I’m just as passionate about gaming as photography, so you can imagine my elation when my team mentioned to me Toem 2 is about to release. Toem 2 is an upcoming casual indie adventure about photographing a character’s world as they adventure through it. Something We Made, the developers behind the game, recently announced that Toem 2 will be available to play on major consoles and PC on September 29, 2026.

Here’s how Something We Made describes the game: “Step back into the shoes of a curious photographer and set off on a brand new adventure all about uncovering hidden details, helping friends along the way, and documenting the world’s little wonders in Toem 2.”

Toem 2 is meant to be a relaxing adventure through a monochrome world filled with whimsical characters. I enjoy playing these types of games because you don’t feel pressured to compete with others for space or points as some arbitrary clock ticks down to zero. The game is single-player and can be played in short increments as you have time.

Something We Made

What’s been revealed of Toem 2‘s gameplay so far reminds me of a blend between Beasts of Maravilla Island, Lush foil Photography Sim and even a sprinkling of Lake. These other games also have photography-related leanings. Toem 2 aims to offer a wide variety of fun events to explore. Its casual, cartoony style isn’t an emulation of professional photography like the tools built into some other games, but sometimes it can be nice to take off our Serious Photographer hats.

Check out the 30-second trailer below. The gameplay is truly a unique blend I personally can’t wait to explore. I especially love how they styled the voices to be language independent, fitting perfectly with their fun character themes:

As soon as Toem 2 is released on September 29, 2026, we’ll get our hands on it and show you all what it’s about. If you don’t want to wait, the original game, Toem 1: A Photo Adventure, is available now on Steam.

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VSCO is selecting one photographer from every state to have their work licensed for use on public billboards across the country. The campaign, called The Fifty, is a free open call for VSCO members with submissions running through September 10, 2026.

To enter, photographers simply post an image to VSCO using the hashtag #TheFifty with a hashtag for your state, such as #Kansas. There should also be a short caption, and you’ll need to add your state to your bio in the app. VSCO suggests submitting three to five images, especially if they are part of a series. It says it’s looking for “strong, impactful images with a story that extends beyond the frame” and wants to see photographs that prompt people to slow down and look closer. 

The brand says it will curate selections from submissions and compensate the 50 chosen photographers, though exact compensation details have not been publicly specified. Each selected image will appear on a billboard in the photographer’s home state. It also says that selected images may also be showcased through editorial features, curation and licensing opportunities, giving even more exposure to photographers and helping them grow their careers. 

The campaign fits a pattern VSCO has been building for the past several years of actively spotlighting the work of creatives who share images on its app. The company has made a point of surfacing and celebrating that work through editorial features, curated in-app showcases and now physical placements. It also acquired a freelance mentorship platform in 2025 to expand career support for photographers, and The Fifty extends that same direction into public space, fitting VSCO‘s mission of helping creators grow and be seen.

For the millions of US-based photographers already using VSCO, the barrier to entry is low: you’ll need a VSCO account (the free version works), then post a photo, add the hashtags and your state to your bio, and submit before September 10. For those outside of the US, VSCO says opportunities will be coming in the near future.

Arthur Detienne

A mockup of the hero shot Detienne and his team are going for.

\On August 12, a total solar eclipse will cross mainland Spain for the first time in over 120 years, with geometry unlike almost any eclipse that preceded it. The eclipsed sun will sit just above the horizon at totality, low enough that a person can share the same frame as the corona. Cinematographer Arthur Detienne and his crew are building an entire shoot around that fact, recording an hour-long DJ set on location during the eclipse, building up to the hero shot during totality.

Because they will only have a 36-second totality window at their chosen location, every decision, including filter mounts, exposure charts and composition, has been planned out to avoid missing a single shot. Detienne sat down with me ahead of the eclipse to walk me through how they developed their plan and the gear they’ll be using the day of.

Composition begins with terrain

Arthur Detienne

After deciding on the overall vision for the shoot, one of the first steps of the planning process was choosing where it should take place. Detienne’s team chose its location northwest of Zaragoza, Spain, by balancing the eclipse’s position, the landscape and the odds of clear skies. That’s because of the specific vision for the hero shot, which needs the sun low and large at sunset, with a performer placed between it and the camera.

Detienne told me that they calculated they would need roughly 100–150 meters (328-429′) of distance between the camera and the subject, plus a specific elevation difference to align the silhouette with the eclipsed sun. Their current location allows for about 105 meters (344′) of separation and 6 meters (19.7′) of elevation.

Cloud risk also shaped the decision. The crew used The Eclipse App to compare historical cloud-cover probabilities along the path of totality, choosing an area Detienne said had a 5–10% chance of clouds rather than 60–70% in some alternatives.

Arthur Detienne

They also considered atmospheric shimmer: because the eclipse occurs near sunset, the low sun’s light will travel through a thicker layer of atmosphere, making a long-lens image more vulnerable to distortion. The selected area includes a large body of water beyond the setup, which the team hopes will provide more stable conditions. “There is no perfect choice,” Detienne said. “It’s always dealing with constraints.”

While some creatives choose a location for aesthetic reasons, that was not the case here. “It was not a very creative choice,” Detienne said. “We need very special conditions.”

Previsualizing the hero shot

The entire video will be an hour long, but the moment at totality is the star of the show and the primary focus while deciding on composition and gear. During the planning process, Detienne’s team used set.a.light 3D to model the planned eclipse composition. The software allowed the crew to enter the date, location, camera setup and predicted sun position, then preview how the performer’s silhouette could align with the eclipsed sun.

That process helped the group refine its lens choice, camera placement and performer position before traveling to the site, helping to take as many variables out of the equation as possible. Engineers reviewed the team’s calculations, but Detienne said the simulation remains a starting point rather than a guarantee. “It’s still assumptions, we will need to verify that,” he said, which is why the crew has set aside the day prior to the eclipse to verify the composition on location.

Calculating exposure

Arthur Detienne

The crew can test its framing and filter workflow in Spain, but the exposure transition at totality remains an educated calculation. Before and after totality, solar filters will protect the cameras from direct sunlight. During totality, when the sun is roughly 100,000 times dimmer, the filters must come off to reveal the corona.

Detienne’s team used Fred Espenak’s eclipse exposure references as a starting point, then ran additional calculations for the sun’s low altitude at sunset. At that angle, sunlight travels through more atmosphere than it would higher in the sky, changing the expected exposure. Engineers also reviewed the team’s numbers, but Detienne said the final settings cannot be fully tested in advance. “The reality is, we cannot test that. So the biggest risk right now will be that one,” he said.

Speed is critical. The team built custom filter mounts intended to come off almost instantly, preserving as much as possible of the 36-second totality window. They also need to reinstall the filters as direct sunlight returns: Detienne said their calculations suggested an unfiltered long-lens camera could suffer sensor damage in roughly seven seconds.

Reach and stability for the hero camera

Fred Espenak

The hero camera will pair a Nikon Z8 with a 600mm lens and teleconverters, bringing the optical focal length to roughly 850mm. Recording in 8K will also give the crew room to crop to a 4K deliverable, producing a framing Detienne estimates as equivalent to about 1700mm. That reach is central to the composition, enlarging the eclipsed sun behind the performer.

The camera will sit on a weighted Sachtler 20 S1 tripod to limit vibration at that focal length. Detienne said the team will keep the hero camera locked off rather than track the sun: “We want it to be focused on the subject,” he said. “The sun will just go behind them.”

The crew will also test whether to disable in-body and lens stabilization, which can sometimes introduce movement when a camera is already on a highly stable support. Drones, wider-angle cameras and gimbal rigs will provide additional angles for the hour-long live session, but Detienne said, “What we want people to remember is this hero shot.”

Testing the plan against reality

Arthur Detienne

The day before the eclipse, Detienne’s crew will gather at the location for a full rehearsal with the actual equipment. They will verify their calculated camera and performer positions, check whether the planned elevation needs adjustment and test the manual workflow for focus, white balance, exposure and stabilization.

Weather remains the variable no rehearsal can resolve. Detienne said the rapid temperature change around totality can produce clouds within minutes, potentially obscuring the sun just as the shot begins. Historical cloud-cover data helped the team choose its primary area, and it has identified backup locations, but none can guarantee an unobstructed view.

“There are a lot of unknowns. We cannot avoid them,” Detienne said. “But we intend to minimize them.”

A plan put in action

By the time totality begins, the crew will have dialed in the location, the camera position, focal length, filters, exposure estimates and the sequence for removing and replacing those filters. Their preparation is meant to give them the best chance at getting the shot, but it cannot guarantee the sky will cooperate or that everything else will go according to plan.

For Detienne, that uncertainty is part of the appeal. “I think we can really bring art and nature more together,” he said. “Nature is a very cool and good way to interact with art.” We’ll be eagerly waiting for the results and look forward to seeing all of the incredible photos and videos from this eclipse, including some from you, our readers.

Christopher Nolan’s recent blockbuster hit, The Odyssey, was the first full-length narrative movie shot entirely on 15/70mm IMAX film, with each frame exposed onto a 70×48.5mm negative. There’s been a countless amount of ink spilled over the challenges of working with the massive cameras needed to shoot the format for every scene (and about how few people were actaully able to see it as the director intended*), but recently the Instagram account for Sunny16Labs shared more details on a production quirk that movie buffs noticed in behind-the-scenes footage: Nolan’s strange choice of director’s viewfinder.

Directors and their cinematographers often carry around devices that allow them to compose and block shots before having to set up the actual camera. This is especially important if you’re shooting film, as those cameras tend to be bulkier and heavier than their digital counterparts (and don’t have the same ability to give you an exact preview of your shot). These devices often have a lens mount, so you can see what the scene will look like through the actual glass you’re shooting with.

One small problem, though: IMAX cameras don’t use the same lenses as their Super35 or full-frame counterparts, and the optics need to be much larger and heavier to cover the massive film format, so there aren’t many pre-made solutions. According to Sunny16Labs, the IMAX team solved this by modifying a Pentax 67, removing the shutter assembly and modifying the mount so the camera could accept the same lenses as the IMAX film cameras.

Of course, taking out the shutter means that the camera can no longer capture images. But because it was designed to shoot stills on medium format 56mm x 70mm film, its viewfinder and mirror are capable of showing the entire image from an IMAX lens. The modified camera also includes frame-line previews for the IMAX negative, allowing Nolan and longtime collaborator and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema to choose their lens and framing before having to set up the massive camera rig.

This isn’t actually the first time Nolan and his team have used this kind of setup, as there are also shots of them using it on the set of Dunkirk. Cary Joji Fukunaga, director of the James Bond film No Time To Die, has also been photographed using a 67 with an IMAX logo on the viewfinder. (It could be that it’s the exact same camera; there’s famously only so much IMAX gear out there.) Likewise, cinematographer James Neihouse has discussed using a modified Pentax 67 as a director’s viewfinder, but he says he was able to take pictures with the version he used, suggesting it was a different design that retained the shutter.

In the photography world, the Pentax 67 is famous for being a relatively large and heavy camera, so it’s funny to see it being used as a lightweight alternative. That goes to show the difficulties of shooting with such large format, but, given that Nolan keeps pioneering what can be done with IMAX with each movie he makes, he clearly thinks it’s worth it. And the market seems to agree: according to an IMAX press release, The Odyssey is the “highest grossing IMAX release of all time,” with 70mm screenings accounting for $37.5 million of the film’s billion-dollar box office run.

* – Not to brag, but I actually did make the seven hour drive to a theater that was showing actual 15/70 IMAX projections of the movie. I absolutely appreciated the extra immersion of the giant screen and 1.43:1 aspect ratio, but did feel like I might have preferred digital IMAX GT projection. Sure, it’d likely have a bit less detail – though probably not enough for me to notice – but it also wouldn’t have had the flicker that comes with film projection, which was especially noticeable in bright scenes. Still, it’s hard to imagine that I could’ve picked a better movie for my first real IMAX viewing, and the sound alone made the premium format worth it. 

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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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