The all-new 35mm f/2 Apochromatic lens Light Lens Lab unveiled last week is now available to preorder, including the limited edition Titanium Gray version. The M-Mount lens is the first in a brand-new series for Light Lens Lab, its High Performance Series. The lens starts at $2,099, a signal of its premium design.
Insta360 just pushed an update for the GO Ultra that adds a Gemini-powered voice assistant, which it says turns the camera into "a more capable companion for travel, exploration, and storytelling." The tiny vlogging camera can now perform real-time translation, answer questions based on what the camera is pointed at, or can just answer standard vocal questions.
The company says it is designed to adapt and learn so that it only respond to the sound of the users' voice, so it won't get distracted by crowds or nearby conversations. The update is available starting today and can be applied to the GO Ultra through the Insta360 app.
Oh, and I'm fairly certain that entire launch video was made with AI, which is a gross way to advertise a feature being positioned as a way to enrich travel and experiences.
Atlas Lens Co., a well respected name in the cinema lens space, has slashed the prices of its Mercury Series anamorphic lenses by up to $3,996. As CineD reports, all nine Mercury 1.5x anamorphic lenses have new, lower prices, and these price reductions are permanent. In a world where basically everything gets more expensive, some really high-quality cinema lenses are surprisingly and pleasantly cheaper now. Prices now start at $4,495 per lens, down from the previous entry point of $7,995.
DJI partnered with French actress Isabelle Huppert to create this short film shot on the Osmo Pocket 4P. Called FAMILIARITÉ, it's... let's just say, unusual. Maybe I just don't understand art?
Jordan Drake and I recently shared our biggest camera regrets during an interview at a Beers and Cameras event in Atlanta, Georgia (watch it here). For me, it was letting go of my original Panasonic GM5 (of course). Luckily, I have rectified that mistake and now own two!
What about you? What are your greatest camera regrets?
Ricoh's profit exploded in the first quarter of FY2026, an absurd 2.78 times increase year-over-year. But what is perhaps most interesting about Ricoh's latest financial results, as reported by Digital Camera Life, is how relatively insignificant Ricoh's camera division is to its bottom line. The camera business, driven mainly by the Ricoh GR Series, had a 300 million yen operating profit in the first quarter, a huge turnaround from the 1.4 billion yen loss during the first quarter in FY2025. However, that 300 million yen, or $1.9 million USD, is just 0.6 percent of Ricoh's total 47.7 billion yen profit. There is a case to be made that a business segment being so small could be a good thing, I suppose.
Folding smartphones have been around for years now, but they have yet to really scratch past the surface of the cultural zeitgeist. That might finally be changing, as Samsung says consumer demand for its new Z8 folding phones saw a 30% increase in pre-order numbers compared to the last generation.
Galaxy Z Fold8 orders make up nearly half of all pre-orders and more than three times as many Flip owners are upgrading to Fold models compared to last year. All this is to say, 2026 might finally be the year you will legitimately see someone using a Samsung Fold in the wild.
Despite rumblings and rumors based on it no longer being listed for sale two major camera stores in Japan, Fujifilm confirmed that the X-T5 has not been discontinued. Of course it hasn't, a successor to the camera has not been announced or released. It is still available to purchase with no wait.
The real story is the fact that Fujifilm has not released an X Series camera in 2026. If this were to continue, it would be the first time Fujifilm didn't add to the X Series line in a calendar year since it debuted the X-Pro1 in 2012.
The Nikon Z8, Nikon's "best mirrorless camera for most serious photographers," is a whopping $900 off right now at B&H, bringing its price down from $4,300 to just under $3,400. Better still, the 45.7-megapixel full-frame camera comes with a free 128GB SanDisk SD card and a Think Tank shoulder bag. While the SD card is just a V30 one, and thus not the best way to take advantage of the Z8's 20 frames per second continuous RAW shooting or 8K video recording, free storage is never a bad thing. It's a great deal on an excellent Nikon Z mirrorless camera.
Calculated based on the company's reported total revenue of $109.4 billion and the stated "favorable impact of $0.11 from tariff refunds," it looks like Apple received a massive $2.2B windfall thanks to Donald Trump's tariffs being ruled illegal. The refund was so substantial that it inflated Apple's gross margins, allowing it to beat analysts' revenue estimates, CNBC reports.
Digital creator Michele Merlo (kele.zero) has meticulously printed frames from Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" onto Japanese convenience store receipts and re-scanned them. Surely, this is how Nolan truly intended this cinematic masterpiece to be viewed: next to ATM balances and line items of egg salad sandwiches and onigiri.
Light Lens Lab has teased that it will announce a "new chapter" in its lens development. "Advanced apochromatic correction. Uncompromising precision. A refined vision for the everyday lens," the company says.
Speculation on social media is swirling, with many believing this to be a new 35mm lens of some kind. We won't have to wait long to find out, though: Light Lens Lab will make its announcement on August 5.
Earlier this week, technicians at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida installed a memory card behind a commemorative plaque on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The card contains 1,350,144 names that were submitted by people all over the world, including the Artemis II and Artemis III astronauts. The card will travel aboard the space telescope about one million miles from Earth, where it will use its 300-megapixel camera to explore the cosmos and unravel some of the Universe's greatest mysteries. The telescope may launch into space as soon as August 30.
WANDRD's annual warehouse sale kicked off this week and goes through August 10. If you've been eyeing one of the company's backpacks, slings, or straps, you can save up to 25% and also get some other discounts that are automatically applied in-cart on select products.
Tecno is showcasing a new concept phone at IFA 2026 that has virtually no bezel. While the bezel has been shrinking year-over-year in the television market, it hasn't changed in thickness all that much on the smartphone front. Tecno's "Next-Gen Bezelless Concept Phone" aims to change that with a true 0mm display border. Edge to edge photos in the palm of your hand? Sounds good to me. Granted, this is just a concept, so don't get too excited just yet: we might not see this in a new device for some time, if ever.
Canon's July 2026 financial report shows that the company received 58 billion yen (about $365 million) through the second quarter of 2026, which it says was almost entirely attributable to tariff refunds. "More than 90% of the tariff refunds have already been received in the first half of the year, and only a small amount is expected in the second half," the company says.
Canon raised prices last year in response to tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump. Those tariffs were ruled illegal in February, however, and the government was ordered to refund companies. The thing is, customers in the U.S. were the ones who actually bore the burden of these increases, not the countries or companies who shipped products. It may rub some the wrong way that now companies get that money back, with it unlikely to be shared with buyers. Nintendo's recent response is probably how companies feel about this whole situation: It asserted that customers "received exactly what they bargained and paid for."
Lomography just launched a new colorway of the popular Lomomatic 110 called the Discomatic. Featuring eye-popping colors that help you "relive the heyday of disco," the camera features the same 23mm Minitar CX glass lens, autoexposure, zone focusing, adjustable ISO, flash with color filters, and multiple shooting modes (including long exposure). They're available over in the Lomography shop for $119.
Peak Design's new modular L-bracket, the Field Bracket, has eclipsed $500,000 in backing on Kickstarter. With over three weeks left in the campaign and 2,300 backers already in line, it's safe to chalk this one up as another Kickstarter success for Peak Design.
As reported by DC.Watch, Sigma released new firmware updates for 13 E-mount lenses to fix an issue with the Sony a7 V, where the monitor would sometimes go black and freeze while shooting. Affected lenses are all Contemporary Series primes. All Sigma lens firmware updates are available directly from Sigma.
Photographer Jeff Cable has a great idea about how to take full advantage of Pre-continuous shooting on the Canon R1 and R5 II. Recent R1 and R5 II firmware updates have made it possible for photographers to assign Pre-continuous shooting to a customizable function button. Cable suggests that photographers assign Pre-continuous shooting to the illumination button on top of their camera. It's conveniently located, rarely used for its primary function, and makes Pre-continuous shooting easy to turn on when it's needed, like when doing sports or wildlife photography.
"The feature is incredibly powerful and now more accessible then ever," Cable concludes.
