Camera
Accessory Roundup: NAB Edition!
| Images: SmallRig, Stroppa, Mitchell Clark, CalDigit |
This week was the National Association of Broadcasters’ trade show in Las Vegas, where video companies flocked to show off their new tools and accessories. For this week’s roundup we’re going to go over some of the coolest things we saw, though if video isn’t your thing, fear not – there’s plenty here for you, too.
First, though, let’s see what’s on sale.
Sales of the week
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| Photo: Canon |
Given that it’s a big week for video, it only felt right to highlight that the EOS R5 C – which is essentially the EOS R5 but with more cooling and video features – is currently on sale for $700 off.
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| Photo: Richard Butler |
For the more photo-focused, Sony’s also running a sale on its a7 IV, knocking $500 off the retail price.
Straps on demand
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| Image: Stroppa |
Stroppa is a company known for custom-making camera straps out of leather and rope, but the made-to-order nature of its products has always involved a bit of a wait between when you order your strap and when it arrives. The company is now selling a selection of its straps in what it calls “Drops,” meaning that they’re pre-made and will ship right after you place your order.
You’ll only be able to get certain styles, lengths and colors, though the company does offer an approximately 20% discount for its pre-made straps compared to if you custom-ordered the same configuration.
Lightweight camera bags
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| Image: PolarPro |
PolarPro has announced its RoadRunner lineup of camera bags, which aim to provide ample protection for your camera gear without being too heavy to carry.
The lineup includes 8 and 16L backpacks and three sizes of shoulder bag: a 1L sling for compact cameras like the Fujifilm X100 series, a 6L for a camera and a lens or two and a 12L for larger camera and lens combos, plus an iPad. The bags are padded, and the larger ones include dividers for arranging your gear. The backpacks also include rain covers and side-access hatches.
We took a closer look at the 6L shoulder bag, comparing it to the 7L Peak Design Outdoor Sling – you can read our thoughts on it here.
A new player in the CFexpress Type A game
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| Photo: SanDisk |
SanDisk has been making CFexpress Type B cards for a while now, but it just announced that it’s going to start making the smaller CFexpress Type A cards often used in Sony cameras, too. They’ll be part of its Pro-Cinema line, boasting a VPG-200 rating and write speeds of up to 1650 MBps, which should be sufficient for even the highest-end video modes on cameras like the Sony a7S III, a1 II or a9 III.
Even softer light
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| Image: ProFoto |
Profoto has launched a new ‘White’ line of softboxes, which it says will provide “softer, natural-looking illumination with reduced contrast and shadows” than more traditional softboxes. They do this by swapping the reflective silver interior for a white fabric one, which the company says will give your images a “smooth, flattering glow.”
The line includes softboxes in various shapes and sizes, which include built-in speed rings that should make them relatively easy to mount onto your light. They’re also compatible with some of the company’s other modifiers, like grids, diffusers and masks.
External Electronic variable ND
Electronic variable ND filters have been around in higher-end video-focused cameras for a while now, letting you easily adjust your exposure without having to reach to the front of the camera to twist a filter ring. However, while we’ve seen several concepts and prototypes of an external version, they haven’t been readily available to buy.
It seems like that’s about to change, though. According to Newsshooter, Tilta has said it’ll be launching its matte-box ready 4 x 5.65″ electronic variable ND filter this summer. The filter can cut your light by 1.5 to 5EV and can be remotely controlled by the company’s Nucleus system or by using a wheel built into the frame. According to a Tilta representative who spoke to Newsshooter, the company estimates it’ll cost between $400-500.
An ultra-rugged battery
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| Image: SmallRig |
SmallRig has announced its X-Touch Smart Triple-Proof V-Mount Battery X99. That’s a lot of information in one product name, but the main takeaway is that it’s a 99Wh V-mount battery that’s drop-resistant up to a height of 1.5m (4.9′) and has an IP54 dust and water resistance rating. Essentially, it’s designed to keep your devices powered even in rough conditions… oh, and it has a touchscreen to show various status indicators.
The battery has a variety of inputs and outputs; there are two USB C ports that you can use to recharge it or to charge other devices, a BP port, two D-Tap outputs, a USB A output and 8V and 12V outputs, just for kicks. The company says you can recharge the battery in as little as two hours via USB-C PD.
The ultimate dock
Accessory makers are starting to release products that support the latest ThunderBolt 5 standard, which offers speeds up to 120Gbps, triple what its predecessor was capable of. That list now includes CalDigit, one of the most well-known companies for docks and hubs.
This week, CalDigit announced the TS5 and TS5+ – versions of its flagship dock that now use ThunderBolt 5. Both can charge your laptop at up to 140W and drive three displays. The regular TS5, which costs $369, features three ThunderBolt 5 ports, plus one for connecting to your computer, as well as a host of other ports, including 2.5Gb Ethernet. It can support external drives with read speeds up to 6200MBps, double what the TS4 could do.
| TS5 | TS5+ | |
|---|---|---|
| ThunderBolt 5 | 3 + one uplink | 2 + one uplink |
| USB C 10Gbps | 3 | 5 |
| USB A 10Gbps | 2 | 5 |
| USB A 2.0 | 1 | N/A |
| Card readers | UHS II SD, microSD | UHS II SD, microSD |
| Ethernet | 2.5Gb | 10Gb |
| Dedicated display out | N/A | DisplayPort 2.1 |
| Audio | 3x 3.5mm (one in/out, one out, one in) | 3x 3.5mm (one in/out, one out, one in) |
The TS5 Plus takes things even further with 10Gb Ethernet, DisplayPort 2.1 output and a grand total of 20 ports. None of that comes cheap, though, as the company plans to sell it for $499. It’s also worth noting that all the extra USB ports come at the cost of one ThunderBolt 5 one.
An updated tube light
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| Image: Nanlite |
Nanlite announced the PavoTube II 6XR this week, a 25cm (10″) RGB light tube. It’s very similar to the PavoTube II 6C in that it has an internal battery and built-in magnets for mounting, but it adds the ability to individually program the tube’s 10 LEDs to create various effects. It also supports CRMX and DMX control, which could be useful if you’re on a professional set.
Compared to the 6C, the 6XR is slightly dimmer – it maxes out at 457 lumens versus 520 – and it costs $50 more, but if you need finer-grained control, it could be the way to go.
A pro grading monitor
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| Image: Asus |
Asus was at NAB this week showing off its recently-announced PA32UCDM ProArt QD-OLED display, which it says is “designed for professional content creators.” Its 32″ 4K panel can display 99% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, while running at 240Hz for buttery-smooth responsiveness. It has a “true 10-bit” panel – not an 8-bit one with dithering – and a peak brightness of 1000 nits, which means it supports HDR standards like Dolby Vision, HLG and HDR10.
You can connect to it via ThunderBolt 4 or 5, as well as HDMI 2.1, and it has a built-in USB hub. While its $1899 MSRP may seem like a lot, depending on how serious you are about monitors, for the specs it provides it actually seems like quite a good value.
Sony World Photography Awards Overall Winners
Sony’s World Photography Awards celebrated the 18th edition of its Overall Winners competition with a gala ceremony in London. Ten professional category winners received recognition for their work across multiple genres, including architecture, wildlife, portraiture, and landscape. Each winner participated in Insights, a day of industry talks, and received Sony digital imaging equipment as a prize.
British photographer Zed Nelson was named Photographer of the Year for The Anthropocene Illusion, a six-years-in-the-making documentary project examining how humans shape and simulate nature in an increasingly artificial world. He will have the opportunity to present an additional body of work at next year’s Sony World Photography Awards 2026 exhibition.
Olivier Unia was awarded Open Photographer of the Year for his image of a traditional Moroccan equestrian performance. Micaela Vidivia Medina was awarded Student Photographer of the Year for her series about incarcerated women in Chile’s prisons. Daniel Dian-Ji Wu won Youth Photographer of the Year for a skateboarding silhouette shot at sunset in Venice Beach, California.
Acclaimed documentary photographer Susan Meiselas was honored with the Outstanding Contribution to Photography award. Sixty of her images will be featured with more than 300 total prints, including the competition’s second and third-place finalists from the World Photography Awards, at Somerset House in London from April 17th to May 5th. You can see all of the winning images on the contest website, worldphoto.org.
Photographer of the Year
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Photographer: Zed Nelson
Series title: The Anthropocene Illusion
Description: In a tiny fraction of Earth’s history, humans have altered the world beyond anything it has experienced in tens of millions of years. Scientists are calling it a new epoch: The Anthropocene – the age of human. Future geologists will find evidence in the rock strata of an unprecedented human impact on our planet, from huge concentrations of plastics to the fallout from the burning of fossil fuels, and vast deposits of concrete used to build our cities.
We are forcing animals and plants to extinction by removing their habitats, and divorcing ourselves from the land we once roamed. Yet we cannot face the true scale of our loss. Somewhere within us the desire for contact with nature remains. ‘So, while we devastate the world around us, we have become masters of a stage-managed, artificial ‘experience’ of nature – a reassuring spectacle, an illusion.’
Over six years, and across four continents, Zed Nelson has explored how we immerse ourselves in increasingly choreographed and simulated environments to mask our destructive impact on the natural world.
Camera & equipment: Hasselblad X1D, D810, Mamiya RZ67, D850
Copyright: © Zed Nelson, United Kingdom, Photographer of the Year, Professional competition, Wildlife & Nature, Sony World Photography Awards 2025
Open Photographer of the Year: Motion Category
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Photographer: Olivier Unia
Series title: Tbourida La Chute
Description: Many of the photographs taken during a traditional Moroccan ‘tbourida’ show the riders firing their rifles. With this image, the photographer wanted to share another side of the event, and show how dangerous it can be when a rider is thrown from their mount.
Camera: Sony a7 IV
Copyright: © Olivier Unia, France, Open Photographer of the Year, Open Competition, Motion, Sony World Photography Awards 2025
Professional Category Winner: Architecture & Design
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Photographer: Ulana Switucha
Series title: The Tokyo Toilet Project
Description: The Tokyo Toilet Project is an urban redevelopment project in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan that involves the design and construction of modern public restrooms that encourages their use. The distinctive buildings are as much works of art as they are a public convenience. These images are part of a larger body of work documenting the architectural aesthetics of these structures in their urban environment.
Camera: Nikon Z7
Copyright: © Ulana Switucha, Canada, Winner, Professional competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2025
Professional Category Winner: Creative
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Photographer: Rhiannon Adam
Series title: Rhi-Entry
Description: Throughout history, 117 billion humans have gazed at the same moon, yet only 24 people – all American men – have seen its surface up close. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the artist discovered an application for the ultimate art residency: dearMoon. In 2018, Japanese billionaire and art collector Yusaku Maezawa announced a global search for eight artists to join him on a week-long lunar mission aboard SpaceX’s Starship – the first civilian mission to deep space.
The mission’s flight path would echo that of Apollo 8’s 1968 journey, which famously led astronaut Bill Anders to suggest NASA ‘should have sent poets’ to capture the sense of wonder he experienced. In 2021, Rhiannon Adam was chosen as the only female crew member from one million applicants, with the chance to achieve the seemingly impossible. For three years she immersed herself in the space industry, until, in June 2024, Maezawa abruptly canceled the mission, leaving the crew to pick up the pieces of their disrupted lives.
Camera & equipment: Polaroid SLR 680, RZ-67 pro II, Canon 5D MKIV, Wista Field, Apple Mac screenshot, iPhone 15 Pro Max, Canon EOS R
Copyright: © Rhiannon Adam, United Kingdom, Winner, Professional competition, Creative, Sony World Photography Awards 2025
Professional Category Winner: Documentary Projects
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Photographer: Toby Binder
Series title: Divided Youth of Belfast
Description: ‘If I had been born at the top of my street, behind the corrugated-iron border, I would have been British. Incredible to think. My whole idea of myself, the attachments made to a culture, heritage, religion, nationalism and politics are all an accident of birth. I was one street away from being born my “enemy.”’ Paul McVeigh, Belfast-born novelist.
Binder notes ‘there is hardly any other country in Europe where a past conflict is still as present in daily life as it is in Northern Ireland.’ It is not only the physical barriers – the walls and fences – but also the psychological divisions in society. For many years, Toby Binder has been documenting what it means for young people, all of whom were born after the peace agreement was signed, to grow up under this intergenerational tension in both Protestant and Catholic neighbourhoods.
Camera & equipment: Leica Q2, Mamiya 645 PRO TL
Copyright: © Toby Binder, Germany, Winner, Professional competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2025
Professional Category Winner: Environment
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Photographer: Nicolás Garrido Huguet
Series title: Alquimia Textil
Description: Alquimia Textil is a collaborative project undertaken by Nicolás Garrido Huguet and researcher and fashion designer María Lucía Muñoz, which showcases the natural dyeing techniques practiced by the artisans of Pumaqwasin in Chinchero, Cusco, Peru. The project aims to bring visibility to, and help preserve, these ancestral dyeing practices, which demand many hours of meticulous work that is often underestimated within the textile sector.
Industrial methods are close to displacing these traditional dyeing processes completely, while climate change threatens the plants that are crucial to these practices. These photographs feature three dye types: qolle (Buddleja coriacea), a shrub with yellow-producing flowers; ch’illka (Baccharis sp.), a shrub whose leaves and stems yield ochre and green hues; and cochineal (Dactylopius coccus), an Andean insect producing reds, carmines and purples in a broad color spectrum.
Camera & equipment: EM, Epson scanner v550, Nikon Z7 II, Mamiya RB67
Copyright: © Nicolás Garrido Huguet, Peru, Winner, Professional competition, Environment, Sony World Photography Awards 2025
Professional Category Winner: Landscape
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Photographer: Seido Kino
Series title: The Strata of Time
Description: This project invites viewers to consider what it means for a country to grow, and the advantages and disadvantages linked to that growth, by overlaying archival photographs from the 1940s-60s within current scenes of the same location. Early in Japan’s period of rapid economic growth from 1945 to 1973, the trade-off for affluence was pollution in many parts of the country. As an island, its land and resource constraints also led to an uneven population distribution.
Camera: Nikon D850
Copyright: © Seido Kino, Japan, Winner, Professional competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2025
Professional Category Winner: Perspectives
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Photographer: Laura Pannack
Series title: The Journey Home From School
Description: Making our way home from school is a simple, nostalgic, universal activity that we can all relate to. This project explores the tumultuous public lives of young people in the gang-governed Cape Flats area of Cape Town, South Africa, where their daily commute carries the risk of death.
Using handmade, lo-fi experimental techniques, this project explores how young people have to walk to and from school avoiding the daily threat of gang crossfire. Through poetry, analogue photography, drawings, collages and cyanotypes, an intimate portrayal of adolescence amidst stark social divides is created that offers a rare insight into this confusing and challenging world.
Camera & equipment: EZ Controller, 500cm
Copyright: © Laura Pannack, United Kingdom, Winner, Professional competition, Perspectives, Sony World Photography Awards 2025
Professional Category Winner: Portraiture
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Photographer: Gui Christ
Series title: M’kumba
Description: M’kumba is an ongoing project that illustrates the resilience of Afro-Brazilian communities in the face of local religious intolerance. Its name derives from an ancient Kongo word for spiritual leaders, before it was distorted by local society to demean African religions. For more than 300 years, nearly 5 million African people were brought to Brazil.
They lost their freedom, and their spiritualities were persecuted by colonial ideologies. Until 1970, Afro-Brazilian religions were criminalised, and due to longstanding prejudice they still face violence – more than 2,000 attacks were reported in 2024 alone. Although 56 per cent of Brazilians are of Afro-descent, fewer than 2 per cent identify as Afro-religious due to fear of persecution.
As an Afro-religious priest in training, Gui Christ wanted to photograph a proud, young generation representing African deities and mythological tales. Through intimate imagery, this project challenges prejudice while celebrating these spiritual traditions as vital to Brazil’s cultural identity.
Camera: Canon EOS R5
Copyright: © Gui Christ, Brazil, Winner, Professional competition, Portraiture, Sony World Photography Awards 2025
Professional Category Winner: Sport
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Photographer: Chantal Pinzi
Series title: Shred the Patriarchy
Description: M’kumba is an ongoing project that illustrates the resilience of Afro-Brazilian communities in the face of local religious intolerance. Its name derives from an ancient Kongo word for spiritual leaders, before it was distorted by local society to demean African religions.
For more than 300 years, nearly 5 million African people were brought to Brazil. They lost their freedom, and their spiritualities were persecuted by colonial ideologies. Until 1970, Afro-Brazilian religions were criminalised, and due to longstanding prejudice they still face violence – more than 2,000 attacks were reported in 2024 alone. Although 56 per cent of Brazilians are of Afro-descent, fewer than 2 per cent identify as Afro-religious due to fear of persecution.
As an Afro-religious priest in training, Gui Christ wanted to photograph a proud, young generation representing African deities and mythological tales. Through intimate imagery, this project challenges prejudice while celebrating these spiritual traditions as vital to Brazil’s cultural identity.
Camera: Canon EOS R5
Copyright: © Chantal Pinzi, Italy, Winner, Professional competition, Sport, Sony World Photography Awards 2025
Professional Category Winner: Still Life
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Photographer: Peter Franck
Series title: Still Waiting
Description: Still Waiting presents collages that capture moments of pause, of waiting. They depict the liminal space between events, a threshold where time seems to stretch, and meanings remain unfixed. The juxtaposition of objects within the space leaves room for interpretation, inviting surreal flights of thought. Everything is suspended, held in a fragile equilibrium where intervention feels imminent. Just fractions of a second away from some decisive action, the images linger in a fleeting moment of stillness, a breath before the world moves again.
Camera: N/A (unknown)
Copyright: © Peter Franck, Germany, Winner, Professional competition, Still Life, Sony World Photography Awards 2025
Student Photographer of the Year
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Photographer: Micaela Valdivia Medina
Series title: The Last Day We Saw the Mountains and the Sea
Description: This project explores the complexity of female prison spaces and the people who inhabit them, from the inmates to their families. The series consists of photographs of the architecture of the prisons, the neighbourhoods they are in, and the dynamics at the visitor and family member entrances. This project was carried out at the women's penitentiary centres of San Miguel, San Joaquín and Valparaíso, between the months of March and July 2024.
Camera & equipment: Canon EOS R, iPhone 12
Copyright: © Micaela Valdivia Medina, Peru, Student Photographer of the Year, Student Competition, Sony World Photography Awards 2025
Youth Photographer of the Year
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Photographer: Daniel Dian-Ji Wu
Image title: Eclipse of Motion
Description: Daniel Dian-Ji Wu took this photo during summer break in 2024, at Venice Beach Skatepark in LA during golden hour. The photographer captured this image of a skater mid-air, silhouetted against the sunset, expressing the raw energy of that moment. He says this image ‘made me feel a sense of passion and freedom.’
Camera & equipment: Sony a7 IV
Copyright: © Daniel Dian-Ji Wu, Taiwan, Youth Photographer of the Year, Youth Competition, Sony World Photography Awards 2025
| Image: Blackmagic Design |
Blackmagic Design, an Australian company known for its professional cinema cameras and DaVinci Resolve editing software, had ambitious plans to expand into American manufacturing with a new factory in Dallas, Texas. However, thanks to the newly introduced US tariffs, those plans have hit a snag.
The company had hoped US-based production would strengthen ties with American semiconductor firms and streamline its supply chain. However, BlackMagic spokesperson Patrick Hussey told The Verge that the broadly applied tariffs have made the move financially unviable.
While parts like semiconductors and the PCBs used in Blackmagic’s cameras are sourced from US companies, many are still manufactured overseas and are subject to tariffs. “If we proceed with the US factory, we’d incur tariffs on those parts, increasing costs and negating the savings we anticipated,” Hussey said.
This exact dilemma reflects a broader issue facing companies with global supply chains. Though the tariffs were intended to encourage domestic manufacturing, many businesses report they’d be better off moving operations to countries with lower tax burdens. A survey conducted by CNBC found that 61% of businesses favored relocating to low-tariff countries over the US. 81% said they’d automate US production rather than hire workers.
“Production of some product lines has been relocated to reduce the impact on our customers”
Blackmagic has already passed on some of the additional costs to consumers, with the prices of certain products rising in the US. For example, the new Pyxis 12K camera, initially listed for $5,000, jumped to $6,600 before settling at $5,500 after Blackmagic shifted production to mitigate tariff impacts. Prices elsewhere in the world remain unchanged.
“We operate factories in several countries, so production of some product lines has been relocated to reduce the impact on our customers,” Hussey explained, noting that the company is holding off on a US factory decision for now. If more components begin production domestically, the plan may be revived.
While the current administration recently added smartphones, computers and other electronics to a temporary list of tariff exemptions, cameras and related equipment were omitted. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick warned that the exemptions are not permanent and that new tariffs targeting the semiconductor industry, for example, could be introduced in a month or two. Policy indecision like this adds even more uncertainty for companies like Blackmagic.
Insta360 released a teaser video on its YouTube channel this morning for an upcoming product launch on April 22nd. Titled “All Day. All Night. All Angles,” the fast-paced 51-second clip showcases a variety of high-energy activities and stunts, suggesting a new 360-degree camera designed for versatile day-to-night shooting.
While the company hasn’t officially named the product, speculation in the video clip’s comments section suggests it’s an Insta360 X5, a successor to last year’s X4 360-degree action camera. If true, it would be slightly over a year since the X4’s April 16, 2024 announcement.
The X4 supports 8K 360° video recording at 30p for 2.7k reframed 16:9 footage, a vast improvement from its predecessor X3’s 5.7K/30p with 1080p output. The teaser trailer’s emphasis on nighttime shots and low-light performance hints at further enhancements if it does, in fact, turn out to be an X5.
Whatever it is, Insta360 plans to unveil its new product at a pop-up event located in Vanderbilt Hall, Grand Central Terminal, New York City at 9:00 AM, EST, this coming Tuesday.
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