Chris Niccolls

In an effort to learn to love the 35mm full-frame focal length, I took the latest Meike 35mm f/1.8 Pro lens out for a spin. The Meike 35mm f/1.8 is an affordable take on the popular focal length, but it has some handy tricks up its sleeve that belie its lower cost. Many creatives who are looking for a compact and sharp lens will find the Meike 35mm ideal for street photography and travel. I carried it on a little road trip around southern Alberta, and it proved to be a handy companion.

Small, pocketable cameras with fixed lenses hold an enviable position in the camera world. If a manufacturer makes one, it sells out.

Smartphone season is here, and, as usual, Google is starting things off. The Pixel 10 series has arrived, and although a telephoto lens has now been added to the base model, we prefer to evaluate the highest-end Pro series for its creative photo and video usage. At first glance, the specs and hardware look almost unchanged from the previous models. So is new software enough, or is this the most iterative update Google has ever released?

The industry desperately needs more lens support for APS-C cameras and it often feels like a neglected market. Full frame is clearly the favored child when it comes to the camera game, but I happen to love smaller sensor cameras, which give a great mixture of compactness and quality. Sigma is on a roll, making sure to give users excellent and affordable optics for Sony E mount, Canon RF mount, and Fujifilm X mount. The latest $629 Sigma 12mm f/1.4 DC Contemporary lens seeks to cover the ultra-wide arena with plenty of light-gathering potential to boot.

The fixed 200mm f/2 is a very rare and specialized lens. In the DSLR days, there were very few available, and they were all ridiculously expensive. Canon and Nikon both made some very prestigious versions that delivered razor-sharp optics and incredibly shallow depth-of-field. They were also useful for low-light sports and action photography.

The Sony RX1R II was such a unique product for its time, offering high resolution mated to a stunning Zeiss lens, all in a compact size. However, it was always a premium product that demanded an exorbitant price. The RX1R II debuted at around $3,300, and let’s keep in mind that was nine years ago.

In Calgary, we have an annual Japanese festival aptly named Omatsuri. This is a fun event with lots of vendors, great food, and displays of Japanese culture. It's also an excellent testing ground for the new Samyang 85mm f/1.8 P FE.

If you have a Sony E-mount camera body, the world is your oyster when it comes to lens selection. If you have a camera in Nikon Z-mount, you'd better like Tamron and Nikon glass. With all the excellent third-party lenses being manufactured, Nikon users can feel a little left out. But what if you could mount E-mount lenses onto your Nikon body? Megadap decided to allow just that, and we got our hands on the $249 ETZ21 Pro to see if E-mount lenses play nice with Nikon bodies.

LK Samyang revealed a very exciting lens at the CP+ show in 2024 and it turned my head when I walked past the booth. Not only are ultra-compact ultra-wide zoom lenses few and far between, but this particular lens was a co-venture with the storied lens manufacturer, Schneider-Kreuznach.

I don't really like fisheye lenses. I've never found much use for them and find the surreal look of the images to be of limited utility. But that doesn't mean that I won't jump at the chance to give a new one a try.

"Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three". The Quest for the Holy Grail by the comedy troupe, Monty Python, had it right. There is a Holy Trinity, and many professional photographers abide by it.

Light Lens Lab is all about recreating classic -- and hard-to-acquire -- lenses from the past. Its latest revelation is a faithful homage to the P. Angenieux S21 50mm f/1.5 lens. Originally designed in the 1950s with an M42 thread mount for the Exacta SLR, the S21 delivered that Silver Screen look, with soft corners and a gentle glow to the frame when shooting wide open.

Did Christmas come early? It’s the middle of the summer, and I am testing my favorite lens focal length. Not only that, the lens also happens to have a fast f/1.4 aperture and this comes just days after having tested the very impressive Viltrox 85mm f/1.4 Pro. I must be really lucky because the Sirui Aurora 85mm f/1.4 is lightweight, well-built, and a very affordable $600.

Recently, at the Bild Expo in New York City, I asked some prestigious photographers and creative professionals an important question: What is the greatest digital camera of all time? Some said the Fujifilm X100 series, some said the Nikon D780, and I even heard the DJI Pocket 3. Of course, they were all wrong. The correct answer is, of course, the Panasonic Lumix GM-5.

The Viltrox FE 85mm f/1.4 Pro is a professional-quality lens, but it is not the highest-end offering from Viltrox. The Lab series is the premier line of optics from Viltrox, and with this Pro series lens being a $599 bargain, I started to wonder if it was too good to be true.

The Sigma 17-40mm f/1.8 DC Art is the successor to Sigma's legendary 18-35mm zoom lens for crop-sensor cameras. It has been a long time coming and stands out as a truly professional APS-C zoom lens in a mirrorless era where APS-C zooms often target beginners and enthusiasts more than seasoned professionals. But does Sigma's latest live up to its legacy?

I'm not a huge fan of ultra-light travel tripods. As compact as they are, they often lack the stability required for anything beyond casual use. There is a balancing act involved in finding the right amount of stability while still keeping the tripod convenient enough to enjoy. I did not like the Peak Design Travel Tripod due to its fiddly head design and slightly wobbly legs, but they may have reached the Goldilocks zone with the latest Peak Design Pro Lite. This one feels just right. At $800, though, you have a fairly high price of admission.

Flagship cameras always get the biggest fanfare but it’s often the model that sits right below that gets the most play. These are the cameras made for the enthusiast photographer who does not need the biggest and fastest camera but does want some high-end features at a decent price. Where the OM System OM-1 Mark II is the pinnacle of OM technology, the new $1,200 OM-5 Mark II will probably be the workhorse of the lineup.

The Fujifilm X100 series of cameras is the most popular design out of the entire brand and possibly out of anyone else's brand, too. These cameras hit an ideal balance between styling and compactness, but they never really appealed to me as much as they seem to for everyone else. I know that I am in the vast minority with this very unpopular opinion but I think that a better Fujifilm camera exists and we all get to appreciate it together now because the X-E5 has finally arrived.

Who can afford an L-mount, general-purpose f/2.8 professional lens anymore? Turns out, a lot more people will have this opportunity with the launch of the new Panasonic Lumix S 24-60mm f/2.8.

Venus Optics' Laowa brand is known for its weird and wonderful lens designs. Sometimes, they are exquisite, unique designs that bring versatility to the photographer's bag. Other times, the lenses are budget alternatives that trade some optical performance in the name of "character." The latest version of the Laowa 15mm f/4.5 Macro is definitely in the latter category, but that doesn’t mean that it lacks value. At $399, this is a solid, budget-friendly optic.

When Fujifilm teased its new X half camera, the industry went into a tizzy trying to figure out if it was a half-frame analog camera or a compact digital. It turns out that the Fujifilm X half is actually not half a camera but more like two cameras in one.

You might think that the world has enough 24-megapixel full-frame cameras by now, but you would be wrong. With image quality having reached a performance plateau, the only way to improve is by going faster. Last year, Nikon released its Z6 III, debuting a new partially stacked sensor. We wondered when another camera might come out that utilizes this same excellent technology, and now that wait is over.

The DJI Mavic is the all-around choice for midrange professional use, and now we get to witness the fourth version in all its splendor. Much like the 3 Pro that comes before it, the Mavic 4 Pro features a three-camera array on a sophisticated gimbal using Hasselblad color science to provide stunning photos and videos.

I love the 75mm focal length. In fact, anything around 70mm to 90mm is more like a normal lens for me than a 50mm. And if the lens has a fast aperture, I'm even more enamored.

Professional telephoto lenses made specifically for wildlife and sports tend to be the most expensive money can buy. They push the envelope of lens technology, not to mention size and weight. What if I told you that Sigma made a lens that delivers the same f/4 aperture combined with a more versatile zoom range but is also only $6,000, substantially less money than the competition? It sounds too good to be true.

Compact point-and-shoot cameras are more popular than ever. I thought they would be gone forever, replaced and surpassed by the modern smartphone but boy, was I wrong. The compact digital camera is experiencing a renaissance and Yashica has jumped into the fray with its City series of cameras to capitalize on the hype.

The PowerShot name belonged to some of the best Canon compact digital cameras ever made but it has faded into obscurity of late. However, in the spirit of excellent cameras such as the Canon PowerShot G1X, we now see a return to the storied lineup. The $900 Canon PowerShot V1 has arrived and this latest vlogging camera has everything charming and powerful about its predecessors.

The Nikkor 35mm f/1.2 changed my mind about the 35mm focal length. You may already know that I am quite vocal about my disdain for this particularly popular prime but the unique look that an f/1.2 aperture can provide finally won me over.

In the camera review game, the continuous grind of lens and camera reviews can get a little monotonous sometimes. But every once in a while, a product comes along that is so innovative and so outside the box that you can’t help but stand in awe. Outdoor Monster represents a moment exactly like this and I had the privilege to test it out for myself.