Camera
Accessory Roundup: mini Nikons, a desk arm, and new cages for new cameras
| Images: Dua Lipa, Three Legged Thing, Bandai Namco |
It’s the weekend, so that means we’re once again rounding up all the little accessories and gadgets that we heard about throughout the week. But first, let’s see what’s on sale this week…
Full Frame Gold
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The Sony a7R V.
Photo: Richard Butler |
The Sony a7RV, which has earned both a place on our best high-end cameras buyers guide and a gold award, is currently on sale for $500 off MSRP. It features a stabilized 61MP sensor, as well as Sony’s excellent autofocus system.
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The Nikon Z5.
Photo: Dan Bracaglia |
For those looking to spend a little less, the DPReview Gold-winning Nikon Z5 is also $400 off MSRP, which makes it just under $1,000 body only. It features a 24MP sensor, and while its autofocus and video are far from class-leading, its ergonomics and battery life help make up for those downsides – especially at this price.
Buy now:
You get a SmallRig, and YOU get a SmallRig
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The EOS R5 II is going into its cage, and it’s feeling just fine.
Image: SmallRig |
SmallRig has come out with a few new kits this week. The company has started selling versions of its ‘HawkLock’ quick-release cage and ‘Black Mamba’ ergonomic cage for the Canon EOS R5 Mark II now that the camera is starting to make its way to consumers. The company is also releasing a traditional basic cage for the EOS R5 II.
HawkLock cage kit for EOS R5 II:
Black Mamba cage kit for EOS R5 II:
The company has also released ‘Colorful Editions’ for the HawkLock cages for the Sony FX3 / FX30 and A7R V / A7 IV / A7S III. Similar to its last color event, it’s only selling a limited number of each, though there are fewer colors to choose from; you can only get the cages in red or orange this time around. They also come at a $5 price premium over their black counterparts.
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| Image: SmallRig |
On the other end of the photography/videography spectrum, SmallRig has also released a new kit for people serious about shooting video with their phones. Its ‘All-In-One Mobile Video Kit’ is a collaboration with YouTuber and filmmaker Brandon Li. It includes a cage, which you can attach to your phone using Apple’s Magsafe or a more traditional clamp, as well as a pair of handles, a 67mm filter plate, and a USB hub.
The handles have a few tricks beyond just giving you a place to grip your phone. One includes an m.2 SSD enclosure, which can be used for external ProRes recording on the iPhone 15 Pro. It also has an integrated Bluetooth remote, which acts as a wireless shutter and zoom control for Android phones and iPhones.
SmallRig is offering several different bundles of the video kit, and you can buy several of the components separately.
Buy now:
An always-with you card reader
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| Image: Anker |
If your phone is less of your main camera and more of an accessory to your photography, Anker’s latest MagSafe offering may be for you. It’s a puck that adds an SD and TF card reader to the back of your phone, so you can offload pictures from a dedicated camera to share on social media or upload to the cloud.
The MagGo USB-C Adapter has an integrated USB-C cable, which plugs into your phone to enable data transfer. It also has a USB-C port on the side, which allows it to also act as a pass-through charger if you connect it to a power adapter or battery bank. According to Anker it can output up to 42.5W, and supports data speeds up to 312MB/s (though the iPhone 15’s USB-C port is limited to much slower USB 2.0 speeds).
Of course, you can also connect the MagGo’s cable to a computer, which will let it act as a USB-C hub and card reader dongle.
Buy now:
The Desk Arm
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This could be an incredibly easy way to mount a camera and ring light to your desk.
Image: Three Legged Thing |
Three Legged Thing has announced a series of accessories called the ‘Camera Desk Mount System.’ At its heart is an extending pole that you can clamp to a table or desk with a ball head and 1/4″-20 thread on top. Also available is an accessory arm that clamps to the pole and that can be purchased in straight or articulating varieties.
The company is marketing the system towards content creators making videos for TikTok, Reels, and Twitch, but it could also be handy for photographers who often find themselves needing to get top-down shots of their desk (or for people who want a place to mount their extra-fancy webcam). It can hold items up to 1kg (2.2lbs).
The upright mount costs $35 on its own, and you can get a kit with a single accessory arm for $50 or the articulating arm for $60. You can also get the arms a la carte for $23 and $30, respectively.
Buy now:
Tiny Nikons
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| Image: Bandai Namco |
This next pick isn’t an accessory for your camera but rather a camera-shaped accessory for your desk, keychain, or bookshelf. Nikon has partnered with Bandai Namco to create miniature versions of the Nikon F, Z Fc, SP, and Z9, which will be sold through capsule vending machines known as gashapons.
Each plastic figurine comes with a specific ‘lens,’ though they are removable, so you might be able to mix and match them if you had multiple models. According to The Verge, they’re only available in Japan. Those of us elsewhere will have to be happy just knowing these exist in the world.
Radical optimism about film
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| Image: Dua Lipa |
The final piece of gear doesn’t come from a camera retailer but from a pop star’s merch shop. Dua Lipa, the artist behind hits like ‘New Rules’ and ‘Don’t Start Now,’ is now selling a ‘reusable 35mm underwater camera’ on her merch store (via Kosmo Foto). It has a 28mm F9 ‘focus free’ lens, according to the very colorful box.
The camera’s branded with the name of her latest album ‘Radical Optimism,’ and includes a lanyard and waterproof shell that’ll work down to 3m (approx. 10ft). However, the package doesn’t include any film, which is a bit of a bummer given its $40 price tag – you can currently get a 27-shot waterproof disposable for around $13, which is unfortunately cheaper than most rolls of color ISO 800 film these days. It’s also worth noting that Fujifilm and Kodak’s one-time-use waterproofs are rated to go over twice as deep as Dua’s.
However, it’s probably worth looking at this camera with some… optimism, for lack of a better word. If a Dua Lipa fan sees it, buys it, and has fun with it, that’s one more person keeping film alive. How’s that for Future Nostalgia?
| Image: Halide |
It’s now even easier to replace your iPhone’s default camera app with Halide, a third-party option that offers advanced camera features, such as manual shutter speed and ISO control, histograms and even a mode that claims to strip away almost all of Apple’s AI image processing. Halide’s 2.16 update, out today, lets you add it as a control on your lock screen, which means you can use it to take pictures without unlocking your phone.
Previously, Apple’s default camera app was the only one you could use without entering your passcode or using biometric authentication such as FaceID or TouchID. That gave it a speed advantage over third-party options.
Apple used to add an extra step if you wanted to use a third-party camera app
Halide and apps like it could provide lock screen widgets that live under the clock, but unlike the shortcuts at the bottom of the screen, those would only work after you’d unlocked your phone. The tiny bit of extra time and friction could be the difference between getting the shot and missing it, and that’s the problem Halide’s latest update lets you sidestep.
The one catch is that you’ll have to update to the brand-new iOS 18 to get this functionality. Once you’re running the latest OS and have downloaded the new Halide update, you can long-press on your lock screen, then press the ‘Customize’ button. From there, tap your lock screen again, then tap the remove button on whichever shortcut you’d like to replace with Halide. (Camera and Flashlight are the default shortcuts.) It should now be a blank ‘+’ button that you can tap to bring up the Controls selector, which you can use to select Halide from the Capture section.
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| Selecting Halide from the Capture section will let you launch it straight from the lock screen. |
After doing this, you’ll be able to jump straight to Halide from the lock screen without having to authenticate with your passcode or biometrics (though you’ll still have to unlock your phone if you want to do anything else with it). You can also still access the default camera app from the lock screen by swiping left from the right edge of the screen.
If Halide isn’t your preferred camera app, fear not; other developers should also be able to implement this feature, providing they update their apps for iOS 18.
While the lock screen shortcut is the fastest way to access the camera on Apple’s current phones, that will change with the upcoming iPhone 16 and 16 Pro, which include a dedicated ‘Camera Control’ that will launch the camera. While Apple has said that you’ll be able to use the button’s touch sensitivity in third-party apps to adjust various settings, it’s currently unclear whether you’ll be able to launch those apps with it as well. If Apple only allows you to launch its app with the control, it would put the stock app back on top, at least in terms of how fast you can open it.
You can download Halide via the App Store. It costs $19.99 a year, or $2.99 a month, and is also available as a $59.99 one-time purchase.
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The APS-C chip in the Samsung NX1 was the largest BSI CMOS sensor we’d then seen. It would be another four years before one was used again, in the Fujifilm X-T3.
Photo: DPReview.com |
Ten years ago today, in 2014, Samsung announced its flagship mirrorless camera, the NX1. Built around Samsung’s own 28MP APS-C BSI-CMOS sensor, the NX1 arrived with a level of performance not previously seen in a mirrorless camera.
The NX1 featured a hybrid autofocus system with phase-detect AF points across 90% of the frame, 15fps burst shooting (along with an AF system that could keep up), 4K video and impressive wireless and Bluetooth connectivity. And, at a body-only price of $1499, it arrived at a competitive price for its class.
When I was assigned to lead the review of the NX1, Samsung was barely on my radar as a camera manufacturer. Of course, I knew Samsung manufactured cameras, but like many serious photographers, I had never used one. To be blunt, I was blown away by what the NX1 could do, and it turned out to be the most capable mirrorless camera I had experienced to date.
I had used quite a few mirrorless cameras before the NX1, but the NX1 reset my expectations for what a mirrorless camera could do, and it felt like the first one that had the potential to replace a high-performance DSLR. The biggest compliment I could give it was that after using it for a short time, I stopped thinking about the fact that it was a mirrorless camera and just got on with the business of taking photos. I was so impressed that I picked the NX1 as my 2014 Gear of the Year.
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You wouldn’t mistake the NX1’s 2.76M-dot OLED viewfinder for an optical viewfinder. Still, the implementation was good enough that after a short time, I stopped noticing it and focused on taking photos, a task for which the EVF was exceptionally well-designed.
Photo: Dale Baskin |
The NX1 built a reputation for pushing the limits of mirrorless technology, and over the years, it acquired an almost mythical status in camera lore. Even now, I hear people speculate about what the camera industry might look like today if Samsung had remained in the business.
To be clear, many modern mirrorless cameras can run rings around the NX1 thanks to technologies like AI-based autofocus, stacked sensors, and video tools like Log gamma and internal ProRes or Raw recording. However, the NX1 was ahead of the curve, and it took several more years for those other advancements to come to fruition.
“The NX1 built a reputation for pushing the limits of mirrorless technology, and over the years, it acquired an almost mythical status in camera lore.”
How far ahead of the curve was it? Far enough that many people didn’t even have computers capable of playing the H.265 video files the camera produced. The NX1 was the first time I can remember listing the same feature – the H.265 (HEVC) video codec – as both a pro and a con in the conclusion: pro because the codec was more advanced than the H.264 codec in everyday use at the time, pointing the way to the future, and con because many users had to run the NX1’s video files through third-party software to convert it to a format that they could open on their computers.
The NX1 was by no means perfect. In our review, I called out the over-sensitive touch screen and some awkwardly located buttons, but these weren’t significant shortcomings.
One factor that impressed us was Samsung’s commitment to improving the camera through firmware updates. It provided several updates in the months after launch, some of which added significant features or performance improvements, particularly for video.
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| I was so impressed by the NX1 that I picked it as my 2014 Gear of the Year. Unfortunately, Samsung exited the camera market a few months later. |
In fact, a firmware update was responsible for delaying our review of the NX1 by a couple of months. About three days before our first review was set to publish, Samsung sent us a new firmware update that was only days from public release. It changed and improved the camera so much that it rendered much of our review obsolete. As a result, I had to retest almost every major feature on the camera, a task that took several weeks, and I essentially wrote an entirely new review, which is the version you read on DPReview.
Despite the fact that Samsung exited the dedicated camera market years ago, I have to admit that I still sometimes wonder how the industry might be different today if Samsung had stayed the course, creating competitive products that pushed the limits of what technology could do in a mirrorless camera. Of course, we’ll never know, but it’s certainly fun to speculate.
DPReview Editors’ Choice photo challenge: top picks
For our most recent Editors’ Choice photo challenge, themed ‘The Dog Days of Summer’, we asked readers to share pictures showing how they embraced summer’s hot, sweltering days. After submissions closed last week, our editors spent several days carefully reviewing all the entries and collectively selected our favorites.
With over 300 entries to choose from, our task was challenging, and we were reminded of how much talent exists within our DPReview community. Numerous photos could have made the cut – many more than we can present here – but we had to whittle it down to a manageable number.
On that note, we present our top 20 picks from this Editors’ Choice photo challenge. And if we didn’t get to feature your photo this time around, watch for our next photo challenge!
Sunset smile
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Photographer: luka3rd
Description: My daughter enjoying the last sun rays on one of the summer evenings. It was taken in the village of Nea Skioni in Greece during our vacation in June of this year.
Equipment: Canon EOS R6 Mark II and Canon RF 50mm F1.8 STM
I think someone’s watching…
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Description: Friends pose for a shot during a much needed hot summer dip in the Burrard Inlet (Vancouver, BC), with Bowen Island in the distance.
Equipment: Canon AE-1 Program and Canon FD 50mm F1.4
A parade for the love of clay
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Photographer: mikolaj_szary
Description: For years, I have been traveling during the Summer to Bolesławiec, a Polish city in Lower Silesia, where clay has been made for centuries. I go there whenever there is the annual ceramic festival, which takes place for several days. The most picturesque part of those days is a procession of people getting painted with clay, who are dressed in unique costumes. Everyone takes part in this parade. Creativity counts. I took this photo during this year’s parade on a hot Saturday afternoon.
Equipment: Canon EOS 50D and Canon EF 24-70mm F4L IS USM
High altitude hiking
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Photographer: NZ Scott
Description: On the Mestia-Ushguli Trail, Georgia.
Equipment: Sony RX100 VII
Dog days of summer
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Photographer: TimJoeBill
Description: I saw this dog enjoying the view from a camper van on the coast in Highland, Scotland, on a rare warm and sultry August day.
Equipment: Leica SL2-S and Leica Summilux-M 50mm F1.4 ASPH
Untitled
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Photographer: Battery_Kinzie
Description: Taken on Lake Zürich, in Strandbad Tiefenbrunnen. It was a boiling hot day. This photo was taken at 20:16, and it was still warm enough that a cooling dip in (or dive into) the lake was an attractive proposition.
Equipment: Sony a6000
Ladies in Castelluccio
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Photographer: Andrea Beneventi
Description: The traditional flowering of lentils in Castelluccio di Norcia.
Equipment: Canon EOS 700D
Dock jump sunset
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Photographer: owenleve
Description: Oliver Dock jumping at sunset. Donner Lake. Truckee, California. Enjoying the dog days of summer. Taken standing chest-deep in the lake.
Equipment: Nikon Z9 and Nikkor Z 14-30mm F4.5
Chillin’ in the middle of the river
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Photographer: Dondog
Description: Happy day in Chesterfield Gorge, Massachusetts.
Equipment: Canon EOS 5D Mark III and Canon EF 40mm F2.8 STM
Untitled
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Photographer: Ab S
Description: Mietze enjoying sun warmth (like only a cat can).
Equipment: Sony RX10 IV
Fishing at sunrise
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Photographer: kodakrome
Description: Fishing at sunrise on a warm August morning. Garden City Beach, South Carolina.
Equipment: Canon EOS R8 and Canon RF 600mm F11 IS STM
Fair winner
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Photographer: JeffryzPhoto
Description: Summer means county or state fairs, this being the San Diego County Fair. A girl proudly takes home her prize.
Equipment: Fujifilm X-T4 and Fujifilm XF 16mm F1.4 R WR
Launch into summer
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Photographer: Orangutaan
Description: A friend poses for a shot during a much needed hot summer dip in the Burrard Inlet (Vancouver, BC), with Bowen Island in the distance.
Equipment: Canon AE-1 Program and Canon FD 50mm F1.4
The trampoline
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Photographer: mcxxrr
Description: Taken in Rhodes. Loved all that was happening on the stairs and the boy discussing the far boat with the girl.
Equipment: OM System OM-D E-M1 Mark ii and Olympus M.Zuiko ED 12-100m F4 IS Pro
Admiring the sunset
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Photographer: CanmorePat
Description: A Rocky Mountain goat admires the sunset in his home in the Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia.
Equipment: Sony a6600 and Sony 18-35mm F3.5-5.6 OSS
The joys of summer
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Photographer: Albert kings
Description: My daughter celebrating the little but most memorable things.
Equipment: Apple iPhone X
Where’d it go?
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Photographer: ULprof
Description: In a late afternoon golf tournament my son was playing in, I snapped this picture of all the kids looking off into the sunset as they desperately tried to track where their golf balls went.
Equipment: Sony a7R IV and Sony 70-200mm F2.8 G SSM II
4th of July pool time!
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Photographer: AlexeyV
Description: lol party for 4th of July, my son showing off his jumping skills.
Equipment: Fujifilm X100VI
The golden wings of summer glow
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Photographer: Ritam Melgunov
Description: The egret flying up in the sunset glow. Captured at the end of August specifically for the Challenge. Surroundings of Gatchina, Leningrad region, Russia. My poem: How nice ‘tis to be a bird! A waft — and you are awing! A bird has no debt or deed, He can simply fly and sing— How nice ‘tis to be a bird! O freedom! O breadth! O flight! No bond, no care, no curb— Just soar to the happy height!— A bird speaks no hurting word Nor lies — a bird lives a dream— How nice ‘tis to be a bird! Oh, yes! I would fly with him!
Equipment: Canon EOS R7
Find your beach
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Photographer: rshoub
Description: We were late getting off to the beach, but that didn’t stop our granddaughter from getting a head start. Here she is on a blanket of sun coming through the skylight onto the floor of our Rhode Island summer rental cottage.
Equipment: Sony RX10
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