Reviews

External editing keyboards and decks are huge time savers. Move the critical features of an editing or creative tool to a compact editing surface, and workflow productivity climbs.

Somehow, 2023 has turned into quite the year for monochrome cameras. Leica, though, is no stranger to the format and the M11 Monochrom is just the latest in a series of excellent additions to the space.

At this point in the "Tablet Debate", the argument about who makes the best tablets for photographers will shift back and forth between Xencelabs and Wacom depending on who you talk too and what deep-down preferences they have. While Wacom may have reigned supreme for a very long time, it's hard to deny that with the launch of the $1,899 Pen Display 24 Studio Series, Xencelabs has officially given Wacom a reason to worry.

The Vivo X90 Pro isn’t the brand’s top device, given there’s a Pro+ version out there, but this phone isn’t one to take lightly. Vivo isn’t shy about the credibility and relevance it wants in the market, even if its phones aren’t all that visible in North America yet.

The Xiaomi 13 Pro may be a successor to the previous 12 Pro, but it’s just as easy to argue that it’s more a continuation of the 12S Ultra that was only released in China. That was the first to use the Type 1 (13.1 x 9.8mm) Sony IMX989 sensor -- the same one from the popular Sony RX100 -- only customized to Xiaomi’s liking. 


It’s easy to overlook a good third-party photography app on a smartphone because they just keep popping up, but Varlens may be one worth keeping close by at all times.

When Sony and Sigma released lenses with nearly identical specifications (or at least nearly identical target customers), photographic gear scheduling marked a rare alignment. Photographically speaking, the concurrent launch of these two similar lenses is the equivalent of a full solar eclipse—incredibly rare and also amazing to see.

The Sony ZV-E1 represents the (current) pinnacle of the company's efforts to radically pivot the camera division to stay ahead of changes in the photography and video markets. It is largely successful in that endeavor.

Last week, Adobe made waves by announcing the beta release of its new text-to-image generative artificial intelligence (AI) model, Firefly. Adobe says its new platform wasn't built using stolen images, but rather, as Adobe boasts, Firefly has been trained using Adobe Stock images, openly licensed content, and public domain content.

Really Right Stuff is a company that is well-known for producing some of the highest-quality tripod and accessories for creatives, and the recently updated PG-02 MK II Pan-Tilt Tripod Head is no exception.

I have a special interest in manual focus 50mm lenses. It began with a Praktica film SLR that was bundled with a 50mm f/2.8 Meyer-Optic Görlitz lens. Next came a Canon Ftb SLR with a 50mm f/1.4 FD SSC lens. This lens had a noticeable improvement in image quality along with a much better anti-reflection coating.

The Z30 mirrorless camera is Nikon's third APS-C (DX) system that takes advantage of the Z-mount. While clearly marketed at content creators, vloggers, and social media influencers, the compact system has everything a solo-operating content creator needs to get up and running for video and photo.

Can a mid-range smartphone that focuses more on gaming also deliver something worth capturing with its cameras? The Poco X5 Pro acts like it’s up for the job, only to then force a lot of compromises.

The new Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K G2 successfully carries on the company’s tradition of providing affordable creation tools dedicated to video and cinema creation.

Wacom's Cintiq Pro 27 might be expensive, but it is one of the most immersive, accurate, and stable display tablets ever.

DJI’s RS 3 Mini is a scaled-down version of the popular RS line of gimbals that supports a lighter payload and has scaled-down motors and a more petite frame to accommodate today’s lighter mirrorless cameras -- but doesn't skimp on features.

Samsung stuck with a familiar look in the Galaxy S23 Ultra, but it’s what is underneath that counts and it pushes the phone’s camera forward as a tougher competitor.

Sony’s new Sony 50mm f/1.4 GM is a compact, fast, and high-resolution lens in Sony’s upper-echelon G Master lineup, and it joins Sony’s already flush 50mm focal length lineup.

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?

Zhiyun's FiveRay F100 LED light sticks have a solid level of power, are easy to maneuver, are affordable, and can perform a wide variety of lighting tasks. They're great lights, marred mainly by frustrating controls.

The Viltrox AF 75mm f/1.2 doesn't slot neatly into Viltrox's existing prime lens lineup for APS-C cameras (and currently for Fuji X-mount) - in fact, I'd call it an aberration, an experiment, possibly even a mistake. But what a wonderful mistake.

The OnePlus 11 isn’t a debut by any means. OnePlus has been selling phones in various markets for years, but this one marks a shift in approach to being fashionable and credible -- not to mention cheaper -- while also dealing with its branding challenges in a place where Apple, Samsung, and Google reign.

Canon’s M50 APS-C camera was introduced in February of 2018 when Canon had yet to truly enter the mirrorless camera market, and its tiny new APS-C Canon EOS R50 is more than just a replacement for the M50.

With the introduction of the R50 and the R8, Canon further teeters on the edge of having too many cameras rather than too few.

Sigma’s 50mm f/1.4 DG DN Art takes its place as the latest lens in Sigma’s venerable high-end lens line and is a welcome addition thanks to excellent performance and a low cost of entry.

Why do we raise a camera? Hit the shutter, look down at the image? What drives us to be recorders of memory? Do these memories matter? Who will see them? What will they think?

RODE's NT-USB+ is a modern update on a microphone that was one of the best desktop podcasting mics you could buy for the past several years. This new version makes necessary upgrades without taking away from what made the original great. It's an all-around win.

There are now tons of pen tablet makers out there and the options have given new users far more power to choose from a wide variety of styles, features, and obviously prices. The new $40 Veikk Voila L gives beginners an impressively competent "bare-bones" pen tablet to learn on for scant little investment.

Excire Foto positions itself as able to help photographers tag, organize, and search their images quickly, including the capability to search through images to the level of discerning if subjects in them are smiling or not. It sounds powerful, but how helpful is it really?

Apple’s Mac mini has always been positioned as the company’s affordable desktop machine, an alternative to the low-end iMac for those that don’t need or want the iMac’s display. It’s a machine that has sometimes seemed to languish while other Mac models got performance upgrades. That has changed.

You don’t often come across a phone with a retractable portrait camera, but that’s one of the signature features of the Tecno Phantom X2 Pro. Is this just a gimmick seeking credibility, or a credible point of contention compared to others?

Apple got so much right when it launched the M1 Max MacBook Pro in 2021 that it didn't need to do much to make a compelling successor other than beef up the performance. And, honestly, that's exactly what the company did in the M2 Max MacBook Pro.

While there are a multitude of lightweight portable strobes, few are powerful enough to compete with the sun or have enough juice to double as a studio strobe. Those are exactly the problems Elinchrom looked to address with its FIVE system.

Apple's Mac mini and Mac Studio have set new standards for the kind of power and performance that can be expected from a small chassis. While Intel's new NUC isn't quite as small, it does show that PCs can get almost as svelte and still perform outstandingly well.

Canon’s EOS R6 Mark II is a major yet, in some ways, a subtle upgrade over the original R6. The new R6 Mark II is faster and more capable than the R6 in most regards, and it addresses several of the limitations found in the original model.

SmallRig seems to have taken the reviews of the previous generation of its COB lighting to heart and made some significant improvements to both the design and performance of the new RC 450D (Daylight) and 450B (BiColor) COB LED lights.

I use various microphones on my YouTube channel and while the majority of them would be considered high-end, the one I’ve been using recently is the Rode VideoMicro II.

As the mirrorless camera market hits its stride and companies have caught up on their typical prime and zoom lens offerings, we see new offerings in non-traditional focal lengths. I can’t remember writing the words “all-in-one” in my decades in the tech press world as I have in the last year.

Rode has been making top-quality microphones that have been among my go-to picks for years, but last year ventured into something new: headphones.

The Sigma 60-600mm for Sony E-Mount is a versatile, compelling, and unique lens with a mindblowing 10x optical zoom range. As with any all-in-one lens, it’s not without its compromises, and the $2000 price puts it up against Sony’s native FE 200–600mm f/5.6–6.3 G OSS, even though the Sigma has a more versatile zoom range.

The smartphone is the most common camera anyone holds across the world, yet it’s also the most unwieldy in one hand. That’s where the Fjorden Grip steps in.

LEDs have changed a lot about how studio photography works, and Hobolite believes its lights can be equally accessible to both amateurs and professionals alike.

Canon’s new RF 135mm f/1.8 L IS USM is an essential lens in the company’s mirrorless system, not only because the focal length is a staple choice of portrait, wedding, and corporate photography, but because Canon's latest prime is truly exceptional.

If Leica ever launches its own branded phones in other markets, it would serve as notice to established players that smartphone photography is more than just a numbers game.

Tamron has made a name for itself by releasing a series of unique and nontraditional zoom lenses like the 28-75mm, 17-28mm, 70-180mm, and the renewed classic (for mirrorless) 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3 Di III RXD. The new version of the lens for Nikon Z (or Sony E) brings a bit of comfort and nostalgia back to the hands of any telephoto shooter.

The Meyer Optik Görlitz 35mm f/2.8 Trioplan II is a unique lens that performs its best when the bokeh is specifically integrated into a shot and not just a coincidence of the defocus area. That means it's not for everyone, but it has its place.