Sunday, September 27, 2026

The software story matters more than any camera release this week. Adobe's Topaz acquisition is done, and for now the standalone apps keep working the way they always have. That won't last forever, Adobe has said as much, so if you lean on Topaz Photo or Gigapixel as a fixed part of your workflow, treat this as the calm before the subscription push.

On the camera side, nobody launched anything genuinely new. Nikon carved a cheaper full-frame body out of an existing one, dropping the EVF and a card slot to hit $1,399. OM Digital did the opposite, quietly ending the E-M10 IV rather than replacing it. Viltrox kept doing what Viltrox does, adding four more sub-$200 autofocus primes to L-mount in a system that badly needed them. If you're shopping on a budget this month, that's where the actual movement is, not in flagship announcements.

Sony's FX5 slipped for the second time, now pushed to end of October with still no explanation given. Canon's next RF macro is only a rumour for now, sitting below the existing 100mm L in the lineup if it's real. Neither is worth planning around yet.

The more interesting stories this week weren't about gear at all. Major photo agencies pulled their cameras from White House events over press access, worth watching if you shoot news or documentary work here. Bird Photographer of the Year handed its top prize to an underwater shot of a gannet mid-dive, and two archives got their moment: David Lynch's photography got its first posthumous show, and Martine Barrat's decades inside Harlem and the Bronx ran as a picture essay.

Next week: the FX5's actual ship date, whether Canon confirms anything on that macro, and Meta's VR headset starting to take shape as a filmmaking tool ahead of its spring 2027 launch.