Cameras and Photography Explained

LEDE ON

Need a state-of-the-art semiconductor produced for your camera? Due to the process size race, there are only three companies that can really make super advanced chips for you: TSMC, Samsung, and Intel. Worse news? 70% of those advanced chips are currently being produced by TSMC (source: Taipei Times), and according to sources their fab orders are already full through the end of 2028. 

If you don’t need super small process size, then SMIC (China), United Microelectronics (Taiwan), GlobalFoundaries (US), Huang Group (China), Tower Semiconductor (Japan), Vanguard International (Taiwan), Powerchip Semiconductor (Taiwan), or NexChip (China) may be able to help you, but they, too, have little extra fab utilization they can provide in the near term.

So how does this impact camera companies? Specifically in the BIONZ, DIGIC, or EXPEED. As we demand more intelligence and performance in the camera, these chips are becoming to cameras as Apple Silicon is to the iPhone, iPad, and iMac, i.e. critical and requiring smaller process sizes. Meanwhile, the image sensor fabs are also running at or near capacity, though this is mostly for mobile, auto, and security clients. 

If you miss a step and need to redesign a processor or image sensor, you pay the price: you’re at the whim of the overscheduled fabs, and the fab folk aren’t paying a lot of attention to the dedicated camera industry. Even Canon with their own image sensor fab has the issue that they can’t just put new sensors into production without impacting other models. I’m aware of three products now that have hit this redesign and fab capacity problem and have gotten delayed. 

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Commentary

What’s Inevitable?

One of my jobs for many years (and to some degree still today) was looking five and ten years out. In the past I’ve mentioned that this was mostly looking at new technologies in research and labs but not yet in production, estimating when they’d be ready for production, and also figuring out the user problem they could solve that wasn’t currently solved. I did this both for software and for hardware during my Silicon Valley career, and I’ve proven pretty prescient in that respect.

But there’s another aspect to this that doesn’t get talked about much, and that’s what happens on the iteration cycle, and why. Generally, that too, tries to solve problems, but not always user problems, as often iteration mostly solves manufacturer or cost problems. 

For example, when I predicted well over a decade ago that mirrorless would take over from DSLRs—my original prediction date missed the mark by 12 months, a 10% miss—it was not really because such cameras solved user problems (though they do), but instead because it solved manufacturing and engineering problems. I saw mirrorless as inevitable, regardless as to whether any big user problem got solved, because the Japanese camera companies need constant improvement in cost of production to keep prices in a realm where they still have a consumer market (typically US$1000 to US$3000 these days, though that price range was lower ten years ago). 

Mirrorless eradicated parts (e.g. mirrors, prism, and eventually shutters). Mirrorless eradicated many manufacturing alignment steps. Those two things alone were huge cost savings and thus were inevitable.

So the question you should be asking these days is what’s still inevitable in the camera-making industry? I obviously have a few thoughts about that, so let me throw out some likely possibilities:

• Mechanical shutters disappear. This has already started (with the Z9), but it will become more and more prevalent, as it means fewer parts and fewer manufacturing processes, plus fewer mechanical parts that can wear out. Parts and process reduction means lower cost to produce. Eliminating mechanical process is a veiled user benefit (camera less likely to fail). But getting rid of shutters is somewhat tied to another inevitability:
• Rolling shutter disappears. The Holy Grail here is global shutter. The reason why that’s a goal and inevitable is that it solves a bunch of hairy and problematic internal timing and data management problems. “Here’s the data” is a lot easier to deal with then “here’s some of the data, more coming.” Sony moved first here with the A9 III, and this has been a “win” for a limited client set. Eventually it will be a win for everyone.
• Chips disappear. We’ve seen attempts at this with some stacking of memory or partial processing behind the image sensor, but ultimately it’s likely that we end up with a single chip doing image sensing, memory handling, and all sorts of processing (i.e. Stacked, but well beyond the current implementations). This one is tricky, as it’s a huge investment to do in a small market. However, the ultimate payoffs of doing so are going to attract one of the companies to pursue this approach, and then all will have to follow. Sony is probably best positioned to do this, but don’t count out a surprise competitor.
• Viewfinders disappear. This will be a highly contentious thing because tunnel view is so cherished by those that grew up with it. But there’s a series of intersecting things happening behind the scenes now that make traditional viewfinders' disappearance inevitable. First, consider this (very real and currently being pursued) possibility: your mobile phone gets smaller by dropping the screen, and the UI for it transitions to glasses. I’ve been playing with two AI+screen glasses lately and it’s pretty clear to me that this will be (one of) the way(s) we work in the future. I can already do things I didn’t used to be able to do, and the young will almost certainly instantly gravitate to this idea. Moreover, in the meantime, cameras such as the ZR show that a really, really good LCD is perfectly acceptable, and cameras such as the Insta360 Luna show that having that LCD detach opens up new possibilities, too.

I could go on (and probably will at some point), but I’ve kept the list simple and focused here. The key word is “disappear.” The more parts and processes that the camera companies can remove in the creation of a new camera for you, the more they can keep the cost of producing products down, which both benefits the camera makers as well as the users (today’s US$2000 cameras are way more simple to produce than those of 20 years ago, plus they do more, are arguably better at what they do, don’t need as much repair, and so on. 

The challenge for the Japanese companies is that the Chinese companies are skipping steps and getting “there” faster. The DJI and Insta360 progression that has rendered GoPro’s dominance a thing of the past and put GoPro’s entire business in jeopardy could be repeated by companies such as Viltrox eventually entering the camera market. A new entrant such as Viltrox would have no skin in the game for parts and designs that are in current use; they could simply skip to the inevitable (and my advice to them would be to do just that). 

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Commentary

Not Understanding the Numbers

I continue to get attacked on forums by people who don’t actually look at numbers, let alone interpret them well. One recent repeated comment has been that Nikon doesn’t really sell many APS-C (DX) cameras. Yet Nikon’s own financial statements point out that one of the reasons why the Imaging division's overall revenue and profit lagged a bit last year was because of two specific cameras (Z5II and Z50II), which sold at lower price points than the cameras introduced in previous years. So a low-cost DX camera—which was part of one person’s argument in forum discussions as they thought that Nikon wasn’t doing much in the low-cost market anymore—clearly rose its head and bit Nikon simply by being popular.

Here in the US I can put Z DX unit sales so far over the 200k unit volume mark. True, Z FX lifetime in the US is now over 500k, but one fifth of those predate the release of any DX camera, and that unit volume is spread over seven FX models (and multiple generations) instead of three DX (and only one DX model has had a second generation so far). Dealers tell me DX is still selling well, but again, there are only three DX models to sell, and two of them are getting long in the tooth.

No doubt that DX isn’t as important to Nikon as FX is, but that’s also self-realized. Simply put, since 2009 or so, Nikon has put most of their marketing and sales energy into FX, and they doubled down on that with the Z System. Sometimes you get what you seek ;~). 

But here’s the thing: Nikon lives in a market share and unit volume no-man’s land at the moment. They’ve made no real in-roads into Canon and Sony in the past year, and at ~900k total units a year, they’re in Ries and Trout's “marginal third position.” New FX cameras aren’t going to increase the unit volume significantly now, no matter how good they are, and thus parts-sharing costs are stuck in a time warp for Nikon. One way out of that would be to come up with two or more desirable DX cameras. An updated Z30 or Zfc, plus a new higher-end unit would solve a lot of problems for Nikon right now.

As I reported earlier, CIPA’s 2026 numbers so far show full frame mirrorless is in a significant downturn for volume and a modest drop in dollars (yen) brought in the door. I don’t think any of the Canikony trio is going to solve their current dilemma with “more great full frame cameras.” They’ve sucked the dollars out of that clientele and there’s clear Update Fatigue now. The customer target I see not getting everything they’d like is the young and entry market, and they're much more price sensitive, and thus more likely to consider DX (APS-C). 

Finally, many seem to argue that “DX is only a portion of Nikon’s sales, so it’s not important to create new DX models.” In the overall market, though, full frame (FX) volume is only about 60% of smaller sensor volume right now [source: CIPA]. Nikon is losing traction in that smaller sensor market, and this also explains their problem in gaining market share. Nikon needs additional (or updated) smaller sensor products to regain a footing, particularly against Fujifilm, which is the number four competitor in terms of market share and trying to unseat Nikon. 

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Commentary

AI as UI

Adobe’s announcement this week of adding an AI agent that interacts with products such as Photoshop is another example of something I call AI as UI. Instead of using tools directly, you use them indirectly via chat (or possibly voice chat). Want to remove a background, then you type “remove the background” instead of finding the “remove background” button or menu choice. 

I call this backseat driving, because when the result isn’t exactly what you wanted, you’ll need to be “more chatty.” Adobe points out that you can string tasks together, as in “make this portrait my style but substitute a plain background.” My experience with AI and LLMs is that the more you try to string together, the more likely you spend longer doing something, because the devil is in the details, and having to consistently explain your intention makes it incumbent on you to make that clear and precise. Moreover, when you start using standard terms, such as make it brighter, AI always devolves towards the mean, not the (creative) exception. I actually experiment a lot when I process images; I’m not trying to make them look all the same. That said, I can see where someone who does production photography and wants “sameness” might gravitate towards what essentially become AI-driven macros. 

The “win” for Adobe is another product they can sell (the AI assistant is part of Firefly, which is another US$10/month for the minimum AI credits and model access, more for more). The “win” for you? I’m not sure. We’ve moved to an SaaS (software as a service) model for the most part, and now we’re moving towards SaaS² (service as a service), where if you want to do something you’ll pay someone for the privilege. 

While I’m a proponent of AI (used correctly and run locally), I’m not a fan of the behemoth tech companies trying to elbow each other to be the first “we covered the planet in servers” winner. xAI (SpaceX), Adobe, Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, and OpenAI have the biggest elbows right now, and are jabbing away at each other (Apple is more close to my position). 

Wait, you didn’t know you could run AI locally? If you have a recent Apple Silicon Mac with more than the base RAM, yes, you can, and in many different forms (including Apple’s own upcoming on-device one in macOS Golden Gate). Personally, I was vibe programming in Botswana last month with no Internet connection, all local on my MacBook Pro 14”. Yes, there were a few times where I’d rather have had “more power” from a server farm, but quite frankly, my little MacBook Pro provides most of what I need an AI for these days. And for free (well, okay, the MacBook Pro M5 with 64GB RAM wasn’t free, but I use that for other things, too ;~).

Adobe wants you to buy their agent and AI credits to tell their software what to do. Maybe we should instead ask them to just make it easier for us to do what we want in the software. If “remove the background” via AI UI is useful to some, it’s because Photoshop is now complex enough that a number one support question might be “how can I remove the background?” 

I’ve been a proponent of UI that follows Alan Cooper’s direct manipulation strategy since he first described it to me in the late 1980’s (see his books About Face and The Inmates Are Running the Asylum). AI as UI is not particularly direct, even though it might feel that way to some. As they might say in parts of the US, “I’m agin it.” 

LEDE ON

It feels a bit like Back to the Future at the moment, as some Web sites are deciding to just talk about future products, such as Sony’s announcement that they’re working on the Rialto 65, a new medium format option for the Venice video camera. But that’s a next-year camera. Or perhaps “Why No Canon R7 II This Year?” Canon’s top crop sensor model is now apparently also a next-year camera. Several sites have even published a bizzare rumor that Viltrox will release a camera with the Z mount, accompanied by AI-slop photos. Fujifilm users meanwhile are busy speculating on what new image sensor they’ll see next year when new X bodies start regenerating again. 

It appears that any drop in real news stories simply turns the talk forward to speculation and conspiracy theories about future products. Next up: re-evaluate the past products.

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News, Sort of

Photography for Sale

We now have CaptureOne being actively shopped to potential buyers, GoPro saying they’d be open to being purchased to avoid bankruptcy, plus Leica being potentially shopped to Chinese buyers. Mark Roberts appears to be headed to Australia after a brief trip home to the UK after Nikon jettisoned them.  If you’re to believe the rumors, Nikon itself will be purchased by an eyeglass company. Sony users are currently wary of another Vaio-type jettison from the mothership and seem to talk about that prospect near constantly. 

The camera industry built itself for well over a 100 million camera units a year. Reality these days is more like 7 million units, plus another 10+ million if you include action and small sensor vlogging cameras, though those are now dominated by DJI, Insta360, and the covert-DJI company Xtra. The general approach in Japan in recent years was to take the remaining volume upscale (e.g. many more dollars per unit sold), which kept everyone's coffers full for a time, but the industry is now faced with two critical questions:

1. Is it possible to find entirely new customers (e.g. the young) and get them buying dedicated cameras in meaningful volume?
2. How often will someone who spent US$2000+ on their last body upgrade purchase another?

The answer to the second question is starting to appear in the latest CIPA data: full frame mirrorless is running only about 90% in units and 97% in value for the first four months of the year. So the answer to #2 may be “not often enough.” Thus #1 is going to be the ride or die category the camera makers need to maximize. That bodes for less expensive crop sensor cameras, so that doesn’t solve the revenue/profit problem. So what’s problem #3? (Nikon seems to think that for them it’s more Cinema cameras.)

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Commentary

The Rise of the Adblocker Takedown Requests

Four photography sites I visit regularly now complain that I have adblockers on. I don’t, though I do use strict browser permissions and when I travel am on a VPN. One major site isn’t just using a dickover to protest my “adblocking” now, but forces me to click on the full-page dickover every time it appears (which is every time I visit) while claiming “we value your time here.” Yeah, not so much, fellas.

It seems that the whole world now wants to show you ads, and while doing so, collect information about you that will be sold to others so that you can be shown even more ads. As you’re aware, I’d been disengaging from participating in this for some time, culminating in me removing all ads and trackers at the start of this year from all my sites.

I worry that the whole trendline is also ageist, as well. Apparently the young have no trepidition about being tracked and promoted to at every opportunity, apparently because the only job that’s available to them now is “influencer." But we oldsters remember why that isn’t such a good idea and try to keep our browsing private. That has particularly heavy implications on photography sites, because the camera industry is highly weighted towards selling to the older crowd, particularly when some new cameras are over US$6000 in price and lenses sometimes top US$10,000. Thus, photography Web sites that think continuing the ad naseum ad parade is going to pay their costs are probably wrong. Unless, I suppose, they simply pivot to cover DJI Osmos and Insta360 cameras, which are being gobbled up faster than mirrorless ones these days. 

It used to be that media had a Chinese Wall (firewall) between advertising and content. These days, it’s a Chinese Firehose, and it’s being shoved down users’ throats. Meanwhile AI (and search) is scraping the public data from those sites and serving up the same material, with confabulations, and claiming that it’s helping you.

We’re at a critical juncture with photography, it seems. The collapse of one thing leads to a collapse of another, which reinforces the collapse of the first thing. We need active, useful photography sites that aren’t just ad platforms or suckers for AI scraping. A few have gone hybrid: subscription removes ads or adds material the AI engines won’t see and serve up. But be careful, affiliate link relationships still abound on many of those sites, and where money changes hands like that, you’re still the product being sold. 

Get ready for new controversy. 

We’ve had several big changes in how lenses are designed in the digital era, and more are coming. The two biggest differences in 21st century lenses have been improvements in computer modeling during the design process coupled with using in-camera “corrections” to “fix” aspects that aren’t addressed by the optical design itself. 

“Corrections” and “fix” are in quotes in the previous paragraph because the current form for these is simply some brute force simplified math. For instance, vignetting isn’t measured precisely and then corrected via similar precise pixel-by-pixel data shifts. Instead, virtually all the vignetting corrections are a set of circles containing a pre-ordained amount of data shift, which may or may not exactly match what the lens is doing. 

Here’s what’s going to happen next: AI lens corrections.

Large language model AI is about pattern matching. Optical design generates plenty of patterns. We’re going to see AI correction calculated during the computerized design process, and then a way of applying those very specific corrections downstream when the image is actually created. 

Already we have some neural signal processing happening in smartphones that does something similar, mostly with so called “telephoto zoom” created from cropping. But what I’m talking about will go further, and essentially pattern-correct the lens aspects that the computerized optical design let slide (typically in order to optimize something else). 

This isn’t as simple as it at first sounds (e.g. just apply a correction). Lenses focus at different distances, have adjustable apertures, and may even mechanically zoom, all of which changes the underlying optical patterns and correction needs. Thus, say a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens might need 24, 35, 50, 70mm, close focus, medium focus, distance focus, and fast aperture to slow aperture “adjustment files” at a minimum. Still, that’s doable today with current technology, someone just has to implement it.

Which brings us to the controversy that will ensue. 

A perfectly corrected lens wil almost certainly be rejected by some as being “too clinical.” Sure, but the data being collected in the raw file will be more optimal than before, so I’m for it. Take it a step further, though: not only can you create a near perfect optical correction this way, you can create presets that render differently. Get ready for Lens Picture Controls (LPC). Want classic edge sharpness falloff with vignette? Use the Vintage LPC. 

You thought photographers argued about whose color presets are better, wait until we start arguing about whose lens presets are better.

It’s been a tough year so far, with a number of unexpected external issues causing me to fall behind my original schedule, including a family emergency that has me bouncing back and forth across the country. I’ve had far less office time this year than expected, so getting big projects done in a timely fashion has been difficult.

Here are my new estimated launch times for projects you know about (I have additional projects you don’t know about, but I’ll let them be a surprise when they appear):

• Update to the existing Zf book: soon; should be the next project shipped
• Nikon ZR for still photography book and ZR review: summer
• Update to Nikon Z9 book: late summer, early fall
• New byThom Web site: summer (this project is well on its way; but everything is being been rewritten, and I mean everything)
• New zsystemuser Web site: late fall
• byThom MAX launch: January 1, 2027 (material has been and continues to be generated for this, so it should be fully stocked when it launches)

Things I have managed to get done so far this year include (a) teaching a pair of two-week workshops in Africa in new locations, (b) relaunching filmbodies.com (including creating a new free book for Nikon film SLR users and rewriting everything that was on that site), (c) completed basic lab testing for 12 new lens reviews and one camera review, (d) wrote another book (not on photography), (e) prototyped and designed for the future Web sites and updates, (f) created a number of items for byThom MAX, plus (g) the usual keeping you up to date on the photography news that’s relevant as well as posting useful new articles on the three active sites.

It’s not that I haven’t been busy. Just the opposite. It’s that many of the projects I’m working on require distraction-free, concentrated time in order to complete, which has been rare in the last few months. The good news is that I can now see things getting better over the next few months, which may allow me to hit the schedule I outline above.

So bear with me.

LEDE ON

It seems that the camera producers are all claiming that they’ve “secured” memory and some other critical part supplies for the year. I noted that in at least one case they also talked about increased pricing, though. Meanwhile, CaptureOne doesn’t have a parts issue, but they’ve now announced that their pricing will go up 6%. Frankly, in times of inflation I expect everyone pushes their pricing as much as they think they can get away with.

The problem I see coming is that all these cost increases that are happening—don’t forget cards, SSDs, and hard drives—eventually will have people giving up something, with subscriptions being one of the first to go. Particularly subscriptions that don’t add anything to the product over time (I’m looking at you Nikon NX MobileAir).

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News

Sony’s Month

Sony awoke from their product slumber with a bang, announcing the now 67mp A7RVI along with a 100-400mm f/4.5GM OSS lens. If that wasn’t enough, the Xperia 1VIII smartphone also came along for the ride. It didn’t hurt that a lot more FE lenses showed up at the Beijing photography show, including a prototype of the Sigma 85mm f/1.2, or that the first major firmware update for the popular A7V showed up. It was a busy month for Sony users, and the news provoked fandom responses.

Let’s start with the big lens. The new fixed aperture 100-400mm looks like a real winner. Only a third of a stop slower than f/4, this US$4300 lens is a solid focal length for both sports and wildlife, and my sports photography friend Patrick Racey Murphy seems to like it a lot. Yes, it’s in a different price range than the competitor’s 100-400s, but the difference between f/5.6 and f/4.5 is meaningful to a lot of users, both for low light work as well as for background separation. Nikon’s got their work cut out for them, as the aging Nikkor 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR S isn’t as sharp at 400mm or as full featured as this new Sony.

Most of the talk this month was A7RVI worship. A new stacked image sensor coupled with attention to getting dual gain results (at least with mechanical shutter) makes for a lot of the excitement. At 67mp (technically 66.8) it’s the most pixels in a full frame sensor, yet the early results show the new sensor more than holds its own while making some clear rolling shutter gains. 30 fps blackout free bursts aren’t exactly what you might expect on a pixel pusher, though the A7RVI is not quite a sports camera due to some lingering roll in all-electronic shutter.

New to the A7RVI are a bigger battery, 32-bit float audio, illuminated buttons, and a dual USB-C arrangement. The grip is also a bit different due to the larger battery. While the EVF is still 9.44m dot, it gets a brighter OLED panel that can provide HDR viewing in a near P3 space.

Overall, it looks like Sony addressed many of the primary complaints about the A7R. They may have even fixed my primary complaint about the preceeding model with that dual gain use while operating under mechanical shutter. The Mark VI seems like a solid update that will win new buyers, though it has risen US$600 in price from the original V to US$4499. 

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News

Canon's Month

“Hey, we’ve got a new camera and new lens, too” said Canon on the same day as Sony fanned heat from their supporters. Surprising to some, Canon’s new offerings didn’t quite get the same rabid response as did Sony’s.

That’s probably because the new US$2500 R6 V is basically the current R6 III in Nikon ZR form. In other words, designed for “advanced creatives.” The R6 V did have one significant fan on day one, though: the fan built into the camera to keep it cool while recording video. That’s fine, but Canon now has to explain why their ZR needs a fan while Nikon’s doesn’t. 

Personally, I find it difficult to believe that there is enough market for the Canon R6 V, Nikon ZR, and Sony ZV-E1—let alone the FX’s—to all thrive. Moreover, I don’t think any of the three hit the nail quite on the head; each has liabilities and missing features that the others don’t, an indication that no one really yet knows exactly how their small full frame slinger should be configured. 

Along with the camera, Canon launched a new 20-50mm f/4L IS USM PZ lens (US$1400). 

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News

Nikon's Month

Nikon didn’t launch any new products while I was out of town, but there were two announcements from them of note. 

The first was Nikon’s full fiscal year results, which produced quite a bit of the usual “Nikon is dying” response from the amateur inexperts. While most of the Nikon businesses either hit or were close to their forecast revenue, the issue that triggered the naysaying was the higher-than-expected loss. Nikon Imaging actually sold more cameras and lenses than originally expected, but a lot of the volume was lower priced Z50II and Z5II models, plus the write-off associated with the “sale" of Mark Roberts (now in bankruptcy) didn’t help the bottom line for the group. Considering Nikon didn’t launch a new camera in the last half of their fiscal year, the results seem fairly strong to me.

The Nikon weaknesses are three: (1) Nikon Precision seems to have no way to take advantage of the semiconductor boom and keeps missing targets due to write-downs and delays; (2) the new Components and Manufacturing businesses aren’t showing the expected sales and profit growth that was promised; and (3) free cash flow has been negative for four straight years now, and in a time where interest rates are no longer zero in Japan that has longer term implications if the problem is not fixed. Still, I’d simply characterize Nikon’s results as weak this year, and not close to fatal. We’ve seen this play before, and the protagonist survives just fine.

Nikon’s other announcement was developmental, as in “we’re working on a 120-300mm f/2.8 TC VR S lens.” Uh, thanks Nikon, but we already knew that. We did get a few photos of the new lens, though, and they reveal that Nikon learned nothing from my criticism of the placement of the controls on the 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S. The Fn buttons are nowhere near where my hand will be, among other things. Meanwhile, for some reason everyone is betting this new top line lens will sell for US$8000. I’d say that’s tremendously optimistic. It’s more likely a US$10,000 lens, particularly given the inflationary market we’re currently in (sensing a theme, yet?).

Do I want one? Not exactly. At 120-300mm plus 420mm via TC and effective 610mm via DX crop on the 45mp cameras, it just barely qualifies for my wildlife use, yet it looks to be almost as big as the 400mm f/2.8 I currently use. On the other hand, if I do more sports in 2027 than I did in 2026, maybe I’d be more interested. 

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News

Fujifilm's Month

If Nikon was relatively quiet, Fujifilm was mostly silent. While management did talk about possible lenses to the press—I think Fujifilm is starting to feel the Chinese lens threat—nothing much else got said. The fiscal year results were good (an 18% increase in revenue from the digital side, though that pales against the 26.2% increase on the InStax side). 

It strikes me that Fujifilm is at a critical juncture now. They’ve built a small user base that seems loyal. They’ve made very good products at the high compact (X100VI and GFX100RF), APS-C (X-E5 and X-T50 added to the bigger lineup), and medium format (GFX100II). As a Fujiflm user would I be looking to upgrade anything? And as someone outside the brand, can they make something that would get me in? 

I see Fujifilm’s main problem as still lagging in autofocus. But fixing that isn’t enough, I think. Fujifilm needs to get X-Pro and X-H users to upgrade now, and that’s going to be tougher given the competition’s advancements.

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News

Panasonic's Month

Panasonic took a small idea and made it larger. Literally. The modest-sized LX100 is now replaced by a larger-sized L10. The good news is all the S1II-sourced goodies (autofocus, video, etc.). The bad news is that I think Panasonic might not have gotten the UX quite right (I’ll hold final judgment on that until I can test one; I still have to post my Ricoh GRIV review first). It certainly looks as if I’d be using the customization features on the camera to get it to operate the way I want it to. 

My first impression is that it presents as a very simple camera externally, only to send the user into customizations to get it operationally optimized. The fact that subject detection doesn’t fall back to general autofocus when no subject is detected isn’t user friendly and also seems wrong for a “simple” camera. Couple that with the body size increase on a m4/3 sensor camera that was properly sized before, and I’m not sure what to make of things from press releases and quick glances. At least we have an on/off lever instead of a button. At US$1500, the L10 is in a rich crowd, though each of the competitors has a completely different take.

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Wrapping Up

And in other news

The Chinese lens parade continued throughout the month.

▶︎ 7Artisan’s 135mm f/1.8. The budget Plena is here, with FE and L mounts coming. I’d be surprised if it seriously matched a Plena, though.

▶︎ Thypoch’s 24-50mm f/2.8. An autofocus zoom from an unlikely source takes on the Sony.

▶︎ BrightinStar had a big month. An autofocus 12mm f/2.8 for the FE mount, plus some additional manual focus lenses.

▶︎ Laowa produced a zoom fisheye. The 4.5-10mm f/2.8 is small, but that’s partly because it only covers the APS-C sensor.