Reviews

It’s the holiday season, and Reto has come up with the perfect Christmas present for photographers. The new Kodak Charmera is a tiny keychain-sized camera that uses licensed Kodak designs and logos to incredibly popular effect. The Charmera is true to its name and is a marketing masterpiece that is almost impossible to get now. I wanted to find out if this toy camera is worth all the hype, and whether it is worth purchasing after the holiday season.

BTS -- or "behind the scenes" -- footage has become an essential part of how I tell stories; not just for social media, but for documenting the reality of underwater work. When it comes to shooting underwater, there are a ton of factors to think about — from managing your buoyancy and checking the settings on your camera housing, to being aware of your surroundings and controlling your breathing. The last thing I want to spend time worrying about, then, is how I’m going to capture behind-the-scenes content at the same time.

Earlier this year, 7Artisans announced the Floral Bloom Art Cine Lens series, with the first being a 37mm T2.9 for PL mount only. It sounded interesting, so we agreed to check it out. We appreciate the effort and applaud the company for trying something new, but unfortunately, this lens is terrible.

Everyone wants a point-and-shoot digital camera. There is something to be said for having a compact, simple, fun, pocket camera that you can take photos with, just for the pure joy of it. Memories to be made, without having to know the exposure triangle, or shoot RAW photo formats and edit later. But not everyone wants a used hand-me-down that may or may not function properly, and Camp Snap is hedging its bets that some consumers out there want a fresh start.

It’s felt like a long six months since Sigma first announced the Aizu Primes (which cost $8,300 each), the company's new series of full-frame compatible T1.3 cinema lenses. Currently available focal lengths include 25mm, 27mm, 32mm, 35mm, 40mm, 50mm, 65mm, and 75mm. Fortunately, after shooting several projects with them while traveling, I finally have a trio of them at home to do some controlled testing.

Canon recently made a huge stir with its excellent do-it-all R6 III and for a while, it looked like the year was going to end with a big win for Canon. But with the Sony a7 V coming seemingly out of nowhere, we have a serious contender for the best all-round camera on the market.

Come in for the camera but stick around for the battery life. That’s one way to sum up the Oppo Find X9 Pro, a flagship smartphone that makes a strong case for being one of the top three in the world. And with a global version available, this is the kind of device that makes you think about how much you’ve been missing from the average flagship in North America.

The original Camp Snap camera was released a while back and became an unexpected hit. This digital camera was extremely limited and lacked an LCD screen in an attempt to bring the fun back to photography. Now Camp Snap is bringing this philosophy into the world of video with the Camp Snap 8 (CS-8), a video camera with no LCD, no playback, and only an EVF for framing.

This is DJI’s second gimbal within 12 months, following the Osmo Mobile 7P, and it can be viewed as something of a correction. That’s not to denigrate the OM7P, which remains a very capable gimbal unto itself, but the $159 Osmo Mobile 8 addresses numerous shortcomings of its predecessor.

In a photo industry of ever-increasing prices, it's refreshing to see optics that supply exceptional value for the dollar. The new Canon RF 45mm f/1.2 STM made the entire industry double-take upon seeing an f/1.2 optic for only $479. Surely, there must be a catch, so I took the handy little 45mm to a local Christmas market to explore the myriad lights using an extremely shallow depth of field lens.

The Stringer: The Man Who Took the Photo, which lands on Netflix this week, opens with a line implying Nick Ut is a liar: "What you do know is what you didn’t take." But is that really true? I've always thought the inverse makes more sense.

Leica is by far the leading company to create monochromatic versions of its most popular camera models, and that is because, love it or hate it, black and white exclusive cameras sell really well. Now the Leica Q3 gets the Monochrom treatment that we've seen in the recent Q2 and M11 models. It comes with a higher price at $7,790 and the limitation of only shooting monochromatic images, but it also comes with some image quality improvements.

As a Chinese brand, OnePlus skips the number 14 for cultural reasons, though after using the OnePlus 15 and its camera, I’m more likely to suggest the previous model was the lucky one. As a phone, the device is very impressive thanks to its outstanding battery life, gaming features, and superb software experience. Yet, as a camera system, it presents results that don’t feel like a worthy successor.

Tamron has a long and illustrious history of making travel-zoom lenses with massive focal ranges. These lenses provide a maximum amount of convenience, but how much of a compromise needs to be sacrificed to make this all possible? The new $900 Tamron 25-200mm f/2.8-5.6 Di VXD G2 is set to make a mark on the travel-zoom industry.

The Canon EOS R6 III is an excellent camera for nearly every type of photographer and is better than its impressive predecessor in many essential ways. But did Canon play it a bit too safe with its new enthusiast-oriented, photo-first camera?

I recently took a trip to Aizuwakamatsu, Japan and this represented an ideal situation to also test the Sigma Contemporary 20-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DG super zoom lens. The autumn colors were just staring to turn and the mountainous area around Mt. Bandai promised some excellent landscape and wildlife opportunities.

It only takes a few shots to realize just how different the Vivo X300 Pro is as a mobile photography tool. It is laden with improved performance and output, plus a photography kit made up of a 2.35x telephoto lens extender and grip with built-in physical controls and a 2300mAh battery. It's stacked.

The Osmo 360 is something of a reverse situation for DJI. Rather than being a category leader in this respect, the device is more of a response to what competitors like Insta360 have been doing. That widens the scope and scrutiny for what a camera like this could and should be, given the versatility DJI claims it has.

The "M" in the Leica M series stands for Messucher, which refers to a large and accurate rangefinder incorporated with a viewfinder. For decades, this Leica rangefinder system has been synonymous with its brand and is the basis for the charming shooting experience that Leica M cameras are famous for. But with the Leica M EV1, Leica has forged a new path, and it is sure to polarize its fans.

Fujifilm has a crowded lineup of cameras, which, from an optimistic viewpoint, offers photographers many choices. However, from a pessimistic viewpoint, the degree of choice can be intimidating to beginners. This is part of why it is so important to have a solid entry-level camera to welcome new photographers into the Fujifilm family. For many years, the X-T30 series has served this role well, and now a third version has arrived. Priced at $999, it keeps photography affordable.

Although Apple’s Pro, Max, and Ultra-series chips rightly get significant attention in the creative professional space, the company’s base M-series chips are nothing to scoff at. The brand-new MacBook Pro with M5 (14-inch) is an excellent example of just how great Apple’s base model chips are. Photographers and most video editors should take notice, because the new MacBook Pro with M5 is a fantastic machine.

Since the Canon Cinema series was started over a decade ago, the cameras have targeted professional users in film and television, leading to large, expensive bodies that appealed to a small group of users. That changed with the release of the new $3,899 Canon C50, which is the smallest, most affordable and possibly most exciting camera yet related in this line. Or does it?

Many of us started our photographic journeys with a fixed 50mm lens. Arguments abound about what the best focal length is, but none can deny that a 50mm is the crossover point from wide angles to telephotos. It is a versatile focal length that can accommodate so many different kinds of photography if one is simply willing to move their legs.

Zeiss is a famous and prestigious name in the world of optics, and it is very willing to partner with other brands to bring the weight of its name to the table. So often we see the Zeiss name attached to Sony products, Vivo smartphones, Contax cameras, and Cosina optics, to name a few brands, both past and present.

Laowa has made a name for itself by releasing wonderfully weird optics that the major lens manufacturers would never think to produce. Probe lenses, ultra-wides, incredibly bright manual focus lenses, these are the kind of oddities Laowa is best known for. I was, therefore, surprised when they started teasing a 200mm f/2 C-Dreamer professional autofocus lens.

Sony was one of the first major manufacturers to switch from DSLRs to mirrorless cameras and subsequently rushed to bring out a line of dedicated lenses for what was then the new E-mount. To be completely honest, some of these lenses were less than stellar, but nonetheless had to carry the line for many years.

Nikon debuted its Z-mount cameras in 2018 and shortly thereafter came out with its first professional 24-70mm f/2.8 S lens. Unlike some of the other companies that also began making mirrorless full-frame glass, Nikon came out with a legendary lens right out of the gates. The original 24-70mm f/2.8 lens may have been a little bulky, but it was incredibly sharp, immune to flare issues, and excellent for video work, too.

Earlier this summer, Chris Niccolls, Jordan Drake, and I browsed the fixed-lens section of KEH's website to see what was available for a reasonable price. With compact, point-and-shoot cameras suddenly exploding in popularity, we were wondering: have they aged well, or is it just nostalgia?

35mm has long been one of my favorite focal lengths, so it’s odd that I never had the chance to use the original Sigma 35mm f/1.2 DG Art as it would be right in my wheelhouse. Fortunately, when Sigma launched the second version of this optic in both E-Mount and L-Mount, I had a chance to make up for this omission.

Two things that I love are 85mm lenses and Tokyo, Japan. I was fortunate to experience both, and PetaPixel's Jeremy Gray joined me for a week in Japan to visit Canon headquarters and the Utsunomiya optical factory. We missed Jordan on this trip, but Jeremy had never before visited Japan, and we wanted him to experience all that it has to offer for the first time.

The Xiaomi 15T Pro and 15T are driven by their cameras and Leica co-engineering, and continue to outperform established competitors in North America. As these are global launches, obtaining either of these still requires importing them from online vendors. Or, if you happen to be in Europe, Asia, or one of the other available markets, buy it and bring it back.

I absolutely love the 135mm focal length, and feel like it’s quite underrepresented on modern mirrorless mounts. It’s a great choice for portraits, candids, indoor sports, and street photography. So when I heard Chris Niccolls would be unavailable to review the new Sigma 135mm f/1.4 DG Art lens, I jumped at the chance!

Arguably, a smartphone is the most important piece of tech most of us own, considering how integrated it is into our daily lives. However, they are also capable picture takers, and it is in this spirit that I look over the new iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max.

When it comes to the longer telephoto ranges, even Micro Four Thirds lenses can still be big, and not everyone needs -- or can afford -- the full reach of an OM System 150-400mm f/4.5. OM System has a couple of 40-150mm lenses in various sizes, and they have longer zooms up to 300mm with slow apertures. The time is ripe for something in the middle, and that's where the 50-200mm f/2.8 IS Pro comes in; but it will cost you $3,699.

In the year and a half since Nikon acquired RED, both have been extremely busy with video-focused products. RED released Z-Mount versions of its cinema cameras and Nikon dropped the Nikkor Z 28-135mm PZ video lens as well as a library of RED LUTs for the N-Log profile. However, I’ve been wondering when we’d see a camera that truly fused Nikon and RED technology, and that day has arrived with the release of the Nikon ZR.

Apple unveiled its iPhone 17 family today, including the much-improved iPhone 17, the ultra-thin iPhone Air, and the redesigned flagship iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max. The PetaPixel team flew to Apple Park in Cupertino to witness the unveiling and go hands-on with the new-look iPhone 17 Pro, and there is much to like for photographers and videographers alike.

Small, pocketable cameras with fixed lenses hold an enviable position in the camera world. If a manufacturer makes one, it sells out.

Smartphone season is here, and, as usual, Google is starting things off. The Pixel 10 series has arrived, and although a telephoto lens has now been added to the base model, we prefer to evaluate the highest-end Pro series for its creative photo and video usage. At first glance, the specs and hardware look almost unchanged from the previous models. So is new software enough, or is this the most iterative update Google has ever released?

The Hasselblad X2D II 100C builds upon its predecessors in key ways, preserving the aspects that made each prior camera special while smoothing nearly every rough edge. The legendary Swedish photo company has finally delivered a camera that lives up to the X1D's initial promise.

The industry desperately needs more lens support for APS-C cameras and it often feels like a neglected market. Full frame is clearly the favored child when it comes to the camera game, but I happen to love smaller sensor cameras, which give a great mixture of compactness and quality. Sigma is on a roll, making sure to give users excellent and affordable optics for Sony E mount, Canon RF mount, and Fujifilm X mount. The latest $629 Sigma 12mm f/1.4 DC Contemporary lens seeks to cover the ultra-wide arena with plenty of light-gathering potential to boot.

Batteries are boring. The most recent and exciting battery innovation I can recall is when manufacturers started incorporating USB-C ports into camera batteries. Needless to say, it's a low bar. That's why my expectations for the Linogy AA/AAA Battery Charging system were at most lukewarm, but after using it, I have to admit: this thing is great.

The 10th version of any flagship smartphone line should probably mean something, yet Google is launching its Pixel 10 series with no more fanfare than before. However, that doesn't mean there aren't changes worth being excited about.

The fixed 200mm f/2 is a very rare and specialized lens. In the DSLR days, there were very few available, and they were all ridiculously expensive. Canon and Nikon both made some very prestigious versions that delivered razor-sharp optics and incredibly shallow depth-of-field. They were also useful for low-light sports and action photography.

With the popularity of film photography reaching a fever pitch recently, seeing Leica announce its first-ever black and white 35mm film shouldn't shock you. Leica is even making a film camera brand-new, so it makes a ton of sense. But is Leica Monopan 50 any good and -- more importantly -- is it unique?

Being small is what makes the Vivo X200 FE stand out from a crowd of bigger phones, thanks to its impressive knack for capturing images that others can’t or won’t.

Foldable phones aren’t camera trend-setters because they get their camera components from other models. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 is no different in carrying on that pattern, only this time it’s actually rocking a flagship-level main wide-angle camera.