The mid-range sensor market is very competitive, especially because the vast majority of potential buyers will be acquiring one eventually. But what about the high-end market? The costs go up, but so do the megapixels, and the sensors at this stage will be the pinnacle of technology from each of the manufacturers. If you are looking for the best of the best, this sensor showdown is exactly what you need to know.
No matter what you call it, mid-range, enthusiast, or semi-pro, this segment of mid-priced full-frame cameras has never been as competitive or exciting. Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, and Sony have all recently released cameras in this tier, and each has taken a different approach to image sensor technology and to balancing photo and video performance. Which one is best? That's what we're here to find out. But one thing is for sure, it's going to be one heck of a showdown.
With this week's reveal of the very impressive Sony a7 V, the mid-range full-frame camera market has never been hotter. The oldest competitor of the bunch, the Nikon Z6 III, has been out just a little over a year, while the Canon EOS R6 III and Sony a7 V are brand-new. All the major players have put their best foot forward, but which of them is actually the best when it comes to key specs and features?
The brand-new Sony a7 V ushers in many improvements, ranging from a new image sensor and a first-of-its-kind processor to better autofocus and faster continuous shooting. Let's take a closer look at the most significant changes between the a7 IV and the new a7 V.
Smartphone cameras have taken giant leaps forward, but can they really be as good as a Leica? Photographer David Imel, who is co-host of the Waveform Podcast, recently created a fascinating test to find out.
Canon unveiled the EOS C50 this morning, a 7K full-frame video-first hybrid camera priced at $3,899. Its most obvious competitor, aside from Canon's own R5 C, is the Sony FX3. Does Canon's new C50 give Sony something to worry about?
Canon unveiled the EOS C50 this morning and the new RF mount-equipped full-frame cinema camera, Canon's smallest and lightest Cinema EOS series camera to date, seems like it could be the awaited successor to the Canon EOS R5 C hybrid camera. But is it? Let's see how the two cameras face off.
There are many fantastic high-resolution cameras on the market, including multiple 100-megapixel medium-format cameras. But which is the best? That's what the imaging experts at Capture Integration sought to determine in a detailed camera shootout.
Expanding on our efforts we started last year, we're again taking a look at the best smartphones for photography available in 2025. We have four phones to look at this time: the Apple iPhone 16 Pro, Google Pixel 9 Pro, Samsung S25 Ultra, and a newcomer in the OnePlus 13. I intend to provide some education on what situations some of these phones might excel in versus the other so you can select which is best suited for you.
With companies releasing hit after hit of new gear from cameras to lenses at CP+, gear acquisition syndrome is very real. But does upgrading really make such a difference? I recently had the opportunity to find out.
PetaPixel's Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake aren't the norm: one of them presents while the other one operates the camera. Modern content creators typically work alone, and that includes me. That means the same number of tasks that are enough of a burden for two full-time jobs is somehow supposed to be crammed into one person.
When it comes to autonomous, compact drones, ZeroZero Robotics’ HoverAir X1 ProMax is a clear winner over the DJI Neo. We can pour over all the specs, put each drone’s real-world performance head-to-head, and dissect the footage frame-by-frame. The X1 ProMax will win every single time.
The Canon EOS R1 and R3 set new benchmarks for flagship cameras, but a dynamic range comparison by Photons to Photos hints at one taking the edge, and it isn't the newest flagship.
Sony has a new flagship camera, the Alpha 1 Mark II. However, while the a1 II brings a lot of improvements, it is not a wholesale revolution compared to its predecessor, which was admittedly way ahead of its time when it launched in early 2021. So, what's new with the a1 II? How is it better?
Apple Photos added a new Clean Up feature that removes unwanted objects from photos, a tool that competes directly against the one that's found inside Adobe products like ACR and Lightroom. So, which one is better?
In the past, we did a versus battle between the Sony a7R V and the Nikon Z8 but recently Canon updated its R5 II and we thought it to be the right time for a three-way fight.
When the Nikon Zf was announced, it felt like an early look at what the Z6 III would eventually be. But a little less than a year later and the Z6 III came with some important differences compared to the retro-inspired Zf. So, which one should you buy?
Leica's M-series cameras have stayed very similar throughout their illustrious history, even as technology has shifted from analog to digital. But which kind of camera feels better? Photographer Markus Hofstaetter aims to find out.
The Canon EOS R5 Mark II is coming soon, and PetaPixel has tried it. It represents a significant upgrade over its predecessor, 2020's R5. However, a lot has changed in the industry since then, and the competition is stiff. So, how does the new R5 II compare to its peers?
The Canon EOS R1 has finally arrived. After much anticipation and years of waiting, the Canon EOS R System finally has its true flagship EOS 1-series camera. Does Canon's new mirrorless camera take a spot on the podium, or does it come up short?
Network-attached storage (NAS) is arguably one of the most versatile and accessible ways to store your most important data. While cloud services have become the "norm" for backup evangelists, a local backup method is vital for creatives dealing with massive volumes of photos daily.
After years of rumors, expectations, and predictions, Canon has finally announced that it is developing the Canon EOS R1. While details are scarce, Canon has shared a front-facing look at its upcoming flagship mirrorless camera, creating fertile ground for a quick-and-dirty EOS R1 versus EOS R3 comparison.
It used to be that if your digital image was too small for a particular application, you had no real options. You were stuck at the original resolution, or at least something close to it. Upscaling technology has changed the game, but not all apps are made equal.
I love the beauty and simplicity of black-and-white photography, and there's little process simpler than setting a camera to your preferred black-and-white mode and running wild with straight-of-the-camera JPEG files. But not all black-and-white picture profiles are equal, so which is the best?
Microphones are an absolutely critical part of my video kit, and I’m very hard on them. So when I find something that works, I tend to stick with it for a long time.
DxO PureRAW 4 promises to “supercharge your cameras and lenses” by offering a suite of image quality corrections for RAW files: deep-learning noise reduction, superior demosaicing, as well as per-lens correction of distortion, softness, vignetting, and aberrations.
With the recent release of the Samsung S24 Ultra, North America now has three premium-priced phones that happen to compete in a very similar way against each other. The Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max, Google Pixel 8 Pro, and Samsung S24 Ultra, all have state-of-the-art displays, HDR-compliant photos and videos, and a 5X telephoto lens to compliment the main and ultra-wide cameras.
With the recent release of the Panasonic G9 II, we've been hearing a lot of you ask how it compares to the OM-1. We are happy to report that we have that answer.
Despite huge advancements in camera technology, plenty of photographers still use DSLRs from the 2010s -- like the Canon 5D series and the Nikon D800s. And while they remain great cameras, mirrorless rules the 2020s.
In the last decade, 4K video recording has gone from a format only used in high-end productions to a feature found on even the most entry-level cameras and smartphones. It was inevitable that there would be another resolution bump as sensors and computing power improved, and now we have a number of compelling full-frame mirrorless cameras that can record 8K video internally (right to the memory card). We decided to compare the most compelling 8K-capable, full-frame mirrorless cameras to see which was your best option today: the Sony Alpha 1, Canon R5 C, and Nikon Z8.
In Calgary, Alberta, there is a huge annual fair called the Calgary Stampede. A once-a-year celebration dubbed "The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth". Full of rides, games, and lots of rodeo events, this show attracts 1.5 million visitors each year. One of these guests was the illustrious Ted Forbes and we thought, why not have a good old-fashioned showdown, wild west style?
Landscape photographer Michael Shainblum's latest video takes a very close look at noise reduction software, specifically when using noise reduction on landscape images. Shainblum published an article on his website that includes sample images and crops, which are more beneficial than viewing comparisons in the YouTube video featured below.
I recently stated that the Alpha 7RV is my favorite Sony camera to date, and one of the most ideal platforms for what I want personally in a camera. Since then I've had the pleasure of using the Nikon Z8, and it has definitely made an impression on me as the best Nikon camera I’ve used so far. When we saw that the price was similar, it made perfect sense to do a shoot-out between the two.
Arriving in stores only weeks apart and at the same price, the Panasonic S5 IIX and Sony ZV-E1 are full frame, video optimized cameras designed for creators. Obviously, I had no choice but to compare them!
CFexpress has finally come into its own and multiple companies are now producing a wide variety of capacities at a range of prices. But with so many choices, which one should you buy?
When NVIDIA reached out to ask if we wanted to try the new RTX 4090 GPU, we almost said "no." Most of our readers are photographers, and most photo editing simply doesn't require a top-tier GPU. But we did say "yes" because we wanted to answer a different, more relevant question: do photo editors need a GPU at all? And if so, how much do you need to spend to get top-notch photo editing performance?
Lexar has revealed the pricing of its new Gold Series CFexpress Type A cards and while it is more expensive than both Sony and ProGrade Digital equivalents, in testing the new card handily outperforms both.
Light and Motion made some lofty promises when it announced the Reflex LED lighting system. Designed to be both a still and video light, it can certainly do both, but we wanted to see if it truly could replace standalone classic strobe systems like the Profoto A1X.
Google's New Pixel 6 Pro is the first real "flagship" smartphone from the company and boasts the specifications on paper to back that up. But how does it handle side-by-side comparisons against the industry's leaders?
Sigma today announced its new 18-50mm /f2.8 DC DN lens -- a small zoom lens for mirrorless cameras with APS-C sensors -- and photographer Gordon Laing decided to see how it compared to Sony's 16-50 f/3.5-5.6 kit lens.
I use the GoPro Hero cameras all the time for my video productions, but not for action. I like the tiny Hero’s for moving car shots, street walking, and just general situations where a little camera can be placed in out-of-the-way places to pick up my shot.
ProGrade Digital just released the first CFexpress Type A cards that aren't made by Sony and while they aren't "cheap" by any stretch of the imagination, they are more affordable than Sony's offering. But does that discount come at a performance cost?
ON1, an established photography software company located in Oregon, recently released its new noise reduction application called NoNoise AI. As a longtime user of Topaz Labs DeNoise AI, it only made sense to pit these two machine-learning-based noise reduction programs against each other and see which one comes out on top.
When I created my first impression video of the Fujinon XF 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 R LM OIS WR lens, I received lots of questions regarding how it compared to the XF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR.
Within a few months of each other at the beginning of 2021, both Sony and Sigma announced 35mm f/1.4 lenses for full-frame Sony E-mount cameras. They were just begging for a comparison to be made.
While reviewing the Leica 24-70mm f/2.8, I was able to spend some time with a lens from Sigma that has been accused of being the exact same lens in a rehoused body. But is it?
This morning, Adobe unveiled the long-awaited version of Lightroom Classic that is fully optimized for Apple Silicon devices, and we had a chance to test it out before release. Our hopes were high for a program so famously sluggish. Could Apple’s M1 processor deliver a hefty performance boost for photographers? In short: yes. The latest version of Lightroom Classic was up to 25 percent faster on the M1 than on our more expensive Intel-based Mac.
If you own an iPad and an Apple Pencil, there are several ways to pair them with your computer and transform them into a high-quality drawing tablet for photo editing. There's Apple's own Sidecar feature, the popular app Astropad, the hardware-assisted option Luna Display, and the "made by ex-Apple engineers" Duet Pro. I wanted to see which of these options offers the most features and the best experience for the photographer on the go.
Since Apple launched the M1, software developers have been racing to release new versions of applications to take advantage of its new architecture, with the most recent update coming from the Capture One Pro team. But just how much of an improvement should be expected from native support?
After my testing of the new Sony compact primes, I was able to spend some time with the competing set of primes from Sigma that were arguably the reason Sony created its lenses in the first place. Both sets are fun, compact, and extremely portable optics... but which should you buy?
