoom, as well as the audio quality on offer.
We test each camera on the phone, whether that’s the ultra-wide angle, the main camera, telephoto camera(s), and selfie camera, as well as the additional “lenses” (the extra zoom levels) and zoom modes on offer (whether that’s real or digital/AI generated), plus any additional modes these lenses offer, whether that’s macro or telephoto macro. These premium phones should be putting in a stellar performance with every camera on the phone, including the selfie camera.
We use the phones for photography in a range of lighting conditions, including low-light, where camera phones can struggle, and this will highlight any weaknesses from smaller sensors. We shoot in bright conditions, where cameras can struggle with bright and dark areas, and this tested the dynamic range of the cameras as well as how well the phone handles high-dynamic-range (HDR) processing.
We also look at specialist shooting modes on offer, including the portrait modes on offer, looking at how well it deals with the subjects skin tones, background blur, and areas of detail like around the hair. We also look at AI features, for example, when shooting photos, and when it comes to editing, what AI editing tools are on offer and how do they perform.
In addition to all of this, we look at how good the overall phone is, in terms of battery life so you can keep shooting throughout the day, the screen quality and brightness (testing this in bright outdoor light and checking visibility), and overall build quality.
Now you know the best camera phones for photography, check out our guide to the best camera phone accessories and best camera phone tripods and mounts.
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]]>Well, this is it—the last-ever TOP post on TypePad. TypePad is scheduled to close down tomorrow, although who knows what will happen and when. We’ll all see, I guess.
I will be posting for the foreseeable future over on Patreon, where I urge you to become a visitor or, better yet, a supporter. Voluntary donations from readers have become the biggest income generator for The Online Photographer. It has changed many times over the years, first ads, then affiliate income, then print sales, etc., but that’s where we are now.
This morning, on Patreon, I published the long-promised version of the Dogs Baker’s Dozen with the photographers’ comments attached. It was super easy, and a pleasure. I have to say that during its decline, images had become increasingly difficult to publish here on TypePad. It would sometimes take an hour of work (and frustration) to get one to post successfully. Sometimes I’d have to give up and come back to it later. The folks from TypePad couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and if they couldn’t, I certainly couldn’t. Sigh. The handwriting on the wall wasn’t that difficult to read.
At the lower right-hand corner of this site it says, or used to say, “Member Since 06 / 2007.” I actually started TOP in 2005 on Blogger—our 20th anniversary is coming right up at the end of November. Considering that my “stretch goal” in 2005 was to keep the blog going for as long as one whole year, that’s pretty amazing. A whole year seemed next to impossible in November of 2005. For the most part, it’s been the perfect job for me. The work suits my skills and interests, and the circumstances (self-employed, set my own schedule, limp when I’m feeling down and crank when I’m feeling energetic) also suit me. I have no idea how many people have come and gone over those 20 years, but it could easily be well into six figures. And I’ve been especially lucky in attracting so many great readers. I initially started ‘Featuring” comments to foster discussion and a sense of community, but something better happened—I attracted a whole lot of thoughtful, intelligent, educated people with extensive knowledge in this and other fields, and provided an outlet for them to share their own knowledge, experience, and musings. I have been so influence by readers I can’t even tell you. Virtually every aspect of my life has been touched by something I learned from somebody who reads my blog.
It’s still kind of an open question whether TOP will be able to continue—a forced relaunch on a different site, with a different look and a different setup, is a rough transition even when it’s carefully planned for months in advance. Executed pell-mell on short notice and under duress, well, let’s just say the conditions are not favorable. But I’ll try. It’s not like I have much choice. I can’t retire. To repeat one of the jokes I like and repeat again and again, “my retirement plan is to keep working.”
Well, I don’t want to go on and on, because this could disappear before 24 hours have passed. It’s been a good 18 years and three months since June 2007. That’s 6,700 days, and I’ve written something here on most of them—about 9,400 posts total.
Sic transit gloria mundi (thus passeth the glory of the world). Good luck to us all, and I hope I’ll be seeing you!
Kind regards,
Mike
In the heart of the old Burned-Over District
September 2025
Almost 20 years ago to the day, a teenager made an unwise camera choice* to record what he was experiencing in case he might later forget. In reality, the choice was really to consciously notice the world around him and single out the bits that mattered – starting immediately with the things he was involved in, which at the time was the crazy period of growing up known as ‘university’. He’d used the family camera before, of course – for the obligatory vacation and landmark images and with the admonition not to ‘waste film on pictures without people in them.’ University represented freedom and the first time he could decide what to aim the camera at – back then, merely his friends’ silly poses and an image or two without people that he felt compelled to take, but wasn’t sure why. It wouldn’t be until much, much later that the process was a conscious one and more importantly, transcended the medium.
*APSC Fuji 1010 Tiara, if you must know. It was battery hungry, the film was expensive and the image quality was questionable. But hey, it was small and unobtrusive, and the really cool looking Ricoh GR1v was way too expensive for a student, even then.
I had no idea that the decision to start seeing the world around me would not just sustain me through the creative depression of the corporate wilderness for the better part of a decade, but take me to places I’d never even dreamed of. It would give me a respite in lunch-hour sized chunks from the sheer mind numbing boredom of audit. It would bring me to the attention of the watch collecting community – in lieu of actually being able to afford anything at the time – and brand principals in the early days of online forums, and later supply my first professional job. It would take me through a part time contributor position at a magazine that would lead to editor, disagreements over commercial/editorial integrity and the formation of this site, to write the truth and present it how I felt was right, independent of influence or dependency on advertising. It would lead me to make ‘pictures without people in them’ for companies and individuals I’d never thought I’d be involved with, let alone creatively contributing to. It would put me in a position to take user feedback and personal experience to directly develop better products with just about all of the major camera manufacturers – and it would leave a lot of things tainted in the harsh light of reality. It would train me to think like an entrepreneur and be self sufficient, and give me the ability to present the best face of my projects to the world. It would give me a meditative reprieve from times when I didn’t want to dwell too much on my immediate situation. It would lead me to question and seek to understand art, human psychology, my own motivations, and what truly motivates us; it would help me to understand the meaning of balance in more ways than one. Above all, it would make me close friends around the world. For all of that, I’ll always be thankful.
It hasn’t always been an easy ride, as anybody close to me will confirm. I’ve had my fair share of uncertain income, business mistakes, taking on jobs I wasn’t entirely sure I could pull off and unpleasant surprises from clients, unrelated individuals, industry peers and entities and everything in-between. I’ve been the target of jealousy and smear campaigns and entitlement and copyright infringement. Some of that frustration I’ve shared here before. Months of drought alternated – often back to back – with months so full I barely had time to sleep and was running on pure adrenalin. I’ve held anywhere between three and six ostensibly full time jobs at any given time, for most of my full time professional photographic career since 2012 – a close friend once joked that I was doing the work of six for the pay of two and a half, which is not far from the truth. I entered professional photography at a rapidly changing time and probably the last period to really make a run of things before fragmentation into quantity, the whole social media influencer mess; my guess at the time was I’d have 3-5 years before I’d have to figure out what to do next.
During the times I’d previously dabbled in trying to turn pro, I’d figured out that I would have to have a diversified approach: a professional portfolio that was focused enough to look specialised but with enough skills to take on pretty much any job; a public presence to build reputation and audience; something with more consistent income like teaching or education (which turned into workshops and videos); and something to put all of the pieces together to deliver unique value: this would be the consulting side for the camera companies. It seems that the strategy worked a little too well, because to this day people seem to assume all I do is reviews – even though that’s less than 5% of the content of this site. But they played an important part since validation is by far the most commonly searched-for thing photographically. Why that’s the case, I’ll never know – everybody has different objectives and opinions are therefore of at best relative value.
As it turns out, my workload split itself pretty much equally between professional work, education, consulting, and this site. In the last eight and a half years, I shot 202 assignments excluding those for my own watch company; led nearly 50 workshops around the world including smuggling six Americans into Cuba in 2014; produced close to 200 hours of educational video and two years of the weekly photoshop workflow series; wrote 1,815 posts (and owe Robin Wong a big thanks for another 80+) and replied to nearly 99,000 of your comments. At peak, there were nearly a quarter of a million unique visitors every month. I had half a dozen exhibitions internationally and nearly fell out of a plane making a series that in the end, never got shown. I worked with Hasselblad, DJI, Zeiss, Olympus, Leica, Sigma, Sony, was ambassador for three of those brands and nearly started my own camera company. I wore out three keyboards writing this site, and a further four Wacom tablets in retouching and post processing. Lastly: I don’t have an exact number, but my best guess is I shot more than two million images.
That’s a lot of work – an entire lifetime, for some; certainly a career’s worth for me. (And for increasing numbers of dishonest others, a place to steal content to farm ad revenue.)
If things are starting to take on a tone of finality, that’s because this is the point at which I confirm the suspicions you’ve been having: MT the writer and mingthein.com are both going into retirement. Between the demands of my ‘other’ job, not being able to travel, and trying not to repeat myself – I’ve run out of things to say. There really isn’t anything meaningful which we have not covered on this site in the usual rational, systematic fashion with plenty of images – there are certainly subtleties on subtleties about approach and theory and philosophy that we could continue to debate, but at that point, I’d be writing dissertations for an audience of at best, one. The truth is, I’ve said everything I wanted to say and more; I’ve done enough thinking and dissection about how and why I shoot that the whole enormous mass has become intuitive – and I want to go back to applying that and shooting the things that interest me, for me, without feeling the need to create content for the entertainment of somebody else. The internet has a nasty habit of a short attention span: they tend to look at things in tl;dr terms and not bother to use the search function. There is admittedly quite a lot of frustration in having a comment taken out of context and applied without relativity; a really good example is the inability to decouple equipment from process from creative objective. Yes, I go through a lot of gear. No, it isn’t for the sake of having the Next Best Thing or some sort of placebo – it’s because I’m in search of what I think of as envelope; the ability to achieve very specific creative objectives, which change – and therefore so must the tools.
But it does get tiring having to explain this all the time. I’ve always said that the very best position to be in as a photographer is an amateur: a person who engages in the activity for the love of it, without the constraints of shooting to a client’s expectation – be that a social media audience or a paying employer. This is my chance to go back to being an amateur, at least for a little while. The whole COVID situation has enforced a strange motivation on us creatives: at the start, I had one of my most productive periods because there wasn’t a lot else to do being under lockdown and unable to leave the house. But it was productivity in a different avenue – I did a lot of designing, and almost no writing or photographing. I’ve long come to accept that creativity needs multiple outlets; a single medium isn’t enough to fulfil one’s vision. But for photographers, the last few months has been a bad period not just professionally but also creatively: when you’re constrained to the same familiar environment you’ve probably already photographed to death within the first few months of moving in, what’s left? You’re forced to either not shoot, reshoot the same images, or try to see something different in the familiar. Many documented the personal process of lockdown, including myself; but after a while, routine looks the same. But the process of doing it felt oddly familiar: it was like starting to shoot all over again, and I kinda liked it.
The first time you do anything creative is difficult, because you’re not just grappling with trying to get the desired outcome from the building blocks you’ve got, but also the entire mechanical process of things. There are experiments that yield results that move you for reasons you don’t quite understand, and unfortunately cannot repeat; and others that fail completely. It was really that feeling of challenge and constraint again, and with the very same initial backdrop of documenting my personal sphere: it’s very easy to make different images of different subjects you’ve never seen before; it isn’t so easy to make different images of subjects you see all the time, but likely fail to notice. I found myself being forced to real see again, and in the process realised how much I’d been stuck in my comfort zone. The weight of experience becomes a tangibly corporeal thing that can sometimes hold you back from experimenting because of the expectations attached. Ironically, it seems the task of exiting my comfort zone would happen within the most comfortable of zones.
Except this time I had the vocabulary and technique to get the images I saw in my mind’s eye; but I just need that eye to see differently. I needed to not care about who would see the images (i.e. nobody); what I would use them for; what else I had to do with my time – in short, nothing more than whether I liked the result or not. All of the rational means of assessing and curating I use like the four things aren’t so much ignored as practiced and internalised to the point of becoming intuitive. I have had, and can have, pretty much whatever hardware I want; I can extract the full potential from that hardware. I needed an irrational, emotional thing to match an irrational, emotional process – something limited and constrained, but not constraining; something tactile and encouraging but not emotionless and functional. Yes, I did buy something; no, I’m not going to say what it is so I can avoid the risk of having it ‘spoiled’; I don’t need the affirmation of the internet that I made the right choice – I know I made the right choice for me. I enjoy the process of using it and it enables and encourages the kind of images that I’m making now – the images in this post – that move me but require no justification to anybody else. Odd as it may sound, the lack of negative emotional connotations for my tools is very important to me. It’s one of the reasons I have very few holdovers from previous collaborations/jobs/engagements; the creative in me needs a new, clean tool for a new job, and the businessman needs fiscal efficiency and low wastage.
There will always remain the need for dichotomy and contrast, however: I will still continue to produce work for my long-standing clients, and I’m fairly sure this creative loop will result in better work than before. I will still produce all of the images for my watch company because there’s a certain nice continuity between seeing a design that doesn’t exist, to translating it through physical process into an object, to being able to highlight detail and intent. As much as I hate retouching dust (now worse than ever with the kind of resolution media asks for and the insensitive cropping that accompanies it) – we aren’t going to move to CG imaging. Hell, I don’t even composite images – I’ve had more than one client surprised when they find out all of the watch images are a single shot in-camera and you can really see the same thing with your own eyes if the lights are set up right. It is a hard-won and exceptionally masochistic lost art that I have no intention of relinquishing.
At the same time as the world around us is changing and I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to travel to the places I have with the freedom we had previously – the immediate world around me is also changing. My daughter is growing up, and as much as I never quite understood the obsession and lack of objectivity that comes with photographing one’s children – it’s starting to make a little more sense to me. The last coupe of years have seen less photography and documentary of the younger one, offset against being busy with other things or directly involved and not having free hands or mental space to shoot – but I have the sudden realisation that time has skipped a gear and now seems to be progressing faster again. It’s certainly time to for me to put a bit more effort once again into trying to freeze her personality in a defining moment or two. She’s also turned into a bit of a camwhore, but I guess the outcome was always binary with a photographer father: either comfortable with being in front of the lens, or avoiding it entirely. At times I’m probably almost more self-conscious than she is about the camera.
In a post-pandemic world, I’m left wondering if faces are going to become a very personal thing; a mask lends a degree of not just immunological protection but also personality protection; it’s almost like the anonymity of the internet. We’re seeing a lot of bad behaviour that’s a lot harder to do if you know the person in front of you, and they know you; it’s just no longer personal anymore. Maybe if we go back to being able to travel again, we’re never quite going to have the same experience because people won’t look different; the subtle cues we get from the faces and expressions around us will be lost behind the mask. It makes me really want to take up portraiture; not just of the people I know or posed models, but a wide variety of subjects – almost more to feel what’s really going on at the present moment than to make an interesting image. I’ve said previously that portraiture is really the record of the relationship between the photographer and subject; but perhaps it can be more – it’s also the unspoken thoughts and emotions behind what was held back.
There are professions that are always going to be a bit morose no matter how you view them – an undertaker, for example – but photography isn’t one of them. Anything creative (except perhaps accounting) should come with a sense of liberation and the satisfaction of having made order and beauty out of incoherent parts. When that joy is no longer present, then I sincerely believe you’re doing it wrong. There is a tricky balance between focusing entirely on photography and not having any meaning to photograph and focusing on other things and failing to see; the pro almost inevitably errs on the former side, and the majority of the population, the latter. The hobbyist gets lost in the camera store. I look back at the highlight reel of my own work, and realise the images that spoke to me then and still speak to me today are almost all spontaneous, and produced during those fleeting periods where curiosity balanced opportunity – the last day of a work trip set aside for personal meandering; the free afternoon of a workshop; the time when the weather was crap and we shot documentary on the assembly line instead of on location.
Planned images are limited by one’s means and imagination. Serendipitous ones are unlimited by chance and one’s subconscious. I need to travel again, but not hold any preconceptions about what I’m going to see, or inhibitions against photographing it. Development of any kind – creative or otherwise – can only happen if the right things are broken down in the process. It means leaving your comfort zone and trying something new; of not being afraid that the next step may lead down a dead end. Professional photography, this site, teaching, consulting – has gone from being dangerously scary with a side of doki-doki excitement to business as usual; nobody told me what I was supposed to do, but I eventually found a comfortable process. It’s probably going to be harder to break those habits than anything.
I feel like the only obvious thing left is the question of what’s next – Horologer MING is now no longer a new venture; at some point in the last year I got the distinct feeling we’d transitioned from being the new kids to having our own defined niche in the industry establishment. The plan was already brewing during peak photography for me; by 2016 the wheels were in motion and in 2017, our first model was released to much nail biting and eventually success. In the three years since our public debut, we’ve released 16 models, been shortlisted for and won the industry’s biggest award, and become both commercially viable and sought after. We won’t make the mistake of growing too fast and being unable to uphold the level of collector engagement we started off with; instead, we’ll aim for a sustainable point that lets us have meaningful conversations with our buyers, make watches that continue to interest us personally and have the resources, time and mental overhead to make interesting images and drive engaging cars. I’ve come to realize that the spark required to keep one’s enthusiasm alive is maintained both by not fixating too much on one thing and being open to cross-disciplinary inspiration; it’s hard to keep an open mind if you can’t see beyond your immediate situation.
I’m not ruling out another publicly shared/photographic project in future, but right now I have no idea what form that might take – or if it will happen at all. I’ve been so caught up in the ‘business as usual’ of keeping this site/ client commitments/ teaching/ consulting etc. running that I’ve frankly not had a lot of time to think about a major change in format or direction. Perhaps it will eventually come after some time off, and probably like most inspiration – come at the least expected point. The truth is, I’ve been a photographer for so long at this point – longer than I haven’t been one – I can’t stop being one. It isn’t possible to turn off the seeing, it isn’t possible to completely lose that impulse to frame and capture – even if it diminishes from time to time. I do know this, however – it’ll have to be something that lets me make images in line with my creative and personal benchmarks first and foremost; I will always be the “client”. The curation thus remains simple and there is nothing to defend, apologise or make excuses for – or be overly sensitive of an external opinion about.
I started off wanting to record my experiences. At around the same time, I acquired more than a passing interest in watches and cars; I got a ‘real’ job to pay for that and realised it wasn’t at all what I wanted to do, even if I was quite successful at it. I didn’t really become ‘me’ until I accepted that I would have to take some risks and do an unlikely combination of things to make the puzzle work; it came back to photography, and then watches. Even my watch collecting journey has gone in a circle from affordable to knowledgable and off the deep end to back to now producing accessible pieces with the benefit of knowledge obtained after coming back from the abyss – it is somehow therefore fitting that the ‘retirement camera’ is also the descendant of the one that resulted in my biggest previous creative shift, and a company I’d worked with previously. My fate indeed has as strong sense of deja vu about it – but I’m okay with that, because it feels like I got a second chance. Some of you may be disappointed that this post doesn’t contain a sort of retrospective ‘best of’; I’d argue the opposite because it’s instead a glimpse into what’s to come. I’ll leave a clue: it’s really about photographing light first, transients second, and everything else as a supporting actor. Light and timing transcend the subject from what it is most of the time, into what it could be.
It’s been an intense eight and a half years. Thank you to all of you for the support*, encouragement, challenges and friendship – it’s time for me to start making pictures for myself again, and I hope you all continue to do so too. New comments will be disabled from the end of September and I will no longer be replying, but the archive listings will be updated and site itself will remain active for the foreseeable future – producing it was a huge undertaking and there’s a lot of emotional attachment here. It only makes sense to leave it up as a resource – perhaps inspiring some people, perhaps rewarding others with a kernel or two of insight. If it accomplishes that much – I’ve achieved far more here than I set out to do. MT
*And a special thank you to the patrons who’ve donated monthly to keep the site running – I will manually cancel the subscriptions on 1 September.
Finally, for the next two weeks all workshop videos at the teaching store will be 50% off with the code FULLCIRCLE50 (not combinable with other bundles). I’ll also be making the Weekly PS Workflow Archive available for purchase as a set here (92 episodes and 120+ hours of material covering a huge range of examples of both my own and reader images). This is the ideal (and last) chance for you to complete your set if you are missing videos. 
MING 18.01 H41 diver, August 2020 / 3rd anniversary release. In a 40×12.9mm grade 5 titanium case with matching bracelet, synthetic diamond coated bezel, ceramic superluminova X1 and 1km depth rating. Available while stocks last at www.ming.watch
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Images and content copyright Ming Thein | mingthein.com 2012 onwards unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved
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