News/Views | Cameras and Photography Explained | Thom Hogan

For the last two weeks I’ve been barraged by people asking me to comment on the appearance of the ArtCraft clones of Adobe and Microsoft products. Whatever I have to say about them, though, will pale against the what both users and courts will eventually say about the clones. My first take is this: the (now) team behind this effort is sure good at storytelling and marketing. I’m also intrigued by the “Made by Artists, for Artists” tag line given that it really should read “Copied by AI, for AI…

An interview with Kazuto Yamaki of Sigma that appeared in LensVid raised an interesting point. I wonder how many people caught it. "Sigma doesn’t use AI to design lenses, for now. Mr. Yamaki said the knowledge required to make a high-quality lens is not available publicly; it is proprietary and kept inside the company…” As I’ve written a number of times, AI as being practiced at the moment is backwards looking, and the big AI companies have been scraping pretty much any information they can…

The camera makers weren’t ready for smartphones (again). That’s right, the smart folk in Tokyo have once again not been ready for something that was extremely predictable in the phone market. What did they miss this time? The inevitable sales plateau for phones, particularly given the cost increases for the latest models as the smartphone makers try to cram several kitchen sinks into their camera slabs. Depending upon whose surveys you believe, smartphone unit volume is anywhere from flat (0%…

PetaPixel came up with their “full-frame power rankings” on a recent podcast. For a group that has been accused of being not-entirely-Nikon-supportive, the list seriously contradicts that: Nikon Z8Sony A7VCanon R6 IIISony A7R VINikon Z5IICanon R5 IILumix S1 IINikon D850Nikon Z5IICNikon ZfSay what? 50% Nikons? A DSLR in the midst of mirrorless? I’m really surprised that this list didn’t generate more commentary. Particularly because of #7 thru 10. More importantly, #1, #4, and #6 are all “money…

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…

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…

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…

LEDE ONAs 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.…

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…

LEDE ONThe 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…

LEDE ONThe 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…

LEDE ONTurns 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…

LEDE ONThis 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…

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…

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:…

LEDE ONWe’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? —————————— NewsKumamoto Back OnlineThe 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,…

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…

LEDE ONIt’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 foreward 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…

LEDE ONThe 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…

LEDE ONThe 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…

LEDE ONSometimes 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: —————————— CommentarySony Makes Buyout Offer for TamronI was just about to write a…

LEDE ONAlong 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…

LEDE ONYou 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:…

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,…

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. While he was extracated from his car and flown by helicopter to the Spartanville Medical Center, he died early Sunday morning from his injuries. Chas was the owner of shootthelight.com, and after a successful career in portrait and event photography, moved into wildlife…

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 Lightroom any more (though they do keep adding features to it, but usually after they do it for…

LEDE ONNeed 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 you don’t need super small process size, then SMIC (China), United Microelectronics (Taiwan),…

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. Perhaps Creative Suite diverted Photoshop a bit, as we ended up with features that helped support things…

LEDE ONIt 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. Several sites have even published a bizzare rumor that Viltrox will release a camera with the Z…

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 question is a pretty basic one that deserves an answer. For me, trying to replicate something someone else…