DJI's next drone likely won't be authorized for sale in the US. Image: DJI

The US government has placed a de facto ban on the import and sale of new drones and drone parts made outside of its borders, including ones from popular manufacturers like DJI. While people are still able to fly the drones they currently own and retailers can sell current models, it's a major blow to the drone market in the country.

A press release from the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, predictably cites national security as the reason for the policy change. It acknowledges that "unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), otherwise known as drones, offer the potential to greatly enhance public safety and innovation," but goes on to say that "criminals, hostile foreign actors, and terrorists can use them to present new and serious threats to our homeland." It lists major events, like the 2026 FIFA World Cup and 2028 summer Olympics, as potential reasons to "safeguard" its airspace.

The policy isn't an outright ban on selling foreign drones

The policy isn't an outright ban on selling foreign drones. Rather, it makes it so the FCC can't authorize new drones or critical drone parts* if they're made in a foreign country. However, the end result is that any drone that doesn't currently have that authorization won't be able to be legally imported or sold in the US, without explicit approval from the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security. Again, this doesn't impact drones that Americans currently own (except for, potentially, the availability of replacement parts).

This move has been a long time coming. The US government has been threatening to ban DJI's drones, which make up the vast majority of the market, in one way or another for years. Its most recent move was to require a security audit of the company's products before December 23rd, and to subsequently not carry out that audit, but the efforts have spanned all branches of the government, under multiple administrations.

A DJI spokesperson told Politico that it's "disappointed" in the new policy. The company has clearly seen the writing on the wall, though, as many of its recent products (drones or otherwise) haven't officially launched in the US. That's despite the company telling us that the Mavic 4 Pro had "all necessary approvals and clearances, including FCC certification, for sale in the United States."

Drones are obviously useful tools for photographers and videographers, but they've also become vital in other industries such as forestry, agriculture, industrial inspections and more. While the FCC's press release states that this move will "unleash American drone dominance," it's unclear what, if any, American companies are poised to take up the mantel of designing and manufacturing drones that are as affordable or easy to use as those available from DJI and its competitors.

* - Banning authorization of parts cuts off the obvious loophole of companies selling each part individually, and giving users instructions on how to assemble them

Updated: December 22, 2025

These days, midrange cameras go for around $2500-3000, though in the US tariffs have made great deals in this price range a little harder to come by. For that money, you get something that's incredibly capable; our picks are high-spec options that are excellent for stills and video, and many have autofocus systems that come close to the performance of professional sports cameras.

Choosing a camera means committing to the ecosystem of lenses that are available for it, so we advise looking into the price and availability of your preferred kit. It's also worth noting that some camera manufacturers are more restrictive of what options third-party lens makers can provide, so be sure to consider that during your lens research.

Speaking of lenses, it's also worth considering that the latest lens designs for mirrorless cameras regularly outperform their older DSLR counterparts. If you have any lenses already, you may want to think about whether it's worth adapting them, or if you'd be better off selling them to help you buy modern equivalents of your most-used lenses. This option also gives you a path to switching brands, if you feel there's a compelling reason to do so.

Our Recommendations

• Best camera under $2,500: Canon EOS R6 III
• The compact option: Sony a7C II
• The wildlife option with reach: OM System OM-1 II
• Best for vlogging: Nikon ZR

Best camera under $3000: Canon EOS R6 III

32MP full-frame CMOS sensor | 3.0", 1.62M dot fully-articulating screen | 7K recording up to 60p

Photo: Mitchell Clark

It earns top place on this list because it's such a complete package, with image quality, burst rates and autofocus capable of helping you tackle pretty much any subject. It's also a very capable video camera; no matter what your needs, its hard to imagine you'll find that the EOS R6 III holds you back.

Read our full review of the Canon EOS R6 III

A tight race

Early 2026 is a great time to be shopping for a midrange camera, as fierce competition has lead to some strong options. Panasonic's S1II has more video features and longer record times than the EOS R6 III thanks to its built-in fan, but misses taking first place on this list because of its higher price tag and autofocus that isn't quite the best in class. Still, if you don't mind spending the extra and are enticed by the lens options available on L-mount, it's a great choice.

Sony's a7 V is also a compelling option, though we haven't fully completed our testing of it. While it doesn't offer every video option that serious videographers might want, it makes up for it with excellent thermal management and record times, as well as battery life that's head-and-shoulders above the others. Like the S1II, it uses its fast sensor readout times to achieve impressive dynamic range performance when using the mechanical shutter, which could be good news for landscape shooters.

Finally, there's the Nikon Z6III, which frequently goes on sale for around $2500, or even less. For those looking for a bargain, it's a compelling option, but at list price it has downsides – mainly slightly worse dynamic range performance and no Raw pre-burst capture option – that the competition doesn't. It's good enough that it was our pick in this category until recently.

The compact option: Sony a7C II

33MP BSI CMOS sensor | 4K/60p video with 10-bit color | Dedicated ‘AI’ processor for AF system

Photo: Richard Butler

The Sony a7C II is a compact, full-frame mirrorless camera with a 33MP BSI CMOS sensor.

The a7C II's viewfinder is a little small and rather low resolution for this price, but it's part of what helps the camera stay so compact. Modern full-frame lenses are often so large as to make the difference in camera size fairly trivial but Sony's E-mount has the widest range of lenses available, so there are some relatively compact options.

Read our full review of the Sony a7C II

Should I buy the Sony a7 IV, a7 III or a7C?

The Sony a7 IV is tough to recommend in 2025, especially at its post-tariff MSRP in the US. Its viewfinder, ergonomics, and full mechanical shutter are improvements over the a7C II, but it's also larger, heavier and offers less effective image stabilization. If you're you don't care about compactness, it might be worth paying a little extra for the a7 IV's larger, higher-resolution viewfinder, but only if the price difference is small.

It's a similar story with the a7 III and a7C. These are from an older generation of products with less sophisticated autofocus, video and image stabilization. They also use an older, more awkward-to-navigate menu system, which we'd happily pay to avoid ever having to use again. The a7C lacks the version II's front control dial and features an even smaller viewfinder, so we'd strongly recommend saving up for one of the newer models.

What about APS-C?

We make most of our APS-C recommendations in our best cameras under $2000 buying guide, which covers cameras like the Fujifilm X-T5, Canon EOS R7 and Sony a6700. The latter two are the highest-end crop sensor cameras from their respective brands, but Fujifilm makes the X-H2S, which is historically one of the better video cameras on the market. However, cameras like the Z6III have arguably caught up in capabilities and framerate options, and while the X-H2S' global price is eligible for its list, in the US it's closer to $3000.

The wildlife option with reach: OM System OM-1 II

20MP Four Thirds Stacked sensor | 50fps continuous shooting w/AF, 120fps AF/AE locked | IBIS rated to 8.5EV

Photo: Shaminder Dulai

The OM System OM-1 Mark II is a high-speed Micro Four Thirds camera based around a 20MP Stacked CMOS sensor.

It's well-suited to wildlife photography, as the Micro Four Thirds system has several lenses that give you plenty of reach without being back (or pack) breakingly large, and its Stacked sensor gives it fast autofocus and incredible burst rates for shooting even the fastest subjects. It also has several computational modes that let it adapt to a wide variety of situations, and sports an IP53 rating for dust and water resistance, so you won't have to worry if it starts raining.

The body is quite rugged-feeling (while still being smaller than full-frame counterparts), with dials designed to be used with or without gloves, and has plenty of customizable control points. The viewfinder is relatively large and bright.

While we haven't put the OM-1 II through our full review process, we do have extensive experience with it and with the OM-3, that uses the same processor and sensor. We've found the autofocus to be reliable, though not class-leading, and it's a bit of a shame that continuous autofocus in its 50fps is limited to certain lenses. There's an image quality price to be paid for the smaller sensor, but, for Four Thirds, the OM-1 II's sensor provides good amounts of detail and the multi-shot modes can compensate for this in some circumstances.

While there are more all-round capable cameras at this price point, the OM-1 II fits into its niche quite well and is still quite solid for other kinds of photography. Its video capabilities aren't at the level that other companies provide, but if you simply want to record something, it's certainly up to the task.

Read our initial review of the OM System OM-1 II

Other Four Thirds cameras

The OM-1 II shares most of its DNA with the OM System OM-3, a smaller, more stylish and less expensive option that uses a smaller viewfinder to achieve its classic styling. Both are similar to the Panasonic G9II, though that's substantially larger, sharing its body with the full-frame S5II. All are Micro Four Thirds, which offers smaller camera/lens combinations at the cost of ultimate image quality. However, they can well worth considering if your photography requires the most compact kit available.

Best for vlogging: Nikon ZR

24.5MP full-frame 'partially Stacked' sensor | 7.5EV IBIS | R3D (NE) Raw video codec

Photo: Mitchell Clark

The Nikon ZR is a video-focused mirrorless camera with a 24.5MP full-frame 'partially Stacked' sensor.

While its Red co-branding and three flavors of Raw shooting show its ambitions as a video production camera, the ZR has a lot of features that make it a great tool for vlogging, too. It has IBIS, Nikon's fairly effective autofocus system, and a 4", 3.07M dot display that can go up to 1000 nits, which should make previewing your image relatively easy, even if the camera is a bit far away from you.

It's also the first mirrorless camera with support for 32-bit float audio recording built-in, even on the 3.5mm input, which means you won't have to worry nearly as much about your audio gain levels when trying to capture the moment.

It can shoot compressed video at up to 5.4K/60, and is capable of 4K/120 for proper slow-motion, though going above 4K/60 will come with a 1.5x crop. In Raw, the ZR can record full-width 6K/60.

We'll be putting the ZR through its paces more in the coming weeks, but it's essentially a Z6III at heart, with a few more video features that should make it a very capable option if you want to go from vlogging to full-on production.

Why you should trust us

This buying guide is based on cameras used and tested by DPReview's editorial team. We don't select a camera until we've used it enough to be confident in recommending it, usually after our extensive review process. The selections are purely a reflection of which cameras we believe to be best: there are no financial incentives for us to select one model or brand over another.

An anhinga spreads its wings in a tree to dry at sunset in Everglades National Park in Florida. Unlike many birds in aquatic environments, anhingas don't have waterproof oil on their feathers, so they spend a lot of time with their wings spread to dry out. (Processed from Raw using DxO Photolab) Photo: Dale Baskin

If there's one common thread that weaves through my photography this year, it's that I didn't do very much of it – at least not as much as I would have liked.

That may sound odd coming from a DPReview editor. After all, a big part of my job is testing cameras and shooting sample galleries. However, 2025 was an unusual year. Instead of running around with gear, I spent much of my time on infrastructure projects that will help lay the foundation for the site's future, including our new forum system and some other things you'll see in 2026. (Teaser!)

Add some unexpected events in my personal life, and I found precious little time for taking photos. A glance at my Lightroom library for 2025 is like looking at an empty cupboard. But one image that's special to me is the one at the top of this article: an anhinga spreading its wings to dry at sunset, captured during a trip to the opposite corner of the country.

For context, I'm a huge fan of national parks, not just in the US, but everywhere, and I've visited them all over the world. This year, I finally had the chance to visit one that's been on my list for a long time: Everglades National Park in Florida.*

I honestly wasn't sure what to expect from the Everglades. Living in the western US, national parks usually evoke visions of rugged mountains or grand vistas: Yellowstone. Yosemite. Mt. Rainier. In contrast, the highest point in the Everglades is about 3m (10ft) above sea level.

An American alligator lurks in the shallow waters of Everglades National Park. (Processed from Raw using DxO Photolab) Photo: Dale Baskin

Contrary to popular belief, the Everglades isn't just a giant swamp. It is a slow-moving slough running from Lake Okeechobee to the Gulf of Mexico/America (circle your preference). This unique ecology makes it a fantastic environment for wildlife and wildlife photography. Unlike other regions where you often have to work incredibly hard to get close to subjects, here, the birds and aquatic species often walk right past you.

As with most wildlife photography, however, the hard part is still waiting. Waiting for your subject to be in just the right spot. Or, if shooting from a boat, waiting until you're in just the right spot. You still have to wait for just the right moment when your subject looks in your direction or starts moving in an interesting way.

"As with most wildlife photography, however, the hard part is still waiting."

During the time I was in the Everglades, I was testing the Panasonic GH7 for our review, paired with the Olympus 40-150mm F2.8 PRO lens, which provides an 80-300mm equivalent focal length and is one of my favorite lenses for the Micro Four Thirds format.

And that's the gear I used to capture the photo above of the anhinga, spreading its wings against the sky just as the sun was setting. Unlike many birds, Anhingas don't have waterproof oil on their feathers, so they spend a lot of time with their wings spread out to dry.

Hopefully, 2026 will be the year I get back out in the field more often, testing gear and shooting galleries. And I'm definitely planning to go back to the Everglades as soon as I can.

In the gallery below, you'll find a few more of my favorite wildlife shots from my Everglades adventure.

*The photos in this article were actually taken during the last couple of days of 2024, but since I shot them after writing my 2024 photo of the year article, I'm considering them to be 2025 photos.

Given that the Canon EOS R6 III is also a very capable video camera, we've also put together a sample reel of clips shot with it. If you want to see longer-form videos shot with it, you can also watch our videos about the Fujifilm X-T30 III, Sony a7 V and the Canon EOS R6 III, as they were filmed using it.

As we enter the New Year, we're looking back on our predictions for 2025. Were they firecrackers or duds? Photo: Mitchell Clark

Last year, some of the DPReview editorial staff sat down with a mission: figuring out what we expected camera manufacturers to do in 2025, and to make a list of things we wish they'd do, regardless of plausibility or even feasibility. Now that the year is coming to a close, we thought it'd be entertaining to revisit the list and see how well it's aged.

You'll also get to hear some of our predictions for 2026, as a sort of sneak peek at this year's version of the article. Hopefully, we've done a little better this year, though we wouldn't bet on it. These articles are mainly meant to be a wish list, rather than a report from our crystal ball.

Image: Just_Super / E+ via Getty Images

DPReview community, we wanted to provide you with a brief update on various community-focused initiatives over the past year. Spoiler alert - a lot's been happening!

The health of our community means everything to us. Our team has built a bond with many of you through discussions of digital photography and our shared passion for geeking out about the latest camera gear. Our editorial team - Dale Baskin, Richard Butler, Mitchell Clark, Abby Ferguson, and I – all enjoy getting your thoughts on our articles. It's this community interaction that makes DPReview thrive, and one that I personally want to do whatever it takes to keep it healthy and lasting.

Supporting the community

For the past 25 years, the DPReview forums have operated in parallel to, but largely independently from, our editorial operations. The editors are dedicated to writing engaging articles, but the interest in interacting with you all also takes a significant amount of time. To support and grow our community properly in the long term, it became clear that we urgently needed a dedicated Community Manager. That's why I was brought on, so the team could have a person dedicated to forum moderation, developing engaging content, and ensuring that support requests are responded to promptly (to name just a few parts of my role here).

Being a Community Manager in any capacity is a wonderful experience (and great responsibility), but I especially couldn't pass up the opportunity to help you all out. As soon as I joined DPReview, I began working closely with the team and volunteer moderators to understand the community's interests.

As a Community Manager, one of my central tenets for building a thriving community is to work directly and openly with members to ensure their needs are met. The most important thing we can do is to be more communicative with all of you about what's happening at DPReview, and just as importantly, ensure you are comfortable sharing your thoughts with us about what matters most to you.

Updating the forum system

The forums serve as a central hub for community discussions, so they must remain accessible at all times. It's a massive system that requires constant attention on both technical and moderation fronts. After more than a quarter-century of the forums in operation, our custom-built, proprietary solution had become too complex and expensive to maintain. If we wanted to keep the forums going, we had to find a solution that DPReview could viably preserve into the future.

In deciding what to do, the team had spent months researching individual software solutions that could address the current challenges. They understood the impact a significant change to the forum would have on the community. This included the viability of continuing to maintain an aging system. Long story short, it was clear that a new platform was the only feasible solution, even if it fell just a few features short of being an agreeable one for all users.

Soon after I was introduced to the volunteer moderators and informed of our forum update plans, I wanted to ensure that the community's voice would be represented through them as much as possible until we could publicly discuss it with you all. We collaborated to announce our migration intentions in all key forum areas. Everything unfolded quickly from that point, with the successful launch of the new platform in early November of this year.

Thankfully, the community showed great patience while we completed the migration, despite having concerns. Post-launch support has included gathering your ideas and suggestions on how we can further improve the forums. With just a few 'bug' type issues remaining, we are now moving on to addressing style improvements. These include the need to make notification indicators and forum index feeds easier to read.

Community initiatives in 2025

While the forum improvements continue, there are many other ways we can work together to develop exciting programs that drive interest across the forums. As a first step, I've reached out to several community leaders (volunteer moderators, frequently active posters, etc.) to ask them what they would like to see activated in the community for content and fun initiatives. If you weren't one of them, please feel free to reach out to me at any time as well.

So far, since July of this year, we've implemented the following content and programs:

• Community guidelines updated
• Question of the week series
• The very first community AMA
• Increased presence of the editorial team in the forums

I've barely scratched the surface of hearing from all of you, so please let me know what you think of the initiatives we've introduced so far.

There's one more significant community initiative we're testing this month on YouTube that hasn't been published yet, but will in just a few days. Be sure to keep watch in the forums for it!

Exciting plans for 2026

Our team has some super exciting plans to launch for you all in 2026. We are eager to continue the AMAs as a regular series about digital photography and your favorite camera gear. We'll keep the Question of the Week series going as well. And about that YouTube initiative you'll find out about in just a few more days, well, we hope you enjoy watching it and want more of that, too.

Thank you, community, for everything you've developed for one another. The DPReview team is here to provide support, so please don't hesitate to reach out anytime you need it.

Meanwhile, I hope you all have a safe and happy holidays!

Photo: Mitchell Clark

There's been a lot of talk about the Sony a7 V's dynamic range performance since PhotonsToPhotos released its data on it, showing that it, like the Panasonic S1II, combines the readouts of its low and high gain steps when using the mechanical shutter. We've had the opportunity to test the dynamic range for ourselves with the studio scene to see how it performs, and we can confirm: it is very impressive.

To start, this may be one of the most ISO invariant cameras we've seen to date when shooting with the standard, mechanical shutter mode. That means you have a lot of room to preserve highlights by shooting at lower ISOs, then brightening the image in post (a workflow that also translates well to shooting with HDR in mind). In our tests, we saw essentially no shadow cost to an image shot at ISO 400, brightened to match an image shot at ISO 6400 with the same exposure settings.

The results are comparable in electronic first curtain shutter mode, where the two reads of the sensor at different gain modes can be combined after the mechanical second shutter has closed.

The a7 V's exposure latitude is also very good, so you can dig quite deep into the shadows when processing your Raws. In mechanical shutter mode, it's a bit better than the a7 IV and peers like the Canon EOS R6 III and Nikon Z6III, and roughly on par with the Panasonic S1II.

As expected, its performance isn't as good in e-shutter mode, where it has less time to read out the sensor and therefore can't do it twice, as it can in its mechanical shutter mode. However, its peers' dynamic range performance also suffers in e-shutter mode, so none of the cameras end up with any particular advantage. Of course, the main reason to shoot in their e-shutter modes is to utilize their highest burst rates, where achieving maximum DR performance is less of a concern anyway.

While the a7 V's dynamic range advantage over its predecessor and peers isn't earth-shattering, it'll be exciting to those hoping to exploit the shadows in their images, such as landscape photographers, or those who often shoot to preserve highlights. Be sure to tune in after the New Year for more coverage on Sony's latest camera, including the rest of our studio scene results.

Note: these images were produced using a beta version of Adobe Camera Raw. While they're consistent with other testing that we've seen so far, we'll check to make sure the results are consistent with those produced by the final version of ACR once it's released.

Photo: Mathew Anderson and Adam Savage at SXSW 2025 game industry conference track.

When the team asked me to contribute to their Photo of the Year series, I wanted to showcase a scene that would help the community gain a deeper understanding of me as a community manager. I decided that this could be a unique opportunity to share a photo taken while I was working in the computer game industry. I suppose you can think of me as a gaming photographer. While the game industry doesn't exactly have a photography focus, it does deeply respect and appreciate art and the idea of 'capturing the moment'.

A community manager in the computer game industry is responsible for a range of public-facing tasks, from managing all the activity you've come to expect from me in the forums to posting on social media channels and overseeing influencer/creator relations. I've also run live, on-stage international competitions and hosted on-site gatherings to celebrate various anniversaries (a game launch, a company's birthday, a community member's own birthday... the list goes on).

Community managers tend to wear many hats, and since it's often for a broad age range of members, we (or they) frequently do quite literally wear many hats or costumes to celebrate our games...

Photo: Mathew Anderson at PAX East game industry convention, where he's showing booth visitors a new game just launched by his team.

With many years in the game industry, I've also directed press relations and encountered some rather interesting people. The on-site business dealings at various conferences and trade shows inevitably bump you up against a famous person or two, frequently from the TV/Film industry. You may have heard of Adam Savage, a popular TV personality who hosts the show MythBusters. While I was at SXSW 2025 in Austin, TX, I attended a panel he participated in, titled "Prototyping the Future: Imagining the Future We Want."

After the panel concluded, everyone filed out to the snacks and drinks lounge (a typical arrangement at these sorts of press environments where the host wants to schmooze you to write a good article about their presentation). While sipping on a mystery drink, I spotted Adam in the far corner. I was determined to talk with this legend and wouldn't let infinitely long snack tables and unlimited drinks get in my way. Praise be that an ice cream machine at least wasn't present...

And this is how I got my photo of the year

I walked right up to Adam, letting him finish his conversation with his assistant and another gentleman. Adam looked at me briefly, and I knew that was my cue to introduce myself. I thrust out my hand, Adam shook it aggressively with a mix of confusion and mild interest on his face, and off I went, talking about how I could be his next PR guy.

"I was determined to talk with this legend and wouldn't let infinitely long snack tables and unlimited drinks get in my way."

There have been many situations like this where I didn't have a business card on me, or I was so caught up in the experience that I didn't think to capture a photo of it. Always be ready with your camera! I didn't forget this time. After our brief introduction, I whipped out my iPhone (the only camera I had at the time) and asked if it was all right if we took a selfie together. And this is how I got my photo of the year, which you see at the top of the page.

Obviously, my job pitch didn't go as planned, but in its stead, I'm fortunate to have landed at an even more amazing opportunity right here at DPReview. Seriously, I somehow feel like my career has been building up to this next chapter where I can express my love of digital photography, geek out on the latest gear, and still share and participate in my love of games.

If you also geek out on new computer gadgets, such as buying way too many cables and peripherals for one individual to ever possibly use, or perhaps play a computer game or two on occasion, I would love to hear from you.

Meanwhile, I put together a slideshow of some other interesting moments I've had in the computer game industry. You'll want to ensure you scroll to the end. These aren't all from 2025, of course, as I looked much more geeky a few years ago than I think I do now...

HDR imagery should allow a more lifelike version of images with interesting highlights. Photo: Richard Butler

We often see concern expressed that there's no real innovation in the industry or that, horrors of horrors, there's more progress being made on the less-developed video side of cameras than on the fairly mature photo side of things.

But, despite these concerns, there have been innovations and the green shoots of progress making themselves visible in this year's releases. We've picked the ones that stood out for us as the ones we think are most likely to have some continued impact.

Combined conversion gain in partially stacked sensors

This one rather snuck under the radar for us: Panasonic had introduced a camera with dual gain output, capturing and combining both a high and low gain signal, simultaneously, as far back as 2022's GH6. But in that camera it was a mode that could only be used in certain circumstances. We saw the improvements in the G9 II and GH7 as addressing that camera's drawbacks, rather than recognizing them as something of a breakthrough.

The Panasonic DC-S1II is the first camera we've encountered to be able to read both the signal from a single exposure via both its high and low gain readout modes and then combine them. Photo: Richard Butler

Panasonic pulled a similar trick again with this year's S1II, with a different but conceptually similar technology. The 'partially stacked' sensor in the S1II (which is a conventional BSI CMOS sensor with more complex readout circuitry around the edges) showed better dynamic range than the Nikon Z6III had gleaned from the same sensor, but the company was so tight-lipped about precisely what was going on that it took forum regular Adam Horshack to put it all together.

It transpires that the S1II and later Sony a7 V have a new variant of the dual conversion gain sensors that represented the last major step forward in image quality, back in 2014. The 'partially stacked' versions of the existing 24 and 33MP sensors are not only able to read out faster, delivering quicker burst rates and less rolling shutter, but they're also able to operate in their low gain mode and then re-read the same signal in their high gain mode, and combine the results. This takes longer, so isn't used in e-shutter modes, but means these cameras gain a dynamic range boost at their lower ISO settings (where DR is most meaningful).

This won't make much difference to a lot of photographers but the added ability to dig into the shadows will be useful for, say, sunrise and sunset images and will give more freedom for photographers trying to shoot with output on HDR displays in mind. Perhaps the most exciting aspect is that it appears this boost can be applied to existing sensor designs, without incurring the significant costs of truly stacked designs, so we may get to see boosted versions of familiar sensors.

HDR imagery came a bit closer

The Hasselblad X2D 100D II makes HDR photography easier, both through its high-brightness, wide-gamut rear screen and its use of JPEGs with a brightness map embedded in them. Photo: Mitchell Clark

On the topic of outputting for HDR displays, it felt like we got another step closer to practical HDR workflows this year. Most of the major camera makers have already added true HDR capabilities to their cameras (i.e., output for more lifelike playback on HDR displays, not the wide dynamic range capture being awkwardly squeezed into standard DR playback that we'd previously grown to know and dislike). However, the fragmented nature of the Internet means support for showing and sharing the HEIF files they've settled on remains patchy. Similarly, we've had very few instanced of manufacturers trying to tell the press about these capabilities at all.

As things stand, there's a major risk that smartphones, where the screens, underlying software and cameras are all controlled by the manufacturers, will continue to get better at using this approach, raising users' expectations of what photos should look like and leaving dedicated cameras looking dull by comparison.

With this as the background, we were delighted to see Sigma and then Hasselblad adopt HDR output as the default behavior of their most recent cameras. And, crucially, to do so using a filetype with full sharability and backward compatibility guaranteed. JPEGs.

Ultra HDR JPEGs, which are conventional JPEGs with a brightness map that delivers an HDR version on devices that can display it, can be readily shared and shown on the Internet (rather than being limited to specific platforms, such as Instagram), with the knowledge that anyone can open a version of the file.

With Adobe Camera Raw and Google's Pixel phones also supporting these files, it finally looks like there's a way to exploit the wide DR that large-sensor cameras inherently capture. It'll be interesting to see whether any of the big camera makers follow suit or if they're just going to continue to hope that HEIF gains more widespread support.

Content Credentials

Another long-heralded technology that finally started to appear more widely this year was the Content Credentials image authentication system. Originally developed by a vast consortium of stakeholders from media outlets to camera makers, it was intended as a cryptographically-backed chain of custody, tracing an image back to a specific camera and keeping track of the edits along the way.

With the increased proliferation of AI-generated nonsense on the Internet, we wondered whether a system for proving authenticity might find wider use. And, to that end, Sony extended its application to video files this year.

Nikon also attempted to add it to the Nikon Z6III, until it became apparent that you could use the camera's multi-exposure mode to get the camera to sign-off on an image that didn't originate with the camera. For now it's primarily Sony and Leica that are providing CC-capable cameras but both Canon and Nikon have been part of the effort, so we'd expect to see its support (and use) continue to spread.

Local AI models

While we look to systems like Content Credentials in the hope that they'll provide some bulwark against AI slop, it's probably worth acknowledging that not everything promoted as AI is a scam, an annoyance or a harbinger of the end of the usable Internet.

"AI" tools can increasingly run locally on your computer and allow you to make your chosen edits quickly and easily. They won't currently stop you creating something ill-advised, though. Screengrab of Final Cut Pro's Magnetic Mask tool

In line with CIPA's 2024 statement about how AI should be applied to photography, there are some instances where it's being used to do something to support the creative process, rather than trying to supersede it. For instance, Adobe Photoshop now uses AI models running locally on your machine, to make it trivially easy to select and mask different parts of a photo. Nothing is invented or generated, it's not relying on untold additional processing at a server farm somewhere, it's just speeding up the editing process for you.

Similarly, the magnetic masking tool in Apple's Final Cut Pro video editing software is unbelievably quick and effective at selecting and cutting out objects or subjects (particularly people) from their surroundings, even if they move and change shape, frame-to-frame. These are tools that were almost unimaginable a few years ago, that just let you get to the point of making the edits and adjustments you want, so much more quickly. Whether you're an enthusiast amateur or a working pro trying to power through a whole wedding's worth of images, these locally-running AI models can be a useful helping hand.

Future essentials or passing fads?

Ultimately, all these things are relatively new arrivals, and your first response my well be: I don't need that. But we've often found that new features and technologies can seem unnecessary at first, but once they start to find their way into your workflow, you one day find it frustrating to go without.

We can't yet know which of these innovations will catch on and bed in and which will seem as misguidedly hyped as 3D TVs and NFTs were. It'll be interesting to see where each of these stand, this time next year, and what other innovations and trends have become apparent in the meantime.

Canon RF 24-70mm F2.8L IS: Lensrentals' most-rented lens of 2025. Image: Canon

It's that time of year when Lensrentals gives a glimpse into the trends it's seen during the year with its annual list of most-rented gear. This years' numbers suggest Canon and Sony increasing a stranglehold, but not for the same purposes.

The Lensrentals list gives a fascinating insight into trends within the industry. It's a very different perspective from sales figures in that these aren't necessarily the lenses and cameras people are buying, but instead are the ones they're choosing to use rather than buying. Some of it will be people trying a product before making a purchase but the majority will be renting a lens for a special occasion that they can't justify purchasing, or getting hold of a body (or second body) for a particular event or shoot.

Interestingly, though, Lensrentals' inclusion of batteries in their most-rented gear list this year might be the key to making sense of the numbers.

The appearance of Sony's NP-FZ100 battery at number 3 and Canon's LP-E6NH in 20th place is interesting, given Sony cameras typically achieve significantly better battery life than Canon. But, put together with a look at the most-rented cameras from each brand: the FX3 video camera for Sony and the much more stills-focused EOS R6 II and it reveals a pattern: people are renting Sony for video and Canon for stills.

Ultimately, the precise motivations for rentals can't be divined from the numbers, but you can do a little tea-leaf reading.

This might also explain why the Sony a7S III makes the top 20 but the a7R V, which is a much better stills camera, doesn't. It's the 6th most-rented Sony camera, with the likes of the FX6 being rented more frequently. Also making the top 20 is a Compact Flash express Type A card, with the most-rented accessory list showing a larger capacity not far behind, which again suggests people are renting kits for data-intensive shoots. Though, in theory it could be read as people choosing to rent, rather than buy, a format solely used for high-intensity shooting on a single platform.

Lensrentals Most Popular Photo and Video Gear 2025

1. (⇑2) Canon RF 24-70mm F2.8L IS
2. (⇑3) Canon RF 28-70mm F2L
3. (NE) Sony NP-FZ100 Battery
4. (⇑3) Canon EOS R6 Mark II
5. (⇓4) Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS
6. (⇓5) Canon EF 24-70mm F2.8L II
7. (⇑2) Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II
8. (—) Sony FE 24-70mm G2.8 GM II
9. (⇓5) Canon EF 70-200mm F2.8L IS III
10. (⇑2) Sony FX3
11. (NE) Sony 160GB CFexpress A card
12. (⇑1) Sony a7 IV
13. (⇓7) Canon EOS R5
14. (⇑1) Canon RF 100-500mm f4.5-7.1L IS
15. (⇓4) Sony a7S III
16. (⇓6) Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
17. (⇑1) Canon RF 50mm F1.2L
18. (⇑1) Canon RF 15-35mm F2.8L
19. (⇓3) Sony a7 III
20. (NE) Canon LP-E6NH Battery

Ultimately, the precise motivations for rentals can't be divined from the numbers, but you can do a little tea-leaf reading. For instance, the decline in the popularity of the Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS can probably be attributed to the arrival of the non-retracting RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS Z, which didn't itself make the top 20 but is likely to have split the vote, so to speak. We have to assume that the existence of the EOS R5 II (the most-rented camera not to make the top 20) is the main reason for the original R5's drop in position, given Canon rentals were up, overall.

The precipitous drops shown for the EF 24-70mm and 70-200mm F2.8s and the EOS 5D IV suggest that we're beginning to see the twilight of DSLR systems, after a surprisingly strong performance last year. This backs up the trend we see in the production data: DSLR shipments in the first ten months of 2025 were down 26.7% and now sit at around 580K, vs the 5M mirrorless cameras shipped in the same period. As a region, the Americas have seen the smallest declines in DSLR shipments, but the Lensrentals numbers suggest that trend is present here, too.

Again it's interesting to note that, despite Nikon having a very strong lineup and there being a lot of buzz around the likes of the Z6III, there are no entries at all for the Z-mount in the top 20. Only the seven most-rented cameras make the overall top twenty and the Nikon Z8 was the 17th most rented camera. The value of Nikon rentals fell, in percentage terms, relative to 2024. That said, given the popularity of the FX3, we'll have to see whether the ZR has any impact on these figures next year.

More worrying for Nikon, perhaps, might be the fact that RED rentals have dropped from just over 2% of rentals in 2023 to 1.11% last year. Lensrentals isn't primarily a video rental house used by the production industry, but such a big decline doesn't seem like a promising signal.

A breakdown of each brands' contribution to Lensrentals' revenue, in 2025. As noted in their blog, this disproportionately favors brands with expensive gear, such as Red and Leica. Image: Lensrentals

The overall brand share shows Canon and Sony cementing their hegemony, with only DJI showing an appreciable uptick in revenue generation share. There are fractional improvements for Fujifilm and Leica, but overall the story appears to be that Canon and Sony are increasingly dominating Lensrentals' business. It's interesting to speculate on the degree to which that's indicative of wider market trends.

Read more about the most-rented gear over on Lensrentals' blog

Image: Westend61 / Westend61 via Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

Click here to answer the Question of the week

Photo: Abby Ferguson

2025 was inadvertently the year of medium format photography for me. It started with my husband gifting me a medium format film camera for Christmas last year, which was the camera I used to take my favorite photo of 2025. We also saw two digital medium format camera releases this year: the fixed-lens Fujifilm GFX100RF and the Hasselblad X2D II 100C. The Fujifilm camera was certainly intriguing, but I've been a Hasselblad fan from afar ever since I got into photography (I mean, just look at the 503CW), and I was highly impressed by the new release, at least on paper.

Sometimes, we build things so much in our heads that when we finally get a chance to experience them in real life, disappointment follows. There's a reason people say to never meet your idols, after all. Luckily for me, such was not the case with the X2D II 100C. Instead, it simply confirmed what I had originally expected: this is one heck of a camera.

With the 35-100mm lens, it's still a relatively reasonable size to bring along on adventures. Photo: Abby Ferguson

Given that my previous medium format experience has been film-based, I'm used to medium format photography being an extremely slow and clunky process. I had heard that was largely the case with previous digital offerings that used the larger format, especially compared to smaller-sensor modern mirrorless cameras. The X2D II bucks that assumption, though.

I was able to pick up the X2D II and use it exactly like my Sony a7 III without much thought, especially since I was using it with the XCD 35-100mm F2.8-4 E, which is surprisingly small and fast for a medium-format standard zoom. Yes, as a whole, it's larger than my typical kit, but it was by no means unreasonable to take it out of a studio setting. In fact, I brought it on a (short) hike and had no issues or complaints about the size or weight.

"Simply put, it made medium format photography easy."

More so than the form factor, though, I was impressed by the autofocus. In fact, given the age of my Sony, it even seemed like the autofocus, especially eye detection, was better on the Hasselblad. It found eyes pretty much immediately and was very sticky, including when the subject, or I, moved around. It even had no issues with my husband's tinted glasses and did a great job finding the eyes of my black dog and cat, something cameras often struggle with. Simply put, it made medium format photography easy, something I didn't necessarily expect.

I used the X2D II to photograph one of my recurring subjects, broken glass. Photo: Abby Ferguson

The Hasselblad also uses an 'Ultra HDR JPEG' workflow, the same approach that we were surprised to find on the Sigma BF (Sigma didn't market the feature at all). What's nice with the X2D II, though, is that the rear monitor is HDR-capable, so you can see your HDR photos in all their glory right there on the display. It made me excited to look at the pictures I just took, especially when photographing in dramatic light. Because, wow, they looked good (and this is not a comment on me as a photographer, but rather on the quality of the display).

Unfortunately, I don't yet have a computer capable of displaying these images in their full glory. For now, viewing them on the tiny screen on my phone is the only way for me to bask in the HDR-ness. Needless to say, I greatly look forward to a bit of a computer upgrade soon that will allow me to appreciate the images fully.

If you click through to the original, you can see the HDR version (provided you are using an HDR-compatible display). It's a good example of how much more depth you can get in certain situations. Photo: Abby Ferguson

Lastly, although a feature that often gets overlooked, I also truly appreciated Hasselblad's approach to the menu system on the X2D II. It was drastically simplified and pared down compared to just about every other camera system. Instead of having to wade through page after page of options, there is a limited selection of icons that take you to straightforward settings. Plus, all essential things that might need to be changed while photographing can be adjusted without entering the menu system at all. It was a refreshing switch, and was again a surprise on a camera as robust as the X2D II.

Of course, Gear of the year isn't supposed to necessarily be waxing on about the technical aspects of a camera. It's a series that isn't here to highlight the best gear of the year (although the Hasselblad X2D II did win our best high-end camera award this year), but instead looks at gear that made for a memorable experience for each of us, personally. The Hasselblad was just that for me.

"Even more important, the camera made me excited to take photographs."

Experiencing the X2D II satisfied a lifelong dream of at least using a Hasselblad, so that's a check on the memorable part. But beyond that, the camera looks nice, feels nice, and made medium format photography highly approachable (I'm strictly speaking about the process here, not the price of the system or the size of the files you have to deal with later). While I'm not sure if I took any museum-quality photos with it during my short testing window (actually, I'm sure that I did not), I do like many of the images I took. Even more important, the camera made me excited to take photographs, something that I often struggle with, so that's a notable win in my book.

Gallery

You can see a small selection of the images that I took (and edited) with the Hasselblad X2D II 100C below.

Image: Viltrox

Viltrox has announced that its AF 35mm F1.2 Lab lens, previously released for E-mount, is available for Z-mount cameras. As a result, Nikon users now have access to both of the Lab series primes (35mm and 135mm) currently offered by Viltrox.

The Lab series sits at the top of Viltrox's lens lineup, offering fast apertures and representing what Viltrox describes as the pinnacle of its optical innovation. The Nikon version of the AF 35mm F1.2 Lab lens is identical to the E-mount model in most ways, including optical design. It is made up of 15 elements in 10 groups, with 5 ED elements, 3 high-refractive-index elements and 2 aspherical lenses.

Image: Viltrox

The lens features nano multi-layer coatings to minimize flare and ghosting, and a moisture-resistant coating on the front element as well. Viltrox says that the optical design provides reduced vignetting even at its maximum aperture. It also promises minimal edge distortion.

Four Viltrox HyperVCM motors power the autofocus, which Viltrox promises to be fast, quiet and accurate. It supports face and eye recognition autofocus, and the company says it can adjust from the closest to the farthest focus points in 100ms. It also promises goodc focus breathing control for video use.

The AF 35mm F1.2 Lab offers useful on-lens controls, including a multi-function ring, two customizable Fn buttons, an AF/MF switch and a click/de-click switch for aperture adjustment. There's an LCD that can be customized to display desired information as well. It also features a dust and moisture-resistant design.

Not surprisingly, the difference between the Sony and Nikon versions comes down to size and weight. It's still a hefty lens, but at 970g (2.1lbs), the Z-mount model is slightly heavier than the E-mount model's 920g (2lbs). It's also a hair longer, measuring 124mm (4.9").

The Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 Lab for Z-mount is available today for $999.

Image: Ricoh

Ricoh has announced that the GR IV HDF is officially coming in January, slightly later than the "winter 2025" date the company gave when it announced the camera in October. As expected, the variant of the popular compact keeps just about everything consistent with the original model, but swaps out the internal ND filter for one that produces softer highlights.

Image: Ricoh

As the name suggests, the main focus of the GR IV HDF is the integrated highlight diffusion filter (HDF). Ricoh says the filter is the result of its advanced inkjet technology. It produces an overall diffused, soft look, but the effect is especially visible in the highlights. The HDF can be turned on or off with a single-action switch, providing quick access to the feature.

The Ricoh GR IV HDF also adds an electronically controlled shutter mechanism, which enables shutter speeds up to 1/16,000 sec, a substantial boost from the original GR IV's 1/4000 sec max shutter speed. Those with the original model also benefit from this change, as the mechanism can be installed on the GR IV with new firmware available at the time of the GR IV HDF launch. However, it's currently unclear how much of a concern rolling shutter will be when using the camera's e-shutter mode.

Beyond the HDF and shutter speed, the new variant keeps all the same functionality and features of the original version. That includes its 18.3mm (28mm equiv) F2.8 lens, 25.74MP APS-C sensor, 5-axis image stabilization and 3-inch LCD.

Luckily, Ricoh isn't keeping fans waiting much longer. The GR IV HDF will be available in late January for $1600, $100 more than the original GR IV.

Image: Ricoh

Ricoh has announced that the GR IV HDF is officially coming in January, slightly later than the "winter 2025" date the company gave when it announced the camera in October. As expected, the variant of the popular compact keeps just about everything consistent with the original model, but swaps out the internal ND filter for one that produces softer highlights.

Image: Ricoh

As the name suggests, the main focus of the GR IV HDF is the integrated highlight diffusion filter (HDF). Ricoh says the filter is the result of its advanced inkjet technology. It produces an overall diffused, soft look, but the effect is especially visible in the highlights. The HDF can be turned on or off with a single-action switch, providing quick access to the feature.

The Ricoh GR IV HDF also adds an electronically controlled shutter mechanism, which enables shutter speeds up to 1/16,000 sec, a substantial boost from the original GR IV's 1/4000 sec max shutter speed. Those with the original model also benefit from this change, as the mechanism can be installed on the GR IV with new firmware available at the time of the GR IV HDF launch. However, it's currently unclear how much of a concern rolling shutter will be when using the camera's e-shutter mode.

Beyond the HDF and shutter speed, the new variant keeps all the same functionality and features of the original version. That includes its 18.3mm (28mm equiv) F2.8 lens, 25.74MP APS-C sensor, 5-axis image stabilization and 3-inch LCD.

Luckily, Ricoh isn't keeping fans waiting much longer. The GR IV HDF will be available in late January for $1600, $100 more than the original GR IV.

91%

Overall score

Jump to conclusion

The Canon EOS R6 III is an enthusiast-class camera with a new 32MP full-frame CMOS sensor, aimed at photographers and videographers who need high burst rates and fast readout speeds.

Key specifications

• 32MP full-frame CMOS sensor
• Built-in image stabilization rated to 8.5EV
• 40fps burst rate w/ pre-capture
• 3.0", 1.62M dot fully-articulating screen
• 7K recording up to 60p (Canon Cinema Raw Lite)
• Oversampled 4K ≤60p, subsampled 4K 120p
• 3:2 Open Gate recording up to 30p

The Canon EOS R6 III is available at a recommended price of $2799, a $300 premium over the Mark II's launch price. The EOS R6 II has formally dropped to a $2299 price point. There is also a variant costing $100 more, designed to work with the professional stop-motion software, Dragonframe.

The EOS R6 III is available as a kit with the RF 24-105mm F4-7.1 IS STM for around $3150 and with the RF 24-105mm F4.0 L IS USM for $4050.

Index:

• What's new?
• What is it?
• In Context
• Body and handling
• Image quality
• Autofocus
• Video Capabilities
• Video performance
• In use
• Conclusion
• Sample gallery
• Press release
• Specifications

What's new?

New sensor

The 33MP FSI CMOS sensor at the heart of the EOS R6 III is a new one for Canon's hybrid mirrorless lineup, having only appeared recently in the cinema-focused EOS C50. Canon isn't claiming any particular technological leaps with this sensor, but it has even faster readout speeds than the lower-resolution chip found in the EOS R6 II. As usual for Canon, it has a dual pixel design with two sub-pixels at each location, one capturing the left half of the image, the other capturing the right, allowing the entire sensor to be used for phase detection AF.

The faster readout speeds, paired with changes to the card slot and processor, allow for big improvements to video capture. The stabilization system has also gotten a bit of a bump, going from 8EV to 8.5EV.

Updated ports

The EOS R6 III replaces one of its predecessor's dual UHS-II SD card slots with a CFexpress Type B one. While you can still use most of the camera's features with an SD card, you will need to use the faster, larger and more expensive storage to record Raw video.

Speaking of video, the EOS R6 II's microHDMI port is no more on the EOS R6 III. In its place is a full-size one, which is much more appropriate on a camera destined to be many people's workhorse.

Better burst

Despite having the same rates, the EOS R6 III improves on its predecessor's burst rates, no longer requiring a special Raw Burst mode to enable pre-burst capture. Instead, there's now a pre-continuous shooting option that you can simply enable when in the H+ drive mode. Canon says this is largely thanks to that CFexpress card slot and its faster write speeds.

Raw Burst mode is no longer on the camera, though it's hard to be sad about that. While there were benefits to Raw Burst mode, such as it displaying bursts as a single thumbnail in the playback menu, it was overall a relatively clunky experience. To edit the photos you took outside of Canon's own software, you had to select the individual frames you want, and save them as a standard .CR3 Raw files, JPEGs, HEIFs or combinations thereof. That extra step is no longer necessary.

Canon also now says the shutter has been durability tested to 500,000 actuations. We're not used to Canon explicitly giving a figure for a camera at this level.

Raw, 7K and open-gate video

The Canon EOS R6 III gains the ability to record Raw video internally at up to 7K/60 in Canon's proprietary Canon Cinema Raw format. It can also now shoot 'open-gate' video at up to 7K/30, recording the entire area of the sensor to produce a 3:2 image that you can take vertical and landscape crops from.

The menus for selecting your recording mode have also been updated. The EOS R6 II presented you with an overwhelming list containing each possible combination of resolution, frame rate and compression settings, but the EOS R6 III thankfully lets you choose these all independently.

The EOS R6 III also now gains a dedicated red tally lamp, making it obvious to both you and your on-screen talent when you're recording.

AF Upgrades

Looking at the autofocus system, it seems largely the same as the one in the EOS R6 II, with subject recognition support for people, animals and vehicles, as well as an auto mode. However, Canon says the algorithms underpinning those modes have been updated to match the ones on cameras like the EOS R1 and EOS R5 II, making it even more reliable.

The EOS R6 III's Register People Priority supports up to ten faces, and will prioritize them according to your set order.

The EOS R6 III also gains the Register People Priority feature, where you can train it to recognize a specific person and principally focus on tracking them over other people that may be in the scene.

While the cameras theoretically both have 'Digic X' processors, Canon says it's made intergenerational improvements to the chip that allow for some of the EOS R6 III's new features.

What is it?

The EOS R6 III is part of the class of "do anything" hybrid cameras.

The EOS R6 III is Canon's enthusiast-tier full-frame camera, which means it's designed to excel at pretty much whatever you want to shoot with it. Like the rest of the cameras in this class (and its predecessor), it's capable enough for most kinds of photography, from landscape shooting to fast-paced action and sports, and comes equipped with the kinds of video features you would've had to buy a cinema camera to get just a few years ago. It also has weather sealing and dual card slots.

Of course, there are some things that separate it from the even higher-end stacked sensor cameras like Canon's own EOS R5 II. It misses out on a bit of extra resolution and a few features that pros might want, such as the ability to control the focus point with your eye, in-camera 'AI' upscaling and Action Priority modes. Canon says the latter two require a still-expensive co-processor that just wasn't in the budget for this camera, but it should still easily handle whatever tasks enthusiasts throw at it.

It supports pre-burst capture, which can help if you're just a bit too slow to the shutter

It can shoot at a 40fps burst rate for up to 150 shots in Raw and JPEG, and supports pre-burst capture, which can help if you're just a bit too slow to the shutter. You no longer have to use the somewhat clunky Raw burst mode to access pre-burst capture, like you did with the EOS R6 II.

It also supports HDR output, with its ability to produce 10-bit HEIF stills with the PQ tone curve, in place of JPEGs. While PQ isn't as broadly supported as the HLG curve used by other companies like Nikon and Panasonic, it can, at least, simultaneously record both HEIF and Raws, unlike Sony, which makes you choose between Raw capture and HDR output files. When shooting video, it can capture HDR video footage using either PQ or HLG. The latter is more widely supported when it comes to playback and is a new addition compared to the EOS R6 II.

Speaking of video, the EOS R6 III is well-equipped for motion pictures too. It supports internal Raw recording, a false color overlay to help you nail exposure and the >4K open gate capture gives you greater flexibility in post.

The EOS R6 III in context

The EOS R6 III is launching into a market segment with robust competition. Its predecessor was still quite a sensible option, so we've included it in the comparison, alongside the Nikon Z6III, which offers a similar combination of fast shooting, top-tier autofocus and incredible video specs. We're also comparing the Sony a7 IV, as its 33MP sensor makes it an obvious competitor, even if it can't match the speed of the other cameras on this list.

The Z6III's partially stacked sensor has higher read noise than other designs, which gives it a disadvantage compared to other cameras when raising the shadows (though, importantly, this has no impact on the midtones, and the EOS R6 III doesn't perform markedly better). For both cameras, it's worth checking to make sure whether the lenses you want exist before choosing a system, as both companies place restrictions on third-party lens makers.

The a7 V is a very capable camera with excellent image quality and dynamic range, though it lacks a few of the more niche video features that most of the other cameras in this class offer, such as open gate and internal Raw recording. While Sony does allow third-party lenses on E-mount, buyers should be aware that it limits non-Sony lenses to 15fps.

Body and Handling

The EOS R6 III hews close to Canon's tried-and-true design formula, and its body is very similar – though not exactly the same – as the EOS R6 II. It has a hefty grip that fits well in your hand, even with a heavier lens attached. It has an array of customizable buttons – nine in total – which can have different functions depending on whether you're in stills or video mode. Switching between the two modes is handled by a dedicated lever to the left of the EVF.

The autofocus joystick and surrounding buttons are placed within easy reach of where your thumb naturally falls when you're holding the camera, and are grouped in ways that help you tell which one you're pressing by feel, even when your eye is up to the EVF.

Canon's M-Fn menu can be used to bring up a customizable menu that lets you change nine different settings.

The EOS R6 III has plenty of buttons that provide a decent degree of customization. There are a few functions that we'd like that currently can't be assigned (quickly being able to turn AF tracking on and off, or adjust your auto ISO minimum shutter speed), but there are also relatively robust options for quickly recalling sets of specific exposure or autofocus settings, or directly cycling through options like AF selection point or subject detection.

Canon also has its M-Fn menu (by default assigned to the M-Fn button, but you can move it if you wish), which lets you have up to five pairs of settings that you can control using the top and rear plate dials. You can customize which of nine settings you want to control:

• ISO
• Drive mode
• AF mode
• White balance
• Flash exposure compensation
• Exposure compensation
• AF selection point
• Metering mode
• Color mode

Beyond this, the camera expects you to control most of its settings through the Q menu, which has 11 customizable slots. Like the rest of its menus, it can be controlled entirely using the touchscreen, entirely via the dials, or with a mix of both.

Screen and viewfinder

The viewfinder and LCD have been unchanged from the EOS R6 II, though that's not really a complaint. The rear 3.0" screen is fully-articulated, which will be welcome to those using the camera for video. It's relatively bright, but can be a little difficult to see in extremely bright sunlight.

The viewfinder is large and can refresh at up to 120fps for a very responsive preview. It's not the highest resolution model out there, though, and it can't quite manage to show you a proper HDR preview when you're shooting in PQ mode, though it does have Canon's OVF simulation mode that gives you a better idea of how much dynamic range you're capturing, at the cost of truly previewing your exposure.

There's no discernible viewfinder blackout when shooting in at the highest burst rate settings using the electronic viewfinder, though it'll show up when shooting in lower burst rates or with the mechanical shutter.

Ports

The EOS R6 III has all the connectivity you might expect from this class of camera: USB C, headphone and microphone sockets, a multi-function hotshoe, 2.5mm remote terminal and full-size HDMI port. The latter represents a bit upgrade from the less-reliable and robust microHDMI port found on the EOS R6 II.

It has two card slots: one CFexpress Type B, and one UHS-II SD. You'll have to use the former if you want to record Raw video internally.

Battery

The EOS R6 III uses 16Wh LP-E6P battery, to give battery life ratings of 270 shots per charge via the viewfinder and 510 if you use the rear screen. These numbers jump to 390 and 620, respectively, if you engage power saving mode. As always, the CIPA-defined tests tend to under-represent how many images you can actually get, with double the rated figure not being unusual, but they're useful to compare between cameras.

These are reasonable but not great for a camera likely to be used quite heavily by an enthusiast photographer. If you have an extremely long shoot, you are able to roughly double the battery life with Canon's BG-R20 battery grip, the same model used by the rest of the EOS R6 and R5-series cameras,

The camera will still work with older batteries such as the LP-E6NH, though it warns that not all features will be available, and that some accessories won't work. Most notably, the camera loses support for network connectivity, refusing to connect to your smartphone or other devices.

Image Quality

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

As you might hope, the Canon captures more detail than its 24MP rivals, and comparable amounts to its 33MP Sony peer, while also matching the color response of the EOS R6 II. The slightly richer, more yellowy pinks than the Sony and Nikon suggest it'll give the skin tone response that many Canon users have come to enjoy.

The detail difference is more apparent in the processed Raws, where the Canon and Sony present the horizontal lines in the doorway in a similar manner, whereas the R6 II and Nikon Z6III can't. Interestingly, the Nikon presents a convincing but completely spurious representation of the vertical lines above the door, while the EOS R6 II represents similar thick lines horizontally: both the result of aliasing.

At mid-to-high ISO there's little to choose between any of these cameras in terms of noise. As you creep towards the very highest ISOs the gap starts to open up, but it's only in the camera's extended 102,400 setting that the difference becomes clear. Even then, this is unlikely to be the difference between the images from some of these cameras being usable and others not: they're all going to be pretty hard to salvage.

Dynamic Range

In terms of dynamic range it performs exactly as we might expect. There's plenty of scope to lift the shadows with all these cameras. There's a tiny bit more read noise coming from the Canon, which makes itself known if you delve really deep into the files.

It's also worth noting that the noise that is visible appears slightly smeared, rather than as individual points, which could be indicative of noise reduction. Our scene has plenty of fine detail, much of it with low contrast, if you want to download the files and see if you think it'll have any impact when processed with your preferred workflow.

Switching to electronic shutter mode sees the camera drop to 12-bit sensor readout, which has the predictable effect of curtailing the dynamic range of the Raws (the reduction in available values to encode the shadows presents as quantization noise).

Our ISO Invariance test suggests this is a dual-gain sensor that switches to its higher gain step around ISO 800. There's very little benefit to raising ISO above that point, but opportunity to keep ISO down to protect highlights.

Autofocus

The EOS R6 III's autofocus system uses the same interface as the ones from Canon's higher-end EOS R5 II and EOS R1. There are several options for selecting your autofocus point, including a "Spot" pinpoint option, three customizable zones and a "whole area" option, where the camera picks a subject.

Each of these modes can be used with or without tracking, which you have to enable through the Q menu, where the camera will try to follow whatever was under the point when you started focusing, and in conjunction with the camera's subject recognition modes, listed below. There's also an "auto" subject recognition mode, which will attempt to identify any of the recognized subjects in the scene.

The camera has and additional four autofocus point options with a Lock symbol, which don't use tracking or subject recognition, so you don't have to manually switch off both features if you're trying to gain complete control over your focusing point in a hurry: you can just select a 'locked' AF area. There's a menu option to let you narrow down which AF areas are available through the Q or M-Fn menus, to make selection and swapping faster.

In general, we found that the EOS R6 III was generally very good at not getting distracted by a nearby subject when we were trying to focus on something else, so we didn't have to switch to the locked modes that often.

Performance

We found the EOS R6 III's autofocus to be accurate and reliable, and its tracking to be very tenacious. In most situations, the tracking point simply stuck to whatever we put it on, no matter how much it or the camera moved. We also found the subject detection modes to be good at picking out people or animals, even if they were small parts of the scene, though it was occasionally prone to jumping from one person to another in very tight groups.

The Register People Priority mode does a decent job of selecting your preferred subject, if there's more than one person in the frame. However, because you can only use a single image to 'train' the camera, it may be confused if you subject looks significantly different to the image you selected: eg if they were/weren't wearing glasses in the training shot, so it's worth trying to grab a quick reference image at the start of your shoot, if you can.

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In our tests, the camera's generic tracking dealt very well with a subject moving across the frame at varying speeds. It kept track of the subject throughout the run and was very accurate at driving the lens to the correct distance, resulting in very few soft images. That's no small feat when shooting at 40fps.

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The performance was much the same with human subject recognition turned on, with the camera locking on to the subject's eye throughout the run and keeping up with its changing rate of approach with impressive accuracy.

Video capabilities

The EOS R6 III has all the video assist tools most shooters will need: proxies, waveform and false color, dual-level zebras and Log/HDR view assist.

The EOS R6 III can shoot oversampled 4K, taken from a 7K region, at up to 60p. Alternatively, it offers subsampled 4K at up to 120p. It can also capture its entire sensor area in native 7K resolution, 'open gate' recording at up to 30p.

It also lets you record in Canon's C-Log 2 or 3 response curves, and now has a button that defaults to opening the Color menu, making it a bit easier to switch between Log and non-Log recording.

It provides both DCI and UHD 4K options, though, humorously, the true 24fps mode (as opposed to 23.98) is only available when recording DCI. Its Raw mode also lacks a 16:9 mode, but can record open-gate at up to 30p, from which you can take a UHD crop.

Video settings are well separated from photo settings, with the exception of the custom white balance (which, as long as you know that the setting is shared, is probably a good thing). You can also easily set up custom modes for different types of shooting; one for standard 4K/24 recording, using a 1/50 sec shutter by default, and another for 4K/60 slow-motion that uses a 1/125 sec shutter. The one downside is that custom modes do have separate custom white balance settings, which means you can't set one and have it set for all the others (or, at least not without also having other settings carry over that you may not necessarily want).

Recording modes

While the EOS R6 III shares a sensor with the fan-cooled EOS C50, Canon includes several more options on its more cinema-focused camera. As an example, the EOS R6 III doesn't have an HQ Raw mode, nor does it support crop modes in Raw. It can, however, still record proxy files to its SD card slot, which could be quite useful when shooting Raw video.

Both the 4K and Full HD modes can be used in the "Fine" oversampling modes at all but their highest frame rates; the former from 7K capture, and the latter from 3.5K capture. However, Canon is upfront that, while the 4K/60 Fine mode is still oversampled, it won't have the same image quality that you get from the 4K/30 and slower modes.

Temperature limits

Unlike the video-focused EOS C50, the EOS R6 III is not fan-cooled. Canon has given the following figures for continuous recording times at 23°C (73°F). Taking shorter clips with some rest time between them is likely to give much longer durations.

The subsampled 4K/60 modes, along with both subsampled and oversampled 'Fine' 4K modes at 30p and slower, have no documented temperature restrictions. It's worth being aware of these limits if and when you use the camera's more ambitious modes.

Having shot several projects with the EOS R6 III, both indoors and outdoors, we never had it shut down due to overheating, even when we were shooting in open gate. However, we haven't had the chance to test it in a hot environment in direct sunlight, and would expect it to struggle in those conditions.

Workflow

Canon includes a variety of tools to help make shooting video and, in particular, nailing exposure, easier. The EOS R6 III has options for both waveform monitoring, which provides more detail about what parts of your image are clipping than a traditional histogram, and a false color overlay, which makes it easier to tell if your skin tones are properly exposed.

It's now much easier to set your white balance in video mode

It's also now much easier to set your white balance in video mode; you can capture it from the live view, rather than having to set it from a still image on the card (a process that, on other Canon cameras, meant switching into stills mode, taking a picture of your gray card, then switching back into the video mode before diving back into the settings). Speaking of live view, the camera also (finally!) provides access to level gauges and magnification while recording, so you can make sure your horizon is perfect and your subject is in focus while you're rolling, though you have to tap the screen to access larger magnifications.

The EOS R6 III lets you upload LUTs into the camera, so you can preview an effect you wish to apply, but you can't bake the result into your footage. The EOS R6 III can output lower-resolution proxy files to an SD card while you capture your main footage to the CFexpress card. The only exception is open gate shooting, where you can capture a proxy alongside Raw shooting, but not if you're using MP4 as your main output.

One feature Canon's retained for its cinema cameras is shutter angle, which derives the shutter speed from the recording framerate, rather than an absolute setting, so you don't have to adjust your shutter speed after changing frame rates to retain the same level of motion blur. It's a setting that some of the EOS R6 III's competitors, such as the Nikon Z6III and Panasonic S1II, have, but that it lacks.

Video Performance

Starting with the open gate mode, the 6912 x 4608 image the EOS R6 III produces captures lots of detail, appreciably more than the 5952 x 3968 open gate image from the Panasonic S1II. The difference will almost certainly be less noticeable in motion, but the EOS R6 III's higher resolution allows for a bit more room to crop in if you're delivering a vertical or horizontal 4K video (or if you shot a bit too wide, and are trying to take a 9:16 vertical crop without using the full height).

The increased detail versus the S1II is still there, though slightly less obvious, when you're using the oversampled 4K mode. The Z6III offers similar levels of detail, though at default settings, it appears to apply more (or perhaps less subtle) sharpening than Canon does. Canon's oversampled modes also don't seem to reduce moire as much as we might expect them to, compared to the open gate mode.

The EOS R6 III loses its edge in detail when you bump up to 4K/60. The oversampled fine setting is massively more detailed than the line-skipped standard mode, but, as Canon said, it's less detailed than the oversampled footage from 24p mode. Interestingly, the rolling shutter figure is the same, so it's perhaps a processing difference, rather than a readout one, presumably for reasons of heat.

The Nikon Z6III's output is again sharper (and more sharpened), but it's not far off the output of the Panasonic S1II. This isn't because Nikon and Panasonic's 60p modes are more detailed than their 24p ones; it's because Canon's oversampled 60p mode isn't as detailed as its 24p one. Perhaps most painfully, though, is that even the EOS R6 II's 4K/60 footage has a slight edge in detail over its successor's.

The EOS R6 III's standard modes all run at the same level of subsampling required to achieve the full-width 4K/120 this camera can provide, as evidenced by their shared rolling shutter rate, and thus come with a substantial step down in detail compared to the oversampled modes. Thankfully, the subsampling doesn't seem to come with a notable penalty in high ISO noise performance; that may speak more to the strength of Canon's noise reduction, though, as you'd expect to see more noise in a mode derived from less of the sensor.

Comparing the EOS R6 III's 4K/120 capture with the S1II's, which comes with a 1.24x crop, shows that the Canon is a long way behind when it comes to detail. That's even true of the the Z6III as well, which requires a 1.5x crop to achieve 4K/120. Despite those being derived from a smaller area of the sensor, it's very likely they're derived from more pixels that aren't spread as far apart as they are on the EOS R6 III.

Raw Video

As always, when discussing Raw video options, it's worth keeping in mind that the difference between Raw video and Log video is nowhere near as stark as the difference between Raw and JPEG for stills when it comes to editing flexibility. While shooting in Raw for video gives you control over noise reduction, sharpening* and white balance, it doesn't offer substantially more latitude to adjust your footage's lightness than Log footage does.

With that in mind, the EOS R6 III's Raw footage looks good, capturing a lot of detail from either the entire sensor in open gate mode, or from a 7K 1.89:1 crop derived from that footage. The latter can be shot in up to 60p, though going above 30p will require switching to Canon's Raw Lite format, which compresses the footage more. If there are compromises to detail that come from that, they're not evident in our test scene.

Unlike some of its competitors, Canon applies lens distortion corrections to its Raw footage, arguably making them a bit less Raw, but saving you the extra work of having to manually apply them after the fact, which is especially important for those RF-mount lenses that utilise those corrections as part of their optical formulas.

* Put another way, shooting in Raw puts the onus of noise reduction and sharpening on you.

Autofocus

We found autofocus performance in video to be extremely reliable, with the camera locking onto tracked subjects and not easily getting distracted by things in the background, as we sometimes experienced with its predecessor. We also noticed very little hunting when the camera was tracking a subject or object, which meant we could keep it on without worrying about distracting focus pulsing.

The camera is also quite good at tracking arbitrary subjects, though the interface for doing so can be frustrating. Tapping on a subject will focus on it, but, unlike in stills mode, it won't start tracking it unless you're in the whole area autofocus mode; the camera will continue to focus on whatever the AF selection point is over, and it won't stick to your chosen subject. If you want to use tap to track, you'll have to use the whole area mode; otherwise, you'll have to manually move the AF point with the joystick or touch screen, or keep it over the subject, changing the composition.

The EOS R6 III's autofocus options remain the same throughout its recording modes; you still get continuous autofocus with subject recognition even when recording 4K/120 and 1080/180. This is true both in the standard video recording mode and in the Slow-and-Fast mode that doesn't record audio and produces a file that plays back at a slowed-down or sped-up framerate.

IBIS

The in-body stabilization system of the EOS R6 III is good, but doesn't quite match the performance we'd expect from, say, a Panasonic. It likely won't fool anyone into thinking you're using a tripod, but it smooths out the most distracting shakes. When we shot from odd angles or using a more telephoto lens we were left wishing we'd brought at least a monopod. But in a pinch where we were forced to shoot an entire video handheld with an 85mm lens, we still got usable footage, which is a testament to what the system is capable of.

While we'd generally recommend turning IBIS off when mounting the camera to a tripod, especially if you'll be panning or tilting, it's not always practical to do so in a fast-paced environment when you're frequently switching between handheld and locked-off shots. Thankfully, the EOS R6 III's IBIS system does a good job of not fighting against what are clearly intentional camera moves.

That changes a little if you turn on the digital stabilization modes; both the standard (which comes with a 1.11x crop) and the "Enhanced" (1.43x crop) settings do okay with the panning itself, but stop very suddenly when you stop moving the camera. However, they're decent when it comes to smoothing out that little bit extra hand shake, and are available in the oversampled modes as well as the subsampled ones (though, obviously, not in Raw or open gate).

In Use

By Mitchell Clark

I think the best word to describe the user experience of the EOS R6 III is "refined." While Canon's previous cameras like the EOS R5 II, EOS R1 and EOS R6 II are great in their own rights, they had a few rough edges; setting custom white balance in video was a chore, you couldn't punch in while recording, the burst mode used a weird custom container, you couldn't turn pre-burst shooting on and off with a single button unless you used a hacky workaround.

The EOS R6 III solves all those issues and, therefore, has few quirks left to complain about... though I will spend most of the rest of this section complaining about them, because nothing is perfect. But the topline message is that this camera is very easy to get along with.

The biggest gotcha for photographers will be its burst modes, or situations where you need to shoot silently but still want maximum image quality. The e-shutter dropping to 12-bit readout means you won't have as much latitude to pull up shadows before noise starts creeping in as you do with photos taken with the mechanical shutter (though, realistically, the situations requiring maximum burst rates and the ones demanding maximum DR are usually separate). This also isn't an issue unique to the Canon; all its peers also have to use their e-shutters to achieve their maximum burst rates, which typically incurs a dynamic range cost.

Pre-burst capture only being available at the maximum burst rates is also a frustrating limitation, and often leads to you taking more photos than you'd actually need. It also eats into this camera's limited buffer; at its 40fps mode, it can last for around three seconds (or two and a half if you've used up half a second with your pre-capture). And once you hit the limit, it can take up to eight seconds before it'll let you start shooting again, even if you're using a fast CFexpress card.

I find Canon's menus to be pleasant enough, with their color-coding and the ability to scroll through sections and pages with the command dials. And while I personally don't find the M-Fn menu to be all that useful, that's more a testament to how good the "Q" menu is for this camera, and I can imagine shooters who are used to it preferring it as a way to quickly control various settings without taking their fingers off the command dials. I also appreciate the way Canon has set up the settings for video, letting you choose most of your shooting parameters separately, rather than making you scroll through a list of 100 different options.

Having just reviewed the Panasonic S1II and used the Sony a7 V, going back to the plain, fully articulating display on the EOS R6 III feels like a downgrade. I'd pick it over a display that can only tilt but not flip out, but now that displays that can do both are making their way to many of its competitors, it feels like the correct choice for a camera aiming to be great at both stills and video.

Conclusion

By Mitchell Clark

The biggest challenge with reviewing the EOS R6 III is figuring out what to say about it that isn't just "it's really good." Like most of the cameras in its class, it sets out with the goal of being everything to everyone; a stills camera capable of autofocus tracking and burst rates that would've made professional cameras from a few years back envious and a video camera that you could sensibly shoot a movie with. And somehow, it more or less succeeds at that task.

It's not the only camera to do so, of course. Those are, increasingly, table stakes for this class. But it does so with just that bit of extra shine. Its higher resolution sensor lets it capture more detail than the Z6III and S1II, and it offers more video modes than Nikon or Sony. Its menus are well laid out (if a little bloated, like everyone else's), and it offers all of the ports and buttons that you could ever want. Unless you're a working professional or just really want the best of the best, it's hard to imagine that you'd need more than this camera, no matter what you hope to do with it.

Which is not to say it's perfect. It has some foibles that may annoy power users, but for most people, the ease of use it provides will more than make up for that. If you're equally into video as well as stills, it's probably worth paying more to get the Panasonic S1II with its fan and more detailed 4K slow-motion modes. And if you're looking for the utmost image quality in stills, you'll have to decide whether you value the detail the EOS R6 III provides or the dynamic range of the S1II more (or, potentially, get both with the a7 V, at the cost of some specific video features).

Still, the EOS R6 III proves that we may be getting past the age of "jack of all trades, master of none." Instead, it's a master of most. Given that its pricing is in line with the rest of its peers, and that its capabilities match or exceed them, it handily earns our Gold award.

Scoring

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

Compared to its peers

Compared to the EOS R6 II, Canon's latest offers higher resolution stills and a more refined shooting experience, dropping the fiddly Raw Burst mode and multi-step custom white balance picker. The EOS R6 III improves on its predecessor's already very good autofocus with extra features and being that bit more reliable. It's also a much more capable video camera, even if its 60p oversampled 4K mode isn't quite as detailed. That said, the R6 II is remains hugely capable if there's a big price difference between the two.

The Nikon Z6III has a nicer viewfinder and rear display than the EOS R6 III, and Z mount has a few more third-party lens options than RF mount. However, its Raw burst rates are substantially slower (though more configurable) than the Canon's, and its pre-burst capture is only available when shooting in its JPEG-only modes. Both are capable video options, with the Z6III having a slight edge in slow-motion (albeit with a crop), and the EOS R6 III gaining open-gate, a feature Nikon doesn't offer.

The Panasonic S1II's fan lets it record more ambitious video modes for longer, and it offers better dynamic range performance when shooting stills with the mechanical shutter. However, unless you're using the battery-destroying multi-shot high-resolution mode, it won't quite offer the same detail as the EOS R6 III does. We also find Canon's ergonomics to be a bit more refined and comfortable to hold, though your mileage will vary. But if you value the availability of third-party lenses, the L mount is the better choice.

We haven't finished our testing of the Sony a7 V, but early impressions show it to be a very impressive contender when it comes to stills. It matches the EOS R6 III's resolution and seems to have a good chance of outperforming it when it comes to dynamic range, thanks to its ability to read out both its low and high gain steps when using the mechanical shutter. Some video shooters may miss its specific capabilities such as open gate or Raw capture, and we find it's not as comfortable to hold, especially with larger lenses.

Sample Gallery

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Pre-production samples

Image: Nikon

Nikon has announced a new firmware update, 5.30, for the Z9, promising a "significant improvement" to the autofocus system's performance when tracking fast-moving subjects, alongside additional features.

The company is also now letting you use the subject detection with the single point and "dynamic AF" autofocus selection point types, giving you more flexibility in how you select which subject you want to focus on. The Z9 also gains the in-camera focus limiter and additional level of live-view magnification that were added to the Z8 and Z6III earlier this year, and has its "wide" area setting expanded to cover more of the image area.

Firmware 5.30 also improves the Auto Capture feature, with the company saying it's added "a new AF standby position." It also brings support for UVC/UAC, which lets you use it as a webcam for your computer without the need for additional drivers or software (though it seems unlikely that there were that many people demanding this ability for their pro sports camera).

The camera also gains support for Nikon's "Flexible Color Picture Control," which lets you create a custom color mode using its desktop software, then load it onto the camera for it to use while creating JPEGs.

It's nice to see Nikon continuing to add new features to the Z9 over four years after it announced the camera. While some of them may have debuted in lower-end cameras in the company's lineup, that gives the company all the more reason to add them to its highest-end camera if it can, so we're happy to see Nikon taking that opportunity.

Readers' Choice: Best camera of 2025

2025 was another exciting year for cameras. In addition to a variety of models that fit into easy-to-define categories, including high-end workhorses, enthusiast mirrorless, and entry-level bodies, we saw our share of quirky, unusual, and even unexpected cameras this year.

Our editorial team has already announced the winners of the 2025 DPReview Annual Awards. Now, it's time to find out what you think. Which of this year's new cameras do you think are worthy of recognition and one of our coveted Readers' Choice awards? Take our poll and let us know.

Polls are now open; see below.

Voting occurs in three categories (cameras, prime lenses, and zoom lenses) and runs through December 26.

Once the vote has closed, we'll run a fourth and final poll drawn from the first three winners to determine the Readers' Choice Product of the Year. Look out for that poll to open shortly before the end of the year.

Voting is easy: pick your top 3 products by dragging and dropping to rank them in order of priority. Products are listed alphabetically.

Please note that for the best experience, we recommend voting on our desktop site.

Poll Rules:

This poll is meant to be a bit of fun. It's not sponsored, promoted, or paid for in any way, and DPReview doesn't care how you vote. Our readers' polls are run on the basis of trust. As such, we ask that you only vote once, from a single account.

Readers' Choice: Best prime lens of 2025

We saw some exciting lenses in 2025. Established manufacturers upped the ante with new F1.2 and F1.4 lenses, and even a couple of F2 telephotos, while up-and-coming Chinese lens manufacturers delivered numerous primes designed to deliver a lot of bang for the buck.

Our editorial team has already announced the winners of the 2025 DPReview Annual Awards. Now, it's time to find out what you think. Which of this year's new prime lenses do you think are worthy of recognition and one of our coveted Readers' Choice awards? Take our poll and let us know.

Polls are now open; see below.

Voting occurs in three categories (cameras, prime lenses, and zoom lenses) and runs through December 26.

Once the vote has closed, we'll run a fourth and final poll drawn from the first three winners to determine the Readers' Choice Product of the Year. Look out for that poll to open shortly before the end of the year.

Voting is easy: pick your top 3 products by dragging and dropping to rank them in order of priority. Products are listed alphabetically.

Please note that for the best experience, we recommend voting on our desktop site.

Poll Rules:

This poll is meant to be a bit of fun. It's not sponsored, promoted, or paid for in any way, and DPReview doesn't care how you vote. Our readers' polls are run on the basis of trust. As such, we ask that you only vote once, from a single account.

Readers' Choice: Best zoom lens of 2025

In addition to the usual assortment of new and updated models, we saw some head-turning zoom lenses in 2025, including fast-aperture zooms, versatile zooms for APS-C and medium format, some heavy-hitting telephotos, and at least one new kit zoom.

Our editorial team has already announced the winners of the 2025 DPReview Annual Awards. Now, it's time to find out what you think. Which of this year's new zoom lenses do you think are worthy of recognition and one of our coveted Readers' Choice awards? Take our poll and let us know.

Polls are now open; see below.

Voting occurs in three categories (cameras, prime lenses, and zoom lenses) and runs through December 26.

Once the vote has closed, we'll run a fourth and final poll drawn from the first three winners to determine the Readers' Choice Product of the Year. Look out for that poll to open shortly before the end of the year.

Voting is easy: pick your top 3 products by dragging and dropping to rank them in order of priority. Products are listed alphabetically.

Please note that for the best experience, we recommend voting on our desktop site.

Poll Rules:

This poll is meant to be a bit of fun. It's not sponsored, promoted, or paid for in any way, and DPReview doesn't care how you vote. Our readers' polls are run on the basis of trust. As such, we ask that you only vote once, from a single account.