Cameras and Photography

Sometimes the photo industry goes months with no major announcements. Then, suddenly, four companies introduce new cameras within just a few days of each other — despite no trade show or unifying event.

In case you missed it: Sony, Canon, Fujifilm, and now Leica all have new cameras this week. Any of these new models got you excited? Or are you hyped for something else still being rumored?

Perfect.

Moment and new company Module 8 are announcing a line of soft-focus lens adapters called The Tuner. The line adapts EF lenses to Canon and Sony mirrorless, with an internal optic that dials in aberrations for vintage looks like classic (and ultra-expensive) cine lenses — all while maintaining autofocus.

Niche? Certainly. Kinda cool, though? Definitely. The adapters are launching on Kickstarter today for $1,999 each, with late-August estimated shipping.

The Samsung Galaxy NX was an interchangeable lens mirrorless camera with a whole-ass Android phone grafted onto the back of it. That meant you could take pictures with a large sensor and various lenses, and then edit and share them right from the camera itself.

It was a very compelling idea that sadly did not last — Samsung bowed out of the camera industry entirely a mere four years later, despite racking up a list of innovations in the space. The NX is virtually useless now since its software was abandoned by Samsung.

Still, I enjoyed this lookback on the Galaxy NX from the snappiness YouTube channel and was reminded of when I had an NX review sample that I really didn’t want to send back.

Leica’s new M11 Monochrom is a lovely camera, and an absolute joy to shoot with. But as much as I cherish its stubborn loyalty to black-and-white photography, here’s a sobering fact: If you paid me $10 for each of the 909 pictures I shot with it, I’d still need another $105 to buy one.

Pentax! I can’t believe it, but Ricoh Imaging is announcing the Pentax K-3 Mark III Monochrome — a new DSLR camera that shoots only black-and-white images for $2,199.95, available in late April. It’s taking a page out of Leica’s book, but with a 25-megapixel DSL-friggin-R. It makes so little sense I just might love it.

Some good news to end your week with. In an update to its readers, Digital Photography Review’s general manager Scott Everett confirms the site’s content will remain online after the site shuts down on April 10th.

Glad to see nearly 25 years of work not going to waste, but I’ll still miss checking DPReview scores for all the upcoming cameras.

We’re still bummed DPReview.com is closing, but damn they’re using this time for some excellent retrospectives.

Richard Butler re-tested the first camera the site ever reviewed, a Canon PowerShot Pro70 that even had That Good Canon Color 25 years ago. And they brought back Barney Britton for a long, long, long-term review of the Nikon D3S he still owns — long live that legend of a camera.

Leica Camera and Disney are making a Mickey Mouse-themed limited edition camera. The Leica Q2 “100 Years of Wonder” is decorated with early Mickey sketches on its front and top. There will be 500 of these, costing $5,995 (a $200 premium over the standard Q2).

Are you as confused as I am? I’m sure the rumors of a Leica Q3 coming later this year are completely unrelated.

Are a cinemascope aspect ratio and color profile really all Sony’s new $2,199 ZV-E1 full-frame camera has over an iPhone 14 Pro? I spend a week with it to find out.

The movie’s cinematographer, Steve Yedlin, told Vulture that there are actually two versions of the film: a grainier version for theaters and a toned down version for Netflix.

The grain was making the image look crummy. You could see really big compression blocks and swimmy stuff. There are actually different settings that would’ve made the grain in the theatrical version of Glass Onion look fine, but Netflix can’t change their settings just to make one show or movie look better.

Turns out, Netflix has a special system just for streaming film grain.

There’s no denying that the loss of DPReview is a major blow for the photography world. Bad move, Amazon. The site has been a tremendous resource with substantive reviews, great tools for comparing cameras, and a vibrant forum community.

But there is at least a bit of good news coming out of this: Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake, the faces of DPReview’s YouTube channel, are moving over to PetaPixel in May. Like some of you, I’ve been watching these two for years and am glad they’ll get to keep doing what they do so well.

After a Redditor discovered that Samsung’s 100x “space zoom” feature may rely heavily on AI to spit out super crisp photos of the moon, YouTuber Marques Brownlee recreated the experiment with a Galaxy S23 Ultra.

His findings? Quite a bit less dramatic than what we saw on Reddit. The resulting moon photo seems equally as blurry as the original — save for some added brightness and sharpness — and doesn’t appear to add any details that weren’t there before.

Even if you measure it like a TV, it’s just over half an inch. Misleading much? In fact, you’d need an APS-C or larger sensor to stretch to an inch diagonally — and only full-frame and medium format sensors are more than an inch wide.

When the NBA’s Pascal Siakam was seen filming the All-Star Weekend with a series of retro camcorders, my camera-obsessed former colleague Sam Byford decided to figure out the models and document his findings in his Multicore newsletter. There’s something wonderful about this Hi8 Sony Handycam clip of Mac McClung winning the dunk contest, captured by a product of its time by an athlete about the same age.

As Cleo Abram points out, the person behind the camera’s using a creative effect, called bokeh, that blurs the background and puts the football player in focus. This creates super lifelike shots that we’ll probably see during tonight’s big game.