I’m not sure how it took us so long to get back to this point, but in my head, the launch of the OM System PEN marks the return of a time when keen photographers have some really good choices for travel. 

Not travel photography as in ‘spend thousands of dollars to go to Iceland or Namibia, and drag your medium format setup to painstakingly capture one perfect desktop background,’ but a camera I can carry with me to document my trip.

Between the Fujifilm X100 VI, the Panasonic L10 and the OM System PEN, photographers once again have a choice of conveniently-sized cameras with a good level of control, whether they prefer a prime lens camera, a fixed zoom compact or the lens choices of mirrorless. They’re all pretty small, they’re all fairly pretty, and they’re all usefully totable.

Richard Butler

When I first started at DPReview, the options available were a DSLR, if you wanted decent image quality, or a (literally) compact camera, which you could carry around, but whose images you would probably be disappointed by. In between were the supposed “bridge” cameras, which inexplicably adopted some of the size of a DSLR with the image quality of a compact, rather than offering any sort of useful middle ground between the two.

This is why I’ve always loved larger-sensor enthusiast compacts with bright lenses (LX3, XZ-2, G7X), and why I can remember running to the Olympus stand as Photokina 2008 first opened, so I could share some of the first photos of the original Pen mockup.

Richard Butler

I love a camera that’s easy to always carry with me but also one that delivers sufficient image quality to make that worthwhile. And for a while there, we got close: the Fujifilm X100, the Panasonic GF1 and GX1, amongst others. Then the options started to disappear.

The past few years have seen a lot of camera makers focus on full-frame cameras, but even the best attempts at downsizing those aren’t great. Putting aside that Panasonic S9 and original Sony a7C are among my least favorite cameras of the last few years, my concerns aren’t so much the bodies as the body/lens combinations. Yes it’s easy to cherry-pick one particular lens when trying to make “it’s almost as small” arguments. But, even on the rare occasions where that pancake is a focal length I want to use, and the word “almost” isn’t being tested to breaking point, there’s still little hope of building a usefully small kit.

Richard Butler

I’ve just got back from a short vacation with the PEN and found it to be a very amiable companion. I took the 12mm F2.0, 17mm F1.8 and 14-42mm, which gave me a remarkable degree of flexibility in combinations I could take everywhere with me. Add in a 45mm F1.8 and it would cover an awful lot of my favored photography, in the space of a small shoulder bag.

The PEN makes a very welcome addition to the existing options of a Fujifilm X100 VI, which is built around my preferred single focal length, and the Panasonic L10, whose lens covers a very useful range with a combination of brightness and size that even the PEN would struggle to match. Add to these the Ricoh GR IVs, with a 40mm-equiv. “x” version in the works, and you have some really interesting options.

All of these cameras is imperfect in one way or another: the L10’s lens isn’t everything you might hope for, the PEN’s AF is distinctly quirky and after six iterations, Fujifilm has managed to make the X100 VI that bit more fiddly than it needs to be. But, for all those gripes, it’s lovely to have choices that don’t take over my entire carry-on.

Vamanos! Allonz-y! However you say it; let’s just GO!

We received the PEN just in time to shoot the studio scene before I headed off to the UK for a short break. This meant I got to spend a chunk of time using it the way it’s intended: for everyday and travel photography.

Below are the results from that time: photos of the places and friends I visited, photos from Seattle, London, Northampton and Gloucestershire. What should come across is the degree to which I was able to carry the camera with me, much of the time, so I have a couple of late-night photos, I was able to grab a shot of a friend, mid-laugh: something I might not have got if I had to dig into a camera rucksack to use a larger camera.

I tried to make use of a selection of lenses (something made easier by having a choice of compact Micro Four Thirds options), and made sure to include a hand-held high-resolution mode sample and some side-by-sides in a selection of the camera’s color modes. As usual, you can download the Raws to run through your converter of choice, once support arrives.

Sample gallery

Please do not reproduce any of these images on a website or any newsletter/magazine without prior permission (see our copyright page ). We make the originals available for private users to download to their own machines for personal examination or printing (in conjunction with this review); we do so in good faith, so please don’t abuse it.

Earlier this week, OM System announced the PEN, a small, interchangeable lens camera with a Four Thirds sensor. Our initial review mainly focuses on it versus the higher-end range-finder style cameras that it descends from and competes against, but it’s worth also looking at how it compares to the other cameras at the $1000 price point. Because while it’s true that you can get a larger sensor for the same money, it’s also worth considering what you give up for that additional light-gathering capability.

Meet the contenders

The PEN joins the now-rarified halls of cameras that retail for under $1000 (body only, you’ll still need to add a lens), while still offering a good level of manual control. Nowadays, that list includes some very capable APS-C cameras, such as the Canon EOS R10, Nikon Z50II and Fujifilm X-T30 III. They all boast similar spec sheets, with sensors that range from 20-26MP, relatively fast burst rates and strong video features.

But given that they use larger and therefore presumably slightly more expensive sensors, surely there’s a catch somewhere…

IBIS

OM System’s forebear, Olympus, was a pioneer when it came to including in-body image stabilization in its cameras, and the PEN continues in that tradition. And it’s an undoubtedly useful feature to have, letting you use slower shutter speeds while still shooting handheld, provided you’re shooting a stationary subject.

While Nikon, Canon and Fujifilm offer kit lenses that have optical image stabilization, giving you a similar benefit (at least in stills, not so much in video), the PEN’s stabilized sensor works with any lens, including the primes many photographers will want to pick up. However, it’s worth keeping in mind that primes are typically faster, giving you the option to raise your shutter speed by opening up the aperture, and are often in easier-to-hand-hold focal lengths. Plus, the PEN’s IBIS system is less powerful than what we’re used to, providing only 5.5EV of correction in the center, compared to the up to 7.5 that’s typical in other models (including the OM-5 II, which can achieve it by synchronizing with a lens’s optical stabilization, something the PEN can’t do).

To get an APS-C camera with IBIS, you’re looking at spending several hundred dollars more – the price of one of those fun prime lenses – likely thanks in part to the fact that the system has to be more robust to move around a larger sensor. So while it’s not the end-all be-all, it is a clear point in the PEN’s favor.

Weather sealing

OM System has leaned into its reputation for making rugged, weather-sealed cameras, and the PEN is no exception. It comes with an IPX1 rating, and while the “X” indicates that it hasn’t been tested for dust resistance, OM says it has that, too. That’s a relatively light rating – it means the camera can survive dripping water for 10 minutes, when fitted with a similarly sealed lens (don’t worry, OM System has plenty) – but it’s more than you’ll get with any of the other $1000 cameras we’re looking at today. 

Whether that’s because OM System is able to include it (or pay the licensing fees for an IP rating) because of the lower component costs on its sensors, or that it’s just something the company prioritizes more than the others is hard to say, but it’s peace of mind that’s unusual at this price point.

Computation

Richard Butler

Micro Four Thirds cameras were some of the first attainable ILCs to make use of computational photography, taking multiple shots and stitching them together to produce a higher resolution version, simulate an ND filter and more. Some of these features are enabled in part by IBIS, but it’s also possible thanks to clever algorithms and relatively fast sensor readout speeds, something you won’t get with all of the APS-C options.

Even if the hardware were capable of it, the fact is that Nikon, Canon and Fujifilm haven’t put in the work to replicate these features, so their respective cameras don’t offer anything of the sort. You have to step all the way up to a Panasonic full-frame camera to get anything similar with a larger sensor (even then it’s mainly just the ability to shoot handheld high-resolution multishot), which is a very different size, weight and price point indeed.

Size

A Four Thirds sensor is physically smaller than an APS-C one, which means you can theoretically build a smaller, lighter body around it. However, while the OM System PEN is small, it’s not unbelievably so; there have been other Micro Four Thirds cameras that are appreciably more compact, including other models in the PEN line and the venerable GM1 and GM5 from Panasonic. And, indeed, the APS-C Fujifilm X-M5 manages to be a bit smaller, though it doesn’t have an EVF or sensor stabilization. There are even some full-frame cameras that aren’t too much bigger, such as the Panasonic S9 and Sony a7C II.

Richard Butler

However, the PEN is a fair bit smaller than the cameras we’re comparing today, largely thanks to the prominent grips and SLR-style humps on the EOS R10, X-T30 III and Z50II (though the X-T30 III actually manages to be a touch lighter).

The real size benefit comes from the lenses, though. While there are some size-comparable APS-C lenses on the market, it’ll be easier to gather a collection of Micro Four Thirds lenses that are smaller and lighter than their APS-C counterparts without having to pick and choose focal lengths too carefully to optimize for size. That’s even more true for full-frame options.

Size isn’t the biggest win for the PEN, but it’s definitely still worth considering.

Trade-offs go both ways

Of course, none of this is to say that the OM System is better in every way than its price-comparable competitors with larger sensors. Besides the image quality benefits, Nikon, Canon and, to a lesser extent, Fujifilm, have more modern autofocus systems, and all of them are substantially better options if you wish to shoot video relatively seriously. The APS-C cameras also all have built-in flashes, which some people will appreciate, and most of them manage to match the PEN when it comes to burst rates and pre-capture (not that OM System is pitching this as anything like an action camera).

There are absolutely reasons why some people would go with one of $1000 APS-C camera over the $1000 PEN. Perhaps they’re looking for a camera that’s a bit more capable for sports and wildlife, or are more serious about video. But it’s worth acknowledging that you will be giving up some nice-to-haves in the process, or having to pay way more to get them. 

This week, Apple announced its first foldable: the iPhone Duo. It’s launching into a mature market with lots of competition, though it adopts the still relatively rare passport form factor. This means it’s designed to be short and wide, rather than tall and thin, a decision with relatively fundamental implications on the aspect ratio of its interior screen.

While there are plenty of options to compare it with, we’re choosing some of the more established competitors: the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 series (both the passport style phone and the boxier Ultra variant) and the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold. However, we will bring up some of the other foldables on the market at points where they’re relevant.

Cameras

One of the areas folding phones differ the most is in their camera layouts. Some opt for a three camera array, while others opt for two (usually, it’s the telephoto option that gets the axe). But different phones will make different compromises, so it’s up to you to decide what parts of the camera experience you value.

Comparing the options across the foldables from Apple, Samsung and Google to a standard slab phone – in this case the iPhone 18 Pro – a few things become clear. Both Apple and Samsung decided that there just wasn’t room in a passport-style phone for a three camera array (though, notably, Xiaomi managed it).

However, while the larger foldables offer telephoto cameras, they’re usually very compromised compared to what you’d typically get on a standard phone. Samsung’s “Ultra” foldable, the most expensive in this roundup, is also the only one that has what we’d consider to be a flagship-class main camera, though Motorola’s new Razr Fold has a comprable camera layout, albeit with an slightly worse ultrawide and substantially nicer telephoto.

Samsung

As for how the iPhone Duo compares: it’s very similar to the Z Fold 8, and Apple has made a different trade-off than Google, opting for a better ultra-wide with no telephoto rather than relatively poor versions of both. But like the rest of the phones, it’s pretty much no contest between it and the Z Fold 8 Ultra, or the iPhone 18 Pro it launched alongside.

Screens

Apple

Of course, the main reason to get a folding phone is that they come close to the pocketability of a standard phone, will unfurling to give you a large display that lets you run multiple apps at once, or view videos and photos on a much larger canvas. (But while the iPhone Fold is IMAX-shaped, we suspect Christopher Nolan still wouldn’t approve of watching movies on one.)

Your choice of form factor will largely dictate what kind of screen you get, with the passport-style phones offering slightly smaller displays with aspect ratios more suited to viewing content, but not quite as ideal for running apps side-by-side (though both the iPhone Duo and Galaxy Z Fold 8 can). Meanwhile, the more traditional folding phones offer nearly square screens, which offer a multitasking experience that’s almost like having two standard phones next to each other.

Samsung

While you may need to compromise on cameras to get a folding phone, you’re not compromising on screen specs. All the phones in our roundup have incredibly bright displays – Apple and Samsung* offer 3000 nits peak brightness on bother inner and outer screens, while Google ratchets that up to 3600 – with variable refresh rates that go from 1 to 120Hz.

The one place Apple has thought different is in the finish of its inner display; it has a matte “nano-texture” coating, where its competitors have glossy displays. Apple says this does a better job of hiding the crease in the middle – though it’s barely noticeable on the Samsungs either, according to most reviewers – and makes it less prone to scratches. We’ll see what happens when JerryRigEverything does his durability tests on it, though.

Size and Weight

There’s no getting around it: the iPhone Duo is hefty, especially given its size. Despite Apple’s use of titanium in its construction – typically a material that offers incredible strength for its size – it winds up being substantially heavier than even the larger Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra and Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold.

To us, this comparison illustrates Samsung’s experience as the company that’s been making foldables the longest. Its models are substantially thinner and lighter than their Apple and Google counterparts, while having roughly similar battery capacities. Of course, Apple is known to let its devices be a bit heavier to give them a premium feel, but it’s up to you whether the feel in your hand is worth the heft in the pocket.

The rest of the experience

Each brand, will, of course, have its own take on what the foldable experience should be like. These range from macro-level decisions, like how the transition from folded to unfolded should work and how multitasking is handled, to smaller quality-of-life features like Google and Apple’s inclusion of camera features made to make kids smile as you’re taking their picture, and automatically capture group photos when you have your phone set up on a flat surface.

Google

While we won’t know the full scope of those usability differences until all the phones are available, there are a few things we can glean from what we know so far. While all the phones can be stood up on a table in the a-frame-like tent mode for watching video, the Galaxy Z Fold 8’s hinge design means it can’t be used half-unfolded (in a way that makes the phone sort of like a laptop). This is an ability the Ultra version, as well as the Pixel and iPhone, have.

While none of the selfie cameras on the inner screens will be great – they’re designed mostly for video calls – Apple goes the extra step of hiding its one under the display when it’s not in use, so you can get a truly full-screen experience when watching video, without the hole-punch you’ll get in the Galaxies and Pixel. Ironically, this was something Samsung used to do with its foldables, but has dropped in recent years.

The iPhone Duo and Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold both offer dust and water ingress protection that’s equivalent to a standard cell phone (which is important given their oh-so-complex hinges and display mechanisms), with an IP68 rating. The Samsung models fall a bit short on the dust protection, only boasting IP48.

If you want to see how the iPhone 18 Pro compares to its traditional smartphone competitors, check out our story below.

* – It’s also no secret that Samsung, innovator in the foldable space, provides the panel for Apple’s foldable; no wonder it has similar performance.

It’s been a week packed full of launches and announcements, so we thought: what better time to bring back our DPReview Discussions podcast series, where we get the editors together to discuss the latest cameras, lenses and more? This episode is a bit wider-ranging than usual. Of course, we cover the new OM System PEN and iPhones 18 Pro and Duo, as well as our audiences’s reactions to them, but we also touch on the new Sigma lenses and the news that Ricoh has discontinued the remaining K-mount Pentax DSLRs.

We hope to make these discussions a more regular thing going forward, so let us know what you think. Do you prefer the longerform conversations, where we cover most of our thoughts in full, or do you prefer tighter episodes focused on just a single topic or two? Sound off in the comments below. 

Earlier this week, Sigma announced the 20-60mm F2.8-4 DG Contemporary, a surprisingly small full-frame lens that offers better range and a faster aperture than most full-frame kit lenses, in a package that’s smaller than any of its immediate rivals.

It arrived just before a planned trip to the UK, so I got to test my theory that it’d be an excellent replacement for most kit zooms, with the size and flexibility that would work well for travel.

This is my initial response, as I unboxed it:

And below are the samples Mitchell and I shot in both Seattle and London.

Sample gallery

Please do not reproduce any of these images on a website or any newsletter/magazine without prior permission (see our copyright page). We make the originals available for private users to download to their own machines for personal examination or printing; we do so in good faith, so please don’t abuse it. 

Thanks to Panasonic for the loan of an S1RII 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 corrects a large amount of barrel distortion at the wide end and a minor amount of pincushion distortion at the long end. We’d consider it an essential part of the lens’ optical design.

It’s difficult to believe that 9/11 happened 25 years ago this week. It’s equally difficult to think that day helped shape the photographer I became. Both are true, and as the anniversary news coverage unfolds while I write this, I’ve found myself reflecting on those 25 years.

This article isn’t about what happened that day – there’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know – but suffice it to say that it was a tough day to be an American, and an even tougher day to be a New Yorker.

When you’re in the middle of an event like that, it’s easy to feel helpless, and it doesn’t take long for that to evolve into a need to do something, to regain some control over the situation in whatever way you can. I think that’s part of why first responders drove fire trucks from across the US and Canada to help; New York needed them, but I believe it also answered a need to do something.

Copyright Dale Baskin

For me, that something was photography.

I wasn’t a working photographer then. I had never even sold a photo. I was just the guy who always carried a camera. I’d always aspired to do something meaningful with photography, but hadn’t figured out how. Sure, I could take good photos, but that was about the extent of it.

In the days that followed, we were exposed to a lot of photos. It was overwhelming. But it didn’t take long to realize I wasn’t overwhelmed by photos; I was overwhelmed by photos of destruction. I needed to find something else.

And so I set off into the streets of New York with my camera and several rolls of film in search of something hopeful, and it didn’t take long to find it. Everywhere I looked, I saw American flags. And wherever I saw a flag, I saw people expressing hope.

Copyright Dale Baskin

We Americans have a complicated relationship with our flag, but in September of 2001, it was the one thing none of us needed to argue about. It was a symbol that we were in this together, and that we’d dig our way out together.

I latched onto that, and for the next several days I made it my mission to photograph flags in New York City. In the process, I found my voice as a photographer, though I wouldn’t realize it until later.

What I took from that experience is that photography isn’t just about taking pictures, it’s about telling a story. And at times, not the obvious one. I was surrounded by people using cameras to document devastation; I wanted to document for history that there was another story to be told.

I’m not naive enough to think I was the only person in New York who figured this out. But it was a lightbulb moment for me. The kind of thing you can read in a book or hear from a more experienced photographer, but still not understand until you’ve lived it.

Copyright Dale Baskin

Fast forward a few years, after I’d relocated to the West Coast. I happened to mention this collection of photos to an acquaintance, along with the fact that no one but me had ever seen them. Intrigued, he invited me to share my story and my photos with a local civic group.

The next thing I knew, I was getting invited to speak to all kinds of groups. It was the story of an event still visceral in people’s memories – but not the story they were used to hearing. I distinctly remember one man who had been living in New York at the time telling me that while he recognized many of the places in my photos, my photos told a story he’d never seen before.

Talks became exhibits, and exhibits became a book, coauthored by someone I met at one of those talks. Flags Across America grew well beyond our original vision and includes works from many other people, but it still has a section dedicated to my flag photos from New York.

Copyright Dale Baskin

What started as a project to cope with feeling helpless eventually reached more people than I can count, and taught me to appreciate the power of storytelling through photos.

To this day, I have hundreds of photos from that project, shot on slide film, that I’ve never taken the time to scan. I don’t even remember what’s in most of them. But I know I should do something with them, because history matters.

A few years ago, I wrote an article called “What is your digital shoebox?” and asked readers what would happen to their photos when they were gone. I’ve thought about that a lot in the past couple of days, and about the fact that photos taken contemporaneously with important historical events often have real value to future historians. My collection needs to find a home. If you have suggestions, let me know.

25 years is a significant slice of a life, and this anniversary makes me feel a little older today than I did yesterday. But I’d like to think I learned something important from the experience, and that I’ve touched a few people positively along the way with my photography.

Gavin Free, one half of the YouTube duo The Slow Mo Guys, is a camera nerd through and through. His 2015 video “Inside a Camera at 10,000fps” was one of the catalysts for me deciding to actually learn about the technical side of photography, rather than treating my camera as a sort of magic box that takes photos. But slow-motion videography and cameras have changed a lot since then, which is why it’s so exciting that he’s taken another run at the subject. 

The video he released today covers way more than the mirror and shutter mechanism of DSLRs, though he goes into that a bit too. It also shows the exact way that electronic first curtain (or, really, mechanical second curtain) shutters work, how they synchronize with a lens’s aperture mechanism and captures a leaf shutter in action. The video also covers various flash sync modes, showing how a camera manages to capture the light from a strobe, and explaining the things that can go wrong in that process (especially when using High-Speed Sync). 

If you’ve never dug into how a camera shutter works, this video is an excellent primer. Sure, you can figure it out by reading metaphors and explainers and looking at diagrams and animations (and those help you go deeper on a subject), but watching extremely slow-motion footage gives you a very visceral understanding of what’s happening. And if you are familiar with a camera’s mechanisms, it’s still fun to see them in action, in both high definition and slow motion. One thing I learned from the video is just how much the blades of a leaf shutter jiggle when it closes; it’s the kind of thing that really makes you appreciate just what a marvel of precision engineering and manufacturing cameras are.

This year started out quite quiet for new cameras and almost as quiet for photography-related gear in general. We saw some lenses and a few cameras trickled out in the first half of the year, each of which told us something interesting about the market, but there have been fewer releases than in past years. Thankfully, this week marked a bit of a shift, and we suddenly had some actually new products to share. In case you missed some of it, here’s all we saw over the last seven days. 

OM System PEN

Richard Butler

Perhaps the standout launch this week was the OM System PEN, a compact, Micro Four Thirds camera built around a 20MP sensor that marks the first time in a decade that a Pen camera has been sold in North America. The camera is aimed at travel and everyday use, offering a compact build with retro styling at a very reasonable price.

OM System M.Zuiko Digital 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 III

OM System

Released alongside the PEN was an updated model of OM System’s standard zoom, the M.Zuiko Digital 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 III (28-84mm equiv.). The new version is a small upgrade, but it finally offers weather sealing and lets you focus more closely. It is slightly larger than its predecessor, but it’s still quite small for what it is, fitting nicely on cameras like the new PEN. 

Laowa 180mm F4.5 1.5x Ultra Macro APO for X and F-mount

Laowa

While not a new lens, Laowa announced this week that the previously released 180mm F4.5 1.5x Ultra Macro APO is now available for Fujifilm X-mount and Nikon F-mount. It is the first autofocus Laowa lens available for X-mount, and offers a 270mm equiv. field of view on Fujifilm’s APS-C cameras. The price is also a pleasant feature: it costs just $499. 

Sony FE 8-14mm F3.5 Fisheye G

Dale Baskin

Sony released a lens this week that is a first in its lens lineup. The FE 8-14mm F3.5 Fisheye G is the company’s first standalone fisheye lens for E-mount, and it says it’s the most compact lens of this type. At 8mm, the lens provides a circular fisheye image, which will be very familiar to anyone who watched 90’s skateboarding or music videos, while zooming to 14mm results in an image that fills the frame. 

Sigma 20-60mm F2.8-4 DG Contemporary

Sigma / Jack Redgate

Sigma announced two lenses this week, one of which was the 20-60mm F2.8-4 DG Contemporary, a kit lens upgrade for E and L-mounts that is remarkably compact. It weighs 385g (13.6oz), and is 88mm (3.5″) long at its shortest (it extends as you zoom). It is limited in on-lens controls, but Sigma says it’s dust and splash-resistant, and at $849, it’s relatively affordable, too. 

Sigma 85mm F1.2 DG Art

Sigma

For those looking for a more portrait-focused lens, the new Sigma 85mm F1.2 DG Art may be of interest. Like the above lens, it is available for E and L-mounts and is the company’s third F1.2 prime lens, joining 35mm and 50mm options. A lens of this type will have some bulk, but Sigma says it is the “smallest and lightest in its class,” and it weighs just 905g (31.9oz). It’s also significantly more affordable than the Canon and Nikon 85mm F1.2 lenses, coming in at $1599. You can see sample images from the lens here. 

Nine Nikon cinema lenses

Nikon

Not to be left out of the slew of announcements this week, Nikon announced it will be releasing a series of nine T1.9 cinema lenses. Details are still sparse on most of them, including availability, pricing and focal lengths, but it did say one of the nine lenses will be a 50mm. We’ll have to wait for more details, but it does appear Nikon is busy at least.

Fujifilm XF 400mm F4.5 R LM OIS WR

Abby Ferguson

Fujifilm released the XF 400mm F4.5 R LM OIS WR at the end of last week, but for the sake of thoroughness, we’re including it here. The $3200 super-telephoto prime lens rounds out its trio of such lenses, joining the XF 500mm F5.6 R LM OIS WR and XF 200mm F2 R LM OIS WR. It provides a 609mm equivalent focal length on X-mount cameras, and is relatively compact and lightweight for what it is. 

Apple iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max and iPhone Duo

Apple

Shifting gears away from lenses, this week marked the release of Apple’s latest iPhone lineup, which includes the iPhone 18 Pro, 18 Pro Max and Duo. The most notable update from a camera perspective is the variable aperture found on the main camera of the 18 Pro and Pro Max, which ranges from F1.48 to F4. It also finally unlocks manual control over some settings within the native camera app.  

The Duo is Apple’s long-awaited entry into the folding phone market, and while it doesn’t feature very advanced cameras, it does offer some camera tricks. 

Insta360 Luna Pro

Mykim Dang

Lastly, Insta360 announced the global release of its Luna Pro, a single-lens gimbal camera aimed at creators who want a portable, stabilized camera for social-ready video. It keeps the specs of the main camera found on the Luna Ultra, and comes in at $600, $170 less than its dual-lens sibling. You can see our hands-on footage here. 

Photographers usually discuss focal length in millimeters. But the San Diego Air & Space Museum’s newly unpacked reconnaissance camera is identified in inches: 24 of them, or roughly 610mm. According to the museum, an even longer 48-inch version followed. 

The camera was part of a cache of unused 1960s-era equipment supplied with the museum’s Lockheed A-12, the CIA’s Mach 3 reconnaissance aircraft and the predecessor to the SR-71 Blackbird. The video is nearly 20 minutes long and begins with substantial background on the A-12 (it is an aviation channel, after all) so photographers may want to jump to the 11:47 mark, where the museum gets into the cameras and how they were used. 

In the video, host Gordon Permann walks through some of the challenges of making a sharp photograph from about 80,000 feet while traveling at roughly 2500 mph. The ground would move hundreds of feet beneath the aircraft during an exposure, resulting in a blurred image. Making matters worse, neither the aircraft nor the terrain would necessarily be level. The solution was motion compensation: the camera itself would “skew,” or make a small movement as its aperture opened, counteracting image smear.

Another fascinating feature is simply how much film these systems used. Permann first shows the standard film canister used in reconnaissance aircraft from the 1950s through the 1990s, which he says held roughly 1200 feet of film. But the A-12 and SR-71 Blackbird needed still more film, so a larger canister was made. The museum has one of those, too, which Permann lifts in the video. He explains that the larger camera used a five-inch-wide film strip, with around 4.5 inches of usable image area. Each individual frame measured about six feet long.

Permann says the system could image more than 100,000 square miles in a single hour, capturing huge swathes of land or sea at once. He also recounts a Blackbird making a turn with its camera running and pointed out to sea. When the film was developed, analysts reportedly spotted a U.S. destroyer on the horizon, 94 miles away, and were able to identify the ship’s type despite the distance.

A separate, still-factory-wrapped camera in another crate is the real mystery: its 1953 date predates the A-12 project by six years, so it couldn’t have come from a Blackbird-family aircraft. The museum is seeking the public’s help to identify what airplane it may have been used on, so anyone with a theory can head to the video and share it in the comments.

Earlier this week, Sigma fully unveiled the 85mm F1.2 Art, a lens it announced would be coming earlier this year. We had the chance to shoot with it, and mainly focused on testing out its capabilities for portraiture, as that’s the traditional use for fast 85mm primes.

You can check out the sample gallery below to judge its performance for yourself. 

We found that shooting with it was the characteristically refined experience that we’ve come to expect from Sigma’s Art-series lenses. While a quality F1.2 lens will never be the smallest or lightest option, we appreciated that this particular lens is light for what it is; Sigma actually claims it’s the smallest and lightest full-frame 85mm F1.2 with autofocus for mirrorless cameras. It feels like something you could conceivably carry around all day without having to worry about waking up the next morning to an unusably sore arm (though I had it paired with an original Panasonic S1R, so it still made for a relatively hefty setup). 

The controls on the lens are also well-judged. I always appreciate a clicked aperture ring, though Sigma also lets you de-click it if you prefer. It’s also nice that you can lock it either into or out of the ‘A’ mode that hands over control of the aperture to the camera body.

While we haven’t put the lens through a full battery of tests to determine every aspect of its image quality, it’s hard to find much fault with the samples we’ve taken. It’s quite sharp across the frame, even at F1.2 (though obviously you’ll be working with razor-thin depth of field), though there’s definitely some chromatic aberration present. There’s also relatively strong vignetting at F1.2, which isn’t necessarily a surprise given the lens’s size, though it largely clears up by F2.8.

Whether you think the trade-offs of an F1.2 lens are worth it over an F1.4 or F1.8 will largely depend on your thirst for light and background blur. But before now, your options for this kind of lens on E and L-mount were limited to non-existent, so it’s nice that we’re getting a genuinely good option, especially one that comes in at just over half of what Nikon and Canon will charge you for a similarly-speced lens.

This week, Apple announced the iPhone 18 Pro, the latest entry in its lineup of high-end smartphones. As we’ve come to expect, the update includes several new camera features, and even some new hardware. So how does it stack up against the last few years of Pro phones from Apple?

Before we get to what’s changed, let’s quickly cover what stayed the same: the 48MP ultra-wide camera, which provides a 13mm equiv. field of view and uses a 1/2.55 (23.5mm²) sensor, is the same model on the iPhones 16, 17 and 18 Pro. Likewise, Apple hasn’t updated the selfie or telephoto cameras on the 18 Pro either; they’re the same ones from the iPhone 17 Pro (though they were upgrades from those of the 16 Pro).

It’s also worth stating up front that the camera layouts on the 18 Pro are the same whether you go with the standard or Max versions, leaving you free to decide whether you want a 6.3″ or 6.9″ display, without having to worry that you’re compromising your phone’s photographic abilities.

The main camera

Apple

So what has changed then? The major hardware change Apple made to the iPhone 18 Pro is the addition of an adjustable aperture to the main 24mm equiv. camera. Unlike the fixed aperture lenses that all previous iPhones have used, this allows you or the phone’s software to choose whether it wants to cut down on the amount of light hitting the sensor, or make adjustments to the depth of field without resorting to software tricks. And if you stop it down all the way, you can even get some sun stars.

The six-bladed aperture has four settings: F1.48, F1.8, F2.8 and F4. Notably, the brightest aperture is faster than the lenses used on the iPhone 17 and 16 Pro, which were fixed at F1.78. While I’m on record saying that an adjustable aperture probably won’t be a ground-breaking change (something I still generally believe), I caveated that statement with the assumption that the phone’s maximum aperture wouldn’t change. At the time, I thought the feature would make for a lens that goes from F1.78 to F4, or F6.1 to F13.7 equiv., letting you switch from a setting with enough depth of field to more than enough. But the difference should be a bit more noticeable now that you’re starting at F5.1 equiv.

Tucker Bowe

While Apple says the sensor behind the lens is new, details are light on what’s changed. It’s still the same size – Type 1/1.28 (71.5mm²) with 1.22µm pixels – as the one used by the 17 and 16 Pro, so it won’t gather any more light; the 50% improvement that Apple references in its presentation is entirely accounted for by the fact that the lens’s maximum aperture is half a stop faster.

Software

Apple

The rest of the camera improvements on the iPhone 18 Pro come from software, and many of the features are only available when using that upgraded main camera. The biggest finally comes from the the “Pro controls” mode, which lets you manually set parameters like white balance, aperture, shutter speed, and view a histogram. (Disappointingly, there’s no mention of manual focus control, for when the AF system doesn’t get things right. While this is theoretically something Apple could port to its older Pro phones, minus the aperture control, of course, its comparison page indicates that it has no intention of doing so.

Apple has also introduced a new “Reference” mode for the main camera, which it says bakes authenticity data into photos taken with the phone into the image on a pixel level. This appears to be an answer to Google Pixel’s inclusion of C2PA Content Credentials in its camera app, though its inclusion as a separate mode means you have to actively decide to use it.

The iPhone 18 Pro introduces Photographic Styles 3, an update to the system that gives you more control over what your phone’s photos look like, letting you adjust things like contrast and color at the point of capture. The system was majorly overhauled with the iPhone 16 Pro, giving you a lot more control and letting you change the style after-the-fact, rather than permanently baking it into the image. The version on the 18 Pro is a much more minor change, adding the ability to “customize texture and grain to soften skin details or achieve an artful film look.”

Finally, Apple is adding a “Smart focus tracking” mode, which will attempt to recognize and stick to a subject after you’ve tapped on it to focus. Again, this feels like something that could come to previous models, but Apple’s comparison tool says it won’t.

Video

Many of the iPhone 18 Pro’s video upgrades are the same as they are for stills: you get the benefits of the variable aperture, and the ability to manually control it and other parameters, along with the tracking autofocus.

Otherwise, the changes are relatively minor: you can now record at up to 4K/60 in the “Cinematic” video mode that adds simulated background blur, where the iPhone 17 and 16 Pro max out at 4K/30. More importantly, though, is that you no longer have to make the on whether to apply the effect or not when recording; you can apply it after the fact. The timelapse video feature is also upgraded to 4K, and Apple appears to have improved its noise reduction as it claims the 18 Pro has better low light video across the board, including on the selfie camera.

The rest

Apple

Of course, a phone isn’t just a camera, and Apple’s made some big changes under the hood that make the iPhone 18 Pro enticing even if you’re happy with your phone’s photos. You can read our launch coverage for the full story, but the top-level summary is that the chip is now substantially faster (especially when it comes to AI tasks, with twice the number of neural cores), and is kept cool thanks to a more advanced vapor chamber design, and some clever engineering choices. The battery life has also gotten a relatively impressive bump, and you can new refill it faster with 60W wired charging, where the 17 Pro topped out at 40W.

You will, however, pay for all these upgrades, in more ways than one. The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max start at $100 more than their predecessors for the same spec, and, while they keep roughly the same dimensions as past Pros, are the heaviest ones yet, despite their aluminum, rather than stainless steel, frames. That metal is, however, once again in four colors: black, burgundy, silver and a light blue.

Earlier this year, we reported on a novel photography contest sponsored by Icelandair: a competition to identify the worst photographer it could find, offering a free trip to Iceland and $50,000 cash. The premise was that Iceland is so beautiful that even a terrible photographer could capture its stunning landscapes, and Icelandair wanted to prove it. 

It turns out the airline got a much bigger response than it anticipated, receiving 127,642 entries from 178 countries. That’s a lot of bad photographers, and to find the winner, the judges spent more than 2,000 hours screening what were, by all accounts, terrible photos. You can’t make this stuff up.

Fast forward to June, when we reported on the winner, 28-year-old Blanche Mortemard of Paris, France, who wowed the judges with her inept technical ability and lack of compositional skill.

Blanche Mortemard

But the story didn’t end there. Shortly thereafter, Blanche jetted off to Iceland, presumably on Icelandair, to put her – ahem – skills to the test, spending 10 days touring the island and shooting its landscapes with no filters, no retouching and no AI.

The results are in, and while Blanche isn’t likely to be named photographer of the year by any other organization on the planet, she got some nice shots – along with less-than-perfect photos. As for Iceland? It understood the assignment and came through, looking beautiful, even if obscured by body parts. 

Blanche Mortemard

Reflecting on her experience, it seems that even Blanche thinks Icelandair’s marketing department was onto something. “Iceland makes it almost impossible to take a bad photo, despite my total inability to straighten the camera or take one without my thumb in shot,” she said.

And with that, the saga of one of the most interesting photo contests to cross our desks in quite some time comes to a close. Well, almost.

Blanche Mortemard

Blanche Mortemard

Blanche Mortemard

Blanche Mortemard

If you find yourself inspired by Blanche’s photography – and we’re not making any judgments – and are near London, you can attend the Iceland by the World’s Worst Photographer exhibition in person at White Rabbit Studios in Shoreditch on September 11 (2 – 8pm) and 12 (1 – 9pm). What’s more, you can attend a moderated talk by the “artist” (and we think even Blanche would use that term loosely) on Saturday, September 12 at 5pm. Admission is, mercifully, free, but needs to be booked. And if London isn’t on your itinerary, Icelandair says it plans to take the exhibition to a handful of other cities in North America and Europe. Because why not?

And let’s admit it – we probably all wish it could have been us on that trip.