Cameras and Photography Explained

LEDE ON

Canon announced that they had the number one market share of interchangeable lens cameras in 2025, and this was for the 23rd consecutive year (since 2002). Source for this claim? "based on Canon survey." What Canon doesn't say is that at least 10% of that volume probably came from them still seeing low-cost DSLRs. Nevertheless, Canon is a bit of a juggernaut, selling nearly 3m units in a 7m unit overall market. I do note that Canon isn't claiming an overall market share value this time around, probably because it slipped to 41%. 

Meanwhile, at the CP+ show,  CIPA announced their prediction for 2026 camera volume: interchangeable lens camera volume is expected to drop 2.5% this year, while compact cameras will go up 15.5%. Good thing Canon is resurrecting those PowerShot models, huh?

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Commentary

The Odd Case of Sigma DN

Sigma was one of the early players in lenses for mirrorless lenses, with three DN lenses originally for the m4/3 mount, and later expanded to Sony E, Canon M, and then further expanded to Fujifilm XF and Nikon Z. (As a reminder, Sigma's DN lenses are for crop sensor cameras, particularly APS-C.)

This week, Sigma introduced a rethink of one of their wide angle options (now 15mm instead of 16mm). But it's only for Canon RF-S, Fujifilm XF, and Sony E mounts. What happened to the Z mount? 

Nikon and Sigma have always had a bit of an antagonistic relationship, partly due to patent contestation. It's easy to hypothesize that this might have something to do with dropping the Z mount. However, I think it's something more basic: Sigma has tended to be running near or at capacity and the Z mount is, as far as I can tell, the fourth highest selling APS-C mount. I'd guess that Sigma simply didn't want to restrict their ability to serve the primary APS-C vendors in order to support a fourth. That's despite the fact that there are no Nikon DX prime options that come close to this focal length, so Sigma would have very few—and only Chinese—competitors for a 15mm f/1.4 in the Z mount.

Still, odd things are happening all over in the world of lens mounts these days. Canon clearly is trying to restrict full frame RF lenses produced by others, Nikon wants third parties to get approval for producing a lens in their mount, and Sony is finally starting to realize that their more open mount helps camera sales but is now hurting lens sales. Meanwhile, the Chinese competitors keep getting better, and they're providing lower cost options (despite the tariffs here in the US). 

What I'm seeing is that every one of the Japanese lens manufacturers (including camera companies) is trying to hold niches and particular customers. This is making for odd disparities. So much so, I think it's time I resurrect my Buzz, Buzz shorthand. (Buzz Buzz was my way of acting like an annoying fly to Nikon's marketing and sales group.) With Nikon producing three DX camera bodies and only seven DX lenses, Nikon's attacking the crop sensor market with very few arrows in their quiver (Buzz, Buzz). The only bright spot for Nikon DX is that Viltrox is adding some other options, though now Nikon is suing Viltrox, so there's a bit of Buzz Buzz Shoot Foot happening in Tokyo at the moment. 

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CP+ Lens Launch Lowdown

I earlier indicated that CP+ would be a pretty lens-focused show. That's turned out to be the case, particularly as there are no new (production) cameras being shown. Here's what was announced just prior to and on opening of the show.

7Artisans' 2Fer at CP+

The official release of their autofocus 40mm f/2.5 for the Sony FE mount was announced, with a Z-mount version in the wings. The bigger story (literally) is the autofocus 135mm f/1.8 for the L, Nikon Z, and Sony FE mounts. I'm told the likely price will be about US$800.

Brightin Star's Briefing at CP+

• 35mm f/1.7 for Leica M.
• 50mm f/2 Tri-Sight for Canon RF, L-mount, Nikon Z, and Sony FE. The "tri" refers to the ability to switch focus style (bokeh): smooth, prime, and foams (bubble) are the three choices. A bit gimmicky for me; I'm not sure I want to change bokeh using the same lens, but maybe that's just me.

Samyang's Sling at CP+

Korean lens maker Samyang showed up with a number of new lenses. developed in conjunction with Schneider-Kreuznach: 

• L-mount: 14-24mm f/2.8 and 24-60mm f/2.8  (previously seen in Sony E mount)
• FE-mount: 20-50mm f/2, 28-135mm f/2.8, and 60-180mm f/2.8
• prototypes: 200mm f/1.8 and 300mm f/4

Those last three are completely new, while the others have been demonstrated before and are slowly leaking out into the world market.

Sigma's Salvo at CP+

Sigma had four lens announcements for the big Japanese Consumer Show (CP+). 

First up, we have the 15mm f/1.4 Contemporary, which is a US$580 APS-C lens for the Canon RF-S, Fujifilm XF, and Sony E mounts (but not Nikon Z, see below). The Fujifilm and Sony versions have aperture rings, the Canon version has a Command dial. The big claims to fame here are excellent sharpness at a very low weight (7.8-8.5 ounces, 220-240g). 

For the full frame crowd, Sigma introduced a redesigned 35mm f/1.4 Art II lens for the L-mount and Sony FE mount at US$1060. I like Sigma's pitch on this one: "The original Art lens, even better." The emphasis here is in optical quality, and the examples I've seen so far from this lens really do have a very nice overall quality to them (including what looks to me like better bokeh). 

A development announcement and prototype showed up for an 85mm f/1.2 Art lens (L and FE mounts). This lens should get a real announcement in early fall (September, Sigma says). 

Finally, Sigma finally announced a ship date (April 16th) and price (US$3399) for the Cine 28-105mm t/3 lens, which previously lived as a development announcement.

Voigtlander's Volley at CP+

The 40mm pancake announced earlier in the month wasn't the only quasi-wide Cosina decided to drop. We also get a 35mm f/1.4 Nokton for the Canon RF and Nikon Z mounts. Nothing particularly unique to this muffin-sized lens, but it does line up nicely with the Nikon Zf. 

Zeiss's Zing at CP+

Zeiss announced the missing Otus, the US$2299 manual focus 35mm f/1.4 Otus ML. It will be available for the Canon RF, Nikon Z, and Sony FE mounts. This lens appears to be Zeiss designed, Cosina manufactured. Once again it's a APO Distagon optical design. The published MTFs aren't great at f/1.4 (nor are they at all bad, either), but stopped down this lens looks like an edge-to-edge winner.

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Other CP+ Announcements

▶︎ Panasonic 32-bit float microphone. This US$400 add-on for the Panasonic cameras shows just how much of a value the built-in audio functions on the Nikon ZR really are. The new Panasonic DMX-DMS1 adds a no cables (but kludgy) option that provides 32-bit float, directional pickup control, and a fair amount of tweaking (e.g. wind noise suppression). It's a nice option, but I prefer built-in, as it keeps the camera more gimbal friendly.

▶︎  Canon shows waist level. Looking a bit like a modernized Hasselblad film camera, Canon showed a prototype of a camera with a waist-level viewfinder. Surprisingly, the actual optical path is a "folded DSLR." You're looking down at the focus screen, but during exposure a mirror pops out above the screen to divert the optical path backwards to an image sensor that sits above the lens. I doubt this will show up as a real product, as the look-down form factor is deprecated (motion shows in the wrong direction), and looking down at the viewfinder on modern cameras really only requires a tilting screen ;~).

▶︎ Atomos gets raw. Yes, previous Ninja's can record raw video, but Atomos just announced the 5" Ninja RAW, which records Apple ProRes or ProRes RAW to CFexpress Type B or external USB-C storage. It's been awhile since I used a Ninja, so one thing I should mention is that the RAW and TX Ninja's support Z9 generation cameras (and a few older ones) with "camera control." That includes touch to focus, as well as changing adjusting basic exposure options on the Ninja instead of the camera. At US$700, this new 1500 nit monitor becomes another low cost option for connection to your HDMI port. Just note that it only goes to 6K/30P. If you need 8K/30P you need the more expensive Ninja TX.

▶︎ Where's Pentax? The Ricoh booth at CP+ (owner of Pentax) is all Ricoh. The last Pentax interchangeable lens camera was the K-3 Mark III Monochrome in 2023, which now seems to be discontinued (its image sensor is also used in the Ricoh GR Monochrome, so they probably see the GR as a better use of parts). So now we're down to eight year old K1's and four year old KF's. This "disappearance" is a bit strange to me, as in Japan Ricoh last year gained market share, so you'd think they'd be at the show with some real presence.

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Wrapping Up

And in other news

▶︎ Droning on in court. China-based DJI this week filed suit in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, claiming that the US violated due process and federal law in failing to assess the security of their products and then banning them. No one, including DJI, it seems, denies that the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019 needed to be implemented in some way. Communications, like people and goods, should respect borders. In 2024 Congress dictated that a security review be done within 12 months. No such review appears to have happened for DJI drones, and in December a broad ban was made covering "all foreign-made unscrewed aircraft and their critical components." 

I get DJI's point here. They offered to open their code and make any changes for any security-related items found problematic. The US government apparently not only didn't respond to that, but simply didn't do any review at all. Because of their use of radio transmission (e.g. Wi-Fi), any new drone sold in the US would need to be registered and approved by the FCC, but we now have a Catch-22: there's no way to do that because a foreign-made product is banned and the FCC won't examine it. This is one of those slippery slope problems. Once you start outright banning one product category, what's to stop you from doing so with others? Indeed, to be logically and ethically consistent, the government should be banning foreign mobile phones and a lot more product types until full security reviews have been passed. But people fear drones, while they don't fear mobile phones ;~). So the government thinks they'll get away with a targeted action.

This drone ban is just more Security Theater from an increasingly incompetent US government. I'm all for security, but I'd prefer my theater to be restricted to playwrights and actors, not government.

▶︎ Your iPhone wants to Safari. Sandmarc added another US$300 telephoto lens to their iPhone 17 lineup, this time a 72mm 3x option. If you can't make it through all the #'s and X's in the optical system, that works out to be 576mm equivalent by the time they're all added up. As with all the Sandmarc add-on lenses, this mounts to the supplied case to insure proper alignment. So, once you take your phone out of its usual case and get this installed, get ready to hold your phone really, really steady.

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This week's news was early, so next week's news will seem delayed.

As you might have noticed, I've not done a lot of posting so far in 2026. That will change in a big way at some point in the future. The question is when, so bear with me.

I've been deep in "design mode" for the past two months, trying to get things figured out in how I approach all of my work, both what you see and what you don't (yet) see. Design mode really is design, test, re-design, test, design some more, test. I've been testing ideas with a few readers, so as to get a better sense of what will really work best for all of us. That's led me to quite a few twists, turns, turnarounds, and different forks in the design process. 

However, I now have a far better idea of how to make everything work the way it should, and work together seamlessly. I've now started locking down design details and populating sites. 

But about that "populating" bit: I've also decided to rewrite (or at least fully re-edit) everything I've written that you see (other than news). As it turns out, that's quite a bit of material. I've now completed that work for filmbodies, am deep in it for bythom, and have begun it for zsystemuser. Once I get a little further along and am sure the designs are locked, I'll offer up the new filmbodies first to get further reactions that might result in a bit more design tuning. Once that is done, bythom will relaunch. And then I'll take a deep dive into zsystemuser, hopefully beating the release of the Z9II ;~). Dslrbodies isn't a particularly active site, so it'll be last in the sequence, probably at the end of the year. 

Just a reiteration: the Web has changed quite a bit in the past decade. My current sites use older technologies and probably won't last through the coming Internet changes. As part of the "new Internet" I've been learning new things, including building a static content management system (CMS) from scratch, then applying Tailwind, Alpine, and Twig to handle complex CSS (when I told my best Silicon Valley friend I was learning Twig, he said "what the heck is that?"). The new sites should respect your device's day/night modes, resize properly with clearer navigation on mobile devices that have small screens, load faster, plus have many other behind-the-scenes improvements. 

If the above weren't enough to do, I wrote three new books in the past two months (one on CMS, not photography), am trying to finish updates on two more, am attempting to finish up yet another new one, and have been stockpiling product reviews to appear when the new sites deploy. I haven't quite felt this engaged in so much since Connectix, where I was managing products for a company that was growing faster than weeds and expected to surprise the world every Macworld Expo. Invigorating.

Wait, you ask, what happened to byThom MAX?

Oh, MAX is coming (one of those books I wrote last month was for it ;~). It actually took me getting main site design fully figured out before I realized exactly what byThom MAX should be and how it will deploy. Moreover, I'm seemingly constantly on the road working on more byThom and byThom MAX content. For example, I'll be at WPPI and NAB in the coming months, meeting with NikonUSA's President, and taking the time to teach some workshops, too. All of which will feed into what I'm up to. Retirement? For wimps. 

Now, if you don't mind, I need to get back to work. 

Another month has ticked by, and while it may look like the camera companies and I took the month off, nothing can be further from the truth. 

Let's start with the camera companies. Nikon and Sony are waiting for chips (or perhaps just starting to get final chips and now working frantically to do final firmware work). I really don't expect any new cameras from either any time soon, though both have a number of lenses pending. Fujifilm and Canon seem to be targeting CP+ for their next camera announcements, so basically "later this month." OMDS and Panasonic seem pretty opaque at the moment to whatever it is they're up to. Leica is rumored to be sold. 

From a GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) standpoint, the first half of this year seems like it will be mostly about lenses, with scattered cameras. 

Here in the frigid Mid-Atlantic, I've been pretty much bolted to my desk between bouts of snow shoveling, ice removal, and occasional grocery store visits. My Priorities List seems to have grown to novel length, but I'm finally managing to shorten it rather than add to it. I wrote two books in January while working on three others. Technically, I wrote a third book, but it isn't on photography, so you don't care ;~). Since you haven't seen any of that work, you might guess that some of it has something to do with byThom Max (you'd be right). Meanwhile, I've been working on new designs for four sites, and am only really waiting for a final software update from the vendor whose product I'm using before I start the first deployment. 

On top of that, I developed intro and outro bits for upcoming videos, started a new project on getting my computer storage updated (including new name conforming), cleaned out the old office to recycle a bunch of gear, and much more.

Reviews? Well, they seem to be as frozen as the landscape at the moment. Oh, I've done the lab work, I'm just waiting for a few days where I won't freeze my hands to the products trying to get a few additional images to look at. It doesn't help that my usual long-distance diagonal reference spot is basically just a panorama of white at the moment. White snow in focus kind of looks like white snow with spherical aberrations, if you get my drift (pardon the pun). 

So bear with me (and the camera companies). We're all deeply at work, it's just not a time when you're going to see a lot of evidence of that. But come the thaw...

I'm transitioning all of my News/Views into a new format. For the time being, news will continue in this digest form on this site. Enjoy.  (p.s. If you're interested in potentially subscribing to my new offerings, be sure to click here to receive further updates as that idea gets developed and closer to launch.)

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LEDE ON

Get ready for the congratulatory back-patting. The first read I got from reliable data sources was that holiday camera sales (dollars) were probably up between three and four percent. This is consistent with overall holiday sales reported by Adobe’s marketing group and Mastercard, so believable. No dealer has told me they had a great selling season, but none are also complaining about a slump of any kind, either. CIPA just dropped their November report, and it shows mirrorless up 11%, DSLR down 29%, and compacts up 29% for the year. For all cameras together, the year through November was up 10% in volume, up 6% in yen. Given that Canon and Sony both dropped significant products late in the holiday season, I expect December’s numbers to be better than last year, too, at least in terms of yen value. 

Growth is growth, of course, but the camera industry still isn’t hitting it out of the park, though all the on-line celebrations might have you thinking that. What we have in 2025 is another small step back from the bottom.  

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Commentary

Silly Season...

It’s the time of the year when looking back and looking forward seems to generate gunk.

▶︎  “We’ve built an intelligent photography assistant [WayShot] that empowers anyone to master composition, lighting, and framing in real time.” For only US$9.99 a week you can have AI tell you how to make your images look like professional ones. Only one thing wrong with that notion: AI is pattern matching and backward looking. Which means your images start to look those that already exist and get boring. Folks, read your Susan Sontag: great imagery stands on the shoulders of those that came before, it doesn’t try to build the same shoulders. And just two articles away (these quotes both appeared in PetaPixel): “…that feed is dead,” says Instagram head Adam Mosseri characterizing what all that Instagram style copying already being done has accomplished. And a note to PetaPixel: Really? You can cover an individual story but you can’t actually put the pieces together for people reading your stories? Tip to readers: continue to try new things, don’t be afraid to experiment, develop your own style, cover and create a story in your compositions, and all the other things I’ve been telling you to do over the years and your images will continue to stand out from whatever AI and Insta are doing. Copying is for Kinko’s. 

▶︎  “Nikon ZRc, Nikon Z500, Nikon ZFC II and Z30 II Specs & Release Rumors Revealed by Matt” [headline on The New Camera]. Let’s start with Matt Irwin, the supposed source of these rumors. What Matt actually said is “I expect…” What he “revealed" is simply what he believes Nikon is (or should be) working on. This was more a DX wish list on Matt’s part than actual information. But here we see exactly how AI scraping and sloppy restating happens now on the Internet, including The New Camera’s headline. Rather than point you to the original video or the Web sites that are now regurgitating Matt’s thoughts in various exaggerations, here’s what Matt “expects”: (1) ZRc with 26mp partially stacked DX image sensor, (2) Z500 with 26mp stacked DX image sensor, (3) ZfcII with 26mp stacked DX image sensor, (4) Z30II with non-stacked 26mp DX image sensor. 

Sorry, Matt, but that’s three different new DX image sensors, and I just don’t believe Nikon would do that to themselves. It’s too costly for the DX purpose in life (as an introduction to the products Nikon really wants to sell you). I’m already on record as saying that we will get a ZRc in 2026, but it’s not imminent (Matt does say 12-18 months out, which is 2027). It’s possible a ZRc would introduce a new DX image sensor, but then I’d expect that single new sensor to be what Nikon uses in almost all future DX models, which are a fair ways off. Using any kind of stacking and EXPEED8 in future DX models also pushes them higher in cost, too, which starts to defeat the purpose of DX. Most things in Nikon DX have to fit underneath the Z5II price, or else they make little sense. Clickbaiting is very much alive in 2026, and is probably going to get more prevalent as CPMs (cost per thousands) for ads continues to drop, affiliate income drops, and other sources (e.g. AI agents) start trying to get in the game. 

▶︎  “The Sony A7 V Debuted Higher on Sales Charts Than the Canon R6 III” [PetaPixel headline]. I continue to see photography Web sites making authoritative statements from poor data. The problem with using a one-month (or less) Japanese metric is simple: the media outlet making the statement is not understanding distribution patterns that basically distort that short term data. You can see the hint about this in the CIPA data if you look closely. Shipments of mirrorless cameras to Japan in November were 81% of last year. What I’ve seen happening in the broader data is this: Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, and Sony all regionally target their distribution of new products. Any product in short supply tends to be mostly placed where it is expected to have the most impact. Not surprisingly due to economic conditions in Japan, Japan is often not one of the primary distribution targets. In the mass media I’ve run, we referred to this type of article as “shovelware.” It appears to say something, but doesn’t. Indeed, if you read down that article you get the disclaimer “It is possible the R6 III sold more total units in November than the A7 V did in December, despite the A7 V finishing higher on the charts.” 

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Tip

How do you know it’s better?

A common problem arises with technology products: they iterate generation after generation, and as a product becomes more and more sophisticated it gets difficult to tell how it is really better than what you’ve got. This is not a technology problem, it’s a marketing problem. 

Marketing is about communicating the value of a new product to potential buyers and getting some of those buyers excited because the new value would change something important for them. 

Before I go on, let me be clear. We do get big changes in technology (or more likely, combinations of new technologies) every now and then, and when that happens the advantages are clear even with the worst of marketing. 

You might have noticed that early on in Apple’s marketing of their own processors for Macs, that they spent a lot of time showing charts that basically said “uses far less power, works far faster.” Hey, that sounds like something I’d want! You’ll also notice that Apple doesn’t lead with that story any more with the latest generation of Apple Silicon. Yes, each generation of the M chip still uses less power and works faster, but you’ll see that Apple has shifted much of their marketing message to other things. Unfortunately, those other things have turned out to be lame (e.g. Apple AI, LiquidGlass UI). Moreover, most users are still trying to make clear use of all that faster bit on the older model that they opted for along the way. 

With cameras, we’re deep into the same problem. Yes, the focus system works a little better, there’s less rolling shutter, maybe even a bit more dynamic range at base ISO, but we’ve been getting that same thing for several generations of cameras now, and the marketing buzz any of those items might create is starting to wear off. 

I notice that Sony is touting their most recent camera this way: “Designed with innovations that deliver a significant performance boost across every aspect of imaging.” The claim that’s new here is “across every aspect.” Sony’s marketing department is letting you do the heavy lifting: whatever it is you wanted a boost in is present in the new camera. Sure. But not more pixels. Or a better EVF. (I could go on. ;~). And as usual, Sony’s press materials had 22 footnotes, many trying to explain the details of those boost claims. 

The problem, of course, is that the A7 Mark V looks pretty much the same as previous A7’s, so whatever marketing claim you make to get someone to buy one over the A7 Mark IV you’re still selling need to clearly resonate, otherwise the customer will just save the US$400 in price and walk out of the store with the IV.

This is one reason why the camera companies’ marketing departments believe in numbers (30 fps versus 10 fps [with a footnote ;~] in the A7 example). Note what I wrote when the new camera came out: "should you upgrade from the Mark IV model?" If you're a casual photographer who doesn't press their camera to the max, the answer is a fairly clear no.”

You may also have noticed that Nikon didn’t even say anything about the recent ZR camera as regards still photography. All the marketing was about the RED connection, and most specifically about the changes that R3D raw makes. The ZR is indeed the best 6k video camera at under US$4000 (and maybe higher) when used the way Nikon marketed it: 32-bit floating audio with clearly better looking video output that grades easily. But as a still camera? I think Nikon was afraid of saying anything about that because, ostensibly the ZR as a still camera is a Z6III with some features removed. Does that make it bad for photography? Nope. Z6III level imagery is all most people actually need. I’m so convinced that the ZR is a very usable still camera that I’m working on a Conguring and Using the ZR for Still Photography book. So I guess I’ll do Nikon’s marketing job for them.

Time to get to the tip: how do you know the new thing is actually better? The marketing departments of the Japanese companies are not exactly top explainers, so the answer to that question boils down to two things:

1. Knowing your needs, understanding your frustrations. Do you need the iterated things? Will they provide a clear benefit that addresses your needs or fixes your frustrations? Maybe, but only you can figure out the answer to that with clear self assessment as well as clear information about the new product. I can help with the latter, but you need to the work on the former.
2. Believing the influencers. This is where it gets tough. Those that get early access to products these days tend to be “cheerleaders of the latest.” That’s because of how they get compensated for their time. Some manage to still give you clear, useful, and reliable information instead of hype. You can probably count those in the mirrorless arena with the fingers on your hands. However, know that the camera companies are prioritizing influencer reach over reliability these days. They’d rather give early access to cheerleaders with huge followings than serious assessors with smaller followings. 

Yes, I consider myself an “influencer,” though not in the common definition of that term these days. My articles, reviews, and assessments are valued by many, so much so that when I post a detailed review B&H’s sales for that product clearly go up for the next week or two. But I’m hoping that this is because I’ve provided the information you needed to resolve whether the product is going to meet your needs or solve your frustrations.

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Wrapping Up

And in other news

▶︎ FoCal 5.0. This tool used to automate AF-Fine tuning has just had a complete overhaul, promising faster and more precise results as well as more reliable WiFi and Ethernet connections to the camera being tested. The UI has been tweaked with a new look and a smoother approach, and the reports generated by FoCal have been improved, as well. You also get FoCal Mobile and Snapshots when you have an active FoCal 5.0 product. As many of you know from my earlier writing, Snapshots is one way around the limitations of Nikon’s Save menu settings limitations.

▶︎ OWC Envoy Ultra 8TB. The portable Ultra SSDs have been availalble in 2TB and 4TB sizes for a while, and they are the fastest bus-powered portable drive you can attach via Thunderbolt 5. At CES, OWC announced the 8TB version, which, unfortunately, at US$1700 is two-and-a-half times the price of the 4TB. Still, if you need attached max speed storage on a current MacBook Pro, you might be tempted. 

▶︎ macOS Security. I’ve added a section to my article on Macintosh Software (it’s at the end of the article). This is an important subject you should never neglect, as Macs are definitely targets of malware and other malicious threats these days. If you’re the geeky type, you should read this year’s summation of Mac threats. Yes, a lot appeared in 2025. And the most common denominator is that they’re trying to steal information from/about you. And lest you think this isn’t really photographically relevant, I tracked at least two threats to photography Web sites this past year. That’s down from 2024, but still, any site that’s running ads is vulnerable to hidden attacks within the ads. 

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As you can see, this weekly or bi-weekly "newsletter" style for News/Views can be quite elaborate and lengthy. But by putting everything in one spot less often, in a single format, it saves me time and allows me to spend more time on the commentary than the news itself, which you can get pretty much anywhere.

byThom MAX is still coming, but for the time being I'll be doing news this way. I'll have more about byThom Max when I kick it off later in 2026. In the meantime, if you're interested in subscribing, click here to receive updates.

News will continue in weekly digests for the time being, though I might slip to bi-weekly for a bit as I work on all my other projects. More information about a possible transition in how I handle things is here.

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LEDE ON

Now that the camera makers have finally figured out there really was a demand for compact cameras (CIPA's numbers show the rise in shipments pretty clearly), they now need to figure out what to do about that. The decline during the teens in overall camera sales (extended temporarily by the pandemic) had everyone shutting down factories, consolidating facilities, and writing off assets. To the point where today every maker is pretty lean in terms of their ability to ramp up more models and more shipments. Even market leader Canon shut down a key factory in China and huddled all their wagons in Japan. Now, it appears, they're ready to dip their toes back in the compact pool water. But rather than open up new facilities, Canon says they're exploring going factoryless (facfree?) and have started looking have others build their low-end products. Why? It's all about who's investing the money. Rather than invest it themselves and risk some day having to write those investments off again, Canon is seeing what Apple, et.al. have been doing with production and are now understanding why there's a key advantage to that when demand shifts. Ironically, this is where we started, as many of the camera companies outsourced their compact lines to various vendors (e.g. Sanyo) in the early digital days. I call this facfree system as "toe in the water." Look for more toes to follow Canon's. 

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REMEMBER

SETUP > Copyright information > Copyright > Copyright 2026 Your Name

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FAILURE TO LAUNCH
The Holiday "Quiet"

As you'd expect, since my last news/views compilation we haven't had a major camera launch of any kind. Sony was last to the podium with the A7 Mark V on December 2nd, which is about as late as we ever see new cameras in a year (Leica's SL2-S on December 10th, 2020 was the most recent significant late launch). 

Even November—e.g. Canon's launch of the R6 Mark III this year—is considered late. I'm pretty sure neither Canon nor Sony were saying to themselves all along "let's target the last two months of the year." 

The issue is shelf stocking. Traditionally dealers use up all their cash earlier in the fall building inventory for holiday buying season. By early November, their shelves (and back rooms) are full of what they need to sell in the last six weeks of the year in order to stay in business. Committing more cash or diverting sales from what they already paid for is counterproductive for them. So when your dealer sold you a R6 Mark III or A7 Mark V during the holidays, they may have been smiling on the outside, but they were probably grimacing internally ("Can I interest you in a lens to go with that?").

I'm aware of at least two products that apparently were initially going to launch in Nov/Dec, but either because of production delays or second thoughts, have now moved into 2026. 

From a product management standpoint, you really want rumors to fly in September for an October official launch. Why? Because by launching in October you have "buzz" going into the holiday shopping seasons, and by doing the things necessary to get dealers ready September is early enough to get them adjusting their buying. Any later than that and you risk hurting those that sell your product. 

What Sony's December launch tells me is that Sony is running a little scared. Or is behind in their scheduling. Or both. Launching the A7 Mark V in December instead of January is an attempt to protect sales from going to the newer Canons and Nikons (and maybe even Panasonics). The A7 Mark IV, after all, was over four years old (and was launched in the more correct October window ;~). Indeed, what else really was new from Sony this year? (RX1R III and FX2). So without the new A7 it would look like they were standing in place against the competition in the key mid-level category. 

However, I doubt that launching in December sold them any more A7 Mark Vs than they would have had they simply waited until the CES/Imaging shows in January. Sony was trading "make news first" (January 2026) for "make news late" (December 2025). To me, that's a sign that Sony is feeling the pressure now from the others, and their market self-esteem is slipping.

Canon's situation seems a little different. In the past they've been pretty solid in keeping to no later than a September/October launch window, so I'd guess that the R6 Mark III had some slight hiccup in getting produced that pushed it a month back from where Canon would have liked it to be.

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RUMORS
What's Coming?

The last few launches of last year of course bring us to what's going to happen this year?

In terms of shows that you might want to make a splash at, CES starts January 6th, Imaging USA starts January 11th, CP+ starts February 26th, and WPPI begins March 1st. I'm not hearing much that would indicate significant January launches (other than perhaps lenses, of which several are pending). We also have the Winter Olympics opening on February 6th. All this makes the late January, early February time frame the right one to be popping significant major camera announcements into, though I expect some of those might be Development Announcements.

I'm betting that this year's CP+ in Japan will be the real focus for the next set of significant launches. First of all, CP+ had a really successful 2025 show and is already set up to be bigger and splashier this year. It's a home show, which makes announcements a little more in control of corporate. And it's the right timing to set up the next fiscal year for all the companies (except Canon, which uses calendar year). Unfortunately, my schedule keeps me from attending CP+ this year, and the couple of key meetings I've already got scheduled with camera company executives don't happen until April, so I'll be reporting from afar for most of the early year launches. 

No, I'm not going to speak to specific products. I do know about three or four that are in the upcoming launch queue, but I'm going to respect my confidences here. Moreover, it's somewhat easy to product the "what" (but not the exact "when") for existing lineups. For instance, two of the oldest cameras in Canon's RF lineup now are the R7 and R10, for Nikon it's the Z30, while for Sony it's most of the APS-C lineup other than the EV's. (Hmm. All APS-C. Are we going to have a crop sensor year ahead?) Look closer and you can find cameras less than three years old that could use a little modest refreshing. 

But the big anticipation is really about "new generation." For Canon, the question is how will future R1/R3 changes impact the rest of the lineup, and when will those come? For Nikon, everyone on the planet seems to know that EXPEED8 and the Z9II generation must be about to kick off. Sony has the A9 Mark III (global shutter) and A1 II (more AI and tuning) having iterated recently, so it's unclear if we're near anything new from them. Partially stacking the image sensor (Nikon, Panasonic, Sony) seems to be a thing now, and we're likely to soon see piggy-backing (e.g. memory mounted on ASIC), so there are plenty of cameras that might benefit from a stack or two.

Here's my problem: cameras are getting much more complex while making only small incremental image gains. Personally, I'm all for any gains and have always lived at the far front edge of tech, but I'm beginning to wonder if that's really going to amount to anything for the majority of the user base. What can't a Canon R6 Mark III, Nikon Z5II/Z6III, or Sony A7 Mark V do for you? Are you really printing larger than 20"? Do you really need >11 stops dynamic range? What do you need more than 15/20 fps for? 

To me, the thing that's missing is the compact camera that's about at the level of those mid-range mirrorless cameras. In other words, the Canon PowerShot R, the Nikon Coolpix Z, and the Sony Cyber-shot A. Not R, Z, or A in terms of lens mount, because there wouldn't be one, but R, Z, and A in terms of imaging basics, something in the 24mp stacked range with a solid lens up front and a state-of-the-art ASIC behind. Some of you will say "Sony RX1RIII," but no, that's a camera positioned well out of the league of what people actually want. We're talking things that should live in the US$1000-2000 range, where only Fujifilm and Ricoh currently live. 

Which brings me to "surprises." If any year needs a couple of surprise cameras, it's going to be 2026. Fujifilm, Nikon, OMDS, and Panasonic all need one if they want to make clear inroads on Canony. At the moment, I'm not aware of any such upcoming surprises, but of course, that's why they'd be a surprise! 

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ANALYSIS
Who Needs What?

I didn't do a year-end report card for the camera companies this year, but everyone except OMDS got a passing grade and is moving on to the next level. 

That doesn't, however, mean that everyone is well prepared for that level.

• Canon — Canon’s lineup still seems a little unsettled and random to me. They’re trying to achieve "everything for everyone”, but I believe that comes at the expense of lineup confusion. It’s not that Canon needs any specific new camera, it’s that Canon needs marketing that clearly tells people which product is for them. My fear is that they just keep making confusing product statements. The presumed R7 Mark II could be one of those, as it may say “don’t buy an R1 or R3.” 
• Fujifilm — Fujifilm made some big moves in 2019 and 2022 (100mp GFX and 40mp APS-C, respectively, plus a Nikon D500 replacement candidate in the stacked X-H2s with the latter). The question I have is “so what have you done lately?” The answer, of course, is that they used those big moves to start re-aligning all their product line. That’s pretty much done now, so the question really is where does Fujifilm go next? I don’t know, but 2026 (or no later than 2027) really needs to contain the next big Fujifilm move. My concern is that they’re spreading a modest sized engineering team across a lot of models now, and some of those didn’t quite resonate the way their big moves have (e.g. X half, GFX100RF). The X-Pro4 or some other clear technology statement is what they really need next.
• Nikon — Nikon just did something fairly remarkable: via product updates and new launches, they've built out an entire generation of cameras that are really complementary with all having (mostly) the same feature/function sets (Z50II, Zf, ZR, Z5II, Z6III, Z8, Z9). Conspicuously absent in that list are Z30 and Z7II, so it's not difficult to say that it's time to complete the puzzle (e.g. Z30II and some form of Z7III). That Z30II will almost certainly show up, though probably as a ZRc, though, given the ZR's success. So what Nikon actually needs that none of us yet have clear information on are the Z7II replacement and the launch of the next generation of cameras through a pro body upgrade (e.g. Z9II). The good news is that, from everything I can see and what I'm told that I can't repeat, Nikon has a good handle on all of the above. Which leads me to this: the thing that no one is talking about at the moment is "the next surprise." I'm certain there will be one. Nikon is a company that, while maintaining their primary product line, has launched wave after wave of surprises over the years (Coolpix, Nikon1, KeyMission, and even the RED acquisition). So what do they have in their pocket for the next one?
• OMDS — This one is simple: OMDS needs to prove that they can launch something that didn't originate in Olympus (or Sigma ;~). This spin-out is trending towards becoming the next Pentax, a company that mildly iterates on what's been done and not much else. The fact that OMDS is still losing money—they call this "increased their profitability," which is a euphemism for "lost less money”—is a bit of a problem. I've written it for some time: they should have made an m4/3 Tough. They need that unique product that says "only we're doing this." Instead, what they've been saying since the spin out is "we're still doing that.” Okay, we get it, you can still produce what you’ve produced; tell us what’s next.
• Panasonic — I'm looking forward to meeting with Panasonic execs at NAB this year, because I'll be asking them the same question I asked them at NAB in 2016: "how do all these pieces fit together coherently?” Canon’s answer is one mount for everything. Nikon’s answer is one mount for everything. Sony’s answer is one mount for everything. Panasonic’s answer has been we've got a lot of mounts. I don’t think that flies long term. Even just two mounts is a tough sell these days. I really need a better answer from Panasonic, but am not expecting one. 
• Sony — Sony is now in Nikon’s old position (#2 in the ILC market). But that’s under pressure from both sides, just as Nikon was in the teens. Canon just wants to sell to everyone, and is now back in the number one position with their historical near-50% share. Nikon (and to a lesser degree Fujifilm) are nibbling their way upwards. Where’s all that market share growth coming from? Sony’s loss of share. There’s nothing really wrong with any of Sony’s current offerings—though the APS-C gear is getting long-in-tooth—but it feels like “only Sony can do this” is no longer a supportable statement. The fact that Sony is keeping so much of their older generations on the market also seems to tell me that they don’t have a clear idea of how to compete in the lower cost models without just milking the cows until they are dry. While some might say that they want to see Sony’s next generation technology, I say the opposite: I’d like to see Sony show how they are going to compete in the US$700-2000 market with new products, and products using some of their best technologies, not simply stamping out more of the old.

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COMMENTARY
Second Warning

Back on November 16th I warned about prices rising on storage. I hope you bought what drives, SSDs, and cards you needed during the holiday rush. Because what's happening behind the scenes right now presages both shortages and price increases moving forward. 

In particular, primary memory supply is seeing huge cost changes as two of the key semiconductor suppliers (SK Hynix and Micron) are directing much (most?) of their production towards AI uses and data centers. Indeed, Micron is shutting down Crucial, their consumer wing, in February. That means no more consumer-available NVMe, SSD, or DDR5 from one of the better sources. Behind the scenes, I'm now hearing from panicking execs at storage companies on what their future parts supplies and costs look like. 

The good news is that there's still a strong existing stock on dealer shelves at the moment, some of it even with some discounts still available. I just don't know what's going to happen when that inventory runs out and the card/SSD/drive/memory suppliers have to build new product. It's possible that some will think this is a temporary situation and eat some of the costs to keep market share, but I suspect that everyone's in the same position and thinking they'll need to start raising prices. 

Of course, tech goes through waves. Right now we’re riding the AI wave and that’s causing the memory demand that’s impacting supply. But a burst of the AI bubble could produce the opposite as companies look to offload memory to other non-AI buyers. Still, short term the news is not looking good. So if you’re in the market for memory, SSDs, or cards, buying now is likely to be better than waiting.

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TIP
SSDs seem like a “safe” way to permanently store data. People believe they’re less likely to fail than a spinning hard drive after long storage. That’s simply not true. Both spinning drives and solid state drives have issues with long-term cold storage (cold storage being where the drive is disconnected from the computer and power and stored somewhere). 

With SSDs the problem is cell errors. Cells can have get error correction issues or just weaken over time. One small scale experiment showed that some SSDs can show signs of corruption after two years of cold storage. 

If you’re going to store image data on SSDs, you should periodically power them up. Good solid-state storage has self checks and load rebalancing as it sees errors arise, but they need to be powered to do that. Something that parses all the files on a stored drive should trigger those built-in corrections. But if you want to be fully secure, you should create checksums for all files and folders and verify that they have not changed for your important files. That’s a massive task, even with good software. 

Don’t panic. Nothing’s new here. Just like paper degrades over time in storage, so do most other forms of storing information. They all have weak points. My method of dealing with this is to fairly aggressively move data from one medium to another over time. For instance, my archived files get updated to new media about once every two years. It’s a big, full day job doing that and making sure I’m not just copying corrupted files, but since I started doing that I haven’t yet (knock wood) lost anything.

Mac users can create checksums using EagleFiler, and use those for verification by the program. There are other options for that, but that’s the one I’ve used in the past.

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Wrapping Up

And in other news

▶︎ No longer up in the air. Beginning December 23, 2025, DJI and all other foreign-made drones were effectively banned by the FCC. Imports of new foreign drones (and parts for them) will be completely halted, though any currently still on dealers' shelves can be sold, while ones already owned can still be used. The reason for the ban? "Unacceptable security risk."

Of course, your local police, rescue, and press may continue to use their DJI and other drones already in place, so unfortunately what we have here is just another postering of Security Theater by the US government. Moreover, the current government doesn't seem to understand how things actually work. Apparently, this ban will help lead to a rise of "American drone dominance." Not without batteries made in China, it won't. Or other parts, as well. 

Protecting citizens from the "fear something we imagine could happen" is quite a bit different than protecting them from "things that are happening." Congress asked the government to do a security audit on DJI and others to empirically determine whether or not there were security threats built into these products (e.g. could be controlled via a backdoor from overseas, could report sensitive information, etc.).  This bipartisan Congressional action, like many others, was ignored. The document giving authority to the ban is effectively an Executive Order by the White House. 

I guess it's time to for someone to write a book entitled First They Came for Our Drones. 

Yes, this is political. However it's important to understand that sometimes politics spills over into things like the photography business this site covers. From the beginning, drones have been controversial because on one side they allow individual liberties to be pursued while on the other hand they can disrespect privacy and cause safety issues. There was never any doubt that we'd have to come up with policies that balanced those things. However, we are way out of balance now. Moreover, my local police are asking what they're going to do when their current drone breaks, so "security" has more than one side to it, folks. 

▶︎ Some ZR LUTing. As I work on my review of the Nikon ZR, I became aware of some third-party LUT tools, specifically Cinema Tools ZR Utility LUT, which has several really useful exposure tools built into it, but their full LUT pack for the R3D NE files the ZR can create. Besides a straight 709 LUT (good for broadcast material), it also includes an Arri Alexa matching LUT, which is very Hollywood. There’s more to the package than that, but the two LUT packages Cinema Tools makes have proven to be very useful getting the best video out of the ZR that I can.

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As you can see, this weekly or bi-weekly "newsletter" style for News/Views can be quite elaborate and lengthy. But by putting everything in one spot less often, in a single format, it saves me time and allows me to spend more time on the commentary than the news itself, which you can get pretty much anywhere.

byThom MAX is still coming, but for the time being I'll be doing news this way. I'll have more about byThom Max when I kick it off later in 2026. In the meantime, if you're interested in subscribing, click here to receive updates.