Latest Gear Reviews

Huawei's smartphone imaging innovation has come a long way since the introduction of XMage color science four years ago. The Pura series, previously known as the P series, has held its title as a photography flagship for even longer, consistently packing in all the greatest imaging technology. This year is no different with the introduction of the Pura 90s Pro Max. Huawei combines its latest True-to-Color 2.0 sensor with an industry-leading, ultra-large-sensor telephoto camera, pushing the imaging envelope to new heights, offering even more flexibility for users to express themselves through their unique perspective.

Recently, I had the chance to try out the new Wacom MovinkPad Pro 14. It wasn't that long ago that I experimented with Wacom's One 13 Touch. Although the MovinkPad Pro 14 isn't built specifically for photographers, the upgrade in my experience over the Wacom One Touch was significant. As an adventure guide and photographer, I travel to a minimum of four continents a year, and the portability of the MovinkPad Pro 14 really does draw me in past the drawbacks of pushing it outside its native operating system or purpose.

For years the honest answer to "is the phone camera good enough?" came with an asterisk. Good enough in nice light. Good enough if you did not zoom. Good enough until the sun went down. I have carried an iPhone 17 Pro Max since launch weekend, and after nine months of pointing it at nearly every situation I run into, the asterisk is mostly gone. This is the first iPhone where the answer to "can it handle that?" was just yes, across reach, dark, wide, close, and the kind of dramatic sky I cannot stop photographing.

The Bluetti Elite 400 is a 3,840 Wh portable power station that rolls, and that second detail turns out to matter almost as much as the first. This is a nearly 4 kWh LiFePO4 battery with a 2,600 W pure sine wave inverter, built into a case with luggage wheels and a telescoping handle, and it is aimed squarely at the gap between the little 1,000 Wh boxes you carry with one hand and the 100-pound bricks you never actually move. That gap is exactly where a lot of real-world power lives: a computer you do not want to lose in an outage, a fridge to keep cold when the grid goes down, a campsite to run, and a permanent pile of batteries and devices that need charging.

The Fujifilm X half is a machine for time travel, and the destination is roughly 1997. It takes the experience of a cheap, cheerful point-and-shoot film camera, the kind you took on school trips and to parties and then left in a drawer, and rebuilds the whole thing in digital form: the vertical half-frame photos, the wind-on lever, the roll you have to finish before you can see anything, even the little date stamp burned into the corner. It is not trying to make better pictures than your phone. It is trying to make taking pictures fun again, the specific analog kind of fun a lot of us have not felt since we were kids, and against my expectations, it absolutely succeeds.

If you shoot long exposures at night, you know the frustration — your intervalometer dangling from your camera, swinging in the breeze, pulling on the cable. Not good. The Ruggard RTC-10 Timer-Remote Case (Standard) fixes that with a padded holder that straps directly to your tripod leg. It works great, with one Velcro gripe we'll get to shortly.

For my photo tour in Iceland, I wanted to go lightweight. I had my eye on the new Think Tank FocusPoint 30L because it just looks great. Amazingly, my gear did fit in this compact photo backpack, and I took it with me to Iceland. Let me tell you about my experiences.

About six months ago, PolarPro sent me their new Portra filter. On their website it states, "Inspired by the look and feel of Portra 400 film… the Portra Filter blends color tone, diffusion, and glare reduction into one optical filter for a finished look." Hmm, sorry, it looks nothing like Portra 400 film. And I hadn't even put the filter on my camera at this point. I simply looked at the sample photos on their website, and thought about all the photos I've shot on Portra film.

Every desk has one ugly corner: the gray knot of chargers and power bricks that no cable management ever truly tames. The Anker Nano Power Strip (10-in-1, 70W, Clamp) clamps to your desk edge and swallows that knot whole, and after a month running my entire charging setup off it, I'm not going back.

Fujifilm's original XF16-55mm f/2.8 lens has long been considered one of the best in the X-mount lineup, and is a lens I've owned and loved to use for many years. I know from personal experience that it's truly one of the best, whether discussing sharpness, detail, autofocus, build quality, or usability.

The Photoolex BB Series is a new modular camera battery charging system designed for professional photographers and videographers. Each model supports major battery types, including Sony NP-FZ100, Nikon EN-EL15c, Canon LP-E6P, and Fujifilm NP-W235.

Everybody loves a good pancake. A pancake lens, that is. Though some pancake lenses sacrifice quality for the sake of size, this new EVO lens begs to differ. 

I've been looking for new ways to exhibit my photo and video work, ways that aren't tied to white walls or interior spaces. That search led me toward projectors, and I found one that fits. The appeal of something untethered is obvious in the fact that you can take your work almost anywhere. I initially expected I'd need a separate power station, but instead I found a quality projector with a built-in battery, making the whole setup far simpler than I'd imagined.

At this point, there are so many brands of gimbals that it can be hard to know which direction to go, especially with heavy-hitting names like DJI at the forefront of most publications and media outlets. But when I saw the MT3 Pro from Hohem, there was a standout feature that made me pause.

I had the good fortune of spending some time with Sony's new RX10 V, and I shot the entire range of my life with it. A World Cup match here in Seattle one weekend, then a family outing to the Ballard Locks the next.

Owing to the growing popularity of Leica cameras in recent years, a bunch of new lens manufacturers have sprung up to provide much cheaper alternatives to Leica lenses. And what's particularly exciting is that, with the aid of modern technology, many rare and desirable Leica lenses from the past can now be reproduced with incredible accuracy.

Today I'll have a look at an exciting new lens option for filmmakers, the Zhongyi Zone T1 cinema lens.

There are lenses that photographers buy because they need them, and there are lenses photographers buy because they can't stop thinking about them.

The 200mm f/2 sits firmly in the latter category.

This lens is the perfect example of why one should not judge a lens by its cover. While it may seem like any other budget fast prime, it offers a real, visible difference for your images.

To paraphrase a favorite pair of authors of mine: once is never, twice is always. Not sure where the third and fourth times something goes wrong rates. 

Because that's how many times my Leica MP pulled my bulk-loaded film out of the canister. Not the camera's fault; instead, the cheap tape I've been using didn't seem to be holding up to the stress of those final few tugs of the film advance. The first time it was something important: two dozen arrests during a protest downtown. Thankfully the rest were less important, mostly technical shots for this lens review.

Why fix what isn't broken? Well, Viltrox seems to have a good subtle reason as to why it did with the 35mm f/1.2 LAB (N) that photographers might appreciate.

Thypoch has been slowly making a name for itself in the industry and is no stranger today to creating modern manual lenses that pay homage to classic lenses—starting with the Simera, Eureka, and now the Ksana. The 21mm f/3.5 Asph is Thypoch's first entry in the new "Ksana" series, designed to be an ultra-light and compact everyday lens with vintage rendering. If you must know, the name Ksana comes from the Sanskrit word Kṣaṇa (क्षण /ˈksɑːnə/), representing the eastern concept of the "instant" or the duration of a sudden enlightenment.

Following my recent speculation about M-mount lenses being the next big thing, the M-mount ecosystem has seen some truly exciting developments lately. Even in such a niche and crowded market, we are still getting frequent releases from companies like Thypoch. And after all the good releases, they still manage to surprise us every now and then to give us a reason to pick their lens.

 I used to think all fog machine liquid was the same. Never once had I considered that a new fog formula could be far better than what I've been using for decades. PMI's Vanishing Formula Kit has changed my opinion, and today I test it against three of the most popular portable fog systems on the market.