Image: Westend61 / Westend61 via Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

Click here to answer the Question of the week

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

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

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

Speed

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

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

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

Autofocus

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

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

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

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

Viewfinders

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

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

Image stabilization

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

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

Video

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

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

Battery life

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

The 'pro' differences

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

Price

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

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

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