As a reviewer covering the camera industry, I spend a lot of time in comments sections, forums and subreddits, seeing what people think of the latest releases and the rumors of what’s coming next. While I often see smart, informed discussions happening, this habit also exposes me to some… interesting takes.

As an example. This is more of a problem on other sites and on social media than on DPReview (though it’ll occasionally happen here) I’ve noticed a recent trend under many articles about new or upcoming cameras – even budget models – where there will be a few comments that are something along the lines of “No global shutter?” And then other people will chime in agreeing that the camera is DOA without one, and an example of manufacturers cheaping out or being behind the times.

And I just have to say: what are you all talking about?? Do you even know what a global shutter is, or are you just asking for one because you’ve heard it’s cool?

Thankfully, these comments aren’t common here on DPReview, and I know most of you are familiar with the concept of a global shutter. But for those that aren’t: it’s a sensor design that lets you capture and read out every pixel, simultaneously, as opposed to having to read them out line-by-line like you have to on cameras with a rolling shutter. This essentially instantaneous readout is even faster than a traditional focal plane mechanical shutter, and is much faster than standard e-shutter readout modes.

Richard Butler

It is a genuinely useful technology for certain scenarios. It lets you sync with flash at effectively any shutter speed (though it can take some trial and error), and capture even the fastest-moving subjects without any risk of the skewing that can happen with rolling shutter*. It can also reduce the risk of banding when shooting under LED lights or photographing a subject with an electronic display behind them. There is still the risk of catching a display when its dark or refreshing, depending on your exposure duration and how fast the screen is, but it gets rid of any potential mismatches between refresh and shutter rates. Global shutters are luxurious for video, too, as there’s absolutely no Jell-o effect no matter how fast your pan, or if you point your camera out of a moving car or towards an arriving train.

Mitchell Clark

I get that it can kind of feel like camera technology has stagnated in recent years, and that people are hungry for a big leap forwards in performance. But let’s take a step back and look at the reality of the situation for a second.

There has only been one full-frame hybrid mirrorless camera released with a global shutter: the Sony a9 III. It is aimed at professional sports and action shooters, and is priced accordingly, coming in $6800. The tech is a bit more common in the world of cinema cameras, but doesn’t come for cheap there, either.

The a9 III also has a notable drawback: its complex readout circuitry limits how much light it can tolerate, pushing its base ISO up to 250 and limiting the image quality you can get out of it compared to other full-frame cameras. The best image you can take with it will have up to a stop and a third more noise than the best image out of another full-frame camera with a base ISO of 100. Its peak IQ performance is much closer to that of an APS-C camera, though at the same ISO settings it’ll still out-perform a camera with a smaller sensor.

With a sample size of one, it’s hard to say if this is inherent to modern global shutter designs (some older CCD chips also had global shutters), or is simply an aspect of this particular sensor, but it’s certainly worth noting if you’re advocating that basically every new camera should have a global shutter. They are not an unalloyed upgrade in every way. Instead, current global shutter sensors make trade-offs in order to be better for some niche use-cases.

Which is why I really do not understand why people say that they should be in every camera, from the most budget options on up. Putting aside whether that’s even economically realistic, do we really think beginner photographers absolutely need perfectly parallel lines in action shots using e-shutter, and that it’s so important that it’d be worth giving up some image quality for?

I want to make it clear that I’m not advocating for consumers to just take what they’re giving and not ask for more from companies. It’s totally fine to look critically at cameras and say “I think you could do better.” (I mean, that is essentially my job.) And I understand the desire for there to be at least one or two less expensive options with global shutter for those that would use them for their purpose, but that don’t have the cash for a top-of-the-line pro camera.

But I think that if we’re going to spend energy campaigning for improvements, they should be ones that are actually sensible, and that are good matches for the target market. It’s one thing to recognize that image quality appears to be plateauing, but, to me, it’s hard to say that means every camera should include a more expensive technology that trades some IQ for a behavior that’s only really useful in very specific situations.

*- To be fair: the fastest stacked sensor cameras with rolling shutters, which have readout speeds within the 2-4ms range, have also essentially eliminated that risk.

I’m not sure how it took us so long to get back to this point, but in my head, the launch of the OM System PEN marks the return of a time when keen photographers have some really good choices for travel. 

Not travel photography as in ‘spend thousands of dollars to go to Iceland or Namibia, and drag your medium format setup to painstakingly capture one perfect desktop background,’ but a camera I can carry with me to document my trip.

Between the Fujifilm X100 VI, the Panasonic L10 and the OM System PEN, photographers once again have a choice of conveniently-sized cameras with a good level of control, whether they prefer a prime lens camera, a fixed zoom compact or the lens choices of mirrorless. They’re all pretty small, they’re all fairly pretty, and they’re all usefully totable.

Richard Butler

When I first started at DPReview, the options available were a DSLR, if you wanted decent image quality, or a (literally) compact camera, which you could carry around, but whose images you would probably be disappointed by. In between were the supposed “bridge” cameras, which inexplicably adopted some of the size of a DSLR with the image quality of a compact, rather than offering any sort of useful middle ground between the two.

This is why I’ve always loved larger-sensor enthusiast compacts with bright lenses (LX3, XZ-2, G7X), and why I can remember running to the Olympus stand as Photokina 2008 first opened, so I could share some of the first photos of the original Pen mockup.

Richard Butler

I love a camera that’s easy to always carry with me but also one that delivers sufficient image quality to make that worthwhile. And for a while there, we got close: the Fujifilm X100, the Panasonic GF1 and GX1, amongst others. Then the options started to disappear.

The past few years have seen a lot of camera makers focus on full-frame cameras, but even the best attempts at downsizing those aren’t great. Putting aside that Panasonic S9 and original Sony a7C are among my least favorite cameras of the last few years, my concerns aren’t so much the bodies as the body/lens combinations. Yes it’s easy to cherry-pick one particular lens when trying to make “it’s almost as small” arguments. But, even on the rare occasions where that pancake is a focal length I want to use, and the word “almost” isn’t being tested to breaking point, there’s still little hope of building a usefully small kit.

Richard Butler

I’ve just got back from a short vacation with the PEN and found it to be a very amiable companion. I took the 12mm F2.0, 17mm F1.8 and 14-42mm, which gave me a remarkable degree of flexibility in combinations I could take everywhere with me. Add in a 45mm F1.8 and it would cover an awful lot of my favored photography, in the space of a small shoulder bag.

The PEN makes a very welcome addition to the existing options of a Fujifilm X100 VI, which is built around my preferred single focal length, and the Panasonic L10, whose lens covers a very useful range with a combination of brightness and size that even the PEN would struggle to match. Add to these the Ricoh GR IVs, with a 40mm-equiv. “x” version in the works, and you have some really interesting options.

All of these cameras is imperfect in one way or another: the L10’s lens isn’t everything you might hope for, the PEN’s AF is distinctly quirky and after six iterations, Fujifilm has managed to make the X100 VI that bit more fiddly than it needs to be. But, for all those gripes, it’s lovely to have choices that don’t take over my entire carry-on.

Vamanos! Allonz-y! However you say it; let’s just GO!

Earlier this week, OM System announced the PEN, a small, interchangeable lens camera with a Four Thirds sensor. Our initial review mainly focuses on it versus the higher-end range-finder style cameras that it descends from and competes against, but it’s worth also looking at how it compares to the other cameras at the $1000 price point. Because while it’s true that you can get a larger sensor for the same money, it’s also worth considering what you give up for that additional light-gathering capability.

Meet the contenders

The PEN joins the now-rarified halls of cameras that retail for under $1000 (body only, you’ll still need to add a lens), while still offering a good level of manual control. Nowadays, that list includes some very capable APS-C cameras, such as the Canon EOS R10, Nikon Z50II and Fujifilm X-T30 III. They all boast similar spec sheets, with sensors that range from 20-26MP, relatively fast burst rates and strong video features.

But given that they use larger and therefore presumably slightly more expensive sensors, surely there’s a catch somewhere…

IBIS

OM System’s forebear, Olympus, was a pioneer when it came to including in-body image stabilization in its cameras, and the PEN continues in that tradition. And it’s an undoubtedly useful feature to have, letting you use slower shutter speeds while still shooting handheld, provided you’re shooting a stationary subject.

While Nikon, Canon and Fujifilm offer kit lenses that have optical image stabilization, giving you a similar benefit (at least in stills, not so much in video), the PEN’s stabilized sensor works with any lens, including the primes many photographers will want to pick up. However, it’s worth keeping in mind that primes are typically faster, giving you the option to raise your shutter speed by opening up the aperture, and are often in easier-to-hand-hold focal lengths. Plus, the PEN’s IBIS system is less powerful than what we’re used to, providing only 5.5EV of correction in the center, compared to the up to 7.5 that’s typical in other models (including the OM-5 II, which can achieve it by synchronizing with a lens’s optical stabilization, something the PEN can’t do).

To get an APS-C camera with IBIS, you’re looking at spending several hundred dollars more – the price of one of those fun prime lenses – likely thanks in part to the fact that the system has to be more robust to move around a larger sensor. So while it’s not the end-all be-all, it is a clear point in the PEN’s favor.

Weather sealing

OM System has leaned into its reputation for making rugged, weather-sealed cameras, and the PEN is no exception. It comes with an IPX1 rating, and while the “X” indicates that it hasn’t been tested for dust resistance, OM says it has that, too. That’s a relatively light rating – it means the camera can survive dripping water for 10 minutes, when fitted with a similarly sealed lens (don’t worry, OM System has plenty) – but it’s more than you’ll get with any of the other $1000 cameras we’re looking at today. 

Whether that’s because OM System is able to include it (or pay the licensing fees for an IP rating) because of the lower component costs on its sensors, or that it’s just something the company prioritizes more than the others is hard to say, but it’s peace of mind that’s unusual at this price point.

Computation

Richard Butler

Micro Four Thirds cameras were some of the first attainable ILCs to make use of computational photography, taking multiple shots and stitching them together to produce a higher resolution version, simulate an ND filter and more. Some of these features are enabled in part by IBIS, but it’s also possible thanks to clever algorithms and relatively fast sensor readout speeds, something you won’t get with all of the APS-C options.

Even if the hardware were capable of it, the fact is that Nikon, Canon and Fujifilm haven’t put in the work to replicate these features, so their respective cameras don’t offer anything of the sort. You have to step all the way up to a Panasonic full-frame camera to get anything similar with a larger sensor (even then it’s mainly just the ability to shoot handheld high-resolution multishot), which is a very different size, weight and price point indeed.

Size

A Four Thirds sensor is physically smaller than an APS-C one, which means you can theoretically build a smaller, lighter body around it. However, while the OM System PEN is small, it’s not unbelievably so; there have been other Micro Four Thirds cameras that are appreciably more compact, including other models in the PEN line and the venerable GM1 and GM5 from Panasonic. And, indeed, the APS-C Fujifilm X-M5 manages to be a bit smaller, though it doesn’t have an EVF or sensor stabilization. There are even some full-frame cameras that aren’t too much bigger, such as the Panasonic S9 and Sony a7C II.

Richard Butler

However, the PEN is a fair bit smaller than the cameras we’re comparing today, largely thanks to the prominent grips and SLR-style humps on the EOS R10, X-T30 III and Z50II (though the X-T30 III actually manages to be a touch lighter).

The real size benefit comes from the lenses, though. While there are some size-comparable APS-C lenses on the market, it’ll be easier to gather a collection of Micro Four Thirds lenses that are smaller and lighter than their APS-C counterparts without having to pick and choose focal lengths too carefully to optimize for size. That’s even more true for full-frame options.

Size isn’t the biggest win for the PEN, but it’s definitely still worth considering.

Trade-offs go both ways

Of course, none of this is to say that the OM System is better in every way than its price-comparable competitors with larger sensors. Besides the image quality benefits, Nikon, Canon and, to a lesser extent, Fujifilm, have more modern autofocus systems, and all of them are substantially better options if you wish to shoot video relatively seriously. The APS-C cameras also all have built-in flashes, which some people will appreciate, and most of them manage to match the PEN when it comes to burst rates and pre-capture (not that OM System is pitching this as anything like an action camera).

There are absolutely reasons why some people would go with one of $1000 APS-C camera over the $1000 PEN. Perhaps they’re looking for a camera that’s a bit more capable for sports and wildlife, or are more serious about video. But it’s worth acknowledging that you will be giving up some nice-to-haves in the process, or having to pay way more to get them. 

One evening, as sunset approached, I was on my normal walk around nearby streets. I cover pretty much the entire neighborhood on a daily basis, so everyone knows my schedule, and some even come out to say hello. I mainly walk to exercise and enjoy the outdoors, so I’m not always at the ready with a camera. Sometimes I’ll even forget to bring my phone, to my partner’s annoyance.

After several minutes of wandering around, I turned the street corner to head toward the lake. Shining back at me was the most beautiful of sunsets gracing the sky. It was gorgeous with swirling deep yellows, oranges and intense tomato reds that seemed to glow and bounce from cloud to cloud. As I approached the lake, the sunset’s reflection on the water was just as intense. We get a lot of great sunsets around here, sometimes nearly every day, but never before like this one.

And all I had was my iPhone 12 Pro.

Mathew Anderson

“All I had”… I felt ashamed as I held the phone in my hand to take a few opportunistic photos. “I work at DPReview with a community of photographers that have proper equipment they carry with them wherever they go, and here I am whipping out my phone as if I were too lazy to bother bringing along anything else, convenience be damned”, I thought to myself.

The main struggle is that I sometimes struggle to find a moment when my standalone camera is with me, unless I’ve planned the trip in advance. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about when it makes sense to grab a standalone camera. Should I always have a camera with multiple lenses ready, or is sometimes “just my phone” ok, and why do I feel like the phone is somehow deficient (even if it’s all I have at that moment)?

Camera technology in phones these days is truly impressive. Sure, they have the limitations one would expect of such a compact device, but some of the photos I’ve taken are, in my opinion, as pleasant to my eyes as if I were seeing them directly (more or less). At some point, we have to ask ourselves when the technology is important enough to keep it at the ready, or when the moment, combined with our skills as photographers, outweighs the equipment.

These thoughts have been preoccupying me during my outdoor walking sessions, so I want to talk with you about them.

Mathew Anderson

Should phones be revered as much as a full-on standalone camera with multiple lenses, but in their own useful way? Or should they be relegated to those convenient moments when one doesn’t have their normal gear setup on hand? And aside from their obvious convenience, in what situations does having a phone on hand match or even outperform a more complex setup?

I also asked these questions to my team, and here are a few interesting quotes from what they had to say.

What others at DPReview have to say

“I love dedicated photography gear, but one lesson I’ve learned over the years is that, in many cases, being discreet is more important than using the best camera or lens. In some places, carrying a camera gets you noticed. Lifting it to take a photo gets you noticed even more. People react to it, and it changes their behavior. At that point, you’re no longer capturing a candid moment because, in effect, you’ve become part of the scene. You’ve changed it.

On the other hand, smartphones are so common that you can lift one up and take a photo, and almost nobody will notice. You’re just part of the landscape. That makes phones a great tool for activities like travel photography.” – Dale Baskin

“As one of our reviewers, I’m always fighting for enough time to shoot all the cameras, lenses and, yes, smartphones I have to test, so it’s rare for me to leave the house without some work-related gear. And yet there are still times when I’ll pull out my personal phone to document moments that may not make for a great picture, but that I want to remember.

With a camera, I know I’ll spend more time making sure the composition and lighting are as good as they can be, or that things or people are posed in a way that makes the moment worthy of a capital-P Photograph. And sure, I’ll sometimes take a second or two to make sure whatever picture I’m taking with my phone looks nice – I’m still a photographer, no matter how small or plastic a lens I’m behind – but I don’t feel the same sense of obligation. I know that photo will just be for me, my friends and my family.

This was essentially the same way I treated the divide between my phone and my X-T3 before I worked here; if I thought I’d run into something interesting worth photographing, I’d take my camera. Otherwise, my phone was good enough, the way a compact would’ve been back in the day.” Mitchell Clark

“A part of the decision for me is the fact that photography is what I do for work. While I love the medium, sometimes I want to give myself a little separation and not think about photography for a bit, so I purposefully leave the camera behind (though it inevitably seeps into my brain anyway).” – Abby Ferguson

We here at DPReview aren’t immune from falling into time-worn debates. When discussing the upcoming iPhone Fold, which, if the rumors are to be believed, will only feature two cameras, I made a comment about how I was annoyed that, when phone manufacturers choose to drop a camera from the ultrawide-wide-telephoto trio included on most flagships, it’s the long option that always gets the axe. If I can only have one (a choice I don’t think I should even have to consider for a phone rumored to be over $2000, but whatever), I’d prefer it to be the telephoto.

My colleague Dale Baskin, however, disagreed, saying he’d prefer to keep the ultrawide. And, surveying the the market, it seems like a lot of people, or at least phone manufacturers, agree with him. So I figured I’d put forward my argument for why the telephoto should be raised above the ultrawide… and then begrudgingly give the latter its due as well.

Go long

Mitchell Clark

Before we start, I want to note that I’m coming to this with data: I’ve owned two phones that have all three focal lengths on them – an iPhone 11 Pro and an iPhone 15 Pro – and in-between I owned an iPhone 12 Mini, which just has a wide and ultrawide. Barely a day went by that I didn’t miss the that telephoto option and, now that I have it again, I use it more than the 0.5x option. Of the 7000 pictures I’ve taken with my phone, around 830 of them were taken with the telephoto, versus around 750 with the ultrawide. (It’s admittedly a much smaller gap than I expected, though if I narrow it down to my favorites, it’s no competition; the tele wins 5:1). 

To me, that’s for a very simple reason: I run into more scenarios where I can’t get closer than ones where I can’t get further away. Almost certainly, this will come down to my shooting style. Looking at the ultrawide photos I’ve taken, it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect: interior shots, landscapes, photos of large objects that I didn’t feel like stepping back from and pictures of my cat where I’ve made him look goofy by getting the camera really close to him. Except for the latter, they’re all shots I probably could’ve replicated relatively closely using my phone’s main camera and a bit more effort. 

Mitchell Clark

That’s not the case for the 4x telephoto shots. Those are comprised of pictures at concerts where the artist was far away, wildlife shots, portraits or product shots where I wanted background compression, odd things I saw off in the distance and, again, pictures of my cat being goofy, but in a way where I suspect he’d stop if I got up to get a closer picture. Sure, there are a few where I could’ve just zoomed with my feet, but they’re honestly in the minority.

This has become even more true as Apple has continued to increase the reach of its telephoto cameras. What was once something like a 50mm equiv. has become a 100mm equiv., which genuinely gives you the option to take pictures of things that are too far away for your standard camera.

Go wide

Mitchell Clark

There are, of course, reasons to prefer an ultrawide to a telephoto. Wider focal lengths are almost required for many forms of photography, like architecture, wide-field astrophotography (not that the iPhone has a great astro mode, but some Android models do) and more. And just like there will be times when you can’t get closer to something, there will be times when you actually can’t get far enough back to take the photo you want with a normal lens.

But while I can understand why you’d want an ultrawide, I’m also clearly biased (see the previous section). So I’ll hand it over to Dale to talk about why he would pick them over a telephoto.

Dale’s thoughts

My own preference for ultrawides likely comes down to my shooting style. I like to get close to things. To me, a subject photographed close-up offers a perspective that’s more intimate and personal than one shot from farther away. It puts you closer to the story and can immerse you in it, rather than placing distance between you and the subject. That doesn’t mean I don’t like or use telephoto lenses, and I’d be lying if I said I never used the one on my smartphone, but if I had to choose between the two, I’d go with my storytelling tool: the ultrawide.

Maybe I’m the outlier here. After all, I’m the guy who picked an altrawide lens as my DPReview gear of the year not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times, so I clearly have a bias. But I also know that when I show a friend or family member how to use their ultrawide lens to get a more dramatic landscape shot, they discover a new way of seeing that expands their photographic repertoire. And they love to use it.

And I can certainly appreciate why some people would prefer a telephoto option; there really are times when you just want to zoom in on something, whether it’s one of your kids playing sports or to shoot a portrait.

Mitchell Clark

Beyond the general photographic reasons, the iPhone utilizes the ultrawide in extra features in a way that it doesn’t for the telephoto. For the past few years, Apple has been using the camera to provide a “macro mode” that lets you take pictures of very close-up objects. It also uses it for “desk view” if you’re using your phone as a webcam. Finally, it has some computational purposes too; if you’re taking a “Spatial” photo that will render using depth data in VR, the phone uses the wide and the ultrawide camera to get its dual perspectives on the scene (though it’s possible that’s mainly because it’s the camera that most iPhones will have). 

You can’t always get what you want

As I alluded to before, I realize that my preference for telephoto lenses probably isn’t widely held. When Samsung was deciding which cameras to put on the Galaxy Z Flip and passport-shaped Galaxy Z Fold8, it went with the wide and ultrawide, same as it had done with the ultra-thin S25 Edge. Apple does the same for the baseline iPhone series, and that was true for Google as well, before it decided it was better to have three mediocre cameras than two that were pretty good. And while I haven’t seen the market research that says the people at large prefer ultrawides, I’m certain it exists; otherwise, dual-camera phones that pair a wide and a telephoto wouldn’t be as rare as they are.

Samsung

Part of that likely comes down to marketing. With most phones, you can at least somewhat approximate having a telephoto lens by zooming in. Phone manufacturers even make it easy to do, and say that even phones with a single camera actually have a zoom option with “optical quality.” I think they’re wrong, but when has that ever stopped marketers? And yet its true that you can’t even really approximate the effects of an ultrawide lens, nor can you use software to emulate the close-up shooting you can do with them like you can to telephotos with portrait mode.

Dale also pointed out that it may simply be easier and/or cheaper for manufacturers to build ultrawide lenses than telephoto ones, reducing costs while still allowing them to market their phones as having two cameras. And, indeed, I have to wonder if that’s part of the reason why folding phones, which have to fit their cameras into a much slimmer profile than normal, often compromise on the telephoto. It’s possible there’s just not enough room for the more ambitious lenses.

Is it a dealbreaker?

Whatever arguments there are for including an ultrawide to the exclusion of the telephoto, the strongest one is this: I, and I suspect many others like me who prefer the latter, will still buy a phone that doesn’t have the camera layout we want. That could be for many reasons; maybe you want to save money by not going with a higher-end model, or maybe (like I’ve done in the past and likely will do again in the future) you simply prefer the form factor of the phone that doesn’t have the complete suite. But even if I buy the iPhone Fold and love it, I know that, in the back of my mind, I’ll always miss that extra reach when I open the camera app.