Laowa has announced the Acris 35mm F2.8 1X AF Macro APO, which it says is the “world’s first full-frame autofocus 35mm lens with 1:1 macro magnification.” It’s also only the fifth autofocus lens we’ve seen from the company, though some of the lens mounts it’s being released for will get a manual focus-only version.

Laowa says the autofocus versions of the lens will be available for Sony E, Nikon Z and Canon EF mounts. L mount and Canon’s mirrorless RF mount, meanwhile, will only be getting a manual focus version.

The lens is made up of 13 elements in 10 groups, and while Laowa doesn’t call out any special glass it’s using, the company says the apochromatic design means you’ll get “zero color fringing” due to chromatic aberration. In manual focus mode, it has a minimum focusing distance of 18cm (7.1″). This means the front of the lens has to be around 49mm (1.9″) away from your subject to achieve the 1:1 lifesize reproduction that gives the lens its name.

Leslie Jie / Laowa

Like with Laowa’s 180mm F4.5 macro lens, the autofocus capabilities are quite limited in macro mode. From the minimum focusing distance to 0.5m (19.7″), you have to manually acquire focus, but the lens can make precise adjustments for focus stacking purposes. If the subject you’re shooting is more than 0.5m away, though, Laowa says it’ll work like any other AF lens, providing “fast, responsive, and accurate subject acquisition.”

Of course, this is assuming you have the version of the lens that comes with autofocus, rather than being manual focus only. Beyond the lack of motors, there are two interesting differences between the two lenses: the AF version has 9 aperture blades and is threaded for 72mm filters, while the manual focus version has 13 and uses 67mm filters. Both, however, zoom internally.

Laowa

The dimensions of the lens will vary substantially based on which mount you get it in; for instance, the Sony E-mount version is 114mm (4.5″) long, while the EF version is 87mm (3.4″) long. The lens’s weights are much closer, though, with the E-mount one coming in at 560g (19.8oz) and the EF at 530g (18.7oz). Laowa says the lens is sealed against dust and moisture.

In terms of features, the lens is relatively spartan. It has a USB-C port for firmware updates, and a function button that Laowa says “allows seamless switching between modes.”

The Acris 35mm F2.8 1X AF Macro APO will be available starting today and will cost $449 in the US, though regional pricing may vary.

Laowa Acris 35mm F2.8 1X AF Macro APO specifications

Alongside the addition of a variable aperture and manual controls, Apple introduced an interesting feature to the iPhone 18 Pro: it’s called Reference Image, and is designed to prove that a photo wasn’t altered at any point after the photons hit the sensor.

This system, which currently only works on the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max’s main camera, is a distinct mode in the camera app and is aimed primarily at journalists. It tries to overcome several technical hurdles to ensure that both the data as captured by the sensor and the processed result of that data, can be tied back to a specific device within a narrow period of time. In other words, it tries to authenticate both the Raw and the processing that turns it into a viewable image.

Dale Baskin

Apple isn’t the first company to try to solve this problem. A coalition of companies, including Adobe and several major camera manufacturers, has thrown its weight behind Content Credentials, another system designed to be able to prove that an image is what it claims to be in the age of wholesale AI image generation and assisted editing.

While we’ve written extensively about Content Credentials, Apple has characteristically taken a completely new approach with its own system. So why has it invented its own tech, rather than using the existing standard that some of its competitors have adopted, and how does it work?

What problems is Apple trying to solve?

Apple says it designed the Reference Image system to meet three requirements:

• The resulting image “must faithfully show what the sensor captured,” and you can verify both the Raw capture and the process that turned the raw data captured into a viewable photo
• A false image created via tampering with the sensor, cryptographic software or phone’s OS will fail the verification process. If it’s later discovered that the system verified an image it shouldn’t have, the certificate marking it as authentic must be able to be revoked.
• The images can’t reveal who took them, or whether the same device took any two images. Apple shouldn’t be able to tell what’s in the image when it’s signing it.

The company argues that existing systems like Content Credentials don’t meet these standards. Part of that is because they have different goals; one of the explicit appeals of Content Credentials is that it lets you bake image attribution into the file in a way that’s hard to remove. But Apple also argues that adding a credential after the image is created, as Content Credentials does, leaves space for bad actors to create false images and then sign them as authentic (something that one of our forum members was able to demonstrate with the implementation in the Nikon Z6III).

The system looks to be incredibly robust, which is unsurprising given the level of attacks Apple’s devices have to defend against. (It basically has to assume its systems will be tested by the full capabilities of a hostile government.) It’s built to protect against verifying images made by feeding fake data to the sensor itself through its electrical contacts or by removing it from the phone, and from quantum computers being used to break its encryption, something Apple says no other image provenance systems do. The company says this is to make sure the images are verifiable far into the future; traditional encryption algorithms can withstand most kind of attacks, but because quantum computers work fundamentally differently from the computers they were designed for, they can easily crack them.

What does taking a reference image look like?

The high-level overview is that the phone isn’t always taking Reference Images. You have to purposefully switch to taking them in the camera app, which will reboot the sensor into a special mode. So far, this is only available on the iPhone 18 Pro or Pro Max’s main camera – either in 1x or 2x mode, though not night mode since it appears to only use a single exposure – as it’s a hardware-based feature. Even then, it isn’t available in the EU or China (likely due to its reliance on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute service, which we’ll cover shortly).

Dale Baskin

After you take a reference image, you then have to choose to “develop” it before you’re able to view or share it. You can share the developed HEIC file as a normal photo, viewable by anyone, or as a special reference image that, currently, can only be viewed using an Apple device running its latest software. The person receiving it will be able to see a version with any edits you’ve made, as well as what the camera originally captured, and the interface can even highlight the differences. It will also show verified metadata, such as when the photo was captured. This does, however, rely on them using Apple software on Apple hardware: otherwise, it’ll just render like a normal HEIC.

How does a Reference Image work?

Apple’s document on the technical details of the Reference Image system is, unsurprisingly, pretty complex, so I’ll try to explain it in a way that will make sense to most people.

The process for creating a reference image starts at the factory, when the phone’s sensor and security chip are tied together in a way that Apple can check later, to confirm that the two actually worked together to create and secure the data that it’s interpreting as a photo.

Dale Baskin

When you switch to the camera’s Reference Image mode, it reboots the sensor into a secure mode that basically ignores what the operating system is doing, except for receiving a “digest” that contains a securely computed timestamp range and some identifying information for the device and its security chip. The sensor then collects light and digitizes it into data (as cameras tend to do). It then cryptographically signs it before sending it off the chip. This basically means that the raw data the camera captured can’t be changed by the sensor firmware, phone’s processor, operating system or anything else. Otherwise, the signature created by the sensor won’t match the signature produced by the data, and the system could tell something was wrong. The secure metadata, including what time the photo was taken, is also included in that package, before it’s handed back to the OS for storage

This leaves you with what Apple calls a “secure digital negative,” stored as a DNG Raw file, which you can edit and share like normal if need be. However, to make it a Reference Image, you need to then be able to trust the process that turns that “negative” into a viewable file, as the raw data from the image sensor isn’t actually an image. Even when opening a Raw file on your computer, what you’re actually seeing is that data processed in several ways, like demosaicing to interpret color, lens corrections and the application of a tone curve. You are seeing your program’s interpretation of the Raw, not the data itself (which is why it may look different from program to program).

This is where the second part of the system comes in. After you’ve taken the picture, you can choose to “develop” it into a Reference Image (something that doesn’t happen automatically, and which requires an internet connection). When you do, that “digital negative” is sent to Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers, which will then recompute the “digest” containing the timestamp and data from the phone and its security chip, ensure the certificate matches the raw data and that it was actually issued by the sensor. It checks a few other things too, making sure that the sensor and the security chip haven’t been altered since they left the factory.

Apple says it takes great pains to ensure that the timestamp attached to the image is accurate. Rather than using on the device’s clock, your phone routinely gets cryptographically-signed timestamps from Apple’s servers, which it uses to create a window of time that the image must’ve been taken in, based on the timestamp it received before it was taken, and the next one it received, after. (Apple says this happens on average every 15 minutes, though it’ll depend on network connectivity; it can also account for phones that are offline for long periods of time).

After the Private Cloud Compute service has checked over all the certificates, it creates what’s called a confidence score for the image, which decides how likely it is that it is a real photograph based on how well the data matches “physical characteristics expected of raw output from our sensors.” It then turns the Raw into a JPEG before “hashing” it, creating a signature that ensures that the rest of the development process won’t change it, and to identify any subsequent changes that occur after the image is returned to the user.

The JPEG’s unique identifier, the hash for its Raw, the confidence score and the sensor’s ID, though not the JPEG itself, are sent to a separate service, which checks a few things. Most importantly, it makes sure the image wasn’t created by a sensor that’s been added to a revocation list for having uploaded fake or suspect data. Apple keeps a running tally of the confidence scores attached to the images submitted by each sensor; if that number gets low enough, indicating that something suspicious is happening with that device’s reference images, the Private Cloud Compute service will never sign pictures from it again.

If everything checks out, though, the service signs the JPEG with Apple’s signature, letting everyone know that it passes the company’s technical checks. Importantly, this replaces the photographer in the chain of trust: the company says the system intentionally doesn’t provide a way to identify who took a reference image, to the point where you can’t even use it to tell if two photos were taken by the same phone. It only tells you that Apple can attest to it being unaltered from the point of capture. The Private Cloud Compute server then sends the JPEG, packaged as a HEIC, back to the phone, and moves the “digital negative” to the trash, for deletion after 30 days (though you can tell it not to delete it within that timespan if you want).

Whenever you go to view that image on a supported device, using supported software, it’ll check to make sure it still has the signature, and that Apple’s system hasn’t retroactively revoked it. From there, you’re able to make edits to it, though the end user will be able to see the original, provided you share the Reference Image HEIC, rather than an exported JPEG.

In Apple we trust?

Apple

As with most security standards, whether or not you believe an Apple Reference Image is a source of truth*will require putting some amount of faith in the company. The company has a relatively solid track record when it comes to security and cryptography, so it’s not implausible that it could implement a system like this, and Apple says the Private Cloud Compute software that turns those into viewable photos is publicly auditable. Of course, if you’re not a security and cryptography expert, you will have to trust researchers to actually do that work and communicate that it is, in fact, safe.

To me, the real act of faith won’t be in deciding whether the pictures Apple certifies are genuine. It’s trusting the company to never revoke a certificate of a legitimately-captured image for any reason, something that it appears to have the power to do. I also have to assume the system will occasionally get it wrong, either signing an image that shouldn’t have been signed, or not signing one that should, and the test will be how Apple reacts in such situations. Or, indeed, whether it bothers to continue operating the service indefinitely, irrespective of profitability and take-up.

The company has a history of standing up to governments – even powerful ones in the US and UK – when ordered to compromise user privacy and security, and offers some of the most comprehensive protection modes you can get on a phone. However, its track record isn’t spotless. It famously handed off control of the iCloud data for its users in China to comply with the country’s laws, a move that Reuters reports will give that government “far easier access to text messages, email and other data.”

Notably, the Reference Image feature isn’t available in China. It’s also not immediately launching in the EU – Apple is currently in a spat with the bloc over how much privilege it gives its own services on iOS – but the company has at least promised that it’ll bring the feature to the EU at some point in the future.

The chicken and the apple

Mitchell Clark

I’d like to leave you with a few parting thoughts. While there is undoubtedly use for pictures that are in some ways verifiable – especially as journalistic institutions change, and as news is increasingly captured on phones, both by professionals and everyday people – it’s also worth considering how much that can actually move the needle.

We live in a relatively low-trust environment, where large groups of people can’t agree on even relatively basic facts. (Calling topics “debated” would be giving too much credit; debate implies people are willing to change their minds based on evidence presented.) While people not being able to trust images is certainly a problem, especially at scale, there are a lot of examples of hard evidence being ignored because it’s inconvenient.

This is, frankly, not really a problem that Apple can even solve, no matter what technical expertise it brings to bear. I also shudder to think of us handing over that responsibility to a private company, more than we already have. But I also think that it’ll be hard to get back to a place where images are trustworthy again, because it’s a chicken and egg problem: you can’t rely on things like Reference Image or Content Credentials as an indicator of whether an image is fake or not until most or all of the real images you see have them attached. Sure, they can “prove” an image is authentic, but with their limited market penetration, they’re currently not very useful in spotting fakes.

Even if you could flip a switch today and have every picture taken on an iPhone be easily verifiable on any platform where they’re displayed (something that’s currently absolutely not true of the much more widely-adopted Content Credentials), it would probably still require sweeping social changes for that to actually matter. Again, though, that’s not really within Apple’s control. But as things stand, there’s at least one more tool that journalists and citizens can use to try to prove that their images are authentic… assuming the viewing public trusts the system, and that those trying to verify the image own enough new Apple products to do so.

* As much as any photograph can be. Pictures can depict what happened in a moment, but you still have to trust that the photographer or person or organization sharing the image are being honest about the context surrounding it.

This summer, Viltrox released the AF 26mm F2.8 Evo, a pancake-style full-frame lens that aims to be an excellent everyday carry option. I’ve had the chance to spend some time shooting with it in a variety of conditions, and have a surprising number of thoughts on it given how relatively simple it seems.

Optics with character

Despite my concerns about focus, I ended up being pleasantly surprised by how sharp this lens is in the center given the size, weight and price. It won’t win any awards, and you’ll definitely want to stop down for best results (especially at the edges), but again, for what it is I was quite pleased with the results I got. Vignetting is also quite well-controlled, even at F2.8.

The lens shows some longitudinal chromatic aberration in relatively harsh lighting, but again, it’s a pretty decent performance for this category of lens. There’s what I’d call a low-to-medium amount of barrel distortion, too, which Viltrox corrects for with a software profile, but it’s not to the point where we’d say that the software profile is mandatory if you’d rather not, or can’t, use it.

Mitchell Clark

I appreciated the 26mm F2.8’s close-focusing abilities – it’s nice to see that manufacturers are really paying attention to those these days – and I found its bokeh to be inoffensive. It’s not the cleanest ever, but I’m also not typically using a 26mm lens to get the blurriest backgrounds.

This is all relatively standard fare for a prime these days, so what makes me say it has a lot of character? It’s the flare, because wow is there ever a lot of it. If there’s a bright light source just outside of frame, expect the image to look fairly washed-out. The included lens hood (which reduces the lens’s size advantage, though, admittedly, not by much) helps a little, but the effect is still quite strong.

Point light sources in the frame will also produce relatively large streaks of light, in a way that I haven’t seen in a lens for a while, outside of ones explicitly designed to produce that effect. I personally think it’s neat and don’t mind it on a lens that I’d mainly use for fun, but it and the flare are intense enough that I would absolutely think twice before trying to use this lens for a professional shoot, especially if it took place at night. Frankly, I’m a little confused why Viltrox used its “Evo” branding on this lens, as I typically associate it with an impressive level of image quality that this doesn’t quite deliver on.

The shooting experience

While our lens testing standards meant that I exclusively used this lens paired with a relatively hefty Nikon Z8, I still found myself being delighted with this lens’ small size. Paired with a smaller camera, like a Nikon Zf or Z5IIC or a Sony a7C-series, it would make for an impressively small full-frame kit.

Mitchell Clark

Despite its size, the lens has two rings: one for manual focus and a clicked one for aperture. I did, however, find the latter to be a bit touchy, and I ended up with a lot of shots at aperture settings that were 1/3EV off from what I was aiming for. Thankfully, it has an “A” position that hands over control to the camera, which I found useful for times when I was constantly putting it back in a bag.

If you’ve seen our unboxing video for this lens, you’ll know that I was extremely excited upon discovering that it has a magnetic lens cap, which is very easy to remove and, perhaps more importantly, to put back on. After a few months of use, my enthusiasm remains, and it’s something I’d like to see on more lenses. It’s not entirely perfect – I found it was a bit more eager to detach than a traditional pinch design when I was taking my camera out of a bag or putting it back in – but I found myself being much more willing to use it because of the lack of fiddliness in putting it on and taking it off.

The focusing experience with this lens wasn’t my favorite, even compared to other Viltrox lenses I’ve used for Z-mount. It has a unit focus that physically moves in and out as you go from close to infinity, and it’s not particularly quick. While I had a decent hit rate with it, it wasn’t particularly confidence-inspiring in the moment; even a slight move of the autofocus point often led to the lens dramatically changing focus, making the whole scene soft before slowly bringing it back into focus.

This experience isn’t uncommon among pancake lenses, but it’s worth keeping in mind, depending on what you wish to shoot with this lens.

The manual focus experience also isn’t lovely. Given its size, the ring is relatively easy to manipulate, but there was a touch of lag between when I turned it and when the focus actually changed, which led to me frequently overshooting my intended subject. There also isn’t much fine-grained control once you get near infinity, which changes happening in chunks, instead of smoothly.

Summary

I don’t want to come across as being too harsh on this lens. While its $299 price tag may be a bit more than the rock-bottom prices some buyers may be accustomed to from Viltrox, it still seems fair to me given what this lens offers, especially to fans of the 26mm focal length. Pancake lenses often come with sacrifices, and this one is no exception, but the Nikon and Sony lenses it’s competing with cost substantially more… though there are, perhaps, more reasons to choose the own-brand versions over the Viltrox than we’re used to seeing from the brand.

Sample gallery

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

Thanks to Nikon for the loan of a Z8 to produce this sample gallery. All images were processed using our standard lens workflow in Capture One, with the manufacturer’s distortion correction applied but no correction of vignetting. The profile corrects a fair amount of barrel distortion, but we don’t consider it an essential part of the lens’s optical design.

It’s another week and another camera launch for the DPReview team to discuss. This week, we gathered to talk about the Nikon Z5IIC, what we think about its lack of an EVF and people’s reactions to it.

If you prefer something a bit shorter, you can also check out our first look video, which we shot mainly using the Z5IIC. And, of course, our written review is also up for those that want to go in-depth.

What else would you like to know about the Z5IIC? Let us know in the comments below.

As a reviewer covering the camera industry, I spend a lot of time in comments sections, forums and subreddits, seeing what people think of the latest releases and the rumors of what’s coming next. While I often see smart, informed discussions happening, this habit also exposes me to some… interesting takes.

As an example. This is more of a problem on other sites and on social media than on DPReview (though it’ll occasionally happen here) I’ve noticed a recent trend under many articles about new or upcoming cameras – even budget models – where there will be a few comments that are something along the lines of “No global shutter?” And then other people will chime in agreeing that the camera is DOA without one, and an example of manufacturers cheaping out or being behind the times.

And I just have to say: what are you all talking about?? Do you even know what a global shutter is, or are you just asking for one because you’ve heard it’s cool?

Thankfully, these comments aren’t common here on DPReview, and I know most of you are familiar with the concept of a global shutter. But for those that aren’t: it’s a sensor design that lets you capture and read out every pixel, simultaneously, as opposed to having to read them out line-by-line like you have to on cameras with a rolling shutter. This essentially instantaneous readout is even faster than a traditional focal plane mechanical shutter, and is much faster than standard e-shutter readout modes.

Richard Butler

It is a genuinely useful technology for certain scenarios. It lets you sync with flash at effectively any shutter speed (though it can take some trial and error), and capture even the fastest-moving subjects without any risk of the skewing that can happen with rolling shutter*. It can also reduce the risk of banding when shooting under LED lights or photographing a subject with an electronic display behind them. There is still the risk of catching a display when its dark or refreshing, depending on your exposure duration and how fast the screen is, but it gets rid of any potential mismatches between refresh and shutter rates. Global shutters are luxurious for video, too, as there’s absolutely no Jell-o effect no matter how fast your pan, or if you point your camera out of a moving car or towards an arriving train.

Mitchell Clark

I get that it can kind of feel like camera technology has stagnated in recent years, and that people are hungry for a big leap forwards in performance. But let’s take a step back and look at the reality of the situation for a second.

There has only been one full-frame hybrid mirrorless camera released with a global shutter: the Sony a9 III. It is aimed at professional sports and action shooters, and is priced accordingly, coming in $6800. The tech is a bit more common in the world of cinema cameras, but doesn’t come for cheap there, either.

The a9 III also has a notable drawback: its complex readout circuitry limits how much light it can tolerate, pushing its base ISO up to 250 and limiting the image quality you can get out of it compared to other full-frame cameras. The best image you can take with it will have up to a stop and a third more noise than the best image out of another full-frame camera with a base ISO of 100. Its peak IQ performance is much closer to that of an APS-C camera, though at the same ISO settings it’ll still out-perform a camera with a smaller sensor.

With a sample size of one, it’s hard to say if this is inherent to modern global shutter designs (some older CCD chips also had global shutters), or is simply an aspect of this particular sensor, but it’s certainly worth noting if you’re advocating that basically every new camera should have a global shutter. They are not an unalloyed upgrade in every way. Instead, current global shutter sensors make trade-offs in order to be better for some niche use-cases.

Which is why I really do not understand why people say that they should be in every camera, from the most budget options on up. Putting aside whether that’s even economically realistic, do we really think beginner photographers absolutely need perfectly parallel lines in action shots using e-shutter, and that it’s so important that it’d be worth giving up some image quality for?

I want to make it clear that I’m not advocating for consumers to just take what they’re giving and not ask for more from companies. It’s totally fine to look critically at cameras and say “I think you could do better.” (I mean, that is essentially my job.) And I understand the desire for there to be at least one or two less expensive options with global shutter for those that would use them for their purpose, but that don’t have the cash for a top-of-the-line pro camera.

But I think that if we’re going to spend energy campaigning for improvements, they should be ones that are actually sensible, and that are good matches for the target market. It’s one thing to recognize that image quality appears to be plateauing, but, to me, it’s hard to say that means every camera should include a more expensive technology that trades some IQ for a behavior that’s only really useful in very specific situations.

*- To be fair: the fastest stacked sensor cameras with rolling shutters, which have readout speeds within the 2-4ms range, have also essentially eliminated that risk.

Earlier this week, Nikon announced the Z5IIC, an entry-level full-frame camera with no EVF, but that retails for a mere $1400. We were able to spend some time with not one, but two of them before the launch, and thought it’d be a good opportunity to shoot our first look with the camera itself.

There are a few shots in it that weren’t taken using the Z5IIC, but the vast majority of the footage was, which should give you an idea of its capabilities. Of course, the camera is as focused on stills as it is on video, so we included sample photos as well.

What do you think of the Z5IIC? Do you agree with the cuts Nikon made to hit the price point the camera’s selling at? Let us know in the comments below. As usual with a major launch, we plan to publish a discussion video this weekend discussing the camera and our community’s reactions to it.

If you’ve recently upgraded your iPhone, or are getting more into photography, you may be wondering how to make the most of the increasingly sophisticated camera hardware and relatively complex software.

It can be a surprisingly in-depth topic, especially given the range of hardware available throughout different iPhone lines and generations, but we’ll try to make it as simple as we can, and call out when tips are exclusive to certain models.

Is more resolution always better?

Depending on which model iPhone you have, your phone may give you the option to shoot photos in higher resolution, though the toggle for it may be a bit buried. To access them, you’ll first have to go to Settings > Camera > Formats, then enable either “Resolution Control” if you have a non-Pro phone, or “ProRAW & Resolution Control” on Pro phones. You’ll then be able to access a “Formats” button within the camera app that lets you switch resolutions.

In our tests, we found that, in good light, the differences between the iPhone’s 48MP photos and default 24MP HEIC images were quite subtle, despite the files being roughly double the size (or larger). For that reason, it’s hard to recommend leaving it on all the time. For highly detailed, well-lit scenes, though, it can be worth turning on to make sure you capture as much as possible.

iPhone 17 Pro Max | Raws processed with Adobe Camera Raw at default settings | All exported as JPEG w/ matching settings

For best results, we don’t recommend using the higher-resolution mode in low-light scenarios. Because of how the quad-bayer sensors used in iPhones work, capturing the full resolution means giving up some noise performance. While the iPhone has noise-reduction, we found that the additional work it had to do made the difference between the higher-resolution and standard modes even less distinct.

What about Raw?

iPhone 17 Pro Max | Main Camera | ProRaw processed with ACR at default settings

If you have a Pro-series phone, you have the option of not just changing your photos’ resolution, but to shoot in Raw as well, using a proprietary Apple format called ProRaw. While we didn’t notice an appreciable amount of detail in our ProRaw shots – the main benefit comes from a bit more control over the processing – we did find that our selected resolution made much more of a difference than it did with non-Raw images.

This is in part due to the fact that, in Raw, your choice is between 12 and 48MP, rather than 24 and 48. Our 48MP Raw images had considerably more detail than the 12MP ones.

On the iPhone 18 Pro: consider your aperture and settings

The just-released iPhone 18 Pro introduces two new considerations that we haven’t seen before: a variable aperture and manual controls. The latter ends up being a greater consideration than you might think. According to The Verge, manually adjusting your shutter speed causes the phone to take a single exposure, as opposed to the multiple shots it usually takes. We found that manually adjusting your aperture, and leaving the phone to control shutter speed, resulted in images that appeared to still use the phone’s multi-shot computational mode.

In our tests, the images in the single shot mode were often still quite good. In bright daylight, you’d likely struggle to tell the difference between the single exposures and the ones multi-shot computational photos produced with computational methods that have long allowed phones to produce better images than would otherwise be possible because of their relatively small sensors. Even if you’re pixel-peeping, the difference is subtle.

iPhone 18 Pro | Main camera, 48MP | F1.48 | 1/30 sec
Photo: Dale Baskin

In low-light settings, the effects of using a single exposure rather than a multi-shot one will become much more noticeable in the form of more noise and less detail. Unless you’re going for a specific look or effect, it’s probably best to avoid manual shutter control in low light.

Our advice for achieving best results with the variable aperture won’t surprise anyone familiar with traditional photography: for sharpest results stop down. The lens’ F1.8 setting is noticeably better than its F1.48 one, and while theoretically the effects of diffraction will start to creep in around F2.8 and F4, we didn’t find that there was too much of an issue with sharpness at those settings in our tests.

Other considerations

While Apple markets its phones’ crop modes (the 2x and, on the Pros, 8x settings) as “optical quality,” they are created only using a quarter of their respective sensor’s area, and so come with a definite loss of quality. Of course, if the choice is between using them and not getting the shot at all, they’re handy to have, but it’s worth getting a little closer and using one of the actual optical settings if possible.

Speaking of the other cameras, it’s also worth noting that the main camera is by far the iPhone’s largest, with the ultrawide and telephoto ones using much smaller sensors. Again, there are some situations where they’re the best tool for the job, but if image quality is your main concern, it’s worth using the main camera, especially in lower-light situations.

The Nikon Z5IIC is an entry-level full-frame camera with a 24.5MP BSI CMOS sensor. As its name implies, the sensor, along with many of the camera’s other specs and features, are borrowed from the company’s larger, more expensive Z5II; Nikon has simply crammed it all into a smaller body, leaving off a few extras like the EVF, high-resolution screen and second card slot.

Editor’s note: at Nikon’s request, all sample photos from a pre-production camera are out-of-camera JPEGs, cropped and re-saved.

Key specifications

• 24.5MP BSI full-frame CMOS sensor
• IBIS up to 7.5EV
• Full mechanical shutter
• 3.2″ 1.04M dot fully-articulated display
• 11fps mech. bursts, 30fps JPEG-only elec.
• 4K/30 full-width, 60p w/ 1.5x crop

The Z5IIC will cost $1400, coming in below even the Z5II’s launch price and representing a $450 discount compared to its current, increased MSRP. It will be available in black or silver, and can be kitted with a variety of lenses, including Nikon’s 24-50mm F4-6.3, 24-105mm F4-7.1 and 26mm F2.8 pancake.

Index:

• What’s new
• How it compares
• Body and handling
• Autofocus
• Video
• Initial impressions
• Sample gallery
• Specifications
• Press release

What’s new

Richard Butler / Mitchell Clark

There isn’t much new about the Z5IIC, as it’s essentially an existing camera with some features removed, rather than added. This means that the main change is its design, which we’ll mostly cover in the Body and handling section. However, as a high-level overview, the camera has a squared-off body with a grip style similar to that of the Z5II (which ends up making it feel a bit chunky in the hand).

This design, and the EVF it omits, means it occupies a new position in Nikon’s full-frame mirrorless lineup. While the video-focused ZR may appear to fit that description, the Z5IIC’s ergonomics and user experience are much closer to that of a super-sized Z30, but even more focused on stills and hybrid use. This is the first EVF-less mirrorless camera that Nikon has made aimed as much at photographers as videographers.

Mitchell Clark

Beyond the design, Nikon has introduced one minor upgrade to the camera’s autofocus system: in addition to the 9 types of subject the Z5II was trained to recognize, the Z5IIC gains an “aquatic life” mode, mainly designed for taking pictures in aquariums. The camera also gains the highly-customizable grain effect the company introduced on the Zf, which is likely a bigger deal than it seems in the age of social media feeds dominated by simulations of film.

How it compares

With its price and feature set, the Z5IIC doesn’t really have any direct competitors. The Panasonic S9, with its stabilized full-frame sensor and very similar price point may seem like one, but its single top-plate command dial and focus on shooting video, rather than stills, makes it a fundamentally different camera to use once you actually have it in your hand. We’re also comparing the Sony a7C II, since it has a similar form-factor (though a much higher price-point). Finally, we’ve included the Z5II to illustrate what you’re giving up for the C’s smaller size.

For video-first creators, the S9 is, in most ways, the better pick, thanks to its inclusion of open-gate modes, excellent IBIS performance and Panasonic’s unmatched toolbox of features that make shooting video easier (though all of this is slightly let down by its lack of a headphone jack, and somewhat limiting thermal performance). While stills shooters will likely appreciate the openness of the L-mount ecosystem compared to the relatively restricted Z-mount, none of our testers have really enjoyed using the S9 for photography and the lack of a mechanical shutter further cements this. It’s clearly not who the camera is aimed at.

Conversely, while the a7CII has a similarly open lens mount, it goes the opposite direction; it’s a better tool for stills than video, thanks to its quite slow readout speeds. We also appreciate the inclusion of a competent viewfinder, despite the small size and, while we miss having an AF joystick, that’s something the S9 and Z5IIC omit, too. The elephant in the room is price; the a7CII is a cut down version of an enthusiast camera, while the Z5IIC is based on an entry-level model, with the focus on more beginner-friendly scene and color modes that come with that positioning.

Body and handling

Richard Butler / Mitchell Clark

On its own, the Z5IIC’s body looks small for a full-frame camera, but once you pick it up and attach a lens it ends up feeling relatively substantial. It’s clearly still lighter than other models, but it’s dense, and our testers found the grip filled out even their relatively large hands.

We found the (very approximately) rangefinder-style design to be quite pleasing, and it’s nice that Nikon is providing a version with a silver top plate, even if there’s only a single own-brand lens matched to the color.

Controls

Richard Butler / Mitchell Clark

The Z5IIC comes equipped with plenty of controls. You get two configurable top-plate dials, a mode dial with two custom settings and most of the customizable buttons you’d find on the rest of the Z-series cameras, including two front-plate ones, next to the lens. Nikon has also included a button that lets you directly access its “Picture Controls” color modes (which you can add to by connecting the camera to Wi-Fi and the company’s Imaging Cloud service).

The one thing the camera doesn’t have is a joystick, so navigating through menus and controlling your autofocus point will have to be done using either the touchscreen or the multi-directional controller. While this isn’t our favorite way of controlling autofocus, it’s less of a concern on a camera where you’ll never be using an EVF.

The menus are, again, the standard Nikon fare that you’ll find across the rest of the company’s mirrorless lineup. We also appreciate another detail that Nikon kept the same: the dedicated stills/video switch, separate from the power-on switch.

Display

Richard Butler / Mitchell Clark

The Z5IIC’s display is large and fully articulated, but isn’t as high-resolution as the one found on the Z5II, nor is it the super-sized and super-bright model Nikon used for the similarly EVF-less ZR. We found that, in bright sunlight, it was a little too dim to see clearly, though it worked well in most other scenarios.

There will be those that complain that it articulates instead of tilts, and that there’s no EVF (despite Nikon already making essentially the same camera but with a viewfinder). While both are valid preferences to have, there are undeniable benefits to a fully-articulating screen; it’s much easier to preview shots or video of yourself using one, and it can work at odd angles that can be difficult to get with just a tilting one. Plus, if you’re putting the camera in a bag, you can flip the screen inward towards the camera body to protect it.

Nikon says that its market research shows a strong contingent of users who are happy to use a screen-only camera. While they didn’t say it explicitly, it seems likely it’s mainly comprised of younger photographers who grew up using phones where the screen was the only option.

Ports and connectivity

Richard Butler / Mitchell Clark

The Z5IIC has a relatively robust selection of ports: there’s USB-C for charging and data transfer at 5 Gbps speeds, headphone and microphone jacks for audio monitoring and input and a microHDMI socket for video out. The latter isn’t our favorite connector ever, but it’s a reasonable choice on a camera at this size and price. It also has reasonable wireless connectivity, with 2.4/5Ghz Wi-Fi (the latter of which can power faster file transfers to Nikon’s app), and Bluetooth 5.0.

The camera’s single UHS-II card slot is located on the side of the grip, where it’s easy to get at even if you have your camera mounted on a tripod.

Battery

Richard Butler / Mitchell Clark

Like the standard Z5II, the Z5IIC uses Nikon’s standard 16Wh EN-EL15c battery, and is rated to get 350 shots out of a charge, extendable to 390 shots if you enable the power saving mode. The CIPA ratings under-represent the number of shots you’re likely to get under shooting conditions outside the lab, but work as a useful point of comparison amongst cameras. We’d expect a camera with this rating to be good for a solid day of shooting, or a light weekend, but would recommend bringing a spare or USB-C power bank for the most intensive shooting sessions. So far, Nikon hasn’t made any mention of producing a battery grip for it, nor are any of its existing models listed as compatible.

Autofocus

The Z5IIC adopts the same autofocus system that Nikon uses across its mirrorless lineup, from the Z50II all the way up to the Z9 (though we’ve found it performs a touch better in cameras with faster sensors). This means you have a range of AF modes to choose from, including a single point mode that focuses exactly where you tell it, larger points that can also take the area surrounding them into account, and zones that let you specify an area to focus on objects within. There are three fixed-size zones, and three custom-size ones, though the camera lets you remove focus point types that you don’t use from the menu so you have a shorter list to scroll through.

In addition to these modes, there’s also a wide area mode, where the camera decides what to focus on, as well as an even more automatic AF-A mode where the camera tries to determine whether the subject is moving or static and switch between single and continuous focus acquisition (though we’ve found that, in modern cameras, the latter is reliable enough that this mode isn’t particularly useful). There’s also a 3D Tracking mode, which gives you a small box that will attempt to stick to whatever you place it over, even as it or the camera moves. This is slightly distinct from what you’ll find on Sony or Canon cameras, which offer tracking across their focus point types.

The 3D Tracking, zone and wide-area AF modes, can be used in conjunction with the camera’s machine-learning derived subject recognition system, which can track 10 different kinds of subject (though they’re categorized into six categories, making the list less overwhelming list to scroll through). There’s also an auto subject recognition mode, which will look for any of the kinds of subjects that the camera can recognize in the scene, though there’s no option to narrow that mode down to just the kinds of subjects you expect to be shooting, like you can with some other brands’ systems.

By default, the camera uses Touch Shutter, which means that if you tap on the screen to select a focus point, the camera will take a photo after acquiring focus. This can be turned off via an on-screen button (which is easy to inadvertently reset into Touch Shutter mode, but can thankfully be completely removed), but means that the camera may not work exactly as most users expect the first time they turn it on.

Video

We shot our first look video almost entirely with the Z5IIC.

Apologies if you’re tired of hearing this, but the Z5IIC’s video capabilities are again the same as you’d find on the Z5II. The top-level summary means that it ends up being very competent at videography, with 10-bit recording that uses the full width of the sensor up to 4K/30p, and a 1.5x crop to achieve 4K/60p that can be used for getting an unpleasantly soap-opera-like look or for slowing as slow-motion footage.

While those specs aren’t groundbreaking, Nikon has built a pretty extensive set of workflow tools around the camera’s core recording modes. It has a waveform monitor for more accurately judging exposure – especially handy if you’re recording in N-Log – HLG recording for HDR playback, a tally light to make it obvious when you’re recording and the ability to use its autofocus subject detection modes in video. It even supports recording in N-Raw, though it’s hard to imagine most of the Z5IIC’s target audience ever having a use for it or the SD card slot really enjoying the experience.

In use

Richard Butler / Mitchell Clark

Given the Z5IIC’s name and appearance, I was surprised by its heft when I picked it up. At 620g it’s almost 100g heavier than the EOS R8 II that I’d been testing immediately before, and that camera has an EVF. The Canon’s minuscule battery is probably a large part of that difference, but Sony’s a7C II is similarly lighter, despite its full-size battery and viewfinder. This isn’t to say that the Z5IIC is heavy by any means, and it feels quite solidly built, but it’s worth noting if you’re interested in it as an ultra-portable everyday carry camera.

Of course, any full-frame’s claims of being light and small will be challenged when you put a lens on it. Nikon’s sub-$1000 S-series primes are quite nice to use, unlike those of some particular competitors, and it does have a fair number of relatively reasonably-sized zooms. However, the latter often have maximum aperture numbers that you’d struggle to be excited by. And if you want a lens that will let you easily fit the Z5IIC in a purse or small-to-medium sling bag, your options quickly dwindle.

Mitchell Clark

While there are benefits to Nikon’s menu system, which has a dedicated set of pages for core photo and video settings, then banks of Custom Settings covering different aspects of shooting, it can take a while to get used to or remember where particular options live. This is exacerbated by the fact that those menus range from settings 95% of users will never need to relatively vital functions; an issue that’s particularly acute in video.

Mitchell Clark

It essentially feels like Nikon has used Custom Settings as a dumping ground for every new thing it comes up with, and I worry that newcomers that pick this camera up as an inexpensive option might be overwhelmed by just how extensive the menus and submenus are (though this is broadly true for most cameras on the market these days). The upside is that, if they take the time to learn them – something made easier by the color coding and initial letters for the sections – the Z5IIC offers a lot of room to grow, with features like pre-capture (unfortunately still JPEG-only), customizable burst rates and a highly customizable “i ” menu that you can use to quickly access your most-used settings while remaining on the shooting screen.

Initial impressions

Richard Butler / Mitchell Clark

It’s easy to look at the Z5IIC and think that it asks you to give up quite a bit for what wind up being minor reductions in size and weight. This would, however, be missing half the point; removing things like an EVF and second card slot also help Nikon hit an aggressive price point that makes the Z5IIC one of the cheapest full-frame mirrorless cameras ever launched.

For that price, you get a lot of camera. Top-tier autofocus, very good image quality, IBIS, fast burst rates, a full mechanical shutter, competent video, I could go on. When the Z5II launched for $1700, I found it hard to believe how much it offered for the money. Now, you can get a whole lot of what made it so good for a lot less. And if you don’t like those trade-offs? Great news! Nikon still makes the Z5II.

Mitchell Clark

The one thing that dampens my excitement is lens selection. Yes, Nikon appears to have been unsuccessful in preventing unlicensed third parties from building lenses for Z-mount, and as a result there are a fair number of lenses on the market that are small and nice to use. That makes the Z5IIC more appealing than if you were stuck with the options Nikon itself has made, or that have its blessing. But because that clearly happened against the company’s will, there is always a risk that future software updates could reduce compatibility with those lenses in some way*.

Still, if you’re happy with the lineup of lenses Nikon and Tamron provide, or are willing to use unlicensed third-party options, the Z5IIC is an exciting option to have on the market. Full-frame cameras aren’t liable to ever be the best option if you’re looking for something truly small and portable, but Nikon has undoubtedly packed a lot into a camera that’s small for what it is. While I still personally believe that first-time camera buyers and anyone seriously focused on portability should give more credence to crop-sensor options, its undeniable that there are people who just want a full-frame camera that’s as cheap (and small) as possible. The Z5IIC manages to fill that role in Nikon’s lineup without giving up too much… unless you absolutely need an EVF.

*And Nikon has, lately, been quite good about providing meaningful software updates that you’ll want to be able to install. Though our advice remains that you should never buy a product on any assumption of what it might do in the future.

Sample gallery

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

Note: unlike all other manufacturers, Nikon does not allow full-resolution samples from its pre-production cameras. The samples provided below are slightly cropped, though not resized, out-of-camera JPEGs to comply with this rule. Our final review will include full-size JPEGs and Raws.

Nikon Z5IIC specifications

Adobe has announced that its acquisition of AI company Topaz Labs has been completed, with it and its products have joined Adobe’s ranks.

Topaz Labs is best known for tools like Topaz Photo, Topaz Video and Topaz Gigapixel, which use a variety of proprietary AI models to do various tasks, like denoising or upscaling photos and video, sharpening pictures or applying a slow-motion effect to standard footage. Adobe announced its intentions to acquire the company earlier this summer, but said it was contingent on regulatory approval, which it has clearly received.

As part of the announcement, Adobe has clearly reiterated its intentions for Topaz’s existing products, at least in the near term: Adobe says the branding, apps and models will continue to be available as standalone products, suggesting you won’t need to also be a Creative Cloud subscriber to access them.

If you do have a Creative Cloud subscription, Adobe says it plans on “integrating Topaz Labs’s tools and models into everyday Creative Cloud workflows,” as well as optimizing the performance of its AI models. Some Topaz Labs models have already been available in tools like Photoshop, but it sounds like that could expand into the company’s video tools as well.

Earlier this month, DJI announced the Osmo 360 II, a second-generation version of its camera designed to capture everything around it. This week, the company held an event to show it off, where we’ve been able to get hands-on access to it.

It’s a relatively minor upgrade from its predecessor, with one of the most major updates being its user-replaceable lenses for greatly improved repairability. It can capture 360 video at up to 8K/60, and features a pair of square Type 1/1.1 (92mm²) sensors that, when stitched together, add up to roughly the same area as a 4:3 Type-1 (128mm²) sensor. Of course, unless you’re mainly shooting for the few people who still watch immersive video in a headset, you won’t be using that whole area (or even the majority of it) in most of its modes.

You can check out our unboxing video of it below, but while we have it, we want to know: are there any questions you have about it and how it works? If so, leave them in the comments and we’ll try to answer them.

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Last week, Panasonic announced the Lumix S 20mm F2.5, a small, full-frame prime for L-mount. We’ve had the chance to take it out for a few shoots to produce a sample gallery and to see how it performs in various conditions.

Hands-on impressions

Mitchell Clark

The Lumix S 20mm F2.5 feels relatively well-constructed, with pleasing tactile controls. Of course, its main focus is being compact and lightweight, a task which it gets full marks for. It only adds a bit of depth compared to my camera’s grip, and I found it very easy to slip into a bag to bring along for everyday outings.

Vingetting is well-controlled; there’s a bit at F2.5 through to F4, but it’s not enough to be distracting. It’s around what we’d expect given that this lens is focused on being small and lightweight, while not being super fast. I did, however, typically have to stop down a bit further to get super-sharp edges and corners, as they’re a bit soft below around F5.6.

To achieve this size, Panasonic – like essentially all other companies making lenses for modern mirrorless systems – has made use of software geometric correction. Without it, there’s substantial pincushion distortion, and, occasionally, darkness in the corners.

The lens is susceptible to some flare under very harsh conditions. On one of the afternoons I was shooting with it, I found a few of my photos had some large purple flares when I was shooting in the general direction of the afternoon sun. In the shots where I was deliberately trying to produce sunstars, I also got a lot of ghosting. This wasn’t too much of an issue in my testing, but if you frequently find yourself shooting in the brightest of light, you may want to consider picking up a lens hood, as it doesn’t come with one.

Mitchell Clark

The lens otherwise behaved quite well in the sun; in shots where it was fully within the frame, it did a very good job of retaining contrast.

Using the lens with the S1RII and original S1R, I never felt like its motors were the bottleneck for autofocus performance. It was very responsive, and could snap from its closest focusing distance – a respectable 0.18m (7.1″) – to objects far away very quickly. I’ve also tested a lot of pancake lenses with unit focus systems, and it was a nice change of pace to use one that focuses internally instead.

Overall, I felt this lens is a nice addition to Panasonic’s lineup, especially for ultrawide shooters. While there are a few technical drawbacks with a lens this small, I was overall quite pleased with the images I got out of it. If you’re the type of person who prefers this field of view for everyday shooting, or a videographer who wants to be able to film themselves, it’s an easy option to carry around, as long as you pair it with the right body.

Sample gallery

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

Thanks to Panasonic for the loan of an S1RII to shoot this gallery. All images were processed using our standard lens workflow in Capture One, with the manufacturer’s distortion correction applied but no correction of vignetting. The profile corrects a large amount of barrel distortion, and we’d consider it an essential part of the lens’s optical design.

Panasonic

Panasonic Lumix S 20mm F2.5

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It’s been another big week for camera news, so the DPReview editors have once again gathered to discuss the latest releases from Canon, Sony and Panasonic. As usual, we’ve also worked to incorporate some of the comments from our forum users, commenters and others into the conversation, talking about some of the reactions we’ve seen.

If you prefer to read, no worries; we’ve covered all the products we discussed in-depth in articles, which are linked below. And, as always, you can often find us in the comments below, carrying on the discussion.

• Canon EOS R8 II initial review
• Canon EOS R8 II sample gallery
• Sony FE 400mm F4.5 GM OSS and 600mm F6.3 GM OSS announcement
• Sony lenses hands-on
• Sony 400mm sample gallery
• Sony 600mm sample gallery and impressions
• Panasonic S 20mm F2.5 announcement

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It seems like the camera industry wasn’t content with just one busy week. We’ve seen another rush of announcements in the past few days, and we wouldn’t blame you if you missed a few things among all the articles we’ve put out. So let’s recap everything that happened this week.

The Instax Pal gets an unexpected follow-up

Fujifilm

The Instax Pal was always a bit of an odd duck: a gumdrop-shaped camera that only shot digital, despite bearing the name of Fujifilm’s instant film brand. This week, though, the company released a successor with a completely different design, recalling the tiny 110 film cameras of old. (Strangely, not the only one of its kind released this week: Camp Snap announced something similar.) Alongside it, Fujifilm launched an updated version of its Instax Link Wide printer.

Fujifilm

Fujifilm Instax Pal 2

• $170 at B&H

The Canon EOS R8 II

Mitchell Clark

Canon has updated its entry-level full-frame camera, fixing two of our major complaints about the original in the process with the inclusion of IBIS and an autofocus joystick. While we still have our complaints – the tiny LP-E17 battery has been untouched, and the RF mount remains strictly under Canon’s control – we were left with a very positive first impression. Check out our full initial review for all the details.

Canon

Canon EOS R8 Mark II

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Sony’s twin telephoto lenses that won’t break the bank (or your back)

Dale Baskin

The super telephoto game has never been cheap to get into and, make no mistake, it still isn’t. But Sony’s new 400mm F4.5 and 600mm F6.3 GM are steps towards making it a bit more accessible, coming in at $2700 and $3700, respectively (both just under $10,000 less than their faster counterparts). The lenses are shockingly similar, coming within a gram of each other, and their optical formulas have a lot of shared glass.

Sony

Sony FE 400mm F4.5 GM OSS

• $2,698 at B&H

Sony

Sony FE 600mm F6.3 GM OSS

• $3,698 at B&H

Panasonic’s full-frame 20mm F2.5 cupcake lens

Mitchell Clark

Not one to miss out on the action, Panasonic also announced a new lens: a 20mm F2.5 option for L-mount that’s not quite as small as a pancake lens, but is around the same size as the 40mm F2 option it released earlier this year. Panasonic once described this style of lens as a “muffin” (read: a baked good thicker than a pancake), but reader nologo suggested that calling it a cupcake would be a more fun descriptor (and, potentially, a less internationally confusing one), which I wholeheartedly agree with.

Keep an eye out for a sample gallery from this lens, coming soon.

Panasonic

Panasonic Lumix S 20mm F2.5

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Software news

Capture One, Adobe Photoshop Elements and Affinity Photo all received updates this week, with the former improving tethering and AI-assisted culling and the latter promising its biggest update for photography ever. Canon also launched a piece of software that lets you use pictures from some of its cameras to create 3D models of the real-life object you photographed.

Those were all the major launches this week, but I’ll leave you with a pro tip: if you want to make absolutely sure you won’t miss our best stories, and want to see exclusive content from us, be sure to subscribe to our Today in Photography newsletter.

Earlier this week, Canon launched the EOS R8 II, a new, entry-level full-frame camera that takes the original EOS R8, gives it a redesign and adds IBIS and an autofocus joystick. And, like the original, it’s quite capable for video too, so we filmed part of our first-look video using it.

Keeping focus on a (relatively) still subject isn’t a particularly difficult task for modern cameras, but even Canon cameras as recent as the EOS R6 II would occasionally have some distracting focus pulsing in video. We’re happy to say it’s not something we noticed in the footage from the EOS R8 II, though we’ll have to spend more time shooting with it before we come to any full conclusions.

You’ll also see a variety of sample shots in the video, though if you want to see more – and check out the Raws for yourself – you can browse through our sample gallery.

Oh, and a fun behind-the-scenes fact for our readers: the plane picture at the 3:36 mark in the video was taken with Canon’s RF 400mm F2.8 lens, a massive piece of glass that costs as much as seven EOS R8 IIs.

It’s obviously not a sensible pairing with this camera, but I ended up having access to it for a few hours after attending a Formula Drift with Canon to test out the EOS R1, so I took the opportunity to make a silly video with it because who else would have that kind of opportunity?

Panasonic has announced a slate of firmware updates for several of its cameras, meant to bring improvements to the company’s small, full-frame, creator-focused camera, the S9, as well as the more pro- and enthusiast-oriented S1II-series. It’s also updating its Lumix Lab and Lumix Flow apps.

Updates for the S1II, S1RII and S1IIE

The changelog for the S1II-series of cameras is short, sweet and significant. It reads:

• Improved shutter release time lag and burst shooting performance when using an external flash.
• Improved operational stability.

The last note means what it usually does. The company has fixed bugs and made things work that bit better.

However, we’ve been told, and have experienced ourselves, that the S1II-series of cameras could be laggy when paired with a flash being controlled via TTL. The performance was, frankly, not really acceptable for professional-level cameras, and Panasonic says it heard complaints from wedding photographers in particular. This update should help avoid that, making sure the camera takes a flash photo right when you press the shutter, instead of having to take a bit to think about it.

This update will be coming to all of the S1II-series cameras, including the S1IIN, a variant of the S1II for Chinese and Korean broadcasters with special networking capabilities.

Updates for the S9

Which update for the S9 is more important will depend on who you ask, and whether they’re a videographer. If they are, they’ll likely be quite excited about Panasonic adding new formats of its MP4 (Lite) codec, which is designed to use a lower bitrate, making it faster to wirelessly transfer to a phone and post to the internet.

When the S9 launched, it marked the debut of MP4 (Lite), which was only available in a single resolution – 3.8K open gate – and two framerates, 25 and 30p. While you can crop the 3:2 footage to get an output aspect ratio, that requires an extra step. Now, the camera is gaining some additional modes that won’t require it: UHD 4K/60p, 1080/60p and 1080/120p. These modes were introduced with the Panasonic L10, and it’s nice to see them showing up here for people who want even less work to get their footage ready to post, though I do still wish there was a UHD 4K/30p option, too.

Panasonic

The camera is also gaining full support for the Lumix Flow app, a video-focused program that, among many other things, lets you use your smartphone as a monitor, either via Wi-Fi or USB-C. While that’s handy no matter what camera you have, it’s especially useful for the S9, which is otherwise limited to using Micro-HDMI to output video. Panasonic says many users were “begging” for the camera to work with Flow, which also lets you create storyboards and shotlists, and add metadata to your recorded clips that make it easier to sort through the good and bad takes in post.

Flow will be getting an update to support the S9, which also comes with a few tweaks to how it displays camera information while monitoring and expanded support for using it with your phone horizontally.

Finally, in a move that will please both videographers and photographers, the camera will now let you assign substantially more functions to a lens’s programable button (a feature likely brought on by the company’s release of a second small prime with one that seems like a perfect match for the camera).

Lumix Lab updates

If the firmware updates weren’t enough, the company is also updating its Lumix Lab app, which lets you download images from your camera, as well as manage its libraries of LUT (Look Up Table) color profiles. On top of some UI tweaks and improving the app’s compatibility with Android phones that have “non-standard” processors (read: chips from companies other than Qualcomm, such as Samsung’s own-brand Exynos models), Panasonic is trying to make the app friendlier to those trying to find and download new LUTs from its repository of creator-submitted options.

Lumix Lab will now let you download packs of LUTs as well, so you don’t have to individually pick and choose several separate ones to build a set of aesthetics. It also now lets you filter which LUTs show up based on a series of options, such as what kind of scene or subject you’re shooting, and what kind of colors you want. The company has also added an option to share a link to a LUT’s page in the Lumix Lab app.

Availability

The new firmware for the S1II, S1IIE, S1RII and S9 will be made available for free starting October 13, with the updated versions of Lumix Lab and Lumix Flow launching at the same time.

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Panasonic has announced the Lumix S 20mm F2.5, a small, wide-angle prime designed to complement the 40mm F2 it released earlier this year, while offering a much wider angle that’s ideal for things like landscapes, close-up shots that still give a sense of the environment and, of course, video.

The lens has very similar dimensions to those of the 40mm F2, and the S9’s 18-40mm F4.5-6.3 kit zoom when it’s retracted. It’s the lightest of the bunch by a fraction, coming in at 142g (5oz), and has the same 62mm thread for filters. Panasonic also says it’s splash, dust and freeze resistant; that won’t be a huge deal for S9 owners, since that body isn’t, but for S5 or S1-series users it’s a nice addition.

Optically, the lens is made up of 11 elements in 9 groups, with three aspherical lenses and three ED elements. Its minimum focus distance is 0.18m (7.1″), which lets you get quite close to your subject for a dramatic look that seems to be quite popular these days.

Panasonic says the lens should be relatively sharp edge-to-edge with clean bokeh. We’re working on shooting a sample gallery with it so you can judge for yourself.

In terms of controls, it has what we’ve come to expect from Panasonic: a customizable ring that you can assign different functions based on whether you’re in auto or manual focus mode (a setting controllable with a switch on the lens’s barrel). This lets you use it for things like aperture, shutter speed, exposure compensation, Panasonic’s Crop Zoom feature and more when you don’t need it for focusing. There’s also a small, customizable function button.

It’s nice to see Panasonic continue to fill out its line of relatively affordable, small lenses for L-mount. While there are plenty of options available, it doesn’t hurt to have more options, especially ones this light and compact.

The Lumix S 20mm F2.5 will retail for $499, $100 more than the 40mm, and will start shipping in October.

Panasonic

Panasonic Lumix S 20mm F2.5

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Panasonic Lumix S 20mm F2.5 specifications

Ricoh has released its 30th anniversary Ricoh GR IV kit, which includes the camera and a host of extras. The kit was originally announced earlier this summer, and will be shipping on October 21st (which is, from what I can tell, the actual anniversary of the original GR1’s release).

The company is only selling 6000 of the kits, so they’re relatively exclusive. Here’s what they’ll include, according to the company’s website:

• A GR IV with its shutter and rear buttons “finished in a special color inspired by the plated finish used on the first-generation GR1”
  • The camera also has “A special power-off graphic” to commemorate the anniversary
• “A ring cap ‘GN-3 (30th)’ with a diamond-cut design inspired by the design of the GR1 lens area”
• A leather finger strap engraved with “30th Anniversary”
• A steel-gray metal hot shoe cover with the 30th anniversary logo on the front, and “Ricoh GR” on the back
• 16 pins, 14 of which depict past GR models, one of which is the 30th anniversary logo, and the other a GR logo

The latter two pins are exclusive to those who purchase the kit. The rest will be sold individually as accessories, or as a bundle, along with the finger strap and hot shoe cover. (There’s even a version of the latter being made for the GR III series, too.)

The cost for all that? $1800, a $200 premium over the standard GR IV. The official Ricoh site currently has a “keep me informed” button rather than a “buy” one, but some retailers like B&H have opened up preorders.

Will you be lining up for the GR IV anniversary kit, or are you more excited about the GR IVx variant also due out later this year? Let us know in the comments.

The Canon EOS R8 II is an entry-level full-frame mirrorless camera with a 24.2MP CMOS sensor. However, it’s gained in-body image stabilization and a joystick, addressing two of the biggest shortcomings of the original EOS R8.

Key specifications

• 24.2MP FSI CMOS sensor
• IBIS up to 7.5EV center/7EV periphery w/ lens coordination
• Up to 40fps bursts with e-shutter / 6fps mech.
• 1/2 second pre-capture at 40fps
• Full-width 4K video from 6K capture at up to 60p
• 2.36M dot OLED viewfinder (0.7x magnification)
• Optional accessories including grip extention and XLR-adapter

The EOS R8 II is launching at $1900, around $400 more than the original EOS R8 launched for, which Canon says is staying in its lineup. It’s worth noting that inflation since the original R8’s launch could be expected to push its price up by around $150 if it were launched today (and indeed the MSRP appears to have been adjusted up to that at time of writing), and that the EOS R8 II appears to be a slightly better specced, higher-positioned model, to the extent that we might even believe the claim that the two will be sold alongside one another.

Ultimately, it’s also the least expensive full-frame mirrorless camera Canon’s released with image stabilization by a wide margin, even before you take inflation into account. It’s also the company’s lightest camera in that category.

Index

• What’s new
• How it compares
• Body and handling
• Autofocus
• Video
• In use
• Initial impressions
• Sample gallery
• Specifications
• Press release

Product photos: Mitchell Clark

What’s new

Image stabilization

The EOS R8 II has essentially the same sensor from its predecessor (itself adopted from the higher-end EOS R6 II), but it’s now stabilized with Canon promising up to 7.5EV of correction in the center with 7EV in the periphery. While those ratings are often optimistic, this should make it a bit easier to get sharper shots in low-light situations, assuming your subject isn’t moving. The EOS R8’s lack of IBIS was something we noted as a compromise in our review of it, so it’s nice to see it included here.

A new look

Mitchell Clark

Canon briefed that the EOS R8 II takes design cues from the T80 SLR of the 1980s, though its press materials show it alongside the later EOS 650, with which there’s a more obvious family connection (either way it’ll be entertaining if this distinctly subtle homage turned out to be the source of the many rumors of a ‘retro’ Canon body). To our eyes it looks as much like the original Sony a7 as anything in Canon’s own back catalog. Only nicer.

We think it’s a pretty sharp and attractive camera, especially with its EOS R3 / R1 (/Fujifilm GFX 100 II) style grip material and its low-profile viewfinder hump. The black-on black design with small, well-spaced buttons is something of a departure for Canon, but we rather like the miniaturized minimalism of it all.

Updated autofocus and burst improvements

Canon says it’s updated the EOS R8 II’s underlying autofocus algorithms, making them stickier than the ones in the original. It still has person, vehicle and animal recognition, as well as an auto mode, but gains the company’s Register People Priority mode, which lets you train it to recognize specific people and focus on their face above other ones it recognizes in the scene.

While the camera can’t shoot any faster than its predecessor, still capping out at 40fps in e-shutter mode, it can go for substantially longer with its buffer lasting 30% longer when shooting Raw and 58% longer in JPEG. In our tests, this equated to around 78 shots in Raw+JPEG, and 175 shots in JPEG-only, making the burst mode much more usable. The camera also dispenses with Canon’s Raw Burst mode, which produced a non-standard combined file from which you had to select your frames, and that was required for pre-release capture. Pre-capture is now just an item in the menu you can enable.

A host of new video features

While the EOS R8 II has the same top-line video capabilities as its predecessor – it can shoot oversampled 4K at up to 60p with no crop – Canon has added several improvements to make it easier to use. These are features aimed both at beginners, such as the slow-and-quick mode that lets you get slowed-down or sped-up footage at your preferred framerate straight-out-of camera, and video scene modes, as well as more advanced features from cameras like the EOS R6 V, such as fine-grained control over the camera’s auto white balance system, as well as white balance presets that can be assigned to buttons.

Mitchell Clark

The camera also introduces a new video feature, which lets you press a button to defocus the lens at a predetermined speed, racking to the lens’ closest focusing distance to produce an effect where your subject is slowly (or quickly) pulled out of focus, something that can be difficult to do by hand, especially with stills lenses. The lens will then stay focused to that distance unless you press the AF-On button, which will resume autofocusing. While it’s not quite as advanced as the focus pulling tools that companies like Panasonic build into their cameras, it’s a nice option to add a bit of production value to a video.

How it compares

The market for entry-level full frame cameras is a competitive one, with several capable options. The one most similar to the EOS R8 II is Nikon’s Z5II as it was also designed from the ground up to be a budget option. Both Sony and Panasonic address this part of the market with older models, rather than something directly tailored to it.

In fact Sony now has two older a7 models that sit above and below the price of the R8 Mark II: the 2018-vintage a7 III and the more modern, higher resolution a7 IV. We’re going to include the newer camera here, as its autofocus will be more competitive.

It’s heartening to see just how capable these cameras are, even if their price tags have crept up. The EOS R8 II’s specs are now much more closely matched to those of the Z5II, but its battery life in particular looks underwhelming, especially compared with the big block used by the Sony. The Canon’s video specs are pretty strong and this table can’t capture the likeability of the ergonomics and interface, but its higher price puts it up against some fierce competition.

Body and handling

Despite the significant visual changes, the EOS R8 II’s design is functionally quite similar to that of its predecessor. It winds up being a little heavier and larger, but still feels light and relatively small in the hand (depending, of course, on what lens you have attached). People with larger hands may find their pinkies dangling off the bottom of the camera – Mitchell certainly did – but, as with the RP and R8, Canon will sell a $90 extension grip to solve this issue.

While the design feels like a call-back to the Sony a7, we found the geometric pattern on the rubberized grip reminding us of the very special Bishamon-Tex material Fujifilm uses on some of its GFX cameras.

Controls

Mitchell Clark

The EOS R8 II has a recognizably plastic construction and feels relatively light, rather than hefty, in the hand. The rubberized grip and thumb rest means it sits quite comfortably in the hand and, while it doesn’t feel overtly rugged, it doesn’t give the sense of being flimsy, either. There’s no flex or rattle and it feels like it strikes a good balance between weight and solidity.

The headline feature of the EOS R8 II is that it now includes an autofocus joystick on the back, which its predecessor lacks. This means you’re no longer limited to using the touchscreen or four-way controller to place your autofocus point, which is, to us, a substantial upgrade to usability.

Beyond the joystick, the camera has Canon’s standard set of controls: there’s a mode dial, dual customizable top-plate control dials (the camera’s only dials, as there’s not one on the rear plate), several customizable buttons on the back, including one that defaults to AF On, a video record button (though you can set the camera to start recording with the shutter button in video mode), and an M-Fn button. By default, the latter lets you access a customizable menu that lets you adjust several parameters using the control dials, including ISO, drive mode, AF mode, white balance, flash exposure compensation, and more.

Mitchell Clark

All these controls are largely clustered on the right side of the camera, with the left side only having the menu button. This makes it relatively easy to operate with one hand, though we did find the occasional feature that would require you to confirm something with the far-away menu button.

While you can typically operate the camera without diving into the menus, they’re also relatively easily accessible. The EOS R8 II has the customizable “Q” menu – by default, accessed using a button in the center of the four-way controller – which gives you quick access to your most-used settings. The camera’s color-coded full menus will be familiar to anyone who’s used a Canon before, and are fully navigable using touch, the control dials, the four-way controller, or any combination thereof.

The camera no longer has a dedicated switch for going between stills and video mode, separate from the power switch. Instead, they’ve been merged into a three-way switch that moves the camera from being off, to stills, to video. In our experience, it’s very easy to accidentally overshoot stills and wind up in video mode when attempting to turn the camera on, especially if you’re in a hurry.

EVF and display

Mitchell Clark

The EOS R8 II has the same 2.36M dot viewfinder as the R8: the same OLED panel used an all cameras that are prioritizing compactness as part of their design. The optics in front of the panel deliver the same 0.7x magnification. Given Canon’s professional DSLR’s viewfinders tended to top-out at 0.76x magnification, this isn’t bad going, and the viewfinder is generally pretty nice to use.

The camera is sensible enough to disable the eye sensor when you flip the rear screen out, so you shouldn’t have problems with the rear screen blacking out if something gets too close to the viewfinder.

Ports

Mitchell Clark

The EOS R8 II has largely the same collection of ports as its predecessor, though there wasn’t much room for improvement. It has headphone and mic sockets for video, microHDMI and USB-C for charging and data transfer (at up to 10Gbps speed).

The camera’s single UHS-II SD card slot has also been relocated from inside the battery compartment to the side of the grip, making it easier to access if the camera is on a tripod.

Battery

Mitchell Clark

The EOS R8’s battery life was the one other area we, and many other reviewers, found lacking. Unfortunately, it’s the one thing Canon hasn’t touched, as the EOS R8 II uses the same 7.5Wh LP-E17 model, and is rated to get 270 shots per charge when using the rear screen and a pretty miserable 150 shots per charge with the viewfinder. These improve to 340 and 220 shots per charge, respectively, in power saving mode, but they’re still pretty low.

CIPA numbers always under-represent how many shots you’re likely to get in real-world usage, with getting double the number being pretty common. Still, those viewfinder figures are likely to mean carrying a second battery or some kind of power bank will be necessary. The use of a small battery was something we criticised on the original R8, and the addition of in-body stabilization only exacerbates the problem.

Autofocus

The EOS R8 II has the latest version of Canon’s standard AF system, shared across the majority of its cameras. This offers eight AF point sizes, ranging from the very small “Spot AF” up to “Whole area AF,” where the camera selects a subject based on how near to the center and how near to the camera it is. In between these extremes are three flexible AF zones, which are rectangles whose height and width can be adjusted.

Each of these AF areas can be made to track whatever is under them, by pressing the “Info” button when you’re selecting an AF area. It’s worth noting that the display tells you the current setting, not the setting you’ll access by pressing the Info button.

On top of this you have the subject recognition modes: Human, Animals or Vehicles, with an Auto mode that will try to identify any of the subject types it’s been trained to recognize. You can restrict which of these options appears in the menu but, presumably because there are only three subject types, there’s no option to narrow the ‘Auto’ mode down to just selecting the subjects you expect to encounter.

Beyond this, there’s a menu option for telling the camera how it should expect subjects to respond (ie: whether it should refocus on or ignore another subject appearing in front of its current target). This is a simplified version of the system from Canon’s pro sports cameras and lets you easily fine-tune the AF response if its default behavior doesn’t suit your subject.

Richard Butler

The net result is an easy-to-use and pretty effective AF system that can be adjusted if it’s not giving the results you want. Most of the time we found you could select an AF point size, engage tracking and leave subject recognition turned on. The camera will focus wherever your AF point is, track whatever was under that point and use subject recognition to be more specific, when appropriate, but without getting distracted by 

One of the few things we encountered that gave us any real concern was that the tracking system (not the subject recognition system) will try to decide what object it thinks you’re trying to capture, and will draw a large box around it, overriding your chosen AF point size and meaning you can’t be specific about the exact point you want it to focus on. It’s worth being aware of this in situations where you want to pinpoint something very specific (one part of a flower, for instance).

For most of our use, in both stills and video, we found the EOS R8 II to be a very effective performer that is quick and easy to use. However, it’s worth noting that some of the less expensive lenses with STM motors can be a little slower and more clunky to focus. 

Video

Mitchell Clark

The EOS R8 II’s base video capabilities remain largely unchanged from its predecessor. It can record full-width 4K video at up to 60p, derived from 6K capture, and includes 10-bit, Log and HDR recording options. It gains “slow-and-fast” modes that will give you slowed-down or sped-up footage straight of of camera, rather than requiring you to adjust a clip’s playback speed to match your playback framerate in post.

It also features headphone and microphone jacks – though their placement means they can occasionally interfere with the screen’s articulation – and a multi-interface hotshoe which you can use to connect Tascam’s 4-channel recorder.

Canon has equipped the camera with a wide array of features, both for those who have never shot video before and more experienced users. For the former, there’s the auto mode that lets you control how blurry the background is (basically letting you adjust aperture without having to know that’s what you’re doing) and scene modes that automatically configure your settings to apply skin smoothing or override the camera’s face detection when you’re holding something up to the lens. (Thankfully, experienced videographers can also enable those settings in the standard video modes while retaining control over exposure, audio levels and more).

The EOS R8 II thankfully also gets Canon’s latest white balance system. Alongside inheriting the fine-grained controls from the EOS R6 V, it lets you set a custom WB without having to take a picture and go into a separate menu.

In our limited use, the autofocus system was reliable, and supports the same subject recognition modes that the camera’s stills mode does. And, as is typical for Canon, you can separate your photo and video settings quite well, even if it is a bit too easy to switch between them now that they’re assigned to the same three-position switch.

Like its predecessor, the EOS R8 II’s rolling shutter is very well-controlled across its modes, meaning you won’t have to worry about skewed lines in all but the fastest camera moves.

In use

The EOS R8 II is a camera that, for the most part, won’t present you with a lot of unpleasant surprises or asterisks. As you’d hope for a camera aimed primarily at new photographers and advanced beginners, it does its job largely without a fuss, without too much friction between you can getting the photo you want. It’s a camera designed with its audience in mind, rather than a more advanced one old enough to be sold at a more accessible price point.

With that said, it’s not like Canon has built the entire UI or menu system from the ground up, so, as with pretty much any camera, there are a few behaviors that may be a bit confusing to both newcomers and more seasoned shooters. Thankfully, the auto mode allows you to shoot in Raw… that is, unless you switch into the “Advanced” mode, which can composite multiple shots together in situations where a subject is backlit, or there’s high contrast.

Richard Butler

Outside of that mode, we appreciate Canon’s inclusion of in-camera Raw reprocessing (something that Sony omits in all of its models). However, the fact that there are actually two – a standard mode and one called “Creative Assist” – risks being a touch confusing, though you are able to choose a default.

Both are strangely disconnected from the color filter system. If you want to see what the photo you just took looks like in the camera’s new Positive Filmtone color mode, that’s too bad. Turn off Raw, go back to the part of color section of the menu, switch to the Color Filter mode, and take it again. (The camera doesn’t automatically disable Raw or offer to do it for you when you try to access one of the modes that doesn’t support it, you have to do it manually.)

Richard Butler

Canon has thankfully solved the incorrect “Enable” labeling for its AF tracking feature, but you can still find odd little things like that if you hunt for them. For example, it’s still a bit ambiguous as to whether you’re pressing the Info button to “Enable” part detection for car subject recognition, or if you’re turning it off. Still, the EOS R8 II’s menus are far from the most lost in translation that we’ve seen.

They can mostly be navigated using the dials, four-way controller, or touchscreen, though you’ll still occasionally find an area or two that only work with one or two of those options. The video selection menu is one such example, where you have to use the dials or screen to switch between the resolution, frame rate and codec sections. The latter also only has one option, making us wonder why it’s even there. Also, Canon occasionally insists on making you confirm an action by pressing the “Menu” button, turning what could’ve been a one-handed operation into a two-handed one.

We appreciate just how many options you have to customize the controls at your fingertips, using the M-Fn menu, Q menu and buttons. The layout is sensible for beginners – though it might take a second to get used to the fact that you can’t adjust exposure compensation until you’ve begun metering – but once you start figuring out what you want, you can really dive deep into finding the layout that works for you.

Initial impressions

Mitchell Clark

The EOS R8 II made rather a good first impression on me: the new design is pretty sharp, in an understated kind of way, but without undermining the ergonomics that Canon has carefully refined over multiple generations of camera. Just as with the recent PEN, I’m not a fan of the combined power/stills/video switch, but the rest of the camera feels nice.

You don’t, for a moment, think you’re getting an R6 III-level workhorse, but you’re not paying R6 III money for it. I have large enough hands that I’d definitely consider adding the optional add-on grip extension plate to stop my little finger wrapping under the bottom of the body, but it’s nice to be able to keep the camera small by omitting it, and I wouldn’t consider it an essential.

Inflation means the Mark II looks like a bigger step up than perhaps Canon intended, but the addition of in-body stabilization and an AF joystick mean you get recognizably more camera for your money and one that’s nicer to use, too.

The price essentially brings into line with the list price of Nikon’s Z5II, while also bringing the feature sets much closer to parity. Canon’s features for beginners, inherited from models such as the EOS R50 are arguably a little more powerful and hence welcoming, but they don’t necessarily provide much of a pathway across to taking full control of the camera.

Overall, then, there’s much to like, with the two biggest changes expressly addressing two of the most significant omissions of the Mark 1. However, the addition of IBIS just draws attention to the only major shortcoming that hasn’t been addressed: battery life.

Mitchell Clark

Although the R8 II promises a similar battery rating to the R8 when using the rear screen, its EVF rating is a pretty dismal 150 shots per charge. And, even if you factor-in how excessively conservative the CIPA standard numbers can be, a rating well under 200 shots per charge is going to mean having to constantly stay on top of keeping the camera charged, if you try to use it for much beyond occasional snapshots. A second battery or PD-compliant power bank would be worthwhile additions to any R8 II-based kit.

The bigger concerns, though, would be lens options, beyond the kit zoom. Canon, even more effectively than Nikon, has limited the choice of third-party AF lenses for its RF mount, making it essential to check whether the lenses you want to use are available.

Richard Butler

This was made very apparent to me when I was using the R8 II. I had access to the RF 35mm F1.8 Macro: a lens whose focus motor (and lack of AF limit switch) gives an unwelcome reminder of what 1990s-style screw-drive lenses were like, in its level of vibration and graunching, every time you half-press the shutter button. Conversely, the 85mm F1.4 VCM’s focus is swift, silent and smooth. Unfortunately, so is the movement of its aperture ring, which to me detracted from the photographic experience enough for it to constantly gnaw at me that it costs as much as this camera does. In both cases the results are excellent, and yet neither are lenses I’d choose to buy, distinctly narrowing my options in two of my favoured focal lengths.

If the lenses you want are available for the R8 II (and that may include adapting old DSLR lenses), then the R8 II is an excellent body for newcomers and first-time full-frame adopters. But, to me, being limited to the lenses Canon will let you have feels especially restrictive at the price-sensitive end of the market. Which is a shame, because the camera’s really rather good.

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 EOS R8 II specifications

Affinity has announced that the latest version of its free app is its “biggest photo editing update yet,” making the included Raw editor more powerful and easy to use.

In its press release, Canva, which owns Affinity, says it added “nine new color, sharpening, and detail adjustments” to the app’s Raw development process. It’s also added a Presets system, letting you easily save the changes you’ve made to one Raw file, then apply them across others that you’re editing. You can also use presets across various types of photos, including panoramas, focus stacks and more.

Mitchell Clark

The app can also attempt to deal with tricky corrections, such as getting the white balance right in scenes that have mixed lighting and attempting to reduce motion blur.

Canva has also added a variety of other tools to Affinity’s Raw editing panel. It gains spline-based hue and saturation curves and color-based adjustments, as well as new options for its object selection tool.

Finally, Affinity now has a “Studio” – basically a pre-configured arrangement of windows and tools – for editing astrophotography. It gives you easy access to tools to separate the stars from the background or to remove the background entirely, and to stretch the photo to “reveal faint detail while preserving important highlights.”

All of this is on top of all the things Affinity already does. Around a year ago, Canva folded Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher all into one app, promising that it would be “completely free, forever.” This has, so far, remained true, though you will need a subscription to use some of the app’s AI features. And while the tool can’t replace library management tools like Capture One or Lightroom, for someone who just needs to edit the occasional Raw and doesn’t want to pay for Photoshop to do so, it’s now more capable than ever.

The changes come as part of the 3.3 update to Affinity, which is free to download from Canva. Existing users will be prompted to update the next time they open the app.

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

Meet the contenders

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

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

IBIS

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

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

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

Weather sealing

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

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

Computation

Richard Butler

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

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

Size

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

Richard Butler

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

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

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

Trade-offs go both ways

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

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