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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
Chas Glatzer, fellow adventurer in nature photography and someone I’ve been with on trips multiple times over the years, has passed after being involved a three-vehicle collision on Interstate 85 on Thursday, June 25th.trna While he was extracated from his car and flown by helicopter to the Spartanburg Regional Medical Center, he died early Sunday morning from his injuries. Chas was the owner of…
Well, that story woke you up! My comments about Adobe possibly missing a step with Lightroom provoked quite a few of you to send me an email. Indeed, more so than any other article this year, and by a fair margin. As such, it’s worth dipping into your comments and questions and doing a follow up. It seems a lot of you agreed with my basic contention that Adobe isn’t exactly innovating with…
LEDE ON Need a state-of-the-art semiconductor produced for your camera? Due to the process size race, there are only three companies that can really make super advanced chips for you: TSMC, Samsung, and Intel. Worse news? 70% of those advanced chips are currently being produced by TSMC (source: Taipei Times), and according to sources their fab orders are already full through the end of 2028. If…
Adobe’s history with imaging dates far back, and I remember using the original Photoshop alpha version back in the late 1980’s with a Barneyscan (I believe it was Photoshop version 0.65 that was labeled as the Barneyscan application I was using). Photoshop had at its core the mission to compose and edit image data at the pixel level, something that has been expanded on ad finitum ever since.…
LEDE ON It feels a bit like Back to the Future at the moment, as some Web sites are deciding to just talk about future products, such as Sony’s announcement that they’re working on the Rialto 65, a new medium format option for the Venice video camera. But that’s a next-year camera. Or perhaps “ Why No Canon R7 II This Year? ” Canon’s top crop sensor model is now apparently also a next-year camera.…
I’ve previously written about imitation (e.g. Two Approaches to Photography ), but a recent question asked in the Photography section of Reddit caught my interest and is a really good one: “ When you look at a photographer you love [and try to imitate them] what are you actually trying to replicate? ” We don’t ask ourselves enough questions about the photography side of photography, and that…
Get ready for new controversy. We’ve had several big changes in how lenses are designed in the digital era, and more are coming. The two biggest differences in 21st century lenses have been improvements in computer modeling during the design process coupled with using in-camera “corrections” to “fix” aspects that aren’t addressed by the optical design itself. “Corrections” and “fix” are in quotes…
“[Panasonic L10 is] the most exciting camera of 2026 (so far)” — 43rumors headline repeating a dpreview headline. Hmm. The L10 was the second camera announced in 2026 when dpreview published that headline. By the time the headline appeared in 43 rumors, the L10 was the second of only four cameras announced in 2026. So 43rumors has a one in four chance of being right instead of just clickbaiting…
It’s been a tough year so far, with a number of unexpected external issues causing me to fall behind my original schedule, including a family emergency that has me bouncing back and forth across the country. I’ve had far less office time this year than expected, so getting big projects done in a timely fashion has been difficult. Here are my new estimated launch times for projects you know about…
Once again we have a camera manufacturer (Panasonic with the L10) announcing that orders for a new camera “greatly exceeds our expectations.” The actual truth: orders exceeded what they can deliver initially. Why not just say that? By using the “exceeds our expectations” wording, the Japanese are constantly saying, in essence, that they are producing cameras that that they thought wouldn’t have…
LEDE ON It seems that the camera producers are all claiming that they’ve “secured” memory and some other critical part supplies for the year. I noted that in at least one case they also talked about increased pricing, though. Meanwhile, CaptureOne doesn’t have a parts issue, but they’ve now announced that their pricing will go up 6%. Frankly, in times of inflation I expect everyone pushes their…
One thing that people don’t always expect with the long march of technology is that things go away. We’re nearing the end of USB-A, for instance, with virtually everything now coming only with USB-C due to European regulations. Frankly, the camera makers seem a bit behind the times. With my Insta360 and DJI devices, for example, they only have a USB-C port, but my current cameras have many. Too…
A major family emergency has arisen that requires my attention, plus I’ve got some client obligations this month, so I’ve decided to take May off from posting. I’ll be back in early June with, I’m sure, a lot of thoughts and new information. Maybe even with the redesigned site, though that will depend upon how distracted I get by the family situation. The good news is that things are moving slowly…
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…