News/Views | Cameras and Photography Explained | Thom Hogan

Skip the Application, Use AI?

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 06:53:09 -0700

Agentic AI is becoming somewhat a norm. Instead of you doing something directly, you tell your agent to do it and the thing is done indirectly. This is both useful and dangerous. However, it doesn’t stop applications from still being important.

Let’s begin with that last sentence. The notion that applications (and application-producing companies, such as Adobe) will go away is dead wrong. At least in the short- to mid-term. There’s too much built up capability and performance in them for anyone to give up to a server farm somewhere to reproduce from scratch. It’s just not going to happen that you suddenly have a full AI replacement for Photoshop (or most other deep, broad applications). I’ll demonstrate that later in the article.

To understand AI today you need to also understand the dicotomy between centralized and decentralized computation and data. The big tech companies will always push centralization, mostly because that gives them control over you. They have your data. Only they can operate on it. They control what you can and can’t do with it. They charge you for dealing with your own information ;~). We consumers, however, prefer decentralization. We want to own and control our own data and do with it what we will. We don’t want to keep paying someone else for things we can do ourselves. Mainframes were centralization. Personal computers were decentralization.

I Was Wrong

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 19:28:55 -0700

Back in 2011 I told Nikon executives that it was not useful to pursue a relationship with a phone maker. Others at the time, particularly Leica, were doing so. My contention was that the overall sales and margins on the R&D and supply for the small sensor/lens combo would be too small to pursue. Just licensing the Nikon name would have been a better economic choice, and there you’re still only talking about peanuts.

Meanwhile, I believed that the camera-as-lens attachment ideas both Olympus and Sony pursued wouldn’t work either, because they had a dual problem: (1) they had to control said camera-as-lens from an app; and (2) communication would be via bluetooth/Wi-Fi, which is notoriously unreliable as a full-time solution. #1 meant that the result would be an add-on and live on top of the software stacks, undermining performance. #2 meant fiddly settings and lagging connectivity.

I’ll still stand by those statements, but I wasn’t thinking enough out of the box (unusual for me). Now that we’re in a world of magnetic connections and USB-C, the work-with-smartphone maker problem becomes far simpler, and opens up opportunities that weren’t there in 2011. Simply put, add a USB-C port to the MagSafe ring. This gives you both physical and electronic attachment. MagSafe rings are big and strong enough to support an m4/3 or APS-C camera-as-lens, for sure, producing an upsell for the phone user who wants to offer better imaging to their top customers.

The Thing About SKUs

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 06:12:21 -0700

A comment on another site coupled with the upcoming holiday buying season led to this “explainer.”

SKU is the abbreviation for Stocking Keeping Units, a shorthand for the number of physically different boxes you might find at a retailer for a brand, or more importantly, a product line. The was a time when the camera makers were overly prolific with producing SKUs. You’d find Camera X body, Camera X + Y lens, Camera X + Z lens, Camera X + Y + Z lens, and more. These days, many camera makers have backed off from that kind of box proliferation. However, Nikon just extended their product line with the Z5IIC and Sony with the FX5. In Nikon’s case they added four SKUs for one camera launch. That's more SKUs a camera dealer has to deal with.

MBA programs—I went through one at the IU Kelley School of Business—teach the nuances of SKUs, and it’s important to understand them, as they do have some consequence to the eventual customer (that would be you).

First, dealers have a love/hate relationship with SKUs. A camera dealer, like most retail businesses, survives and perhaps thrives on what are called turns. A turn is basically how many times a particular SKU comes in and goes out (gets sold), typically measured monthly, quarterly, or annually. So if a dealer only sold one SKU, they’d need a huge number of turns to be profitable. On the other hand, if a dealer stocks hundreds of SKUs, as long as they manage their inventory well, a product that has two turns a year is still probably viable. But that’s only true if they can manage to keep from piling up inventory of various SKUs.

The Nikon Z5IIC Week

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 15:31:37 -0700

LEDE ON

As you probably know, I teach photo workshops outside the US, and I talk to other photographers doing the same, as well as travel agencies trying to get my attention. I’m now hearing from others that 2027 bookings are not currently as full as would be expected at this point in time (my one workshop for the year is full, though). This seems to be due to a combination of factors, but the whatever-it-is happening in Iran seems to be a primary one. When gas prices go up, so do airfares. Travel from the US through Middle East hubs is disrupted. Fear that inflation and interest rates are going to keep rising also has many getting conservative with their commitments to future spending.

This is what I call a tipping point indicator. When those with clear disposable income—which defines the International travel and photo workshop crowd—start pulling back on future travel, that means a lion is entering the coal mine and the canary better watch out.

No, I’m not predicting a recession (yet). But I’d judge the US and world economies to be significantly out of balance at the moment. Things are positive in some key areas, negative in others. It’s impossible to predict exactly how or when balance might get back to a more expected level, as both resolution of conflicts and whether or not the AI scene has gotten too close to the sun are not easily predicted. But the trend has been clear: we’re closer to economic lapses than we were. Those may be regional or industry specific.

The Problem With Announcing Alone

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 06:41:59 -0700

All the feedback I’ve gotten from readers about recent camera launches, particularly Nikon’s Z5IIC one, made me realize that the camera makers haven’t figured something out yet.

Basically, it’s this: there have been so few new camera launches this year that each one stands out in isolation. All the various brand loyalists have nothing to do until their maker finally announces something, so they pile on to announcements of products that they have no interest in. What this produces is viral negativity.

Yet even when a brand does launch something for its brand loyalists, the problem persists, because the likelihood that the one product announced is for someone already using the brand is low to start with, and even lower if the new product enters below what they’re already using (e.g. Canon R8II, Nikon Z5IIC). A similar thing happens with products that are far outside the target range of the brand loyalist (e.g. Sony FX5).

The negativity that’s spreading across the Internet right now about new camera products is thus not just brand loyalist sniping, but also whining about “when are they going to announce something for me?” For those in the latter category, don’t worry, from what I know of product plans at multiple companies, many of you will get your update at some point in the not too distant future.

A Little More Gets Announced

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 15:31:37 -0700

LEDE ON

The lede seems to never change now: expect price increases and product shortages for the foreseeable future. Camera company executives are becoming fairly frank about that with dealers, and it’s only a matter of time before we see them have to say the same thing to customers. Meanwhile, multiple card and drive companies are telling me that they see no change in their ability to get more parts and a continued upward pressure on prices.

All of which is going to make for a messy holiday season. I was surprised when one dealer said that not being flooded with inventory this year might actually out better for them. Fewer sales at or near full price without hanging inventory or constant restocking is a side benefit, I guess.

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News

Canon R8 Mark II Arrives

Canon has updated their entry level, full frame, mirrorless camera, though perhaps more modestly than some expected after a three-and-a-half year run for the original. No, it’s not a legacy body design (unless you consider the original R8 legacy ;~). No, it doesn’t have more pixels. A lot of the rumors that popped up as the R8 aged out simply didn’t pan out.

Cameras and Lenses Appear (or Not)

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 15:31:37 -0700

LEDE ON

The announce-arrive cycle appears to be getting longer. It used to be that new product announcements meant the product was already on its way to, if not already in the backrooms of, retail stores. In the late teens, that transitioned to be more announce, then ship within a month. With the Sony FX5, we’re now in the announce, then more than two months later it’ll show up era. Moreover, coupled with the fact that almost every new camera product of any note in the past five years has produced the notorious “demand is higher than expected” notice out of some sushi bar in Tokyo, I’d say that we’re fully in an era of Announce Disconnection. One has to wonder whether the industry is becoming so irrelevant that they have to send out smoke signals every once in awhile to remind folk gathered elsewhere that they’re still around. Nikon has managed three smoke signals so far this year. Pentax (see below) has taken up sending premature smoke signals.

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News

OMDS Announces New Entry Camera

Drop Into Fall

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 15:31:37 -0700

LEDE ON

Turns out that September 1 was an important day, as prices changed for many items starting deep in the supply chain all the way up to finished products. Not all these price changes have surfaced worldwide to consumers yet, but they will.

In talking to sources on the semiconductor side, it’s a combination of CapEx (capital expenditures needed for expansion) along with the AI squeeze (the AI needs are sucking up more and more fab time) that are creating the biggest problems for everyone now, even huge companies that dominate some fab use, such as Apple and Qualcomm. I’ll point out that in past chip bubbles—yes, there have been several—the results on the other side are ugly: excess capacity and parts price drops that are challenging to navigate. As the bubble ends, a manufacturer can end up committing to a price only to find that their competitors waited and are paying far lower prices. You don’t just need bean counters these days, you need bean predictors to navigate the semiconductor cycles well, too.

Get Ready for Change

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 15:31:37 -0700

LEDE ON

This week I write about new products, existing (Adobe), announced-but-not-imminent (Ricoh), and upcoming (additional new cameras coming in September). So it seems only appropriate to also say something about Apple, as they have called the press to the big circle for a launch-a-thon soon (on the 9th). The big anticipated camera news from the fruit company is that they’ll finally introduce variable apertures on an iPhone. Probably not more than two settable apertures, but a lot of us are scratching our heads about this, as the math of small-sensor-size has us already deep in the diffraction zone, so it’s unclear to me that there’s all that much real visible impact.

Unless, of course, Apple is doing something on the computational side. For instance, many smart phones already use a stream of images taken around the the chosen one to help reduce noise. What if they did the same with aperture? That would help them build a better depth map and computationally adjust subject and background accordingly.

The Value of Photos

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 06:13:26 -0700

I’ve wanted to write about this subject before, but it kept sliding down my to-do list until this article showed up and sort of stated my point without realizing it. Photos aren’t valued.

Let’s talk about the case described in that article for a moment and get a couple of things out of the way. A painter is accused of “copying” a photograph to make a work of art. Specifically a photograph of the Gallegher brothers of the rock band Oasis interacting. The usual claim of the painter is that it isn’t a violation of Copyright to do so, it’s Fair Use, a very specific aspect of the Copyright law that encourages public dissemination of derivative works in particular ways, typically educational, though not limited to that.

You should read the Petapixel article, as it has details that I won’t be repeating here. Form your own opinion, and then come back here to see where I went with the same information.

The thing that struck me wasn’t the “copying,” it was the value.

First, the painter here did something here that often isn’t seen in these Copyright violation accusations: they made a lot of independent and different decisions in interpreting that moment between the Gallaghers. Had the artist in question actually been standing alongside the photographer (or in another way have seen the same scene), I don’t think anyone would be truly believing this was really a Copyright violation.

Apple’s New Macs

Tue, 25 Aug 2026 07:55:45 -0700

Apple launched two new lineups of Mac models today (mini and Studio).

The Macintosh hardware recommendations on this site were already a bit out of date, and today get even further out of date. Instead of rewriting that article for this old site design, I’m completely rewriting and configuring that article for the new byThom site. But the new site design isn’t ready yet, so in the meantime, many of you are wondering about where we stand in the Mac recommendations.

Pretty much as we were before:

For a portable, a reasonably configured MacBook Air is all most people need. Some might want to look at the higher performance of the MacBook Pros, but you’ll pay for going very deep into that lineup. Basic needs haven’t changed: 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, though I still believe you should push that RAM number up, and strongly consider your internal storage needs so that you’ll never fall below the performance threshold of the SSD (typically 75% full; keep reading).
For a desktop, it’s the same story: a reasonably configured Mini is all most people need. Some might want to look at the higher performance of the Studio, but you’ll pay severely for going very deep into that lineup. Again, basic needs are similar to laptops.

So what about the MacBook Neo? Nope. It’ll work for photographers in a pinch, but performance is constrained the minute you start working on large images or with really sophisticated app features (e.g. AI features). You also have no ways to reduce those constraints, as max memory is 8GB and maximum internal SSD is a constrictive 512GB (and only one extra port to plug anything external in [the first port is going to be used for power]). The Neo is great for every day tasks such as email, Web browsing, and running the Apple-supplied and basic productivity apps, but in my experience things start breaking down fast the more you throw at it.

Summer’s Wrapping Up

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 15:31:37 -0700

LEDE ON

We’re nearing the end of summer (often defined as ending with Labor Day here in the US). Many of you have been vacationing in inflationville, and are getting ready to head back to work. So here’s the question: how many photos did you take?

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News

Kumamoto Back Online

The earthquake in Japan that shut down the Sony facility that makes image sensors, began a staged restart on August 4th, about a week after the 7.1 magnitude tremor hit nearby. Full production resumed on August 19th, and things moved much faster than what happened in 2016, when a previous quake shut down the same plant for three-and-a-half months. Meanwhile, the TSMC facility in nearby Kikuyo has also come back online, as has the Renesas plant in Nishiki.

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News and Commentary

Nikkei’s Total Camera Market Shares

Every year about this time we start getting the final reports on how things went the previous year for all the Japanese camera companies globally (as opposed to regionally). The first one up is the total camera shipments (compacts and interchangeable lens):

Answers to Today’s Top Questions

Fri, 21 Aug 2026 05:39:47 -0700

From time to time I get whimsical. Okay, scratch that, I get sarcastic. One of the things that triggers this is when I go out somewhere to take photographs and start getting questions. Herewith are my latest answers to those questions:

What are you taking a picture of?
I’m not really taking a photo of anything, I’m just collecting data for AI.

Why are you using such a big, heavy camera?
It’s part of my weight training and fitness program. Smartphones, even the big ones, don’t do much for your physique.

Why are you taking so many photos?
I have a new, large, hard drive I’m trying to fill. The salesman promised me he’d replace it with a bigger one if I managed to fill it within 24 hours of purchasing it.

What exposure are you using?
The proper one, light filtered by aperture filtered by shutter speed. Other than that, I sometimes button up my jacket if I’m getting too cold.

Should I know who you are?
You should. Hi, I’m Ansel Adams.

Do you sell your photos?
No, they sell themselves. If I took a picture of you you’ll get a purchase request from one of them in your email later today.

Summer’s Wrapping Up

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 15:31:37 -0700

LEDE ON

The camera makers must hate the photo press. Specifically, the American camera company subsidiaries must really dislike the “any news is worth reporting” rumors sites that will scrape virtually any post anywhere made by anyone if it looks like news.

This past week we had another example of the “discontinued/unavailable” saga that isn’t always what it seems. Basically, here’s how it typically goes: a Japanese company in Japan sends out an advisory to Japanese dealers that some product will be unavailable to order. On ocassion, the company will also send out a local-to-Japan news release saying the same. Here’s the thing that makes for the subsidiary hate: the item very well may be and usually is still available in other subsidiaries (Americas, Europe, Asia, et.al.). Often, these notices are quickly done and use boilerplate language, which doesn’t help.

Here in the US we see these “not available” announcements spread like a wildfire in high winds via the Interwebs, yet they very rarely apply to us. They're reported because “it’s news.” Sure, news that Japan is still doing the thing that Japan has always done: severely micromanaging production and where it is distributed. Ironically, the Japanese companies often ship less product to their own country, as they see profit potential higher elsewhere.

Still Just Sony Iterating

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 15:31:37 -0700

LEDE ON

It’s quarterly earnings report time across the tech world. Fujifilm was the first I’ve seen in the camera biz to specifically call out “increases in semiconductor memory and IT-related component prices” as reason for their negative forward forecast. But given that there are reports that there are US$1b (yes billion) in Apple Silicon processors sitting at TMSC waiting for RAM to show up and be integrated, you have to think that every camera maker is in the same boat. Instead of waiting for Godot, we’re waiting for DRAM.

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News

Sony Continues Releasing New Things

Seems that Sony felt mid-summer was the time to go on a product release spree. One thing about the slowdown in photography product introductions is that we don’t have companies stepping on each other’s press releases at the moment.

This week gave us the 100-400mm f/5.6-8 OSS lens, a US$850 consumer companion that slots well under the US$4300 100-400mm f/4.5GM that was also recently introduced. No G, slower aperture, and no tripod collar are the most noticeable differences, but 23 ounces (654g) is also quite light for a lens of this focal range. Morever, it’s very Tamron-like in its use of 67mm front filters. Surprisingly, you get a focus limiter switch, an OSS on/off switch, an Fn button, the lens works at up to 120 fps on the Sony bodies, and it also works with Sony’s 1.4x and 2x teleconverters (giving you 140-560mm f/8-11 and 200-800mm f/11-16, respectively).

The Week of Strange News

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 13:22:02 -0700

LEDE ON

Sometimes a week goes by without any interesting or significant camera product announcements, but in which there turned out to be lots of photography-adjacent news. Last week was one of those weeks. Even Apple is now actively reporting supply chain constraints and pricing impacts for future products. Smaller players—which includes all of the camera makers—will have bigger issues. Without further ado:

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Commentary

Sony Makes Buyout Offer for Tamron

I was just about to write a longer article about consolidation when Tamron’s acknowledgement that Sony had made a buyout offer for Tamron hit the news wires.

This appears to be related to the fact that Tamron recently found itself the target of an aggressive overseas investment firm (Effissimo Capital Management, based in Singapore), which has now managed to gobble up over 17% of Tamron’s stock. It’s a long, complex story, but Japanese companies generally regroup when under foreign ownership attack. Sony, which has the second biggest ownership stake in Tamron, likely made its US$1.2 billion buyout offer for Tamron partly to keep Tamron Japanese. It doesn’t hurt that Tamron is an integral part of the E-mount success, and that Tamron’s second biggest relationship is with Nikon, who is a coopetitor with Sony (i.e. Nikon and Sony have both a cooperative and competitive relationship that dates back to the previous century).

Sony Keeps Making News

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 13:22:02 -0700

LEDE ON

The camera makers are finally waking from their annual and management meetings, and still-greenlit projects are starting to appear as the chips they need get delivered. Word from Godzillaland is that Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, and Sony (again) all have camera announcements that will be made either just prior or just after Labor Day.

The talk at the Sushi Bars in Tokyo these days is all about component costs, as in “what are we going to do about those cost increases?” Meanwhile, the yen has weakened 10%+ to the dollar this year, so these two items now have all the bean counters frantically counting beans. How many beans you’ll need to spend is still not known for a couple of those new products. I hope you’ve been saving beans up.

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News

If You’re a Video User, Sony Has Something for You

This week gave us the FX5, Sony’s latest “handheld” video camera. The big but slightly strange news is that this is a 5K Open Gate camera (meaning 5K across a 3:2 aspect ratio). The camera will do that 16.6mp capture at 60P open gate, or you can have it do 120P in 16:9 format, or even 240P in 4K. Sony finally gave one of their lower end cameras raw recording (X-OCN, plus new C1 and C2 compressed versions not yet supported in editing applications).

Back to No News, Just Comments

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 06:35:13 -0700

LEDE ON

You probably thought I was done writing about tariffs. Sure, the courts overturned the Section 122 tariffs and companies (but not you) have started getting rebates, but the Trump Administration has since imposed additional tariffs under Section 301. Section 122 tariffs were 10% to all countries with a trade deficit to the US, while Section 301 tariffs are 12.5% to 60 countries using forced labor (many dispute this).

However, there’s now a Trump Playbook in effect at retail. The key play: before tariffs take effect increase your imports so that you have adequate inventory for the foreseeable future and courts get involved again. The idiocy of the recent US trade policies are thus revealed in this latest round: retailers basically are increasing the trade deficits in their sectors short term, which, of course, supposedly someone in DC wanted decreased instead. Can you say “own goal”?

Still, in case you haven’t noticed, the camera companies took the last tariff opportunity to increase their list pricing for many items. As a company, you don’t get many chances to raise pricing and not be the entity that customers complain about. The new higher pricing coupled with tariff rebates from last round have allowed what looks like big discounts. For example, a Nikon Z8 now lists at US$4300 and currently features a US$800 discount. Yet when it came out it was US$4000, thus today’s discounts are really a net of US$500.

Finally, Some News

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 06:35:13 -0700

LEDE ON

Along with news comes rumors, as the camera industry tends to be pretty leaky. I don’t tend to discuss rumors much, as I prefer to deal with information about existing products, not imaginary ones (even if the imaginary is likely to become reality).

While it seems like Japan has been sleeping, it’s mostly been a nap caused by supply chain issues coupled with the fact that great camera products already exist, so making even better ones is getting tougher to do. At the moment it appears that the Tokyo's hirune is going to end with the summer, and we’ll have a fairly interesting late summer, early fall. Heck, even the Sony RX line seems to have Rip-Van-Winkled back into awakeness, with the RX100VII manufacturing seeming to renew once ~~a USB-C connector was found~~ they took out in-camera charging, the RX1R III getting more pixels and USB-C, and now the RX10 waking up after a very long nap (see next). So, Sony has the RX for waking up (see what I did there?), does everyone else?

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Adobe Lightroom, Third and Final Round

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 06:35:13 -0700

My Lightroom comments continue to get a lot of attention, so we’ll continue the conversation one last time.

First up, I want to point out that my dilemma isn’t that Lightroom doesn’t have a lot of features or performance. It’s soley my observation that I’m not sure that Adobe is doing enough to both satisfy existing users and attract new ones for me to continue to recommend it as the go-to choice.

This centers on something I write about a lot: what user problem is being solved? For Lightroom, that originally was the late Jeff Schewe’s observation that now that serious photographers where taking many more photos, we needed a place to put them, organize them, and process them (when necessary). Lightroom’s genious was that it treated your ingested images as components in a database, but designed the database to operate in ways that would directly solve photographers’ key needs. The database itself was well hidden from the Lightroom user, but the benefits of the data-driven approach were externalized in a UI that was (mostly) what a photographer might want to use.