The rumor mill around Apple’s upcoming iPhones, set to be announced September 9, has been in full swing for months, and the word on the street is that there’s supposedly one big change coming to the new phone’s cameras: the iPhone 18 Pro Max will get a variable aperture on its main camera. While people have been making this prediction for years, Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, who has a pretty decent track record, recently threw his weight behind it.

As an iPhone nerd, there are a lot of things that interest me about this. The first is that it marks a return of Apple differentiating the camera on its biggest, most expensive* model. The Pro Max phones have historically received new camera updates first – the 15 Pro Max got the 5x telephoto camera a year before it came to the standard Pro – but we’ve been in a stretch where the cameras on the Pro models have been exactly the same. If this rumor is true, that’s about to change.

But as a photographer and camera reviewer, I’m skeptical whether this change will matter much. Before we get to the reasons why, let’s talk about the theoretical benefits. At a high level, changing your lens’s aperture lets you control how much light is hitting the sensor and your depth of field (i.e., how blurry the background of your photo is). The smaller the aperture (or, counter-intuitively, the higher your F-number), the less light it lets in, and the more of your image will be in focus. Phones, historically, have quite fast lenses; the iPhone 17 Pro’s main camera shoots at a fixed F1.78. 

In bright, sunny conditions, this means the phone has to cope with a lot of light hitting the sensor, resorting to tricks like using extremely low ISOs and very fast shutter speeds. And as phone companies push to make their lenses faster to improve image quality and flexibility in low light, this becomes even harder. Adding an aperture that can stop down to, say, F4, would help take some of that pressure off.

Mitchell Clark

It’s worth noting that this would almost certainly be the direction Apple goes in, rather than making one that could open up from F1.78 to, say, F1.2. If it was able to make the lens faster, it already would’ve done so. And for phone photographers, that reduces the potential practical benefits; I’ve personally never run into a situation where it was physically too bright for my phone to cope, so an aperture that can stop down isn’t fixing a problem I currently have (with the one exception of video, where the closer you can get to a shutter speed that’s double your frame rate, the more natural motion will look).

The same is true for the other half of the equation, depth of field. To understand why, we have to introduce the concept of equivalent apertures. A F number is absolute; an F1.8 lens on a phone will transmit the same amount of light per square millimeter of sensor as a full-frame F1.8 will. However, because iPhones use much smaller sensors than traditional cameras, the amount of light gathered over the whole image area and the depth of field won’t be equivalent to what you’d get on a full-frame camera with an F1.8 lens. 

Mitchell Clark

The current iPhone 17 Pro main camera has a Type 1/1.28 (71.5mm²) sensor. That means that its F1.78 lens will produce the same depth of field as an F6.1 lens on a full-frame camera. If Apple makes it stop down to, say F4, that would give you a lens with two settings: F6.1 and F13.7 equiv. That’ll definitely make a difference in your available depth of field, but it’ll be a change from “enough” to “more than enough,” rather than making a huge difference to the types of shots you can get in most cases. It also, importantly, won’t make any difference if you want to get the coveted shallow depth of field look that the iPhone currently has to emulate with portrait mode.

Finally, let’s consider some historical context. Back when compact cameras were dominant, many of them used sensors that were similar sizes to the iPhone, and had the ability to change apertures. But while some had actual aperture blades like a traditional lens, others used a Waterhouse stop, moving a plate with a fixed aperture in between the lens and the sensor to stop down when needed.

This is less flexible – you don’t get the stops in between wide open and the plate’s diaphragm – but is mechanically simpler. That’s likely a huge consideration for Apple when it comes to building a device that will be subjected to pretty much every condition and abuse you can think of. This is, after all, a company that replaced a physical home button with a solid state one (and is rumored to have at least considered doing the same for the rest of the phone’s buttons, too).

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Some compacts also simply slotted in an ND filter, and reported it as a stopped down aperture, since it had the same effect on the incoming light. (It didn’t affect the depth of field, but, again, they already had plenty). Apple could go either of those routes rather than building a standard aperture, and it would have good reason to; going the traditional way may have reliability concerns, and could cost more at a time when Apple’s also being squeezed when it comes to chip pricing and availability.

With that said, we’ve seen phones with physical aperture mechanisms before. Samsung included the feature on the Galaxy S9 and S10, to extremely middling results. You essentially couldn’t tell the difference, and the company ended up dropping the feature. Huawei has several phones in its lineup today with variable apertures, but it essentially never gets a mention on the feature pages, despite how much of them are dedicated to talking about the cameras.

However Apple decides to implement it, if it does at all, the point is the same: it’s unlikely to be something you actually notice when it comes to the experience of using your phone as a camera or the photos you get out of it. But that’s not to say that Apple has just decided to make one of the most mechanically complex parts of its phones even more complicated for giggles, or that it’ll purely be a marketing gimmick.

To the latter point, I’m honestly 50/50 on whether I think it’ll bring it up in the keynote presentation at all (again, assuming the rumors are even accurate). There’s probably some technical reason why it’ll be nice to have as part of its computational image processing pipeline, and there may even be a slight noticeable benefit to it. And if, by some miracle, Apple has decided to massively increase the size of the camera sensor, then it could genuinely be an important inclusion, though, to be clear, that change hasn’t been rumored at all.

But don’t get your hopes up. At the end of the day, the odds are that iPhone photos will still look like iPhone photos (which is to say: pretty good, for a phone), and that there won’t be an appreciable difference between the camera on the iPhone 18 Pro and the one on the 18 Pro Max… or, for that matter, between the new phone and the one it’s replacing. Sometimes, a change is just a change, no matter how much buzz there is about it leading up to it.

* – Currently most expensive, anyways. Apple is also expected to introduce a folding phone that will almost certainly be priced above the Pro models and that will have worse cameras, if other major foldables are any indication.

Adobe has announced a new collection of features for Photoshop, including one that it promises will let you do the type of processing you’d previously have to go to Adobe Camera Raw to do, without leaving the app’s standard workspace.

The feature is called the “Light Adjustment Layer,” which gives you control over brightness, contrast, and whites, highlight, shadow and black levels. Like other adjustment layers, it’s relatively flexible. You can use masks to have it only apply to certain parts of your image, and it’s non-destructive; unlike filters, you can easily tweak or remove it after you’ve added it. 

Adobe

As with many of the recent features we’ve seen from Adobe, this isn’t necessarily going to unlock new ways of working for Photoshop pros; most of what the layer does could be achieved with Curves and/or Levels adjustment layers. But it makes things that bit easier and friendlier to beginners.

The other major feature in the release takes that even further, introducing a whole new mode to Photoshop that strips away most of the interface. It’s called the ‘AI Assisted Editor’, and it bundles the tools you’d need to do some common and basic tasks into a simpler UI. The company says it’s designed for people who are new to the software and want to use it to make edits, but who might be overwhelmed by trying to figure out which tool to use, and by a layer-based workflow.

Adobe

As the name implies, many of its features revolve around AI. There’s the maximal version, where you just type a prompt into a box with the edits you want made, which Photoshop will try to carry out using a generative model of your choice, but there are also modes that use some of the other AI tools the company’s built into the app. For example, one pane will let you remove the background, and another will let you remove unwanted objects in your image. Yet another gives you access to the Generative Expand feature, which attempts to fill in the area beyond the edges of your image.

Adobe has also introduced other AI tools, such as the ability to have generative edits using its FireFly models only apply to a masked portion of the image, a “markup” mode that lets you guide generative AI edits with drawings and an option in the task bar that lets you type a prompt that will edit the entire image.

Related: Adobe’s new plan to justify its subscriptions: be a one-stop AI shop

Finally, the company has expanded the dynamic text tool, letting you create text that will adapt to a custom shape or path; previously, it only worked with circular, arched or bowed shapes. It’s also added a panel dedicated to Adobe Stock, letting you access the company’s library of stock images and graphics from right within Photoshop.

The AI Assisted Editor feature is launching in beta, while the other features will be available via an update to the app, coming for free to Creative Cloud subscribers (though, as always, many of the AI features will use some number of credits, which you’ll only have a limited number of per month, depending on your plan).

Editor’s note: the text of this article was written by Mitchell, which is who is referred to using first-person pronouns. Abby is credited in the article as she makes up half the conversation it’s based on, and gave input on its content. The lede image was taken in real life, not from a television.

It was a title and thumbnail that was bound to get my attention. YouTuber Hunter Creates Things’ video “The Internet’s Most HATED Photography Trend” shows a blurry picture and with the word “tv.” in red. Clicking on it, I thought it was going to be about shutter drag (“TV” being how some brands refer to their cameras’ shutter priority modes), a photographic technique that’s almost inescapable amongst photographers right now. “I can see why people don’t like this,” I thought, “but I’m interested what this person has to say.”

Treat this video as required viewing; the rest of the article probably won’t make much sense if you haven’t seen it.

That’s not at all what it was about. Instead, it’s about a trend I’d totally missed: one where photographers will use their cameras to capture what’s playing on their televisions, often producing an image that looks very different to the one originally broadcast. I reacted… strongly to both the concept and the video about it, immediately sending it to my coworker Abby Ferguson with the message: “not gonna lie, I don’t think I can get behind this.”

This kicked off a conversation that was interesting enough that we thought it’d be worth sharing with you. But first, a bit of background info for context: Abby has an MFA in fine arts, thus is more well-versed in art history and theory than I am. Meanwhile, I have a background in video, and have even filmed sports for television before.

This image by Matthew Johnson is one of the examples Hunter discusses in his video.

When I first shared the video Abby had, unsurprisingly, already heard of the controversy.

Abby: I remember when those photos of the figure skater came out. I also didn't realize at the time that he was just taking photos of his TV and was pretty disappointed. I have very, very mixed feelings about them.

I replied that two of Hunter’s comments got under my skin in particular: the first was his assertion that “neither you or I are qualified to say whether this is good art,” which both of us disagreed with. The second was when he said “The goal of sports broadcast television is not to be art, but these photos don’t have to be information-first, aesthetics second. If you think about it, I don’t think I would ever take a screenshot of ESPN, and put that on my wall.”

Mitchell: Spoken like someone who honestly hasn't watched a sports broadcast in the last… I dunno, decade. They're so well-produced now, and there's clearly artistic shots and compositions on display?

Related: Abby’s interview with a videographer for the Super Bowl Halftime show

Abby: I do kind of get what he's saying with that line actually. Yes, broadcasts do now have artistic shots and compositions, but they are still more in the realm of documentary/photojournalism. These photos (though I kind of have a hard time calling them photos), take a more abstract approach.

Mitchell: Sure. But if I took a screenshot from that and edited it to produce the same effect that the photographers have, I feel like people would rightly call that plagiarism.

I’m not entirely sure, in retrospect, that this statement holds water. It’s probably more defensiveness based on having been on the opposite side of the TV. Abby pointed out that things are rarely that clear cut.

Abby: Maybe…but in the art world there's a rough understanding that you can take someone's original art and modify it to become your own. There's never been a clear black and white line about HOW modified, so I think these would very much fall into the gray area. They don't look like the original broadcast, so they become something new.

I still have issues with it, but from a legal perspective, I'm not sure they would be considered plagiarism.

We both agreed that things get extra dubious when creators taking pictures of their TV try to obscure what they’re doing, or don’t credit the source. And neither of us thought that taking what is essentially a crop of an existing composition is the same as actually being there and deciding how to capture the scene.

Abby: It feels….lazy? Like he's just doing this from the comfort of his living room while the actual footage is from people working their butts off.

Mitchell: But yeah, to your point, there is an art to the remix

Abby: I like the images, I just wish his process was different. Do that on actual subjects in real life.

In his video, Hunter brings up the 1974 series “TV Shots” from famed photographer Harry Gruyaert, where he also took photographs of his television playing the Olympics, sparking a similar debate. But both Abby and I agreed that Gruyaert’s work just… feels different. There are a lot of potential reasons why. Maybe subconsciously we’re appealing to authority; surely it must be more meaningful when a Magnum photographer does it? Perhaps it’s framing. Gruyaert posed his images as an interrogation of the medium of television itself. Or maybe it’s simply technological. A film photo of a CRT television showing a standard definition broadcast with deliberately wonky colors looks nothing like a photo taken by someone who was actually there. With 4K livestreams, the lines between shots for TV and shots of it blur.

We more or less left the conversation there, as we remembered that we probably had more productive things to do. But it’s also easy to see why we wound up talking about a video that I had mostly sent as a throw-away: it, and the pieces it discuss, relate to a lot of hot-button topics in 2026. Ever since YouTuber HBomberGuy released his four-hour magnum opus on plagiarism, there’s been renewed scrutiny around crediting people’s work (further fueled by how many generative AI systems are trained on existing material), and there are still people who, during debates on what counts as art, bring up Marcel Duchamp submitting a signed urinal* for an exhibition in 1917.

That’s part of what made us decide to share this conversation; obviously, we have our own perspectives, but they’re not going to be the only ones. Consider this the start of a discussion, as we’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on the trend and Hunter’s video. Be sure to join us in the comments below.

* Whether he was the one that signed it is up for debate.

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With Ricoh’s announcement of the GR IVx, due out in “winter 2026 or later,” the company has also said that production of the GR IIIx, IIIx HDF, and IIIx Urban Edition cameras will end in October. It specifies that this schedule is for Japan, and notes that “ending dates may differ for overseas regions.”

The GR IIIx and its variants, which feature 40mm equiv. F2.8 lenses, rather than the GR-standard 28mm equiv. model, have long been a bit hard to get your hands on, facing frequent stock issues in the US. That, taken with the company’s citation of the “availability of certain parts ending” in its announcement of the discontinuation, means that this move isn’t necessarily surprising.

What is a bit odd is that it appears to be happening before the GR IVx arrives, at least by a few months. While production ending before doesn’t ensure stock will run out, it won’t help the camera’s availability issues if people who don’t care about the upgrades coming with the IVx rush to get their hands on them before they’re gone. There’s likely to be some extra incentive there too; the GR IV was substantially more expensive than its predecessor and, while Ricoh hasn’t announced pricing for the IVx, we wouldn’t expect that trend to change. 

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Apple has announced a special event on September 9 at 10am PT (1pm ET / 6pm BST). While the company is characteristically coy about what’ll be announced – basically the only information that it’s shared is the title of the event, which is “surprise and shine” – its early September events are traditionally reserved for new iPhones. 

There was a time when it was relatively easy to predict what would be announced at these events: two sizes of iPhone Pro and one or two sizes of the standard iPhone. But Apple’s roster of annually updated models has expanded, and is rumored to do so further. There’s now a budget model (currently the iPhone 17e) and an ultra-thin phone called the “Air.” If rumors are to be believed, this year’s event will also see the introduction of what would be Apple’s first folding phone, too. 

Based on how Apple’s release schedule has worked in previous years, we wouldn’t expect to see a new “e” model at this event, though there are murmurs that Apple may even defer the launch of the new base model iPhone to a later event. In other words, we’d get what’ll presumably be called the iPhone 18 Pro, but not the standard iPhone 18. 

At the moment, though, that’s all still speculation. Only Apple knows for sure what it has in store, and we’ll find out in around two weeks.  

OM System is teasing “something new” coming September 9. Whatever it is, the company wants you to know it’ll have an EVF: the video it posted to its social media channels prominently focuses on that particular feature, while showing way more than we’ve come to expect for this kind of pre-announcement teaser.

Usually, companies will post a silhouette of a camera draped in deep shadows, with just a few parts sticking through to suggest its shape. And at first, that’s what OM System’s video seems like, opening with a shot looking through an EVF before presumably showing several sample photos depicting city life. But then, it closes with a shot of a camera floating up through the air with a surprising amount of the top and back plate visible. Sure, there are still plenty of shadows, but we can still see that the camera is using OM System’s familiar design language, and that it’ll have a fair number of controls.

Of course, there’s still plenty the teaser doesn’t reveal; there’s no hint at specs, price or branding. For those, we’ll have to wait until September 9.

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GoPro is finally releasing the Mission 1 Pro ILS, the tiny video camera with a Micro Four Thirds mount the company announced back in April. The standard Mission 1 Pro, which comes with a fixed lens and a Type 1 (128mm²) sensor, has been available for a while now and represented a big step up from the company’s traditional action cameras, but the version with an interchangeable lens is an even bigger change. 

Like the standard Mission 1 Pro, the ILS’s Type 1 sensor has very fast readout speeds, allowing it to capture 4:3 open gate footage at 8K up to 30p, and at 4K up to 120p. Switch to 16:9 recording, and it can do 60p and 240p, respectively. It can also record using an HLG curve for HDR footage straight out of camera, or in GoPro’s GP-Log2 for more flexibility in post, and supports 32-bit float for audio, to virtually eliminate the risk of your sound clipping. 

While it’s tempting to see the Mission 1 Pro ILS as an enthusiast camera, there are clear indications that it’s aimed more towards video professionals, and the time we’ve spent with the camera so far supports this. Its Micro Four Thirds mount has no electronic contacts, so it can’t do autofocus, nor does it support the focus-by-wire or electronic aperture actuation required by most of the photo-focused Micro Four Thirds lenses on the market (as in, almost everything from Panasonic or OM System). That also means you’ll need to manually pull focus, and while the camera has assistance tools like focus peaking and magnification, that’s still no easy task if you’re using the 2.59″ rear display. 

Thankfully, alongside the ILS, GoPro is launching a new app for iPhone and iPad called Mission Monitor. It not only lets you use a phone or tablet to preview your image and control the camera on a much larger screen, but also supports tools like focus peaking, LUT view assist and frameline overlays. 

That app mainly operates over USB, rather than Wi-Fi, like the consumer-focused Quik app (though that can be used with this camera, too). This again reinforces that the camera is aimed towards a very different audience than the company’s traditional action cameras. Rather than being a self-contained option that you can set and forget, it’s something you or a dedicated camera operator actively have to manage, likely with the assistance of a rig with tools like a monitor and follow-focus rig. It’s also worth noting that, unsurprisingly, given its lens mount, this is a GoPro that’s only weatherproof, rather than waterproof. 

We plan on doing some more testing with the Mission 1 Pro ILS soon to see how it works for a variety of use cases, including as a tool for photographers, as it also has the ability to take 50MP stills, and an accessory grip that makes it feel more like a traditional compact (albeit one with even less manual control than usual and no autofocus). If you have any questions about it, let us know in the comments below. 

The GoPro Mission 1 Pro ILS is available to pre-order for $700 from the company’s website, which is the same price as the standard Mission 1 Pro (though it’s already on sale at a $100 discount and has a built-in lens). The company says it’ll be available at traditional retailers in September.

GoPro

GoPro Mission 1 Pro ILS

• Shop Now at GoPro
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Apple has updated its popular desktop computers, the Mac Mini and the more powerful Mac Studio. Alongside the new models come new chips: Apple is introducing an “Ultra” model into its M5 lineup, as well as its next generation of processor, the M6. But while the new models are exciting, their prices aren’t; the impacts of AI on RAM and storage pricing are extremely evident here.

The Mac Mini and M6

Apple

Lets start with the Mac Mini, as it’s Apple’s mainline desktop computer, which will be more than powerful enough for most photographers. The biggest change is internal, as the base level Mac Mini ships with the M6, a new chip in Apple’s lineup. It has a 12-core CPU, made up of two “Super” high-performance cores, 4 “performance” cores for mid-level tasks and 6 “efficiency” cores. The M4 found in the previous generation had 4 “performance” cores – though at the time those were Apple’s fastest cores, closer to what it’d call “super” cores now – and 6 efficiency cores. The chip can now access its memory slightly faster, with 170GB/s of bandwidth, up from 120GB/s. Likewise, the GPU has two additional cores for a total of 12.

Apple says the M6 “is built using cutting-edge 2 nm process” (though, as is typical, that doesn’t necessarily mean all, or even any, of its features actually measure 2nm), and that it includes a “Dual 16-core Neural Engine” that can provide double the performance in on-device AI tasks compared to the M5. The company also claims the M6 has 1.2 times faster single-core performance than the previous-gen (not that you could buy the Mac Mini with that chip in it).

You can also now get the Mac Mini with the same M5 Pro chip found in the company’s MacBook Pros. While it’s built on an older process, it offers more cores – starting with 15 CPU cores and 16 GPU cores, and going up to an 18-core CPU and 20-core GPU – and higher memory and SSD capacity. The M6 Mac Mini can handle up to 32GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD; with the M5 Pro version, that expands to 64GB and 8TB, respectively. And while the M6 Mac Mini’s Thunderbolt ports are still the fourth-gen versions that can run up to 40Gbps, the M5 Pro’s are Thunderbolt 5, which can reach up to 80Gbps (or 120Gbps in an asynchronous mode). 

Apple

Outside of the updated processors, not much has changed about the Mini’s capabilities. It still has three ThunderBolt Ports, two USB-C ports and an HDMI port, and can drive up to three external displays. Apple updated its Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to versions 6 and 7 respectively (the latter being a very welcome addition). Likewise, the Ethernet port has been updated, too; it’s now a 2.5Gb model, rather than a 1Gb one, which will be a big upgrade for anyone who often finds themselves transferring large files over the network. Of course, you can still upgrade to a 10Gb ethernet port for $100 at time of purchase.

These upgrades don’t come cheap, though. When the M4 Mac Mini launched in late 2024, you could get a model with 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD for $599. However, following the skyrocketing prices of DRAM chips, Apple recently got rid of that model, and the base level became the $799 version with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. The M6 version comes in at $899, but drops the SSD back down to 256GB. You still get 16GB of memory. While the starting price has “only” jumped $100 compared to yesterday, you’re getting less for more money than you would’ve previously, and much less compared to what you would’ve been able to buy a year ago. 

The story is slightly less painful with the M5 Pro model. The previous version with an M4 Pro launched for $1,399 with 24GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, while the new model is $1699 for those same specs.

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Pelican, the company famous for its ultra-rugged hard cases, is introducing a new backpack aimed squarely at photographers and creators. The not-so-catchily-named PX35 Aegis 35L Creator Backpack is made out of durable 500D Cordura fabric, lets you access your camera without taking it off and has a removable insert that can be directly transferred into one of its Air or Protector cases.

As its name implies, the pack has a 35L capacity, which is mainly in its large central compartment. You can access that space from the top of the bag, from the back, or from either side. The main flap, which has a variety of zippered and elastic pouches and a laptop pocket, can fully unzip, giving you unobstructed access to the pack’s interior. There’s also a small brain area on top with hard padding and space for various accessories like multitools, headphones and passports, and the front has MOLLE attachment points and a front flap that can be clipped up to hold oversized items like tripods or jackets.

Pelican

Included with the bag is a removable padded divider, with compartments you can configure to hold your specific gear, be that camera bodies, lenses, small drones or a mixture thereof. The pouch is removable, making it easy to take out at a moment’s notice. It’s also designed to fit in the company’s Pelican Protector 1510 and Pelican Air 1535 hard cases, so you can keep your gear secure during air or ground travel, then pull the insert out and slide it into your pack when you get wherever you’re going. This means you don’t have to repack all your gear when you get where you’re going, which can be an annoying process, especially if you haven’t quite accounted for differences in capacities or layouts.

The company says the pack has a “rigid, protective shell” to keep your gear protected, but also says it’s a “last mile solution” that’s not as heavy or protective as its hard cases. To that end, it’s also not completely waterproof, though Pelican says it’s “weather-resistant” on its own, and comes with a rain fly.

Pelican

The pack’s ruggedness comes at a cost that’s both weight and monetary. It comes in at 5.4lbs (2.45kg) on its own, and costs $325. To manage the former, it has an integrated but unpadded hipbelt, as well as a sternum strap, complete with a whistle integrated into the clip. And while the price is definitely on the high end – it’s around an $80 premium compared to one of DPReview managing editor Dale Baskin’s favorite packs – it’s not unheard of if you’re comparing it to options from companies like Peak Design, once you factor in its inclusion of a padded divider.

The bag comes in black or “charcoal sage” green, and has a five-year warranty. 

Pelican

Pelican PX35 Aegis 35L Creator Backpack

• $325 at Pelican

Earlier this summer, LK Samyang announced the AF 60-180mm F2.8, its latest lens that it says was developed in collaboration with German optics company Schneider-Kreuznach. We’ve had the chance to test it out the version for E-mount (though the company has recently announced it’ll be available for L-mount next week), shooting with it in a variety of conditions to produce a sample gallery, and forming some impressions along the way.

In use

The thing I immediately noticed about this lens was its weight, as it comes in at just 730g (1.6lbs). According to LK Samyang, it’s the lightest option in this class, and I found that difference noticeable. It was very easy to carry around, even for extended shooting sessions. While the lens extends as you zoom in, this doesn’t result in a substantial shift in its center of gravity, which is always nice when changing focal lengths.

Speaking of, though, the zoom ring might be the lens’s weakest point. It has a nice textured rubber coating, but can be a bit difficult to turn with any amount of precision, as it’s quite stiff, but inconsistently so; I sometimes had to work to turn it from 60mm, before finding myself in an easy patch sailing right through the focal length I wanted. It’s not end of the world, and I got used to it with practice, but it is a reminder that you’re using a budget lens. 

Mitchell Clark

The lens is also made out of a plastic that isn’t the most premium-feeling. Nor does the customizable control button, though it’s a nice inclusion. Finally, LK Samyang has added a lock switch to keep the lens at 60mm while you’re walking around with it, though I found the mechanism’s stiffness was enough to keep it from accidentally extending. However, it does hold it incredibly well; I once accidentally locked the lens, and was completely unable to turn the zoom ring until I discovered what had happened.

It focuses quite quickly, though it’s not the absolute fastest I’ve ever experienced. That’s not surprising given that it uses stepping motors rather than linear ones, but it should be more than acceptable for everything but the fastest of action. I also appreciated its close focusing abilities, as it has a minimum focusing distance of just 0.35m (1.2′) at the wide end, letting me get quite close to my subject, which suits my style of shooting. Unlike the zoom ring, the manual focus ring is perfectly pleasant to use.

While this lens is in some ways competing with the venerable 70-200mm F2.8 options available from Sony, Panasonic and Sigma, its closest competitor is the Tamron 70-180mm F2.8 Di III VC VXD G2, a lens I tested out earlier this year. In my mind, there’s no clear winner between the two; the Tamron weighs a bit more, but its body and controls feel a bit nicer (or, in the case of the zoom ring, a fair bit nicer). It also has optical image stabilization, snappy autofocus motors and access to the special features Tamron’s been adding to its lineup via its app. But then I also found myself appreciating the ability to go that bit wider with the Samyang. And both have image quality that would’ve been unthinkable at this price range just a few years ago, though the vignetting at F2.8 is perhaps a touch less noticeable on the Samyang.

It’s nice that there’s another budget option for a fast tele-zoom for E-mount, and one that’s quite capable for its price. It’s perhaps more exciting that it’s coming for L-mount, where there aren’t that many lightweight, budget tele options. It’s also nice to see that Samyang doesn’t seem to be waiting a long time between releasing lenses for the system after announcing them for E-mount.

Sample gallery

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

Thanks to Sony for the loan of an a7R V to shoot this gallery. All images were processed using our standard lens workflow in Capture One, with the manufacturer’s distortion correction applied but no correction of vignetting. The profile corrects a fair amount of barrel distortion at the wide and some pincushion distortion at the long end. It’s enough that we’d recommend using the corrections if you can, though we don’t consider them an essential part of the lens’s design.

Photography YouTuber Casey Cavanaugh, also known as GXAce, is working on something new: a camera called the GX-P1. Cavanaugh has been teasing the camera for a few weeks, and there’s still a lot more we don’t know, but a newsletter he wrote, seen by PetaPixel, has shed a bit more light on what it’ll look like.

According to PetaPixel, the GX-P1 will be a fixed lens digital camera that shoots images in the 65:24 aspect ratio popularized by the Hasselblad XPan. The goal is to make a camera “built specifically for photography,” something Cavanaugh says “not a single camera company seems to want to do.” His goal is to crowdfund the camera later this year, though there’s apparently still quite a lot of work to be done.

While the ultra-wide format has a number of dedicated fans, there aren’t that many options if you want to shoot it these days. Fujifilm built a setting for the aspect ratio into the GFX100RF, and Panasonic has built support for it into many of its full-frame cameras, but it’s far from common. But even if you have no interest in a camera dedicated to it, there could still be reasons to follow the GX-P1 project.

According to PetaPixel, Cavanaugh plans on publishing videos about the process of creating the camera, offering a rare inside look into what it takes to build a digital camera from the ground up. As he himself points out in his review of the Pixii Max, a small, independent team’s journey to bring a camera to market will look very different than that of a major company that has experience, existing relationships and economies of scale, but I’m still excited to see the process.

Cavanaugh is working with designer and creative director Ash Thorp, who has worked on movies like 2022’s The Batman and 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and the GXAce videos place a heavy emphasis on aesthetics, so I suspect we’ll get a lot of information about the work that went into the physical design the camera. So far, the team has only shown a few photos of the device, revealing what looks like an optical viewfinder, top plate informational display and a control dial.

We’ll have to wait until Cavanaugh releases more information, or the first video of the series, to find out more, but we’ll be eagerly waiting for the first episode.

The Camera Intelligence Caira is something between a dedicated camera and a phone accessory. It has its own Micro Four Thirds mount, an 11.4MP sensor and a Snapdragon processor to handle computational tasks like multi-exposure image stacking, and autofocus and white balance calculations. However, it only has a single control – a shutter button – and no display. To actually use it, you need an iPhone (specifically, as it won’t work with an Android phone), which physically connects to the back of the Caira using MagSafe and digitally connects to it via Wi-Fi for liveview and control.

It’s also a camera that’s all-in on AI for both shooting and editing. It uses the tech to control autofocus, white balance and exposure while you’re taking a picture, and, after you’ve captured the scene, you can change it using an editor powered by Google’s “Nano Banana” generative AI model. The app gives you preset changes, like removing clutter from a scene, changing eye-lines and applying a VHS-style filter, as well as a chatbot to make more arbitrary changes, or to get feedback on the image you’ve taken. However, that bits that deal with generative AI are optional (and, indeed, require a monthly subscription), so we’ll mainly be focusing on how the Caira behaves as a camera.

The Caira is available for pre-order for $1000, though there’s more to the availability story.

Key Specifications

• Micro Four Thirds mount
• 11.4MP ~Four Thirds (244mm²) BSI CMOS sensor w/ Quad Bayer
• Brightness-map HDR JPEG output
• Qualcomm Snapdragon processor
• MagSafe mount for iPhone
• AI exposure, white balance and autofocus
• Built-in generative AI-powered editor
• 64GB internal storage

Note: this review was written after using the camera with several beta firmware versions provided by Camera Intelligence, and extensive use with the latest version.

Body, handling and controls

Mitchell Clark

The Caira’s body is made out of aluminum, and it’s a nice-feeling physical object. There are only a few features on it: a (disappointingly vague) shutter button, the lens mount, a power button, a USB C port for charging and 3.5mm microphone jack. It also has a cold shoe for mounting accessories.

While I found it relatively comfortable to hold in one hand, using my thumb to control it and index finger to press the shutter, I couldn’t help but worry about the connection between the camera body and my phone. Apple’s MagSafe is relatively robust, but it still just relies on magnets, which are only strong in certain directions. When I’m using the Caira, it’s hard not to imagine bumping my phone wrong and sending it crashing to the ground.

Mitchell Clark

Speaking of my phone, most of the camera’s interface is actually in its companion app. It connects to the camera via Wi-Fi, and provides controls for various parameters: aperture, shutter speed, ISO, exposure compensation and focus. You can also set the controls to “Advanced” to change lens distortion correction and white balance temperature / tint.

By default, the controls are collapsed, and the camera handles exposure and white balance automatically. If you tap a button to gain access to the controls, though, you can then tap the icon for each parameter to turn it into manual mode, and control it using a slider. I’ve found this to be okay for controlling focus – the camera has some decent assist tools – but not so great for exposure; the sliders make it easy to make big adjustments, but fine-grained ones like picking F4 instead of F3.5 or 4.5 require a fair amount of concentration. This is a camera best used in auto mode, with manual intervention only when necessary.

Mitchell Clark

I found that the Caira works best with smaller, lighter lenses (the kind that are thankfully abundant in the Micro Four Thirds ecosystem). I used it a bit with the OM System 12-40mm F2.8 II Pro, and found it a difficult to keep steady with how front-heavy it was; it’s difficult to compose when the preview is jittery and bouncy. It was still workable, but I don’t think I’d want to shoot with anything much bigger, and preferred using small primes.

Image Quality

Before we dive into image quality, a note on the sensor. Very much like the Panasonic’s GH5S, the Caira uses a slightly oversized Four Thirds sensor, that allows you to use different region of the sensor to produce different aspect ratios. But while the Panasonic went up to 10.2MP in its 4:3 mode, the Caira allows you to go up to 11.4MP in its 3:2 mode. This essentially uses the standard Micro Four Thirds sensor height but extends around 10% further than usual, horizontally.

This is because, rather than limiting itself to using the sensor area covered by the Micro Four Thirds imaging circle, it instead uses that extended region, warning you that your lenses may or may not be able to project light onto the whole thing. So far, all the lenses I’ve tested with it have performed well, with no notable vignetting in the corners, but it’s worth keeping in mind that there’s a potential trade-off between maximum compatibility and resolution.

And you may want to think twice before giving up any resolution, as the Caira captures less detail than most other cameras you can buy today. That’s not to say that it’s insufficient – the photos it takes will look great on social media and most computer monitors and small prints – but you don’t have to zoom or crop in far before things start to look a little soft. It also has a base ISO of 400, so the cleanest images you can get out of it will still be 1EV noisier than most other Four Thirds sensor cameras, at least in its single-shot mode. However, there’s a good reason why.

One of the Caira’s tricks is that, as we’ve seen with the Sigma BF and Hasselblad X2D II, its JPEGs contain embedded gain maps to produce an HDR effect. When shooting a high-contrast scene, the camera is reducing exposure to retain as much highlight information as possible (a task it didn’t always do successfully; I have a lot of pictures with clipped highlights). Then, it’s raising the shadows in the JPEG to produce an image that looks correct, but that includes dazzling highlights.

This is actually a method of shooting we often advocate for, given the strong dynamic range performance of modern sensors, so it’s interesting to see a camera that actually does it with relative success, even if it doesn’t seem like this sensor is the absolute best fit for that style of shooting. It would also explain why the camera’s base ISO is 400, as it’s trying to capture one additional stop of highlights, compared with the ISO 200 modes on most Micro Four Thirds cameras designed to shoot in SDR.

While the camera’s low-light mode can stack up to 16 images together, the results are usually still relatively noisy, without a ton of detail. The process also won’t work with a moving subject. Still, in some circumstances it can result in decent images, but it’s definitely worth taking the name of the feature seriously: it’s a low light mode, not a no-light mode. It also reduces the amount of manual control you have, understandably locking shutter speed and ISO into auto, as those parameters start to mean less as you stack exposures.

Both cameras were set to auto and told to set focus and aperture on the same flower. Note that the iPhone is set to shoot using its 24MP mode.

It’s hard to directly compare a more traditional camera with a phone, as the latter is always doing a lot of heavy lifting with computation, where the Caira currently only uses a single exposure outside of its low-light mode. However, I found that my iPhone 15 Pro was typically better at focus and making the lightness and white balance more true-to-life. What the Caira could do that it can’t, though, is use Micro Four Thirds lenses that provide more flexibility in focal lengths and deliver pleasing bokeh that comes from optics, rather than computation. Even when I didn’t prefer how the Caira interpreted the scene (or was annoyed that it missed focus), the photos had an undeniable look to them that phones still can’t replicate.

Autofocus and performance

Mitchell Clark

The Caira has three autofocus modes: single, continuous and manual. It has a single size autofocus point, and you tap on the screen to choose its location. It can recognize faces, which it can use to track a person as they move through the frame, though you can also tell it to focus on a non-human subject even when there’s a face in the frame. Outside of tracking faces, though, the autofocus point doesn’t attempt to stick to the object you put it over if it or the camera moves; it stays in the same position in the frame.

I’d be tempted to complain about the lack of generic subject tracking, but I won’t. The camera seemingly used to have it prior to the continuous autofocus update (that, or it was just extremely overeager when it came to identifying things as faces), and it was incredibly frustrating, wandering off the subject and resetting to its original point just before I was going to take a picture, with no way to turn it off. It’s a pity to not have it as a function, but better to have a system that predictably works for the things you ask it to do than one that gives you false hope.

Camera Intelligence gives you several options for how you want the focus to behave when you half-press the shutter, as well as manual focusing assistance tools, like a tiny, low-contrast “rangefinder” patch that you can line up with your subject to ensure focus, and a much more reasonably-sized magnified window that appears when you half-press the shutter in manual focus mode (though it’s rendered in black-and-white, rather than color).

Autofocus performance

The Caira doesn’t use a traditional contrast-based or phase-detection system for AF. Instead, it uses “custom-trained neural networks running on the camera to estimate from the preview feed exactly how far and in which direction to move the lens to bring the image into focus,” according to Liam Donovan, the company’s CTO. The camera also uses different algorithms for single-shot and continuous AF.

I found the single-shot mode to be, broadly, quite frustrating. It’s sometimes capable of nailing focus, but never feels confident. I have sequences of images where it would get the first exposure sharp, then drift out of focus in subsequent shots, and it typically ends up hunting quite a lot.

This behavior will still happen occasionally in the continuous mode, but it’s overall less indecisive and my hit rate with it was much higher. That’s not to say that its autofocus is as good as most of the other cameras I test – there were plenty of relatively easy situations where it still completely missed focus – but it was at least usable, which isn’t how I’d describe the single-shot algorithm.

There’s another issue with the focus though, which makes it even harder to trust. The live view preview, transmitted over Wi-Fi, is compressed to the point where it’s very difficult to tell if the image is soft because it’s completely out of focus, or if it’s just the low-quality video stream. This would be one thing if I could trust the AF system to get it right all or most of the time, but since I can’t, it makes getting sharp images out of the camera that much more difficult.

Speed

The Caira app is responsive on my iPhone 15 Pro, though that isn’t surprising given it’s a relatively modern flagship phone. What isn’t as snappy is the camera’s readout speed. The camera doesn’t have a mechanical shutter, so you’re stuck using the E-shutter, which takes 50.7ms to read out in stills mode. This means that any fast-moving subjects will have substantial rolling shutter distortion, and there’s a risk of banding when shooting under artificial lighting.

Using Wi-Fi, the pictures can also take a beat to transfer from the camera to the phone, and the app can occasionally get confused during this process if you try to review a photo too early, showing you your previous photo rather than the low-res preview of the incoming one.

A camera tied to a phone

Mitchell Clark

That aforementioned blocky, soft autofocus preview is just one symptom of the Caira’s total reliance on the iPhone it’s attached to. Shooting with it made me realize that I take the integration of a traditional camera for granted. If I see a shot I want to take, I can pull the camera out and, typically with a flick of my finger, turn it on and take the picture.

This was not the case with the Caira. Even in the best-case scenario, capturing a moment with it requires unlocking my phone (a process that, occasionally, means putting in a passcode), and waiting a beat for the Caira app to get back up to speed.

But just as often, it meant doing that, then having to switch back to the app from whatever I had previously been doing on my phone – looking at a map, texting my wife, sharing photos, or whatever else I needed my phone for – and having to reconnect to the Caira’s Wi-Fi, since it only stays connected to your phone for a (thankfully customizable) set period of time. And that’s assuming I even had my phone attached to it, which I wouldn’t always, since having a camera and lens stuck on the back makes it hard to use as, you know, a phone.

As a reviewer, I typically try to set aside my personal preferences when evaluating a product. Even if I, say, prefer 35mm to 28mm, I won’t hold the choice of the latter against a compact camera. However, the multi-step process required to take a picture with this camera was genuinely a massive barrier to me wanting to use it. I frequently saw something that I wanted to take a photo of, but ended up not bothering because of the hassle of having to wait for the camera to turn on (which takes around 15 seconds), then wait for my phone to connect to its Wi-Fi; a process that I mustn’t start even a second before the camera is ready, otherwise I’ll have to wait for the phone to fail to connect before telling it to retry.

It’s also worth saying explicitly: the only reason I’m even able to have these complaints is because I’m an iPhone user. If I had an Android phone, I couldn’t use the camera at all. It’s completely unusable without its iOS-only app.

This approach isn’t without its benefits, though. The wireless connection between camera and phone means you have near-unlimited flexibility when it comes to how you frame your shots, since you can pull your phone off the body while maintaining the preview, as long as you don’t stray too far away from the Caira. You can also remotely adjust its settings and trigger the shutter.

Despite how good many camera apps have become, the Caira is by far the easiest camera to share photos from, as they’re downloaded as soon as I take them. While some camera apps have a similar function, it requires manually starting the app and connecting it to the camera; of course, the Caira requires this too, but you’ll never forget to do it, as it’s a prerequisite for even being able to use the camera.

It has its own storage, but the photos – Raws and JPEGs – are also dumped straight into my Apple Photos library, where they’ll automatically sync with all my devices via iCloud. It’s really nice coming back from a shoot, opening my laptop, and immediately having access to all the pictures I just took.

It’s also rare that I’ve used a dedicated camera with a screen as good as my iPhone 15 Pro’s. Not only is it larger and higher-resolution than the typical camera screen and bright enough to be visible in most conditions, it can also easily display the HDR images the Caira takes in their full glory.

The future of cameras?

Mitchell Clark

Unsurprisingly, given the Caira’s ties to phone photography, it joins the relatively small ranks of cameras that shoot for HDR output by default. We’ve seen some other camera manufacturers start to adopt similar techniques, especially now that it’s possible to create backwards-compatible files that will display as standard JPEGs if your hardware or software doesn’t understand or can’t display the gain map. However, it goes further than any other camera I’ve tested, though, providing several “levels” of HDR effect, ranging from “Subtle” to “Extreme.”

When enabling the latter, the app even warns you that images taken with the setting will be displayed using your screen’s full capabilities, and that it could even compromise quality on older devices. Despite this, and somewhat ironically given the name, I found the differences in the images taken at the various settings to be quite subtle, and the camera doesn’t appear to adjust its metering (and hence highlight capture) based on how much HDR effect you’re asking it to apply. The differences are small enough to make me wonder if the feature is even working as intended, as is the fact that setting HDR to “Disabled” still results in images with an embedded brightness map that light up my MacBook and iPhone’s screen.

Whichever setting it’s at, the Caira’s HDR implementation has become appreciably more subtle and pleasing after a few software updates. Donovan says the company redid it to make sure it got things right, and represented colors accurately.

Mitchell Clark

Because so much about the Caira is defined by software, it’s comparatively easy for the Camera Intelligence team to update it, often in substantial and fundamental ways. During my time testing the camera, the company has improved the image processing in a way that genuinely leads to much nicer-looking pictures, and has added features I consider to be vital, like an exposure compensation control.

There are still improvements to be found – I found the camera still occasionally gets white balance and colors quite wrong, and some of my night mode shots ended up with corrupted rows of pixels – but, unlike other camera companies, I strongly suspect Camera Intelligence will keep working on it.

While the Caira was arguably released in a much less finished state than most cameras, with its barely-working AF and lack of critical features, I wouldn’t mind seeing other manufacturers focus more on addressing user feedback and making improvements after a camera’s release. While there are some that do – Panasonic and Nikon deserve a shout out for their most recent models – it’s rarely with the same speed as Camera Intelligence (which, in fairness, only has to support a single model).

I also appreciate the phone-like use of stacking to improve image quality in low-light, with no requirement to assemble the image in post, as we’ve seen with other cameras. While there are definitely benefits to the single-shot exposures, having the option to do multi-shot stacking would be a nice addition to smaller-sensor cameras (and, indeed, is a welcome inclusion on cameras from companies like OM System and Panasonic). Camera Intelligence also says that it’s working on a multi-shot high-resolution mode which, again, I would expect to be very easy to use, not requiring a desktop app to put it all together.

Finally, there’s the camera’s voice control mode, which theoretically lets you issue commands to your phone to control the camera in everyday language. I say theoretically because half the time it either missed what I said, or just decided to ignore it. When it worked, though, I could see the bones of a useful feature. I could do basic commands like “take a picture” or “shoot in black and white,” but I could also ask it to do things like “make the background less blurry,” and watch it adjust the aperture.

Mitchell Clark

That could be really powerful for people who don’t know photography terms, but was unfortunately a very mixed bag. Basic asks like “make this picture brighter” yielded no results, and requests that it did understand were sometimes clunky. If the aperture was in auto mode, asking it to change anything about it would only switch the aperture setting to manual. It didn’t fully implement my request until I repeated it, making it a two-step process. And sometimes when I asked it to make my background less blurry, it’d pick something sensible, like F7.1. Other times, it’d stop the lens all the way down to F22. It did this in the same shooting conditions, so it’s not the result of it being clever about how much light was in the scene.

Oh, and if I did try to do things manually and tell it to “set my aperture to F4” or F8, it consistently set it to something other than what I asked. It would show on the screen that it heard me say F4, then I’d watch as the aperture slider moved to… F5. F8 was F7.1, and a request for F16 got me F14.

Beyond a reliance on an external device, there are other aspects of the Caira that I wouldn’t like to see carried over to traditional cameras. While the company says it’s added additional guardrails to the Google Nano Banana generative AI editing, beyond what the model itself enforces, I’m still not a fan of changing the reality of what was captured. I believe the imperfections in images, and the challenge of working around less-than-ideal shooting conditions, are vital parts of the craft. I don’t like the idea of a future where photographers get used to just fixing it in post the way filmmakers creating a fictional narrative do, or where its the norm to assume that every photo you see has been altered with AI (though it may be too late for the latter).

The Kickstarter of it all

I suspect most people won’t come away from this review planning on buying the Caira, but if you have, a word of caution. Before working on the Caira, the same team made a similar product called the Alice camera, which was initially sold via crowdfunding site IndieGoGo. Despite the camera being available in retail stores, there are backers who have complained as recently as March of this year that they haven’t received the cameras they paid for in 2021. When we asked the team about the unfulfilled orders late last year, they said clearing their backlog was their “highest priority,” and detailed the logistical and legal hurdles that had led to the shipments being delayed.

While the Caira’s Kickstarter is far less overdue, its comments section is still full of people asking where their camera is, and bemoaning the lack of communication from the company. Camera Intelligence is still putting out updates to backers, but they’re not terribly frequent. It’s also selling preorders on the dedicated Caira website, which a bit of an uncomfortable look when the team is still working on fulfilling its Kickstarter backlog for two separate projects.

Conclusion

Reviewing a camera like the Caira is hard, because it’s such a moving target. If I had written this a few months ago when I first received the camera, it would’ve been a very different conversation. It’s been impressive seeing the camera go from something that, frankly, barely worked, to something that’s genuinely okay to use.

However, over that time I’ve also discovered firsthand why previous attempts at this kind of camera/phone accessory hybrid from companies like Sony and DxO haven’t really taken off, despite being released in an era where smartphone’s cameras were far less capable on their own. The vast collection of AI features and tech built into the Caira hasn’t fixed the inherent clunkiness to the experience of an app-reliant camera. True, it improves on the smartphone by giving you access to a larger sensor and interchangeable lens mount, but so would buying a traditional ILC, which will give you a far more enjoyable shooting experience.

Mitchell Clark

And that’s a shame, since there are some really good ideas in the Caira, even if many of them are still at the “has promise” stage of implementation. And the team behind it clearly has talent; the fact that they built a working AI-powered autofocus and exposure system and multishot-stacking algorithm from the ground up is impressive, despite still feeling like they need a lot of work.

Camera Intelligence bills the Caira as a camera for creators, for those who want good photos and video without having to understand how to make those. Unfortunately, it’s not there yet. Even as an experienced photographer, I often struggled to get it to do what I wanted, largely thanks to the autofocus system and controls. The results it produced weren’t enough of a step up from my (much easier to use) phone to justify the extra bulk of carrying it around, and the multi-step process to take a picture. Plus, the lack of stabilization combined with its somewhat awkward ergonomics can make previewing your image a bit of a pain unless you have rock-steady hands.

Still, my time with the camera was enough to make me hope that Camera Intelligence is able to stick around to keep working on the Caira so it can reach its full potential, and to continue talks with other camera makers who may be interested in using their technology. However, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that the former may be more of a proof of concept or beta test for the latter, rather than an actual consumer product, despite the creator-focused marketing. Even if those talks go nowhere, though, I’d still like to see the company stick around, at the very least so everyone who ordered one gets it.

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.

A note on captions: I’ve shot with three major firmware versions while testing this camera, all of which have come with relatively fundamental changes to the image processing and/or shooting experience. Images taken with the original firmware have it noted in the caption, while images marked “Shot with Continuous Autofocus Update” were taken using the latest firmware available at time of writing, and include the updates to the image pipeline that came with the second version of firmware.

Polaroid is teasing something new coming tomorrow, posting a graphic on its social media page inspired by the hugely successful video game franchise Pokémon, implying that it could be some sort of collaboration. The post’s caption says “Something’s almost ready to show itself… revealed on August 18th.”

It’s always possible the company is riffing on a meme format to tease a completely new product, but if we had to guess, it seems more likely that it’ll be an existing product with a Pokémon theme. The silhouette in the image looks a lot like the existing Polaroid Go with a Pikachu tail, and we’ve seen instant cameras made to reference the franchise’s most recognizable character before. It’s also not out of the question that the announcement is about a co-branded film, rather than a camera; the company has done both, releasing cameras with Thrasher and MoMA liveries, and films with Pantone-colored frames.

Whatever it is, it’s more than likely it’ll be something camera-related. There was a time when the Polaroid name and logo appeared on a wide array of products that had very little to do with taking photos, from TVs to AA batteries, thanks to other companies licensing the brand. While this practice is still alive and well in the industry, it seems to be less common with Polaroid after it was purchased by the same person who owned the Impossible Project, leading to film and cameras once again being sold under the company’s name.

Recently, the company has been going after an audience tired of screens and phones, with its “the best summer is analog” campaign. The target audience clearly skews younger, the kind of people who would’ve grown up playing Pokémon games on their Nintendo DS or smartphone. So a collaboration between the two makes sense, tugging at people’s nostalgia for a time when the devices in their pocket were for having fun, rather than doomscrolling. Whatever it is, we won’t have to wait very long to see it fully unveiled.

Earlier this week, Google announced the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, the latest entry in its lineup of folding phones. While it includes some meaningful improvements over its predecessor, Google is still asking people to pay $1900 for a phone that makes a lot of compromises, at a time when its competitors have offerings that don’t ask you to give up much.

The issue is most evident when it comes to cameras. Despite its “Pro” branding, the Pixel 11 Pro Fold’s camera setup is more similar to that of the standard Pixel 11 – a phone that costs $1000 less – than the Pixel 11 Pro. It has the same Type 1/1.56 (48mm²) main sensor and the same Type 1/3.2 (15.5mm²) telephoto camera as the Pixel 11, and its ultrawide camera is actually fractionally smaller. So yes, even compared to the Pixel 11, the Fold’s cameras are technically worse, while the Pro’s array beats it in every way.

Compare this with Samsung’s latest Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra. Sure, it costs $200 more than Google’s foldable (though at these prices, that only amounts to an 11% premium), and its three cameras are the same as you’d find on the top-of-the-line Galaxy S26 Ultra. Now, the Z Fold 8 Ultra lacks the periscope camera you’d get on the candybar ultra, but for most shooting situations, its cameras are comparable to those on standard flagships like the iPhone 17 Pro or Google Pixel 11 Pro.

In fairness to Google, if you’re just comparing the cameras, the Pixel 11 Pro Fold comes out a bit ahead of Samsung’s price-competitive Galaxy Z Fold 8. That phone has a better ultrawide, but omits a telephoto option completely. However, it’s also a passport-style phone, adopting a form-factor that looks like it may be the future of foldables, if early reviews are any indication. When Samsung compromises on the cameras, you get something in return.

Still, you could potentially argue that Google is competing with Samsung on the camera front, as long as you ignore that the latter offers another model if you don’t prefer to compromise. But while cameras are obviously our primary concern here at DPReview, we recognize that most people’s phone purchasing decisions won’t hinge on the minutiae of sensor sizes (though if you’re spending almost $2000 on a phone, odds are you’re an enthusiast who wants the best whether you’ll use it to its fullest or not). Unfortunately for Google, the 11 Pro Fold is falling behind in other ways, too.

Samsung

The Pixel 11 Pro Fold has a few physical changes that are genuine improvements. It has slimmer bezels, is a touch thinner and lighter and is more durable. But when you open up that interior screen, you’ll still be greeted with a noticeable crease down the middle, something Samsung has all but eliminated in its latest foldables thanks to some clever engineering. The Korean giant is also starting to adopt silicon-carbon battery tech, letting it pack more energy density into the same space. I suspect these two factors will be big points in Samsung’s favor to the typical foldable buyer – the big screen you’re paying so dearly for will be nicer to look at and your phone will likely last longer on a charge – even if they don’t care about cameras.

As if Samsung’s foldables weren’t enough of a threat to Google’s foldable ambitions, there’s even more competition on the horizon. Apple is expected to release its first foray into the form factor soon, likely with a passport-style phone. While I’d bet that its cameras won’t be anything special (if the iPhone Air is anything to go by), Apple undoubtedly has a way of exciting consumers about technologies that its competitors have long since adopted*. Google has brought a mild refresh with compromised cameras to a hype cycle fight.

What’s more, it’s really only Americans who will be choosing between the Pixel, Galaxy and iPhone. Outside of the US, there are even more options from companies like Oppo or Huawei, and while neither company has made one that uses the massive image sensors found in their main phones, that feels more like a matter of when, not if.

None of this is to say that I think the Pixel 11 Pro Fold will be bad. This is Google’s fourth folding phone, and it’s pretty good at making them by now. I’m sure the pictures it takes will be fine for most people, and that it’ll be good enough that the Google faithful will be happy to have it as an option. But with prices for foldables being higher than ever, and such fierce competition that promises to only get more intense in the coming months, I just don’t buy that good enough is good enough.

* – I’ll own up to the fact that this works on me, too. In 2024, I wrote an opinion piece about the Pixel 9 Pro Fold entitled “I don’t want to pay $1799 for worse photos.” And yet, hypocrite that I am, there’s a very high chance that I’ll buy the foldable iPhone, which may very well have worse cameras than my current iPhone 15 Pro. At the very least, it’ll almost certainly have fewer of them. The only thing saving me from being a complete liar is the fact that there’s no way Apple will charge $1800 for its foldable. I’ll consider myself lucky if it’s under $2000.

Tariffs are back in the US, and this time they’re targeted at drones. According to a statement posted by The White House on Thursday, there will be a 25% tariff on drones smaller than 25kg (55lb) and components for them. This comes as the drone market in the US has already suffered a major blow when the FCC said it would no longer approve new drones from foreign companies for sale, effectively making it so none of the major drone makers (read: DJI) could launch their new products in the country.

The White House positions the tariffs as a way to “address the national security threat posed by imports of drones and their components,” though the statement specifically calls out that the smaller drones being tariffed at 25% “lack certain capabilities that particularly implicate national security.” The tariffs come down much harder on heavier industrial and agricultural models, or drones that have thermal imaging capabilities; those are being taxed at 100%.

This is the latest move from the US government aimed at curtailing the popularity of foreign-made drones. Last year, it made it so companies couldn’t get regulatory approval to sell new drones in the country, but allowed existing models to remain on store shelves. That hasn’t changed, but with the addition of tariffs, it seems certain that those drones will now be more expensive, leaving Americans to pay more for now-outdated models.

The tariffs on drones will take effect 21 days from when the proclamation was signed, while the ones on some components may take a while longer to go into effect. In case it wasn’t clear that the administration was largely targeting drones made in China, the proclamation also contains a carveout on drones and components made in the EU, Japan, Liechtenstein, Republic of Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the UK, as long as “substantially all hardware, software, and technology originates from within these countries and the United States.” If they meet that bar, they’ll only be tariffed at 15% (or 10% for the UK).

DJI

This isn’t the current US administration’s first attempt at tariffs. Last year it announced wide-ranging import tariffs on goods from virtually every other country, sparking trade wars, which saw threats of tariffs as high as 25% on goods from Japan, and up to 145% on Chinese imports. While they were in effect, nearly every camera company raised its prices on most or all of their products. While the reciprocal tariffs were deemed illegal by the Supreme Court earlier this year, we’ve yet to see a wholesale softening of those prices.

As for whether these new tariffs will meet the same fate, it’s impossible to say. But if you’re an American considering a drone, it may be worth getting it sooner, rather than later.

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In the lead-up to the total solar eclipse on August 12th, we asked our community members who would be in its path to share the best photos they took of it. It ended up being a very special event, too; typically, you need a solar filter to shoot the sun in any form, making it the only thing you can see in the frame. But because this eclipse happened when the sun was so low on the horizon, it allowed people to capture it like they would a typical sunset photo, with the landscape visible in front of it.

Despite the brief window of time and relatively limited area it was visible from, our community absolutely delivered on the opportunity, capturing and sharing some incredible shots. Here are a few (but not all) of our favorites.

Total eclipse images

The main event of a solar eclipse – what gets people to spend hours or even days traveling to a surely crowded area – is the moment of totality, where the sun is completely blocked by the moon. And while it’s easy for most pictures of this moment to turn out very similar, some of our readers found interesting ways to capture it, putting it in context.

Abenjaldun

User Abenjaldun captured this image in Cerceda, Spain, where the totality lasted around 35″.

ml6

This photo from user ml6 was one of several they posted showing the moment of totality. While others in the gallery show it in more detail, this one captures the feeling of the moment, of being surrounded by people all experiencing – and trying to capture – the same thing as you.

ARSPR

This image captured by user ARSPR shows a solar flare erupting from the sun at the moment of eclipse. ARSPR says they shot the image planning to use the ISO invariance of the Sony a6700’s sensor to brighten it later, though this particular photo is an out-of-camera JPEG.

Partial eclipse images

While pictures of the total eclipse are striking, partial eclipses are visible in more places, so more people have a chance to photograph them. And, because there’s more light, it’s easier to capture the scene around it, while still producing a beautiful image.

Jonathan MacDonald

User Jonathan Mac managed to get several great photos from the eclipse, despite saying that this was their first time photographing (or even experiencing) one. Jonathan began researching what gear and techniques would be required to capture it back in December, and says it’s their “longest and most complicated photography project” to date. That work, and the fact that the eclipse combined with a sunset, paid off, resulting in a frame that looks straight out of a classic sci-fi movie.

TheDispossessed

Normally, clouds rolling in would ruin the chance to take pictures of celestial events, but user TheDispossessed was able to capture a moment where they heightened the experience, instead of detracting from it. The photo was taken in Durham, and TheDispossessed says it was just in the nick of time; the sun apparently disappeared right after they pressed the shutter.

RFB97

Speaking of clouds and sci-fi, user RFB97 says they left their telephoto lens at home, but were able to improvise with their dad’s Nikon P1000 to get a close-up of the partial eclipse as seen from Algeria. RFB97 missed seeing the full eclipse because it happened as the sun was setting, and seems disappointed in the photo they captured because of the heat waves and lack of detail, but we think the image turned out really well.

cbf_si

User cbf_si took this photo near Slovenia’s highest mountain, resulting in a landscape shot so beautiful, you might be forgiven for missing the fact that an eclipse is happening during it.

Didier_Fr

Didier_Fr chose to visit the Saint-Mathieu lighthouse in the west of France to capture the eclipse, which seems like an inspired choice. I’m personally a sucker for images of light sources with the sun behind them, and the cool-factor of it is substantially higher when the light is coming from the partially-obscured sun.

Finally, two of our users, t_3, in Germany and Eric_., in Cambridge, UK, took a crack at the timelapse format that’s always popular with eclipses.

t_3

Eric_.

Through a different lens

One of the most interesting effects of a solar eclipse is that it turns everyday objects into cameras obscura – anything with a hole in it that’s the correct size will project an image of the event onto the surface behind it, resulting in bizarre and lovely patterns of light and shade. A few of our users captured this effect in some truly stunning pictures.

Daneland

User Daneland says this photo shows the sunlight filtering through a tree’s leaves, projecting dozens of tiny eclipses onto the face of a Chinese restaurant.

BratPix

User BratPix says they were just outside of Paris, watching the eclipse on TV, when they noticed that the eclipse was being projected into their kitchen.

See the rest

This article highlights only a few of the wide selection of great photos that our users have sent in, and we expect we’ll see more throughout the day as people continue to edit and post their work. It’s well worth taking a look through the entire thread, as there’s a lot of really good stuff in there that we just didn’t have room to fit into this article. And if you took any photos of the eclipse, be sure to drop them in!

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When Honor first showed off the Robot Phone last year, it seemed like an idea that would forever live as just a concept and CGI renders. A phone with a built-in gimbal that folds into the camera bump? That’s also a collaboration with cinema camera company Arri? It all seemed a bit far fetched.

And yet today, the company actually launched it, and it’s for sale in China. At least a few members of the press have even had the opportunity to try it, and Honor teamed up with cinematographers to film some truly wild promo videos with it to show off its video capabilities.

I, personally, would not trust the AI assistant in my phone to control my spaceship.

The Robot Phone’s main camera – the one mounted on the integrated three-axis gimbal – has a 200MP Type 1/1.28 (76mm²) sensor with a 23mm equiv. F1.6 lens. It’s optically stabilized, but obviously the titanium gimbal will do most of the heavy lifting in that regard.

It’s not just for keeping the camera steady during longer exposures or video though; there’s an AI tracking mode to keep your subject centered in the frame, even as you move around, a panorama mode, a star assist feature to track stars across the sky for astrophotography and time lapses, and a rotation mode that will produce a dramatic spinning shot. There are also several different stabilization modes for the gimbal, depending on the look you’re going for.

The gimbal isn’t only relegated to camera duty, though. The phone also features an AI companion called “Yoyo,” which exists as an animated character on the screen, and which can move the gimbal to simulate making gestures. For example, if you ask Yoyo to make an excited expression, the eyes on the phone’s screen will light up, and the gimbal will rock back and forth. It can also “dance” along to music, moving the gimbal along to the beat.

On the opposite end of the playfulness spectrum, Honor is marketing the phone as a serious video tool, saying it allows for a “professional Arri cinematic workflow.” It can shoot in a 2.39:1 aspect ratio, and has a few color modes inspired by “Arri Image Science,” as well as support for recording 10-bit 4:2:2 video using the Arri LogC3 curve (though, thankfully, there is a Log assist view so you don’t have to look at a low-contrast preview while you’re recording). That theoretically allows you to use LUTs designed by professionals to grade your footage, and Honor specifically calls out that Davinci Resolve can grade the footage from the phone. It can record video at up to 4K/120 on its gimbal camera, though the LogC3 mode is limited to 4K/60.

The phone has two other cameras, though they’re more traditional models fixed into the camera bump. There’s a 200MP Type 1/1.4 (63mm²) sensor for the telephoto camera, which has a 62mm equiv. F2.6 optically stabilized lens, as well as a 50MP ultrawide camera with a 10mm equiv. F2 lens. Honor doesn’t specify the sensor size for the latter.

Honor

The company didn’t just make a fancy camera and call it a day, though, as the rest of the phone has top-of-the-line flagship specs. It’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 system on a chip, has a silicon-carbon battery with a 7060mAh capacity (which can be charged at up to 120W wired, or 50W wirelessly), and a 6.31″ display that can reach a (literally) eye-watering 6800 nit peak brightness. 

Unsurprisingly, it’s a touch thicker and heavier than other flagship phones. It weighs 248g (8.7oz) versus the iPhone 17 Pro’s 206g (7.27oz), and is 9.6mm thick versus the iPhone’s 8.75mm. The iPhone, of course, has a substantially lower-capacity battery and also doesn’t have a built-in gimbal.

The Honor Robot phone seems to be a continuation of a trend that seemed finished: the pop-up camera. A few years ago, as phone manufacturers were fighting to shrink the bezels on their phones for a true edge-to-edge display, some companies tried to move the selfie camera from the front of the phone into a mechanized module that would pop up from the top. There were always concerns about the longevity of those solutions, and, at the end of the day, they added a lot complexity for relatively little gain (especially once phone makers figured out how to hide cameras under the screen, or realized people would accept a hole-punch or notch).

This feels different, though. If you’re into video, a gimbal is a genuinely big upgrade from standard IBIS and electronic stabilization, and having one built-into a phone is undeniably extremely convenient. Sure, there are plenty of standalone gimbals designed to work with phones, as well as portable vlogging cameras with integrated gimbals from the likes of DJI and Insta360, but always having access to that kind of stabilization without having to charge and bring along a separate device could be game-changing for certain kinds of shooters. Of course, those durability concerns still remain – when not in use the gimbal is tucked away behind a sliding window, but it’s still a complex moving part – but this time the trade-off could be worthwhile.

Honor

It’ll be very interesting to see if this phone makes its way to markets outside of China, or if it gets an update later down the line. It costs 9,999 Chinese Yuan – around $1500 – for a version with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, and 3000 Yuan (~$444) more for a version with 16GB of memory and 1TB of storage.

Alongside its traditional candybar style phones, Google has also announced the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, the latest iteration of its foldable smartphone. While the majority of its improvements relate to the phone part of it, there are some updates to the camera, too.

Like its predecessor, the Fold has a three camera array: the mix of wide, ultrawide and telephoto we’ve come to expect from most modern smartphones. While its cameras aren’t up to par with the ones found on the non-folding Pixel 11 Pro – in fact, one of them is worse than the one on the standard Pixel 11 – the sensor in the main wide camera is an improvement over the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. It now uses the same 48MP Type 1/1.56 sensor (48mm²) found in the standard Pixel 11, which is noticeably larger than the Type 1/2 (30.7mm²) model used by its predecessor.

Otherwise, the phone features the same ultrawide and telephoto sensors as its predecessor, though Google now gives you the option of doing a 30x “Super Zoom” crop on the 5x lens. The camera bar has also been redesigned, and now includes the “HiLight” multi-color notification indicator, which can tell you if you’re receiving a call from a particular contact, even when your phone is face-down.

While the cameras may represent relatively mild upgrades, the rest of the phone has gotten more attention, starting with its build. Google says it’s 10% lighter and 1mm thinner than its predecessor, and yet three times more durable. While it’s hard to really quantify durability in a way that can be multiplied, like its predecessor the Pixel 11 Pro Fold has an IP68 dust and water resistance rating.

The real gains likely come from the back of the phone, which Google says is made from a glass fiber composite that’s “nearly impossible to crack.” The front 6.5″ display also now uses an “ultra durable” ceramic glass.

Speaking of those displays, the front one is now 20% brighter, shining at up to 2400 nits while displaying HDR content, and capable of reaching peaks of 3600 nits. Those specs are matched by the internal 8″ display, again representing an improvement over the Pro 10 Fold. Google also says the phone now has the thinnest bezels in its series.

The Pixel 11 Pro Fold uses the same Tensor G6 processor as the mainline Pixel 11 phones, but comes stock with 16GB of RAM, which is no surprise given the company’s increased focus on multitasking this year. Google has also upgraded it to Qi2.2, allowing for 25W wireless charging.

It also has the same upgraded set of photography features, including the “Camera Looks” feature that gives you more control over how your photos are processed, the faster capture and processing for low-light “Night Sight” photos and the “Magic Capture” mode meant to hand over control of which moments to photograph to the phone, so you can focus on what’s happening in front of you.

The phone now starts at $1899 for the model with 256GB of storage, which is $100 more than the previous version. While that’s not a surprise given the current state of pricing for electronics, the price increase also comes at a time when the competition is fiercer than ever. Samsung’s latest foldables, especially the passport-style Galaxy Fold 8 are getting a lot of buzz, despite their also-hefty price tags.

The Pixel 11 Pro Fold will be available in “Olive” green and “Obsidian” black.

Google has announced its new lineup of standard format (as opposed to folding) phones: the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro and Pixel 11 Pro XL. Both include improvements to their main cameras, as well as the now-iconic bar they’re housed in, and a host of new photo-focused features.

The Pixel 11

Infamously, last year’s Pixel 10 added a telephoto camera, but at the cost of the main camera: where the three generations before it had a 50MP Type 1/1.31 (72mm²) sensor behind a 24mm lens, the 11 used a 48MP Type 1/2 (31mm²) and a fractionally slower lens, meaning it could gather much less light. Its ultrawide camera was also downgraded, though to a slightly lesser degree.

With the Pixel 11, Google is walking that reduction back, using a larger 48MP Type 1/1.56 (48mm²) sensor for the main camera. While that’s not as large as the sensors found in the Pixels 7, 8 and 9, the company says it should let in around 56% more light than the one on the 10.

While the ultrawide and telephoto cameras are the same as the ones in the Pixel 10, the company has redesigned the bar they live in. It’s now completely covered in glass, rather than featuring a metal accent, and is 40% thinner. While this doesn’t result in a completely flat back like you’d find on the Pixel 10a, Google says that if you put one of its silicon cases on the phone, it essentially won’t have a camera bump.

Unsurprisingly, Google has also updated the processor in the phone, using its new Tensor G6 chip, which it says is faster, and has an upgraded image signal processor, which will specifically help improve the phone’s video (more on that in a bit). Unlike some competitors, the company doesn’t appear to have opted for a silicon-carbon battery, which can provide greater energy density in the same footprint; the Pixel 11 has roughly the same battery capacity as its predecessor. However, it has been upgraded to use Qi 2.2 wireless charging, letting it refill at up to 25W instead of the 15W the Pixel 10 maxed out at.

The base Pixel 11 model starts with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $899. While that’s the same price as a Pixel 10 with the same storage, Google has removed the 128GB option that sat below it for $100 less (though it has added a 512GB option above it). That’s unfortunate, but unsurprising in the age of ballooning NAND chip costs.

Pixel 11 Pro

The camera upgrades on the Pixel 11 Pro and its larger sibling, the Pro XL, are slightly more subtle. The company says the 50MP main camera has been upgraded, but it’s hard to tell exactly what’s changed. It still has a Type 1/1.3 (72mm²) sensor with an F1.68 lens and a 2x center crop mode.

The 48MP telephoto camera, however, is undeniably larger. It uses a Type 1/1.95 (32mm²) sensor, which Google says lets in 30% more light than the Type 1/2.51 (23.5mm²) model on the Pixel 10 Pro. You can also now use the portrait mode on the telephoto camera, adding computer-generated bokeh on top of a focal length that’s traditionally more useful for portraiture.

While the camera bar isn’t as thin as the one on the standard Pixel 11, Google says it’s been redesigned. Part of that includes a new indicator, which the company is calling HiLight. It’s a multi-color light that acts as a status indicator, letting you know about incoming calls, even if the phone is face down on a table. Google pitches it as a feature that will let you be more present in the moment, while still being able to see if someone is trying to contact you. The company says it’ll be able to indicate more things in the future, such as notifying you about text messages.

The displays – 6.3″ for the standard Pro and 6.8″ for the XL – have the same resolution and refresh rates as their predecessor’s. However, they can go a touch brighter; up to 2400 nits, with 3600 nits peak brightness, up from 2200 and 3300 nits, respectively. The glass covering those displays is also improved, with Google promising double the scratch resistance.

Google

Like the Pixel 11, the Pros are getting a de-facto $100 price bump via the removal of the base storage tier. The standard 11 Pro now starts at $1099 for a version with 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM (though the 512 and 1TB models have 16GB of memory), and the XL starts at $1299. Apart from screen and battery size, the standard and XL models have the same specifications.

The Pixel camera features

Whichever phone you opt for, Google has also included a few new camera features and improvements. With the new Tensor chip, the company says you can capture “Night Sight” low-light photos up to 4.5 times faster, without any reduction in quality compared to previous-generation phones.

Google

The company is also introducing a feature called “Camera Looks”, which lets you customize how your photos look at time of capture, without having to go in and edit them later. There are several preset modes, including some that Google says are designed to make your photos look “less processed” by using fewer frames to produce an image. This builds on what seems to be a trend of people wanting smartphone photos to look a little more natural and contrasty, rather than hyper-processed.

Several third-party apps, like Adobe’s Project Indigo, and other phone manufacturers, have added similar modes. Of course, the Camera Looks also let you go the opposite direction too, with more distinct looks and film emulations. The camera app lets you set a look as the default, so you don’t have to select it each time you open the camera.

Google has also introduced a mode designed to give the phone control over which moments it captures, letting you pay attention to the thing you’re trying to photograph; think capturing a child’s first steps, or a birthday party. It’s called “Magic Capture,” and to use it, you basically just tell your phone when to start recording, then point it at the subject. It tries to recognize the moments worth saving, and capture them as video clips and what Google says are “HDR+ images.” (Though that designation implies the pictures won’t be as high quality as the ones you’d get from the standard camera mode, which would make sense if they’re derived from video capture). After you’re done, you can choose to apply minor edits to the photos, such as crops and deblurring.

Google

Finally, Google says the new crop of Pixel phones have “the best video quality ever” for the series, with the company having tweaked things like sharpening and noise reduction. It’s been common knowledge among creators for years that iPhones offer much better video than even high-end Android phones, so it seems like Google may be trying to combat that stereotype with these latest phones.

It’s also building in several tools for video creators, such as a teleprompter, overlays with gridlines and safezones for various social media platforms and an audio monitor overlay.

Christopher Nolan’s recent blockbuster hit, The Odyssey, was the first full-length narrative movie shot entirely on 15/70mm IMAX film, with each frame exposed onto a 70×48.5mm negative. There’s been a countless amount of ink spilled over the challenges of working with the massive cameras needed to shoot the format for every scene (and about how few people were actaully able to see it as the director intended*), but recently the Instagram account for Sunny16Labs shared more details on a production quirk that movie buffs noticed in behind-the-scenes footage: Nolan’s strange choice of director’s viewfinder.

Directors and their cinematographers often carry around devices that allow them to compose and block shots before having to set up the actual camera. This is especially important if you’re shooting film, as those cameras tend to be bulkier and heavier than their digital counterparts (and don’t have the same ability to give you an exact preview of your shot). These devices often have a lens mount, so you can see what the scene will look like through the actual glass you’re shooting with.

One small problem, though: IMAX cameras don’t use the same lenses as their Super35 or full-frame counterparts, and the optics need to be much larger and heavier to cover the massive film format, so there aren’t many pre-made solutions. According to Sunny16Labs, the IMAX team solved this by modifying a Pentax 67, removing the shutter assembly and modifying the mount so the camera could accept the same lenses as the IMAX film cameras.

Of course, taking out the shutter means that the camera can no longer capture images. But because it was designed to shoot stills on medium format 56mm x 70mm film, its viewfinder and mirror are capable of showing the entire image from an IMAX lens. The modified camera also includes frame-line previews for the IMAX negative, allowing Nolan and longtime collaborator and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema to choose their lens and framing before having to set up the massive camera rig.

This isn’t actually the first time Nolan and his team have used this kind of setup, as there are also shots of them using it on the set of Dunkirk. Cary Joji Fukunaga, director of the James Bond film No Time To Die, has also been photographed using a 67 with an IMAX logo on the viewfinder. (It could be that it’s the exact same camera; there’s famously only so much IMAX gear out there.) Likewise, cinematographer James Neihouse has discussed using a modified Pentax 67 as a director’s viewfinder, but he says he was able to take pictures with the version he used, suggesting it was a different design that retained the shutter.

In the photography world, the Pentax 67 is famous for being a relatively large and heavy camera, so it’s funny to see it being used as a lightweight alternative. That goes to show the difficulties of shooting with such large format, but, given that Nolan keeps pioneering what can be done with IMAX with each movie he makes, he clearly thinks it’s worth it. And the market seems to agree: according to an IMAX press release, The Odyssey is the “highest grossing IMAX release of all time,” with 70mm screenings accounting for $37.5 million of the film’s billion-dollar box office run.

* – Not to brag, but I actually did make the seven hour drive to a theater that was showing actual 15/70 IMAX projections of the movie. I absolutely appreciated the extra immersion of the giant screen and 1.43:1 aspect ratio, but did feel like I might have preferred digital IMAX GT projection. Sure, it’d likely have a bit less detail – though probably not enough for me to notice – but it also wouldn’t have had the flicker that comes with film projection, which was especially noticeable in bright scenes. Still, it’s hard to imagine that I could’ve picked a better movie for my first real IMAX viewing, and the sound alone made the premium format worth it. 

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