Image: Viltrox

Viltrox has announced its first L-Mount lens after joining the alliance last September. The company will now sell an L-mount version of its AF 16mm F1.8 lens, which has previously been available for E and Z mount cameras.

Optically, the Viltrox AF 16mm F1.8 L is the same as the models released in 2024. It's built around 15 elements in 12 groups, an optical design that includes 3 aspherical elements and 4 ED elements to better manage distortion, chromatic aberration and coma. Viltrox promises ultra-high resolution from the ultra-wide and says it is sharp edge-to-edge even when wide open.

The lens offers a wide F1.8 maximum aperture and can focus as close as 0.27m (10.6"), which is twice the distance of Sony's 16mm F1.8, its closest like-for-like rival. It uses Viltrox's stepper motor for autofocus, which it says is fast and accurate. Viltrox also promises minimal focus breathing, making it a suitable option for video applications.

Image: Viltrox

Like the original E and Z-mount versions, the lens offers plenty of on-body controls. It features two function buttons: one is customizable, while the other enables users to quickly switch between two preset focus distances. A focus ring can be clicked or de-clicked, and it features an AF/MF switch. There's also a 0.96" color display at the top of the lens that shows focus distance, depth of field, and aperture settings.

Unlike some ultra-wide lenses, the Viltrox 16mm doesn't feature a bulging front lens element. The flat lens design reduces the risk of damaging the glass when walking around with it and also allows for a 77mm filter thread. It uses metal construction and weighs 550g (1.2 lbs). It also offers some weather sealing to protect against dust.

The Viltrox AF 16mm F1.8 L is available for purchase for $580.

Viltrox 16mm F1.8 specifications

The gray colorscheme, 30th Anniversary logo, 'diamond' knurling on the control ring around the lens and the price set the Anniversary edition apart from the standard G7 X III. Image: Canon

Canon is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its PowerShot line of compact cameras with a premium-priced special edition of its hard-to-find G7 X Mark III enthusiast compact.

It features a gray top plate and different knurling on the control ring, along with 30th Anniversary branding on the flash. Other than that, it's identical to the standard G7 X Mark III that's reliably unavailable.

As such it has a 24-100mm equiv. F1.8-2.8 lens in front of a 20MP Type 1 (13.2 x 8.8mm) Stacked CMOS sensor. It also has a clicking control dial around the lens, a dedicated exposure comp dial and a rear screen that flips 90 degrees down and 180 degrees upward, helping it become something of a TikTok favourite, as well as being an excellent enthusiast compact.

Canon North America will also provide a leather PeakDesign wrist strap with the 30th Anniversary logo but this isn't included in all markets.

The Anniversary Edition is described as a limited edition, but the extent of its availability has not been disclosed. Image: Canon

Canon refers to it as a "limited edition" but declined to specify how many units the edition is limited to. Canon North America told us it will run a lottery for people wanting to buy them from its own website but it'll be left up to retailers to decide how to allocate the units they get into stock.

The special edition G7 X Mark III will be available from April 2026 in unspecified numbers at a cost of $1295. This is a $420 premium over the regular version that isn't formally limited. A company spokesperson said that supply constraints on the standard version "should get better, later in the year."

In the UK, the special edition will cost £860, only a £40 increase over the cost over the standard model. Though you don't get the custom wrist strap. It will go on sale on April 23rd.

European outlets are reporting that the Anniversary edition and all G7 X III's will move over from the NB-13L battery to a new unit called the NB-15L. Batteries with the new designation differ only in that they won't attempt to charge if they've been over-discharged, as a safety feature.

Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark III Specifications

Image: Canon

Canon has announced the 14mm F1.4 VCM L, the latest in its family of similarly-sized F1.4 lenses designed for shooting both stills and videos. With the exception of the company's "Dual" lenses designed for VR, this becomes Canon's widest-angle prime for RF mount.

The lens is made up of 18 elements in 13 groups, with a litany of special glass and coatings: there's a fluorite lens, a UD lens, a Blue Refractive "BR" optical element for correcting chromatic aberration, and three glass-molded aspheric elements, as well as a fluorine coating for anti-fouling and the company's SWC and ASC coating for reducing flare, ghosting and reflections. It can focus on subjects as close as 0.24m (9.4") away, providing up to 0.11x magnification.

Physically, the lens is a similar weight to the rest of Canon's VCM lenses, coming in at 578g (20.4oz). At 112mm (4.4") long, it'll stick out a touch further from the camera than the others, though that's primarily down to its integrated lens hood. Speaking of, the front element is slightly bulbous, meaning the lens can't be used with filters that screw on to the front. It does, however, have a holder for pre-cut gelatin filters on the back of its mount. A special lens cap that clips on is included.

The 14mm F1.4 VCM accepts gelatin filters at the back of the lens. There doesn't appear to be room behind the optics to use the slot-in filter modules used on the co-announced 7-14mm L fisheye lens. Image: Canon

It has plenty of controls and switches, including a customizable function button, a manual / auto focus switch, Canon's control ring and an (unfortunately clickless) aperture ring, which can be locked into "Auto" mode. As with the rest of the VCM lenses, the latter can be used in video mode across Canon's RF camera lineup, but can only be used in stills mode on the relatively recent EOS R1, R5 II, R6 III and R50V.

The RF 14mm F1.4 VCM L fills a hole in Canon's mirrorless lineup, which previously lacked a fast, high-end ultra-wide prime, the kind that's the bread and butter of astro-photographers. Of course, there are plenty of other uses for this focal length, but some of those will have already been covered by lenses like the 10-20mm F4 zoom.

We wouldn't have necessarily guessed that this would be Canon's next choice for a VCM lens, partially because the company has always stressed its focus on making the lenses good for both stills and video. While the company says it has well-controlled breathing, the lens still falls a bit short for the latter use case since its front element makes it difficult to attach filters. Presumably for reasons of space, Canon hasn't used the drop-in filter port included on the fisheye lens launching alongside this one, which would've made at least some affordance for a variable ND. Still, we're glad to see the company finally offering a high-end ultrawide prime for full-frame RF.

The RF 14mm F1.4 VCM L will be available near the end of February and will retail for $2499.

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.

Canon 14mm F1.4 VCM L specifications:

Image: Canon

Canon has announced the RF 7-14mm F2.8-3.5 L Fisheye STM, which it says is the first zoom lens of its kind to provide a 190° field of view at its widest setting. The lens also has a few other tricks up its sleeve, including a way to use filters – even variable ones – despite its hemispherical front element.

The lens is made of 16 elements in 11 groups, with two aspheric elements and 5 UD lenses. It has a minimum focusing distance of 0.15m (5.9") across its zoom range, providing up to 0.35x magnification at 14mm. When paired with a full-frame camera, its widest angle offers a circular field of view, which becomes a diagonal fisheye field of view at the 'long' end.

It has a dual-purpose locking / limit switch, which you can use for different purposes, depending on what kind of system you're using it on. If you're shooting on a full-frame camera, you can use it to lock the zoom at 7mm, making sure you maintain the full circular fisheye effect. If you're using it with an APS-C body, however, you can use it to lock the lens in to only use focal lengths that fill the entire frame, starting at around 8.7mm.

To help with this mode, there's a "C" indicator on the zoom ring, which lines up with the limit switch once you've reached that focal length. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from using this limit setting on a full-frame camera, too, but the focal lengths it limits you to won't have any particular significance on a larger sensor.

The lens also has Canon's control ring, a programmable button and an autofocus / manual focus switch.

You can use the slot-in circular polarizer previously offered with Canon's EF/RF adapter, this has a small, geared wheel (shown towards the upper left of this image) to let you rotate the filter inside the lens. Image: Canon

It weighs 476g (16.8oz) and is 109mm (4.3") long. While its front element makes it impossible to use standard screw-on filters, Canon has borrowed a trick from one of its EF to RF adapters, building in a slot for drop-in filters into the lens. It ships with a clear filter, but it can accept any of the ones used by that adapter, meaning there's already a circular polarizer, gelatin filter holder and even a variable ND filter for it. The circular polarizing and vari ND filters come with a geared wheel that lets you rotate the filters while they're mounted in the lens.

The Canon RF 7-14mm F2.8-3.5 L Fisheye STM will be available later this month at an MSRP of $1899. As you'd expect of an L-series lens, it's weather sealed and comes with both a lens hood and lens pouch.

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.

Canon RF 7-14mm F2.8-3.5 L Fisheye STM specifications:

A muddied construction site in Indonesia during the wet season got revenge on this camera. Photo: I Beam

In last week's Question of the week, the community didn’t just swap specs or talk wishlists; you traded reports from a diverse set of danger zones in photography. We were amazed by how many cameras managed to survive such incredible disasters. Cameras were flung off boats, buried in mud, run over by construction trucks and even pulled from rice paddy firefights. Yet, amazingly, many of them remained functional with just a bit of cleanup needed to get them going again.

Read on for some of those intense stories that pitted cameras against the wrath of nature.

Your camera disasters revealed

Bearly There: A bear tried to eat my GoPro. I had it sitting on a fence post along an animal trail attached to a Gorillapod and set the GoPro to take a photo every five seconds. I left it there for a few hours before going back to retrieve it, only to find it on the ground, covered in slimy slobber.

Hike Pics: Early 90s, on our 1st anniversary, my wife and I were down in Savannah, Georgia. I was stepping out of one of the many shops facing the Savannah River. I missed the first step, causing my 80-200mm to flip out of my front-facing fanny pack (that I forgot to zip) and land on the street. I heard glass break. I tossed it and the fanny pack into the garbage can. I NEVER got another fanny pack!

woxx: I was on a beach in Iceland with my Fujifilm GFX 50S and GF45 on a cold spring day with high wind and rough water. They say never turn your back on the water, but I stupidly did. Right then, a wave pushed about a foot of water up, knocking me down onto my hands and knees. The wave completely submerged my GFX 50S in cold Atlantic saltwater.

Dropped Ricoh Caplio R6 survived in sand, but did not survive a second, more disastrous drop. Photo: ThvdW

RecklessCoding: Over a decade ago, I was doing my mandatory military service. There was this big event, an unveiling of a monument for a dead war hero. The president of my country, ambassadors, generals, etc, were all set to come as they would double the event as a full-on inspection of the guard. I was asked to take photos at the event.

During the president's speech, I thought of getting up on the platform he was standing on to take a nice portrait. I took the first step, and bam, I lost my balance. My camera bag was open, and one of the lenses flew out in front of the president's face and landed somewhere on a bush behind him. Longest second of my life.

The Squirrel Mafia: Back in 2014, I went to Disneyland with the family. I took my 10 MP Sony A200 DSLR. By midday, we got on the Jungle Cruise. I took the camera strap off my neck and took a few photos. Then I put the camera on my lap. When the boat got back to the dock, I thought I had the camera strap on my wrist. As I got up, the camera flew off my lap and fell upside down onto the hard floor of the boat. The camera survived, but the flash mechanism didn't. Had I turned the other way, it would have fallen right into the "river".

Kowa Super 66 was shot dead by a deer rifle due to the owner's frustration at not being able to repair the camera. Photo: KICK14

deep7: I was out on a horse trek with some friends. We weren't far from base when my Olympus Mju film camera fell out of my backpack. I went back for it once the horses were sorted, to find that an eight-ton horse truck had driven right over it! The camera had a massive crack and didn't function, but pressing the film rewind button made it work. I retrieved the film, completely undamaged. Tough little cameras, no wonder they sold millions of them.

The Point and Shoot Pro: During the days when I was shooting 4/3s cameras, I was talking to a nice older gentleman who had an E-1. He was on one of these Nikon "Mentor" trips, shooting by a slow-running river. A few Canikon fans were there, sort of talking crap about his "inferior" Olympus setup. So he walked over to the river, dropped his camera in, looked at the boys, and said, "Go ahead, do that with your gear".

Vetteran: We took a day trip in Iceland (all 4.5 hours of sunlight in January) to the infamous Reynisfjara "Black Sand Beach" known for sneaker waves. Of course, I was about 100 feet from the surf when a sneaker wave came in. The wave hit my camera bag hard. The result: both of my Leicas, D109 and VLUX Type 114, which were in my Domke camera bag, slipped off my shoulder, and the interior of the bag was water-drenched, ruining both cameras.

Sometimes, putting your camera in harms' way to get the shot works out. Other times it doesn't. Photo: Mitchell Clark

These tales feel less like minor mishaps and more like war stories from the front lines, with cameras hurled off boats, buried in mud, drowned in surf and even dragged through firefights. Hard lessons learned: trust your straps, respect the weather, zip the bag, spread the tripod legs, and always have a plan for when gravity or water wins.

So many other great stories we couldn't fit in this article are shared in the forums. Thanks to everyone who took the time to write up a fascinating account of your camera accidents.

Keep watch for the next Question of the week every other Wednesday to participate in this series. New questions are posted here on the homepage and in the forums. We can't wait to read and share your stories!

Had a camera destroyed? Click here to share your story!

It's become increasingly common for cameras to be able to capture Raw video without the need for an external recorder, making it that bit more accessible. Photo: Mitchell Clark

Raw video looks set to become increasingly common on cameras, with cameras from Panasonic, Canon and Nikon all offering internal Raw capture options. We thought it was a good time to take another look at the pros and cons of Raw video, whether it's worth the effort and whether you should consider it an essential feature, next time you buy a camera.

It's not as significant as for stills

The first point worth reiterating is that the benefits of Raw shooting aren't anywhere near as significant as they are for stills shooting. The main reason for this is that the alternative to shooting Raw stills is typically an 8-bit JPEG with a high-contrast S-curve applied to it, ready for viewing which leaves relatively little scope for significant brightness and tonal edits. Whereas the alternative to Raw in video tends to be 10-bit footage encoded with a Log response curve which is specifically designed to maintain tonal flexibility.

"A 10-bit log file can comfortably retain all the meaningful content of a 12-bit linear one"

It also tends to be the case that most video is derived from 12-bit sensor readout, rather than the 14-bit modes used on most large pixel cameras. Reducing the readout bit-depth boosts the readout speed but puts a limit on the amount of DR that can be retained. That said, many modern cameras increasingly oversample for their core video modes, an act that helps reduce noise and boost DR.

Little information is given about most 'Raw' video formats, but if they are encoded in a linear manner, as delivered by cameras' ADCs, it's worth pointing out that a 10-bit logarithmic file can comfortably retain all the meaningful content of a 12-bit linear one.

It's more that there's a well-established alternative to Raw capture, rather than any weakness of the Raw footage, that leads us to stress that the benefits are more modest than you might expect, if you're coming from a stills-shooting background.

So what benefits do you gain?

Control over white balance and ISO

The easiest benefit to spot is that, as in Raw photos, Raw video typically doesn't apply multipliers to its color channels and 'bake' a white balance into the file. This retains maximum flexibility in the edit, as it eliminates the risk that a badly judged white balance has prematurely clipped a channel that you then want to recover.

In practice, there isn't going to be a big difference between this and a 10-bit Log workflow, if you get the white balance quite close at the point of capture.

Raw footage should let you adjust the white balance and brightness rendering of the footage, after the fact. In this instance the interface gives you "ISO", "Exposure Offset" and "Color Temperature" tools. There's no setting for adjusting the Magenta/Green 'tint' axis. Screengrab: DPReview from Final Cut Pro 11.1

Another benefit of the better Raw implementations is the ability to change ISO after the fact. Strictly speaking, you can't edit ISO after the fact any more than you can adjust "exposure" in a stills Raw converter, but you can see why they might choose to label the control that way.

Typically what's actually happening is that your camera is shooting at its base amplification setting (or its second gain step) to prevent unnecessary clipping, then brightening the footage in post, based on the "ISO" value to assign in your editor. As with white balance, this lets you second-guess your decisions at the point of shooting, but the end results are unlikely to be radically different to having shot Log in the 'correct' ISO, at the time.

Control over sharpening and noise reduction

What you definitely gain is much greater control over the sharpening and noise reduction being applied to your footage. Even at their minimal settings (and different brands have a very different idea of what minimal processing looks like), most hybrid cameras will apply quite a lot of noise reduction and sharpening to their processed output.

Shooting Raw gives you much more choice about the level and complexity of noise reduction and sharpening being applied. Of course, this also means you need to come up with a sharpening and noise reduction strategy in your workflow.

Support

Support for Raw video has been improving in recent months, with Adobe adding beta support for Nikon's NRaw and related R3D formats. Between plugins from the manufacturers and third-party options such as Color Finale Transcoder 2, you can use most Raw formats in the most popular editing software.

This is particularly useful as, for instance, Nikon cameras derive their native Raw and their ProRes Raw output on different sensor modes, so the quality and available framerates can differ between them.

Lens corrections

Another consideration is that a great many modern lens designs only deliver the combination of angle-of-view, size and price they offer, because they use software corrections as part of their design. Not all Raw video workflows maintain the necessary correction parameters, meaning you'll need to find correction plugins to mimic them, if you want to use many modern hybrid lenses.

The Nikon ZR lets you choose between capturing Nikon's N-Raw or the related R3D NE format. Alternatively you can capture the more widely supported ProRes Raw format, though not at the higher frame rates offered in its native formats. Screengrab: Mitchell Clark

This isn't an issue if you're adapting manual focus lenses, but it's worth testing whether the Raw format you hope to use will maintain the lens correction information if you're planning to use most systems' native AF lenses. For instance, Nikon writes its lens corrections parameters to its NRaw and R3D Raw formats, but doesn't embed them in ProRes Raw mode.

Canon's lens corrections are provided as part of its Raw files. Premiere honors the lens settings, whereas DaVinci Resolve lets you hack around them, if you prefer. And, although correction support has been added to ProRes Raw, Panasonic's cameras don't yet add the metadata to present its lenses correctly.

File sizes

Raw video tends to be larger than processed footage, not just because of increased bit-depth but also because chroma sub-sampling and sophisticated compression tends to be used on processed files. However, another factor is that truely Raw files are typically created from the sensor's native resolution. Sub-sampling the sensor by line-skipping would reduce the quality of the footage and rendering it then downscaling wouldn't be very raw. Some cameras let you crop in to a 4K region of the sensor but this effectively reduces the sensor size of your camera, lowering the quality of the footage.

This means you typically end up with roughly 6K or 7K footage with modern hybrid cameras. Differences in file size then add up very quickly. Here we've put together some typical bitrates and then extrapolated from that to work out roughly how much footage you can fit on a 256Gb memory card.

If you want the additional resolution, many recent cameras can also record processed, compressed 10-bit footage at their native capture resolutions (around 6 to 7K), which is typically captured at similar bit-rates to the 4K footage, though often with 4:2:0 chroma sub-sampling.

But, as the table above should make clear, you can expect to get less than a third as much Raw footage on your memory card. Or, to put it the other way 'round: you'll need to buy at least three times as much media and storage in order to capture a project in Raw.

Is it worth it?

Overall then, is it worth it? Ultimately that's up to you, what you shoot and whether you want to maintain some flexibilty / pass extra work to the editing stage of your workflow.

Increasingly the tools are becoming available to let you work with Raw footage, but it's definitely worth considering whether the additional workflow steps and added storage requirements are worth it for the marginal gains in post-processing flexibility.

As things stand, we don't believe Raw video should be a deciding factor when choosing a camera unless you're absolutely certain that it's essential for the work you plan to do.

CIPA's latest data, expertly visualized by one of our forum members, doesn't shine any light onto how any particular camera model is doing, but it does show that cameras with built-in lenses are on the rise. Image: Richard Butler

The Camera and Imaging Products Association (CIPA) has released its annual figures on camera and lens shipments for 2025, and the statistics paint an interesting picture about the state of the camera industry. As a whole, it's back to growth, but one category of cameras is making far larger strides than the others. DPReview forum user Funtaril has put together a collection of visualizations based the data, which help illustrate those changes.

Before we take a look, there are some important things to note about where the CIPA data comes from. It's an industry group that gets statistics from member companies, including all of the major camera companies currently producing cameras for the market, and most of the major lens manufacturers. However, according to the most recent data available on CIPA's site, companies such as JK Imaging (which sells the Kodak-branded Easyshare cameras that frequently top Amazon's sales charts), Viltrox, 7artisans, Laowa and a host of other popular Chinese lens producers don't participate. That means the statistics offer a useful, but not comprehensive view of the market as a whole.

Image: funtaril

With that said, perhaps the most interesting datapoint is that 2025 saw a 11% growth in digital camera shipment volumes compared to 2024, which itself was the first year to see the market expand, rather than contract, since 2020. While sales of mirrorless cameras showed moderate growth, shipments of cameras with built-in lenses grew by 30%, making them 25.8% of the total volume of shipments for 2025. Clearly, manufacturers have taken notice of compacts' increased popularity.

It's also worth reiterating that these percentages represent how many units were shipped, rather than their value. That means that, if there was a rush to buy expensive fixed-lens cameras like the Sony RX1RIII or the Fujifilm GFX100RF, that's not skewing this particular data. And as noted before, that figure likely undersells how popular compacts have been, since it doesn't account for many of the models being sold at Costco, Amazon, or via TikTok Shop.

This is made all the more interesting by the scarce availability of the few compacts still on available on the market. It's hard not to wonder if the growth could have been even greater if cameras such as the Canon G7X Mark III were being produced in sufficient numbers to satisfy demand.

The Canon EOS Rebel T7, the last of the entry-level DSLRs, is almost unbelievably cheap at American retail giant Costco, going for $639 in a kit with two lenses, a backpack, and an SD card. Photo: Jeff Keller

While it's exciting to see growth in the camera market, it's also clear that DSLRs are playing a smaller and smaller role in it. Funtaril's chart shows that shipments of them dropped 31% year over year in 2025, making it their sixth year in decline. As it stands, they only made up 7.3% of overall camera shipments last year.

According to CIPA's data, the 690,911 DSLRs shipped in 2025 were worth around ¥30.4 billion (∼$195 million). That means that each one was valued around $282, compared to the average value of a mirrorless camera at approximately $711. To be clear, these numbers represent the revenue manufacturers earn when selling the cameras to wholesalers, not the retail price the consumer ends up paying, but the difference is stark, suggesting that a lot of the remaining sales are the $639 Rebels being sold at Costco, rather than the latest $2000+ mirrorless cameras.

Image: funtaril

It's interesting to drill down to where exactly those DSLRs were going to. The CIPA numbers show that the vast majority are going to the Americas and Europe, where they accounted for 14.9% and 11.7% of the cameras shipped to those regions, respectively. By contrast, they made up only 1.2% and 1.5% of shipments for China and Japan, respectively (though the later is hardly representative of the market as a whole; 52.7% of its shipments were cameras with built-in lenses).

Shipments of full-frame and medium format cameras only increased by about 2%

Despite 2025 seeing the release of the excellent Nikon Z5 II (and its existing low-cost rivals hitting ever lower prices on sale), shipments of full-frame and medium format cameras only increased by less than 2%, and made up a slightly smaller percentage of overall cameras shipped in 2025 than the year before. While 36.3% of the market is nothing to sneeze at, cameras with smaller sensors still made up the bulk of shipments at 63.7%.

Image: funtaril

The story is a little different when it comes to lenses. In 2025, Funtaril shows lenses for crop sensors making up 54.9% of shipments, with full-frame and larger lenses making up 45.1%. While crop lenses still make up the majority, the delta is much smaller. Again, this number is based on the absolute number of units, not the value, so the full-frame lenses' higher per-unit value doesn't affect this data.

One last interesting, but somewhat thorny, trend revealed by the data is regarding overall lens shipments from manufacturers that are part of CIPA. Funtaril calculated the attachment rate (how many lenses were being shipped for each interchangeable lens camera being shipped), and the number of full-frame and larger lenses shipped per camera has been dropping precipitously since the early 2020s (when CIPA started breaking out that data by sensor size).

Image: funtaril

It's hard to pin down exactly what that tells us for a variety of reasons; the lack of historical data means that it's always possible the numbers from 2020 and 2021 were artificially high due to people buying new lenses as they switched to mirrorless. It's also worth noting that owners of crop sensor cameras also purchase full-frame lenses, though the data doesn't tell us anything about the quantities in which they do so. These factors make it hard to tell how much of the drop in shipments is due to lack of interest, or the growing might of Chinese lens makers.

It's worth taking a look at Funtaril's full post on our forum, as there are over 30 charts and graphs to dig into, showing things like how regions' buying habits have been changing over time, and breakdowns of prime lens sales versus zoom lens sales. Funtaril also posted another thread late last year that looked at cameras' lifecycles, in an attempt to predict which cameras might get an update this year.

Check out the full thread

Image: Godox

Godox has announced the V1mid, a round-head on-camera flash unit. The company's latest flash sits in the V1 lineup and aims to provide a relatively affordable option for photographers who need more than a strictly budget-level flash but in a compact package.

Godox hasn't published any information on the V1mid's guide number or power, so those specs are unclear at this point. The company does specify a 1.7-second recycle time, which is just slightly lower than the V1's 1.5-second recycle time. It also promises up to 650 full-power flashes on a single charge, which is more than both of the other V1 flash units.

The V1mid mostly relies on a touchscreen for control. Image: Godox

The Godox V1mid is smaller than the V1 and V1Pro, making it a more compact and lighter option for photographers on the go. It weighs 413g (14.6oz), compared to the V1's 530g (18.7oz) weight. To accommodate the smaller size, Godox did away with most of the buttons and dials found on the V1 and V1Pro, with the V1mid instead relying on a two-inch touchscreen and dial.

The V1mid supports TTL, manual and multi-modes. It is also compatible with high-speed sync up to 1/8000 sec, or 1/80000 sec with Sony cameras with global shutters. The flash also supports first- and rear-curtain sync. Flash power is adjustable from 1/256 to full power. It can function as both a sender and receiver using Godox's 2.4 GHz 'X' wireless radio system, making it possible to use in multi-flash setups. It also supports wired sync via a 2.5mm sync port.

Image: Godox

Like the existing V1 models, some features of the V1mid are camera-dependent. For example, only certain versions offer a 2W LED modeling lamp. Additionally, the Canon version supports camera menu control. All versions are compatible with the Godox AK-R1 round-head magnetic accessory system, making it easier to modify the light.

The Godox V1mid is available for purchase today for $179 in versions for Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, Olympus/Panasonic and Sony.

Buy now:

Shooting open gate video uses the entire sensor, not just a 16:9 or 17:9 window of it. Photo: Richard Butler

Nowadays, the internet is often abuzz with discussions about open gate video recording, especially when a new camera adds (or fails to add) it as a feature. But for the uninitiated, it can be hard to tell why people care enough about it to leave endless "no open gate, no buy" comments, and there's even a risk of overemphasising its usefulness in all the excitement.

What is open gate?

A still from footage shot using the Canon EOS R6 III's ~7K open gate mode.

In case you've missed it, open gate is a recording mode that captures the entire area of a sensor. In hybrid stills/video cameras, that typically means producing a 3:2 or 4:3 image, rather than a 16:9 or 17:9 one, like most people will be used to. This often, but not always, also results in a much higher-resolution file; some cameras that don't offer >4K modes for the more standard aspect ratios will give you access to the sensor's full resolution in open gate mode.

The feature has been gaining popularity in consumer-focused cameras since Panasonic added it to the GH5 via a firmware update. Its inclusion has seemingly corresponded with sensors getting faster readout speeds: since the camera has to read out more of its sensor's height than when it's recording 16:9, the sensor has to be fast enough to read out its entire area in 1/24, 1/30 or 1/60th of a second to deliver video.

Why would you use it?

The feature came to hybrid mirrorless cameras as a way to give videographers a better experience when shooting with anamorphic lenses that have a high squeeze factor. By capturing a taller image, then squishing it down, you can get a stronger "look" (ovular bokeh and interesting compression when focus racking) without having a toothpick-thin aspect ratio like you'd get if you'd originally shot it in 16:9.

If that all sounds like Greek to you, don't worry too much; it can be complicated to shoot anamorphic lenses 'properly,' which is why doing so isn't particularly common. If that was all open gate shooting let you do, it would have likely remained an extremely niche feature. However, users – and manufacturers' marketing departments – quickly discovered that there are other reasons to capture the entire sensor.

Chief among them is that it gives you room to manipulate your footage without having to crop in beyond your native resolution. If you're shooting at 3:2 or 4:3 and delivering to 16:9, you have quite a bit of freedom to choose which part of the frame you want to take your crop from. You also have more leeway to reposition your subject in the frame, rotate the footage, or stabilize it in post, without losing too much resolution or substantially changing your original horizontal framing. The additional vertical space and, often, resolution, let you crop in further to simulate an additional, tighter focal length. You can also move the crop around, simulating a pan or tilt to add a sense of dynamism without the need for an actual camera operator.

This illustration from the S5II's product page shows one of the main selling points manufacturers push when talking about open gate. Image: Panasonic

What may be driving increased interest in open gate shooting is the ability to take that reframing to the extreme, pulling two entirely different formats from a single shot. That extra vertical headroom makes it easier to take a vertical crop out of your video, letting you shoot one clip and then cut it for horizontal platforms like YouTube and vertical ones like TikTok or Instagram. As these platforms have gained popularity, so too has the desire to take video shot for other, more landscape-focused platforms, without having to do two separate takes.

A 9:16 vertical crop taken from a 3:2 open gate image. Plenty of room for captions and overlaid UI.	A 9:16 vertical crop taken from a 16:9 image. Which could come across as a bit tight.

While this is technically possible with 16:9 footage, it can be quite difficult to find a framing that works for both horizontal and vertical with such a narrow aspect ratio.

What are the downsides?

This open gate shot, taken on a Panasonic S1II, can technically be split into vertical and landscape shots, but as often happens, one won't be as nice a composition as the other.

Of course, open gate footage isn't necessarily immune from this problem, either. When producing videos for our YouTube channel, we sometimes shoot in open gate when we plan on also uploading a cut to social, and we've found that it can be tricky to find a framing that will work for both. In the example above, the vertical crop shows off the interesting glass sculpture hung in the treetops, but any horizontal crop that includes the presenter will look either off-balance or just make it look like he's standing in a featureless forest.

Open gate footage also usually takes up more storage space, owing to its higher resolution, which is something to keep in mind. It may also be a bit harder to edit on lower-end hardware, depending on what you're trying to do with it.

Finally, there's the issue of framing. Unless you're delivering video in your sensor's aspect ratio, shooting in open gate means you'll have to crop in on your footage when editing, which is an extra step in the process, requiring you to decide what the best framing is on a shot-by-shot basis. If your camera has the ability to display framelines, you can try to make sure your framing is relatively consistent while shooting, but there may still be the temptation to endlessly fiddle in post, trying to get the perfect crop.

So should I actually care?

The Sony a7 V doesn't have open gate. Some people view this as a dealbreaker, which it may very well be for them. But that doesn't mean it will be for everyone. Photo: Mitchell Clark

If you've reached this point in the article and have found yourself thinking something along the lines of "I can't ever imagine needing/wanting to do any of this," you're probably not alone. People have gotten along very well with cameras that only shoot 16:9 for years, and while there's definitely an element of "I can't go back now that I've tried it" to open gate, many of its benefits are decidedly niche.

Of course, if you fit into that niche, open gate can be a valuable tool. Personally, I find it most valuable as a way to give myself more leeway when I'm trying to record myself, or when I feel artistically called to deliver video in a more square aspect ratio.

The point is not to prescribe where on that spectrum you should fall, but to highlight the fact that open gate isn't a universally useful feature. There will be those for whom it's a nice-to-have, but not necessarily a reason to pick one camera over another, and others whose needs make it a must-have feature (and still others who won't ever use it, plus those who are mad their camera even shoots video at all).

The January Editors' photo challenge

The theme for our January Editor's photo challenge was "Silly signs."

Most of the time, our Editors' photo challenges focus on technical excellence or powerful storytelling. However, sometimes photography is just about having a bit of fun and a good laugh. That's what we tried to do this month with our "Silly signs" photo challenge. We asked you to share the weird, wacky and downright silly signage you've stumbled across while out and about with your camera.

As always, we received many more great photos than we can feature here. Our favorites, showcasing a diverse range of vision and talent, are presented in random order.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this photo challenge. If you'd like to participate in other photo challenges, you can visit our Challenges page to see currently open or upcoming challenges, or to vote in a recently closed challenge.

Glad they warned me!

Photographer: Stephen_D

Photographer's statement: I found the idea of warning people not to walk on cacti with huge spines quite ridiculous. I almost titled this "No sh#t Sherlock!" Taken in a botanical garden in Sydney, Australia

Equipment: Samsung S23 Ultra

Don't drown!

Photographer: Dusty Roads

Photographer's statement: Tides are very deep in Rye, England. Must have been out for a while when I was there. You can see seagull tracks in the mud.

Equipment: Sony Alpha NEX-7 + Sony E 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 OSS

The deterrent

Photographer: arrow501

Photographer's statement: That bull was definitely cheating. If he'd been at the other end of the field, I reckon I could have beaten him *wink*. I photographed this a few years ago. It took a few visits before I got the bull in the same shot as the sign.

Equipment: Canon PowerShot G15

Tom bilen for tyven

Photographer: Andreas Graf

Photographer's statement: Travelling north from the Danish island of Falster to the main island of Zealand in early May 2024, I quickly stopped at a parking lot right after the famous Faro South bridge. And there it was, that sign telling people not to leave their valuables in the car.

In the original Danish language, "Tom bilen for tyven" means something like "Empty your car before a thief does," which matches well with the silly scene pictured in the sign. The English phrase "Don't leave valuables behind," however, is really not such a good match for that. But the main reason I took this picture at the time was an entirely different one, namely that the car in the sign looks almost the same as the one I drive, including the red color.

So, it would be sort of fun for me to show this picture to my friends back home who know my car. Little did I know at the time that, less than two years later, I would be submitting this picture for the "Silly Signs" photo challenge.

Equipment: Nikon D750 + Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24-120mm F4G ED VR

Bark is worse than its bite?

Photographer: protapic

Photographer's statement: I discovered this sign at the head of a trail leading down to the Clear Fork Mohican River in Ohio. The sign warns visitors of unsafe hiking. The sign's safety, however, is compromised as it learns that tree bark can bite.

Equipment: Olympus PEN E-PL1 + Panasonic Lumix G 20mm F1.7 ASPH

No shooting? Oh shoot!

Photographer: HobbyPhotog

Photographer's statement: There was a certain irony in discovering that the ‘No Shooting’ sign had been shot. On the brighter side, the timing was perfect to line up the sun through the bullet hole and capture a rather photogenic sunstar.

Equipment: Canon EOS R5 + Canon RF 24-105mm F4L IS USM

Shakespear

Photographer: BGLeduc

Photographer's statement: While walking with my wife along the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland, I thought it might be fun to break out a bit of Hamlet or perhaps King Lear. Unfortunately, the good people of Edinburgh do not take kindly to such unsolicited performances.

Equipment: iPhone 14 Pro

Water ahead

Photographer: Ellipse Optical

Photographer's statement: At the cruise ship terminal on the island of Corfu, Greece, a sign has been posted to alert drivers to the peril of driving off the end of the pier.

Equipment: Canon PowerShot G12

God's too busy

Photographer: DFPanno

Photographer's statement: I saw this sign while walking the High Line in Manhattan. A great way to encourage people to give up all hope of finding free street parking!

Equipment: Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX1 + Sony 35/2

Information overflow

Photographer: SPHDE

Photographer's statement: Came across this sign near a small creek. The intention to warn about sudden surges is somewhat compromised by the pictogram's lack of seriousness and its obvious neglect. Nevertheless, seeing it should keep you from acting silly.

Equipment: Nikon Z6 + Nikon Nikkor Z 24-70mm F4.5

Broken door

Photographer: DuckShots

Photographer's statement: Always exploring with my camera. Makes me feel safe, confident and creative. Never know what you will come across. Here, inside a dilapidated building slated for demolition, was this sign. I wonder what happened to the person who opened the door?

Equipment: Leica Q3 43

Understatement

Photographer: Mister Spock

Photographer's statement: Taken in the car park of our local Aldi, which was flooded due to heavy rain. Not sure if this is just an understatement or irony. You decide.

Equipment: iPhone 5s

Beware of the undertoad

Photographer: A Sharma

Photographer's statement: This parking lot sign is proof that the staff of Rondeau Provincial Park in southern Ontario has a curious sense of humor.

Equipment: Canon EOS R7 + Canon RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1L IS USM

Anyone for a dip?

Photographer: RussellP

Photographer's statement: Many years ago, while visiting Vanuatu, we visited some sort of aquarium at a resort. It wasn't very good, but the sign made me laugh. Just being prepared for tourists who may not know sharks are dangerous. Having said that, I have since swum with reef sharks in Tahiti, and those at least are harmless.

Equipment: FujiFilm FinePix S5200 Zoom (FinePix S5600)

Conundrum

Photographer: papapa

Photographer's statement: While walking in my neighborhood came across this sign. My CONUNDRUM - to obey the sign's command, you must first disobey the sign's command. What do I do?

Equipment: Samsung Galaxy A53 phone

So, it's...

Photographer: KBTinto

Photographer's statement: I was walking past a building one evening when I noticed a bright green door lit up below street level, with steps leading down to it. Just read the top sign, thought "Okay," then noticed the second one immediately below. Wonder what would happen if I decided one day to go there and knock on the door?

Equipment: Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 VII

Looking for a man who will go the distance

Photographer: Hooyat

Photographer's statement: This picture of the sign was taken at the annual racing events for professional and amateur runners. The events promoted physical activity by offering different race distances, including a marathon, a half-marathon, etc. The events raised funds for local charities. Residents lined up the route to support the runners with cheers, bells and signs.

Equipment: Sony a7 IV + Sigma 24-70mm F2..8 DG DN II

Lost in translation

Photographer: Tubeslover

Photographer's statement: The words in Chinese actually meant "Be careful not to fall off the cliff." Hope this has already been corrected, and there were no casualties due to anyone following the instructions in English.

Equipment: Nikon D750 + Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm F2.8E ED VR

Kraken ahead

Photographer: Monkachino

Photographer's statement: Unfortunately, we initially missed this sign, but we managed to swim back to shore, and my kid got this picture with his (waterproof) iPhone 15 Pro. We then set out on foot for the local car rental business on Block Island, RI.

Equipment: iPhone 15 Pro

Redrawn, laughable "No Entry" street sign

Photographer: Molarjung

Photographer's statement: While strolling around Florence, Italy, I encountered numerous "No Entry" signs, like this one. I felt this one was transformed by imaginative artists into humorous works of attractive creativity.

Equipment: Nikon D750 + Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5G ED

Earlier this week, Leica announced the Noctilux M 35mm F1.2 Asph., a new wide-angle entry in its famous line of fast lenses that has previously been limited to normal and telephoto options. Luckily, we got the chance to shoot with it. While the Pacific Northwest winter weather was naturally uncooperative, we were at least able to test the lens out in conditions that reflected its name; "Noctu" is Latin for "night," and "lux" translates to light.

You can learn more about the lens and its construction in our article covering the announcement, here.

See the sample gallery

91%

Overall score

Jump to conclusion

The Panasonic Lumix DC-S1RII is the company's latest high-resolution full-frame mirrorless camera, now beefed-up with 8K video capabilities and improved autofocus.

Key features

• Full-frame 44MP dual gain CMOS sensor
• Up to 40fps continuous shooting with pre-burst capture (e-shutter only)
• 8.1K/8K video at up to 30p
• 5.76M dot viewfinder
• Flip-out and tilt rear screen
• ProRes 422 and ProRes RAW capture
• Capture to CFExpress Type B, UHS II SD or external SSD
• Multi-shot high res mode up to 177MP
• 32-bit float audio via optional XLR 2 adapter

The S1RII is available now with a recommended retail price of $3300.

Update, Jan 2026: In light of the significant improvement in autofocus performance we experienced with the latest firmware on the S1II, we've re-tested the S1RII with its Ver. 1.3 update. The improvements to the S1RII appear to be much more subtle, so we've made slight adjustments to phrasing but don't feel it warrants a revision to the score or award.

Index:

• What's new
• What's new for video
• How it compares
• Body and handling
• Image Quality
• Autofocus
• Video
• Conclusion
• Sample gallery
• Specifications
• Press release

What's new

New sensor

Rather than the 47MP used in the original S1R, or the 61MP chip used in Leica's SL3, Panasonic has opted for a slightly lower resolution but faster sensor for the S1RII.

It features dual conversion gain on which, as usual on Panasonic cameras, you can manually select which of its two readout modes it uses, at intermediate ISO settings. Panasonic doesn't always disclose when it's using BSI technology, but in this instance it has confirmed it.

Its design means it's appreciably slower than the more expensive Stacked CMOS sensors, with an electronic shutter mode that takes 37.5ms (~1/27 sec) to read out in 14-bit mode and 20.2ms (~1/50 sec) in the 12-bit mode used for bursts and other quick-fire shooting modes.

Autofocus

The S1RII represents the second generation of Panasonic cameras to feature phase detection autofocus, with the inherent depth awareness that this brings. The company says it's significantly improved both its subject recognition and its tracking algorithms in the new camera, to bring its performance closer into line with the best of its peers.

The S1RII has algorithms trained to recognize the following subjects:

• Human
• Animal (Dog, Cat, Bird)
• Car
• Motorcycle / Bike
• Train
• Airplane

We're told it should be quicker at finding a subject and better at continuing to track it, even if, for instance, the subject turns away from the camera or is partially obscured. As before, you can choose whether the camera homes-in on specific details, such as the helmet of a motorbike rider, the nose of a plane or the eyes of an animal. Selecting the more precise focus position can lower the system's responsiveness to smaller, faster-moving subjects.

Cinelike A2 color mode

The S1RII gains a new 'Cinelike A2' color mode, in both stills and video modes. It offers a very gentle response, somewhere between the flat, DR-prioritizing Cinelike D2 and the punchy, ready-to-go Cinelike V2 profile.

Panasonic says the A2 mode's color response stems from work they've been doing in recent months. And it's perhaps worth considering which partners Panasonic has been working with, recently, to guess at the significance of the letter 'A' in the name. Unlike the camera's Leica Monochrome mode, any connection isn't made explicit.

Real time LUT

The S1RII gains the Real Time LUT function we've seen on recent Panasonic cameras, letting you create and upload color and tone-modifying profiles in format with a workflow that's already widely supported across the industry. The S1RII allows you to load up to 39 LUTs onto the camera, with the option to combine two LUTs with varying intensity, if you wish.

Additional LUTs can be created or downloaded via Panasonic's Lumix Lab app.

False color

The S1RII becomes one of the first stills/video cameras to include a false color display option. This is a feature common in the video world, giving a mono preview with certain brightness levels highlighted in different colors, to help you recognize which bits of the image are clipped or near clipping and which areas are exposed as mid tones or at a level appropriate for light skin tones. This display can be used in boths stills and video modes.

Capture One tethering

The S1RII becomes the first Panasonic camera that can be shot, tethered, from Capture One, the popular studio software. We're told any decisions about whether to expand support to other models will depend on customer demand.

What's new for video

The 44MP sensor means the S1RII has slightly more horizontal pixels than necessary to deliver UHD 8K (7680 x 4320) footage and a fraction short of what's needed to capture the DCI 8K's 8192 x 4320 resolution. Instead it offers what Panasonic called 8.1K (8128 x 4288), which conforms to the same 1.89:1 aspect ratio as DCI footage.

The degree to which the sensor resolution is suited to 8K capture is unlikely to be coincidental, and the S1RII offers the kind of extensive video feature set that you might expect from the company that brought us the GH series, rather than the pared-back list of options the original S1R brought.

It also includes everything you'd expect from Panasonic: the option to set exposure in terms of shutter angle, waveforms, vectorscopes, filtering or custom lists of video modes, four-channel audio and 32-bit Float audio via the optional XLR2 accessory, support for anamorphic lenses and a tally lamp to let you know you're rolling. The attention to detail goes beyond the addition of a big red button on the front.

Video options:

The S1RII can also shoot Full HD (1920 x 1080) footage at any of the frame-rates and crops offered in UHD 4K mode, with the additional ability to capture 120 and 100p footage from the APS-C region.

Dynamic Range Expansion

The S1RII gains a DR Expansion mode, letting you capture an additional stop of highlight information in high-contrast situations. This can be activated in any of the movie modes at frame rates up to 30p, and can only be applied when shooting V-Log footage (where the response curve can easily accommodate different levels of DR capture).

This is not the same system as the dual readout DR Boost function in the company's 25MP Micro Four Thirds camera. Instead it moves to a higher bit-depth readout, meaning there's a rolling shutter cost to engaging it. It also boosts the minimum available ISO, to prompt the use of a lower exposure, to capture that additional stop of highlights.

Open gate shooting

A still grab from the S1RII's 8K open gate mode.

The S1RII can capture 8K footage from the entire 3:2 region of its sensor, which can be recorded as-is, or downsampled to 6.4K.

Open gate shooting lets you choose and adjust your crop during post production. It also makes it possible to frame wide and then take both landscape and portrait video crops if you're trying to deliver to multiple different output platforms.

5.XK at up to 60p, 4K at up to 120p

Like the S5II models, the S1RII gives you the choice of 1.89:1 DCI 4K capture or 16:9 UHD 4K, or 5.9K or 5.8K versions taken from the same capture regions. All four are available as 10-bit footage, with 4K encoded with 4:2:2 chroma precision and the 5.XK modes in 4:2:0.

Footage up to 30p is taken from the full width of the sensor using the full capture resolution, with a slight crop in to give 60p. 4K (in both flavors) is available at up to 120p with the addition of a further slight crop. Line skipping is used to deliver these 100p and 120p modes.

DCI and UHD 4K can also be captured at up to 60p from an APS-C region of the sensor.

Tellingly the rolling shutter rate in DR Expansion mode is consistent with the rate of 14-bit stills, which suggests it's based on 14-bit capture, explaining Panasonic's claims of greater dynamic range.

In turn, the 60p output's rolling shutter is consistent with the 12-bit stills readout rate. This stongly implies that the standard 24, 25 and 30p modes, which are slower than this but quicker than 14-bit mode are taken from 13-bit capture.

In addition to the conventional MOV compressed footage, the S1RII also lets you capture various resolutions in either ProRes 422 or ProRes RAW formats, both of which can either be recorded to the camera's internal CFExpress type B card or to an external SSD. ProRes RAW (with a choice of HQ or standard compression levels) is taken from a 1.31x crop of the sensor, whereas the ProRes 422 (again HQ or Std) is derived from the full-width 8.1K capture. It can also output 8.1K and 7.2K Raw over HDMI to a compatible recorder.

How it compares

The new, more compact S1RII arrives in a market where you can choose between the high resolution Sony a7RV or pay more for the likes of Nikon's Z8 and Canon's EOS R5 II that are both high resolution and fast. The Panasonic occupies something of a middle ground: offering some of the speed of the faster cameras (a higher peak frame rate but with more rolling shutter), but at a lower cost than Canon and Nikon's Stacked CMOS cameras.

We've opted to include the Canon EOS R5 II in this table, but the Nikon Z8 ends up looking very similar in terms of areas of strength, if you were to substitute that in. We've also chosen the DSLR-shaped a7R V from Sony, rather than the smaller, less expensive a7C R, because the larger model more closely resembles the Panasonic in terms of form factor, viewfinder quality, shutter options and screen articulation. But if size and price are your biggest concerns, the a7C R is in the running.

Despite being comfortably less expensive than its immediate peers, the S1RII's specs are competitive across the board. And while its video exhibits a fair bit more rolling shutter than the Stacked-sensor Nikon and Canon models, it significantly out-performs the Sony.

The a7R V's rolling shutter rate of 38ms means it can't deliver 8K/30, whereas the Panasonic can shoot 8K 30 and do so as fast as 24ms. This is respectable but not as impressive as the ∼13 and 14ms that the EOS R5 II and Z8 provide, respectively, from their much more expensive sensors.

Much of whether it's actually competitive, for both stills and video, will come down to whether the autofocus improvements are as significant as Panasonic promises.

* - Sony's implementation of HLG HEIF disables Raw recording, so you only get the output file.

Body and handling

The S1RII uses a body based on the smaller S5II series, rather than the more substantial design of the first-gen S1 series cameras. This leaves it both smaller and lighter than its predecessor.

It has the internal fan from the S5II, with two small exhaust ports on either side of its viewfinder hump. This doesn't give quite 'GH series' recording reliability, but still allows the S1RII to record for extended periods.

However, while the body itself is similar in size to the S5II, it has a deeper hand grip, making it more comfortable to use with larger lenses. It maintains a row of three buttons along its top plate, immediately behind the shutter button, but omits the top plate display that the Mark 1 had.

Other losses in the move to the smaller body see the S1RII offer only a single function button between the mount and the hand grip, and the replacement of the two-position switch at the lower corner of the front panel by a large red [REC] button (whose function can be customized).

The S1RII also goes without a flash sync socket, but gains a dedicated Stills/Movie/Slow&Quick switch. Moving the exposure modes to the right of the camera allows the drive mode to be promoted to the top of the left-side dial, making room for shooting mode to occupy the switch underneath. Both mode dials have toggle lock buttons.

The removal of movie mode from the exposure mode dial in turn provides room for five custom positions on the exposure dial, each of which can be customized separately for stills and video custom settings. Position 5 on the dial can be used to access custom banks 5-10, if you wish, giving you a total of up to ten photo and ten video custom setting sets. Thankfully the camera's settings can be saved to a memory card and duplicated across cameras.

Rear screen

On the back of the camera, Panasonic has adopted a similar screen layout to the one Panasonic used on its explicitly video-focused S1H: a fully articulated rear screen mounted on a cradle that tilts up and down. This means that stills shooters can use the tilt mechanism if they want to keep the screen on-axis (and can flip the screen to face inwards for protection, when stowing the camera), but video shooters can extend the screen out and tilt it away from the mic, headphone and HDMI sockets while shooting.

Battery

The S1RII uses the same 15.8Wh DMW-BLK22 battery as the S5II, a significant reduction compared with the original S1R. Despite this, it achieves a CIPA battery rating of 350 shots per charge if you use the rear screen and 300 via the viewfinder. The usual caveats apply to this number: most people get many, many more shots out of a camera than the CIPA rating (between two and three times the rated figure isn't unusual). To put it in context, 350 is a respectable figure and shouldn't leave you caught out during a busy day's shooting, but it doesn't have the confidence-inspiring duration that Sony's a7R V offers.

A new DMW-BG2 battery grip is also available to fit the S1RII. It adds a second battery in the grip, and is designed to allow hot-swapping of batteries: the external battery is used until the battery door is opened, at which point the camera switches to using the internal battery until a new battery is inserted in the grip. The grip also allows the camera to use both batteries simultaneously, for high power-consumption combinations such as capturing high bit-rate video to an external SSD.

Image Quality

Our test scene is designed to simulate a variety of textures, colors and detail types you'll encounter in the real world. It also has two illumination modes to see the effect of different lighting conditions.

The results are pretty positive. In terms of detail capture, the S1RII performs as we'd expect, capturing less detail than the 61MP Sony a7R V but with no meaningful difference vs the likes of the Canon EOS R5 II, Nikon Z8 or its own predecessor.

There's a fair bit of moiré visible in various places suggesting there's no anti-aliasing filter. But it's not significantly more pronounced than in most of its rivals, suggesting we were just unlucky that we got to see some artefacts in one of our real-world shooting. If anything, looking around various high-frequency targets in the scene, Panasonic's JPEG engine seems to be doing a pretty good job of suppressing the effects of moiré.

In terms of color rendition the Panasonic looks a lot like its immediate peers, with no significant differences in most colors, compared with its peers. The light skin tone patch is perhaps a fraction more pink than Canon's rendering, but there aren't any nasty surprises: something backed up by our experiences of shooting with the camera.

Noise levels seem competitive at low to moderately-high ISO settings but it looks like noise reduction is being applied to the Raws at the higher ISO settings, with distinct blurring of the noise patterns. JPEG noise reduction strikes a pretty good balance between noise suppression and detail retention, but gets a bit overwhelmed at the highest settings.

Dynamic range

The S1RII's sensor is a modern design with dual conversion gain; it has Panasonic's 'Dual Native ISO' function that lets you decide exactly where the switch in modes happens, but at default settings, it's at ISO 400 that the switch happens. Sure enough, if you brighten an ISO 320 image, you'll see it has slightly more noise than images shot at ISOs above that point, with the same exposure.

The further you venture into the ISOs from that low gain mode, the more noisy you'll find the very deep shadows (this is exactly the read noise that using the higher gain step minimizes). So the widest possible dynamic range is encountered at ISO 80, but if you're tempted to underexpose in low light, to protect highlights, you shouldn't venture below ISO 400.

The S1RII has a lower base ISO than its predecessor, so you can't make a direct comparison (the new camera receives 1/3EV more light), but even with that slight discrepancy, it's results seem comparable. It's a competitive result, even compared with the best of its peers.

High res multi-shot

Shot using hand-held multi-shot mode. Lumix S 20-60mm F3.5-5.6 | 26mm | F8 | 1/250 sec | ISO 80 Photo: Richard Butler

While we generally haven't found high-resolution multi-shot modes to be particularly useful, they can help you capture a bit more detail in the right circumstances. The S1RII has one of the best implementations of the feature, too, with both tripod and handheld modes and the option to compensate if your subject moves a bit at the cost of resolution in that area. Perhaps most importantly, the processing happens in-camera; you don't have to manually combine the shots later on in desktop software.

It's pretty apparent that the Panasonic Lumix DC-S1RII is built around the IMX366 sensor from Sony Semiconductor. So we see a sensor with dual conversion gain giving lots of dynamic range at base ISO and well-controlled noise once you move to the second gain mode. Its BSI design means its high image quality should be maintained right to the corners of the image, as it means the pixels can reliably receive light from more acute angles than on older FSI sensors.

Autofocus

Autofocus operation

The Panasonic S1RII features a revised version of the phase-detection AF system introduced with the S5II cameras. It can detect and track more subjects than the S5II supported at launch, and Panasonic promises it's both quicker to find focus and more tenacious in terms of tracking.

The S1RII's button layout puts all your autofocus controls close at hand.

The interface will be familiar to anyone who's used a Panasonic in the past ten-or-so years: pressing the AF Area button on the back of the camera brings up a row of seven icons representing the different AF areas the camera offers. Pressing upwards on the four-way controller or joystick then lets you choose whether the camera should look for a recognized subject near your chosen AF area. Pressing the 'DISP' button lets you select which subjects the camera looks for.

The S1RII's autofocus menu gives you a lot of options from a single screen.

There's a twist, though: the S1RII can either be set to use its focus tracking system, or it can be set to track a recognized subject but, unlike most modern cameras, these are separate functions. The upshot is that if you want to focus on a non-recognized subject for one shot, or the camera fails to find the subject it's supposed to recognize, you'll need to disengage the subject tracking: the S1RII will not fall back to its generic tracking system.

This is disappointing as the S5II has now gained the ability to detect all the same subjects as the S1RII, but its subject recognition is built on top of the generic tracking system, so the camera will fall back to tracking AF, making it more flexible.

AF interface

The interface generally does a good job of managing multiple subjects without overwhelming you with information. In most AF area modes, it'll only draw a box over the recognized subject nearest your selected area. If you move the point over another subject in the scene, it'll instantly snap the box to that subject instead. It's responsive enough that it doesn't feel like you're missing out by not having all the recognized subjects highlighted.

When the S1RII finds faces, it can do a good job of sticking with them. In this scenario, it was able to track someone who started out walking straight-on towards the camera but who ended up at an angle to it without losing track of them or jumping to the person next to them. Lumix S Pro 24-70 F2.8 | 35mm | F4 | 1/200 | ISO 80 Photo: Mitchell Clark

If you prefer, you can use the 'full area' tracking mode. In this mode, the camera highlights all the recognized subjects, letting you select which one you want to focus on using the joystick or touchscreen. The boxes do jiggle quite a bit, though, and can sometimes flicker on and off, which isn't the most confidence-inspiring user experience and means a tap of the joystick doesn't always select the subject you wanted.

Autofocus performance

Our experiences with the S1RII were distinctly mixed: when the AF system works, it can be very good, but overall, we found it to be appreciably less reliable than we've come to expect from the likes of Canon, Nikon and Sony cameras.

We found the camera's AF Custom Setting Set 3 mode was better at tracking the subject than the defaults, which frequently lost track of it if it changed speed as it approached the camera. The custom setting, which is designed to handle unpredictably moving subjects, increased success in following the subject around, but the camera usually still struggled to keep it in focus as it changed speeds.

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The subject recognition mode is more successful at tracking the subject and keeping it in focus; using AF Custom Setting Set 3 upped this dependability further. While the camera couldn't respond quickly enough to the subject's approach-rate changing to get every shot in focus, unlike the generic tracking it recovered quickly enough to give a good hit rate.

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Testing the camera in a variety of settings suggests the S1RII's AF performance varies much more with adjustment of the AF Custom Settings than we've become used to with other brands. Generally, we consider Set 3 to be a good starting point.

Overall, the S1RII's autofocus is generally reliable, and slightly more so after firmware updates, but still lags behind the best of its peers (and, given how much the firmware improved the S1II, even some of its siblings).

Video

Following the v1.2 update, the S1RII now supports an open-gate 8K mode, which records a 3:2, 8064 x  5376 image using (almost) the entire sensor. Unsurprisingly, it offers a noticeable increase in detail captured compared to the downsampled ∼6K open-gate mode initially offered in the camera, and the 6K open-gate modes found in its other models like the S5II/X and S9. Most people shooting in this mode will be doing so because they want flexibility to reframe their shots in post, and the higher resolution offers even more of that; you can crop in even further while still retaining a native 4K resolution.

The camera's UHD 8K and 1.89:1 "8.1K"* capture are derived from this full-width region of the sensor, and have the same level of detail, though are less flexible in post as they're already in delivery-ready aspect ratios. Still, if you plan on outputting in 4K, they'll offer at least some room to move the frame around.

Standard 4K 24p output is on par with the oversampled modes from Canon's EOS R5 II, though the Nikon Z8's output shows noticeably more detail than either, suggesting Panasonic and Canon may be filtering out aliasing before downsizing. The S1RII's rolling shutter rate is considerably higher than the Canon or Nikon; see the chart below for its readout speeds. Compared to the EOS R5 II's subsampled 4K mode, which is mainly useful for avoiding overheating or accessing higher framerates, the S1RII's footage provides finer detail.

The story is much the same at 60p, where the S1RII's 4K footage retains a similar level of detail found in the 24p mode, which is good news for anyone hoping to slow their footage down a mild amount, or who prefer the hyper-real look. It does, however, come with a slight crop, and the lower rolling shutter rates strongly imply that it's derived from a 12-bit readout rather than a 13-bit one.

While 60p isn't available in the open-gate modes, you can shoot it at greater-than-4K resolutions; it's available in the 16:9 5.9K mode and the 1.89:1 5.8K mode, which offer slightly more detail than their 4K counterparts, and more flexibility in post.

120p is only available in 4K resolutions, and the capture has a noticeable loss in detail compared to lower framerates; the S1RII is obviously skipping lines to achieve these readout speeds. (Panasonic makes a camera with a faster sensor that's much better-suited to shooting at 120p if that's vital to you.)

Raw video

Panasonic's implementation of ProRes Raw currently doesn't support lens corrections, which will likely require some more work when shooting with modern mirrorless lenses. LUMIX S 50mm F1.4 | F5.6 | ISO 200 | 1/100 sec | 5.8K ProRes RAW (Internal) | No sharpening

The S1RII has several options for Raw video output, including the ability to send a 8.1K open-gate raw stream to a supported BlackMagic or Atomos recorder via HDMI as of the latest firmware update. It can also record ProRes and ProRes RAW to a CFexpress card using an up-to 5760 x 4030 native-pixel, 1.31x crop (though there are currently no 16:9 options).

Raw video doesn't offer the dramatic benefits that stills shooters may be used to

We'd only recommend a Raw workflow to those working on professional productions that have a compelling reason to use it. While Raw recording can offer more flexibility to adjust parameters like white balance and lightness ("ISO") in post, as we've detailed before, it doesn't offer the dramatic benefits that stills shooters may be used to from comparing Raw and JPEG files.

Shooting Raw also requires substantial post-processing to add back in noise reduction and sharpening. And, while ProRes RAW gained support for lens correction data in 2023, Panasonic's implementation currently doesn't support it, unlike Canon or Nikon's cameras. This adds further work if you're shooting with modern lenses designed with geometric distortion correction as part of their optical formulas instead of older or cinema glass (which, realistically, is what we'd expect most people shooting Raw to be using).

Autofocus and Stabilization

Panasonic continues to have best-in-class sensor stabilization performance and provides several options for tuning it, including a 'Boost' mode that increases steadiness by correcting all movement (rather than assessing whether some movement may be intentional). Outside of that mode, it responds well to pans and tilts, simply smoothing out shakes without any noticeable jumps or other odd behavior.

The electronic stabilization is similarly good, further reducing noticeable shakes without introducing the grab-and-release effect during pans that some other systems suffer from. New to the S1RII is a "cropless" e-stabilization mode, which is intended to reduce perspective distortion when using a wide-angle lens, without reducing the field-of-view. While the resulting footage obviously isn't as smooth as what you'll get from the traditional electronic stabilization, we've found that it can make a noticeable difference.

Video autofocus is capable, but not class-leading

The camera's autofocus performance in video is similar to its performance in stills mode, which is to say that it's capable, but not class-leading. The generic tracking is relatively tenacious, but can occasionally get confused, drifting off target or getting stuck onto something else. However, the camera's subject detection modes are also available in most video modes, and can provide better results depending on what you're shooting.

Conclusion

By Mitchell Clark

The S1RII was always going to be a difficult camera to build. Its predecessor was Panasonic's flagship stills camera, but since its release, the company has become famous for its devotion to providing every video feature and workflow tool you could possibly want. To its credit, Panasonic doesn't seem to have compromised much on the stills side in its quest to make the S1RII a very capable hybrid shooter.

Image quality is, as you should expect from a modern camera, very good. The out-of-camera JPEGs are attractive, and the Raws seem to be both detailed and flexible when you process them. The S1RII gains Panasonic's LUT options, giving you essentially endless customization options if you want to develop your own 'look.' And, while we tend to find multi-shot high res modes quite limited in their value, the S1RII has probably the most usable implementation.

A 177MP image, produced using the hand-held multi-shot mode. Lumix S 20-60mm F3.5-5.6 | 21mm | F8 | 1/500 sec | ISO 80 Photo: Richard Butler

We were also impressed by the S1RII's body and handling. It has a more comfortable grip and retains a good level of direct control and customization without these control points getting too cramped, despite a move away from the large 'professional' style body of its predecessor. It's only really button backlighting that goes missing in the transition, but the updated tilting/articulating screen more than makes up for that, in our opinion.

Our biggest concern with the camera is its autofocus system. While AF tracking is an improvement from previous Panasonic cameras, its performance is still well behind that of its competitors. That's combined with Panasonic's unusual decision to separate general tracking from subject recognition, which makes the camera slower and less dependable to use. The battery life also isn't great, considering its pro-level aspirations, though that can be mitigated with Panasonic's battery grip, which supports hot-swapping.

The S1RII offers the most complete video shooting package

On the video side, there's a lot to recommend the S1RII. Its sheer number of resolutions and recording modes, not to mention support for internal and external Raw, anamorphic desqueeze preview and best-in-class stabilization, make it a formidable video tool. While its rolling shutter rates may appear outdated by the standards set by Stacked sensor cameras, they're still very usable for many types of videography and filmmaking.

But while it offers video features that competitors like the Z8 and EOS R5 II don't, it's hard to argue that you should choose it over those cameras unless you need the unique things it offers. The S1RII may offer the most complete video shooting package at a lower price, but it's not like those other cameras are slouches when it comes to their filmmaking credentials.

That's ultimately the story with the camera as a whole. It is certainly a capable option, and for some people it may be the best option. But while it's a very able camera, especially for video, the autofocus system and performance make a compelling argument to spend the bit more for one of its high-resolution competitors if your shooting includes action and movement. While it's still possible some of those issues will be fixed with still further firmware updates, we don't feel the S1RII currently stands out enough to get one of our awards.

Scoring

Scoring is relative only to the other cameras in the same category. Click here to learn about what these numbers mean.

Compared to its peers

The Canon EOS R5 II and the Nikon Z8 are the S1RII's main competitors. They offer similar image quality and hybrid capabilities, though they don't have the excellent tilting/articulating rear display and can't deliver multi-shot high-res images out-of-camera. Both, however, have better battery life, deeper buffers and lower rolling shutter rates for shooting video or stills using the electronic shutter. We also find their autofocus tracking performance to be more capable and user-friendly, as they both fall back to their still quite reliable generic tracking systems when there's no subject to detect. You'll certainly pay for the extra speed and reliability, but it's probably worth it.

Sony's a7R V also has a very capable autofocus system, though it trades speed for even higher resolution. If you're looking to do video or shoot faster-moving subjects, the S1RII is a much better pick, as the a7R V reads out quite slowly. However, it produces even more detailed photos, which may be useful depending on what you're shooting.

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.

Me in the mountains in Argentinian Patagonia, 2017. Photo from my lovely wife Camila, my girlfriend back then. Sony DSC-RX10 IV | F6.3 | 1/250 sec | ISO 1250 Photo: Rodrigo Pasiani

DPReview community member Rodrigo Pasiani is a lifelong photography enthusiast whose journey began as a teenager in Brazil with a 4 MP Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S40, a compact that he used to document friends, family and his favorite cats. From rural Brazil to Argentine Patagonia and, more recently, the forests and trails of southern Germany, his portfolio was shaped by persistence, curiosity, and a commitment to traveling light rather than chasing ever-larger camera bags.

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About Rodrigo

Rodrigo currently lives in Southern Germany, loves shooting in the Argentine Patagonia, and has a general passion for exploring the outdoors in extreme environments.

"My first digital camera was a gift from my parents during my teenage years. It was 2005, and the compact digital camera market was booming. In the pre-smartphone era, if you didn’t carry a Sony Cyber-shot in your pocket, you simply weren’t a cool guy. Costing the equivalent of four months of minimum wage in Brazil, my 4 MP Cyber-shot DSC-S40 was indeed a luxury item. I used it mainly to document gatherings with friends and family, and for cat shots, of course."

How long have you been a photographer?

"Photography has been my hobby since 2012. In 2012, I began my professional career (unrelated to photography) at a German multinational company in São Paulo. I had the opportunity to travel for work to different parts of the world, such as Germany, India, and China - something I was definitely not accustomed to. My world expanded significantly, and photography became a tool to document my travels, which I viewed as great adventures back then."

Patagonian landscape, Argentina. The trip that changed my life (and lifestyle). I got very low on the ground to make the narrow stream look like a proper river. Sony DSC-RX10 | F6.3 | 1/320 sec | ISO 125 Photo: Rodrigo Pasiani

"As my camera began to show signs of failure, it was time to buy a more modern compact camera: a Cyber-shot WX50, featuring a BSI-CMOS image sensor and an impressive 16 MP resolution. It accompanied me on several more international trips. Around that time, I also discovered DPReview.com. It has been my primary source of information on gear and techniques ever since. The staff and forum members possess extraordinary knowledge, and many are willing to answer questions in an incredibly deep and professional manner. My progress would certainly have been much slower without the help of all of you."

What got you started in photography?

"My main motivation for going out and starting to photograph was the 'Travels to the Edge' series by American photographer Art Wolfe.

From my bedroom window in São Paulo, I could photograph birds feeding on the fruit of a nearby tree. On television, I watched the series Travels to the Edge by American photographer Art Wolfe, of whom I became a great admirer. I was fascinated by the beautiful images and by Art’s enthusiasm for his work. That inspired me to go out and explore."

"The trails around the small town of El Chaltén led me to landscapes I had never dreamed of visiting—places that seemed inaccessible, exclusive to television documentaries."

Red deer grazing in an overgrown grassy field. My first encounter with red deer. What a pleasant surprise! Sony DSC-RX10M4 | F4 | 1/250 sec | ISO 1250 Photo: Rodrigo Pasiani

"Equipped with a Sony RX10 (purchased in late 2016, after being impressed by the image quality of the RX100 II I had acquired a year earlier), I scheduled a vacation trip to Argentine Patagonia. The trails around the small town of El Chaltén led me to landscapes I had never dreamed of visiting - places that seemed inaccessible, exclusive to television documentaries. Enormous granite monoliths with snow-covered summits, turquoise glacial lakes, and trees twisted by winds that frequently batter the region with great force."

What's in your bag, Rodrigo?

"My current gear consists of a Sony RX10 IV, an RX100 II that I rarely use nowadays, a Zeiss T* polarizing filter, a set of three Cokin P graduated neutral density filters and a Benro magnesium travel tripod, along with memory cards and spare batteries. A lens pen and a microfiber cleaning cloth are always with me as well. I usually use a 30-liter hiking backpack, but occasionally a 40-liter one. I have embraced the philosophy of traveling light. The gain in mobility is liberating; it’s hard to go back to using a rolling suitcase."

• Camera: Sony RX10 IV
• Lens(es): Fixed ZEISS Vario-Sonnar T* 8.8-220mm (24-600mm equiv) f/2.4-f/4
• Zeiss T* polarizing filter
• Set of three Cokin P graduated neutral density filters
• Benro magnesium travel tripod
• Various memory cards and spare batteries
• All in a 30-liter Quechua hiking backpack

Rodrigo's 30-liter Quechua hiking backpack with camera, lens, and other accessories. Photo: Rodrigo Pasiani

What other photography accessories typically go in your bag, and why?

Are there any special moments you've had in taking that perfect shot?

"One photographic event was particularly memorable. In November 2019, during the hot and rainy season in southwestern Brazil, I had the opportunity to attend a weekend nature photography workshop with master photographer Araquém Alcântara, one of the most respected photographers in Brazil, whose more than fifty years of work documenting the country’s untouched nature is nothing short of extraordinary."

"To photograph him at eye level, I had to hold the camera above my head while staying crouched in the pasture. I wasn’t camouflaged—he could certainly see me there. It must have been quite a comical scene. "

"One day, by chance, I came across a pair of burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia). They nest in burrows abandoned by other animals, commonly in embankments along gravel roads. Owls of this species are frequently found in the region, but these were particularly bold. Normally, they do not allow an approach closer than ten or twelve meters (~39 feet), but during a late-afternoon mountain bike ride, I happened to encounter a courageous pair that allowed me to get a bit closer."

Burrowing owl perched on a fence post. He was probably thinking “Here comes that weirdo again.…” Sony DSC-RX10 | F4 | 1/800 sec | ISO 125 Photo: Rodrigo Pasiani

"I visited this owl pair for nearly a year and, amid many mediocre images, managed to capture a few good ones from very close range. I discovered that they would allow me to approach much closer if I crawled. On two or three occasions, I got to within about two meters of the male, which was perched on a fence post. To photograph him at eye level, I had to hold the camera above my head while staying crouched in the pasture. I wasn’t camouflaged - he could certainly see me there. It must have been quite a comical scene."

Rodrigo's advice for other photographers

"Whether documenting family events, vacation trips, weekend hikes in nature, or simply a walk through the city, photography remains more than a hobby for me - it is also a way to connect with nature and with history, a true form of meditation."

You can also visit Rodrigo's social media channels on Flickr and Instagram.

Editor's note: This article continues a new series, 'What's in your bag?', highlighting DPReview community members, their photography and the gear they depend on. Would you like to be featured in a future installment? Tell us a bit about yourself and your photography by filling out this form. If you're selected for a feature, we'll be in touch with next steps.

Submit your story to be featured in 'What's in your bag?'

Product photos: Mitchell Clark

Leica has announced the Noctilux M 35mm F1.2 Asph., the latest entry in its famed series of fast primes, and the first one to offer a wide-angle focal length. Since their introduction in 1966, Noctilux lenses have traditionally been 50mm, though the company added a 75mm option in 2017.

The lens is made up of 10 elements in five groups, and the company says it was made possible by the latest iteration of its in-house "Precision Glass Molding" process. Leica says this allowed it to obtain "an unprecedented degree of geometric freedom and surface precision" when molding the lens's three aspherical elements, with tolerances as tight as three nanometers per millimeter of diameter. It has a minimum focusing distance of 0.5m (19.7").

As is standard for Leica M lenses, the Noctilux 35mm F1.2 is a manual focus design, with an etched distance scale on the barrel. It also features an aperture ring and an integrated lens hood, which rotates to extend out or to stow away. It can also accept 49mm threaded filters. It has an all-metal build and weighs 416g (14.7oz). Despite its heft, it's quite compact at 50mm (~2") long.

The lens is an interesting offering from Leica in 2026. Even almost 20 years after its introduction, major manufacturers don't seem to be all that interested in competing with the Noctilux 50mm F0.95, so it's still a relatively unusual offering in the market*. But while the mechanical simplicity of the manual focus-only 35mm version makes it unmatched in compactness and weight, it's not a particularly singular offering. There are several modern, autofocusing 35mm F1.2 lenses available on the market from the likes of Sigma, Nikon and Viltrox, and several (shockingly cheap) manual focus offerings from the usual suspects.

That's not to say that people looking at the Noctilux would necessarily be interested in those options, just that it's not the kind of statement piece we typically associate with its nameplate. Still, it's an undeniable piece of craftsmanship, and it's hard to complain about the images it produces, at least in the samples we were able to take with it.

The Noctilux M 35mm F1.2 Asph. is available starting today at a retail price of $9650. That's a 50% premium over the Summilux 35mm F1.4, actually placing it on the lower end of what brands usually charge for that particular 1/3 stop difference.

* - There are several manual focus, 50mm F0.95 lenses from brands like TTArtisan, 7Artisans, Brightin Star and others, and, of course, there's the Nikkor Noct, but you can't get something that fast for modern mounts from Canon, Sony, Sigma, etc.

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.

Leica Noctilux M 35mm F1.2 ASPH. specifications:

Image: Laowa

Laowa has announced that it will be bringing its 90mm F2.8 2X Ultra Macro APO lens to a new mount: Micro Four Thirds. The lens was originally made for full-frame cameras, and it's been around for RF, Z, E and L mount systems for a few years now, but it's still exciting to see a manufacturer bringing out a new lens for Micro Four Thirds.

The lens, which will have a 180mm equiv. field of view on the new mount, has a design with 13 elements in 10 groups with 3 ED lenses. It can minimum working distance of 20.5cm (8.1"), allowing for 2:1 reproduction.

Its design is fully manual focus, but the lens has contacts that Laowa says will support EXIF data communication and electronic aperture control (which is, in fact, the only kind of aperture control for the lens; unlike the full frame version, there's no manual aperture ring). And while it's still a full-frame lens at heart, the Micro Four Thirds version is a bit smaller and lighter than the versions made for other mounts, coming in at 540g (19oz) and measuring 115mm (4.5") long. It accepts 67mm filter threads.

Laowa says the lens will be available starting on February 29th, for $449.

Image: DJI

DJI has announced the RS 5, the latest version of its gimbal designed for creators and video professionals using mirrorless cameras. The update is a relatively subtle one over last year's RS 4, but it brings improvements to the gimbal's compatibility with DJI's accessory ecosystem, some tweaks to its physical switches and knobs and refinements of the algorithms it uses to keep your camera steady.

The RS 5 will look familiar to anyone who's seen or used previous RS (née Ronin) gimbals. However, the company has included the same mechanism for switching between horizontal and vertical shooting as was found in the RS 4 Mini, which should make the process just a touch easier than it was on the RS 4. The company has also added more ways to fine-tune the balance; the RS 4 had a knob for slightly shifting the tilt axis, while the RS 5 gains additional controls for its other axes. It weighs roughly the same as the RS 4, and supports the same 3Kg (6.6lb) payload.

Image: DJI

DJI has also made some software improvements, allowing the RS 5 to control Panasonic and Fujifilm cameras via Bluetooth, in addition to the Canon, Nikon and Sony models its predecessor supported. This lets you use the gimbal's interface to start and stop recording, control powerzoom lenses and set parameters like aperture, ISO and shutter speed, so you don't have to deal with two sets of controls or work around the gimbal to reach your camera's buttons. The gimbal also now has an indicator that will suggest adjustments to your pace and gait to help achieve even steadier footage.

The RS 5 can charge 60% faster than the RS 4

The company says it's also made improvements to the battery. When paired with the included RS33 battery grip, the RS 5 can charge 60% faster than the RS 4, getting 14 hours of power with just an hour of charging, assuming you have a 65W PD-capable power brick to plug it into.

The gimbal has gotten some other accessory-related updates, too. It can now natively attach to the company's latest RS Intelligent Tracking Module, an $85, sold-separately accessory that lets you have the gimbal automatically pan and tilt to follow a selected person or other arbitrary subject. While you could connect the module to the RS 4, doing so required using an adapter that used 'RSA' port, precluding the use of other accessories that might need to connect to it. With the RS 5 that port remains free while you're using the module.

The new Electronic Briefcase Handle now includes controls. Image: DJI

The company has also introduced a new "Electronic Briefcase Handle," which lets you shoot with the gimbal at a different angle than would be practical with the standard handle. The pre-existing briefcase handle was, essentially, just a bent piece of metal, but the electronic version gives you buttons and other controls that let you operate the gimbal while using it.

According to DJI, the fifth-gen stabilization algorithm used by the RS 5 will perform better during quick movements, with the peak torque the motors are able to provide increasing by 50%. The comapny also says it'll perform even better when you're shooting vertically, something that's becoming increasingly common and influencers and brands continue to make content aimed towards social media.

As with the rest of DJI's recent releases, the RS 5 won't be officially launching in the US. The standard configuration is available in the UK for £485, and in Europe for €569. A combo pack that includes the RS Enhanced Intelligent Tracking Module, Electronic Briefcase Handle, a cable and carrying case, is also available for an additional £134 and €150, respectively.

Image: Westend61 / Westend61 via Getty Images

Welcome back to our Question of the Week series! This reader-focused series aims to get our photographic community to share thoughts on all sorts of photography-related topics in our forums. We pose questions about gear, favorite camera stores, advice, problem-solving and more, and you share your thoughts and opinions.

This week, we’re leaning into the holiday spirit! The season of giving (and occasionally re-gifting) is upon us, and that means it’s time to unwrap some memories – both heartwarming and hilarious.

What are the best (and worst) photography-related gifts you've received?

What’s the best photography-related gift you’ve ever received? Maybe it was a dream lens that caused you to take on an adventure deep in the mountains, or a handmade camera strap that’s now an essential part of your kit. And what about the worst? Perhaps someone thought you needed yet another "World’s Best Photographer" mug, or that odd lens filter set that turned every photo a shade of green.

In this edition of our Question of the Week series, we want to hear your gift stories: the memorable, the useful and the truly baffling. Share your favorites (and flops) in the forum link below. Photos of the gifts (or what you created with them) are also more than welcome! We'll highlight some of your most entertaining and heartfelt responses in next week's roundup.

Click here to answer the Question of the week

Playing 'Top Trumps' with camera specs doesn't give the full picture, but it can still reveal something interesting. Composite image: Richard Butler

It occurred to me, recently, that the latest enthusiast cameras can often shoot faster than the pro cameras of just a few years ago. So I decided to do some quick comparisons to get a sense of how far cameras have come, in a series of regards, since the last generation of pro-level sports cameras.

The biggest change, of course, is the move from DSLRs to mirrorless. The previous gen pro sports models from both Canon and Nikon were DSLRs, whereas Sony launched its pro tier cameras in earnest with the mirrorless a9, back in 2017.

Speed

The most obvious spec comparison is shooting speed, as that's historically been the main area in which pro models stand out from more mainstream offerings.

The enthusiast models are all faster than the pro models in their e-shutter modes, but this does come with some rolling shutter distortion. It's worth highlighting that, despite its maximum shooting rate being lower, the Sony a9 II, with its Stacked CMOS sensor, still reads out faster than any of the newer cameras.

But in many of these instances, the enthusiast models are just as quick in their mechanical shutter modes as the previous generation sports camera was. The enthusiast models don’t always have such deep buffers as their pro forebears, but they increasingly have at least one CFexpress slot to help clear those buffers quickly.

Autofocus

Of course shooting speed means nothing if your images aren’t in focus, but the modern cameras will do remarkably well in this regard. The pro DSLRs had AF systems honed by decades of development, and could be adjusted to suit a wide range of sports and subjects.

However, we’d expect the enthusiast models to be competitive, as they all have AF systems that directly derive from their respective company’s most recent pro cameras. They also have subject recognition AF systems and much wider AF coverage that makes them much easier to get the best out of, for those of us who aren’t full-time professionals.

As a rough generalization, modern lenses perform better and the number of pin-sharp images delivered by mirrorless camera focus systems tends to be higher.

All three of the modern enthusiast models also offer some degree of pre-burst capture, again helping to boost the success rate of photographers who can't perfectly anticipate when the key moment is going to occur.

Viewfinders

The biggest difference we see is the move from optical viewfinders in the DSLRs to electronic viewfinders in the mirrorless cameras. Whether in terms of response time or just preference, there will be some photographers who simply prefer an optical finder, regardless of the spec of an EVF.

However, it's worth noting that each of the mirrorless cameras has a viewfinder that's at least as large as the largest optical viewfinder in play here. The 0.8x magnification, high brightness finder in the Nikon Z6 III is going to feel appreciably larger than the 0.76x finder in the EOS-1D Mark III, and even more spacious in comparison with the D6's 0.72x OVF.

Image stabilization

Another big difference is that the two most popular DSLRs didn't have in-body image stabilization, instead making use of in-lens stablization. This tends to be more effective for the long focal lengths used for sports, but less effective than in-body stabilization for the wide-to-normal focal lengths used in a lot of photojournalism and general photography.

As well as the shift to in-body stabilization, Canon, Nikon and Sony have subsequently developed systems that can combine the effect of in-body and in-lens stabilization to boost the overall amount of correction that's possible and to play to the strengths of both systems.

Video

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, video is an area in which the modern cameras show the greatest advantage, not just in the resolutions and frame rates listed here, but in terms of the support tools and capabilities. It’s increasingly common to have false colour displays or waveforms to aid with exposure, as well as 10-bit Log or Raw capabilities, that still weren’t commonplace, just one generation of pro camera ago.

Video is one of the biggest areas of difference: even the mirrorless Sony a9 II, for all of the advances of its Stacked CMOS sensor, still only shot 8-bit video footage, which gives much less scope than 10-bit or Raw footage for color grading. Photo: Dan Bracaglia

Battery life

One difference not captured here is battery life. We haven’t quoted the CIPA figures, as they aren’t especially comparable between DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, but the pro DSLRs will have vastly better endurance, as much from not having to power a screen to show a preview as from their significantly larger batteries. The Sonys are the outliers, in that the a9 II and a7 V use the same battery, and the newer camera is rated as giving more shots per charge.

The 'pro' differences

There are differences beyond specs and capabilities, though. In all three instances, the pro models have a level of build quality and environmental sealing that are essential for high-priced tools that need to keep working, day in, day out, regardless of the rigors of the job. All three also have features such as Ethernet connections that are essential for some professional applications but irrelevant for the majority of enthusiasts.

Price

Even with the high levels of inflation over the past few years, the enthusiast models are significantly less expensive than the pro models were. Even without taking inflation into account, the professional DSLRs here cost at least twice as much as the latest enthusiast cameras. Factor inflation in and the new cameras come in at as little as 1/3rd the original list prices of the pro models.

*Price adjusted using the consumer price index inflation figures, adjusted to the launch date of the newer camera

And, while we’re not saying enthusiast cameras are in every way a match for the pro cameras of the last generation, it’s striking at how close they are. And at how far we’ve come, during a period where you could easily make the mistake of thinking things haven't particularly changed.

I created this image while I was working full-time, applying to far too many graduate schools and navigating a long-distance relationship. Photo: Abby Ferguson

It's well established that photography is a superb tool for documentation purposes. It's also fairly well accepted as an art form. It's less recognized, or at least talked about, as a therapeutic tool, but it can be a powerful resource for just that. If you'll allow me to get a bit personal, photography has helped me get through some very challenging times. I won't go so far as to say that it's saved my life, but I know many people can say that is the case for them.

To be clear, I'm not a therapist, and I don't see photography as a replacement for therapy with a licensed professional. Instead, I view it as a therapeutic tool. I have seen the impact the medium has had on my own life and the lives of others. For those who haven't used photography intentionally as a tool for healing or growth, perhaps this can be a helpful guide on how to do so, or a gentle push to lean on the medium as such when you need it.

Distraction and mindfulness

Sometimes using the camera as a distraction tool can be just what you need. Photo: Abby Ferguson

Sometimes, photography can simply be a good distraction. There are times when it's best to focus on something other than current events or difficulties in your personal life, and photography can be an excellent method for that. Taking photographs requires focus (no pun intended) and attention. Instead of dwelling on heavy or hard things, you can, at least momentarily, put your energy towards something else.

When taking photographs, you pay more attention to light, shadow, shapes and details. You look carefully at the things directly in front of you at that particular moment. It forces you to stay in the here and now, which is similar to general mindfulness practices that aim to help you manage stress. It's a simple thing, but it can make a significant difference.

Having my dog with me on hikes often has the added bonus of some comedic relief. Photo: Abby Ferguson

For some, photography is a solitary endeavor, which can be an excuse to give yourself time and space to just breathe. When I need stress relief, I often find myself going on a hike by myself (and my dog) with my camera. I typically come back feeling more refreshed and in a much better headspace than when I set out.

Simply being in the outdoors is a big part of that for me, but the camera also helps me tune out everything else more effectively while I'm hiking. Even if I only feel inspired to take a few photographs, it at least makes me pay more attention to what's around me instead of putting my head down and trudging through. Plus, if I do manage to get a photograph that I think is cool, it gives me a sense of accomplishment, which is always a nice mental boost.

Photography as an outlet

I took this self-portrait just last weekend, since I was in desperate need of a creative outlet, and this concept kept coming to mind. Photo: Abby Ferguson

What's been even more important for me at various points in my life is using photography as an outlet and a means of self-reflection. Creating photographs can be excellent for self-expression, and also a tool for working through difficulties and managing emotions.

Photography is a fantastic resource when I don't want to talk about what I'm going through but still want to express it in some way. Alternatively, sometimes I haven't even fully processed what I'm dealing with and don't have words for it. Photography helps me get out some of the emotion instead of simply bottling it up. There are even times when creating a photograph has helped me better understand my current mental state, even if I hadn't been willing to acknowledge it prior to that.

"Photography helps me get out some of the emotion instead of simply bottling it up"

For a long time, self-portraits were my preferred method of photography as therapy. I've produced some deeply emotional and personal self-portraits over the years for that reason. Some of them were the result of my knowing exactly what I was dealing with and what I wanted to convey. Others were simply a result of struggling with something and not quite knowing how to articulate it, so I poured my emotion into a self-portrait. At times, these were somewhat elaborate and thoroughly planned; others were more spontaneous. Both formats helped in their own way.

Still life has become a relatively new therapeutic tool for me. Photo: Abby Ferguson

These days, I've been using still life as my primary outlet. Instead of putting myself in front of the camera, I'm photographing objects that I feel can convey what I'm working through in my head. They may not look as personal at first glance, but they were incredibly valuable as I processed and dealt with things going on in my life.

My method of using photography as an outlet involves conceptual work, but that doesn't have to be the case. Any type of imagery that helps you express yourself or process your emotions is beneficial, even if it isn't intentionally done.

Photography can just be for you

Photo: Abby Ferguson

The bigger picture here is that photography doesn’t always have to be for an audience or a client; it can simply be for you, and that’s often where its most therapeutic power lives. I've recently written about tackling photo projects to find your creative spark again and about embracing bad photos. In all of these cases, the key is that photography can be a personal endeavor that can have a significant impact on your life. When you give yourself permission to create without pressure, photography becomes a method to clear your head, listen to yourself, notice what you’re feeling and be present with it.

Whether you’re a working photographer or a hobbyist, making space for personal projects can be therapeutic. It can reconnect you with why you picked up a camera in the first place, help you process what you’re going through and simply remind you that the act of paying attention is worthwhile in itself.

So, whether you're going through a particularly hard season or not, let me encourage you to pick up your camera with no goal other than to see what comes out. Or plan a shoot with the specific intention of showcasing your emotion or mental state. The photos don’t have to be "good." They just have to be honest, and they only ever need to mean something to you.

Image: Adobe

Adobe has announced an update to Photoshop that brings new types of adjustment layers and improves generative AI-powered fill tools. It's also adding a feature in beta that makes it easier to manipulate text into certain shapes.

Late last year, Adobe announced it was adding two new adjustment layers to Photoshop: one that controlled dehaze and clarity, and another for adding a grain effect. Now, those are coming out of beta and should be available to everyone using the app. While you've been able to use similar effects in Photoshop before, you had to bake them into a specific layer in your image, and once they were added, you couldn't adjust them. Having them as an adjustment layer, though, lets you easily adjust the effects after adding them, and easily have them apply to multiple parts of your image.

The update also brings some of Photoshop's AI-powered features out of beta, with the company promising better, higher-resolution results when using the Generative Fill, Generative Expand and Remove tools in the web version of Photoshop. The company also says it's improved the reference image feature in the Generative Fill tool, which lets you use an existing image to give the model a better idea of what you want it to generate.

Finally, there's a feature that Adobe's calling Dynamic Text, which the company says will make it "easy to transform any text layer into circular, arched, or bowed shape." While you could obviously already achieve something similar with paths and the text tool, Adobe says the Dynamic Text tool will automatically fit your text to the shape, something you'd have to manually manage using other techniques.

The new adjustment layers are available in the latest version of Photoshop, which Creative Cloud subscribers can download starting today. Dynamic Text will be available in the Photoshop Beta app.