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Tag: cameras

  • Hasselblad 907X 100C Review: Digital Smarts With a Film Soul

    Hasselblad 907X 100C Review: Digital Smarts With a Film Soul

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    Hasselblad’s new 100-megapixel medium-format camera system is capable of truly stunning images and totally incapable of shooting video. This is a photographer’s camera, for those lucky enough to still be photographers, without the demanding video workload tacked on to every job. If that’s you—and you have plenty of cash to spare—this is the camera you want.

    The CFV 100C is a new 100-megapixel digital back that will pair with both Hasselblad’s 907X digital body (the smallest medium format camera on the market) and older 501c Hasselblads. Throw in an optional grip and you have a medium-format digital camera system that can be used like an old Hasselblad film camera (shooting waist level), as a more versatile digital version using the flip screen, or for more traditional SLR-style shooting with the grip.

    Second to None

    Like most photographers, I do not have a Hasselblad 501c just lying about, so I did all my testing using the 907X with the CFV 100C. This combo is incredibly compact, comfortable to shoot with at both waist level and eye level, plus easy to carry around. The 907X portion of the rig is thin, little more than something that connects an XCD series lens to the 100C sensor back. The brains and sensor of the package are in the new CFV 100C digital back.

    The 100-megapixel medium-format sensor is the same one Hasselblad used in the X2D (7/10, WIRED Review), and it remains mind-blowing. Not only is the resolution extremely detailed, but the RAW files capture 15 stops of dynamic range and 16-bit color, offering some of the best color rendering I’ve ever seen in a digital sensor. It’s difficult to quantify exactly what it is that makes these files special, but I rarely felt the need to edit them. They already look the way I want. Naturally, this will be up to photographic style and personal taste, but for me at least, Hasselblad’s color and tone rendering—even in JPG files—is second to none.

    Photograph: Scott Gilbertson

    They are huge files, though. Be forewarned that the RAW files are around 200 megabytes each, and even JPGs can be up in the high 80-MB range. Like the X2D, this camera includes a 1-terabyte drive and a CFexpress card slot to expand that storage capacity even more.

    The sensor and storage are the same as the DSLR-style X2D, but the 907X 100C has nothing else in common. The X2D feels like using a high-resolution Nikon. Combine that with the lack of video features—which I would prefer to have in a more DSLR form factor—and the X2D fell flat for me. The 907X with the 100C is the polar opposite, despite sharing the same sensor. This is the camera Hasselblad fans have been dreaming of. It’s everything that made the film Hasselblads special, with a digital soul. It might not last as long as the film cameras (electronics being finicky, after all), but in every other way, it carries that Hasselblad tradition.

    That’s not to say there aren’t modern improvements here. Autofocus, a place where even recent Hasselblads have struggled, is much better. There’s face detection (no, not eye, just face), which works quite well in all settings but very low light. I would prefer eye detection, but this works in most situations. I prefer manual focusing most of the time.

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  • The Best Instax Cameras and Printers (2024): Film Types, Tips, and More

    The Best Instax Cameras and Printers (2024): Film Types, Tips, and More

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    Fujifilm introduced a new app with the Mini 12 called Instax Up (Android, iOS). The key function is that it will “scan” (photograph) your Instax prints, allowing you to store and share them online. If you have photos in any other Instax apps, you can import them to Instax Up so everything is in one place.

    If you’re wondering whether the Instax Mini 11 is worth buying, my advice is to avoid it and buy the Mini 12 instead. Fujifilm continues to sell the Instax Mini 11 predecessor, but the Mini 12 is unquestionably a better camera in every way. It sells for around $80, while the Mini 11 is only a few dollars cheaper. It’s not worth it. You want the parallax correction of the Mini 12. Trust me. If you see the Mini 11 for under $60, that’s an OK deal if you’re tight on cash, but for most people, the Mini 12 will produce better images for only a few dollars more.

    The Best Instax Square Camera

    There are not nearly as many choices for fans of Instax Square prints. Our top camera pick is the SQ 40, which is completely analog: Press the shutter button and out comes your image, which develops in about 90 seconds. There’s a film counter near the bottom left side of the back to let you know how many images you have left, and that’s about it for features.

    Using the SQ 40 is about as simple as it gets. Twist the lens barrel to turn it on, frame your shot, hit the shutter button, and voilà. The only other option is a selfie mode, designed for close-ups. In this case, frame your images using the mirror on the front rather than the viewfinder, as parallax distortion is an issue up close. In my shooting experience, this often manifests as close-up images where the subject is not centered as it appeared when you composed the frame. The parallax stops being an issue at about 4 to 5 feet.

    The SQ 40 runs on CR2 batteries. Fujifilm includes two when you buy the camera, which should be good for around 300 images. I suggest getting some rechargeable CR2s when those deplete.

    Other Great Instax Square Cameras

    • Instax SQ 1 for $115: The SQ 1 is the more colorful, cheaper version of the SQ 40. In terms of features, it’s identical, though the body design is slightly different. There’s a small grip on the left front side of the body that gets in the way more than it provides something to grab. The images coming out of the SQ 1 are the same as what I got from the SQ 40, so if you want to save a few dollars (or get a more colorful camera), this SQ 1 is just as capable.
    • Instax SQ 6 for $100 to $150: The SQ 6 is technically a better camera than the SQ 1 or SQ 40, with several manual shooting options. Unfortunately, it’s no longer on Fujifilm’s Instax website, and supplies are dwindling at retailers. But if you can find one for around $100 to $150 and you love the square film, I say go for it.

    Don’t Need a Camera? Get an Instax Printer

    While I have a certain nostalgia for instant photos—and I own two Instax cameras—the truth is I make most of my instant images with an Instax photo printer. Sure, it’s just a smartphone printer that doesn’t need ink, but I already have a digital camera, and the results I get pairing images from a real camera with an Instax printer outshine what I get from Instax cameras. If you already have a good digital camera or a solid smartphone camera, an Instax printer is the way to go.

    My favorite Instax printer is the Link Wide. I love the bigger images of the Link Wide. It uses a separate app (Android, iOS), and has nice extras like the ability to print multiple images in one go with collage print or add fun features to your images like hearts, glitter (shudder), or any other of the 15 editable templates in the app. One feature I don’t use much but might be handy for social media is the ability to add QR codes to your images. For example, you can add a QR code with a link to a recipe on your photo and then share it on social media. There are also some 1,600 in-app “stickers” that let you put clip-art-style overlays on your images. It might sound corny, but these effects are quite fun, especially if you have young children.

    Other Great Instax Printers

    • Instax Mini Link 2 for $99: As the name implies, the Mini Link 2 film size is mini prints. Overall print quality is the same as our top pick, the Evo Mini, but you lose the camera. The Link 2 does have a few novel tricks though. It can print in two different modes: print mode and fun mode. Print mode prints vertically oriented images, while the fun mode is for printing horizontally. The clever twist Link 2 adds is if you stand it upright, the app will recognize that and print vertically (print mode). Lay down the Link 2 and the app will switch to fun mode and print horizontally. It’s a gimmick but it’s kind of fun. Then there’s InstaxAir, which allows you to add effects and doodles to images by “painting” with an LED light on the side of the Link 2. This is harder to describe than it is to do, but you draw with the printer, and what you trace is recorded in the app (Android, iOS), and then it prints. My only real gripe is that the Link 2 still uses USB-A.

    Other Good Instax Cameras and Printers

    Fujifilm is constantly refreshing its Instax lineup, adding new features like parallax correction and faster USB-C charging, which almost all Instax cameras now offer. The company still sells some older models though, and while we usually suggest sticking with the latest, the following models might be worth considering if you find them on sale.

    Instax Pal Camera and Printer Bundle for $200: Late last year, Fujifilm introduced the Pal, a tiny digital camera that comes with an Instax Mini Link 2 smartphone printer and a 10-pack of Instax Mini film. I have not tried the Pal yet, but I struggle to understand who needs it. The marketing suggests Fujifilm is targeting this at kids, but $200 is a tough sell for most parents. Especially when you get all of this and more in the similarly priced Mini Evo. Maybe the Evo is less likely to stand up to life in a child’s hands? I’ll be testing this one soon and will report back.

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  • ‘Photographer’ Isn’t About Photography at All

    ‘Photographer’ Isn’t About Photography at All

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    Each episode starts with a specific assignment and then goes deeper into the personal lives of the photographer. Mental health is a frequent topic. Love, too: love of family, the ocean, the thrill. Love for that exact moment when they know they got the shot, a feeling I’ve experienced vicariously often. Photographer’s mission, really, isn’t to show you beautiful photos; it’s to show you what it took to get them.

    Insecurity also prevails. So does obsession with getting it perfect. They have a vision from the start. “Is it good enough?” asks Addy in reference to the results of any of his assignments.

    Image may contain Photography Adult and Person

    Fashion photographer Campbell Addy is known for the way he captures Black and queer identities.Photograph: Courtesy of National Geographic

    NatGeo’s new show also goes deep on just how wrong a photoshoot can go. In science photographer Anand Varma’s episode, he struggles with a time lapse of a hatching chick. Addy finds himself contending with his first solo exhibition. Despite this, they both emphasize they must get their client—usually someone, like me, sitting comfortably distant from the hassles—what they want.

    There are so many similarities in these episodes, even though the genres of each photographer vary, from war to wildlife to celebrity portraits. These artists want perfection, and not just for their client but for their own sense of self, so they can move on to the next project in peace.

    Image may contain Adult Person Clothing Shirt Accessories Glasses and Box

    Science photographer Anand Varma works in his lab and photo studio Berkeley, California.Photograph: Courtesy of National Geographic

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  • 12 Best Instant Cameras (2024): Instax, Lomography, Polaroid

    12 Best Instant Cameras (2024): Instax, Lomography, Polaroid

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    smartphone cameras have only gotten better with time, but there’s an impermanence to digital photos that simply can’t compete with instant, physical photos, like the Polaroid pictures of old. There’s a wealth of printing cameras on the market from manufacturers like Fujifilm, Polaroid Originals, Lomography, and even Leica. We’ve also checked out a few printers that can make instant photos of your smartphone pictures.

    If you can’t get enough of unique camera gear, be sure to check out our guides to the Best Compact Cameras, the Best Action Cameras, and the Best Mirrorless Cameras.

    Updated February 2024: We’ve removed some of our older picks that are no longer available, and updated prices and info throughout.

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  • Polar ID Is the Face ID Rival for Android Phones, and Could Even Beat Apple

    Polar ID Is the Face ID Rival for Android Phones, and Could Even Beat Apple

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    A little more than six years ago, Apple unveiled Face ID. It was a new method to biometrically unlock iPhones and authenticate purchases by scanning your face. Yet after all this time, there still hasn’t been a meaningful competitor on Android—at least, not with the same level of security and capabilities.

    Google’s Pixel 8 has Face Unlock, but it has trouble working in the dark; the Face Unlock available on Samsung smartphones can’t be used for secure applications, such as banking. In Androidland, the fingerprint scanner is king, but that might not be the case for long.

    Metalenz, a startup pioneering optics technology called “optical metasurfaces,” is hard at work on introducing secure face authentication to Android with its Polar ID technology. Late last year, it announced a partnership with Qualcomm to port its ongoing development to the chipmaker’s flagship processor. Today, at Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona, it announced that it will be using Samsung’s Isocell Vizion 931 image sensor to power its imaging system.

    I visited Metalenz’s headquarters in Boston to get a first look at Polar ID. The system is still in its early stages, and the company is currently gathering large amounts of data to improve its facial recognition machine learning algorithms. But it has plans to send development kits to smartphone manufacturers in the middle of this year for testing, which means there’s a good chance we’ll see a Face ID–like system for Android, one that’s potentially better than Apple’s approach, inside smartphones by early 2026.

    New Optics

    Metalenz is a startup born out of a research group at Harvard University and was founded by CEO Robert Devlin and physicist Federico Capasso. I’ve been covering its development ever since the company emerged from stealth mode in 2021. That’s when it unveiled its metasurfaces technology—a flat-lens system that takes up far less space than the traditional multi-lens elements used in most smartphones today.

    The iPhone 14 Pro, for example, has seven lens elements (layers of glass or plexiglass) stacked above the camera sensor. Having multiple lens elements improves image clarity, captures more light, and corrects issues such as chromatic aberration (where colors are visible on the fringes of images). But it also adds more complexity and requires more space in the smartphone. Metalenz’s metasurfaces is a single lens that uses nanostructures to bend light rays toward the camera sensor, performing the job of multiple lens elements in a much smaller package.

    CPU wafer

    A wafer of multiple metasurfaces, the flat-lens system takes up far less space than multi-lens elements used in most phones currently.

    Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

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  • The 9 Best Mirrorless Cameras (2024): Full-Frame, APS-C, and More

    The 9 Best Mirrorless Cameras (2024): Full-Frame, APS-C, and More

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    You know what’s the least important part of taking a great photo? Gear. The vision you have and the work you put into realizing it are far more critical.

    That’s not to say gear doesn’t matter, just that it’s best used in service of something larger. That’s why this guide doesn’t get too deep into the weeds of megapixel counts, sensor sizes, and pixel peeping. All these cameras are capable of producing amazing images. Which one is right for you depends more on your needs than on the size of the sensor.

    Still, choosing the right one can be confusing. I’ve spent years testing dozens of cameras in all kinds of shooting scenarios to come up with what I think are the best choices for different types of photographers.

    Be sure to check out our many other buying guides, like the Best Camera Bags, Best Action Cameras, Best GoPro Hero, and Best Instant Cameras.

    Updated February 2024: We’ve added the Leica Q3, Sony A7C R, Nikon Zf, and updated links and prices throughout.

    Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you’d like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

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  • Nikon Zf Review: A Mirrorless Camera With Classic Style

    Nikon Zf Review: A Mirrorless Camera With Classic Style

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    While I did not expect it given the obvious nods to Nikon’s film past, the Zf is a surprisingly capable video camera. It shoots up to 4K/60 using an APS-C size crop of the sensor. If you want to use the whole sensor, you can get 4K/30. That’s not going to wow video professionals, but again, it’s good enough for most photographers who just want the possibility of shooting some 4K footage.

    Overall, I loved shooting with the Zf and were I in the market for a new camera, this is the camera I would buy. That said, there are few things about Zf I truly dislike. The first is the card slots. There are two of them. One is a standard SD card slot supporting UHS II cards. The second is a microSD card slot that only supports UHS I. The slow speeds I could live with, but it’s so difficult to get the microSD card in and out that I ended up just leaving it in and treating it as an emergency overflow. There should have been two matched full size SD card slots.

    The other thing I thoroughly dislike is that it doesn’t ship with a battery charger. A $2,000 camera shouldn’t require you to buy a separate battery charger (for $80 retail, no less). You can charge via the USB-C port. Battery life is so good that a single charge will last about 350 shots, more if you turn on energy saving mode (I got 407), but serious photographers are always going to want a separate charger and at least a second battery.

    As noted above, the Zf wouldn’t be my top pick for sports or wildlife. That’s in part because of the autofocus and shooting speed, but also because the 24 megapixel sensor, while sharp, and delivering those characteristic Nikon colors, is probably not what wildlife and sports pros are after. The Z7 and especially the Z9, with their much higher megapixel sensors and faster autofocus, are the cameras you want for those use cases.

    Nikon did not have one to send me, but I think the ideal lens for this camera is probably the new Nikkor Z 40mm f/2 Special Edition ($310). This may be personal prejudice, but something about this camera cries out for a short, fixed-length lens—a fast 50, or in this case 40. It’s going to balance well with the camera and make a good reportage and street photography setup, both of which feel like ideal use cases for the Zf.

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  • 11 Best Action Cameras (2024): Underwater, 360, Compact, and More

    11 Best Action Cameras (2024): Underwater, 360, Compact, and More

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    Choosing the right action camera used to be simple: Go with GoPro. That’s still good advice, in that the GoPro ranks high on our list and is our top pick for most adventure-seeking photographers, but we’ve finally found a few worthy competitors.

    To figure out which cameras are the best, we dove with them, climbed with them, surfed with them, and handed them to reckless 11-year-olds on bikes. We found a number of great options that will record, and survive, your adventures on the ski slope, beach, or skate park.

    If an action cam isn’t your speed, be sure to check out our other guides, including the Best Compact Cameras, Best Mirrorless Cameras, and Best Instant Cameras.

    Updated February 2024: We’ve added the Insta360 Ace and Ace Pro, along with a few new accessories to help you do more with your action cam.

    Special offer for Gear readers: Get WIRED for just $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com, full Gear coverage, and subscriber-only newsletters. Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

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