We Drafted Our Dream Camera Teams | The PetaPixel Podcast

Nov 05, 2025

Jaron Schneider

This week on The PetaPixel Podcast, the team is joined by photographer David Imel and PetaPixel’s Jeremy Gray for a unique challenge: who can draft the best fantasy camera team? Based loosely on fantasy football rules, all five must create a dream team based on eight categories.

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The rules for this draft are based heavily on conventional fantasy football rules, except instead of player positions, drafters will need to fill the following categories:

Mirrorless
SLR/DSLR
Rangefinder
Medium Format
Fixed Prime Lens (enthusiast+)
Point and Shoot (zoom lens)
Bridge Camera
Bench/Wild Card

Cameras can be from any era, film or digital, and drafted cameras are entire lines, not individuals. For example, if someone drafts the Leica M11, they are drafting the entire Leica M series cameras. The same goes for the Nikon D5, as they would get all of Nikon’s high-end DSLRs starting with the D1. There are cameras that are standalone, of course, like the Nikon Z9.

There are some cameras that could be considered for multiple categories, such as the Mamiya 7 which is both medium format and a rangefinder. When drafted, a camera like that can be slotted into any of the appropriate positions that it would fall into by the drafter. For a fantasy football comparison, that would be like a Taysom Hill who is both a Tight End and a Quarterback.

During the draft, a drafter can fill any position they want in any order from the list of available cameras that has not yet been drafted. Once a camera has been drafted, it cannot be picked again by any other drafter. The Bench/Wild Card slot is any camera from any category and will just serve as a bench player, or bonus camera, for a team. In fantasy, bench positions are held usually as a backup for either a bye week or an injury, but for the purposes of this draft, they will just be for fun.

The draft order was randomly drawn and was determined to be David Imel, Chris Niccolls, Jaron Schneider, Jordan Drake, and then Jeremy Gray. The draft is snake-style.

The Results

We encourage you to watch the whole draft, but below are the results.

A chart lists types of cameras across eight rows and five columns, with each column labeled for a person: David, Chris, Jaron, Jordan, and Jeremy. Each cell contains an image of a different camera model. — Click to view larger.

David Imel’s Team

Mirrorless – Fujifilm X-Pro Series
SLR/DSLR – Nikon F Series
Rangefinder – Hasselblad X-Pan/ Fujifilm TX-1
Medium Format – Mamiya 7
Fixed Prime Lens – Ricoh GR series
Point and Shoot – Canon G7x
Bridge Camera – Nikon P900
Bench/Wild Card – Pentax 67 Series

Chris Niccolls’ Team

Mirrorless – Fujifilm X-T Mainline Series
SLR/DSLR – Nikon D800
Rangefinder – Nikon S Series
Medium Format – Fujifilm GFX 100 Series
Fixed Prime Lens – Contax T Series
Point and Shoot – Panasonic LX10 Series
Bridge Camera – Sony RX10 Series
Bench/Wild Card – Nikon FE/M

Jaron Schneider’s Team

Mirrorless – Canon R5 Series
SLR/DSLR – Canon 1D Series
Rangefinder – Leica M Series
Medium Format – Leica S Series
Fixed Prime Lens- Nikon Ti series
Point and Shoot- Olympus/OM TG Tough
Bridge Camera – Nikon P1000
Bench/Wild Card – Ricoh GXR

Jordan Drake’s Team

Mirrorless – Nikon Z8
SLR/DSLR – Canon 5D Series
Rangefinder – Epson RD1
Medium Format – Hasselblad 500 series
Fixed Prime Lens – Leica Q Series
Point and Shoot – Sony RX100 series
Bridge Camera – Fujifilm XS-1
Bench/Wild Card – Panasonic GH Series

Jeremy Gray’s Team

Mirrorless – Sony a7R Series
SLR/DSLR – Nikon D1-6 series
Rangefinder – Olympus 35 RC
Medium Format – Fujifilm GW690 Series
Fixed Prime Lens – Fujifilm X100
Point and Shoot – Panasonic ZS Series
Bridge Camera – Fujifilm Finepix S9000
Bench/Wild Card – iPhone Series

Vote on who you think has the best team on YouTube or leave a comment below with your vote! We’ll discuss the winner on the next episode of The PetaPixel Podcast.

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