Image: Affinity

At the beginning of this month, rumors were buzzing as creative app platform Affinity pulled all of its software from sale. Now, we have answers to why, as parent company Canva has announced an all-new version of Affinity. The update is a complete refresh, resulting in a single, free app.

Previously, Affinity was a suite of three apps: Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher. Now, under the direction Canva, all vector, photo and layout tools are in a single app called Affinity. A "one app to rule them all" type of situation, if you will. That means users can tackle a diverse range of tasks, from graphic design to Raw photo processing and retouching to laying out brochures. The app's file support reveals how diverse the platform is. It supports PSD, AI, PDF, SVG, TIFF, IDML and more.

Affinity provides access to familiar photo editing tools and supports non-destructive editing. Image: Affinity

Like previous versions of Affinity Photo, the new app supports non-destructive editing, so users can go wild on edits or changes without losing the original. It also features tools to help speed up repetitive edits, including Smart Selections, live filters and batch processing. Affinity also says that GPU acceleration helps keep editing fast. It promises a high-performance engine with real-time updates, instant previews and edits at up to 10,000,000% zoom, even with endless layers.

Affinity says the updated app is fully customizable, letting users can build a workspace that flows with their process. It says you can choose what tools are (and are not) displayed and rearrange panels. You can also save multiple setups for different types of projects and share those customized views with others. That could be an ideal feature for creative teams or educators.

The new Affinity allows you to fully customize what tools are displayed. Image: Affinity

The new Affinity offers some integration with Canva as well. Users can export Affinity projects to Canva with a few clicks, making it easier to share with clients.

One of the concerns when Canva acquired Affinity in 2024 was that a subscription model would be introduced. After all, Canva operates on a subscription model, but Affinity Photo and its other apps were the go-to perpetual license option for photographers who wanted to avoid Adobe's subscription. Luckily, with this announcement, Affinity says the app is free for everyone. Ash Hewson, the CEO of Affinity, even goes so far as to say it is "completely free, forever."

Tabs on the top allow you to switch between different tools related to design, photo editing and layout. Image: Affinity

There is a slight catch, though. One of the key features of the Canva integration within Affinity is its AI tools. However, using those AI tools requires a Canva premium account, which costs $120 per year. With that subscription, users have access to the new Canva AI Studio, which offers Generative Fill, Expand & Edit and Remove Background. However, it also includes tools that most people honestly won’t need or use, a scheme that's similar to what the other big Adobe competitor, Davinci Resolve, does.

Affinity told us that the server connection AI tools require comes at a cost, but they know not everyone wants to use AI tools. So, those who don't want AI features can use the app for free, and those who would like access can pay a month-to-month fee. The company clarified that no one is locked into a year-long subscription with cancellation fees, and that you don't lose access to your work if you stop paying. Hewson also specified that Canva AI "runs on the user's device, and work is not accessed to train AI features."

The new Affinity is available today for Mac and Windows. An iPad version is coming next year. Existing Canva users can activate Affinity with their existing account, but existing Affinity customers (and new users) will need to create a free Canva account to download Affinity.

The new Skylum Luminar Neo Fall 2025 update will launch in early November 2025 with some key additions: AI restoration tools, advanced lighting, intelligent assistant, cross-device ecosystem:

1. AI Photo Restoration (game-changer for old photos)

• One-click repairs: cracks, scratches, stains, fading, discoloration
• Preserves details and textures
• Smart modes: Full Restoration, Color Only, Scratches Only
• B&W support: revives monochrome with depth, neutralizes casts
• Workflow: ~30 seconds processing; auto-saves to “Restoration” folder in Catalog

2. Light Depth (evolution of Relight AI) – free for all users

• Virtual light sources: add, position, rotate in 3D space
• Precise controls: intensity, temperature, brightness, depth (near/far separation)
• Ideal for: backlit portraits, harsh shadows, creative effects
• Targets subjects without affecting backgrounds

3. AI Assistant (in-app editing coach)

• Real-time photo analysis: suggests exposure, color optimizations, creative edits
• Chatbot-style: answers questions, troubleshoots, speeds up batch editing
• Great for: beginners learning or pros accelerating workflows

4. Luminar Neo Ecosystem (cross-device freedom)

• Cross-Device Sync: Edit on Luminar Mobile (iOS/Android), continue seamlessly on Desktop
  • Preserves adjustments, metadata, layers (Mobile → Desktop only)
• Spaces: Publish/share galleries online via link
  • No website needed; curate collections, control privacy/downloads/metadata
  • Unlimited storage

Access & Pricing (Black Friday deals live)

• Free: Light Depth + core enhancements

Premium unlocks (Restoration, AI Assistant, Ecosystem):

The post New: 2025 Skylum Luminar Neo Fall update and Black Friday offer appeared first on Photo Rumors.

Image: Canon

As with other brands, Canon's lenses feature many letters and acronyms in the lens names. Seeing something like Canon RF 24-105mm F4L IS USM can leave you scratching your head if you don't know what each of those things means. Each acronym refers to something useful, though, so understanding how to decipher Canon lens names can help you quickly grasp what the lens offers without digging into specs. In this article, we'll be breaking down Canon's common lens terminology, demystifying the company's lens names.

Lens mount type

The Canon RF-S 14-30mm f/4-6.3 IS STM PZ lens is built for mirrorless RF mount cameras. Image: Canon

As with most first-party lens offerings, the first part of every Canon lens name refers to the lens mount. It's important to know what mount your camera uses so that you buy lenses that are compatible.

RF and RF-S

If the lens name starts with RF or RF-S, the lens is specifically designed for the company's EOS R mirrorless cameras, which use the RF mount. These lenses are not compatible with the company's DSLR cameras, which use the EF mount.

It's also important to know the difference between RF and RF-S. RF lenses are built for full-frame cameras, while RF-S lenses are Canon's APS-C lenses designed for its crop sensor cameras.

Both use the same mount, so you can use RF and RF-S lenses on any Canon EOS R camera. However, since RF-S lenses are meant for APS-C cameras, they project smaller image circles. The camera will automatically crop for you, but using such a lens on a full-frame body will only utilize part of the sensor, meaning you’ll lose the full-frame sensor’s benefits and image area. Using an RF lens on an APS-C camera, on the other hand, primarily results in a change in field of view due to the crop factor.

EF-M

EF-M lenses are for Canon’s discontinued EOS M mirrorless cameras, which use APS-C sensors. Canon officially discontinued the system in October 2023, focusing development on the EOS R lineup.. You cannot use EF-M lenses on EOS R cameras.

EF, EF-S

Lastly, Canon EF and EF-S lenses are the brand's legacy DSLR camera lenses. EF stands for Electronic Focus. These lenses work with Canon's full-frame DSLRs and APS-C DSLRs. You can also get adapters that allow you to use EF lenses on EOS R mirrorless cameras.

EF-S lenses are designed for APS-C DSLRs. They are not compatible with full-frame DSLR cameras. You can, however, use EF-S lenses on EOS M and EOS R cameras with an adapter.

Focus systems

The Canon RF 85mm F1.4 L VCM uses a VCM autofocus system. Image: Canon

After the focal length and aperture information, you may see various acronyms in the lens name that refer to the type of autofocus motor the lens uses.

VCM

The VCM in the lens name means it uses a Voice Coil Motor to drive autofocus. VCM autofocus systems are powerful, fast and quiet, and they are typically used in higher-end, professional-grade lenses.

USM

USM stands for Ultrasonic Autofocus Motor. These lenses offer manual focus override and fast, smooth and comparatively quiet autofocus. The USM system is typically used in Canon's DSLR lenses and its professional telephoto lenses.

Though not in the lens name beyond USM, some lenses offer a Nano USM autofocus system. Nano USM is a specific type of motor that combines attributes of both USM (speed) and STM (smoothness) technologies. These lenses are generally meant for action photography and videography.

STM

STM stands for Stepper Motor, which provides quiet and smooth autofocus ideal for video applications. Canon's consumer and enthusiast lenses typically use its stepper motor.

Optical technology and image quality

The RF 85mm F1.2 L USM DS lens features Canon's Defocus Smoothing coating. Image: Canon

You may see additional acronyms when a lens offers special optical technology or image quality features. These include IS, DO, DS and BR.

IS

IS stands for Image Stabilizer. As with any brand's image stabilization system, it aims to reduce the effects of camera shake to produce a sharper image. If you see IS in the name, that means it offers optical image stabilization, and you can see how many stops of stabilization it offers in the lens's description.

DS

DS, which stands for Defocus Smoothing coating, is meant to improve the out-of-focus elements (bokeh) in your photos. Canon says it makes bokeh smoother compared to lenses without this feature.

DO and BR

Both DO and BR Optics refer to lens elements. DO, or diffractive optics, are special Fresnel-style lens elements that allow for a more compact size while maintaining quality. For example, they allow Canon to make telephoto lenses, like its EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM, smaller than they otherwise would be without DO elements. Canon’s DO lenses often have a green ring on the front for quick identification.

Though not included in the lens name, you may see BR, also referred to as BR Optics, in descriptions of Canon lenses. BR refers to Canon’s Blue Spectrum Refractive lens element, which it says eliminates color fringing and chromatic aberrations.

Lens class and special features

The Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM Z lens is part of the L lineup of professional lenses and is compatible with Canon's Power Zoom Adapter. Image: Canon

Finally, just like other lens companies, Canon has some specific lens classes or special features that may be included in the lens name.

L

If you see an L in a Canon lens name, such as in RF 85mm f/1.2 L USM DS, that means the lens is part of the brand's L series, which stands for Luxury Lens. L-series lenses are Canon's professional offerings, made with higher optical quality, improved weather sealing and build quality and better overall performance. They demand steeper price tags as a result. Beyond having an L in the name, L-series lenses also typically have a red ring around the end of the lens.

Z and PZ

If you see a Z in a Canon lens name, that doesn't mean it works with Nikon Z mount. Instead, it means that the lens is compatible with Canon's Power Zoom Adapter PZ-E2 and PZ-E2B. Those adapters enable motorized control of the zoom ring for smoother video work.

You may also see PZ, which stands for power zoom, in the lens name. That means the lens offers an electronic zoom mechanism instead of a zoom ring. Just like the Power Zoom Adapter, PZ lenses are ideal for video applications.

Macro, TS-E and MP-E

Canon now spells out its Macro lenses, with the name simply including the full word. If you see Macro in the name, that means the minimum focusing distance is smaller, allowing you to get closer to your subjects. Some EF mount macro lenses are labeled as MP-E, though, indicating 'Macro Photo.'

TS-E refers to tilt-shift lenses, which allow you to adjust the focal plane (tilt) and perspective (shift). Canon hasn't released any tilt-shift lenses for its mirrorless system, so all TS-E lenses are EF mount offerings.

Adobe Sneaks 2025

Disclosure: DPReview is attending Adobe Max, with Adobe covering travel and lodging expenses.

This year at Adobe Max, the company held its traditional "Sneaks" show, where the engineers show off tech demos of features they've been working on that may eventually make it into production. As an example, last year it showed off a feature called "Perfect Blend," meant to automatically match lighting and color between layers in Photoshop. This week, it officially launched as a feature called "Harmonize." We had the chance to catch the show live, getting a preview of some of Photoshop's potential future features.

Project Surface Swap

The car was originally a goldish-yellow, but the presenter was able to select it with a single click and change the color using Photoshop's standard tools.

The first Photoshop "sneak" was for something called "Project Surface Swap." It's essentially a more context-aware selection tool; in the demo the presenter used it to change the color of a car, despite it not being particularly easy to select with Photoshop's traditional selection tools because of the reflections and shadows on the paint. He also showed off the ability to select a wooden countertop in a photo, despite it being covered with other wooden objects, like a sushi rolling mat and a cutting board.

As the name implies, the tool was also able to load a reference image and use it as a texture, automatically applied with the correct perspective and tiling. When making selections it could take some factors, like varying opacity, into account and, like other selection tools in Photoshop, could be used for creating masks..

Project Light Touch

Project Light Touch is a tool that allows the user to "relight" a scene, imagining what a photo would look like had a light been turned on, rather than left off, or if the lighting had been diffuse instead of harsh sunlight that cast shadows. It also let the presenter create a virtual light that would interact with the entire scene. He, of course, demoed it by adding a virtual candle to a picture of a carved pumpkin, showing it first lighting the outside of the pumpkin, and then lighting it from the inside, taking depth and occlusion into account.

Project Trace Erase

If I were betting, Project Trace Erase seemed like the demo most likely to turn into a real feature from this year's presentation. It builds on top of the existing Remove Tool, letting the presenter select an object from a photo with a single stroke, rather than having to make multiple passes to take out the object, its shadows, and reflections. Part of the demo involved removing a person walking down a sidewalk, along with their shadow and reflection in a glass wall. Even more impressively, the presenter used it to remove a stove and the smoke it was emitting, a lamp and the light it was putting, and a lens flare that was washing out essentially the entire frame.

The demo showed an impressive amount of contextual awareness. When the presenter selected a person walking in a snow, it also automatically removed the footprints they had left, and did something similar with a jet skier's wake. Each demo took just a few seconds, and didn't require particularly precise selections.

Project Clean Take

On the video side, Adobe showed off a a demo called "Project Clean Take," which focused on improving audio in a variety of ways. In the demo, the person was able to fix some incorrect dialogue by editing the transcript, and then "regenerating" the speech with a convincing simulation of the presenter's voice (despite the clip only being a few seconds long). They also showed off the ability to completely replace an audio track with a regenerated one, changing the presenter's voice to sound more enthusiastic, or to make it sound like they were speaking in a whisper.

The software was also able to take a single audio track and break out separate components, such as the presenter's voice, background sounds, and music playing in the background.* That not only allowed the presenter to mute or tamp down on unwanted noise, but replace copyrighted music with something that sounds similar from Adobe Stock, and then automatically match the reverb and other acoustic properties that were present in the original clip.

* Fun fact: Peter Jackson (yes, that Peter Jackson) used similar tech on a demo that John Lennon recorded, which is how we got the new Beatles song "Now And Then" in 2023.

Project Frame Forward

There was also Project Frame Forward, which showed off a feature that I've personally dreamed about forever. The presenter took a video, made an edit to the first frame in Photoshop, then brought the edited frame back into the tool. It was then able to apply the change he made to the rest of the frames in the video.

Unsurprisingly, the tool relies on generative AI, not tracking and masking, which allowed it to remove particularly tricky subjects like a car ripping around a track, billowing smoke from its tires. It was also able to handle multiple edits, including replacing the sky, changing white balance, and removing multiple people from the background.

A reminder

Again, these features aren't necessarily coming to Photoshop, Lightroom or Premiere anytime soon, or even at all. But they do offer an interesting look at some of the interesting projects Adobe's engineers are working on that may someday become features in the software many of us use.

You can watch the entire presentation on Adobe's YouTube channel.

The latest Adobe updates have added support for the following cameras:

• Nikon ZR
• Hasselblad X2D II 100C
• Fujifilm GFX 100 II
• Fujifilm X-H2 (IR version)
• Ricoh GR IV

Additional information on the latest Adobe releases:

• List of the latest camera support added
• List of the latest lens support added
• Fixed issues in Adobe Lightroom
• What’s new in Lightroom
• What’s new in CC
• Adobe Express updates

The latest Adobe CC subscription plan rates can be found here. The different Adobe  Creative Cloud options are described here. Additional information on Photoshop and Lightroom is available on this page. Adobe Creative Cloud subscription can be purchased directly from B&H Photo or Amazon.

Via LeicaRumors

The post Adobe adds support for the ZR, X2D II 100C, GFX100 II, X-H2 and GR IV cameras appeared first on Photo Rumors.

Insta360 announced a new X4 Air 8k 360° ultralight camera:

• For pre-orders, check Amazon (direct link) and Foto Erhardt
• Additional information:

Insta360 X4 Air: New Ultralight 8K 360 Camera for Life on the Move

Insta360 is excited to announce Insta360 X4 Air, the newest addition to its acclaimed X Series. Compact, ultralight (165g), and packed with flagship-level features, including Emmy® Award-winning 360 technology, X4 Air brings 8K 360 video and AI-powered simplicity to creators who want to capture life as it truly happens: spontaneous and authentic.

A New Chapter

For over five generations, Insta360’s X Series has set the benchmark for 360 imaging, combining intuitive design, refined image quality, and powerful software that make immersive storytelling accessible to anyone. X4 Air carries that legacy forward, redefining portability and creative freedom.

Weighing just 165 grams, X4 Air is Insta360’s lightest-ever 8K 360 camera. It is built for the street, the trail, and everyday use, an ideal entry point for anyone looking to explore 360 storytelling for the first time. Dual 1/1.8-inch sensors and advanced image processing capture rich 8K detail and natural colors, while a sleek, travel-friendly body slips easily into a pocket or backpack.

“X4 Air is about capturing life as it happens,” said Max Richer, VP of Marketing and Co-Founder at Insta360. “It lets creators stay present while capturing everything around them. It’s for anyone who wants to film real life without the weight or complexity—a lighter, simpler way to tell stories.”

Sharper, Smarter, Smoother: Everyday Improvements That Matter

X4 Air takes everything creators loved about X4 and makes it lighter, smarter, and more intuitive. The upgrades focus on real-world performance rather than numbers, improving image quality and ease of use in every scenario.

Larger 1/1.8-inch sensors deliver crisper 8K footage with a 134% increase in pixel area per frame vs. X4, capturing better detail and more vivid color straight out of the camera. One of the biggest leaps comes from AdaptiveTone, Insta360’s intelligent exposure algorithm. AdaptiveTone analyzes light from both lenses independently to balance brightness and color across the full 360 image, protecting skies and shadow detail without heavy color grading.

Working in tandem is Active HDR. Now available up to 8K30fps, it boosts dynamic range in real time for lifelike highlights and shadows, even in challenging lighting. Portrait Mode complements this by automatically detecting faces and adjusting brightness and color to deliver smooth, natural skin tones without heavy editing. And when the light fades, enhanced algorithms and noise reduction keep night shots clean and detailed, producing vivid, usable footage long after the sun sets.

Durability gets an upgrade, too. X4 Air features user-replaceable lenses with an ultra-hard optical coating that doubles drop resistance compared to X4. Lenses swap in seconds if scratched, while optional lens guards add protection without glare. Waterproof to 49 feet (15 meters) and equipped with Insta360’s leading FlowState Stabilization and 360° Horizon Lock, X4 Air is ready for any adventure.

Portability Meets Performance

X4 Air blurs the line between everyday tool and professional camera. While X5 remains the flagship for creators who demand the highest image quality, X4 Air brings many of its best features to a compact, travel-ready design. Both sport 8K30fps 360 video, replaceable lenses, and a built-in wind guard, but X4 Air does it in a 165-gram body designed for movement and ease.

Where X5 is engineered for precision, X4 Air is made for freedom. It’s lighter, easier to handle, and compatible with most X5 accessories. For creators who want pro results without the bulk, X4 Air offers the ideal balance of performance and portability.

Your All-in-One Creative Companion

Real life doesn’t pause for perfect framing, and neither does X4 Air. Its dual fisheye lenses capture every angle, so you can stay in the moment while the camera records it all. Later, you can easily reframe footage in the Insta360 app to uncover new perspectives and share moments you didn’t even know you caught.

Designed to replace an entire kit, X4 Air lets you film sweeping 360 views, immersive 4K60fps POVs, smooth walk-and-talk vlogs, and dynamic drone-like shots with the Invisible Selfie Stick—without the bulk or setup. For added flexibility, InstaFrame Mode records both a shareable flat video and a full 360 version simultaneously, so you can post immediately and still have complete freedom to re-edit later.

Smarter Control, Simpler Shooting

X4 Air is built to keep creators in the moment, with intelligent tools that make capturing easier than ever. Twist to Shoot lets you start or stop recording with a twist of the selfie stick, no need to fumble for buttons or screens. Gesture Control recognizes quick hand signals for taking photos or videos—ideal for group shots or when the camera’s mounted out of reach. And with Voice Control, you can command the camera hands-free so you never have to break focus or stop the action.

Whether you’re skiing, cycling, or simply recording with friends, X4 Air makes shooting effortless, giving you full creative control even when your hands are busy.

Effortless Editing, Instant Sharing

360 footage once meant hours of complex editing. With X4 Air, it takes minutes—or less. The Insta360 app turns raw 360 footage into dynamic, polished clips using AI-powered tools like Auto Edit, FlashCut, and AI Frame, which automatically identify highlights, apply transitions, and sync footage to music. Preset Perspectives let creators export perfectly framed videos in seconds, no manual reframing required.

X4 Air also integrates seamlessly with brands like Apple, Garmin, and HUAWEI, syncing location, movement, and performance data directly into your videos. Whether tracking your morning ride or a city run, your stats stay in sync across devices, making it easier than ever to tell the full story.

With Insta360+, the integrated cloud service, creators can back up footage automatically, edit from any device, and share their favorite moments instantly via a customizable link. Interactive 360 playback lets friends, family, and followers explore scenes as if they were there with you. Footage stays safe and ready to share, whether from your phone, tablet, or desktop. For a limited time, every X4 Air purchase includes a free one-year Insta360+ subscription with 200GB of storage.

For Every Creator, Everywhere

X4 Air is built for creators who want to capture more and carry less: travelers, vloggers, parents, athletes, and anyone who sees the world as a story waiting to be told. It balances simplicity for first-time users with the features and performance creators demand.

The post New Insta360 X4 Air 8k 360° ultralight camera announced appeared first on Photo Rumors.

SmallRig is having a sitewide 15% off sale when using code ATC15 at checkout.

This coupon code will expire on November 1st (limited-time offer).

Previous SmallRig coverage can be found here:

New grip options for the Sigma BF camera

Just released: SmallRig cage kit for the new Fujifilm GFX100RF camera

Fujifilm X-Half camera accessories from SmallRig

The post Deal of the day: 15% off all SmallRig products (limited time offer) appeared first on Photo Rumors.

The Chinese band Cheecar released a new 50mm f/1.2 APS-C lens with fluorescent markings (cheecar lenses are sold on eBay):

• 5-group, 7-element construction, 11 aperture blades
• stepped aperture design
• minimum focusing distance of 0.7m
• 52mm filter interface
• all-metal body
• APS-C format
• fluorescent design
• compatible with Sony E, Nikon Z, Canon RF-S, EF-M, Fujifilm X, and M43 mounts

More Cheecar lenses can be found here.

Additional pictures of the new Cheecar 50mm f/1.2 lens:

Via FujiAddict

The post New: Cheecar 50mm f/1.2 APS-C lens with fluorescent marking appeared first on Photo Rumors.

Image: MirageC / Moment via Getty Images

Last week, as part of our 'Question of the Week' series, we asked how you handle defective lenses, otherwise known as bad copies. Unfortunately, such lenses are just a fact of life for photographers. Bad copies happen even with well-reputed lenses and can cause issues like uneven sharpness, obvious blurring and more. They can significantly impact overall image quality, or they could cause only a subtle change.

Of course, everyone takes a slightly different approach to dealing with such lenses. Here's what you all had to say.

Deal with minor faults

Many of you said that if the lens has minor faults, especially if it's a budget lens, you simply deal with any imperfections. Jon555 also pointed out, "There are two issues, sample variation and actually getting a dud." ProfHankD added to this thought, sharing insight from his experience: "Commercial products are designed to meet specifications, not to be perfect – which is good, because no lens is ever perfect. With over 300 lenses, I have had easily measurable imperfections in every one I've tested."

Return

Major faults or issues with pro-grade glass are significantly less tolerated. With those, DPReview members overwhelmingly prefer to return defective lenses. "When I’ve come across a bad copy, I usually test it thoroughly – checking sharpness, corners, and consistency at different apertures. If it shows clear defects, I return or exchange it. Life’s too short to struggle with a lens that isn’t performing properly," says Julia90.

How you go about returning depends on where you purchased the lens, with many of you specifying that you only purchased from trusted sellers that have robust return policies. "Buy new from a reputable source who's return policy is solid. Especially if its a 3rd party lens with a reputation for QC issues and you know there is a solid chance you might not be happy with the first copy," says TBLF.

Some of you shared that dealing with returns to the manufacturer is much more challenging, while retailers are more understanding, resulting in a straightforward return and/or replacement process. "It is usually better to exchange unsatisfactory copies with camera stores (which are usually generous) rather than Nikon (they sometimes have interesting ideas about what 'meets specifications' means)," said BasilG.

For many of you, replacing the faulty lens is the preferred process.

For many of you, replacing the faulty lens is the preferred process. You are willing to try a second (or third) copy to get a quality lens. However, others said they will look for something else entirely. "Generally, if I encounter a defective lens, I return the lens and look for an alternative. If the QC on that lens was that bad it's unlikely that others in the lot will be much better," said Thomas Kachadurian. "I'm not one of those people who will try and return several copies of the same lens looking for a jewel in the rocks."

Last resort: repair

For just about everyone, sending the lens off for repairs is a last resort. AshleyMC shared their four options, with repair not part of the list. "Over the years, I have never exercised the repair option," they said. Most of you said that repairing a lens is only considered when return and replacement are not possible. "If I bought new and can't return then I'll try for a warranty repair," said Gato Amarillo.

Even then, most of you stressed getting a lens repaired under warranty to avoid pricey bills. Gato Amarillo went on to say that "A paid repair would be far down my list of options. Modern lenses are extremely complex and built to very tight tolerances. I wouldn't trust anything other than a factory repair, and I'd be worried about that."

Be sure to test your lenses

Another common theme was the importance of testing your new lenses. Many of you shared various methods for testing your lenses. They range from simple and real-world practical, like photographing a flat surface of some variety. For example, RussW said, "First thing I do when I get a new lens or camera is to test it by photographing my garage door." Some shared about the four corners or upside-down methods. A smaller number of you have more in-depth processes, such as photographing detailed scenes or specific charts.

If you wait too long, the return period may lapse, or the warranty for the lens may run out.

No matter how you test, timing is essential. "This is why I think it's important to test your lenses when you get them and deal with any quality issues sooner rather than later," said Sirhawkeye64. If you wait too long, the return period may lapse, or the warranty for the lens may run out. That means you'll have to pay for a replacement or repairs out of pocket.

MikeyL shared his experience of not discovering the issue until it was too late. "In one other case I also bought from this same retailer but did not discover the issue until it was out of the time period for a replacement," he wrote. "At that point I had to deal with the manufacturer. It was a 3rd party manufacturer, and they wanted 2/3rds of the price of the lens just to fix it (even though it was defective from purchase). So in that case I had no recourse. That lens still sits on a shelf in my hobby room today, pretty much useless."

No matter what, your best bet is to test your lenses early to catch any possible issues. How you handle it from there depends on your needs and preferences, and what options your retailer has.

Image: Oppo

Oppo has announced the Find X9 Pro, its latest flagship smartphone, which it says has a camera system tuned by Hasselblad. But as impressive as the cameras included on the phone may be, it's a sold-separately accessory that really caught our attention: the Hasselblad Teleconverter is a lens that attaches to the phone via a custom case. It gives the telephoto camera a 230mm equiv field of view and offers a true 10x zoom from the main camera.

Even without augmentation, though, the base cameras are still relatively impressive. The main shooter pairs an optically stabilized 23mm equiv. F1.5 lens with a 50MP Type-1/1.28 Sony LYT 828 sensor (74.4mm²), and is joined by a 70mm equiv. F2.1 telephoto camera, again with OIS, and a 15mm equiv. F2 ultra-wide. As with previous models, Oppo also includes another sensor dedicated to measuring ambient light to make sure your colors are accurate even in difficult lighting conditions.

The telephoto camera is the only one explicitly branded as Hasselblad (the company says it uses Hasselblad's "Natural Colour Solution" processing). But the camera app also has a branded "XPan" mode that gives you a wide aspect-ratio preview and the ability to switch between color modes that emulate film stocks. There's also a "Master Mode" that lets you manually set ISO, shutter speed, focus and white balance.

Image: Hasselblad

While Oppo says you can zoom in up to 120x using a combination of center cropping and AI upscaling, telephoto enthusiasts have a better option. The pocket-sized 3.28x Hasselblad Teleconverter lets you forget digital zoom and use optics instead. However, some early reviews have mentioned that, unsurprisingly, it can be a little hard to frame such a long focal length handheld with a phone.

Image: Oppo

Aside from the cameras, the phone is bursting with all the features you'd expect for a top-of-the-line model. It has two side buttons – one for launching the camera app, the other to act as a customizable shortcut. It also features a 6.78" display that runs at 120Hz and can reach 3600 nit peak brightness. There's a massive 27.34Wh battery that supports 80W charging over a wire when paired with a charger that uses the company's "SUPERVOOC" tech, and up to 50W with wireless charging. It's powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 9500 SOC, paired with 16GB of RAM.

Pricing for the Find X9 Pro will vary by region, and, as usual for Oppo phones, it's not available in the US. In the UK, it sells for £1099, and in Europe it's €1299. Oppo hasn't officially said how much the Teleconverter accessory will cost, or when it will be for sale.

Photo: Moment

Camera accessory brand Moment has introduced a new line of camera bags that take a fresh look at lightweight packs. The Moment Fast & Light camera bags aim to offer slimmed-down, minimalist options for adventurers, with looks that can transition to everyday carry.

Moment says the Fast & Light line was inspired by running and cycling gear, and that's especially true of the vest, the most interesting offering in the lineup. After all, the Exposure 10L Vest looks more like a running vest than a traditional photographer's vest. Moment says the vest can be worn loosely or tightened down for a no-bounce fit using bungees on the sides. It also features bungee sternum straps instead of the front zipper closure found on photographer's vests, allowing a snug fit.

The front pocket design also takes cues from running vests. It offers a zippered stretch pocket and a quick-access stretch pocket on the front straps for easy access to things like film, your phone or those ever-important snacks. The back design borrows features from a cycling jersey, with stretch back pockets that allow for no-look access without removing the vest.

There's a main compartment that supports up to a 14" laptop, a tablet or a hydration bladder. A dedicated battery pocket in the main compartment is connected to a charging channel that lets you run a charging cable through the vest to keep your phone charged while in the front stretch pocket.

Moment says it's designed to keep your gear close to your body so that it "moves the way you do." The pockets disperse items between your side, front, and back, which helps get rid of bulk and keep the weight comfortable. The vest is also lightweight, at just 0.8kg (1.7 lbs). It's made of the company's 210-denier fabric called LiteWeave Ripstop and features a durable water repellent (DWR) coating for protection against the elements. It comes only in black but is available in two sizes: S/M, which fits chest sizes 38-45 inches, and L/XL, which fits chest sizes 45-55 inches.

Photos: Moment

Also in the new lineup is the Sequence 23L Camera Backpack, which looks like a much more traditional camera bag, though with plenty of useful features. Inside the bag are padded dividers that you can fold away when they aren't needed. A removable waist belt adds stability and comfort when needed. It offers two access points, including top access for quick-grab items like layers, and front access for camera gear.

The pack also features vest-inspired shoulder straps with pockets, LightWeave Ripstop fabric with a DWR coating and a laptop sleeve that doubles as a hydration bladder compartment with a pass-through hole for the tube. Side stuff pockets allow you to store water bottles, a tripod or additional layers. It's available in black, white and green.

The 1.5L sling is designed for compact cameras and essentials. Photo: Moment

Finally, the Fast & Light line includes 4L and 1.5L slings. Both can be worn as waist packs or crossbody bags and offer one-handed quick adjustments without hanging straps to dial in fit. They also each offer a front mesh pocket for quick access items and two zippered pockets for better organization. The 4L sling features a removable three-point stability strap that keeps the bag against your body when you're on the move and straps for jackets and tripods.

The new bags are now available for pre-order through Moment's website. Moment says the first 100 units will ship by the end of December, but the second batch won't arrive until March. The Exposure Vest costs $120 and the Sequence Backpack $230. The 1.5L sling is priced at $55, and the 4L sling at $99.

82%

Overall score

Jump to conclusion

The OM System OM-5 II is a Micro Four Thirds mirrorless camera that uses the same stabilized 20MP sensor as its predecessor. It also features the same processor as the OM-5, so the list of new features is relatively subtle, but it gains some minor updates that make it feel a bit more modern.

Key Specifications

• 20MP Four Thirds CMOS sensor
• 50MP handheld high-res multi-shot mode
• Up to 7.5EV stabilization with Sync IS lenses
• Up to 30fps continuous shooting, configurable pre-capture
• 2.36M-dot 0.68x OLED viewfinder
• IP53 dust and water resistance rating
• USB-C for charging / data transfer
• Updated menu system

The OM-5 II retails for $1199 body-only, the same as its predecessor, and is available now. It comes in black, silver and a "sand beige" tan.

Index:

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

What's New

USB-C

When the OM-5 launched in 2022, its use of a micro USB port instead of a USB-C one felt like a huge omission, especially given that the European Union was already well on its way to mandating the more modern charging and communication standard. Thankfully, the OM-5 II doesn't repeat that mistake; it uses USB-C for charging and connecting to your computer, where it retains the ability to act as a webcam without any additional software or drivers via the UVC/UAC protocol.

This is mostly an upgrade to the charging experience. You'll still want to use an SD card reader for offloading photos, as the type C port still runs at USB 2.0, less than a tenth the speed of the 5Gbps "SuperSpeed" ports found on a majority of modern cameras.

Updated grip

While the OM-5 II's design is mostly unchanged from its predecessor's, OM System has made the grip a touch larger to help with ergonomics. Compared to the OM-5's, it fills out your hand just a bit more, which helps make it a touch more comfortable and easier to handle.

New menus

The OM-5 II's menus, like those on the rest of the company's modern cameras, now look and work a lot like Canon's.

OM System has also brought over its updated menu system from the OM-1 and OM-3, with color-coded sections and tabs. Unlike its predecessor, the camera will try to give you an explanation for why certain items are unavailable instead of leaving you to guess what you need to change to access those features.

You can navigate through the sections using the front dial and switch pages using the rear one, which can be very quick once you get the hang of it. The four-way controller is required for changing your settings; you can use the touchscreen to switch tabs and sections, but not to navigate through or adjust the settings themselves.

CP button

OM System has replaced the OM-5's exposure compensation button with the 'CP' button that debuted on the OM-3. It gives you quick access to the camera's myriad computational photography modes; giving it a single press will activate your last-used mode, and if you press and hold it, you can use either command dial to scroll through the various modes and select the one you'd like to use.

The OM-5 II doesn't gain any new computational features compared to its predecessor, which is a bit of a shame since we've found the Live Graduated ND feature included in the higher-end models to be useful in some situations (though that may only be possible because of those cameras' Stacked sensors, which capture images faster, with less risk of rolling shutter). However, the OM-5 II still has a suite of useful computational modes:

All the multi-shot modes are processed in-camera, making them much more convenient to use compared to similar modes from other brands that have to be stitched with desktop software. However, that can take a while for some modes; the most taxing are the handheld high-res shots, which lock up the camera for over 15 seconds; even the progress bar won't move from the EVF to the display or vice versa if you move your eye to or away from the camera.

New color modes

Standard Color Profile	OM Cinema 1	OM Cinema 2

The OM-5 II includes the two video-only "OM Cinema" color modes from the OM-3, which are made to capture the same level of highlight information as the Log mode but without the extremely low-contrast, low-saturation logic that requires grading. The company says the OM Cinema 1 mode is designed to highlight yellows in the bright parts of your image and blues in the darker areas, while Cinema 2 adds a bit of cyan to the highlights and shadows while lowering contrast.

Like Log mode, these modes capture the additional highlight information by using a minimum ISO of 400, meaning they're designed to receive one stop less exposure than standard mode.

Light, camera, action

Speaking of video, the OM-5 II now features a red LED in the top right corner on the front of the camera, which acts as a tally light to make it obvious when you're recording video.

A little help

The OM-5 II adds two new assistance features: a 'Night Vision' mode that boosts the live view's brightness, making it easier to focus and/or compose in dark environments and a 'Handheld Assist' mode that shows you how stable you're keeping the camera during long exposures. It gives you a target that shows how much you've moved the camera since you started taking the picture. It makes it easier to tell whether your photo will come out blurry since you'll know whether you've moved more than the stabilization system can compensate for.

How it compares

The OM-5 II is mainly focused on people looking to capture their outdoor adventures, a niche that's often serviced by action video cameras. However, there's nothing about its design that precludes it from being a general-use stills camera. As such, we're comparing it to several comparably-priced APS-C cameras that are good for photos (no EVF-less, e-shutter only, single-dial cameras here) but that still include some decent video specs.

* - the original OM-5 could shoot at 10fps mechanical, but not with continuous autofocus.

In some ways, OM System sets itself apart by offering features you'd usually need to pay more for, such as a stabilized sensor and weather sealing. You have to jump up to at least $1499 and the Fujifilm X-S20 to get them in a mirrorless APS-C camera, and OM System is one of only two camera companies to offer a specific IP rating rather than a vague claim of "weather resistance." The other being Leica.

Like Fujifilm, there's a wide array of sensible lenses available you can pair with the OM-5 II, though Micro Four Thirds offers lighter and more compact options than even APS-C. It also offers an unusually high number of multi-shot modes with in-camera processing, that can boost its performance.

However, the OM-5 II misses out on some features that are quickly becoming table stakes, such as the ability to shoot 10-bit video or stills for playback on HDR displays, a 60p video mode, and a wider array of AI-derived subject detection modes for its autofocus system. At this point, there are cameras well under $1000 that have these features, so they feel like notable absences.

Body and Handling

Like its predecessor, the OM-5 II is very light, while still managing to remain well-balanced when paired with larger lenses like OM System's 40-150mm F4 Pro. The extra grip helps in this regard, filling out your palm and making the camera feel more substantial without adding much weight or bulk.

The OM-5 II has a selection of buttons and levers, and as is tradition for the brand, most of them can be customized to do pretty much anything you'd like. While the buttons around the four-way controller are fixed, you're free to do what you wish with the buttons on the top plate, including the two semi-circular ones atop the power lever. The settings are separate for stills and video modes.

It also has OM System's customary function lever, which is unfortunately much more limited; it can only be used to power the camera on or off (leaving the dedicated power lever to do nothing), turn the camera into video mode, or to switch between a small subset of dial functions or autofocus settings. It does not recognize the eye recognition mode, so you can't use it to switch between, say, tracking autofocus and continuous autofocus with eye recognition – unlike many other cameras, you can't have both human detection and the general tracking mode on at once.

It also features a locking mode dial, with settings for all the major exposure modes, along with video, scene and art filter modes. Its two top-plate command dials have relatively aggressive knurling, making them easy to manipulate even while wearing gloves.

Despite the revised menus, one of the OM-5 II's best features remains its "Super Control Panel," which is mapped to the OK button by default. It lets you easily access and control most of the camera's main shooting settings on a single touchscreen panel: drive mode, AF mode, face and eye detection, exposure and ISO control, etc. You can just tap on the screen and spin a command dial to change all the camera's key settings.

EVF and Monitor

The OM-5 II's viewfinder remains unchanged from the 2.36M dot 0.68x (equiv.) magnification model found on its predecessor. While it's relatively small, it usually gets the job done, and it's good to have in bright conditions where the fully articulating 3" LCD – also unchanged – will get washed out.

Battery

The OM-5's tripod mount is somewhat controversial, and OM System tells us it's unchanged for the II.

The OM-5 II uses the same 8.5Wh BLS-50 battery as its predecessor, which the company says will last for around 310 shots based on CIPA test standards. While you can generally expect to get more shots than the rated number in real-world use, it's a useful indicator for comparing across cameras. In this case, it's relatively low; if you're going into the wilderness for a weekend, you may want to pack a spare battery or plan on topping it up with your USB-C power bank.

Image Quality

The handheld high-res multi-shot mode is easier to access than ever on this camera, and can be used to gain a bump in image quality. But it only works with very still subjects, and is slow to process. OM-5 II | OM System 25mm F1.8 II | F5.6 | 1/500 sec | ISO 200 Photo: Mitchell Clark

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

To start by answering the obvious question: there are no discernible differences between the output of the OM-5 and the OM-5 II that couldn't be explained by run-to-run variation; the two cameras perform virtually identically in our tests.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, as the original provided solid image quality. At base ISO, the OM-5 II's Raws have good levels of detail, roughly in line with what the Canon EOS R10 and Nikon Z50II capture, and slightly more than the Fujifilm X-S20 (though that may come down more to the difficulty some programs have with processing pictures taken using Fujifilm's X-Trans color filter). Given its smaller sensor, it's unsurprising that it has more noise across the tonal range than its APS-C competitors.

This also translates to worse low-light performance, though the images from the OM-5 II are still usable at mid-range ISOs and its stabilized sensor will let you shoot at slower shutter speeds (depending on your subject) than with its unstabilized competitors, so you may not have to use the higher ISOs as often.

Its JPEG processing generally does a good job of sharpening and reducing noise at base ISO, though Canon and Nikon have a slight edge when it comes to preserving fine details. At higher ISOs, the OM-5 II does a good job of reducing noise without smoothing away details, as do the rest of the cameras in this lineup.

We found the colors in the OM-5 II's JPEGs to be quite pleasing. They're not overly punchy, but are saturated enough to make images pop.

The multi-shot high resolution modes, which are thankfully processed in-camera rather than in a desktop app, can be used to gain a bit of extra detail under the right circumstances. They only work with very still subjects, such as landscapes (as long as there's not a lot of wind), which limits their usefulness.

Dynamic Range

Shot at base ISO and exposed to preserve highlights. Shadows lifted in Adobe Camera Raw and edited to taste. OM-5 II | OM System 20mm F1.4 Pro | F4 | 1/160 sec | ISO 200 Photo: Mitchell Clark

The camera offers good dynamic range performance, giving you lots of flexibility to shoot to preserve highlights and to raise shadows in post. However, it doesn't have the advantage in read noise that it once did; when the OM-5 came out, we found it had substantially cleaner shadows than the (much more expensive) Panasonic GH6. Comparing it to the GH7, that's no longer the case, not that we suspect most people will be choosing between these two cameras, despite their shared sensor size.

Exposure Latitude | ISO Invariance

Autofocus

The OM-5 II doesn't have eye detection or animal detection, but the tracking can do a decent job, even on somewhat wiggly subjects. OM System 20mm F1.4 Pro | F2.8 | 1/8000 sec | ISO 800

The OM-5 II has several autofocus modes: single, continuous and continuous with tracking, as well as a special star autofocus mode for shooting the night sky. In the standard modes, you have several selection point shapes to choose from, ranging from a small single point to the whole area. You can also set up four custom-size zones and exclude whichever target modes you want from the menu.

To move the autofocus point or area, you can use the screen for tap-to-focus or the four-way controller. You can also enable the "AF targeting pad," which lets you use the right half of the screen as an autofocus controller while looking through the EVF. These options do a decent job of making up for the lack of an autofocus joystick, though we still occasionally found ourselves missing that direct physical control.

The OM-5 II's autofocus points only cover around 60% of the sensor, which means you'll have to be a bit more cautious when composing, trying to track a subject, or setting up your camera to get a shot when something enters the frame.

The OM-5 II has face/eye detection, which works in single, continuous, and manual focus modes, but it feels like a decidedly first-generation implementation. It typically only recognizes humans' eyes, not animals'. It can occasionally struggle to identify human faces if they're wearing glasses, tinted or clear. And unless you're using tap-to-focus, the camera won't respect your chosen focus point if it recognizes a face; it'll snap to it, and you'll likely have to turn detection off to get it to focus on something else.

The face detection also doesn't work in conjunction with tracking mode; you can have either it or tracking. And, frustratingly, you can't just switch to the C-AF + Tracking mode to turn off face detection; you have to turn off face detection to even be able to access the option, though the camera will automatically switch back to tracking in some (but not all) circumstances.

Autofocus Performance

The OM-5 II's single and continuous autofocus performance is snappy and accurate, generally doing a good job of driving the lens to get the subject in focus without having to hunt. There were very occasional misteps that resulted in slightly soft images, but overall we were quite pleased with it.

Its tracking performance is a slightly different story. While it could do a decent job of keeping the autofocus point on a selected subject, it does feel a ways behind what companies like Nikon, Canon and Sony are doing. The tracking point isn't always as tenacious as we'd like, and it was sometimes unable to lock onto lower-contrast subjects at all. It would also occasionally start to drift off the subject being tracked, and the tracking box the camera displays sometimes lagged behind what it was supposed to be tracking.

Because of its identity as an outdoor adventure camera, the tracking performance means you may have to work a bit harder if you're trying to photograph wildlife or athletic activities. For some, that won't be an issue, but it could lead to a slightly frustrating learning curve for beginner photographers who may otherwise find the OM-5 II's price and relatively robust feature set attractive.

Video

The OM-5 II's 4K/30 video is reasonably sharp for everyday use, but falls well short of the image quality you can get from other cameras like the Nikon Z50II and Fujifilm X-S20. It includes a Log profile that lets you shoot footage designed to retain flexibility for color grading, but unlike its more expensive siblings, can only do so in 8-bit, which severely limits that flexibility. It also lacks a 4K/60 mode for higher-resolution slow-motion.

It also lacks some of the assistance tools that are increasingly becoming standard for serious video shooting, such as a waveform monitor or false color preview, HDR output, or in-camera support for LUTs (though there is at least preview assistance when you're shooting in Log). And while it has a microphone socket, you won't have any way to monitor the audio, given its lack of a corresponding headphone port and apparent* lack of support for a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter.

This isn't to say that the OM-5 II isn't capable of casually shooting video, but it'd be a frustratingly limited tool for more serious shoots. For capturing clips, though, the IBIS is relatively effective at smoothing out hand shake and other movement, and the autofocus generally does a good job, though it can occasionally drift, especially when capturing more complex scenes.

This is made all the more disappointing as its rolling shutter performance is excellent, taking 10ms to read out the sensor when shooting in 4K/24.

* - We tested with one to no effect, but they're not always universal.

In Use

When I reviewed the OM-3, I found myself very willing to try out the handheld high-res mode to get a bit more image quality, even in situations where I was a little unsure whether it'd produce good results. That wasn't true with the OM-5 II; I quickly learned that the time it takes to process the 50MP images was far longer than I'm willing to wait. The other computational modes – made easier to access by the "CP" button – are a bit quicker, but it's the area where this camera's processor most shows its age. I also found that they ate through the camera's already relatively meager battery quite rapidly. That made me far less willing to use them outside of very specific scenarios where I knew I'd get the full benefit.

There are very few other cameras that I'd be willing to put in my backpack when paired with a 100-400mm equiv. lens. OM System 50-200mm F2.8 IS Pro | F2.8 | 1/100 sec | ISO 2500

That frustration was somewhat offset by just how easy it was to take this camera anywhere. It's nowhere in the realm of pocketable, even with a small prime attached, but it's small enough that I found myself throwing it in whatever bag I was taking, just in case I ran into interesting things to photograph. That included bringing it along on a backpacking trip and a kayaking outing (my confidence perhaps a bit too buoyed by the IP53 rating), where I was able to get photos that looked substantially nicer than what my phone could've produced.

None of this will be a revelation to the Micro Four Thirds faithful, but it's a benefit worth reiterating. Although in theory someone should be able to build an APS-C rival with a comparable feature set, the OM-5 II still offers an unmatched combination of size, price and capabilities.

It's also hard to overstate how far the new menu system goes to making the camera feel more modern than the original OM-5. While there will be those who prefer a vertical tab system versus a horizontal one, the color coding and improved tips that give you a hint as to why certain options aren't selectable go a long way to making the camera feel more approachable. Their inclusion here makes their exclusion on the original OM-5 all the more baffling, but at least they're here now.

Minor complaint: if you set the function switch to act as the power switch (letting you turn the camera on and control it with the same hand), the default power switch on the left side of the camera becomes completely useless.

The new menus don't solve OM System's issue of its features not necessarily integrating with one another. It remains frustrating that you can't use the mode toggle switch, which would otherwise be a very handy feature, to switch between, say, continuous autofocus with facial recognition, and Tracking autofocus. The face detection mode (and any other modes added after the switch first appeared on the OM-D E-M5 II) can't be controlled by the switch; it will simply stay on, overriding Tracking AF. Still, the camera is very customizable, letting you reassign most of its buttons and dial directions.

Of course, USB-C is also a massive improvement, especially given that the OM-5 II has just okay battery life. Being able to charge your camera using the same equipment you have for your phone, computer, etc., is a luxury that you don't miss until it's gone, and it's a tradeoff this camera no longer asks you to make. Particularly for traveling, this is valuable.

Speaking of tradeoffs, though, we'll also point out that the OM-5 II isn't compatible with OM System's FL-LM3 flash unit, which we consider to be the best pack-in flash unit. We've written an entire article on the matter (and have since attached the flash to our OM-5 II to confirm it didn't work), but felt it deserved a mention here, given that the FL-LM3 did work with the original OM-5.

Conclusion

By Mitchell Clark

When viewed in a vacuum, it's hard to find much to complain about with the OM-5 II. It has a winning combination of good image quality, ergonomics and usability, combined with extra features you normally wouldn't get at this price point like an IP rating, computational photography modes and very solid IBIS. If this was your first camera, or if you were coming from a much older model, you'd probably be pretty happy with it.

There are, however, places where it starts to show its age. And unfortunately, it's in the basics. Autofocus is perhaps the most glaring; in 2025, even much cheaper cameras (which, admittedly, lack those aforementioned features) will provide more reliable tracking and offer greater AF area coverage and additional subject recognition types. Most will also have better video specs, with more flexible 10-bit recording modes and a headphone jack.

This camera's hardware also makes OM System's computational photography features – a major selling point on some of its other cameras – less appealing, because of just how long it takes to process them. That also means it's less convenient to use the high-resolution modes to gain back some of the image quality you give up by going with a smaller sensor.

The OM-5 II's biggest problem, at least initially, may be the original OM-5 itself, which is now selling for significantly less money. It's not that the Mark II doesn't offer any meaningful upgrades, because it does. But if you're willing to put up with microUSB and the old menus, you're getting essentially getting the same camera, but with slightly faster fixed-focus mechanical shutter burst rates and support for one of the best small flashes out there.

We do think there's a market for the OM-5 II. Like the company's other cameras, it still fits well into its niche as a tool for those traveling outdoors who may encounter bad weather and who don't necessarily want to bring a tripod. But as the entry point to that system, there are enough asterisks that you'd have to really want the specific things the OM-5 II is offering to choose it.

In theory, it's the kind of camera we'd love to recommend to people just starting out with the hobby, but its once ground-breaking spec is just a bit too far behind (in a way that cameras like the OM-3 and OM-1 / OM-1 II aren't) at this point for us to do that. As such, we don't feel as if we can grant it an award.

Scoring

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

Compared to its Peers

The Canon EOS R10 will provide more capable autofocus with better general tracking, face detection, and support for detecting other kinds of subjects. Some users will also greatly appreciate the ability to select an autofocus point with a joystick, rather than a touchscreen or four-way controller, and others will benefit from its much better video spec and higher burst rates. While Canon tightly controls what lenses are available for APS-C RF cameras, the selection that's available now is quite good for most types of shooting, even if it's not as extensive as the Micro Four Thirds system. Of course, it does ask you to give up weather resistance and sensor stabilization.

The Fujifilm X-S20 also has better face-tracking and more subject detection modes, but the autofocus performance gap between it and the OM-5 II isn't quite as big as with the Canon. However, it's even more capable when it comes to video – the headphone jack is great for monitoring audio – and is the cheapest APS-C option to offer a stabilized sensor (though its US price has crept up by a few hundred dollars since we listed it as a competitor).

The Nikon Z50II's comparison will reach much the same as the Canon's; it has much better autofocus and video than the OM-5 II, but is slightly held back by lens selection and an unstabilized sensor. Like the OM-5 II, it lacks an AF selection joystick, though the reliability of its '3D Tracking' system means you may find yourself missing it less. It's also the only APS-C camera in this price range to make a claim of weather resistance, though it's the typical vague promise, rather than the IP rating OM System tests for.

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.

Pre-Production Sample Gallery

The latest DJI leaks and rumors – first are some new leaked pictures of the upcoming DJI Osmo Action 6 camera:

DJI Neo 2 drone – coming on October 30th:

• Gesture and voice control
• New omnidirectional sensors
• 2-axis gimbal
• 19 minutes in the air
• Auto return home
• Direct charging

A new DJI Zenmuse L3 next-generation aerial LiDAR and camera system will be announced on November 4:

Via Igor Bogdanov

The post The latest DJI leaks and rumors: Osmo Action 6, Neo 2, and Zenmuse L3 appeared first on Photo Rumors.

Here is what else is new:

Nikon ZR + 35mm f/1.4 lens kit now in stock in the US

The new Nikon Nikkor Z DX 16-50mm f/2.8 VR & 35mm f/1.7 lenses will start shipping this week

Additional information on the major new Nikon Zf firmware update version 3.00 with “Film Grain” feature

Major Nikon Zf firmware update version 3.00 released with the new “Film Grain” feature and much more

Adobe Lightroom Classic 15.0 now supports native tethering for Leica SL3, SL3-S, Q3, and Q3 43 cameras

The latest “Kasyapa for Leica” reviews

The post What else is new? appeared first on Photo Rumors.

Photo: The Camera Store

Break-ins at small businesses are always disheartening, but they hit especially close to home when the business is a photography-related one. After all, local camera stores are vital resources and places of community for so many of us. Unfortunately, that's just what happened to The Camera Store in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, on October 23.

The Camera Store, also well-known for its YouTube channel, recently shared news of the break-in on its blog. It explained that at approximately 2:50 a.m. MDT, an individual forcefully entered the store. That person targeted two of the store's high-end Nikon and Sony showcases, shattering the glass on the display case and stealing the gear inside. Surveillance video The Camera Store shared shows the thief filling a hockey roller bag with professional cameras and lenses and then fleeing the scene. The thief was in and out in under two minutes.

The store said it lost nearly $100,000 CAD (roughly $71,500 USD) worth of inventory and shared a list of all the stolen gear along with serial numbers in its blog post. That amount doesn't include the extensive damage to its display cases and building, which will result in costly repairs, the store said in its post. "We are devastated by this act that not only impacts our staff and customers but also our ability to serve the local photography community," said Evelyn Drake in the blog post.

This isn't the first break-in for this particular store, either. In 2018, a break-in resulted in $35,000 CAD of stolen equipment; another in 2023 involved a loss of more than $30,000 in inventory.

The Camera Store is offering a reward of $5000 in-store credit toward a shopping spree for information that leads to a conviction. Anyone with information or who witnessed suspicious activity around the location should contact the Calgary Police Service at 403-266-1234, or if you wish to remain anonymous, call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 using case number CA25462267.

Here at DPReview, we greatly value local camera stores. Earlier this month, we even asked our community about their favorite local camera stores for our Question of the Week series to highlight some of the gems around the world. It’s truly disheartening to hear of a break-in at a store that plays such an important role in the photography community.

Unfortunately, this is just one example of the difficulties these types of stores are struggling with to stay in business. It's a good reminder to all of us to support our local camera stores when possible. Otherwise, we may lose access to these important places.

Image: Adobe

Disclosure: DPReview is attending Adobe Max, with Adobe covering travel and lodging expenses.

Adobe is holding its Max conference this week, which means we're getting a slate of updates to Photoshop and Lightroom that make some of the features it's been announcing over the year available to the general public.

Perhaps the most exciting one, especially for photographers, is Lightroom's Assisted Culling feature. Adobe said it was working on it earlier this year, but it's finally arriving in public beta. The idea is that it will let you quickly filter through a large batch of images to find the good ones, selecting by angle and how in-focus and sharp they are. The company says the feature will be launching in public beta soon.

The updates coming today include a bunch of small tweaks and features, too. Photo: Mitchell Clark

The company has also brought its automatic dust removal feature in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw out of beta, which can help deal with spots on your sensor that show up in photos. It's part of the Remove Distractions suite of tools, which also lets you use Generative Fill tools to remove people and other objects from your photos, which the company says is now two times faster. The company also says it's improved the reflection removal tool, which it introduced into Adobe Camera Raw last year.

Adobe is integrating a chat assistant into several of its apps, including Photoshop. Image: Adobe

Another feature previewed earlier this year is what Adobe is calling the "Photoshop AI Assistant." Essentially, it's an AI chatbot that you can ask to do various tasks in the app, such as renaming layers and adjusting saturation, potentially saving you some clicks or time that otherwise would've been spent looking up a tutorial or searching for a specific tool. The company is now starting to roll it out, making the feature available in Photoshop for the web as a private beta, via a waitlist that Adobe says it will let people into starting this week.

Of course, several of the features Adobe has announced make use of generative AI. Photoshop's Generative Upscale feature, which was added to the Photoshop beta earlier this year, is launching in the mainline version of the app. By default, it will be powered by Adobe's Firefly model, but now the company says you'll have the option of using Topaz Labs' Gigapixel and Bloom models as well, which could work better on certain types of images. They can, however, cost quite a few AI credits – up to 20 of them – and, the ones included in the cheaper Photography Creative Cloud plans don't work with any of the features that utilize partner models.

In that vein, the company is also updating Photoshop's Generative Fill to support models other than its own Firefly model. Like Generative Upscale, this feature was announced earlier this year in beta, but is now available to the general public. Additionally, the "Harmonize" feature, which was shown off as a preview at last year's Max and made available in beta this summer, is now widely available. The tool attempts to composite different layers together by matching color and lighting.

One AI Feature that doesn't necessarily involve the cloud is subject selection, which the company says is improved in the latest release. In April it introduced the option to process the selection in the cloud, which provided better performance. Now, that model they were using can be run locally, instead, making it easier to select subjects even if you don't have an active internet connection. Adobe's Stephen Nielson, Sr. Director of Product Management of Photoshop, told us that the company was interested in using local models rather than cloud-based ones whenever it was feasible.

Despite Adobe's best efforts, not everything new revolves around AI

Despite Adobe's best efforts, not everything new revolves around AI. The new, more powerful version of Photoshop Mobile, which launched earlier this year for iPhones and iPads, is also now generally available for Android phones, greatly expanding the number of people who can access it. It has a free tier that you can use without a Creative Cloud subscription, but some features will require one. Access is included in the Photoshop Mobile and Web plan, which costs $7.99/month or $69.99 annually.

Image: Adobe

Speaking of Photoshop Web, the company is bringing the stylization effects feature out of beta. These make it easy to add different looks to your image (or specific parts of it), and include options like "glitch," which separates the red, green, and blue channels to make your image look like a poor VHS transfer, "comic" to give it an illustrated look, and motion blur, which adds directional blur to make it seem like something's moving. Each effect has a set of parameters you can tweak. Of course, they're all things you could have achieved in Photoshop before, but having them as one-click options makes the process substantially easier.

Adobe has also updated Camera Raw, giving you the option to automatically mask out snowy parts of landscapes, letting you easily isolate it for editing. There's also now a slider called "Variance" in the color mixer panel, which Adobe says will let you "fine-tune the color and tone of an image to achieve tonal consistency," especially when it comes to skin tones and fine variations in color.

We'll be on the ground at Adobe Max this year, so stay tuned for demos of some of these new features and previews of what we might see over the next year.

Image: Adobe

Disclosure: DPReview is attending Adobe Max, with Adobe covering travel and lodging expenses.

Adobe has announced new features for its Premiere Pro video editor. The updated tools could make it much easier to achieve effects that previously would've required specialized compositing software.

The first and biggest one is called Object Masks, which lets you select an object, such as a person or product, in the video. Premiere will then use AI to detect the edges and create a mask for it, separating it from the background so you can apply effects or transitions to each part of your video, independently.

The Object Mask feature should make it relatively easy to select and track specific elements of your footage. Image: Adobe

This may sound familiar to Lightroom users; Adobe's photo-editing apps have had similar masking tools for a while now. It's also essentially an automated version of rotoscoping, which has long been one of the most tedious parts of video editing.

Of course, a mask wouldn't be particularly useful if it's only for a single frame. Adobe has also updated the built-in mask tracking features to make them faster and better at dealing with changes in perspective if the object is moving towards or away from the camera. If you're running tracking on an Object Mask, Premiere will try to adjust the mask's shape to match whatever you're trying to track as it moves.

Image: Adobe

The standard shape masks made using the rectangle, eclipse or pen tools have also been updated with a cleaner UI and support for the updated tracking tools.

The updates are launching in public beta today, and will likely be a welcome addition to editors who use Premiere, especially if Object Masks works as well as they do in Adobe's demos.

Exciting as they are, masks aren't the only thing that have gotten an update in Premiere. There's a new auto-censoring feature that uses the automatic transcription to let you bleep out any specific words you don't want included in the final cut. Premiere will also let you use a custom sound, if you'd prefer something other than the traditional swear beep. The feature is launching as a public beta today.

Image: Insta360

Insta360 has announced the X4 Air, a lightweight take on its X series of 360-degree action cameras. Despite shedding some weight, Insta360 promises flagship-level features from the new camera, with 8K 360 video and larger sensors than the X4.

Action cameras are already quite compact and lightweight, but Insta360 cut down the X4 Air to 165g (5.8oz). Insta360 says it is its lightest-ever 8K 360 camera. Still, while the company highlights that as a primary selling point, it's only 35g (1.2oz) less than the X5, and 38g (1.3oz) lighter than the X4. That's around a 19% reduction, but in absolute terms, it's hardly earth-shattering weight savings.

The X4 Air effectively sits in between the X4 and X5, with upgrades over its namesake and both shared and downgraded specs when compared to the X5. Despite the shared specs, Insta360 makes it clear that the X4 Air sits below the flagship model. "Where X5 is engineered for precision, X4 Air is made for freedom," the company says. The most prominent difference is that the new camera uses dual Type 1/1.8 (7.1 x 5.3mm) sensors, which are significantly smaller than those in the flagship model.

Insta360 says the new camera is capable of up to 8K30 when recording 360-degree video, just like the last two X model cameras. What's new, though, is that the 8K resolution is also available when using the 'Active HDR' mode, which is Insta360's wide-dynamic range footage compressed into an SDR space. That's an improvement over the X5's 5.7K 60 max resolution when recording with Active HDR.

Insta360 says the biggest improvement comes from AdaptiveTone, which it describes as its "intelligent exposure algorithm." The company says Adaptive Tone analyzes light from both lenses independently to balance brightness and color better. It says this protects highlight and shadow detail for higher quality 360 images without heavy color grading.

Images: Insta360

The X4 Air also offers durability upgrades over the X4. The company implemented the user-replaceable lenses introduced on the X5 so users can swap lenses themselves if they get scratched or shattered (extra lenses are a separate purchase). The camera is also waterproof to 15m (49") without a separate case.

Otherwise, the X4 Air gets all the standard Insta360 features. That includes a Portrait Mode that automatically detects faces and adjusts brightness and color accordingly, a night mode that promises better lowlight performance and the company's FlowState Stabilization and 360° Horizon Lock. It also supports gesture and voice control, and provides multiple preset recording modes to simplify the editing and sharing process.

The Insta360 X4 Air is available starting today in Graphite Black and Arctic White. The Standard Bundle costs $400, while the Starter bundle, which includes a 14cm Invisible Selfie Stick, Lens Cap and extra Battery, costs $440.

Composite image of Nikon Zf product rendering and Nikon Grain Effect sample photo.

Nikon has just released firmware v3.0 for its Zf classically styled full-frame mirrorless camera, adding a grain effect option and other updates, including a JPEG-only 'C15' 15fps burst mode and UVA/UAC tethered webcam mode.

The latest firmware brings the grain effect we got a chance to preview, earlier this month, as one of what the company says are more than twenty upgrades and enhancements. Nikon has not shared details of all these changes, but it does say they include additional on-screen frame guide options, an option to apply focus peaking only when live view is magnified and an option to manual focus the lens wide open, regardless of capture aperture.

Click here to see our Nikon Zf Grain Effect samples

In addition, Nikon says it's added an option to its EVF/LCD auto switching system so that the rear screen doesn't black out if something gets too near the eye sensor when the screen is folded out from the body.

The grain effect option is the biggest update, though, bringing the choice of six intensities of grain and three sizes. Nikon says the pattern constantly changes so that each image looks distinct and video has a convincing randomness to the grain's appearance.

The firmware can be installed via Nikon's SnapBridge software and there's now an option to have it automatically install updates via the Nikon Imaging Cloud service. You can set a time of day at which the camera checks for updates and, if turned off and connected to a power source, it will download and install the firmware.

Nikon Zf firmware v3.0 is available (free) immediately.

B&H Photo is currently listing a new, not yet announced AstrHori 9mm f/2.8 APS-C lens for E/X/Z/RF/MFT mount:

Check the official website for any updates.

Announced: new AstrHori AF 85mm f/1.8 Mark II full-frame lens for E/L/Z

Via CanonAddict

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