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.
MOTHRA observing at night. Each mount is equipped with a wide area web cam. Besides the mount in the foreground two others are visible. The skies at El Sauce Observatory in Chile are among the best on Earth for astronomy. The Milky Way is clearly visible, as well as the Large Magellanic Cloud, the patch just right of center. The Large Magellanic Cloud is a neighboring galaxy of the Milky Way. Image: Dragonfly FRO
A new telescope called MOTHRA (Modular Optical Telephoto Hyperspectral Robotic Array) looks less like an observatory and more like a photography gearhead’s fever dream. The system consists of 1140 high-end Canon telephoto lenses, all aimed at the night sky. Instead of a single giant mirror, the rig stitches together the views from every lens to chase down some of the faintest structures in the universe.
This isn't the first time a collection of lenses has been used to function as a single giant telescope. The MOTHRA project stems from the Dragonfly Telephoto Array concept, first commissioned in 2013. It started with eight commercially available Canon EF 400mm F2.8L IS II USM lenses and gradually expanded to two clusters of 24 lenses each. The bug-themed names probably hint at the inspiration they drew from insect eyes, which use a bunch of what are effectively lenses to maximize light capture.
Whereas the Dragonfly array used CCD sensors, the newer project uses nearly 1200 astrophotography cameras built by Atik Cameras. It says it will use an mixture of Apx26 and Apx60 cameras, built around Sony Semiconductor IMX571 and IMX455 BSI CMOS sensors. These are versions of the 26MP APS-C and 60MP full-frame chips familiar in a range of cameras from Fujifilm, Sony, Ricoh, Sigma and Leica. Each camera is controlled by its own Raspberry Pi 4B computer, with another 90 Raspberry Pis helping to guide the array.
Rendering of the completed array. By the end of the year MOTHRA will have 1140 telephoto lenses distributed over 30 individual mounts, in two buildings. Its unique design is optimized for the study of the "cosmic web", a huge network of gas and dark matter that is thought to connect all galaxies in the universe. Rendering: Dragonfly FRO
MOTHRA takes that idea to a new extreme, and represents a "dramatic upscaling of Dragonfly." Like the Dragonfly, though, MOTHRA will use Canon EF 400mm F2.8L lenses, each fitted with ultra-narrowband filters to isolate the faint light of hydrogen gas. The central wavelength of the filters is also adjustable by tilting them, letting each pixel sample a slightly different wavelength. The lenses will be arranged in 30 mounts, which will be held in two buildings, as you can see in the rendering above.
The group says the array of 1140 telephoto lenses will be equivalent to a single 4.8-meter-F0.08 refracting telescope, making it the world’s largest all-lens telescope. The array will be powerful enough to detect ultra-faint gas between galaxies, helping scientists better understand where that gas exists and how it moves through a "web" of dark matter.
The nebula RCW 114, also known as the Dragon’s Heart Nebula, was one of the first objects that MOTHRA looked at. It is the remnant of a star that exploded as a supernova about 20,000 years ago. The MOTHRA image is in the light of ionized hydrogen and spans an area of sky that is 250 times larger than the full moon. Image: Dragonfly FRO
"MOTHRA is a telescope designed around a single idea: maximize discovery space for the dim glow of intergalactic gas," said Pieter van Dokkum, Co-Founder of Dragonfly FRO. "The combination of a huge effective aperture, wide field, and tunable ultra-narrowband filtering opens a new observational regime."
Dragonfly FRO, a research organization spun out of the original Dragonfly Telephoto Array project, is building MOTHRA at the Obstech / El Sauce Observatory in Chile. Construction started in the spring of 2025, and it's expected to be operational by the end of this year.
Dragonfly FRO Unveils MOTHRA: A New Telescope to Reveal the Hidden Universe
Construction underway of world’s largest all-lens telescope, unmatched by any existing instrument on Earth or in space
First-of-its-kind telescope funded by Alex Gerko
NEW HAVEN, CT / TORONTO, ON / NEW YORK, NY / LONDON, UK — March 11, 2026 — Dragonfly FRO, LLC, a Focused Research Organization (FRO), today announced the construction of MOTHRA, a next-generation telescope designed to reveal the cosmic web — the vast network of gas and dark matter that connects galaxies across the universe. MOTHRA employs a first-of-its-kind distributed aperture architecture with special filters to isolate the faint light of hydrogen gas. The FRO, a new type of scientific enterprise, was launched in partnership with Convergent Research and backed by Alex Gerko, the founder and CEO of XTX Markets.
Dragonfly FRO was founded in January 2025, and now introduces its mission, team, and technology alongside the launch of its website: mothratelescope.org.
A Radical New Telescope Design for Probing the Spaces Between Galaxies
MOTHRA is a distributed-aperture telescope composed of 1,140 high-end Canon telephoto lenses, which together synthesize the power of a single giant telescope. This design has grown out of the Dragonfly Telephoto Array concept which demonstrated the capability to find and study extremely faint, extended structures, previously undetected using conventional telescopes.
MOTHRA is a dramatic upscaling of Dragonfly, enabling it to detect ultra-faint gas between galaxies that traces the dark matter distribution of the Universe. This "cosmic web" is a complex network of structures imprinted in space at the earliest moments after the Big Bang, growing to enormous size as the Universe expanded. MOTHRA can be precisely tuned to detect faint glowing light from intergalactic gas trapped by this web of dark matter. The telescope will not just reveal where the gas is, but also how it moves along the spokes of the web.
"MOTHRA is a telescope designed around a single idea: maximize discovery space for the dim glow of intergalactic gas," said Pieter van Dokkum, Co-Founder of Dragonfly FRO. "The combination of a huge effective aperture, wide field, and tunable ultra-narrowband filtering opens a new observational regime."
MOTHRA is being built at Obstech / El Sauce Observatory in Chile. The telescope’s construction started in the spring of 2025 and it is expected to become fully operational by the end of 2026. By fusing its many images together digitally, the array of 1,140 telephoto lenses will be the equivalent of a single 4.7-meter diameter lens. It will be the world’s largest all-lens telescope, with capabilities that are unmatched by any other telescope on Earth or in space.
"This is an ambitious project to build something astronomers have wanted for a long time: a practical way to directly see the cosmic web, and to get it done in a couple of years rather than decades," said Roberto Abraham, Co-Founder of Dragonfly FRO. "MOTHRA harnesses advances in optics, detectors, and computing power to look at the universe in a new way. The telescope is totally unique."
A New Model for Tackling Hard Scientific Problems
Dragonfly FRO is the first Focused Research Organization centered on astrophysics. Inspired by the pace and focus of tech startups, FROs are designed to tackle bottlenecks and build high-impact scientific public goods over a finite multi-year timeline. These efforts are often too large or too infrastructure-heavy for a single academic lab and don’t fit traditional funding structures or market-driven models.
"Focused research organizations are built for precisely this kind of problem: a clear mission, a hard technical bottleneck, and a capability that can benefit an entire field," said Anastasia Gamick, President and Co-Founder of Convergent Research. "Dragonfly FRO brings the FRO model to astrophysics, and MOTHRA is the kind of ambitious, enabling instrument that this model makes possible."
The launch of Dragonfly FRO and MOTHRA has been made possible through a donation from Alex Gerko. "Breakthrough instruments developed at speed often require new approaches — organizationally and technically," said Gerko. "I'm proud to support such an ambitious project focused on generating long-term scientific value, and to help pioneer a model designed to drive meaningful research progress on hard, foundational astronomical challenges."
Pieter van Dokkum said, "Alex's impact on this project extends well beyond funding. He has been a hands-on strategic partner from the start — shaping how we structured the organization, helping us find the right project partners and site, and guiding us through procurement and infrastructure challenges that would have slowed us down considerably."
Pictured: a bounty of riches in 2026. Photo: Richard Butler
If you've shopped for any sort of electronic device recently or have kept up with the news, you've likely caught wind that there's something up with memory chips. But what exactly is going on, and will it affect photographic gear too?
What's happening with the chips?
The inescapable tech story over the past few years has been the emergence of generative AI systems. For reasons that are, frankly, mostly boring, the companies making the AI models need tons of memory and storage to train them. And because investors have been feverishly throwing money at anything branded "AI," they can get their hands on as much as they want. Which is to say: most of it.
RAM vs. memory vs. storage
RAM, aka memory, is the short-term storage that computers and cameras use to store temporary data. Typically, data stored in RAM will disappear once the device is turned off. It's made with DRAM chips.
Storage, meanwhile, is more permanent. That job is handled by devices like SD cards, SSDs, and hard drives. Solid-state storage is typically made using NAND chips.
There are currently three companies making the chips that end up in almost every device with memory and storage: SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron. They've all said that demand for both their DRAM and NAND chips has increased enormously, and that they're essentially selling as much as they can make.
Producing these chips is one of the most complicated things that humans do, so you can't just spin up production overnight; it can take years to plan and build new factories, even if you're willing to bet that this isn't all a bubble and that demand will stay this high. That means these companies have to decide where to allocate their supply: do they use the limited number of silicon wafers and production lines they have to make the high-power, expensive chips that several companies with seemingly infinite money are frothing at the mouth to buy, or the lower-margin, run-of-the-mill stuff that powers consumer devices?
You probably won't be shocked to hear which one is winning out. As a result, the prices that consumers and the companies making any consumer devices that have storage and RAM – essentially any piece of tech – have gone up substantially. As for how that's specifically impacted photographers...
How has it affected SD cards?
Photo: Mitchell Clark
It might seem like SD cards should be completely unrelated to the AI fracas; surely the companies training those models are using something much higher-end, right?
Well, yes, but the rub is that SD cards use the same kind of NAND chips as the super-fast SSDs that datacenters need. They're not as advanced, sure, but making one means not making the other, so SD card makers will almost certainly have to pay more for the storage chips they're using.
This price chart is for the Lexar 128GB Silver SD card, but we saw a similar shape for various other cards from them and other brands. Chart: CamelCamelCamel
We're just starting to see price increases hit camera storage, but it's happened fast; according to data from Amazon price tracking site CamelCamelCamel, several of the cards we checked have nearly doubled in price since the end of 2025. This was true of both lower-end cards with 32GB and 64GB capacities, as well as higher-end ones.
This meme illustrates how some photographers are feeling the price hikes; replacing an SD card might not have been a big deal previously, but now it could really sting.
We found a few CFexpress Type B models that didn't seem to have changed much in price over the past year, but those appeared to be exceptions, rather than the rule. Some of our community members, as well as creators on social media, have found models whose prices have increased by over 100%. While it's still possible to get some for pre-AI boom prices, we wouldn't rely on that continuing to be the case as manufacturers continue to sell through stock.
How has it affected computers?
Even if you're lucky enough to have a computer with replaceable or upgradable RAM, you might struggle to afford the parts. Photo: Mathew Anderson
Computer memory, or RAM, has perhaps seen the biggest impact, with prices on upgrade kits doubling or tripling in price. While consumers don't typically install new RAM into their computers – or indeed, even own computers with upgradable memory (thanks, Apple) – those that do will really have to weigh how badly they need it.
It will also likely hurt if you're looking to buy a new computer; manufacturers will also be facing difficulties getting their hands on memory, and will either have to cut how much they include or raise prices. Before the boom, we would've suggested getting at least 32GB of memory, since it was typically a sensible upgrade that could ensure your computer was usable for longer. Now, though, we'd just advise not going below 16GB, if you can help it.
Storage has also been impacted. While SSDs (both portable and internal) don't seem to have their prices hit as hard, many suppliers seem to be struggling to keep them in stock. Unfortunately, conventional spinning disk hard drives also seem to have been hit as well; we've seen several reports from people struggling to find any available to buy, and manufacturers like Western Digital are saying they've sold out their production capacity for at least the next two years. If you're running out of storage on your computer or think you may in the near future, we would suggest you start looking for an external drive now, rather than later.
What's the impact on cameras?
Somewhere on the a7 V's motherboard (or built into the processor) is a memory chip that acts as the camera's buffer. Photo: Mitchell Clark
While most cameras don't have built-in storage, they still need memory for their buffers and to run their operating systems. So far, we haven't seen any manufacturers explicitly cite the shortage as a problem or raise their global prices substantially. However, we also wouldn't be surprised if we see something like that in the future.
Is there an end in sight?
It's hard to say when the situation will get better. Both Micron and SK Hynix have reported selling out their entire production capacity for the rest of 2026. That doesn't mean that nothing will be produced for consumers – presumably some of that capacity has been sold to companies that will package those memory and storage chips into consumer devices – but it does mean that the supply situation isn't likely to change for a while. It's also hard to imagine the situation changing all that much next year, either. Unless stock market enthusiasm for AI tanks and companies have to severely cut back on how much memory and storage they're buying, it's not like there's a ton of new production capacity set to come online in the short term.
What can you do about it?
As for what you can do about it, I again have to be incredibly unhelpful and say that, in the short term, there's not really much to be done on an individual level. Voting with your dollar doesn't work all that well when you're so economically outgunned.
There are a few options, though: you can continue to make do with what you have, while recognizing that you're using a scarce resource. If you were previously a little careless with your memory cards or external hard drives, now's the time to start taking a little better care of them.
You can wait it out, with the hope that the AI bubble will deflate before you need to make any purchases
If you know you'll need to purchase new computer equipment, memory, or storage in the near-to-mid term, you can just accept that prices are more likely to go up, rather than down. Sadly, that means stocking up on what you know you'll need. Or, you can wait it out, with the hope that the AI bubble will deflate before you need to make any purchases... and that when it does, it's in a controlled enough manner that memory and storage prices are still in your top 10 biggest financial concerns.
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Ricoh GR IV Monochrome | F2.8 | 1/640 sec | ISO 320 Photo: Richard Butler
We're hard at work on finishing up our review of the Ricoh GR IV Monochrome, a version of the company's latest enthusiast compact with its color filter array removed. We've already seen how it performs in our studio, but in the process of testing it, we've also taken it out and about to capture the world (minus a bit of color).
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.
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