Skylum has announced an update to Luminar – its photo editing suite that became synonymous with AI sky replacement – which arrives under the pitch of protecting human talent and creative vision.

According to Skylum, the update is arriving in two phases. Phase 1 shipped on August 5 as version 1.28.0, and includes user interface and performance improvements. The Catalog and Edit modes have been merged into a single workspace, with Presets, Tools and Edits gathered into one reorganized panel on the right. Skylum claims exports are now up to 27% faster, preset previews up to 3.8 times faster, and masking uses up to 33% less memory.

The release also adds camera support for the Leica SL3-P and M11-P, the Panasonic Lumix DC-L10 and the Sony a7R VI, plus compressed Raw support for the a7 V. Additionally, the company says it has rebuilt its generative model to produce results that blend more naturally into the original photograph.

Skylum

We also noticed a quiet change: “Neo” appears to be going away. Skylum’s August release notes are headed “Luminar 1.28.0” whereas June’s were headed “Luminar Neo 1.27.1,” and the press materials don’t mention the word. Skylum’s own website hasn’t caught up, and still refers to the app both ways.

Phase 2 is slated to arrive this fall and will focus more on feature improvements. The company says a revised Crop tool will evaluate an image and propose several finished compositions, weighing subject, balance, leading lines and visual weight, and the Atmosphere Fog tool is being rebuilt to respond to a scene’s light, color and depth rather than laying a flat layer over the top. An improved Enhance tool is designed to reduce the risk of overprocessing, and the AI Assistant is being updated to take a description of the look you’re after and apply a combination of Luminar tools to deliver the result you want.

Finally, Skylum says it’s introducing a new web editor to support cross-platform editing.

Skylum

Skylum’s earlier marketing leaned heavily into AI as a selling point, through Luminar AI’s launch and Luminar Neo’s debut. This announcement reads a bit differently: Skylum says the update arrives as the industry grapples with fears that AI might “overshadow human talent” and bring an end to what it calls a nearly 200-year-old craft, with CEO Ivan Kutanin adding, “Creative vision comes first; technology is here only to let it shine.” 

That’s an interesting position from the company that popularized one-click sky replacement, but Skylum seems to be drawing a distinction between craft and documentary photography; effects that prove convincing in a scene versus ones that look pasted in. (The fact that the software also lets you reshape a subject’s body in a portrait makes that a tougher sell.)

Price and availability

Luminar is available as a one-time purchase in three versions. A desktop-only version for Mac and Windows sells for $129. The All Platforms version adds support for iOS, Android and ChromeOS apps, cross-device editing and access to Luminar on the web when it arrives this fall; it retails for $259, but is on sale for $159 through August 31. The Max version adds a year of the company’s Luminar Prime service and retails for $399, but is on sale for $199 through August 31.

Fog strips away distraction. It conceals rather than reveals, simplifying a landscape until only its essential forms remain. Ordinary subjects become mysterious, and scenes that would appear cluttered in clear weather become elegant studies of light, shape, and atmosphere. Fog encourages interpretation rather than documentation. Instead of recording every detail, it invites viewers to imagine what lies beyond the veil.

Many photographers see a bank of fog as a signal to pack away their cameras and wait for the weather to improve. Experienced photographers do the opposite, understanding that fog introduces depth, reduces complexity, and creates an emotional atmosphere impossible to duplicate under clear skies.

Like every artistic tool, however, fog is most effective when applied with restraint. Too little may have insufficient effect; too much can obscure the subject that attracted your attention. The challenge, and the opportunity, is finding the balance where difficult weather can be transformed into extraordinary photographs.

Distilling simplicity

Ben Hattenbach

Fog’s greatest artistic contribution is its remarkable ability to simplify. Many landscapes are visually overwhelming. Dense forests contain thousands of branches competing for attention. Mountain vistas often include countless ridges, rocks, and textures. Without a clear visual hierarchy, viewers struggle to determine where to look.

Fog solves this problem naturally. As distant detail gradually disappears, stronger forms begin to emerge. A solitary tree becomes the subject rather than merely one tree among hundreds. The graceful curve of a ridgeline replaces a jumble of competing textures. Negative space begins to carry as much visual weight as the objects themselves.

Depth perception

Ben Hattenbach

Successful landscape photographs often inspire a viewer’s eye to travel through the scene. Few natural phenomena encourage this more effectively than fog. In fog, distant subjects lose contrast, sharpness, and saturation, while nearby objects retain more of their original character.

Without the need for converging lines or overlapping objects, fog immediately communicates spatial relationships. Trees standing only a few hundred feet apart may suddenly appear separated by enormous distances simply because each successive row fades a little further into the mist. This gradual progression, from crisp foreground to increasingly subdued middle ground to barely visible background, is a signature of successful fog photography.

Scenes containing multiple planes often produce the strongest photographs in fog. Forested hillsides, mountain ridges, and winding rivers all lend themselves naturally to atmospheric layering. In many cases, adding only a single nearby element – a rock, tree, or wildflower – is enough to transform an otherwise flat photograph into one possessing convincing depth.

Negative space

Ben Hattenbach

When visibility decreases, the empty portions of one’s image can become as important as the subjects themselves. Fog provides one of the most elegant forms of negative space found in nature.

A lone tree emerging from blank mist. A distant lighthouse suspended in whiteness. Or, as above, the silhouette of a solitary emperor penguin peering out from behind an Antarctic ice storm. The surrounding emptiness isolates the subject, increases its visual importance, and creates an emotional sense of solitude.

Seasoning to taste

Ben Hattenbach

When photographing in fog, moderation is essential. Finding the ideal balance becomes one of the photographer’s principal creative decisions. Although you cannot directly control the fog itself, you can control how much of it appears in your photograph.

Try changing your distance from the subject. Every additional foot of atmosphere between camera and subject slightly increases the fog’s cumulative effect. Move to another altitude where the fog density will be different. Or just wait for the fog to change.

Working the fog’s edges

Ben Hattenbach

One of the most productive places to photograph is along the boundaries of fog. The transition between clear air and heavy mist often produces precisely the amount of atmosphere needed to simplify a scene without overwhelming it.

The edge of a fog bank is also where light frequently becomes most dramatic. Sunlight filtering across the boundary between clear and foggy air often creates luminous edges, illuminated layers, and glowing shafts that transform otherwise ordinary scenes into cathedrals of light. Exceptional fog photographs are frequently found during the minutes when the atmosphere is actively changing.

Shapes and silhouettes

Ben Hattenbach

Fog naturally encourages the eye to focus on form rather than detail. This makes it one of the finest environments for silhouettes. When texture disappears, shape becomes everything. The profile of a mountain ridge. A distant elk. Or as above a mother tree and her child.

Subjects that might appear unremarkable in full daylight suddenly become iconic when reduced to their simplest outlines. Silhouettes depend less on exposure than on recognizable form. The viewer should immediately understand the subject from its outline alone.

Resist the temptation to recover shadow detail during processing. Mystery is part of the photograph’s appeal. Not everything needs to be explained.

Exposure in the digital era

Ben Hattenbach

Reflective light meters still assume that the average scene should reproduce as a middle gray. Bright fog violates that assumption, encouraging the camera to underexpose unless compensation is added. Rather than relying on a predetermined exposure adjustment, use your live histogram. For scenes that change rapidly, as foggy landscapes often do, this immediate visual feedback becomes invaluable.

Unless you are seeking a silhouette, you’ll normally want to expose almost as brightly as possible while preserving important highlights. This approach maximizes image quality by recording more tonal information in the brightest portions of the file while avoiding clipped highlights.

Maintaining focus

Ben Hattenbach

Dense fog presents challenges even for the most sophisticated autofocus systems. Contrast diminishes. Edges disappear. Subjects drift in and out of visibility.

Focus peaking highlights areas the camera detects as sharp, while magnified live view allows precise placement of focus even in remarkably low-contrast conditions. If the composition contains layered subjects, consider focusing slightly closer than instinct suggests. The nearest sharp object frequently serves as the visual anchor that encourages viewers to enter the photograph before exploring its softer, more distant layers.

Remember that absolute sharpness is rarely the defining characteristic of successful fog photography. Atmosphere, not microscopic detail, is usually the subject.

Time and motion

Ben Hattenbach

Fog is seldom still. It drifts, curls and dissolves with astonishing subtlety. Those movements present creative opportunities every bit as significant as flowing water.

While fast shutter speeds preserve delicate textures within the fog, long exposures transform moving fog into smooth ribbons that emphasize mystery. Neither interpretation is inherently more truthful. Each simply tells a different story.

Lens choice

Ben Hattenbach

Ask landscape photographers which lens belongs on the camera during fog, and most will recommend a wide-angle. The answer is more nuanced.

Wide-angle lenses excel when the atmosphere itself becomes part of the foreground experience. They immerse viewers within the fog, emphasizing nearby textures while allowing distant features gradually to dissolve into the mist.

Telephoto lenses, however, often reveal fog’s greatest strengths. Distance exaggerates atmospheric perspective. Successive ridgelines merge into delicate tonal bands. Isolated subjects appear suspended within enormous volumes of atmosphere.

Rather than asking what lens covers the scene, consider which lens best expresses the atmosphere. That subtle change in thinking often transforms an ordinary photograph into a memorable one.

Forecasting fog

Ben Hattenbach

Until recently, finding photogenic fog depended as much on intuition and luck as on planning. Today, real-time tools such as Windy.com have dramatically improved photographers’ ability to predict when and where fog is likely to form. Such resources forecast fog directly on an interactive map, allowing one to see where fog will develop, drift and dissipate.

Before leaving home, spend a few minutes advancing the forecast hour by hour while studying the map. A valley predicted to fill with fog just before sunrise, or a coastal fog bank forecast to drift inland after dawn, may provide the fleeting conditions necessary for outstanding photography.

Final thoughts

Ben Hattenbach

Many photographers spend their careers searching for incredible landscapes. Fog reminds us that exceptional photographs often require nothing more than extraordinary light falling upon ordinary places. A familiar grove of trees. An empty shoreline. A road leading to the horizon.

Subjects overlooked under blue skies frequently become unforgettable once the atmosphere begins simplifying the world around them. That may be fog’s greatest gift. It teaches us to see less – and in doing so, to see more.

The finest fog photographs are seldom about weather. They are about mood. About suggestion rather than explanation. About allowing mystery to remain mystery.

The next time a forecast calls for dense fog, resist the temptation to postpone your outing until conditions improve. Instead, leave a little earlier. Walk a little farther. Stay a little longer. You may discover that the weather many photographers avoid is the weather that produces your strongest work.

When not photographing remote and foggy landscapes, Ben Hattenbach is a partner at a Los Angeles-based law firm where his practice focuses on the trial of complex intellectual property disputes. More of his images can be seen at www.benhattenbach.com and https://www.instagram.com/benhattenbach/.

Flashback, the company behind a digital camera built to replicate the disposable film camera experience, is advertising a “dream job” for a lucky content creator or photographer. The winner will spend up to six months in Hong Kong, fully paid, shooting content for the brand.

Flashback makes the One35 V2, a 13MP digital camera engineered to feel like a single-use film camera: it’s screenless, with a mechanical winding dial to advance frames, an optical viewfinder and a Xenon flash. Shots are capped at a 27-frame ‘roll’, after which images transfer to a companion app for ‘developing’ (with an optional 24-hour wait, a nod to dropping film at the lab).

Flashback

The company relocated its operations to Hong Kong to stay close to its Shenzhen production facility, so the city isn’t just a backdrop here; it’s central to the brand right now. The winner will be expected to produce photo and video content featuring the city.

Unlike most jobs, there’s no lengthy application process. The company simply asks for a one-minute video introducing yourself and explaining why you want the job, examples of content you’ve created and a link to your portfolio if you have one. Flashback hasn’t disclosed the compensation beyond describing the role as fully paid.

If that pitch sounds familiar, it should. Icelandair ran a similar campaign earlier this year, also built around a 60-second audition video, except it was hunting for the world’s worst photographer, on the theory that Iceland is beautiful enough to survive anyone’s bad photography skills. That one drew 127,642 entries from 178 countries, and the winner, Blanche Mortemard, walked away with a 10-day trip and $50,000.

If you shoot with any retro-inspired compact – Flashback’s or otherwise – love travel and want to get paid to document a city for six months, this could be your chance.

How to apply

Applications can be submitted through Flashback’s online form. The company hasn’t announced a deadline, so it’s probably better to apply sooner rather than later.

Hungarian photographer Benedek Lampert is famous for creating realistic-looking photos made of Lego bricks, challenging viewers to tell whether they’re looking at a real place or a carefully constructed scene. His Lego Eiffel Tower could have been part of the Paris skyline, and his models of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance and a meticulously detailed Formula 1 racetrack followed suit.

The photos in Lampert’s newest project, ‘The Nature We Replaced,’ don’t use Lego bricks at all. And they’re not meant to look real. In fact, they’re meant to look exactly like what they are: garbage.

Benedek Lampert

“Nature, wildlife and environmental storytelling have always been close to me, and I couldn’t think of a more universal issue than the future of the planet we all share,” he says.

The project consists of eight conceptual miniature photographs, each exploring the relationship between humans and the natural world. Instead of simply documenting environmental problems, Lampert set out to visualize the tension between wildlife and the world humans have built around it.

Benedek Lampert

“Instead of recreating nature, I rebuilt each habitat entirely from the materials that threaten it. Plastic bags become Arctic ice. Fishing nets become oceans. Wood products become forest. Plastic straws become bamboo. Every landscape is constructed from everyday human waste or objects associated with the destruction of that ecosystem,” he explains.

Go behind the scenes to see how Benedek Lampert created the scenes for his ‘The Nature We Replaced’ photo project.

Lampert tells DPReview that the whole idea started with a penguin.

“I recreated a viral penguin story using a miniature figure… and that project made me realize I wanted to do something bigger with wildlife photography. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted the series to be about something beyond the visuals. That’s when the idea of building each habitat from the very materials that threaten it was born.”

Benedek Lampert

He isn’t chasing real-world accuracy. “It’s not meant to show reality exactly as it is,” he tells us, “but to exaggerate it just enough to make people stop and think about what’s happening to these habitats and species.”

Lampert partnered with German company Schleich to provide the animal figurines. “I chose Schleich because of the exceptional quality and realism of their figures. That level of detail was essential – using less realistic models would have taken away from the emotional impact and credibility of the photographs.”

Lampert’s attention to detail extends all the way to the image titles. Each ends with a period: a marker, he says, for the irreversible damage already done. He’s careful to add that hope is not lost, noting that conservation efforts have succeeded. “The period marks what cannot be undone, but not what can still be saved.”

More photos from this series

Benedek Lampert

Benedek Lampert

Benedek Lampert

Benedek Lampert

It’s been about two weeks since we launched the new DPReview website, and our team is still hard at work. Along with fixing some critical behind-the-scenes bugs, we’ve been collecting your feedback and have already made some fixes where we could act quickly, with much more to come.

In the whirlwind since launch, however, there’s one new feature we haven’t talked about much: it’s now possible to see fewer ads on DPReview.

Ads were a source of frustration on the legacy site, and the new site gives you an easy way to cut down on them.

How to see fewer ads

It’s simple: use DPReview while logged in. That’s it. Logged-in readers see fewer ads, particularly the most disruptive kinds, like motion-heavy and video ads.

To be clear, this isn’t an ad-free experience; you’ll still see ads, just fewer of them. Consider it our way of thanking logged-in readers for your support as we continue to improve the ad experience for everyone.

Don’t have a DPReview account? Now’s a great time to create one. Just click the Register link to get started.

We know nobody loves ads. Believe me, we don’t either, but they’re a necessity to keep the site running. It costs real money to operate DPReview, and advertising is an important part of how we cover those costs. It’s not our only source of revenue, but it’s one of the things that lets us offer all of our content for free, whether you visit every day or once in a blue moon.

We also get why people use ad blockers. The reasons aren’t lost on us. We just ask you to keep one thing in mind: when you block ads, you’re not only preventing us from earning revenue, you’re actively costing us money. A photography-rich site uses a lot of bandwidth, and that’s a big part of our expenses. Every time you load our content without ads, we lose money, which makes it harder to do things like pay our writers and maintain our servers.

So if you’ve been browsing with an ad blocker, we ask that you try the new site without it (while logged in). We think you’ll find the ads less intrusive than they were on the legacy site, and you’ll be helping us stay on the internet.

In case you missed it

If you haven’t seen our earlier coverage about the new website, a few links are worth your time:

Gear Patrol founder and CEO Eric Yang – a DPReview user for over two decades – wrote about why we needed to rebuild the site from the ground up, including some helpful historical perspective.

If you want to track improvements as we make them, report a bug or usability issue, or just discuss the new site in our forums, we’ve published a guide on how to do that.

Finally, thank you for bearing with us as we improve the site. We know some things aren’t working as expected and that there’s plenty left to fix and improve. We appreciate your patience while our team works overtime to address those issues so we can remove the beta logo from the site.

We recently launched the new DPReview website with a beta logo at the top of the page. The site is in beta for a reason: we’re aware that there are things to fix and improve, and our team is actively working to address outstanding issues. The beta logo reflects our ongoing effort to improve functionality, features and the overall user experience.

To make sure you know where to find the latest updates, report bugs or usability issues, or discuss changes to the site, we’ve set up a dedicated forum section to consolidate this information in one place.

Keep updated on changes

Progress updates: To see the latest updates from our team, visit the dedicated Change log thread. This is where we’ll post updates to let you know what changes, updates or bug fixes we’ve made to the site. We are making updates on a rolling basis based on a combination of prioritization and ease of fix. We expect this process to go on for quite some time.

Report a bug or usability issue: If you encounter a bug or usability issue, please use the Known issues and bug reports thread in our forum to share it with us. We keep the first post in that thread updated with all the reports we’re tracking, so please check there first to see if your issue has already been reported before reporting a new one.

New site discussion: If you have other questions or just want to discuss the new site, please create a post in the Website redesign feedback, questions and help section of the forums.

One more thing: If you haven’t already done so, we encourage you to read our article Gear Patrol founder Eric Yang: Why we rebuilt DPReview after 25 years, which provides additional context for why we’re making this change now.

We’ve already heard a lot of valuable feedback, and will continue to gather it to help shape our development and improvement roadmap. Thank you for your patience, feedback and support as we get things dialed in.

DPReview has an all-new website, our first redesign from the ground up in over 25 years. For the full story, see our announcement article. If you just want a quick answer, you’re in the right place.

If your question isn’t covered here, post it in this forum thread or in the comments below, and we’ll get you an answer. If it’s something others would find useful, we’ll add it here.

General questions

Q: Does the new site signal a change in DPReview’s coverage?
A: Our editorial mandate isn’t changing. We’ll continue to bring you the same authoritative, unbiased coverage of cameras and photography you’ve come to depend on, written by the same people.

Q: Was the old site broken? If not, why change?
A: Not broken, but overdue. The site has been running on the same aging codebase for over 25 years, and maintaining it has become increasingly costly and limiting. Moving DPReview onto a modern platform means we can invest in new features and improvements far more efficiently than we could on legacy infrastructure while keeping DPReview’s editorial identity fully intact. The old system was a ceiling. This removes it.

Q: Does the new site have a ‘light’ mode?
A: No. At this time, the site is exclusively in dark mode.

Account and history

Q: Do I need to do anything to update my account?
A: No, your account will transfer over to the new site automatically.

Q: Will my comments, forum posts and history carry over?
A: Yes, your previous account history, including comments, will follow your account to the new site.

Q: Do I need to log in again or reset my password?
A: No, you should not need to log in again on the new site.

Article comments

Q: What happened to my old comments?
A: Your comments are all being migrated and won’t be lost. Older comments take longer to move over, so they’ll appear in stages: the most recent should return within a few hours of launch, comments from earlier this year within a day, and older comments over the following days.

Q: Why did you change the commenting system?
A: Our previous commenting system was deeply integrated with the old website, and it wasn’t feasible to bring it over to the new one. We know commenting matters to many members of our community, so keeping it meant building a new system on a new foundation. Comments still appear under articles, but they work a bit differently.

Q: Why aren’t comment replies nested anymore?
A: They’re not, and we want to be upfront about it. The old system nested replies one level deep, to indicate which reply belonged to which comment. The new system works differently. Instead, you can quote the comment you’re replying to, so it’s still clear who you’re responding to.

Q: How do I reply to someone now?
A: Click the “Reply” button under their comment to start a reply. If you want to quote the other person for clarity, you can click the “Quote Reply” button and the system will quote the other user above your text.

Ads

Q: How do I get fewer ads?
A: Log into your DPReview account when browsing the site. If you’re not registered, creating a free account and signing up for our newsletter takes a minute and gets you the same benefit.

Q: I’m logged in. Why do I still see ads?
A: This isn’t meant to be an “ad-free” experience. You’ll still see ads, but fewer of them. We still rely on advertising to help fund DPReview, but as a thank-you to our registered users, we’re giving logged-in visitors a cleaner page.

Q: Is there a paid ad-free subscription?
A: Not currently, but it’s something we’re exploring for the future.

Challenges

Q: What happened to Challenges?
A: As we mentioned in April, our old Challenges system was tied closely to the previous site and couldn’t move over as-is. Rather than rebuild it exactly as it was, we’re building a new Challenges system from the ground up that reflects a lot of the feedback you’ve given us over the years. It’s actively in development.

Forums

Q: Does the new website impact the forums?
A: No, the forums are not affected. They run on a separate platform that isn’t part of this migration, so you can keep using them exactly as before. To get there from the new homepage, click “Discussions” in the navigation bar, which links directly to our most popular forums, or select “All Forums” to see the full index.

The Beta label and site speed

Q: Why does it say “Beta” at the top of the site?
A: It’s our way of being upfront that we’ll keep refining things over the coming weeks. That includes addressing known issues and dialing in details as we go. Separately, a small number of features, like Challenges, aren’t live yet and are being rebuilt from the ground up; you can read more about that below.

Q: How long will it stay in beta?
A: We expect the site to stay in beta for several weeks. We’ll drop the label once we’re confident the site has earned it.

Q: Why are some pages loading slowly?
A: In the first days after launch, some pages, especially photo-heavy ones, may load more slowly than usual. The site caches an optimized version of each image and page the first time it’s viewed and serves the fast cached copy thereafter. Right after launch, those caches are still filling in, so the first visit to a given page does more work than subsequent visits, which should load more quickly.

Getting help and bug reporting

Q: I have a question or need help. Where do I go?
A: Please visit the community forums to ask questions and discuss the site redesign. You can also report issues there as well. If you are unable to log in or have other access issues that prevent you from posting in the forums, please email us and include your account username, along with a brief description of the issue, at community@dpreview.com.

Q: How do I report a bug
A: If you discover a bug you’d like to share with us, please report it using this forum thread. Note that we will keep an updated list of reported bugs in the first post of the thread, so take a moment to review that list in case your bug has already been reported.

Back in April, we shared some big news : for the first time since DPReview went live in 1998, we’ve been rebuilding the entire site from the ground up. This isn’t just a cosmetic update or a new coat of paint, but a rebuilding of the entire codebase and migration to a modern web platform we can support for years to come.

After months of work, we’re ready to make the switch. This has been a massive undertaking. Beyond building everything that’s new, we’ve had to migrate more than 25 years of content, product databases, widgets, and more to an entirely new system.

It took a little longer to wrap up than we expected, and that was deliberate: we wanted certain things working properly out of the gate rather than rushed. A good example is our Image Comparison Tool , the widget that lets you compare studio scene images between cameras. We haven’t just rewritten it for the new site; we’ve redesigned it to work well on phones and tablets, too.

Here’s what to expect over the next few days, and how the change might affect your use of the site.

What to expect

The migration begins tomorrow, Friday, July 3. You can keep using the site as usual during this period, with a couple of limitations:

• Comments on articles will be frozen so we can migrate them to the new system.
• Creation of new DPReview accounts (including forum accounts) will be temporarily unavailable.

On Wednesday, July 8, we plan to flip the switch and turn on the new site. From that point, you’ll see the new DPReview website in place of the current one.

The forums will not be directly impacted by the migration. If you’re already a registered forum user, you can carry on as normal.

Once the new site goes live

Launch day is the start, not the finish line. As with any project of this scale, some things will take some additional time to wrap up. We’ll make sure to share a list of work still in progress, along with FAQs covering the new site and how to get support.

We will also set up a dedicated forum thread to log known issues and provide a place to report bugs and ask questions. Some bugs will inevitably slip through, and we appreciate your patience as we track them down and fix them.

In the meantime, we’re re-sharing the FAQ we published a few weeks ago, in case anything comes up before launch. Once the new site is live, we’ll add more FAQs to cover additional questions we know you’ll have.

None of this would have been possible without you. Your feedback over the years – including all comments, direct messages, emails, and the occasional rant – helped shape the new site. We’re looking forward to sharing the results and building the next phase of DPReview alongside you.

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FAQs

Is the current site broken? If not, why change?

Not broken, but overdue. The site has been running on the same aging codebase for over 25 years, and maintaining it has become increasingly costly and limiting. Moving DPReview onto a modern shared platform with our sister site Gear Patrol means we can invest in new features and improvements far more efficiently than we could on legacy infrastructure while keeping DPReview’s editorial identity fully intact. The old system was a ceiling. This removes it.

Will this affect DPReview’s editorial content?

Our editorial mandate isn’t changing. We’ll continue to bring you the same authoritative, unbiased coverage of cameras and photography you’ve come to depend on, written by the same people.

When can I see what the new site looks like?

We hope to share some sneak peeks in the weeks leading up to launch. You’ll be able to see the full site on launch day.

Will the new site be faster?

Yes, the new site will be faster and more reliable for most things. That said, some functions are limited by factors outside our control. Downloading a large sample image, for example, still depends on your connection speed. We can make the site faster, but we can’t speed up the entire internet 🙂

Will the review archive and the camera and lens databases be available at launch?

Yes. We are migrating all our existing content, including articles, reviews and the camera and lens databases.

Will the site still be optimized for desktop users with large monitors?

Absolutely. While mobile is an important part of the new design, we have no intention of short-changing desktop users. We love big, beautiful photos, and if you’re on a large monitor, we want you to get the full benefit of that experience.

Will my saved bookmarks still work?

Yes, existing bookmarks will continue to work.

Why do you need to freeze the Challenges system?

The current Challenges system will not be carried over to the new site – we’re building a new one that will launch after the site goes live. To avoid any challenges starting under the old system that can’t be completed during the transition, we’re freezing new challenge creation on April 25th. Any challenges already underway will complete normally before the switchover.

Will this affect the forums?

The new website will not change how our forums work. There may be minor cosmetic updates to align with the new site design, but the forum experience will remain fundamentally the same.

Will the new site have ads?

Yes. Advertising is one of the ways we fund DPReview’s operations, and that won’t change with the new site.

Will my account and post history be preserved?

Yes. Your account, comments, forum posts, and history will all carry over to the new site.

Will there be further updates after launch?

This is the beginning, not the end. We’ll continue to make improvements after launch, and the new codebase will make it significantly easier to introduce new tools and features going forward.

How can I provide feedback?

You can leave a comment below or reach us at community@dpreview.com . Once the new site is live, we’ll have a dedicated area of our forums where you can ask questions, discuss the changes, and share feedback.

Dale Baskin

Last week, Tamron announced new versions of its 17-70mm F2.8 Di III-A VC RXD zoom for Canon RF and Nikon Z mount APS-C cameras. While the lens has been around for several years in E-mount and X-mount versions, this news brings an exciting new zoom option to Canon and Nikon shooters.

The 17-70mm F2.8 delivers a 26-105mm equiv. range on Nikon APS-C cameras, and 28-112mm equiv. range on Canon’s APS-C bodies. Most other F2.8 zooms for APS-C cameras in this range top out around 50-55mm, making the Tamron a distinctive option for those who want extra zoom reach with a constant F2.8 aperture.

That range makes it a great walk-around or travel lens, but the extra reach to 105mm equiv. also makes it well-suited to events, portraits, and street photography in ways the shorter 50-55mm competitors aren’t.

Dale Baskin

We had a chance to borrow the RF-mount version of the lens, which we shot on a Canon EOS R7. Build quality and handling are pretty typical of Tamron’s product line; the lens is relatively light for its size, and the zoom ring is well-balanced and easy to turn. There’s no zoom lock, but I experienced virtually no lens creep during my use.

Notably, the RF-mount version of the lens gains two hardware controls not found on the other versions: manual switches to turn autofocus and optical image stabilization on or off – a nice touch, in our opinion.

Optically, the Tamron 17-70mm F2.8 delivers solid performance throughout its range. While it doesn’t deliver the same level of sharpness as the most premium zooms on the market, it doesn’t command a premium price, either, making it accessible to a lot of people.

To learn more about this lens, see our detailed launch coverage . In addition to the gallery below,you can also check out our earlier sample gallery , captured when the lens was launched for E-mount.

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