Cameras and Photography Explained

LEDE ON

With NAB behind us, we move into the Father’s Day/Graduation buying period still with virtually nothing new to add to the gift list. We’re definitely in a drought state when it comes to anything other than Chinese lenses. 

Here’s another of my economic-side warnings: the supply chain just took another hit with the Iran conflict. That might not be evident to you yet, but it is to all my buddies still building things. That's because they know the sequence that starts tripping the dominoes, and they’ve seen some dominoes already falling. You need helium for semiconductor creation, you need oil for plastics creation. Both are starting to be hoarded and rationed in SE Asia in anticipation of not being able to replenish the existing supplies soon. I’m starting to hear backchatter that even Apple is now considering postponing product launches. The worst thing in the tech world is to announce a Great New Widget and not be able to deliver it to demand. Doing that gives competitors time to respond, and, of course, you’re not getting gonzo dollars from the buzz you create. 

The traditional camera makers, with their 8m unit volume overall a year, are going to have a difficult time getting the volume of parts, particularly new parts, in order to keep up any semblance of pace in product launches. Even a company such as GoPro sells more cameras these days than do Nikon, OMDS, Panasonic, and maybe even Sony. Volume gives you purchasing power in tight situations as we’re about to encounter. 

My advice continues to be about the same as it has been for quite some time now: if you’re waiting for something, I hope you like waiting. If you see something at a reasonable price that you want, best pick it up while it’s available. We’ve gone from GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) to BRAKE (Be Reasonable About Keeping Extending). 

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News

DxO Nik Collection 9

DxO continues to work on expanding and extending the Nik Collection. Version 9 now adds AI masking (both depth and general/object), a new color grading tool with a unique single wheel controller, blending modes, and three new specific tools: chromatic shift, glass effect, and halation. Other new features include hover preview for presets, an update to the local adjustments palette, the ability to copy and paste location adjustments, the ability to move masks between the plug-ins, color masks, simplified export and return to Photoshop options.

But wait, there’s more. Photoshop masks can be pulled into the plug-in, effect layers are already live in Photoshop while Nik is still running, the U-point interface has been expanded to include elliptical and polygonal control points, and much more.

Nik is now claiming that plug-ins open 30% faster and that all code in the Nik Collection is now authored by DxO (e.g. no legacy Nik or Google code). 

The above is all what we were all hoping would happen with DxO’s ownership of the long-lived and well-liked Nik Effects. Some product acquisitions die on the vine, as did Nik when Google bought the company. Others eventually spread new, better wings, and that seems to be what’s happening with Nik Collection. Nik has remained one of the few tools I leave installed in my photo processing suite, mostly because there are things you can do with it that are very tough to do without the plug-in.

Nik Collection 9 is available now and is US$180 for new users, as little as US$100 for those upgrading (depends upon which version you’re upgrading from). 

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Commentary

Seven Types of Lenses?

I mentioned it in passing in the NAB Show recap, but it requires more comment: Viltrox now claims seven lines of lenses (Air, EPIC, EVO, LAB, Pro, Raze, and unnamed). Now, not all of those types are always available at every focal length, but enough are that we’re starting to see at least three variants in a mount (typically some combination of Air, EVO, LAB, and Pro). 

One wonders whether extending this strategy any further has a real payoff. While Canon and Nikon traditionally have had a small range of choices at each focal length, that’s typically topped out at three. For example, for a prime, f/1.4, f/1.8 or f/2, f/2.8, or some variation on that. With zooms the overlap tends to be fast aperture, mid-aperture, variable aperture. And even then, the “multiple choice” is limited to mostly the 24-200mm range, where you have buyers at low consumer, mid-consumer, and prosumer/pro levels. 

Both Canon and Nikon are highly analytical when it comes to their sales data. They have a strong tendency towards “what sells.” 

So I guess my first question for Viltrox is “are all these named variants really selling in enough quantity to justify?” My followup question is “why this naming scheme? Are you sure that customers understand it well enough to hone in on the right lens for them?” 

The Product Line Marketing Manager in me keeps trying to build out a simple, understandable matrix, but Viltrox’s matrix just looks messy and sprawling. For lenses, I think the definitions typically should fit a three by three grid:

Anything beyond this starts to become a complex marketing problem. Too complex to maximize revenue with lower cost goods (Viltrox’s lenses tend to be affordable). 

As I’ve been handling and using various Viltrox lenses at the same focal length, I’ve found that there often is very little optical nuance to pull out for my eventual review. Viltrox seems to be keeping sharpness up across all the lines, with whatever differences that do show up via the optical design appearing in vignetting, distortion, focus breathing, and other parameters that don’t tend to be on most people’s decisionmaking tree. 

I get Viltrox’s rapid and constant product launches. Sometimes you need to appear active to customers and you learn things by doing a steady stream of products. But I’m not sure what Viltrox is learning. They appear to be treating lens production as more a commodity business, but it is not. Too low volume to utlimately be commodity driven. The Japanese are very good at realizing when they have to move up value to protect the business long-term. Somehow, the CIPA companies are selling far fewer products these days, but ultimately taking in about the same number of dollars, for instance. There’s a strong ceiling in what you can accomplish in the ILC (interchangeable lens camera) market, and no one has found a way to dramatically raise that ceiling.

The question I have about Viltrox is this: once they've established their ultimate market penetration with lenses, then what? I have to think that they’d expand to building a camera, but that’s not the only possibility. Moreover, a huge, full line of lenses with only one camera would be weird, so what, would we get a messy line of cameras, too? 

In tech, you’re always running. You’re either running to catch up, you’re running with the pack, or you’re running ahead to the new goal you’ve found that the others haven’t yet. It feels to me like Viltrox ran to catch up, found themselves in the pack, and then just started dancing while they ran with the pack in order to call attention to themselves. 

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Wrapping Up

And in other news

▶︎ Another One Bites the Dust? The Coolpix P950 has apparently been discontinued in Japan. It’s difficult to interpret that, as it’s still available in other markets. It’s possible this is just a prelude to a minor change (ala the P1000 to P1100) due to parts changes, which trigger recertification across markets. 

▶︎ The Last Roadmap. Panasonic now seems to be the last camera maker providing a lens road map, and lo and behold, it has been updated to include a wide prime in the same line as the just-announced 40mm f/2, and a large-aperture telephoto zoom. That will make 22 lenses in the L-mount from Panasonic. My question to Panasonic remains: where’s the L-mount professional video cameras?

Let's mix it up a bit, since camera news ain't happening until NAB next week. This week I'll answer a few reader questions that have popped up recently. 

"Does the 1/focal length rule still apply to shutter speed in the age of image stabilization?"

It wasn’t a “rule.” It was a rule of thumb. What one person could achieve in terms of a good image of a static subject was (and remains) different than what another person could achieve. 

As to image stabilization: lens stabilization will achieve different results than sensor stabilization. Sensor stabilization has issues with telephoto lenses (certainly by 200mm), for instance, because it is moving the focal plane two-dimensionally, not rotating the image three-dimensionally at the optical center. Overall, however, any form of stabilization should let someone use a slower shutter speed on a static subject than without stabilization. The question is “how much slower?” And that depends upon you.

However, you’ll note that I keep writing (and emphasized) “static subject.” In my Nikon Field Guide I pointed out that subject motion requires very specific shutter speeds in order to capture edges accurately. For a person walking across the frame, that would be 1/125. Image stabilization doesn’t “improve” that requirement. 

Distance to the subject and the subject speed are the key variables; a secondary variable would be motion direction vis-à-vis the camera.  Something moving at 5mph across the frame at 12 feet requires 1/500 second while at 100 feet 1/60 second is probably fine. For subjects moving towards the camera those numbers probably drop two stops (1/125 and 1/15).

So this notion that “stabilization lets you use lower shutter speeds” is an overstatement, at best case. And when it does, how much lower will depend a lot on your handling discipline. You’re far better off considering subject motion when you choose a shutter speed, regardless of stability setting.

"I was panning while photographing the takeoff of a plane and was completely parallel to it, but it appears that the front of the plane is slightly out of focus and the back is not. What would cause this?"

Most answers you’d get from the Interweb will say this was due to decentered lens elements or possibly heat waves. But the more likely culprit is image stabilization. You’re likely panning with something going 120 to 150mph. Stabilization capabilities are higher in the center of the frame than the edges, often by two stops or more.

With sensor-based stabilization, there’s also a limit to what can be done at the far edges of the frame. The stabiizer can only move the platform so far, plus shifting the sensor doesn’t 100% correct for when a tilt or rotation needed to be done. Even though they claim 5-axis stabilization, many mirrorless systems really only assess and correct only to the center of the frame, and CIPA numbers are usually reported for center axis only. On some cameras, Nikon now allows for stabilization calculations to be done at the location of the focus sensor that’s used, which may be off-center. So if the camera was focusing on the tail of the plane near one edge of the frame, the front of the plane at the other edge may have less (or wrong) correction. 

With lens-only stabilization on older systems (e.g. DSLRs) there was also an interaction between shutter speed and stabilization motor speed that causes unwanted aliasing (which I’ve written about for two decades now, and for which I got a lot of initial pushback on, but have been basically been proven correct; my information came directly from engineers who designed the system, after all). 

I’ve been writing the following since image stabilization first appeared: in situations where you don’t need it—e.g. when you’ve got a shutter speed that should freeze even that fast moving plane—stabilization is best turned off. While best case is that stabilization corrects all problems, the worst case is that it introduces new flaws. A likely case is that you get some edge aliasing. 

Here’s the rub: cameras come with stabilization turned on by default these days, and that does stabilize the viewfinder for camera handling and framing, so there’s an immediate perceived advantage. With really long telephoto lenses and no stabilization active, most users would have trouble keeping their camera aligned with moving subjects. So another perceived advantage. But don’t let this fool you into thinking that stabilization is perfect or will always do the right thing and not introduce any image changes. 

Stabilization is a tool that has consequences. Use it 100% of the time and you’ll eventually find images that show those consequences. It's impossible to know for sure whether that was what happened in your case, but it's my first suspect.

"What’s the heaviest lens you’d use when carrying the camera using a neckstrap?"

Simple rule of thumb: if the mass of the lens exceeds the mass of the body, you should be carrying the combo by the lens. The more the mismatch and the more the lens mass is centered away from the mount, the more important it is that you follow this rule. 

The lens mount is the point of weakness between body and lens, and the mount is designed to break (on both body and lens) once stressed past a certain force level. The reason for that is that repairing a mount is far cheaper than repairing damage to the body or lens structure. 

Beyond that, camera+lens these days tends to exceed three pounds even on the simplest of systems. That’s a lot of force on your neck, too. Almost none of us who carry cameras all the time use traditional neck strap carrying. At a minimum, we use shoulder straps, but this is where Cotton Carriers, various sling belts, and harnesses come into play. Even then you need to be careful, as just hanging a camera+lens off a carrier doesn’t isolate g-forces on the mount unless there are multiple points of contact.

"How do you tell if your lens mount is off?"

Let’s start with some basics: in the modern Z System cameras the image sensor is adjustable using a threaded screw system. In the DSLR era, sensor planes were adjusted using small shims, and shims of only certain thickness were made, so very small mount deviations were often common. The current system is not only much more adjustable, but stays locked in place. At the factory, after the lens mount is positioned on the body, there’s an automated alignment step that makes sure that the lens mount and image sensor are parallel and then locked into place with a small dab of locking solution. I’ve rarely seen a Z camera out of alignment from the factory, and haven’t seen even a single out-of-alignment camera in the Z9 generation models.

So what would make a lens mount be off? Basically two things: (1) impact damage to the mount, typically via offset force on the lens (e.g. when camera falls and hits by the lens); and (2) a broken VR sled under the image sensor. Both these things would need fixing by Nikon repair, they’re not things you can deal with yourself.

Coupled with that is whether the lens itself is manufactured correctly. In particular, any tilted lens element can cause the image plane to not be parallel to the mount and sensor. In practice, this looks like the lens mount being off, but isn’t.

So, how do you determine between lens element positioning and lens mount positioning problems? Well, first thing is to see if you have any issue at all. That’s done by taking images of something on the same plane (and making sure your camera is absolutely parallel to that plane) and looking for corner differences in acuity. One corner or side blurred more than the others is probably internal lens element alignment issues. A full side of an image different than the other could suggest potential mount issues and needs to be investigated further.

However, many people performing such tests do this on charts up close. The problem here is that it is very easy to be out of alignment with the chart, which will look like a mount alignment problem, but is really a chart alignment problem. If you want to be sure, put a mirror dead center in the frame on the wall/chart you’re photographing and verify the that you see the center of lens in the center of the mirror. You don’t want to be off by even a little. 

If getting things parallel isn’t something you want to take the time to do, infinity is your friend. If you can get yourself reasonably square to things very distant (e.g. buildings near the horizon), the amount you could be off from parallel is so small it shouldn’t show in your images. 

Next: is this a one lens problem or all lenses problem? One lens problems are certainly a lens problem, not a mount one. All lens problems can indicate a mount a problem. 

One common complaint from people is “but I never dropped my camera.” Thus when Nikon repair claims “impact damage” they object and think they shouldn’t pay for the repair. But note that I wrote that I’ve rarely (and more recently, never) seen a mount issue from the factory. Nikon’s QA procedures have tightened considerably over the years, and the method by which alignment is done has been improved and made very reliable. 

However, mounts are designed to break. On the camera side, incredibly shallow screws are used to hold the mount in place. This is because it is far cheaper to repair mount alignment/damage than it is to replace structural damage in the lens or camera body. Constant vibration, constant jamming, accidental impact forces (even bumping into someone else with your lens) can degrade the mount alignment (sometimes slowly via repeated incidents). I watched students when changing lenses jam their lens into the mount because they're in a hurry, not always correctly, and then almost use force to get the lens mounted correctly. 

The vibration/impact reasons are why I never travel with lenses mounted on camera bodies. Have you ever seen how people treat your carry-ons in the overhead? I’ve even had a goat fall down a cliff with some of my gear strapped to his side (long story). You want no forces to be applied to the mount whenever possible. So you keep body and lens separate whenever you’re not using the gear. And when you are using the gear, you stay aware of any and all impacts, as well as oblique and gravitational forces that might impact the mount. You’ll note in the above question I don’t tend to carry cameras by neck straps. That’s gravity I’m trying to deny, as a front heavy lens is constantly putting a force on the mount, particularly as I walk with it. 

"When someone writes or talks about how a lens “renders”, what do they mean?"

An excellent question. Often in photography we have terms that are bandied about that aren’t defined, or for which there is an assumed (but not necessarily agreed upon) definition. 

The dictionary definition of “render” has multiple possibilities: (a) to reproduce or represent something; (b) to produce a copy; (c) to cause something to be.

None of those definitions quite tell us enough for what is meant by using the word render when it applies to lenses. Here’s my take: the minute someone starts talking about how a lens renders, I believe them to be speaking about how the optics impact the depiction of a three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional capture.

Some people will say that, no, what they mean is how well the lens mimics what our eyes do. Unfortunately, we have multiple problems trying to use that definition: (1) our eyes are not the same; (2) most eyes have defects; (3) our eyes don’t resolve to a two-dimensional capture (our retinas are curved); and most importantly (4) it’s actually the brain that does most of the work, because it interprets signals and can do so in different ways (e.g. synesthesia).

Layered on top of this is viewer experience. All of us have decades of experience looking at images that were captured with simpler lenses. Much like 24fps makes motion capture more “film-like” than 60fps (more TV-like), central sharpness with non-managed optical characteristics as you move towards the corner of a capture frame is something we’ve been conditioned to.

So let’s get back to how a lens renders. Using my definition—three-dimensional to two-dimensional reproduction—you can start putting measurements and values on how accurately a lens is doing that. One that doesn’t get talked about much with still photography but which we talk about all the time in film and video is cats eye bokeh. It’s pretty common to encounter small bright lights or highlights behind a subject, particularly at night. When they defocus (they’re behind the focused subject), light points should become larger, round, out-of-focus blur circles, with no new characteristics. That’s generally true for almost all lenses on the central axis, but as you get to the corners you start to see round turn into elliptical or eye shapes (cats eye), often because of where light baffles are located in a lens (they’re eclipsing part of the out of focus blur). 

I could dissect every parameter of a lens and apply this same criteria—the three dimensions get correctly captured in two dimensions—and for the most part, I do that with my reviews. Pretty much everything in the performance section of one of my lens reviews is dealing with this definition of “rendering.” 

The tricky part these days is that lens designers added a tool to their optical designs in this century: lens corrections done via software processing on the image data. Three easier-to-post-correct rendering flaws are often ignored (or not fully minimized) in current lens designs: vignetting, linear distortion, and lateral chromatic aberration. I have no problem with this where we’re not talking about massive eventual pixel changes (e.g. >2EV vignetting, >2% distortion, >2 pixel CA suppression). The likelihood that modest pixel changes have real visual consequences is small enough to be ignorable, and the correction is arguably better than the uncorrected.

Moving these optical problems to post correction allows lens designers to better concentrate on the real thing that can distinguish a lens: contrast. MTF is the way we usually measure that, but some will talk about acuity, sharpness, resolving power, and other related stand-ins. Before aspherical lens polishing came to the scene, lenses pretty much had their highest MTF in the center, and that fell off as you moved further from the center. Aspherical lens elements started to change that, and modern lens designs can be quite good at corner-to-corner contrast.

That last bit is what typically leads to lens rendering debates. Technically, our eye-brain is highly center oriented: we see “sharp” in a narrow area controlled by where we point our eyes. Our brain deprioritizes data off that narrow field, which can feel like lack of focus. That’s similar to lens designs of the previous century: sharp central area falls off outside of it. It’s dissimilar to the way many of us view most of our photos now: on a flat screen fully (or almost fully in the case of a 27” monitor) within our central vision predilection. My prediction is that Millennials and later are not going to have this same debate down the road: they’re being conditioned to seeing edge to edge where they want it sharp (or rather, as sharp as the DOF would define). 

Personally, I put a stake in the ground a long, long time ago: I want optimal data capture. That would imply a perfect lens with no optical liabilities. I can easily process in corner blur effects later, but it’s really difficult to process in corner sharpness when it was never there in the first place. 

Your mileage will vary. But I have to ask: how do you know what that is? Are you even thinking about this? Or is your reaction to lens rendering always “I know it when I see it?” 

LEDE ON

The camera company executive interviews with the media at the CP+ show in Japan are slowly hitting the Interwebs as PR at each company signs off on them. One thing that seems to have happened is that the kimono widened a little and we got some talk about what many companies are working on (the OM Pen F isn't dead yet, though Generalissimo Franco still is). I suspect that's because they're embarrassed that they didn't introduce anything new in months, and want customers to realize that they haven't all left the engineering buildings for a long hike up Mt. Fuji never to return. Just as soon as someone tells them where the new parts all went and that they're ready to use, they'll get right back to work.

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New Compact

Panasonic muddles on

The new Panasonic TZ300 strikes me as a "must do something" launch. Except that what they did is take out the viewfinder from a TZ200 and not add anything particularly significant. But at least Panasonic has a compact superzoom again.  

Let's start with the sameness between the TZ200 and the new TZ300: same 20mp 1" image sensor (though it's now backlit), same 24-340mm (equivalent) f/3.3-8 lens, same fixed Rear LCD. There's nothing really wrong with the image sensor; it's fine for its size, and I'm sure the BSI version is going to deliver maybe a third of a stop more dynamic range. The lens I found wanting on the TZ200, though, and nothing seems to have changed. Sony's RX100VII lens, which wasn't exactly given accolades, beats the same Leica-designed 24-340mm (equivalent) f/3.3-8 lens that was on the TZ200 I tested. Maybe I had a bad sample? But I seriously doubt that, as others complained about it, too. I suspect that diffraction is a limiting factor on that lens, and it had quality control issues the last go around.

Meanwhile, we still get DFD (Didn't Focus Dead-on; no, wait, Depth From Defocus) will all its issues, and a video burst for continuous action (4K Photo). The 4K video, unfortunately, is cropped, so you basically end up with a 36-540mm lens when 4K is invoked in any way. Yes, we do now get a (Europe-required) USB-C port for communication and power, but we get a micro (Type D) HDMI port when a microphone port probably would have been more useful.

The sad thing is this: eight years ago the TZ200 had very good control and handling for a compact superzoom. But it left a lot to be desired in the quality of the stills and photos that were taken. This new TZ300 pretty much is identical in control and handling to its predecessor, but Panasonic simply didn't really address any of the shortcomings we reviewers noted eight years ago, and added that new one of "no viewfinder." 

So what we have here is that a Camera Company sees that compacts are selling again, so dusts off something they stopped making many years ago and puts no effort into improving it. Missing from the TZ300 are phase detect autofocus, Panasonic LUTs (!), a tilting and better Rear LCD, and a bunch more things you'd expect these days. It's as if Toyota resurrected the Scion thinking that its time had finally come. 

When companies take the wraps off something they had mothballed and put no effort into their iteration effort, to me that shows not just a lack of imagination and creativity, but almost a sense of desperateness. 

Which brings me to this: does Panasonic actually have a coherent brand strategy? Across both stills and video, I'd say no, they don't. Not when you can now buy an eight-year old design that's been downgraded.

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Legal

Did we win or lose?

The judgement in GoPro's lawsuit against Insta360 has been published. Both sides are declaring victory. On the utility patent side (the technical stuff), Insta360 was found not to have infringed on stabilization, distortion correction, aspect ratio, and leveling patents. On the design patent side (how it looks), Insta360 was found infringing on the Hero camera design, at least for Insta360's original models (they've since changed their design). Insta360 claims they spent at least US$10m defending themselves against GoPro's suits. It's unclear how much GoPro spent as it appears to be buried in General and Administration expenses, though their 10K for 2025 did list legal expenses as "substantial." 

As to why GoPro sued in the first place, it's easy to see the management motivation: sales to Asia and Pacific (APAC) in 2023: US$245m. In 2025: US$77m. GoPro's making noise about the new camera(s?) they'll launch at NAB later this month. Let's hope that gets them back to innovating rather than protecting.

Meanwhile, DJI has now sued Insta360 for patent infringement on drones. It seems like all the action camera companies are now drowning in lawyers.

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Tip

macOS updates require free drive space

I've seen this pop up on a number of sites, so I wanted to warn you so that it doesn't happen to you. When you update from an earlier macOS to the current macOS Tahoe (26.4), if you have older external drives mounted that are not AFPS GUID formatted, the update may try to update those drives to the current Apple standard (and you want that, because AFPS has safeguards that the old Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format doesn't).

The problem happens when you don't have enough free storage space left on a drive. The process of changing formatting requires a great deal of free space (Apple says 40GB). Apparently the update process doesn't check if it has enough space (or perhaps generates an unknown need for space and can't calculate whether you have it). Drives that fail the updating process become unusable as they're in multiple formats that haven't been resolved yet. 

So: don't keep external drives attached to your Mac when making macOS updates that might involve drive format updates. 

Moreover, you should always have a complete backup of your internal drive, as if you ever encounter this problem when trying to update the internal drive, it can end up unbootable and you'll have to perform a complete reinstall to get it running. I've warned about not accepting Apple's minimal SSD sizes for a number of reasons, and this is one of them: those of you with 128GB internal SSDs can get to a storage threshold that makes the system not updatable (though you would have also noticed and ignored performance drops before you got there). 

This is one of the trickier aspects of high tech: deprecation of older technologies can result in loss of data if you're not paying attention. But we need deprecations to happen to make progress in features and performance. Additionally, in today's environment, you really can't afford to just "freeze" your system and forgo security updates, so you need to be updating. 

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Wrapping Up

And in other news

▶︎ Apple discovers ticoRAW. With version 26.4 of macOS (Tahoe) Apple finally has built in support for Nikon's High efficiency* and High efficiency raw formats. Apple becomes the last major player dealing with raw files to enable this support. Apple's support page, however, still lists that only Lossless compressed is supported, but that page was last updated in February 2026. 

▶︎ AI gobbles up Sony cards. Just in time for World Backup Day, Sony is no longer supplying CFexpress cards (Type A or B), or Tough SD cards to dealers and customers. Referencing the shortage of NAND chips, Sony made the decision to at least temporarily halt distribution of cards, as they cannot guarantee supply. This is a bit disturbing as Sony is a fairly major player in storage cards (though their Nextorage spinout may now be bigger). 

▶︎ Nikon divests Mark Roberts Motion Control. When Nikon acquired the British-based MRMC back in 2016, it raised a lot of eyebrows. Yes, the MRMC robotic arms were mounting Nikon DSLRs for unattended placement at big sporting events at the time, but the big use of arms with remote control really happens at a level and in areas where Nikon has lost ground (Olympic events, Hollywood, etc.). Curiously, now that Nikon has elbowed back into Hollywood with RED and has one of the best mirrorless cameras for sports in the Z9, Nikon is now in the process of selling MRMC. I don't think the recent write downs at the MRMC division played well in Tokyo, and I had been expecting MRMC to play more closely with Nikon Imaging, but MRMC seems to have a mind of its own. While their robot arms have been used in ways that caught viral attention recently (Apple TV+'s Severance and the Netflix Ed Sheehan one shot production in New York), I've noticed that more and more I'm seeing non-Nikon cameras on Mark Roberts arms. Since I'm planning on attending the NAB Show coming up, I had already noticed that MRMC had a separate booth—though across the aisle—from Nikon this year. Now I think we know why (RED is in Nikon's booth). 

▶︎ DNG is now an ISO Standard raw image format. Twenty years later, Adobe's attempt to create a standard for raw files is now officially recognized by the International Standards Organization (as ISO 12234-4). Back in the early days of Fred Miranda and dpreview forums, many discussions about the then splintering raw format definitions were visible (all camera maker raw formats actually utilize a form of TIFF under the covers). It was a heated topic, particularly when companies such as Nikon introduced encrypted white balance information into their raw files. The issue then, and still present to this day, was archival longevity of raw files, as the formats for Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, and Sony are all proprietary and not documented in a way that would allow someone to write a 100% accurate processing tool in the future (or today, for that matter). At the moment, Leica, Ricoh, and Sigma save raw files as DNG. Whether the standardization process will get any of the major makers to convert future products to DNG is unknown, but for a company like Nikon that embraces ISO standards throughout their organization, I wonder if this might be the tipping point for the future. 

LEDE ON

It's tempting to say "nothing happened this week." Everyone in Tokyo is taking a breather after a successful CP+ show, after all. But of course a lot did happen (e.g. war is now ongoing, more tariff gyrations, fear of economic slowdown, yen appreciation against the dollar while falling against the Chinese Yuan Renminbi). For Fujitsu, Nikon, Panasonic, and Sony, their fiscal years end at the end of March, and the last month hasn't quite worked out exactly as each expected. When the full year financial results are reported in late April and early May, I expect that to be followed by some new short- and mid-term management plans that were at least partly triggered by recent events. Nothing earth-shocking is in store as far as I can tell, but I'm hearing a lot of micromanagement bits starting to leak in Tokyo, and even here in the US subsidiaries.

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Tip

Reducing Noise on Input

Bill Ferris, an Arizona wildlife photographer who's active on dpreview recently wrote a short post that echoes what I've been teaching for some time now. To reduce noise in your input data:

1. Use the widest aperture that provides acceptable depth of field.
2. Use the slowest shutter speed that stops subject (and camera) motion.
3. Fill the frame with your composition.

The first two are about optimizing exposure. Exposure is LIGHT filtered by APERTURE filtered by SHUTTER SPEED. When you use too small an aperture or too fast a shutter speed you're effectively increasing the randomness of photons in your image, which is the primary source of "noise" these days.

The third is more about the visibility of noise. If you have to crop your original data to get your final composition, at the same output size you increase the visibility of what noise was captured. So if your goal is a 24" print and you cropped your original 2x and output to that size, you'll get a significant increase in the visibility of noise that is in the image versus having enough full frame pixels in the first place. This part is trickier than you think. One reason why I stopped using m4/3 is the 4:3 aspect ratio. Almost all my output is 16:9 these days, so in using 4:3 for the capture I'm always significantly cropping my final image. This makes the area captured that's used in the final image even smaller than I obtain with full frame, thus amplifying the randomness of photons. (Note that choosing sensor size is all about trade-offs. For me, the trade-offs no longer work great. For you, they might. See next.)

Yes, noise reduction software can help, but that's dealing with things you've already captured. Remember, my mantra is optimal data capture, optimal data processing. What I'm talking about in this tip is optimal data capture. Where noise reduction software comes into play is with optimal data processing.

After I launch byThom MAX I'll eventually serve up my three-part seminar on noise: (1) sources of noise; (2) minimizing noise during capture; and (3) dealing with noise after the capture. One of these (long) presentations is already done. The other two are in progress. Until then, enjoy this brief hint at a key component of presentation #2. 

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Commentary

The case for high-end APS-C

In this week's tip, I mentioned aspect ratio, capture area, and tradeoffs. I'm lucky enough to be able to fill the full frame with my subjects, both on the sidelines at sporting events, and in Africa taking wildlife photos. While I "suffer" from size, weight, and price penalties doing so, matching top full frame bodies with the best possible lens is still my primary choice. I'll put what I create up against anyone, as I'm using optimal gear using optimal capture techniques. 

But realistically, most folk on safari aren't getting the animal approaches or carrying the really long lenses I and other pros do. Particularly in Kenya and Tanzania, there are times when you simply can't fill the frame with your composition, even at 600mm. The nice thing about the Nikon Z8/Z9 is that they also are convenient APS-C cameras, too, by simply flipping a setting (which can be automated into a button). Sure, you only get a 19mp crop that way, but if that 19mp is fully used and you've set exposure properly, the results can still be stunning at up to about 24" long axis. 

One reason the Nikon D500 and the Canon 7D DSLRs were so popular is that they gave you much of the top end body capabilities and performance in a smaller package where you could use somewhat shorter optics, plus you saved a ton of money by equipping that way. I know of one professional sports photographer who has never given up on his D500's because he gets what he needs from a lighter, smaller outfit. Newspaper and Web sports photos simply don't need massive file sizes, and photos are used at sizes that don't reveal the noise gain from the smaller capture area. 

There's no accepted definition of consumer, prosumer, or professional when it comes to cameras. However, I'd tend to point to the D500 and 7D (and now R7) bodies as truly prosumer, as they have professional body attributes that are reduced slightly by some consumer-type approaches. For instance, sensor size, which has a big impact on cost, all else equal. 

Nikon got burnt by overextending in DX (APS-C) during the DSLR era. As sales volumes came down, Nikon found that they hadn't cleared the previous generation of cameras when they were launching new ones, so at one point Nikon was selling anywhere from eight to twelve (!) cameras in a very tight spacing. After the D500, Nikon moved radically away from proliferating APS-C cameras. 

Sony has done something different. They, too, were over proliferating APS-C early in the mirrorless era (NEX and A#### cameras) and ran into the same inventory pile up. Now they've moved to four spaced-out models that don't iterate very often (if at all). 

Canon seems to be the only one iterating mirrorless much like they iterated DSLRs, with models all over the spectrum, including the arena this comment is about: high-end APS-C. The Canon R7 and Fujifilm X-H2s are really the only two remaining high-end APS-C cameras that fit the prosumer definition I prefer to use (pro features and performance with some consumer limitations). Apparently, Canon will update the R7 sometime this summer, pushing it even closer in pro features and performance. 

But where's Nikon? They were the ones that really established this market (with the D100 originally, and particularly with the D300 and D500 later on). Nikon even has the right lens set in the Z System for the sports/wildlife DX user (e.g. the 400mm f/4.5 VR S would be a great lens to pair with a Z90 prosumer body, as well as the 70-180mm f/2.8 for a second body). 

And where's Panasonic? Their m4/3 start seems to have them afraid of even trying APS-C. 

I'd argue that top-end APS-C bodies should be present in any mirrorless lineup that wants to be complete and win more customers. Canon looks like they'll have that with the upcoming R7 II. Fujifilm still needs to up their game with autofocus performance on the X-H2s. Nikon needs something far better than the current top of their APS-C line, the Z50II. Panasonic needs to stop watching pitches go by and swing their bat. Sony thinks the A6700 is top end enough, but I'd disagree on a number of levels, starting with the position of the viewfinder, which impacts rotation stability on fast action. 

In particular, Nikon and Sony seem to be iterating less often and concentrating mostly on rationalizing a modest number of full frame bodies. This is a little like an auto maker deciding that they don't need to make a full range of product, just a quiver of mid-size and large SUVs. We know what happens when you do that: you get smaller. I wonder how small a camera maker can let themselves get before they become irrelevant. Perhaps Sony doesn't worry about that because they have a history of casting off businesses that become irrelevant. But Nikon doesn't have that opportunity, as Imaging (cameras and lenses) are near 50% of their overall business, and the only group that is consistently profitable enough to keep expanding the overall company. 

So while I'll continue to use my full frame Nikons, I'll be the first one to congratulate Nikon when (if) they come out with a high-end APS-C model. It would be the right camera for so many customers, I just don't know why it doesn't exist already.

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Wrapping Up

And in other news

▶︎ Photoshop gets an AI Agent. Adobe's latest Photoshop public beta includes a new AI Agent, which you can chat with to process your image. Short form, you tell it something and it uses the built-in Photoshop tools to accomplish that. For instance, you might type "reduce the highlights and boost the shadows and also remove distractions." This works a bit like an Action, in that each step will be executed individually and thus leave an entry in the History panel, but it works slower than an Action so that you can see the steps as they are performed. You can also use the chat to ask the AI how to do something, and it will just describe the steps it would take instead of actually performing them.

My take on this is that it's useful if you don't know how to do something specific, such as apply a blend mode only to the highlights, but this new AI feature is not something I'd tend to use myself. For instance, this AI Agent doesn't agree with me on cropping, let alone what constitutes a highlight or shadow. Thus it is more brute force than I would tend to use Photoshop. Great Photoshop processing never reveals what was done and requires subtlety in decision making. I don't believe the Agent is up to that level at this time.