Total solar eclipses are special. Imagine a giant suspended rock in the sky (the Moon) that just so happens to perfectly block the view of a ball of plasma so large that it would take a jet airliner over 200 days to circumnavigate its equator (the Sun). There’s no such other relationship in the entire solar system, and so far, it looks just as rare in the few places we’ve been able to peer closely at in our Milky Way galaxy.

Over the centuries, cultures believed a variety of more fanciful reasons for the occurrence. Many believed the event was a terrifying beast that swallowed the sun in retaliation for someone’s wrongdoings, like the wolf Skoll in Norse mythology (how the Sun recovered after such a trauma remains unclear). Other cultures viewed the event much more positively, with some indigenous North American tribes seeing it as an opportunity for spiritual renewal.

“A total eclipse of the sun is the most magnificent natural spectacle that a human eye can ever witness… It is a drama which is provided absolutely free by nature.” – Helen Sawyer Hogg (American-Canadian astronomer)

Share your August 12 solar eclipse photos

ESA & NASA

If you happen to be in the path of totality for this year’s August 12 event, which basically means most of Spain (you lucky locals), we invite you to comment on this article with a photo of the eclipse and share your story on what brings you out to see it. If we get some interesting photos and stories, we’ll write up a spotlight article for them.

More fun eclipse facts

Fast-forward about half a billion years, and total solar eclipses will sadly no longer be possible. This is because the Moon’s orbit is slowly receding from Earth. The Moon crawls its way farther out at a speedy 3.8 centimeters a year. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but over a ‘measly’ million years, it’ll be nearly 4,000 kilometers farther away.

Traveling through time a bit further than that and you arrive in the year AD 600,002,026 (ie, 600 million years from now). The Sun’s brilliance will increasingly surround the Moon from that point forward, a little bit more each year that passes. Future Sun-gazers will see it as a “ring of fire” (the Sun isn’t actually a ball of fire, but calling it a “ring of plasma” just doesn’t roll off the tongue in the same way).

Just like those North American tribes, let’s look on the bright side. In a scant 50 billion years, the Moon will be free of Earth’s tyranny and roam the galaxy on its own – assuming the sun doesn’t intervene in about 5 billion years during its red giant phase. It’s a complicated relationship: the Earth, Moon and Sun.

So, with such limited time available before total solar eclipses become a distant memory, take those photos while you can!

To learn more about solar eclipses and how to best prepare for one, check out our article, How to safely photograph a solar eclipse (and why you might just watch it instead).

Blackmagic has released a firmware update that adds continuous phase-detect autofocus, complete with object tracking and face detection, to its full-frame Cinema Camera 6K. This makes the camera more competitive in an increasingly crowded landscape of video-centric cameras focused on owner-operators and creators.

When the $3000 Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K launched, it could acquire focus on something in the center of the frame, but it was a one-time operation; it wasn’t able to keep the subject in focus as it or the camera moved. While this wouldn’t have been a deal-breaker for many users – as the “cinema” name implies, much of its target audience will be using manual-focus lenses with focus pulling equipment – it also narrowed the scope of what you could do with it. It would work fine for more careful, scripted shoots, but wasn’t really ideal for more run-and-gun productions.

BlackMagic

Now, though, the camera will be able to continuously focus on a human subject, tracking their face, or on a generic subject through object tracking. Blackmagic also isn’t making you completely give up control to use autofocus; the camera has settings to control how fast it transitions focus, and lets you pause autofocus by holding down a button. That way if your subject goes from moving to stationary, you can make sure the AF system isn’t going to pulse or try to focus on something else.

That last point, however, highlights a potential gap between the Cinema Camera 6K and other video-focused cameras, like the Sony FX3, Canon EOS R6 V and Nikon ZR. Those cameras use AF systems that are much more mature, so you don’t have to worry as much about managing them; you can just leave them on, and trust them to keep your subject in focus in most situations. While Blackmagic’s autofocus system has been out in public beta for around a year now, early adopters reported mixed results, and it’s still not as tried and tested as the others.

However, this full release is a starting point for the company’s autofocus ambitions and at least puts the Cinema Camera 6K in the conversation with those other cameras, giving people who need autofocus another option that has a robust set of features. It offers 6K open gate recording and internal Raw, full-size HDMI and mini-XLR connectors, a 5″ rear display and an optional detachable EVF. It also uses L-mount for lenses, which is relatively adaptable and has a growing selection of native options.

Hopefully now that the Cinema Camera 6K’s autofocus support has fully launched, we’ll see it come to more cameras in Blackmagic’s lineup. While not all of them will have the phase detection hardware on their sensors, the company promised it’d be coming for more, unspecified cameras when it initially announced the feature last year, and it’s currently available in beta for the Pyxis 6K.

The Blackmagic Camera 10.2.2 firmware that enables autofocus is available as a free download from the company’s website. It also adds support for Blackmagic’s cloud streaming system, 4-channel audio recording and up to 10 minutes of pre-recording, letting you save the moments before you press the record button.

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“I just wish someone would make a proper 6×7 digital camera.” It’s the logical endpoint of every discussion in which someone loftily dictates that modern digital medium format is somehow not “real” because it doesn’t follow the conventions of film photography. And I have to say, I just don’t understand it.

Is it nostalgia for a camera regretfully parted with, or a yearning for something we never got to have? That waist-level viewfinder experience that looked so cool when David Hemmings stood in for every ’60s British (male) celebrity photographer in Blow Up. Or, instead, memories of that family member with a lovingly assembled collection of Bronica or Hasselblad 6×6 gear?

I have to assume that it’s something like this, because it doesn’t make sense in reality. Unless a radically different (and much cheaper) sensor technology suddenly arrives, no one is going to make a new 6×7 system. Or 6×6. Or even 645.

The reason is twofold. The first is that it would be utterly unfeasible, economically. The second is that it would be completely unnecessary.

The economics don’t work, not even nearly

Film scales much more readily than semiconductor size: the cost of doubling the size of a piece of film is within the realms of double or triple. A single-digit multiple, anyway. Doubling the size of a sensor more than doubles the production cost. Doubling it again starts to look exponential. You can’t just pick an arbitrary size that film cameras used to use and say, “I want it that big.”

Phase One

The only modern 645 camera is the Phase 1 IQ4 150MP digital back. It costs around $50,000. Sony has just announced a movie camera with a similarly-sized chip. Its price hasn’t been made public, but it’s primarily going to be rented for use in productions with budgets that start with nine digits.

And that’s before you consider the fact that there aren’t huge caches of medium-format lenses that would shine under the scrutiny of high megapixel sensors, much less any financial motivation for any surviving company to support them. So on top of the fabulous cost of the sensor, you’d also need to fund the development of a whole new camera and lens system, to be amortized between an infinitesimal audience.

But beyond the economic impracticality, there’s a question of what you’d gain.

How much better do you need?

Yes, larger sensors can generally tolerate more light, per whole image, and hence deliver higher signal-to-noise ratios, meaning cleaner images with improved tonal quality. And, in principle, it should be easier to design a lens that resolves the higher resolution that a larger sensor could bring. These are exactly the reasons that medium-format film cameras continued to be valued after the arrival of the smaller “35mm” film format.

Richard Butler

But it’s worth recognizing that modern digital sensors outperform film by almost every metric. There’s a difference in the handling of highlights, but modern sensors deliver more detailed images with better tonal quality, even if you only consider shooting in good light. And they do so to the point that they challenge the quality of film at least one format larger. You can rival 645 film performance with a modern full-frame digital camera, if you expose it well, and if there’s any question about that, you can always move up to a 44x33mm digital camera.

The quality you can get from a 44×33 medium-format sensor is sensational, which rapidly diminishes the applications that require anything more. Which just makes the overwhelming additional costs that come with it much harder to justify.

If you need the very best image quality available, you can spend that $50,000 and buy a Phase One IQ4. And a bit more on lenses.

But until you’ve bitten that particular bullet and found the results lacking, it’s hard to argue that any company should sensibly try to embark on digital 6×7 for you. Because, seriously, what is it you’re really hoping to achieve?

Fog strips away distraction. It conceals rather than reveals, simplifying a landscape until only its essential forms remain. Ordinary subjects become mysterious, and scenes that would appear cluttered in clear weather become elegant studies of light, shape, and atmosphere. Fog encourages interpretation rather than documentation. Instead of recording every detail, it invites viewers to imagine what lies beyond the veil.

Many photographers see a bank of fog as a signal to pack away their cameras and wait for the weather to improve. Experienced photographers do the opposite, understanding that fog introduces depth, reduces complexity, and creates an emotional atmosphere impossible to duplicate under clear skies.

Like every artistic tool, however, fog is most effective when applied with restraint. Too little may have insufficient effect; too much can obscure the subject that attracted your attention. The challenge, and the opportunity, is finding the balance where difficult weather can be transformed into extraordinary photographs.

Distilling simplicity

Ben Hattenbach

Fog’s greatest artistic contribution is its remarkable ability to simplify. Many landscapes are visually overwhelming. Dense forests contain thousands of branches competing for attention. Mountain vistas often include countless ridges, rocks, and textures. Without a clear visual hierarchy, viewers struggle to determine where to look.

Fog solves this problem naturally. As distant detail gradually disappears, stronger forms begin to emerge. A solitary tree becomes the subject rather than merely one tree among hundreds. The graceful curve of a ridgeline replaces a jumble of competing textures. Negative space begins to carry as much visual weight as the objects themselves.

Depth perception

Ben Hattenbach

Successful landscape photographs often inspire a viewer’s eye to travel through the scene. Few natural phenomena encourage this more effectively than fog. In fog, distant subjects lose contrast, sharpness, and saturation, while nearby objects retain more of their original character.

Without the need for converging lines or overlapping objects, fog immediately communicates spatial relationships. Trees standing only a few hundred feet apart may suddenly appear separated by enormous distances simply because each successive row fades a little further into the mist. This gradual progression, from crisp foreground to increasingly subdued middle ground to barely visible background, is a signature of successful fog photography.

Scenes containing multiple planes often produce the strongest photographs in fog. Forested hillsides, mountain ridges, and winding rivers all lend themselves naturally to atmospheric layering. In many cases, adding only a single nearby element – a rock, tree, or wildflower – is enough to transform an otherwise flat photograph into one possessing convincing depth.

Negative space

Ben Hattenbach

When visibility decreases, the empty portions of one’s image can become as important as the subjects themselves. Fog provides one of the most elegant forms of negative space found in nature.

A lone tree emerging from blank mist. A distant lighthouse suspended in whiteness. Or, as above, the silhouette of a solitary emperor penguin peering out from behind an Antarctic ice storm. The surrounding emptiness isolates the subject, increases its visual importance, and creates an emotional sense of solitude.

Seasoning to taste

Ben Hattenbach

When photographing in fog, moderation is essential. Finding the ideal balance becomes one of the photographer’s principal creative decisions. Although you cannot directly control the fog itself, you can control how much of it appears in your photograph.

Try changing your distance from the subject. Every additional foot of atmosphere between camera and subject slightly increases the fog’s cumulative effect. Move to another altitude where the fog density will be different. Or just wait for the fog to change.

Working the fog’s edges

Ben Hattenbach

One of the most productive places to photograph is along the boundaries of fog. The transition between clear air and heavy mist often produces precisely the amount of atmosphere needed to simplify a scene without overwhelming it.

The edge of a fog bank is also where light frequently becomes most dramatic. Sunlight filtering across the boundary between clear and foggy air often creates luminous edges, illuminated layers, and glowing shafts that transform otherwise ordinary scenes into cathedrals of light. Exceptional fog photographs are frequently found during the minutes when the atmosphere is actively changing.

Shapes and silhouettes

Ben Hattenbach

Fog naturally encourages the eye to focus on form rather than detail. This makes it one of the finest environments for silhouettes. When texture disappears, shape becomes everything. The profile of a mountain ridge. A distant elk. Or as above a mother tree and her child.

Subjects that might appear unremarkable in full daylight suddenly become iconic when reduced to their simplest outlines. Silhouettes depend less on exposure than on recognizable form. The viewer should immediately understand the subject from its outline alone.

Resist the temptation to recover shadow detail during processing. Mystery is part of the photograph’s appeal. Not everything needs to be explained.

Exposure in the digital era

Ben Hattenbach

Reflective light meters still assume that the average scene should reproduce as a middle gray. Bright fog violates that assumption, encouraging the camera to underexpose unless compensation is added. Rather than relying on a predetermined exposure adjustment, use your live histogram. For scenes that change rapidly, as foggy landscapes often do, this immediate visual feedback becomes invaluable.

Unless you are seeking a silhouette, you’ll normally want to expose almost as brightly as possible while preserving important highlights. This approach maximizes image quality by recording more tonal information in the brightest portions of the file while avoiding clipped highlights.

Maintaining focus

Ben Hattenbach

Dense fog presents challenges even for the most sophisticated autofocus systems. Contrast diminishes. Edges disappear. Subjects drift in and out of visibility.

Focus peaking highlights areas the camera detects as sharp, while magnified live view allows precise placement of focus even in remarkably low-contrast conditions. If the composition contains layered subjects, consider focusing slightly closer than instinct suggests. The nearest sharp object frequently serves as the visual anchor that encourages viewers to enter the photograph before exploring its softer, more distant layers.

Remember that absolute sharpness is rarely the defining characteristic of successful fog photography. Atmosphere, not microscopic detail, is usually the subject.

Time and motion

Ben Hattenbach

Fog is seldom still. It drifts, curls and dissolves with astonishing subtlety. Those movements present creative opportunities every bit as significant as flowing water.

While fast shutter speeds preserve delicate textures within the fog, long exposures transform moving fog into smooth ribbons that emphasize mystery. Neither interpretation is inherently more truthful. Each simply tells a different story.

Lens choice

Ben Hattenbach

Ask landscape photographers which lens belongs on the camera during fog, and most will recommend a wide-angle. The answer is more nuanced.

Wide-angle lenses excel when the atmosphere itself becomes part of the foreground experience. They immerse viewers within the fog, emphasizing nearby textures while allowing distant features gradually to dissolve into the mist.

Telephoto lenses, however, often reveal fog’s greatest strengths. Distance exaggerates atmospheric perspective. Successive ridgelines merge into delicate tonal bands. Isolated subjects appear suspended within enormous volumes of atmosphere.

Rather than asking what lens covers the scene, consider which lens best expresses the atmosphere. That subtle change in thinking often transforms an ordinary photograph into a memorable one.

Forecasting fog

Ben Hattenbach

Until recently, finding photogenic fog depended as much on intuition and luck as on planning. Today, real-time tools such as Windy.com have dramatically improved photographers’ ability to predict when and where fog is likely to form. Such resources forecast fog directly on an interactive map, allowing one to see where fog will develop, drift and dissipate.

Before leaving home, spend a few minutes advancing the forecast hour by hour while studying the map. A valley predicted to fill with fog just before sunrise, or a coastal fog bank forecast to drift inland after dawn, may provide the fleeting conditions necessary for outstanding photography.

Final thoughts

Ben Hattenbach

Many photographers spend their careers searching for incredible landscapes. Fog reminds us that exceptional photographs often require nothing more than extraordinary light falling upon ordinary places. A familiar grove of trees. An empty shoreline. A road leading to the horizon.

Subjects overlooked under blue skies frequently become unforgettable once the atmosphere begins simplifying the world around them. That may be fog’s greatest gift. It teaches us to see less – and in doing so, to see more.

The finest fog photographs are seldom about weather. They are about mood. About suggestion rather than explanation. About allowing mystery to remain mystery.

The next time a forecast calls for dense fog, resist the temptation to postpone your outing until conditions improve. Instead, leave a little earlier. Walk a little farther. Stay a little longer. You may discover that the weather many photographers avoid is the weather that produces your strongest work.

When not photographing remote and foggy landscapes, Ben Hattenbach is a partner at a Los Angeles-based law firm where his practice focuses on the trial of complex intellectual property disputes. More of his images can be seen at www.benhattenbach.com and https://www.instagram.com/benhattenbach/.

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Earlier this week, Sony announced the FE 100-400mm F5.6-8 OSS, a stabilized, full-frame telephoto zoom that comes in well under $1000. We were able to spend some time shooting with it to see how it performs, and you can see the results in the gallery below.

What the images won’t show is just how easy it is to carry around. It tips the scales at just 654g (23.1oz), which, combined with its length, meant that it and the a7R V I had it attached to fit comfortably into my sling bag, so I didn’t think twice before bringing it along on hikes and other outings.

Mitchell Clark

The lens feels nice in the hand given the price, and the zoom ring is easy to use, with a relatively short throw. It’s an extending zoom, so the center of gravity inevitably changes as you adjust your focal length, but that weight means it’s still quite easy to manage. Lens creep, where it will slowly extend as you walk around with it, is an issue, though the lens does have a lock switch to keep it at 100mm. It’s nice to see that Sony has still included that detail, along with the focus limiter and function button, despite the lens’s budget nature.

Sony’s linear focus motors continue to make for a very good AF experience, with the lens able to quickly and accurately go from focusing close up (though not that close; it has a 0.86m (2.8′) minimum focusing distance at the long end) to far away. However, the manual focus ring is less lovely, as its stepped response and lack of precision made it very difficult to focus on a bird that the camera wasn’t able to recognize, or a particular part of a flower. 

While I haven’t subjected the lens to a full battery of tests, I’m pretty happy with the images it produced, again, given its focal range and $850 price tag. However, I’ll add the caveat that the entire state of Washington was covered in wildfire smoke for the entire time I had the lens, and it was especially bad in Spokane, where the gallery was shot. That makes it hard to judge things like sharpness, especially for a telephoto lens. 

Mitchell Clark

Of course, a major limit to the image quality you can get out of this lens will be its light-gathering ability. I found myself having to put it away relatively early in the evening; even before sunset, shooting at 400mm in the shade meant having to raise the ISO up to 10,000, even with the benefits of coordinated in-body and optical stabilization.

Still, I’m sure many people will be willing to make that trade-off, given the lens’s size and price, especially if they mostly shoot in the daylight. Canon has already proven that there’s a market with its very similarly-speced option, and while third-parties like Sigma and Tamron have made budget-oriented telephotos for E-mount, they are about twice the weight due to their more ambitious focal ranges and light-gathering abilities. It’s also nice to see Sony releasing a 100-400mm aimed more towards beginners, after its announcement of the $4300 pro-grade FE 100-400mm F4.5 GM OSS earlier this year.

Thanks to Sony for the loan of an a7R V to shoot this gallery. All images were processed using our standard lens workflow in Capture One, with the manufacturer’s distortion correction applied but no correction of vignetting. The profile fixes an extremely minor amount of barrel distortion at the lens’ wide and long ends, and we don’t consider it to be an essential part of this lens’s design.

Tamron has announced its second quarter financial results for 2026, reiterating its goal of releasing ten new own-branded lens models this year. While the promise isn’t new, the company bringing it back up to investors is a chance to measure its progress towards that goal.

By Tamron’s math, it has released six new models already this year. That decidedly doesn’t mean six new lenses, though: it means two versions of the 35-100mm F2.8 (one for E-mount, one for Z-mount), bringing the 17-70mm F2.8 from 2021 to Canon RF and Nikon Z mount, and releasing the new 12-20mm F2.8 for both Sony and Nikon.

Tamron

While Tamron hitting its goal of releasing 10 models this year theoretically means it has four more models to go, that’s unlikely to mean that we’ll see that many new optical designs. Indeed, the company can hit that goal without any new optical designs, as it still makes plenty of lenses that are currently only available on E-mount that it could bring to other platforms.

Still, it’s clear the company is becoming more ambitious with its releases. The chart in its financial statement says that from 2023 to 2025, its goal was six to seven models launched per year; before that, it was five new models.

Mitchell Clark

Part of the strategy to increase releases likely involves a shift away from only releasing new lenses on E-mount. When we interviewed the company at the CP+ trade show earlier this year, Kei Nagai, the section manager of Tamron’s Overseas Sales Department, told us the company was “moving toward simultaneous multi-mount launches.” He also said Tamron would “take a holistic view of the entire market and existing lineups to carefully determine which spec and mounts to prioritize.”

At the same time, the company’s future is more in question now than ever. Last week, Tamron announced that Sony had made an offer to acquire it, and said it had set up a special committee to evaluate that offer. If that deal goes through, it’s unclear how it would affect that strategy, or the company’s goals.

One thing is sure, though: with the promise of more releases and a potential resolution to the Sony story, the next few months are shaping up to be very interesting for Tamron.

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Editor’s note: We originally ran this story in conjunction with the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 . We’ve updated and republished it ahead of the solar eclipse of August 12, 2026 .

Essentially, it’s the ultimate photo challenge. On April 8th, photographers across the continental United States – and especially photographers within the band of totality stretching from Texas to Maine – will have no more than a few minutes to get the shot of a lifetime when the moon passes in front of the sun, and a large swath of North America will be treated to a total eclipse.

And if you ask anybody who knows anything about astronomy, it is a huge deal. Dr. Tyler Nordgren is such a man. He’s a professor of physics and astronomy, an award-winning photographer and a self-described Night Sky Ambassador. Here’s what he had to say about the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017:

“Half the people that are alive right now weren’t even alive the last time something like this was visible from the continental US. Secondly, there are 12 million people just living in the path of totality that are going to get the chance to see it, so it will be the most-viewed total solar eclipse probably in history. The most seen, most photographed, most shared, most tweeted – potentially the most people in total are going to be able to experience this in one form or another.”

But unless you’re a seasoned landscape photographer or astrophotographer, Dr. Nordgren thinks you might be better off not photographing it at all and just enjoying the view. He quotes Warren De la Rue, a pioneer of astrophotography and the first person to photograph a total eclipse. “He wrote in his journal afterward that if he ever got the chance to see another one, he hoped to be able to see it without any equipment at all.”

In short, “See your first eclipse, photograph your second.” But if you’re unconvinced, Dr. Nordgren does have some advice.

How to prepare to photograph the eclipse

Preparation is key. Time is of the essence. Of course, you’ll want a tripod and a cable release to lock everything down and minimize shake.

“If you really must photograph this, you’re going to want to practice a whole bunch of techniques in the weeks leading up so it’s as second nature as absolutely possible during those precious seconds.”

Protecting your eyesight and your gear is equally important. It’s only safe to point your eyes or your camera sensor directly at the sun during totality. Just seconds before or after, and you’re risking serious damage. He suggests a pair of solar eclipse glasses and a filter for your lens. Per NASA, your glasses should meet the ISO 12312-2 international standard.

Be sure to use both during partial phases of the eclipse – you risk damaging your eyesight, not to mention your camera, with just a pair of glasses and an unfiltered lens. Crucially, don’t forget to take off the filter during totality. You’ll be extremely disappointed with the results if you don’t.

For more details, MPB posted a useful article detailing some specific settings to dial in.

What lens to use to photograph the eclipse

What kind of lens should you use? Well, not surprisingly, it all depends on what you’re going for. If you want the sun as your main subject, you’ll obviously want a longer lens. “To really capture big detail in the corona and the object itself, you’ll want a lens with a focal length of around 500mm; between 400 and 600mm at least.”

But don’t forget that a total eclipse also presents a unique landscape photo opportunity. If you’d rather capture the eerie effect on the scene, a wider lens will produce excellent results too. It’s all a matter of personal preference.

No matter what kind of shot you’re going for, you can size things up ahead of time by photographing a full moon.

“Something to keep in mind is that during totality, the sun turns black and is surrounded by this ghostly corona, so the spectacle of the object itself is this black disk with this white glow around it. That black disk is the size of the full moon, so take whatever your camera equipment is, take whatever your lens is and go out and photograph the next full moon. See if whatever size dot that appears. If that’s interesting to you, then great – that’s the lens to use.”

Should you go to the path of the totality?

In a word: yes.

If you’re set on photographing the eclipse and have the safety and gear requirements nailed down, all that’s left to do is get yourself into the path of totality for the big moment. Easy enough, right? Well, unless you’re lucky enough to live there, or you started planning your eclipse vacation years ago, chances are only getting slimmer that you’ll be able to find accommodations. Your best bet is to find what you can within a reasonable driving distance and set out as early as possible.

Ideally, you also want to aim for somewhere that’s less likely to have cloud cover. Dr. Nordgren knows all too well what a cloudy eclipse view looks like.

“If you’re going to do the close-up photograph, you could be almost anywhere, provided you’ve got clear skies. But I’ve also seen some really spectacular photos of totality through wispy clouds that give this dramatic view as well… just as long as you’re within that path of totality and the cloud cover is not so total that you’re utterly blacked out. And I’ve had that happen.”

If you’re hoping to get a wider shot, then great news: this eclipse will cross much of the continental US. Provided you can get there, you can pretty much take your pick of landscapes. “What do you find compelling?”

Whether or not you can get to the path of totality, and whether or not you choose to photograph the event, you’ll still be treated to an amazing array of photos and videos from photographers across the US. And unless you’re dead set on photographing it, consider leaving the camera at home.

“If you haven’t seen a total solar eclipse, I encourage you, don’t waste your time photographing it. Chances are, somebody else will get a better photo. But if you are that kind of expert photographer, practice so that you can set your camera up and let it do its thing with as little input as possible.” In the very best-case scenario, you’ll get a couple of minutes.

“That is not a lot of time to see what I think is the most awe-inspiring, unnatural, natural experience in nature.”

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Last month, we saw the release of two new point-and-shoot film cameras, a Lomography half-frame camera and the Kodak EC35, both offering minimal features at wallet-friendly prices. Despite their simplicity, Kosmo Foto’s Stephen Dowling argues in a recent opinion piece that they’re a positive sign for the future of film photography.

Lomography’s Half-frame Simple Use Reloadable Film Camera (a mouthful of a name), came first. As it says on the tin, it produces half-frame images, doubling the photos you get from a single roll in a vertical format that plays well with social media. While it looks and functions like a disposable camera, it’s fully reusable. It comes preloaded with a roll, but once that’s exposed, you can rewind, remove it, and load any 35mm film you like. And even with that roll of film included, it only costs $30 with black and white and $35 with color.

Reto

The second camera, the EC35, comes from Kodak licensee Reto. Visually, it’s a bit of a step up, bringing back the sliding cover found on highly sought-after (and expensive) models like the Contax T3 and Olympus Mju-II. Functionally, it’s much the same as Lomography’s: fixed focus, fixed exposure, a plastic lens and a built-in flash. It’s available for $35, though it doesn’t come with a roll of film.

These aren’t the only affordable, basic compact film cameras we’ve seen in recent years, many of which look quite similar, even. That may leave some wondering why Lomography and Reto have thrown more hats into the ring. Dowling walks through what may have led each brand to these cameras, including their desire to reach young photographers drawn to retro aesthetics.

Lomography

Dowling also notes that while these cameras are clearly geared toward beginners and casual users, and don’t offer anything truly new, they’re still a good sign for film photography as a whole. After all, two well-established brands are confident enough in film demand to launch new cameras. I recently wrote about a similar trend on the film side, where slightly tweaked film stocks have been hitting the market with increasing frequency, which is another encouraging sign that manufacturers still see room for growth in film.

Dowling’s piece delves further into the nuances of these cameras and what may have led to their creation. If you’re interested in the state of film photography right now, especially how brands are thinking about new, younger shooters, it’s well worth a read over at Kosmo Foto.

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The Japanese Patent Office has declared one of Red’s key Raw video patents as invalid, following a challenge by Panasonic.

The court determined that many of the claims made in the patent, first filed in the US in 2008, would have been obvious to someone skilled in the subject area and familiar with existing developments.

The news, first reported by Thom Hogan, put Nikon’s video subsidiary in the position of trying to defend a patent that Nikon had previously argued was invalid.

The patent itself describes a high-resolution video camera that compresses its Raw data, and appears to correspond to the patent at the center of historic claims against Sony and Apple and the almost inevitable counter-suits from those companies. We reported on many of these challenges, as well as Nikon’s, over the years. 

Nikon famously resolved the dispute by buying the company. Some of Red’s cinema camera and Raw knowledge has subsequently been applied to recent Nikon models.

It’s difficult to know what the impact the rejection of this patent will be, given Canon, Panasonic, Sony and Blackmagic Design all now produce cameras with internal Raw video capture. One possibility the abolition of the license fees reportedly due to Red from users of Apple’s ProRes RAW codec. But given Red went from being privately held to being absorbed into Nikon, it’s difficult to get a sense for how significant these might be. And, of course, we shouldn’t assume even a minor cost reduction would necessarily get passed on to consumers.

Flashback, the company behind a digital camera built to replicate the disposable film camera experience, is advertising a “dream job” for a lucky content creator or photographer. The winner will spend up to six months in Hong Kong, fully paid, shooting content for the brand.

Flashback makes the One35 V2, a 13MP digital camera engineered to feel like a single-use film camera: it’s screenless, with a mechanical winding dial to advance frames, an optical viewfinder and a Xenon flash. Shots are capped at a 27-frame ‘roll’, after which images transfer to a companion app for ‘developing’ (with an optional 24-hour wait, a nod to dropping film at the lab).

Flashback

The company relocated its operations to Hong Kong to stay close to its Shenzhen production facility, so the city isn’t just a backdrop here; it’s central to the brand right now. The winner will be expected to produce photo and video content featuring the city.

Unlike most jobs, there’s no lengthy application process. The company simply asks for a one-minute video introducing yourself and explaining why you want the job, examples of content you’ve created and a link to your portfolio if you have one. Flashback hasn’t disclosed the compensation beyond describing the role as fully paid.

If that pitch sounds familiar, it should. Icelandair ran a similar campaign earlier this year, also built around a 60-second audition video, except it was hunting for the world’s worst photographer, on the theory that Iceland is beautiful enough to survive anyone’s bad photography skills. That one drew 127,642 entries from 178 countries, and the winner, Blanche Mortemard, walked away with a 10-day trip and $50,000.

If you shoot with any retro-inspired compact – Flashback’s or otherwise – love travel and want to get paid to document a city for six months, this could be your chance.

How to apply

Applications can be submitted through Flashback’s online form. The company hasn’t announced a deadline, so it’s probably better to apply sooner rather than later.

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Nikon has released firmware updates for two of its six-year-old DSLRs: the D6 and the D780, as discovered by Nikon Rumors. While the fixes included in them are relatively minor, it’s impressive to see last-generation models getting some love, and it speaks to how Nikon has become an exemplar of improving its cameras through software.

According to the release notes, firmware version 1.71 for the D6 fixes an issue where photos taken with older D-type lenses would “sometimes be underexposed,” as well as one where using the recall shooting feature to quickly change settings could limit your shutter speed if you were also using Auto FP High-Speed Sync. Firmware version 1.21 for the D780, meanwhile, solves an issue where the camera could underexpose images if you were zooming in while shooting a high-speed continuous burst. Both firmware updates are available to download via the company’s website.

Nikon also released a firmware update for a much newer camera, the Z50II, though its changelog makes the updates to the D6 and D780 look like complete overhauls in comparison; it basically just changes the names of some menu items in Chinese.

While all of these are minor updates, they’re illustrative of Nikon’s commitment to software updates. Ask a camera enthusiast about post-release software support, and you’ll probably hear about Fujifilm and Kaizen, but it’s worth realizing that other companies like Nikon and Panasonic have caught on. In recent years, the company has released software updates that substantially improve the capabilities of its cameras be that the addition of bird detection mode to the Z6III, a new film grain mode and support for its Imaging Cloud service to the Zf or the ability to use shutter angle in video on the Z8.

This isn’t to say that Nikon has done things perfectly. It’s easy to find complaints about how some features take longer to come to some cameras than others, when it seems like the models should be on par with each other. And  the company has, on occasion, broken things with its updates. (Its still-unfixed Content Credentials implementation for the Z6III and issues with updating cameras with third-party lenses – even licensed ones – attached come to mind.) And while these issues may stem from the practical realities of software engineering and how many resources Nikon can put into it, that doesn’t change the fact that those issues don’t make for a great user experience.

Still, it’s commendable that Nikon is continuing to support older cameras and improve its existing models. I’m sure most Nikon users would rather it continue along that path with the occasional misstep, rather than it not bother with updates at all. Now we just need that update it promised for the ZR.