With the popularity of film photography reaching a fever pitch recently, seeing Leica announce its first-ever black and white 35mm film shouldn't shock you. Leica is even making a film camera brand-new, so it makes a ton of sense. But is Leica Monopan 50 any good and -- more importantly -- is it unique?
Being small is what makes the Vivo X200 FE stand out from a crowd of bigger phones, thanks to its impressive knack for capturing images that others can’t or won’t.
Foldable phones aren’t camera trend-setters because they get their camera components from other models. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 is no different in carrying on that pattern, only this time it’s actually rocking a flagship-level main wide-angle camera.
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.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. As a brand hailing from Britain, Nothing has been around since 2020, and the Phone 3 is its first true flagship aimed at taking on the best in the industry.
In May, vintage-inspired analog camera company Reto announced the Reto Pano, a reusable point-and-shoot camera with both an ultra-wide lens and the promise of being able to switch freely between standard 35mm film aspect ratio and panoramic mid-roll. It got my attention.
Wandrd's Prvke series has earned a devoted following among photographers, and with the launch of the new Prvke V4 21L and the Essential Camera Cube V2, Wandrd promises photographers an even better carrying experience. I find out if Wandrd's new bag lives up to its billing.
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.
Harman is on a roll, expanding its support for analog photographers with multiple new film emulsions this year. Right on the heels of Kentmere Pan 200, its new Phoenix II film stock replaces the more experimental original Phoenix and improves on it in multiple areas. That said, it might not be for everyone.
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.
Gura Gear announced a brand-new, $180 sling bag at the Bild Expo last month called the Kiboko City Sling 6L, and from what the company tells me, the idea was so popular that it sold 1,500 of them in just those two days. There is something about this bag that caught people's eyes, so I decided I needed to see what that was.
I’ll be honest: I’ve never used a NAS before. As a photographer and content creator, I’ve spent years juggling stacks of external SSDs and hard drives in a messy, chaotic system that has somehow worked. But what I don’t have are enough backups, and the constant worry of a drive failing or getting lost has always nagged at me.
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.
The Genki Moonbase is a stylish and powerful power strip that is sure to liven up any workspace. It's also chock-full of ports, featuring three AC outlets and four USB-C ports.
Over the last couple of years, the number of computers, headphones, cameras, and portable batteries that charge with USB-C that I've acquired has ballooned substantially. I've resorted to using batches of individual USB-C plugs cobbled together in my aging infrastructure, but it's an inelegant solution. That's where the UGreen Nexode came in.
The Honor 400 is a mid-range phone that is as much a showcase of the company’s AI features as it is about mobile photography.
Thypoch has been pumping out new lenses for Leica M-mount regularly for the past year, and while there are certainly digital cameras that they work great on, I think the company knows its biggest market is probably going to be analog fans.
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.
In the world of wildlife photography, capturing fast-moving subjects from a distance requires the perfect blend of reach, speed, and image quality. Sigma, renowned for its high-performance lenses, has recently announced the launch of the Sigma 300-600mm f/4 DG DN OS Sports, a powerful zoom lens specifically designed for wildlife photographers.
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.
To usher in the next generation of its 360-degree action camera, Insta360 didn’t go back to the drawing board. Instead, it turned to the community, taking stock in what its customers liked, but also didn’t like about the brand’s X4 action camera.
As smartphones have made photography more accessible than ever, a small Japanese company is taking a radically different approach to capturing memories. The Kyu camera, launched in Japan in late 2024 and now available for pre-order in the U.S., wants to challenge our relationship with digital memories through an intriguingly restrictive design philosophy.
