If you’re looking to buy an instant film camera, there are only two serious names in the game: Polaroid, and Fujifilm Instax. While some manufacturers like Canon and Kodak offer digital instant-print cameras that use techniques like dye-sublimation to create instant prints of digital images on specialist paper, it’s not the same. For the true alchemical magic of instant film, you Polaroid and Instax are the big hitters.

Polaroid is undoubtedly the better-known brand name due to its long history, dating back to the 1940s (though hitting major popularity in the 70s). It spent a few years in the wilderness following a bankruptcy in the early 2000s, before being purchased and revitalised in 2017 by an analog film collective called The Impossible Project. All the proper Polaroid cameras you can buy new today have been released since this renaissance.

Instax cameras may not have the historical cachet of Polaroids, but they are massively popular — Fujifilm reported last year that its Instax line has sold more than 100 million units since its inception in 1998. I don’t have similar sales data on post-revival Polaroid, but frankly, I don’t think it’s anywhere close.

Ultimately, there are compelling reasons to choose either brand. The Instax mini 12 is TR's pick as the best instant camera, and I can see why — it's a great option for the majority of users. But for me personally, it’s Polaroid all the way.

Why I’ll pick Polaroid every time

It’s not a question of print size, as both brands have similar offerings. Fujifilm Instax Wide film is about the same size as a Polaroid I-Type (or SX-70) print, just rectangular rather than square. Polaroid’s smaller ‘Go’ film produces prints of comparable dimensions to Instax mini.

What it’s all about is vibe. Scoff if you want, but come on — you’re shooting instant film. You’re not here for accurate colors or pitch-perfect sharpness, you’re here because you love the tangibility of holding a print in your hands, the transportative lo-fi look of a format that’s been around for half a century. It’s all vibe.

I’ve shot Polaroid and Instax prints side by side before for comparison. Once, while I was viewing them, my partner made an astute observation that I have since stolen and made my own: the Instax catches your eye first, but you end up liking the Polaroid more. Instax prints are bright and vivid, with naturalistic colors and a decent level of detail, especially the Wide format. They’re fun and kitschy.

But Polaroid images just have that inimitable retro glow that instantly transports me back in time. The softer, more muted color palette makes images less immediately striking, but more satisfying the longer I look at them. There’s a richness to them, a greater sense of depth and subtle tonality. If I were embarking on an artistic project with instant film, there’s no question which format I’d choose. It wouldn’t even be a decision.

Instax cameras are easier to use for sure — most are just point and shoot. If I were recommending an instant camera for a family, or for someone who isn’t an experienced photographer, I’d go with Instax. But for me, as someone who knows my way around a camera, the depth of control offered by the top-end Polaroid cameras leaves Instax in the dust.

Connect to the Polaroid app, which works very smoothly and is highly intuitive, and you can completely program in your settings, taking total control over your images. Want to try your hand at creating long exposures on instant film? It’s straightforward on a Polaroid Flip or Polaroid I-2, and impossible on an Instax Mini 99.

Sure, Polaroids aren’t perfect. The ongoing cost of I-Type film is a sore point, with packs of eight shots costing the same as a pack of 20 shots of Instax Wide or Mini. This sucks. No way to pretend it doesn’t. Buying in bulk can help a little, though honestly not a lot. At least the smaller Polaroid Go film is much cheaper, and I prefer it to Instax Mini. Again, its subtler look is less striking, but richer.

Do you agree? Let me know which is your preferred instant-film format in the poll above. And if you’re looking for an instant-film camera to buy, see my explainer on why the Polaroid Go Gen 2 is the best buy you can make this Prime Day and click on today's best deals where you live using the links below.

• Aura has added Google Photos support for its digital photo frames
• Albums / individual photos can be uploaded to frames from linked accounts
• Aura Frames can also be pre-loaded with existing Google Photo albums

Aura features heavily in my best digital photo frames guide. In fact, I have two of its frames in my home; the Ink with its natural, print-like E Ink display, and my absolute favorite, the punchy and classy Walden. Now, as a Google user, those frames just got better with the addition of Google Photos integration.

To add the feature, you'll need the Aura app (which is super handy for syncing frames anyway). In the app, select the 'Add Photos' option, tap 'Connect' on Google Photos, sign into your Google account, and then select which albums / individual photos you'd like to add. It's as simple as that.

Those photos will be added to your frame, and any new photos added to albums later will be included automatically.

Aura frames are collaborative too, in that you can invite family and friends to add their own photos to a frame, from anywhere in the world through the cloud. There are plenty more ways to add images besides the Aura app and now Google Photos, including iCloud, email, web and even by text message.

I've enjoyed personalizing an Aura frame as a gift before; photos can be pre-loaded to a frame, and that now goes for the new Google Photos integration too.

Photos shared, the proper way

I regularly find myself huddled around a phone with my wife and children when curated memories pop up from our Google Photos albums. We've got years worth of memories stored in a Google Photos account, with new photos added automatically.

As much as I love the spontaneity of our family slideshows around the small screen of a phone, there's something that little bit more special seeing those photos in a slick wall-mounted frame or one on a sideboard.

This Aura update, therefore, massively improves my experience with Aura frames, especially for displaying family memories. Most Aura frames also play video with sound, but not the Ink frame, which has the most authentic print-like quality, but is photo-only.

If you're totally new to digital photo frames, I've included links to the best deals for my favortire Aura frames below, and for more buying advice, check out my digital photo frames guide.

It's too early to draw firm conclusions about Apple's take on AI in the iOS 27 Dev beta, but I have been busy trying out new features, including the Apple Intelligence image-altering tools in Photos: specifically, Spatial Reframing and Extend.

I've already had some fun with both, and was immediately impressed with their raw power. To generatively alter your images, Apple uses a powerful private-compute cloud-based diffusion model built, in part, with Google. It's unlike any AI Apple has ever presented before, and, as I've written, it opens Apple up to a lot of questions about whether it still prizes image truth over aesthetics.

I'm not here, though, to critique these tools. After all, this is the developer beta, and some tools and features will likely change quite a bit before they arrive fully baked on, we expect, the iPhone 18 in September.

Still, this platform update marks the beginning of Apple's journey as a card-carrying AI citizen, fully capable of standing alongside OpenAI and partner Google. Siri can talk and pay attention, Image Playground can generate images from whole cloth, and Photos can alter and extend photos with a gesture.

Having spent time with Spatial Reframing and Extend, I remain somewhat startled at just how far Apple is taking the AI image-altering strategy. Spatial reframing, for instance, lets you turn photo subjects to see elements the camera never saw or captured.

Seeing beyond the edge

I've had more fun with Extend, though, not necessarily because I plan on filling in the lost information in my photos, but thanks to how Apple's image-generation tools guess at what was never captured in the first place.

The thing about a tool like Extend is that, if you're using your own photos, you already know what was cropped out. Perhaps you chose that framing, but as Apple noted in its keynote, it can be difficult to frame a portrait-mode photo in a landscape frame. Sometimes you need those extra bits.

Apple's approach for the moment appears to be "let guesswork be your guide." It doesn't know what's missing, but Apple Intelligence can use its smarts to read the rest of the image and fill in the blanks.

To see how this early version is doing, I took a bunch of photos of things and places, doing both a tight and a wide shot. In other words, I shot what was really there, and then cropped in to see just a smaller section. The goal: how close could Photo's Extend tool come to filling in the blanks?

Considering what it had to work with, Photo Extend did a pretty good job, though a couple of the results were unintentionally comical.

One other thing I learned is that the Extend tool in the current version of iOS 27 Dev Beta will not extend, for instance, body parts. I took a photo of my hand, cropping out a few fingers, but no matter what I did, the app wouldn't extend the frame to fill in the rest of my hand. This is actually good news; I had worries about ending up with six fingers.

I'm also learning that Extend likes order. It seems almost allergic to clutter, so whatever it does generate is usually clean, orderly, and has as few elements as possible.

Below are some examples of real wide shots alongside the more tightly framed ones, where I let Apple Intelligence Extend do its thing. If you hadn't seen the originals, you might never know that significant portions of the images were generated by AI.

For the majority of these images, I took one photo for which I stepped back enough to capture more of the scene, then I took a second, tighter photo. I applied Extend to the latter image, and then compared Apple Intelligence's guesswork to reality. You can see the original, unextended photo in the center.

Extending the frame and stretching reality

This is the only image where I took just one photo and extended it with Apple Intelligence's latest Photo tools. This is a dev beta, so I won't offer much criticism, but some might take issue with the Empire State Building redesign.

The home office

On the left, you can see my home office as it is. The orchid is a plant I've nurtured for years (I even fully replanted it almost 18 months ago). Extend's gift is that it tries to leave original reality alone, but the more information you ask it to fill in, the wilder the flights of fancy.

I love, for instance, that my closet now has three doors, and I have been staring at the glass door on the right for hours. What is that? Why did Extend add it? No matter; it's early days, and these generative skills are impressive.

Foliage

I think Extend already has a solid grasp of how plants and trees work, and shows off that knowledge here. The extended tree looks quite realistic. As for the sky, it now has a rather dramatic, almost beatific look. My shed got an odd redesign.

Guitar on the wall

The guitar work shows off a little of Extend's penchant for cleanliness and order. The suggestion of a lampshade is turned into a perfectly round, brightly colored tube, and, based on the two visible supports, it might no longer be a lampshade.

The blinds also got a bit of a cleanup. As for my guitar, it looks essentially the same. In other words, Extend appears to be, even in Dev Beta form, ensuring that the image's original subject remains — even if extended a bit — essentially untouched.

Office shelf

Something as busy as my office shelf can present challenges for any generative system — so many objects, so many options.

I took a picture (at left) of the actual shelf, and you can see the second, tighter photo in the center, and then the extended image on the right.

It makes sense that in the extended photo, Extend chose order over my clutter, but the best part is the transformation of the USS Enterprise into a quasi-jetliner. I think a couple of book titles also got a rewrite.

Backyard furniture

Extend did a nice job of decluttering my backyard space. I noticed that when Extend detects a cube-shaped object (in this case, my fire pit), it will just turn it into a featureless box, instead of trying too hard to guess.

Jetliner

I was impressed with how effectively Extend completed the jetliner. Notice, though, how once again it assumes order where, in truth, there's chaos.

There you have it — some fun, early experiments with Apple Intelligence's newest and most powerful image generation tools. That it does so well at the dev stage is especially encouraging, since Apple still has months to refine it.

Ultimately, I don't think people will push Extend as far as I have. They may only use it to recenter a subject, adding just a few inches to one side or another, or to extend a solid background or even an evening sky, efforts that won't detract from or alter the subject.

How do you think you'll use these new Apple Intelligence Photo tools? Let me know in the comments below.

I don't know about you, but my fridge at home is decorated with numerous snapshots of family and friends spanning many years, precariously fixed in place with souvenir fridge magnets. It's into this mix that I've recently added a few Vidabay Snaps.

A Vidabay Snap looks like an instant-film print, but it is in fact a tiny, magnetic E ink display. So, unlike an actual print, you can change the picture displayed and easily attach it to a range of surfaces.

It's optimized for iPhone (and compatible with various Android devices), and any image from your gallery can be uploaded via the (free) Vidabay app using NFC, whenever you like.

Think of Vidabay Snaps as, like, tiny digital photo frames, just set within a Polaroid-style border, and with an E Ink display that's much more basic than the fabulous Aura Ink.

Vidabay Snaps are available from the Vidabay website in white, black, yellow or red (see below), with prices starting at $29.99 for a single Snap (was $35.99) or $86.99 for a pack of three (was $99.99). Vidabay ships to most regions, including the UK and Australia, and price is calculated at checkout.

A genuine instant print from the likes of a Polaroid Go Gen 3 or Fujifilm Instax Mini 13 costs around $1 / £0.80 / AU$1,50 a go — much cheaper than a Vidabay Snap. Even pricier (and larger) formats like Polaroid I-Type are around $3 / £2.50 / AU$4.50 per print, while regular photo prints from the lab are typically the cheapest of the lot. However, the image on a Snap can be changed as often as you like.

I have a small collection of the best instant cameras, and am not short of instant prints to put on my walls (and fridge). And now that it's been a month since I got my Vidabay Snaps, I can tell you they don't hold the same magic as an instant print.

My experience using Vidabay Snaps with an Android phone has been mixed, which I'll unpack next, but there's one fundamental flaw to the product — the frames don't display the color blue (not for me, anyway), which is very limiting for color images.

However, I can totally appreciate these neat, low-cost E Ink devices for what they are, and the concept is pretty well executed. And even though they feel pricey compared to prints, I believe Vidabay Snaps are great little gifts. Let's take a look at how they work.

How to get started

To get started, you need to pair a Vidabay Snap with your NFC-enabled device — they're optimized for iPhone, but I've done the whole process with an Android phone. Once that's done, you select the desired picture from your phone's gallery, choose the paired Snap, and then hold the two devices together to upload to the frame.

Using a recent Oppo Find X9 Ultra phone, I found the NFC connection for image uploads — which takes around 30 seconds to complete — exceptionally fiddly, but persevered for around 15 attempts each time before my first success.

The trick is locating NFC in your device, and Vidabay does point out that not all Android devices will work. The company says there's a Bluetooth dock on the way, which will simplify the process and widen compatibility for Android. Until then, you'll need to check with Vidabay if your device is compatible. I haven't tried a Snap with an iPhone, but I imagine the process will be much easier.

The Snap's display flickers as the uploading image appears, and then there you have it — a lo-fi E ink (aka E Paper) image in a handy magnetic display.

E ink displays like this are typically lo-fi — don't expect fine detail or a vibrant and wide color range. Quite the opposite, they don't even display the color blue, meaning that in a photo of my son with two teammates in their blue-and-black-striped soccer gear, the jerseys were essentially monochrome. You can imagine what happened when I attempted to load a photo of a sailboat out on the water on a sunny day. The screenshot (above) demonstrates the difference in quality between an original image and how it appears loaded on a Snap.

I picked up five Vidabay Snaps and had mixed success. Three of the five loaded fine (after several attempts); the other two refused to load in color, period, and I eventually gave up.

The app could also do with some work; there's no way of recomposing / cropping the photo within the square frame, nor can you rename a frame once it's registered. I had five frames all identically named, making it extremely difficult to track which frame was which in the app. Writing a number on the back of each one with a Sharpie was my solution.

Each Vidabay Snap has a magnetic back for attaching to surfaces like a fridge. It's also fitted with NFC for image uploads and charging. Being a tiny E Ink display, it consumes next to no power – a true lo-fi product. An individual Snap can be purchased with a leatherette tag to attach to something like your bag, and this bundle costs $48.99.

If you have that sentimental person in your life who happens to be an iPhone user, then Vidabay Snap is an easy, low-cost gift recommendation. Until the Bluetooth dock lands and it proves to address my user experience issues, I'm hesitant to recommend the product for Android users.

There's an open nature reserve with a wetland, encircled by woodland, about a 10-minute drive from my house, and it’s one of my favorite places to go running. Sunrise on a cold morning here can be magical for photography too — the sun-kissed mist hovering over the water makes for dreamy conditions.

Throughout the year, the nature reserve attracts a range of migratory and rare species of birds, making it a popular spot for birding — people will drive a good hour or more to visit with their long lenses, spotting scopes and binoculars.

I've never tried serious bird photography myself, chiefly because I'm way too young for that (joking), but also because the longest lens I've ever owned is a 70-200mm, which doesn't get me nearly close enough.

Recently, however, I had the chance to test Sony's longest lens, the FE 400-800mm F6.3-8 G OSS, and the idea of trying bird photography suddenly became very appealing.

I paired the super-telephoto zoom lens with the new Sony A7R VI. My logic was that the camera’s stellar bird-detection autofocus skills, blazing-fast shooting speeds of up to 30fps, and 66.8MP stacked sensor were perfect for bird photography when armed with the 400-800mm focal length.

One visit led to another, and before I knew it, I was out the door at 5am every morning, gear in hand.

I had just found my new hobby. It happened a few years earlier than I care to admit, but why resist the inevitable? Yes, I'm now into birding, and I have this incredible Sony camera gear to blame.

The super-supertelephoto lens

When I first saw Sony’s 400-800mm lens in 2024, I thought it was a peculiar focal length. But after my bird photography testing, it feels like the perfect range for this genre.

For most bird photography — in the wild at least — you’ll want a focal length of at least 600mm to get close enough, but I found that even longer, at 800mm, was my most-used setting.

I wouldn’t want an 800mm prime lens, mind you, even if that meant benefitting from a slightly faster aperture. When you're locked in on a bird at 800mm, and it moves, which it will, it can be tricky to locate them again. That’s why quickly zooming out to 400mm is handy.

With a wider perspective at 400mm, you can locate the subject more easily, and then zoom back in again. In any case, about 10% of the time, the 400mm focal length was actually the better pick when I was lucky enough to get physically close.

Optical image stabilization is handy, smoothing out camera shake and consequently making this lens totally usable handheld. The focus range limiter is neat too, but I tended to keep the focus range set to 'full' given the birds could be located any distance from me at any point — in one spot, there are gauze bushes next to a boardwalk.

The one thing against the lens is its maximum aperture, which is f/6.3 at 400mm and reduced to f/8 at 800mm. I usually opted for a 1/1000sec shutter speed at 800mm to freeze action, and at f/8 in anything but good light, you’ll find ISO needs to be bumped up, which impacts image quality.

Depth of field is not an issue, though. At 800mm and f/8, backgrounds are delightfully blurred, just about all of the bird is in sharp focus, and the photos looks great.

An upshot of the limited maximum aperture is that the lens is much lighter than Sony’s professional fast-aperture telephoto primes, such as the 600mm F4, and it’s much, much cheaper, too. For amateur bird photography, I think the 400-800mm F6.3-8 is the practically perfect lens.

The speedy, highly detailed camera

If the 400-800mm F6.3-8 is the ideal lens for bird photography, the A7R VI proved to be its perfect partner. Like its predecessor, the camera features subject-detection autofocus with a dedicated option for birds, but it adds an auto option, which is handy when you’re regularly switching between subjects.

For bird photography, however, I selected the dedicated AF mode on the assumption that this could help improve the camera’s scan rate, with less in the scene for it to be looking for — after trying both options, I would advise you to do the same.

I also tried bird photography with the 400-800mm lens and the older Sony A7R V, and it felt like autofocus was slightly slower compared to the new camera. I don’t have numbers to back this up or give a measurable difference, just my experience.

I was impressed by how the camera could latch onto birds even when they filled just a small portion of the frame. Check out the example below — the A7R VI easily located the distant male stonechat.

With continuous burst shooting set to 10fps using the mechanical shutter, bird-detection autofocus in play, camera and lens image stabilization active, I had a dream setup, on the foundation of a high-resolution stacked sensor and extreme dynamic range.

Sony says the A7R VI has a 16-stop dynamic range, which is 1-stop more than the A7R V and most other professional cameras. It also has the most pixels in a full-frame sensor — all 66.8MP of them.

What I appreciated about the high-resolution sensor was the ability to crop into images where the subject filled a small portion of the frame, even when shooting at 800mm.

Just how much can you crop? Well, the camera's APS-C crop mode (1.5x) is still 28MP, and in that mode the 800mm setting of the lens effectively looks like a 1200mm lens (see the sequence above at 400mm, 800mm, and 800mm with the 1.5x crop mode). It's possible to crop in much more than that and still get a detail-rich image, especially for images displayed on mobile devices. You might not need such big files in terms of output, but for bird photography, being able to crop is supremely helpful.

The birdlife

That’s the gear covered — but how was my experience itself? I had an absolute blast — in the space of a week, I went from a complete novice to confidently identifying a range of bird species for inquisitive passersby impressed by the camera gear in my hand. Yep, I had become one of those guys.

The nature reserve is home to a wide range of birdlife. My very first snaps were of Canada geese on the water, mainly because the light and mist were magical. But venturing further along the boardwalk, I saw ground-nesting birds and more.

There were Chats, Finches, Woodlarks, and I even saw a family of Dartford Warblers. I tuned in my ear for birds; the car alarm-like shrill of a Lapwing and the peculiar call of a Curlew — I was told that I was looking at the only nesting pair in this county. Common Cuckoos were present too, though I never got the camera tracked onto one of those.

I photographed European Stonechats who had caught dragonflies and grubs, and watched a Reed Bunting go back and forth gathering nest-building material. The delightful contrast of a (European) Goldfinch amidst the pale green leaves of a birch was spectacular.

Seemingly, it was my time — I was becoming a bird enthusiast. I had given in to the inevitable. I was hunting for birds, enjoying the thrill of getting the shot, but with a camera and not a rifle.

And honestly, it was the most fun I'd had with the camera in ages. This didn't feel like work, but something that fed me. And, yes, I did ask Sony to extend the loan of the lens, because I wasn’t ready to give it back. Once I bid farewell, I’ll be looking into buying a super telephoto zoom lens of my own (but I'm not quite ready for a bird spotting journal...yet).

Interested in trying bird photography out for yourself? Check out our selection of the best wildlife photography cameras.

Often the most difficult part of improving as a photographer has less to do with equipment, and more with finding the time and opportunities to take photos in new places and expand your skills at pressing the shutter. What are the best settings for your camera? How does the aperture and lens focal length impact the bokeh? How should you frame a shot in order to best capture the emotions and beauty of a location, not just what you can see?

Which is why, for all it can’t entirely replace the feeling of using a real camera, Lushfoil Photography Sim does a great job of allowing experts and newcomers alike a chance to relax and hone their photography skills in some of the world’s most beautiful landscapes.

From Italy to Iceland, Australia to Japan, and so many places in between, only you and your virtual camera sit between a chance to explore painstakingly-recreated iconic touristy and visually-stunning locations, devoid of people and with as much time to explore and photograph as you could ever desire. It’s freeing, calming at times of stress, but it’s the benefits this game offers as a learning tool that make it such an appealing proposition.

Every frame a painting

On the surface, Lushfoil Photography Sim is exactly what it claims to be. There’s a serenity that comes when launching the title for the first time and being thrown immediately into the gorgeous Southern Italian mountainous landscapes of Lago di Braies.

Ironically, a place I personally have admired in photos but had never visited, I could now explore with a camera in hand. The music is minimal-lo-fi, and other than a few basic introductions to the controls and how to use your SLR camera, you’re left to it.

The goal is to experiment. There are some tutorials to teach you the basics of how to focus, how to adjust your flash settings and things like that, but the goal is to simply explore these locations and take photos.

Compared to the gamified photo modes of typical games, Lushfoil replicates the controls of any modern DSLR or mirrorless camera with intense attention to detail. It’s more than just ISO and aperture, or even the ability to switch between zoom, fisheye and prime lenses from 14mm to 100mm. You have exposure compensation tools, filters, an adjustable flash, white balance tools, manual or autofocus, and anything you could need to frame a shot.

It’s not cheap to buy a (real) top-of-the-line camera and all these lens options, either! Never mind the travel, and you certainly won’t get the luxury of what feels like a private tour devoid of strangers blocking your perfect shot. More than that though, these environments offer so much variety. Beyond the Italian mountains you have the glaciers of Iceland, Fushimi Inari Shrine’s many torii gates in Kyoto, Japan, the beaches of Castle Rock in Australia, plus locations in France, Nepal, China, and England!

After adjusting the mental memory of my camera tools to the buttons of a controller, I found myself tracing a slow, methodical journey around these locations. In Lago di Braies, the environment begs to be explored for a new vantage point of the miniature churches and vistas, but also the little details that provide their own beauty. Of course, you want to photograph the lake and mountains, but I was just as inclined to crouch and adjust my angle to capture the endless forests, or the posts in the road that gave a focal point to the winding hiking paths.

In a place I was intimately familiar with, such as the Kyoto where I regularly visit to meet friends and occasionally see the exact shrine that was on screen, I found myself gaining a new perspective devoid of the usual hordes of tourists and locals in their thousands, the streets serene and calm.

The thousands of torii gates hold spiritual significance that can be felt intensely when examining the age and importance they bear in the environment in real life, but also hold a beauty that the game successfully replicates. A number of smaller shrines amidst these gates can be found, accompanied by kitsune statues that act as guardians. In some locations, like Castle Rock, you can take to the water on a paddleboard to take photos from an aquatic point of view.

And it all can be done with minimal disturbance and ample time.

Photography Beyond the Guidelines

Sometimes, however, it’s hard not to wish Lushfoil Photography Sim did have more disturbances. These environments are large and open, but empty. Which can be great for perfecting landscape photography, and the fact you can export photos to edit them further is nice. But you can only take this style of photo.

There’s no way to photograph people, not even a posed mannequin, that could allow for portrait photography practice. As a result, I found I rarely used some lenses like the 85mm prime, because I would consider this for its bokeh alongside a more typical 50mm, but found it relatively useless here, similarly to the fisheye which only came out once or twice.

Some locations also feel eerie without other patrons. I’ve visited Fushimi Inari Shrine, Japan, both in times of minimal domestic and international tourism during COVID, and more recently, and compared to those newer occasions it’s wonderful to visit it without the overwhelming crowds. Storefronts and streets without people feel a little post-apocalyptic, though, and actually make some shots I think would be framed well with a physical presence feel empty.

This little bit of flexibility to allow it to replicate more real-world scenarios with people and more variance within the environments is the main thing holding back this experience. I appreciate the game isn’t limited to a DSLR by allowing players to find older camcorders and digicams that replicate the characterful analog photography styles people are increasingly embracing in a digital age, but these lack the flexibility to even zoom at times, have watermarks, and can only be used in the level they’re found.

There’s a chance to use drones and change weather which gives environments much-needed variance, but only after finding collectibles and shooting particular photos gaining certain skill levels. This is the same for unlocking new environments. While it can be nice for this to act as a incentive for less-experienced photographers as they can learn how to frame a photo, it can feel like an annoying holdback if you’re more experienced.

There’s still enough to recommend Lushfoil Photography Sim to anyone. For me, I can think of friends who want to get into photography, but struggle to use a camera and what to look for to elevate a good photo into a great one, for whom it’s a great game. Want to buy a real lens for your real camera? The varied in-game lens options give hands-on experience of sorts, before you spend a lot of money.

It is also calming, enlightening, and fun beyond its educational value. I would feel comfortable telling a new photographer to play this game to learn about photography because it replicates not just the tools but the feeling, and served as inspiration for what to capture when I visited Mount Fuji recently with friends on a road trip.

Where gaming photo modes are often flexible, I’ve often found them unengaging because the tools they offer and the way they’re created to be used by all players divorces them from this photography experience I adore so much.

Lushfoil Photography Sim is the first time I feel I’ve found a game that truly captures the photography experience and, even if it has flaws, it’s a tool for self-improvement worth the price for its potential to bring transferrable skills to your next real-world shoot. Few games can promise something like that.

Want a glimpse of the world's best aerial photography? DJI and SkyPixel's annual photo and video contest is the place to go, and this year's winners have just been announced after the early contenders were teased a couple of months ago.

The stunning winning photos and videos of the 11th edition of the contest were selected from over 95,000 entries and 96 countries and regions — and drone pilot Filip Hrebenda scooped the grand prize in the contest's $200,000 pot with his aerial image The Gate (see below).

Contest judge Zhu Jiong described the scene as "straight out of a fairyland — layered mountains wrapped in mist.

"The image feels calm on the outside, yet somehow breathtaking."

Four judges praised the grand prize winner, saying: "The location and conditions feel rare, especially with the fog and elevation, making the scene stand out."

Judge Daniel Kordan goes on to say: "I must admit I haven't seen such a composition before, so it is a unique and fresh shot."

The remote aerial scene was taken in Buskerud, Norway, with the DJI Mavic 3 Pro — a pro triple camera drone which we gave a five-star rating, and which has since been updated with the Mavic 4 Pro. We rank the Pro series as the best camera drones for consumers.

Details on the SkyPixel contest's site suggest Hrebenda used the main 24mm camera with variable aperture, which utilizes a micro four thirds sensor – that's bigger than those used in DJI's sub-250g drones.

Hrebenda had this to say about his winning image:

"Captured in the far north of Norway during the autumn of 2025, this photograph was taken in a remote and extremely difficult-to-reach location. At sunrise, the landscape was covered by dense fog that filled the valleys and concealed the dramatic terrain.

"After a demanding ascent, we finally rose above the cloud layer, revealing this surreal and almost otherworldly view. The natural stone arch, resembling a monumental gate carved by time, stands suspended above a deep valley, surrounded by rugged cliffs and distant mountain silhouettes emerging from the sea of mist. The lone figure on the rock emphasizes the scale and raw beauty of the landscape.

"To capture this composition, finding the perfect perspective was essential. This was made possible with the help of a DJI Mavic 3 Pro drone, which allowed me to position the camera precisely and reveal the full geometry of this extraordinary natural formation."

All the winning images can be seen at the SkyPixel site and also include the early front-runner Carpet Fields, which ended up being a finalist and was captured with the older Mavic 2 Pro.

It's truly amazing the standard of photography that camera drone pilots are creating with what is relatively affordable gear.

I was delighted to interview top wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas at this year's Sony World Photography Awards, after he scooped the top Wildlife Category prize for his 'Crossing Point' series.

His stunning and highly detailed photos were captured over a 6-month period and provided vital data on Kenya's iconic Masai Mara National Park's wildlife to local agencies. The park's rangers were stunned by some of the discoveries, all captured using Burrard-Lucas' unique, self-developed camera trap system.

As a camera nerd, I was especially keen to understand his camera setup and how he went about capturing the photos, which are now very much in the spotlight since the SWPA 2026 awards.

What Burrard-Lucas shared with me was fascinating, and also goes to show that there can very much be life left in old camera gear yet.

'Where a lot of mirrorless cameras fall down'

You might expect the series to have been captured with one of the best mirrorless cameras. Burrard-Lucas does indeed primarily use Sony gear for wildlife photography in the field. However, for his remote camera traps used in this winning series, his gear choices were altogether different.

Burrard-Lucas' camera traps are based on his own 'Camtraptions' devices, specifically a highly advanced motion sensor for wired or wireless operation. He wirelessly paired the motion sensor with a full-frame Canon EOS 6D DSLR camera (fitted with a 35mm lens). That's right, a 14-year-old, enthusiast-level DSLR.

Given their age, and like most of the best DSLRs, you can only pick up EOS 6D's second-hand now, with 'excellent condition' models costing around $400 / £350 at leading retailers.

The fact that these old DSLRs are low-cost is part of the appeal for Burrard-Lucas, because of the number of camera traps he sets up and the harsh environments he typically works in — there's a real cost to performance consideration. He told me he needed affordable, "reliable and robust" gear with excellent low-light image quality, and the EOS 6D fit the bill.

Even so, there's actually a technical advantage to older DSLRs. Good lighting was crucial to the series, especially since many of the species being tracked are typically nocturnal and shy, such as rhinos, so Burrard-Lucas needed to use flash.

Burrard-Lucas told me, "Any old DSLR camera works really well in the camera trap setup — it [the camera] needs to work well with flash, which is where a lot of mirrorless cameras fall down."

The composition you see in his 'Crossing Point' series was decided at the beginning, with the motion sensor positioned to trigger the camera when the animal walked into the specific part of the frame (which Burrard-Lucas manually focused the camera's lens on), and the camera remotely triggered three flash guns to illuminate the subject and immediate lush surroundings.

Given that composition and focus are selected ahead of time, there was little need for Burrard-Lucas to pick a top-spec camera with leading burst shooting speeds and autofocus performance. His gear choice was determined by image quality requirements, reliability, and affordability, and the EOS 6D was his pick.

Burrard-Lucas regularly works using camera traps, and they are positioned where they are at risk of damage from wildlife. Therefore, he told me that whenever he sees cheap "old secondhand DSLRs, I snap them up".

When I asked about his use of camera traps, Burrard-Lucas said, "for nocturnal creatures, there's nothing better than camera traps, because really it comes down to lighting.

"For these elusive animals, a photographer could wait 12 hours, but you can't wait four months, so it's the only practical way when you've got this defined focal point."

I've decided to give Burrard-Lucas' camera trap system a go for myself, and he advised me, "It's super easy, and so many people are making new use of their old DSLR camera. You don't need a lot of additional kit; the sensor, a single flash to start with, keep things simple and leave it out for a few nights."

Burrard-Lucas sells every item needed for his photo award-winning system except for the camera itself on his Camtraptions website, where you will also find a much more detailed how-to.

I can't say I'll be photographing anything as exciting as a rhino or a leopard, but it'll be great to dust off my old Nikon DSLR and give it a new purpose, and I can't wait to see what sort of nocturnal wildlife visits my countryside garden. Hopefully, I'll share some of the best photos soon.

You can see more of the 'Crossing Point' project photos at the World Photo Organisation website.

The winners at the Sony World Photography Awards 2026 have been revealed, and once again the prestigious contest, which this year attracted 430,000 entries from over 200 countries and territories, was packed with incredible photography and stories.

I was fortunate to get a sneak preview of the exhibition — which is open to the public at Somerset House in London until May 4, 2026 — and its 300 plus works, to hear from the 10 category winners and attend the glitzy award ceremony. And best of all, I had the opportunity to sit down with the Wildlife category winner Will Burrard-Lucas to discuss his 'Crossing Point' series created in Kenya's Masai Mara national park.

The project was seeded in cooperation with the Safari Collection and local government to provide vital data of the iconic national park's wildlife, primarily to track rhino numbers, but the highly-detailed photos made many more discoveries that 'stunned' the park's rangers, despite them being intimately familiar with the park's wildlife.

I was already familiar with Burrard-Lucas' wildlife photography, but less so with how he makes the photos, so I was keen to discover more about his unique camera setup. What he shared with me was fascinating.

'For nocturnal creatures, there's nothing better than camera traps'

Will Burrard-Lucas' wildlife photography is captured using a variety of setups, from daytime shoots with Sony mirrorless camera gear in hand, to camera traps paired with 'old secondhand DSLRs' and left in place for long periods — the latter was his approach to the 'Crossing Point' project.

Low-cost trail cams are ideal for recording wildlife, but the image quality is typically poor and not detailed enough to distinguish specific animals. Burrard-Lucas, on the other hand, uses top-quality camera gear, paired with his self-developed camera trap system.

Burrard-Lucas' camera traps are his own 'Camtraptions' devices, and are based on a highly advanced motion sensor — the latest version being the culmination of years of development — which works with a number of leading digital cameras for wired or wireless operation.

For this project, Burrard-Lucas wirelessly paired the motion sensor with a full-frame Canon EOS 6D DSLR camera (fitted with a 35mm lens), which in turn remotely triggered three off-camera flashguns. As he tells me, "Any old DSLR camera works really well in the camera trap setup — it [the camera] needs to work well with flash, which is where a lot of mirrorless cameras fall down."

He had access to closed-off areas of the national park where there are a concentration of particularly rare wildlife species, including rhino — which are notoriously shy. A brook surrounded by lush vegetation was the stage for the vital project, an unusual setting for a park typically known for its wide open plains. "The moment I saw it, I knew it was the right place," Burrard-Lucas says.

The camera was fixed to a tripod and protected from the elements and was left in place for more than six months; the composition that you see was decided at the very beginning with multiple considerations. The motion sensor is positioned to trigger the camera when the animal steps into the specific part of the frame, and the camera's focus is manually set to that spot, with off-camera lighting ready to illuminate it in low light.

With such a project, Burrard-Lucas doesn't need the latest camera gear with blazing fast shooting speeds and AI subject detection autofocus. No, he needs 'reliable' and 'robust' gear with excellent image quality, and also that's affordable given the number of camera traps he sets up and the environments he works in. Whenever he sees cheap "old secondhand DSLRs, I snap them up," he tells me.

Many of the species that the park was particularly keen to get more data on are shy, nocturnal creatures, especially rhino. As such, lighting is key, and there are three flashguns positioned to illuminated the subject and immediate surrounding vegetation.

With the setup in place, Burrard-Lucas had trained the rangers to make a weekly check on the gear, change batteries and download the pictures from the camera's memory card, fresh for another week of motion-triggered capture.

The rangers believed a single rhino to be resident in the area, but over following months were surprised to identify eight different beasts. Yet it was another discovery that left them 'stunned' — when a kudu entered the brook one day. Kudu can be found in other parts of Kenya, but until these unique nighttime photos revealed their presence they had not been thought to live in the Masai Mara national park.

"You can never predict what's going to show up," says Burrard-Lucas, but over the course of six months his camera photographed a wide range of wildlife, from rhino to leopard, elephant, giraffe, the surprise kudu and many more.

For me, the thrill of photography is being there and experiencing what I'm photographing in the moment, so I was keen to hear how this alternative approach of setting the stage ahead of time for remote capture differed to when he's out with the camera in hand, reacting to what he's seeing before him.

"They both have their place for different species and different projects", says Burrard-Lucas, "but for me, for nocturnal creatures, there's nothing better than camera traps, because really it comes down to lighting.

"For these elusive animals, a photographer could wait 12 hours, but you can't wait four months, so it's the only practical way when you've got this defined focal point." For other creatures that don't stick to trails or are typically out in wide open savannahs, a camera trap is much less helpful.

I ask Burrard-Lucas about camera trap photography for beginners, and he tells me, "It's super easy, and so many people are making new use of their old DSLR camera. You don't need a lot of additional kit; the sensor, a single flash to start with, keep things simple and leave it out for a few nights."

I might just try this camera trap setup for myself; Burrard-Lucas sells every item needed for it barring the camera on his Camtraptions website, which also provides an in-depth how-to. Whether I can photograph anything as exciting as a rhino is a different matter, of course — but you have to start somewhere.

• SWPA is one of the most prestigious global photo contests
• This year attracted Over 430,000 entries from more than 200 countries
• The winner takes home a $25,000 top prize and Sony camera gear

I've had the pleasure of attending the Sony World Photography Awards 2026 in London, where the overall winner and 10 category winners have unpacked their photography projects to the press.

Legendary street photographer Joel Meyerowitz was also in attendance to receive the Outstanding Contribution to Photography award, and he was as engaging as ever.

It has been a real treat, and if you get the chance, I encourage you to visit the contest's exhibition, which contains over 300 works, is situated in London's Somerset House, and is open to the public from April 17 to May 4, 2026.

In previous years, it very much felt like AI was an inescapable subject around the contest, but in 2026, it feels like that AI storm has passed, and we purely enjoyed the photography and the stories inspiring the works.

I had a fascinating long chat with the wildlife category winner, Will Burrard-Lucas, and will share my conversation very soon, but for now, do check out some of the category award winners below.

Where the information is available — I've made a note on what camera gear was used in the gallery below — there has been such a surprising range this year, which once again proves that gear isn't the be-all and end-all of great photography.

SWPA 2026 category winners and their gear

Having covered photo contest news for the last three years working in a gear-focused role as TechRadar's Cameras Editor, I'm always happy to see a range of camera gear being used among winning entrants, and SWPA 2026 is no different.

Take Will Burrard Lucas's wildlife series — he fits his own camera traps with low-cost Canon EOS 6D cameras — a necessary compromise because he often requires several cameras in tough environments, but he still praised the quality these old DSLRs delivered.

Or how about the 'Documentary' and 'Perspectives' category winners, Santiago Mesa of Colombia and Seungho Kim of Korea, who used a Fujifilm X-Pro 3 and Fujifilm X100 VI, respectively, for their reportage photography projects.

At the other end of the spectrum is the 'Sport' category winner, Todd Anthony of New Zealand, who used a large-format Phase One camera, which costs tens of thousands, for his monochrome images of riders and their horses.

Photography can be a beautiful thing, and many of us already have the capable tools in hand to go and create. Who knows, if you find that story that needs to be told and the persistence and craft to do it justice, perhaps one day you could have your images hanging on the walls at Somerset House.

• A photographer has captured the "first-ever" underwater shots of a rare seal
• The Ross seal was photographed in Antarctica using a Sony A1
• The photographer Justin Hofman called it "a bittersweet encounter" due to climate change

Imagine this — it's your fifteenth expedition in Antarctica and you're snorkeling by the ice edge photographing krill, with a Sony A1 in hand, when you see an ultra-rare species enter the water close by.

This was the moment facing pro sealife photographer Justin Hofman recently as a Ross seal entered his view. It was only his second sighting of a Ross seal, and he knew that the species has never been photographed in its habitat underwater before.

I asked Justin about the encounter, specifically the story around getting the pictures you see in this article. After setting up for photographing krill, Justin said: "My camera setup was, on paper, the absolute worst thing you could use to photograph big animals.

"If I was going to shoot seals or bigger animals I would generally have a wide-angle zoom on a dome port and hope to work very close to the animal to maximize impact and make the viewer feel like they’re in the water with the animal. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect this to happen, let alone that I would shoot it with a 90mm macro!" he added.

There was also one non-technical factor that helped the stars align. Justin added: "The thing that saved me, and probably lead to a more natural behavior by the seal, was the early season super clear water. Since the plankton bloom hadn’t happened yet, the water was incredibly clear which allowed me to stay far enough away from the seal to not bother it, and allowed me to use the reach of a 90mm macro lens. It’s total dumb luck that the encounter happened but I’m so fortunate to be able to use the camera and the conditions to my advantage."

"I was shooting with an external monitor as well, which allowed me to get the camera a little deeper, away from the surface, and have more precision with my composition," he added.

These monitors are typically associated with shooting video, but they can be a godsend for tricky conditions like underwater shooting. "Some people think that external monitors are only for shooting video, but I always use a monitor on top of my housing," Justin said. "I find that it allows me to get the camera into more interesting positions because I don’t have to worry about shooting through the viewfinder or struggle with the back LCD. It has been a game-changer to me," he added.

Yet for such a memorable moment, it was also a "bittersweet encounter" for Justin.

A bittersweet encounter

The Sony A1 was able to pick up the face and eye of the seal and track it across the frame, despite the slow focusing speeds of the 90mm macro, which is an old lens now and has since been updated with the five-star 100mm F2.8 Macro GM OSS.

By using smaller autofocus zones, the camera could prioritize and track the face of the seal, for off-center compositions.

Justin used a continuous high burst shooting mode to make the most of this chance encounter. He uses manual exposure mode because underwater metering is tricky, on account of the shifting/flickering light. He often uses strobes, but given the water was so clear, there was enough light to get these photos, without disturbing the seal.

And despite not being able to use his favored lens, I think you'll agree that the resulting photos are stunning. However, Justin was keen to point out that "the only reason that I was able to get these photos is because of climate change impacts on sea ice."

There's a wider story at play here. Justin told me: "2025 had one of the lowest levels ever recorded for sea ice formation in Antarctica, which allowed our expedition ship to venture much further south much earlier than ever before.

"On a 'normal' year, the Ross seal’s habitat is inaccessible because of the thickness and extent of the sea ice. But last season the ice levels were at an all-time low which meant we could access the refuges that Ross seals were using to complete their molting after the breeding season.

"So it’s a bit of a bittersweet encounter that wouldn’t have happened if the polar ecosystems weren’t in a state of drastic change. Antarctica is one of the fastest warming places on Earth and in my 16 years of working down there, I have seen a lot of changes that concern me."

Since 2016, the company I'm Back has been tinkering with its digital 'film' roll concept, its way of ‘bringing historic cameras back to life’ and into the digital world.

Its previous attempt, the soon to be out-of-stock 2023 I’m Back Film, comprised a film canister fitted with a 20MP Micro Four Thirds sensor instead of actual film, that slotted inside a 35mm film camera – you can see how it works in this post on the company's Instagram.

A neat concept, but it fell flat for me because of the sensor format / film size mismatch, and more so because it required a bulky module which attached to the underside of the camera.

Well, the aptly-named company has returned this week, with Samuel Mello Medeiros, the company’s founder, lifting the veil on plans for an updated version; this time with a larger APS-C format digital sensor that can be mounted inside a 35mm camera in seconds.

We don't know which APS-C sensor is used yet, nor therefore how many pixels it has, but the device will shoot in RAW and JPEG and allow 4K video capture. Crucially, this time, it seems as though I'm Back has found a way to do away with the additional module, fitting the necessary tech inside the digital film roll, inside the camera.

The idea, just as with its (somewhat clunky) predecessors, is that photographers can continue to use their analog camera bodies, which have perhaps languished at the back of a cupboard in recent years, equipping them with digital smarts instead.

Beyond simply allowing photographers to capture digital images with 35mm film cameras they already own, some of them possibly even quite valuable, I’m Back hopes to bring some of the unique charm of film photography into the digital age.

“The goal of this project is simple: allow photographers to return to the cameras they love while embracing a contemporary digital workflow. No external display. No visible modules attached to the camera”, says Medeiros, whose comments on the dedicated Kickstarter page for the product also highlight some awareness of the past failings and the issues many people had with early prototypes.

“Everything stays inside [the camera]. The only external element is a small Bluetooth remote control used to synchronize the shutter.”

Currently, further details are a little thin on the ground, besides the aforementioned sensor size, photo formats and video chops. However, we do know that the roll will feature internal storage, along with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and a rechargeable, removable battery, rather than a built-in unit.

Interestingly, the Kickstarter page also refers to the inclusion of Presets, which bestow the image styles of iconic film types. In the post-Fujifilm film simulation era, this makes sense, and there probably isn’t a more appropriate imaging device to feature such picture styles.

Ten years in the making

I’m Back first attempted its digital film concept around 10 years ago. The first model was anything but compact and featured a modest 16MP resolution, squeezed onto a tiny 1/2.33 sensor. Of course, ideas have to start somewhere, nevertheless it gained a significant amount of interest, paving the way for further development.

In 2020, the I’m Back Film was unveiled, featuring a larger 20MP Micro Four Thirds sensor. While half the size of full-frame, it was a step in the right direction, and Yashica showed interest in the project.

Next came 2023’s I’m Back Film, which sought to compress the system into a truly film-canister-sized package, helping to preserve the original handling properties of the host camera. It was much smaller than earlier models, but it still required a base unit.

The arrival of the I’m Back 'Roll' with APS-C sensor marks the biggest step change to date, removing the base unit from the picture, and potentially bringing the quality in line with some of the best entry-level and enthusiast digital cameras of today.

I'm curious which APS-C sensor is used – whether I'm Back has played it safe with a dated 18MP to 20MP, or upped resolution to 24MP or greater. I'm hoping for the latter.

“I’m Back Roll does not aim to replace analog photography or compete with modern digital cameras. Its purpose is to offer a new possibility: bringing historic cameras back to life and allowing them to continue telling new stories”, says Medeiros.

I’m keeping my eyes peeled to see if the final product can do either. The latest effort is still on the drawing board, with its crowd funding page launching soon (note, the previous version was delivered to backers quite some time after its crowd funding page went live).

It's still might not have a full-frame sensor to match the size of a single frame in a roll of 35mm film, but with it's truly compact setup, the latest I'm Back product has me more convinced than ever to try the digital film roll out, in the hope that I might be able to resurrect my collection of 35mm cameras with convenient digital smarts. What do you make of the project? Let me know in the comments below.

Aura Ink: review

Aura makes stunning digital photo frames. The Aura Walden, for example, currently sits atop a sideboard in my home with its sleek frame, slick mount and punchy 15-inch display — and it also sits atop our list of the best digital photo frames.

So when Aura unveils an entirely new frame with a display that's unlike any other I’ve tested, naturally it has my attention. Said frame is the Aura Ink.

The Ink features an energy-efficient 13.3-inch color E Ink display, for a print-like rendering of your images. Unlike other LCD digital frames, the Ink is Calm Tech Certified — consider it a digital detox thanks to its natural, muted display.

Its E Ink Spectra™ 6 display can render millions of colors, but look closely and detail is dotty, despite its 1600 x 1200 resolution and 150ppi density. The Ink lacks the vibrancy and clarity of Aura’s other LCD digital frames, such as the Walden and Aura Aspen, or Lexar’s Pexar and Starlight, but it does work well in bright interiors, especially for artworks and minimalist photography rather than detail-rich photos. Ultimately, it's much closer to the look of printed photos.

What’s disappointing, however, is that Aura has kitted the Ink out with a somewhat glossy-finish panel, which can suffer from glare. I suspect it's no worse than the Walden and Aspen frames, but those LCD displays are illuminated, and as such they're significantly punchier.

Given that the Ink reflects light rather than emits it (like LCD does), it is, in reality, a niche frame. It needs the right conditions — well-lit rooms, but not too sunny — to shine, where it's probably my new favorite digital frame. If I had to choose between the Ink and Walden frames, though — and I've observed both side by side — it’s the latter that gets my vote for display versatility, even if it's yet another digital display to look at.

That said, the Aura Ink has super-low power consumption and a run time of around three months without a continuous power supply. No cables are needed, just a quarterly charge (assuming you only change the displayed image once per day).

Eliminating the reliance on ugly trailing cables is a design win. With regular LCD digital frames, cables are a necessary evil, and tricky to hide when mounting the frame on a wall, though they are less of an issue if you’re resting the frame on a surface.

I’ve come across one or two frames which are supplied with a white cable instead of a black one, including the Walden, which goes some way in disguising the cable (assuming your walls are licked with a light shade of paint). But there’s no doubt that a no-cable-at-all setup is the dream option.

Like the Walden, the Ink's display is housed in an attractive frame with a sleek bezel and a 1.5-inch mount (the off-white border between the bezel and the image). It also features a variety of mounting options, being positionable to display images in landscape and portrait format whether the frame sits on a table, bookshelf or other surfaces, or is fixed to a wall.

Aura has made the Ink impressively slimline — it measures just 0.6 inches deep, compared to the around one-inch depth of most other frames I've tested.

It charges via USB-C, and the port is easily accessible, which is not something I can say for the Walden's fiddly power input. The USB-C port is for charging only, however — you can't connect devices to add images.

Nor does the Ink have a memory card slot — all image uploads are via the companion app. And it displays photos only; there's no sound. All told, the Ink is as stripped-back as digital frames come.

The Ink shares the same companion app as all Aura frames, which delivers one of the best user experiences in the market and works seamlessly for wireless uploads and display updates, from anywhere with an internet connection.

Updating the displayed image on the Ink is an odd experience if you happen to be looking at the frame at the time. The frame flashes rapidly for the best part of a minute while the pixels of the existing image clear and are refreshed with the new one.

The Ink is limited to a maximum of 12 image changes per day. This is not Google Photos in a frame, where you might gather around with family, enjoying a rolling image gallery of holiday snaps, but one where you choose your image and live with it for the day or longer.

The real sting in the tail is how much the Aura Ink costs: $499 (pricing and availability for other regions is yet to be confirmed). You really are paying a premium for the E Ink display; even Aura's larger 15-inch LCD digital photo frames cost much less.

I've had the Ink frame in my home for several months, and I'm still somewhat undecided. I think it's the better frame to place on a wall than an LCD type, especially in a bright interior, where it's unbeatable. It's undeniably a premium product, and probably worth paying extra for, especially if you're weary of excessive screen time. However, LCD frames are more versatile.

Aura Ink: price & release date

Aura unveiled the Ink frame in October 2025, and it's available in one display size — 13.3-inch — for $499 in the US. At the time of writing it's not directly available outside the US; previous Aura frames have typically gone on sale globally approximately six months after their US launch, and hopefully the same will be true for the Ink.

I've mentioned the Walden frame a few times, which is a larger 15-inch LCD frame but with a much lower price tag, costing around 40% less. Put simply, you're paying a big premium for the Ink's E Ink display.

Aura Ink: specs

Should I buy the Aura Ink?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Aura Ink: also consider

How I tested the Aura Ink

• I tested the Aura Ink over several months
• I uploaded a selection of photos from my Android phone
• I placed the frame on various surfaces around my home, in vertical and horizontal formats

Aura sent me its Ink frame and I set it up in my home months before writing this review. Unlike other reviews published soon after the Ink's release, I've actually tested its long battery life – and yes, the three-month battery life based on no more than a single image change per day is accurate.

I've placed the Ink on a sideboard close to a window, in a dim corner of my front room, and various other spaces around the house.

I've uploaded a variety of photos to the frame through Aura's companion app for Android — both minimalist and detail-rich images, in vertical and horizontal formats.

I already have the Aura Walden in my home, so I've been able to make direct comparisons between the two frames.

• First reviewed: March 2026
• Read more about how we test

Have you ever stopped to think about how radically our relationship with photography has changed? Photos are no longer occasional artefacts, carefully captured on film and deliberately stored. Today, they are a core part of how we communicate, remember and document our lives.

A quick snapshot can convey context faster than text ever could - where you are, who you’re with and what matters in that moment. Photography has become constant and effortless, woven into the fabric of everyday communication rather than treated as something special or scarce.

Trillions of images with nowhere to go

This shift has resulted in an unprecedented scale of everyday photography. Modern smartphones now rival dedicated cameras, with even entry-level devices routinely shipping with 50-megapixel sensors capable of producing images that exceed 10-15MB with a single tap.

When multiplied across billions of people, the numbers quickly become staggering. It’s estimated that roughly five billion photos are taken every day worldwide, equating to around 50 petabytes of new image data captured daily.

Storage constraints, once the natural brake on this behavior, have largely disappeared thanks to cloud backups and expanding device capacity, allowing people to capture first and defer decisions indefinitely.

Camera rolls as dormant datasets

While this abundance has removed friction, it has also introduced a new problem. In the early days of smartphones, camera rolls demanded regular attention because space was limited and deletion was unavoidable. That friction forced a form of curation.

Today, most digital photo libraries contain tens or even hundreds of thousands of images, the vast majority of which are never revisited, organized or meaningfully engaged with again. Important moments sit alongside near-duplicates, screenshots and accidental captures, all flattened into an endless scroll.

What should be deeply personal archives have instead become dormant datasets that are vast in size, rich in potential value but largely unexamined.

This dormancy comes at a cognitive cost as well as a technical one. Photos are data, and data only has value when it can be used. When everything is saved, nothing stands out. Important memories become harder to find rather than easier, and the emotional signal of meaningful moments is diluted by sheer volume.

For many people, the effort required to scroll through years of images outweighs the reward, creating low-level anxiety around lost memories rather than joy in revisiting them. We are capturing more points in time than any generation before us, yet engaging with fewer of them in meaningful ways.

Why this is an AI problem

At first glance, this may not look like an AI problem. After all, image quality and storage at scale were largely solved years ago. The real challenge now is interpretation.

The next frontier is not creating more content, but understanding what already exists: identifying what actually matters, recognizing patterns over time and turning millions of disconnected images into something that resembles a coherent personal narrative.

At a global scale, personal photo libraries now rival enterprise datasets in size, yet lack the tooling required to extract meaning from them. This points to AI systems that curate rather than generate, adding meaning by selection rather than synthesis.

Turning photo overload into meaning

In this context, curating existing memories may prove to be a more valuable application of AI than producing synthetic ones. Photo libraries are deeply personal and represent life histories through an individual’s own lens.

They capture emotion, imperfection and context in ways that no generated content can replicate. When it comes to technology and memory, AI should help surface, organize and materialize the moments that already exist, rather than dilute them with content that carries no lived experience.

In the time it’s taken you to read this article, millions more photos will have been taken and added to digital archives around the world. Many will never be seen again. While we can’t and shouldn’t slow the pace of capture, we can rethink what happens next.

By using technology to turn excess into intention and help people engage with the memories they already value, we can transform vast quantities of visual data into something more accessible and meaningful. There is value in data, and there is value in memories - we simply need better ways to connect the two.

We've featured the best SSD.

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There it was, nestled among our office's pile of aging smartphones, a white iPhone 3GS. I felt like I'd just stumbled on a vintage Furby. Cradling the tiny, 4.5-in phone in my hand, I wondered if it still worked.

I had reason to doubt. After all, the iPhone 3GS shipped 16 years ago, and this one had been sitting in a drawer for I don't know how long. The only way to know was to charge it up. Fortunately, I'm a bit of a hoarder, and I still have quite a few 30-pin charging cables lying around.

After plugging the phone in, I waited. It wasn't long before I saw the classic Apple logo, circa 2009, appear on the 3.5-inch display. I pressed the physical home button, slid the virtual unlock button to the right, and the iPhone 3GS woke up, presenting me with a homescreen I haven't seen in years. It's so quaint, so skuemorphic. I love it.

Now that I had the iPhone 3GS fully charged, I wondered what to do with it. I couldn't put it on a cell network since 3G support ended around 2022. Wi-Fi worked, however, so I opened the settings and put the phone on my local office network.

I should say that every operation with the phone was a trial. Each keystroke took a beat to appear, but it worked well enough for my purposes.

What were those purposes? A camera comparison, of course, and not with just any shooter. I planned to pit one of the earliest iPhones against the apex handset, the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Since the iPhone 3GS has just one camera, and the iPhone 17 Pro Max has four, I decided to only compare the 3GS lens with the 17 Pro Max's main camera.

From a specs point of view, here's how they compare:

Right. There is no comparison. This table doesn't even mention the significant differences in the silicon backing these photographic capabilities.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max has the A19 Pro and a powerful image pipeline that includes Apple's "Photonic Engine," computational photography that shoots multiple images and uses, among other things, machine learning, to create a final photo.

The iPhone 3GS had a little 600MHz Samsung chip that didn't really pitch in much on the image capture front.

In other words, I'm under no illusion that I can create a direct comparison of photographic capabilities. What I could do, though, is illustrate just how far we've come in a relatively short 16 years. Traditional photography hasn't made leaps like this in such a short time. Over a similar timeframe of film photography, you saw incremental upgrades in lenses and controls, but the art of image capture remained aside from color photography, relatively static for decades.

Let the games begin

I started by opening the camera app on the iPhone 3GS and...nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. I got to stare for a bit at the Camera app's aperture-like shutter screen that usually opens to reveal the viewfinder.

At first, I thought the phone was broken, and I was ready to scrap the experiment when the virtual aperture finally spun open, and I could see through the tiny camera.

It was time to start taking photos, but...

I discovered another frustrating and also understandable limitation. Even though the iPhone 3GS worked and let me take photos, the fully charged battery would get exhausted after just a few shots – no warning, just a dead screen. What I was experiencing was a battery whose fully charged capacity had dropped to a few minutes. Getting a replacement battery was out of the question, so I had to make do.

Over the next few days, I did my best to, whenever I took a photo with the iPhone 3GS, take a matching shot with the iPhone 17 Pro Max's main camera. In an effort to give the iPhone 3GS a fighting chance, I never tapped on either screen to adjust the exposure or focus, just point and shoot.

It's hard to compare the image capture resolutions of these two phones; the iPhone 17 Pro Max is taking up to 48MP but defaulting to 24MP images with a resolution of 5712x4248. Compare this to the iPhone 3GS's 2048x1536.

All images on the 17Pro Max were shot in a 16:9 aspect ratio. The iPhone 3GS only offers 4:3. No editing of any kind was done before posting the images below.

Side note: Carrying around the white iPhone 3GS was a joy. It not only slipped right into my pocket, but it also slid effortlessly into the tiny coin pocket nestled inside the larger pants pocket. I often forgot I was carrying it.

iPhone 17 Pro Max main camera vs. iPhone 3GS camera

This banana photo is a perfect example of the many image quality differences between the two phones. The colors on the iPhone 3GS image are, on the whole, flat. It's a relatively low-light situation that proves challenging for the 3GS (note the significant grain). Meanwhile, the banana in the iPhone 17 Pro Max essentially jumps out of the frame.

As you might imagine, there's virtually no comparison on the portrait front. The iPhone 17 Pro Max main camera offers a wider-angle lens, automatically pulling in more of the scene without taking anything away from our subject, Tom's Guide's Kate Kozuch.

Again, the low-light situation gives the entire 3GS image a gray overcast and throws too much of her face into shadow. There's a wealth of colors and warmth in the iPhone 17 Pro Max image. The skin tone is virtually perfect. While you can count individual hairs in the 17 Pro Max image, those details are largely lost in the low-resolution iPhone 3GS portrait.

It's hard to believe these two train platform images were shot at the same time of day, but they were, and just seconds apart. The iPhone 17 Pro Max is inarguably the better image, but there's a certain noirish romanticism in the iPhone 3GS shot. I know it's almost all shades of gray-blue, but I kind of like it.

The iPhone 3GS' focus on the headlights gives this image an ethereal feel, but it's also, overall, a very dark photo even though it was captured during an overcast afternoon. The iPhone 17 Pro Max gives us a wider field of view and a far more cohesive photo.

This is the only true nighttime photo of the series. The iPhone 3GS turned the sky green, and the cars are a blurry mess. The iPhone 17 Pro Max's camera is almost fast enough to freeze the cars. The sky is unnaturally bright, but, of course, the 17 Pro Max gets major points for clarity and detail.

Look, the iPhone 3GS wins points for the moodiness, but the iPhone 17 Pro Max is simply better at handling challenging exposure situations. A foggy day like this means a way-too-bright wash of gray sky that, for the 3GS, throws the foreground into darkness. Apple's modern computational photography is expertly assessing the entire scene and applying multi-point exposure for a more visually accurate image.

One other thing worth noting: the iPhone 17 Pro Max camera app includes a levelling tool that helped me make sure my images were always level. Obviously, the 3GS has no such tool, which is why the Empire State Building leans slightly to the right.

It's hard to believe we ever shared photos from the iPhone 3GS (yes, Twitter was installed in the phone). The iPhone 3GS produced a particularly unappetizing food photo with flat, muddy colors and a distinct lack of depth for each pastry. The iPhone 17 Pro Max makes it all look so real and yummy.

Final thoughts

By the way, after I took these photos on the 3GS, I had to figure out how to get them from the phone to my laptop, and this story. I tried plugging the phone into my MacBook Air, but even though the system recognized the phone, it could not mount it as a drive.

I found, though, that the Safari browser worked well enough to let me log into Gmail. So, yes, I mailed the images to myself.

Not only do these photos illustrate the vast differences between camera, image sensor, and photo-processing capabilities, but also all that we now take for granted on our flagship smartphones. These cameras now do so much to stabilize images, fix exposure, ensure color accuracy, and maintain focus. They also give us previously unimaginable image clarity. I chose to shoot at just 24MP on the iPhone 17 Pro Max, but could have selected 48MP and even shot in raw for exquisite detail and complete control.

Sure, the iPhone 3GS loses this round, but nothing can compare to its size, portablilty or the nostalgia of these images. They really do speak to a simpler time. One that some generations are now striving for as they pick up older point and shoots, revive film cameras, and seek a pre-filter, and grittier look and feel for their photos.

I guess they could try to find their own iPhone 3GS, but they'll need new batteries and a whole lot of patience.

"It is never 'just a photo'," says Alexandra Surkova, an award-winning wildlife and conservation photographer, who has spent much of her recent years documenting rare Iberian Lynx.

These wild cats are thought to have lived in the Iberian Peninsula for a million years, and recent conservation work has recovered the species from just 94 known such lynx to over 2,000 today.

It's a true conservation success story, for which the power of photography is also playing its part, as highlighted by Alexandra's story.

Alexandra received a Sony FE 200-600mm F5,6-6.3 OSS lens during the COVID-19 lockdown, which prompted her to segue from street photography to wildlife. “My first encounter with a lynx changed everything," she said.

"My hands were shaking. Half of my photos were blurry, but right then, I knew that my future life was there. I couldn’t sleep that night because of the sensations. I had seen this super-elusive animal that was so rare to see in the wild.” 

For Alexandra, the impact was deeply personal, and five years later she now has a big social media presence – her photos, taken today with a Sony A1 II and a range of pro lenses, including the FE 300mm F2.8 GM OSS and the monster FE 600mm F4 GM OSS, are inspiring others in some surprising, positive ways.

'He decided to go out shooting with a camera, much more than a rifle'

Sharing the wonder of rare species such as the Iberian Lynx can be a double-edged sword. For Alexandra, there's power in her images, including for those who mean the animals harm.

“It is not just my friends and family who I am talking to. There are many people who are looking at what I am doing now. Sometimes you could disclose the location of an animal without thinking, and the next day that animal could be killed. It is a great responsibility.” 

And this sobering reality was drilled home when, a year after starting photographing Iberian Lynx, Alexandra received a message from a hunter.

"He wrote to me, saying he had been following me for some time. After looking at my photos, he brought a camera. He decided to go out shooting with a camera, much more than a rifle. That moment changed everything inside of me."

Photography can wield power for good. “It is much more than showing pictures of animals”,  Alexandra says, “it is about transformation. It is about evoking emotion.” 

 For stoic photographers like Alexandra, who brave extreme climates and terrain, who often wait for 14 hours in silence without a single sighting but then try and try again, this is the mission.

For the full story, head to Sony Alpha Universe and check out Alexandra's Instagram for more of her wildlife photography. Alexandra shoots with Sony A1 and A1 II cameras, paired with FE 300mm F2.8 GM OSS, FE 400mm F2.8 GM OSS and FE 600mm F4 GM OSS lenses.

• SkyPixel’s 11th Annual Photo and Video Awards has attracted more than 45,000 entries so far
• Both photos and video content can be entered, with judges including Emmy-winning directors and social media influencers.
• Closing date for the contest is March 10, 2026, 23:59 (CST)

DJI remains the global leader in consumer drones, dominating the best drones and even best action cameras. And DJI's involvement in aerial photography extends to competitions; it has once more teamed up SkyPixel, one the world's most popular online communities for aerial content enthusiasts and professionals, to create the annual photo and video contest for the industry.

The scale of the contest is impressive – midway through its 11th season it has attracted more than 45,000 entries. And, in an effort to tease out more entries, DJI and SkyPixel unveiled some of the best shots and early contenders for the $200,000 prize fund so far. Among them are seven standout stills and five celebrated video entries.

One of the themes for this year's competition is called “Frame Your World,” for which hopeful content creators are encouraged to submit still and moving images that observe the world and express their personality.

This year has drawn interest from aspiring enthusiast photographers and filmmakers, plus contributions from industry influencers and heavyweight professionals. The hosts of the competition are only too happy to point out that this fraternity includes Emmy winners and world-renowned directors. On this list of elite artists is judge Ryan Hosking, the Aerial Director of Photography for the hit series Yellowstone, starring Kevin Costner, and Emmy-winning Director Alen Tkalčec.

SkyPixel calls the 11th Annual Photo & Video Contest more than a simple aerial photography competition, referring to it as a "global creative hub", and "one of the world’s most influential imaging events". With the number of images and videos submitted so far, and with several weeks still left to enter (closing on March 10), a lot of other creatives obviously agree.

Take Education on the Ice of Lake Çıldır by İsmail Kaplan (above), which captures children studying on a frozen lake from above, during harsh winter conditions. One of the judges of the competition, Judge Jiang Ping, was Chief Photographer of Chinese National Geography and highlighted the color contrast as a successful element that made the image stand out. Meanwhile, the shot was praised for capturing a moment in "nature classroom" by Professor Zhu Jiong of the Beijing Film Academy’s School of Visual Media and Communications, who called the frame "incredible".

The other judges' top choices

The fact that the content hosts a category for video places it in a unique position for attracting the content creators of today. With so many artists working across multiple media, it's a perfect opportunity for amateurs and pros to show off their filmmaking skills.

Ryan Hosking highlighted that the composition of "Iceland's Highlands from a Puffin's View" by Dennis Schmelz made the most of the contrast between the blue-green water and dark lava, calling it "exquisite."

As the contest is yet to close, there's still a chance to enter. SkyPixel and DJI will, together, award three grand prizes and give away more than 53 prizes in total, adding up to an impressive $200,000 kitty. The grand prize includes packages made up of products like the DJI Inspire 3, DJI Mavic 4 Pro, Ronin 4D-8K, and Hasselblad X2D II 100C. Winners will also be offered a direct SkyPixel Creator Contract.

Meanwhile, the Top 10 video/photos and People’s Choice winners will win prizes such as the DJI Mavic 4 Pro, DJI Avata 2, DJI Air 3S, and Osmo Pocket 3. Finally, all entrants are eligible to win DJI Credits for purchases on store.dji.com. In other words, you are rewarded just for entering.

You can submit entries directly through the SkyPixel site or via social media by tagging DJI Official on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, or X and using the hashtags #skypixel and #djiosmo. Participants can compete in multiple categories and you can enter as many works as you'd like. But be quick if you want to be involved, the deadline for closure is March 10, 2026, 23:59 (CST).

• Your guide to the best drones
• Best wildlife photography camera: our top picks from Canon, Nikon, Sony and more
• I took this Nikon super-telephoto lens on a dream safari trip – and learned a big lesson about pro primes

• Greek photographer Athanasios Maloukos scooped the top prize
• They entered two series of low-light images: 'Whirling Devotion' and 'Night of Sorrows'
• Judges billed the winner's portfolio as among the best they'd seen in the contest's 23-year history

Forget picture postcard views and Instagram-worthy shots of popular landmarks, the winner of this year's Travel Photographer of the Year scooped the top prize with an altogether different portfolio.

Greek photographer Athanasios Maloukos submitted two haunting series of low-light images: Night of Sorrows: The Yacente' Procession of Zamora, and Whirling Devotion: Rituals of Sufism in Anatolia.

Each series documents spiritual ceremonies in Spain and Turkey, respectively – the latter in particular beautifully captures a sense of motion and stillness with a masterful use of shutter speed – there's no editing trickery here, all the effects we see are achieved in-camera.

Appropriate to the spiritual significance of the ceremony, these images go beyond what we see – we get a sense of quiet, and despite being on the outside looking in, the images are deeply intimate.

Maloukos said, "I am speechless seeing that one of my most intimate, spiritual personal projects have touched the judges of TPOTY."

For me, it's easy to see why, and you can judge for yourself from the selection of images below, and by following the link to Maloukos's Instagram page, where he unpacks what is happening in each spiritual ceremony he has documented.

Rhythm and reverance

One of the contest's judges, Jeremy Hoare, described Maloukos's work as "one of the best over the last 23 years of these awards", while TPOTY founder Chris Coe further elaborated on the panel of judges' decision:

"These images require immense skill to get right," said Coe. "Shooting on the edge like this requires very careful use of shutter speed to selectively freeze and blur the movements in these two ceremonies.

"There's a sense of rhythm and reverence in the images, which is incredibly difficult to achieve. This is all achieved in camera without over-processing and conveys the depth and intensity of each moment."

I've included a selection of the other series Night of Sorrows: The 'Yacente' Procession of Zamora, below. Marking Holy Thursday, the series is equally haunting, with a style consistent with Maloukos's other bodies of work.

Athanasios Maloukos shoots with a Canon EOS R5 and EOS R7, paired with any one of the RF 24-70mm, RF 15-35mm f/1.8L IS USM, and RF 70-200mm lenses.

The EOS R5 was released in 2020 and is still the camera that I see crop up the most among contest winners five years on – including the Landscape Photographer of the Year 2025.

It might well have been replaced by the EOS R5 Mark II, but these contests only reaffirm how incredibly capable the full-frame 45MP mirrorless camera is.

The entire collection of this year's winning images can be found at the TPOTY site. I also recommend checking out Athanasios Maloukos Instagram, link below, it's well worth a look.

I'll always remember seeing Sally Mann's photographs for the first time – it was when I studying photography at college some 25 years ago. My first taste was her polarizing Immediate family series – monochrome images mostly of her children, shot using 8 x 10-inch sheet film.

There was a timeless beauty to those photos, which were painstakingly made with a large-format Deardorf 8 x 10 bellows-view camera – if you're interested, she outlines her workflow in this CBS Mornings feature.

It's a film format that she's continued using over the following decades, shooting monochrome-only, until her recent switch to a digital camera, revealed in conversation during her appearance on the BBC Radio 4's long-running Desert Island Discs show in the UK.

"I've started taking pictures with a digital camera", said Mann. "It's so great, I'm just loving it! It's so easy, color is so easy, and so much fun! I'm shooting down in the Mississippi delta where you can't take a bad picture because of the gorgeous lyricism and dream-like quality of the light down there, and I'm doing it in color."

We don't know Mann's specific camera of choice, but when asked about what prompted her to make the switch to color and a digital camera, she was quick to pinpoint the practical implications of shooting with film.

'I'm in the modern world, finally!'

Mann explained, "It's so time-consuming and laborious to work with an 8 x 10 view camera, and the film now is so expensive. I hate spending that much money on each shot.

"And so you're always second-guessing yourself, saying, 'Is that good enough? Is that really worth $12?' But with digital, you just shoot, and if you don't like it, boom, gone, off your computer."

Sally Mann, who was born in Lexington, Virginia, where most of her best-known photos were made, is now 74 and embracing new camera gear with an infectious enthusiasm, even if she has kept a foot in both camps.

"I have this funky old lens and it doesn't handle light well, so there's this little glow to everything. I had the lens before the [digital] camera – it's a 1940's old Leica lens," she explained.

And she added that retirement is not on the cards: "I'm a workhorse. I'm a peasant, I just put on the harness every day."

Mann has an upcoming touring exhibition with the Gagosian gallery network, featuring intimate portraits spanning decades with her husband of 55 years, Larry, who has muscular dystrophy.

"I do hope that the work is viewed in its entirety as a whole," she said. "I don't want to be always known just for the family pictures. There's so much more and more to come."

The full conversation is available at the BBC's Desert Island Discs page for UK viewers.

Given its potential impact on the creative industry, it’s no surprise that there is a lot of talk around the subject of Artificial Intelligence. What has taken many people by surprise, myself included, is the speed with which AI has hit the mainstream; only three or four years ago, even the term ‘AI’ didn’t mean much to me beyond a sci-fi cliché, and the occasional passive reference in the specifications of photo-editing software.

And yes, so-called ‘intelligent’ features have been present in applications like Adobe Photoshop for a while, but at nowhere near the level of sophistication we’re seeing today. Compared to apps like Firefly and ChatGPT, they’re chalk and cheese.

Of course, that is changing, with the announcement that Adobe Photoshop is now built into ChatGPT for free. From what we've seen so far, it looks as though this is going to be another great practical tool for photographers.

Since the dawn of generative AI, most of the conversation has been focused on the potential negative consequences for photographers – if it will take our jobs or render cameras redundant – but there has been relatively limited discussion about how the use of AI can enhance how we take images.

The internet is buzzing with articles describing technical features like AI-integrated autofocus systems, subject recognition, and AI-driven upscaling etc., but what about the human element?

It’s important not to forget that all AI models are trained on content created by humans. In other words, using all of the web as its inspiration, AI is actually geared to offer an overview of how humanity interacts with the world and how this makes us feel: the Human Condition.

I was recently contemplating why I take photos in the first place, and how my images reflect my personality. And what better way to explore this than with some healthy critique by someone (or something) that potentially knows me better than I know myself?

I decided to see how ChatGPT might approach a review of my images. I suspected that some feedback would be generic in its focus, clearly drawn from pre-existing reviews of similar photographic works. Understandably, AI would be technical in its choice of elements to review, but I was especially interested to see if it could offer tailored suggestions for how I specifically could improve my photography, while remaining true to my interests, values, and artistic preferences.

As a framework for testing how ChatGPT responds to my prompts, I’m looking for each answer to hit one of three pillars: honesty, breadth of analysis and understanding. Honesty is fairly self-descriptive – how much does it tell me what I might not want to hear?

Breadth refers to the amount of detail responses go into and the demonstration of photographic expertise. Finally, understanding means the extent to which the AI can show it recognizes human traits and creative influences.

Question 1: basic query

Can you critique this cityscape image from my portfolio?

I thought I’d start by giving ChatGPT as little direction as possible. I uploaded an example image in isolation, introducing myself to the algorithm, as it were, and let the AI pick which elements it thought worthy of analysis. Its first response was typically upbeat.

“Thanks for sharing this—there’s a lot working very well here.”

Thanks! However, if I were talking to a human, I’d be expecting a ‘but’ to follow. I was pleasantly surprised.

“The lighting is the standout strength of this image. Golden-hour backlighting creates a warm, atmospheric mood and gives the scene a strong sense of time and place. The low sun adds depth through long shadows and rim light around the figures. The flare and haze feel intentional rather than distracting. They soften the scene and enhance the cinematic quality. Highlights are well controlled overall. The sunlit pavement is bright but not blown out, which suggests good exposure discipline.”

I can already make an interesting observation: ChatGPT can identify which characteristics of my shot other humans are likely to find attractive. I’d expected it to start with the technical aspects, such as my choice of shutter speed, metering mode, and f-stop (later, it did identify that the camera – a Sony A7 V – must have a good dynamic range), but instead it honed straight in on the aesthetics.

This is definitely a human-like reaction. When was the last time you showed someone an image and the first thing out of their mouth was “I love your choice of ISO”? It’s far more likely they’d reference the sunlight, the shadows, how autumnal the image looked, or what it made them feel. I then got my first bit of gentle criticism.

“One small consideration,” ChatGPT begins, like a friend who’s afraid to hurt my feelings. “the brightest area near the top center pulls the eye quite strongly. That’s not necessarily a flaw, but slightly reducing highlight intensity there (either by framing or post-processing) could help keep attention more firmly on the pedestrians”.

Hmm, okay, I take the point. I wanted to introduce a hazy wash of light, so it was intentional, but at least the AI seems to have guessed this was the case. Other suggestions included cropping in a little tighter using a telephoto lens, a trend we’ll discuss again soon, and lifting the shadows on the left of the frame. Overall, this response managed to hit two of our three pillars, Honesty and Breadth.

ChatGPT feedback: This is a strong, confident street photograph with a cinematic feel. The light is used deliberately, the composition feels thoughtful, and the technical execution supports the story

My impressions: ChatGPT is capable of seeing an image from the viewer’s perspective, but given a generic prompt, it’s likely to keep feedback generic.

Question two: chasing criticism

Give me a review of my cityscape photo. Tell me what you think about the quality of the lighting, the composition, and the technical considerations such as my choice of shutter speed, aperture, white balance etc. What can I do better?

Next, I provided a prompt with greater specifics of the parts of an image on which I wanted feedback. With this question, I was looking for harsher criticism on areas I might not have considered.

“The image succeeds as a dynamic, energetic urban scene. The long-exposure light trails immediately communicate movement and modern city life, while the historic architecture anchors the frame and gives it identity. It’s visually engaging and clearly well executed,” is ChatGPT’s initial observation.

Once again, it starts with a reinforcing positivity, which I suppose I would mirror when reviewing a stranger’s photography. I do suspect this is to ensure people keep coming back to the app. This is followed by a more direct criticism.

“Saturation is pushed fairly hard, especially in the reds and purples. It looks good at first glance, but on longer viewing it edges toward “HDR cityscape” territory.”

I was kind of hoping it would notice this, as it was the image parameter I would probably have highlighted first if I were performing a portfolio review. The saturation on this shot had been turned up in Affinity Photo for a specific paper stock; in print it would look fine, but the JPEG does look overcooked. The rest of the feedback on my choice of camera settings was complimentary, but the final word surprised me.

“The composition is very centered and very balanced. While this works, it also makes the image feel a bit safe.”

I don’t actually agree with it in this case, since the placement of the clock tower was largely dictated by editorial requirements, but of course, ChatGPT didn’t know that. What’s interesting is that without too much of a detailed prompt, it was encouraging me to take risks with my framing.

This is excellent as many beginners don’t really know what to ask or that central framing might be considered a bad thing. The AI was able to provide some professional insight, the type I’d hope to receive on a one-to-one workshop with a pro. This fulfilled the second of our three pillars, Breadth of analysis.

ChatGPT feedback: This is a polished, technically accomplished cityscape, and it would sit comfortably in a curated urban portfolio. Bringing a bit more of your personal voice or risk-taking into images like this would be the next exciting step.

My impressions: Describing your intent is necessary for targeted, practical feedback, but AI can recognize common beginner mistakes and competently offer advice for improvement.

Question three: advanced prompt

I'm curating a portfolio of seascape imagery. How would this more abstract image sit alongside other, more traditional, coastal photography? Can you give me some for improvement when capturing this style of image?

So far, ChatGPT has been able to point out minor areas of improvement, but I still suspect much of this is pulled from stock answers and generic photography reviews. Yes, it has pointed out some specifics in my images, but I’m not yet convinced it understands my intentions and creative outlook. Therefore, for my next prompt, I gave it a more conceptual image to analyse along with a two-component question, asking for ideas on the frame itself and its wider use in a portfolio.

“This image would actually strengthen a seascape portfolio—provided it’s curated thoughtfully”, it begins, with the ubiquitous em-dash included to remind me I’m talking to AI. “It plays a very different role from classic coastal vistas, and that contrast can be an advantage rather than a liability.”

The model then goes into some depth on how an abstract image differs from something more literal. I guess this could be considered an understanding of intention, although my direct reference to abstract photography in my prompt could have given it a head start. I felt it was more creative in its advice for how I could incorporate the image in a portfolio or book.

“Where it wouldn’t work is as an opener or a dominant style unless the entire portfolio leans abstract,” it points out. “Instead, this is best placed after a calm, minimal horizon image. Think of it as poetry between prose.”

ChatGPT feedback: This image doesn’t dilute a seascape portfolio—it deepens it. It shows sensitivity to time, movement, and human presence, which are all intrinsic to the coast. The key to improving this style isn’t more blur or more abstraction—it’s precision within softness. The more intentional your choices feel, the more powerful these images become.

My impressions: The more detailed your enquiry, the more targeted and specific ChatGPT’s response. It helps if you already know what you’re looking for and the types of feedback you require.

Question four: testing understanding

I'm having trouble defining my photographic style. Based on these images and the ones you've already seen earlier, how would you describe my artistic style? How do my images stand out from other photographers and what more can I do to further develop my signature 'look'?

For my final attempt, I thought I’d really test ChatGPT’s ability to demonstrate that it understood me as a photographer, and what I am often trying to achieve as a creative person. This is often what separates a good tutor from a great one. General overviews of someone’s portfolio are useful, but it won’t always help a student learn to express themselves creatively. After showing it a selection of images, the AI opened with predictable optimism.

“This is a really good—and very honest—place to be in your development. The fact that you’re questioning your style now usually means one is already emerging.”

Helpfully, it then goes on to give its impression of what my style actually is, something I’ve not been able to easily extract from other human photographers over quite a few years. And this is where things got really interesting.

“You photograph atmosphere more than subjects, and time more than place,” it highlights. Yes, I’d say that’s true. I rarely chase specific subjects and find myself trying to isolate details in whatever location I happen to be in. I don’t often go somewhere with a precise idea of what I’m going to shoot.

“You are not a “decisive moment” photographer. You are closer to a temporal photographer, someone interested in what happens between moments,” it tells me. I was quite taken aback by how insightful this comment is, and am somewhat relieved to hear confirmation of something that has long concerned me about my style.

“You’re Consistent in Intent (Even If Not in Genre). Although your subjects vary (city, coast, landscape, abstraction), your intent is consistent. Many photographers shoot multiple genres without coherence. You don’t. The emotional register of your images is remarkably steady. That’s already a style.”

I’d say that just about hits our third pillar, understanding.

Conclusion

The Instagram gods don’t especially like my wide variety of chosen subjects, but that hasn’t deterred me from exploring them. I do indeed like a cinematic lighting style, and I have always tried to apply this to a multitude of genres. AI successfully identified this and I was surprised by its interpretation of my creative intent. It was spot on. And it was good to hear some reaffirmation that I have been able to apply something resembling a uniform style across all of my subject matter.

I do have some general observations of ChatGPT’s ability to interpret a prompt in this context. Firstly, don’t think that just because it isn’t a person that it won’t try to people-please. Unless you ask it to be harsh, and even when you do, there is a trait of cautious positivity. Inevitably, AI companies want happy users, because these are more likely to continue using the product. While this might do wonders for your ego, it’s better to ask for specifics.

AI is very good at technical analyses. After all, it has literally billions of images from which to draw inspiration. It can tell you if something is sharp, if the composition adheres to established framing conventions, and if your f-stop is appropriate. However, ChatGPT has demonstrated that it can also identify the elements of an image that a human would find appealing.

I wouldn’t choose to speak to AI before going on a workshop with another photographer, or reading a succinct piece of editorial on an esteemed tech website just yet (cough*), but with careful prompts, it can work as a fantastic mirror to discover what you hope to get from photography.

• The winners of the Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025 have been announced
• 44 images were shortlisted from over 10,000 entries from 109 countries
• Mark Meth-Cohn from the UK wins the top prize with his image of a gorilla

The winners of the Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025 have been unveiled, with 44 shortlisted images selected from over 10,000 entries – a record high for the contest. And it's Mark Meth-Cohn from the UK who emerges as the winner with 'High Five' – an image of a playful young gorilla in Rwanda.

“We spent four unforgettable days trekking through the misty Virunga Mountains in search of the gorilla families that call them home", says Mark.

"On this particular day, we came across a large family group known as the Amahoro family, they were gathered in a forest clearing where the adults were calmly foraging while the youngsters were enthusiastically playing. One young male was especially keen to show off his acrobatic flair: pirouetting, tumbling, and high kicking. Watching his performance was pure joy, and I’m thrilled to have captured his playful spirit in this image.”

Mark took the winning photo, above, with a Sony A1 and FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM – a classic Sony lens – set to 1/800 sec, f/3.5, and ISO 200, and wins a dream one-week safari trip to the Maasai Mara. Winners of other categories, including the Nikon Junior Category (25 and under), take home various Nikon mirrorless camera gear, including a Z6 III, Z50 II, and Zr.

What I personally appreciate about the Comedy Wildlife Awards is how open a competition it is – there are winners at different stages of their photography journey, and from all walks of life – winner Mark describes himself as a keen amateur.

The contest rewards technical excellence like any other, but it majors on the fun. And with that in mind, let's take a look at some of the shortlisted entries.

Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025 finalists

There were 44 entries that made the shortlist, including videos. Below is a selection of my absolute faves, including 'Flamingone', a completely real image that fooled judges and won the 'AI' category in the 1839 photo contest last year.

The judges have already declared their favorites, but there's one more category yet to be decided – the People's Choice Award. Voting is open from December 10, when the public gets to choose their favorite finalists from 2025.

Votes can be cast at www.comedywildlifephoto.com until March 1, 2026, and the winner of this remaining award will be announced on March 14. I know which one I'm voting for!

Which is your favorite and why? Let me know in the comments below.

• Winners of the International Landscape Photographer of The Year 2025 have been announced
• The stunning winning image by Austrian photographer Lukas Trixl was taken in New Plymouth, North Island, New Zealand
• Lukas' camera of choice was the Canon EOS R5

The winners of the International Landscape Photographer of The Year 2025 contest were announced this week, and there's a familiarity about the cameras used by the winning entrants.

Take the winning photo overall, a prehistoric-looking scene of a snowcapped mountain, which can be found in New Plymouth, North Island, New Zealand, and which was taken by Austrian photographer Lukas Trixl.

Lukas shot the stunning image with the Canon EOS R5 mirrorless camera, which he pairs with either the Canon RF 14-35mm F4 IS USM, Laowa 12mm Zero-D f2.8, Canon EF 70-200mm F2.8 and Canon RF 200-800mm lenses, having upgraded from the Canon Rebel T7 DSLR (known as the EOS 2000D outside the US) years ago.

This news comes in the wake of the Wildlife Photographer of The Year 2025 awards, which were also dominated by the EOS R5 – although the overall winner of that contest used an 11-year-old DSLR, the Nikon D810.

The other major award at ILPOTY 2025 was the overall winning portfolio by J. Fritz Rumpf, who used the Nikon D850 DSLR, Nikon Z7 II mirrorless, and DJI Mavic 3 drone for his wide-ranging selection of landscape photos.

So there's a theme connecting these contest winners – don't write off older pro gear. The EOS R5 is still a great camera, despite being five years old and having been succeeded by the EOS R5 Mark II, and the aforementioned DSLRs are older still.

And there's good news if you have your sights set on such contests but need top-flight gear to help make your vision a reality – you don't need to spend big. For example, the Canon EOS R5 has fallen to record-low prices in the wake of the Black Friday sales, and given that it's now an older model.

Best Canon EOS R5 deals today

Released in July 2020, the Canon EOS R5 remains a popular camera among pros more than five years later – certainly if major 2025 photo contests are anything to go by. Its compact and rugged body, sharp 45MP stills, powerful in-body image stabilization and reliable autofocus are among the many attributes which make it a top camera for pro photographers. The EOS R5 has fallen in price by around 35% since it launched, making it an excellent buy today.

You can get a better look at Lukas Trixl's winning ILPOTY 2025 image, shot with the EOS R5, below,

Not in the US or UK? I've included the best Canon EOS R5 deals for other regions, below.

Back in June, we heard that the sun is at the peak of its 11-year magnetic activity cycle, meaning more chances of seeing the northern lights across mid-latitude regions in the US and Europe. Well, good news – tonight specifically is another opportunity to bask in those dancing magenta and green hues.

I can tell you, the northern lights are an awe-inspiring natural wonder, having witnessed a display for the first time where I live in the south of the UK in May 2024. And if you live in a region which where the northern lights could be on display tonight, you should follow my 5 tips below for planning your photos.

In the UK, the prediction is that only Scotland and northern England will see the northern lights tonight, according to the BBC, while USA today suggests two dozen states have a chance.

Not going to make it out tonight? Fear not – scientists delivered further good news for night sky lovers earlier this year, suggesting that the sun is entering a long-term phase of heightened activity that could span several decades.

I'll write again when the next intense geomagnetic storm gets underway and the northern lights could be particularly visible. But for now, here's how to take advantage of tonight's northern lights opportunities...

5 steps for planning Northern Lights photos

TL;DR: Check the conditions, find the right location, plan the shot, gather the right equipment, prepare the best camera settings.

If you'd like a deep dive for the best chance of taking stunning northern lights photos, check out our in-depth 5 ways to plan your shoot article.

Check the conditions
First things first, check out NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (@NWSSWPC), or AuroraWatch UK to see where the northern lights are likely to be visible. The prediction for tonight is two dozen states / Scotland & northern England. Next, check the weather forecast and pray for clear skies! There's a mix of social media accounts likely bringing regular updates and push alerts.

Find the right location and plan your shot
Wherever you are, head away from light pollution and to dark-sky areas for the clearest possible sightings.

With that, you'll want to plan your shot with local knowledge and an app like PhotoPills, remembering you need to face north for the aurora borealis!

I like to include a point of interest in the foreground of my northern lights photos, as you can see from the images I took back in May 2024. You could frame an isolated tree or building, or seek a body of water for reflections which is a particularly effective technique.

Check your gear
Just about any camera can take northern lights photos – the image above was shot with an old Google Pixel 6! Personally I prefer using a 'proper' camera, opting for my mirrorless camera with wide-angle zoom lens. For either option, a tripod support is needed for sharp, shake-free shots.

Choose the best camera settings
Most of today's phones include a night setting which boosts low light image quality, while select models like Google Pixel phones feature a dedicated Astrophotography mode. If the shutter speed is too long, those lovely northern lights details will blur into one solid mass of color and you'll lose the detail (like in the photo above) – so I suggest experimenting with various settings.

For camera gear with manual exposure control, select a shutter speed somewhere between 1-5 seconds and crank up ISO to get the right brightness, rather than too long an exposure and cleaner low ISO. Your priority is detail over noise-free images.

Good luck, and here's to clear skies!

DwarfLab Dwarf III: Two-minute review

The Dwarflabs Dwarf III smart telescope is a mini marvel. My first astrophotography set-up 10 years ago weighed more than 20kg / 44lbs – but this excellent little self-contained device comes in at a mere 1.3kg / 2.8lbs and is small enough to fit in airline carry-on luggage.

In fact, that's exactly what I did with it a few months ago, taking it with me on vacation to Greece. I've also used it extensively in my garden in the UK and compared it thoroughly to another smart telescope, the ZWO Seestar S50. And as you can see from my verdict and score above, I love it.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's start with the basics.

The Dwarf III is one of the new breed of smart telescopes which simplify and automate the process of astrophotography to bring it to within easy reach of those without the time or money needed for a 'proper' set-up of mount, telescope and camera.

As with smart telescopes from rivals ZWO, Vaonis and Unistellar, the Dwarf III doesn't have an eyepiece you look through, and doesn't in any way resemble a classic telescope such as a reflector or refractor. Instead, it tracks objects in the night sky then takes photos of them and 'stacks' them.

This process increases the faint signal being captured in order to bring out details – because if you just looked at a single shot, you'd see very little beyond a few stars. The resulting image can be viewed in real-time as it develops on your phone's screen, which is essentially your eyepiece.

You can see it in action below, with the fuzzy object that's barely visible after five frames eventually becoming the recognizable Crescent Nebula after about 60 frames:

The Dwarf III has two lenses to capture its targets, one 35mm telephoto and one 3.4mm wide-angle – although the latter is mainly used for finding objects rather than shooting them.

The telephoto has a 2.9x1.7-degree field of view, which can fit the moon in it about six times and which has space for almost every galaxy and nebula you might want to capture. I go into this in more detail below, but this wide FOV is one of my favorite things about it.

Inside, there's a 4K IMX678 Starvis 2 sensor, which is on the budget end compared to that found within dedicated cooled astronomy cameras but which delivers excellent results, helped also by the fast f/4.3 f-ratio; this captures light more quickly than some rival smart scopes.

It's all controlled by the DwarfLab app, which gives you everything you need to take photos of the night skies without the need for you to do much more than choose your target and set it going. Even if you've never used a smart telescope – or any kind of telescope – before, you should be up and running within a few minutes.

In fact, roughly 20 minutes after taking it out of the box you could be viewing your first shot of wonderfully named objects such as the Elephant's Trunk nebula or Sombrero galaxy – the Dwarf III really is that easy to set up and use.

And when you do so, I'm pretty sure you'll be impressed, because the Dwarf III takes excellent photos given its small stature and low-ish price. It's truly one of the best ways into this fascinating hobby.

DwarfLab Dwarf III: price and availability

The DwarfLabs Dwarf III was released in May 2025 and is competitively priced, coming in at $549 / £459 / AU$849. Depending on where you are in the world, that's either slightly cheaper or the same price as one of its main rivals, the ZWO Seestar S50, which costs $549 / £539 / AU$949. Compared to the Seestar S30, which is a comparable size to the Dwarf III, it's more expensive though; that model comes in at $399 / £419 / AU$699.

It's also worth noting that unlike the two Seestar models, the Dwarf III doesn't come with a tripod. Many keen photographers and stargazers will already own one, but if not you can buy one with the telescope for an additional $89 / £73 / AU$149. Or, of course, you can add your own; we have plenty of good options in our list of the best travel tripods. Either way, that might bump up the price a little.

DwarfLab Dwarf III: Specs

DwarfLab Dwarf III: Design

Looks-wise, the Dwarf III is about as far from a traditional telescope as you could get. Powered off, it resembles a beefy external hard drive from about 2010, but turn it on to reveal the twin lenses and it's more like some kind of futuristic security-camera-robot hybrid.

It's actually pretty cute, with a certain Wall-E charm about it (or maybe that's just me). Either way, it's well built: solid, with a smooth plastic finish and an IP54 rating that keeps it safe from dust, moisture and dew.

It's also impressively small – like, how-did-they-fit-all-that-in-there small, a feeling that only grows after you see what it's capable of. It's relatively light, too, at 1.3kg / 2.87lbs; that's almost half the 2.5kg of the Seestar S50 and a little less than the S30.

There's not a lot to look at, externally. Beyond those two lenses and the DwarfLab logo, there's the main power button – a big circular affair that's very easy to find in the dark and which has a glowing green ring around it – plus a battery status indicator of four green dots, and a single USB-C charging port. On the bottom, meanwhile, there's a 1/4-inch tripod thread.

It comes with an excellent carrying case, plus a couple of accessories: a USB-C charging cable, lens wipe cloth, plus a solar filter. The latter snaps on magnetically in a pleasing fashion, and comes with a pouch to keep it safe.

Design is all very well thought out and though it's a shame it doesn't come with a tripod, that's the only minus point in this regard. It's not a massive problem, either, because many of the telescope's intended customers will already have one, and it helps keep the price low.

I've been using either the Seestar S50's tripod or a K&F Concept 64in/163cm model which costs $49 in the US, £45 in the UK and AU$150 in Australia. This is light, sturdy and has a 360-degree ballhead which makes it very easy to angle the Dwarf III for EQ mode (of which more later).

DwarfLab Dwarf III: Features and performance

The Dwarf III is a feature-rich device, with a multitude of abilities and use cases.

Obviously the first of those is to take photos of the night skies, and it does that very well thanks to its 4K Sony IMX678 Starvis 2 sensor – the same type as used in some of the best dash cams, including the Thinkware U3000 Pro. Starvis 2 is particularly strong in low light, while the IMX678's 4K resolution gives you more pixels to work with when cropping in on small and distant objects.

The twin lenses are very helpful. The telephoto is what you'll take most of your images with, while the wide-angle one is mainly for locating objects in the first place; you can take photos with it too, but it has a much lower resolution.

I've got a full gallery of astro images taken with the telescope below, but for now here's just one, my favorite that I've shot with the device. It shows the Eagle Nebula, Messier 16, and if you zoom in on the middle you'll see the famous 'Pillars of Creation', the swirling clouds of dust and gas that wowed the world when the Hubble telescope shot them two decades ago.

The Dwarf III has three internal filters. The most important is the dual-band filter, which targets the OIII (sulphur) and H⍺ (hydrogen) wavelengths – in layman's terms, this means it can capture more of the faint details in nebulae and reduce the impact of light pollution. There's also an astro filter, which extends into the infra-red range and which works best on galaxies and star clusters, and a 'VIS' filter which is used for daytime photography. All are easily selected within the Dwarf III's app; you don't need to physically attach anything.

Speaking of daytime photography, DwarfLabs make a big pitch around the telescope's usefulness around bird watching, and theoretically you could use it instead of a mirrorless camera and telephoto lens for any subject – just don't expect it to rival an expensive chunk of glass from Canon, Nikon or Sony.

The daytime photography ('General') mode includes burst and timelapse options, plus object tracking which I found to be a little hit and miss. 4K video can be recorded at up to 30fps, or 60fps if you switch to 1080p.

There's also a solar system mode for snapping the sun, moon and (theoretically) planets, plus a panorama mode. In Astro mode, meanwhile, you can shoot in either alt-azimuth or equatorial mode.

Performance-wise, the Dwarf III is pretty snappy to turn on and off, and slews to targets quickly and reasonably quietly; it makes less noise than the Seestar S50, for instance, although neither would be likely to wake even the lightest of sleepers next door.

In use, it's unerringly accurate in finding targets, zipping about the sky when you tell it where to go via the built-in star atlas.

It's also incredibly reliable when shooting. If the tracking on a motorized telescope is even a tiny bit off, you'll get star trails and the individual frame will be rejected and not included in the 'stack', potentially reducing detail in the final stacked image. With the Dwarf III, this almost never happened – I generally got around an 80-90% success rate, so if I shot a target for an hour, I'd get around 50 minutes' worth of photos. This is way better than my experience than shooting with the Seestar S50, where it can be more like 50% at times.

Plus, that's when shooting with 15-second exposures in alt-az mode; put it in EQ mode and you can get 30s shots with a similar success rate. This all makes it very easy to capture a lot of data on a target in a short time.

One of the few downsides is that the battery is not the biggest – only 10,000mAh, which is good for about 5 hours in astro mode when tracking and shooting a target, according to DwarfLab, and which was about right in my experience. You almost certainly won't get through a full night's shooting with it.

That said, I didn't put it to the test often, preferring instead to leave a much bigger power bank connected to it to ensure I got a full night's shooting. I tend to use Iniu power banks, which I've found to be very reliable and extremely well priced; the model below is well worth checking out and will triple the Dwarf III's capacity.

DwarfLab Dwarf III: Software

The nature of a smart telescope means that all of your interactions with it will be via an app – it's not like you can look through as you can with an old-school reflector or refractor.

That puts a lot of pressure on the device's software to be slick and simple to use, and fortunately the Dwarf III's is just that – with a few caveats.

I began using the Dwarf III several months ago, and on my first few nights shooting with it found the interface to be a little confusing. It wasn't a horror show by any means, but it wasn't as intuitive as ZWO's Seestar app. For instance, I'd click on the big 'Photo' button front and center to start shooting a galaxy or nebula, then would realize that I'd have to go back in and select the 'Atlas' option to actually choose my target.

Settings for options such as exposure time, meanwhile, were hidden within a menu called 'Function' – which really didn't (to me) suggest 'Settings'. I got used to it all after a few nights, but it was a little more confusing than it could have been.

The good news is that DwarfLabs is continually updating the platform, and a recent update has massively improved the experience. Those settings are now within a menu named 'Parameter, which is far more sensible, and the Atlas is available from within the shooting screen. There's a simple toggle between the wide and telephoto cameras, whereas before you tapped the small one to change between them, but again without labelling. It's all much more slick and easy to use.

(Note that most of my images in this review are using the old version of the software, because there's not been a clear night in the UK for me to take further screenshots for what feels like about 15 years now. I'll update them soon.)

There's a scheduling feature within the app, which works as you'd want it to and which is better than the one in ZWO's app. This is a vital inclusion, because most people won't want to stay up all night – they'll want to set the Dwarf III running with a list of targets, then wake refreshed in the morning to a lovely collection of images.

Switching to EQ mode is also pretty trouble-free. For the uninitiated, this lets the Dwarf III rotate fully in sync with the skies, meaning you can take longer exposures than in standard alt-az mode. Anything longer than 30 seconds will need to be in EQ mode (the maximum exposure is two minutes) and in my experience it's best for 30 seconds too; alt-az mode is fine for 15s exposures.

The Dwarf III app guides you through the process of setting the telescope into EQ mode, telling you exactly which direction and what amount to adjust the tripod head by, and the whole thing only takes about five minutes, less if you haven't moved the tripod since the previous session.

The included Stellar Studio software is also great. This lets you carry out basic processing actions on photos via the cloud, rather than needing to download them to your computer.

It's not exactly stacked with options, but does a really good job of reducing noise, sharpening stars and bringing out details. You can also remove stars entirely if you want that lovely clean view of a galaxy or nebula.

Finally, in 'General' mode the app works pretty well to let you zoom in on a target. You can use the wide-angle view to get an overall view of your surroundings, then click on the screen to adjust where the telephoto lens is pointing. Another click switches to the telephoto view and you can start snapping away.

DwarfLab Dwarf III: Image quality

There's one very important thing that anyone using a smart telescope for the first time needs to understand: you won't be getting Hubble-challenging images straight out of the camera. Well, obviously, you won't be getting Hubble-challenging images at all; this is a $500 smart telescope, not a rig that costs 10 times that.

But even with that in mind, there's a big difference between the photos that the Dwarf III creates for you, and the results that you can achieve with some proper processing.

The easiest way to demonstrate that is with some before and after photos – so check out the gallery above. In every case, you'll see the unprocessed image produced by the Dwarf III first, followed by the version I processed in Pixinsight, the specialist astrophotography software I use.

Now, let's get one thing straight: I'm not an expert when it comes to astro image processing. It's an incredibly complex hobby, with sometimes arcane software to master and a surprisingly large amount of technical knowledge needed to really get the best results. In fact, I think I prefer some of the Dwarf III's images, at least when it comes to color – which is one of the toughest things to get right.

Regardless of what you think of my images (I won't be offended, promise), you can see that processing reduces noise and brings out more detail and color. To really get the best from the Dwarf III, you will still want to do some processing.

Fortunately, as mentioned above, it's pretty easy to considerably improve things within the Dwarf III's Stellar Studio on your phone, with no need to shell out for or learn anything more complicated.

For instance, try the above image of the glorious East Veil nebula – the original, unprocessed image is pretty good, but Stellar Studio turns it into something epic, and my Pixinsight version is only a slight improvement (if anything).

One of the things I really love about the Dwarf III is its wide 2.9x1.7-degree field of view, even when using the telephoto camera. The Seestar S50 has a much narrower 0.7x1.2-degree FOV, while the S30 is close to the Dwarf at 1.22x2.13-degree.

The net effect of this is that you get a real sense of drama with the Dwarf III. I love the Seestar S50, but with many targets you end up with a close-up of the object. You can get around this by using mosaic mode (the Dwarf also has one of these), but in my experience mosaics take longer to shoot and are harder to process.

The Dwarf, meanwhile, almost always captures the object and its surroundings. Its field of view is wide enough to cover the whole of Andromeda, for instance, whereas the S50 gets only the central section.

Of course you may prefer a closer view of targets, but the Dwarf's 4K resolution means you can crop in anyway and still have a decent-sized image. It's possible that the Seestar S30 will give me the FOV I love from the Dwarf with some of ZWO's advantages too, but I've not used that device yet, so that comparison will have to wait.

In general mode, image quality is fine. That's a pretty nice shot of a pigeon on my lawn above, but view the full-size image and you'll see the feathers lack definition. My Fujifilm X-T5 mirrorless camera would do a better job with a good zoom lens.

Solar photography, meanwhile, is easy to do – you simply snap on the filter then move to the target. Admittedly, for some reason the Dwarf finds it much harder to locate the sun than it does a tiny object many millions of light years away, but the Seestar S50 is no different in this regard.

I've only taken a few solar shots with the Dwarf III and was relatively impressed by them, but it's not an area of photography I'm particularly interested in.

Should I buy the DwarfLabs Dwarf III?

Buy it if…

Don't buy it if…

Also consider

How I tested the DwarfLabs Dwarf III

I took the Dwarf III with me on vacation to Crete, Greece, where I was lucky enough to be staying in an apartment with a roof terrace – and in a country with clear skies every night. I used the smart telescope extensively over the next week or so, taking photos of multiple targets including the Eagle nebula, Omega nebula and Andromeda galaxy.

When I returned to the UK, I used it whenever I could, which unfortunately was not that often due to the clouds which blanket the nation for about three-quarters of every month. Here, I set it up alongside my ZWO Seestar S50, taking photos of the same subjects for the same amount of time so I could directly compare results.

I also tried it in EQ mode, in Solar mode, in General mode for a bit of nature photography and spent many hours processing the photos it produced in all modes.

• Winners of the Wildlife Photographer of The Year 2025 announced
• Overall winner was captured using an 11-year-old Nikon D810 DSLR
• The Canon EOS R5 is the most popular camera amongst competition entrants

The winners of the Wildlife Photographer of The Year 2025 contest have been unveiled, and once again, it’s a set of incredible images. The overall winner was shot by South African photographer, Wim van den Heever, who takes home the Grand Prize.

His image depicts an otherworldly scene of a rare brown hyena exploring the dilapidated remains of the abandoned mining town of Kolmanskop in Namibia, a setting which creates an almost dystopian atmosphere. Van den Heever explains that he worked for almost ten years to capture his composition of a brown hyena in the perfect location, and his patience paid off, creating a haunting mood that reflects the ability of wildlife to recolonize areas once dominated by human activity.

The Wildlife Photographer of The Year Competition is one of the world’s most prestigious photo contests. This year was a record-breaker, drawing in more than 60,000 entries from across the globe. The contest caters to nature photographers of all specialisms and interests, featuring multiple rounds such as Animal Portraits, Birds, Invertebrates, Urban Wildlife, Underwater, Plants and Fungi, Wildlife Photojournalism, and more.

Eagle-eyed photographers will notice an even more astounding detail; that the overall winning shot, beating thousands of other entries, was taken on a DSLR camera from the last decade. Van den Heever shot his masterpiece on a Nikon D810, which having been launched back in the summer of 2014, is just about ancient in digital terms. In an age of rapidly developing mirrorless cameras, Van den Heever’s achievement is a testament to the longevity of enthusiast DSLRs. It proves that, just because a camera might lack the many bells and whistles of the most recent models, AI autofocus modes, subject recognition and tracking, and global electronic shutter modes to name but a few, this doesn’t make it redundant.

DSLRs are far from dead

The overall winner is not alone in being captured by an older DSLR model. In fact, they feature heavily across many of this year’s categories.

The winner of the youth category of the competition, Young Wildlife Photographer of The Year, also saw the top image captured on an aging Nikon DSLR camera. Andrea Dominizi from Italy used his Nikon D7100 to shoot a close-up frame of a longhorn beetle in the Lepini Mountains region. He paired this with a Tokina 10–17mm fisheye lens for a super-wide perspective, and an off-camera flash to provide some extra fill light.

Meanwhile, Dennis Stogsdill of the USA used an old pro favorite to capture his winning image in the Mammals category. The Canon EOS 1DX Mark II was his tool of choice, a top-level body capable of burst rates of 14 frames per second, or as high as 16fps in Live View mode. This gives many recent mirrorless bodies a run for their money.

Elsewhere, Ralph Pace won in the Underwater category using a Nikon D850 in a Nauticam housing. This DSLR is often considered one of the finest models of the type, blending high resolution with excellent low-light performance – ideal for shooting in an underwater setting.

While DSLRs are showing they have plenty of life left in them yet, Canon still has a good reason to celebrate its mirrorless RF mount system. Of all the high-performing images entered into the competition, it is the Canon EOS R5 that features most often, making it the most popular camera. This isn’t much of a surprise since the original R5 scored highly when we first reviewed it, while its successor currently ranks as the best Canon camera.

This offers a fascinating insight into the type of gear nature photographers are choosing to work with in 2025, and demonstrates that experienced shooters are holding on to tried and tested gear, whether this was released within the past five years, or as far back as the previous decade.

What do you currently shoot with? Would you still use an eleven-year-old DSLR? Don’t forget to leave your thoughts in the comments below!

You might also like

• The best DSLR camera for 2025: top choices for photography and video
• Best wildlife photography camera 2025: our top picks from Canon, Nikon, Sony and more
• I took this Nikon super-telephoto lens on a dream safari trip – and learned a big lesson about pro primes

Once Upon photo book review

Once Upon is a photo book service designed around making photo book creation as accessible as possible. The idea is that having the Once Upon app on your phone will make it easier to build a photo book as things happen, rather than as an afterthought.

This “quicker and easier” approach means the photo book options on offer are fairly limited compared to other photo book services I’ve tested, as Once Upon only offers square books in two sizes: medium, which measures 20 x 20cm, or large, which is 27 x 27cm.

Both options are available in hardcover, with an additional softcover option for the medium size.

Prices start from $19 / £16 / AU$35 for a 20-page medium photo book with a softcover, rising to $25 / £21 / AU$45 for a hardcover.

Additional silk matte or semi-gloss pages can be added at a cost of $0.85 / 42p / AU$1.40. The larger photo book starts at $35 / £26 / AU$55, with extra pages costing $1.05 / 62p / AU$1.70 each, which is cheaper than many of the services in our best photo books guide.

In total, the cost for my large 28-page hardcover photo book with silk matte paper came to £30.96 (about $42 / AU$65), but I got it for £28.22 thanks to a 25% discount that was available at the time.

The shipping cost was perfectly reasonable, and it should be in the US and Australia too, as Once Upon also has manufacturing sites in those regions. There’s an estimated production and delivery timeline of five to seven days in the UK, potentially rising to 10 business days in the US and Australia.

There’s no option to expedite, but this is an acceptable turnaround and quicker than some photo book providers, which can take a couple of weeks depending on where the book’s manufactured.

In this photo book’s case, I placed the order on a Tuesday afternoon and received the finished article the following Monday, which is an impressive turnaround of four working days.

As the brand's ethos is centered around it, it made sense to use the Once Upon app on my iPhone to create this photo book, but I experimented with the browser-based app, too.

Both offer the same features; however, the app provided helpful tips in the form of pop-ups as I started building my photo book.

These included general hints about how to drag, drop, and swap photos, along with important tips like warning me to check that nothing important was positioned over the crease when I applied a photo across a spread.

I could tell from the outset that this photo book service is tailored toward those who want to keep things simple. There was a grand total of two layouts on offer for the front cover, which consisted of having the title at the top or the bottom.

It was fortunate I wanted the outer cover to be black, as Once Upon only offers black or white.

There was the option to crop and rotate the cover image, with portrait, landscape, and square presets with fixed ratios, but that was the closest I got to fine-tuning anything.

Needless to say, this isn’t the photo book service for you if you want to have any creative input.

When I tried to add our TechRadar twist to the front cover, I found there were only three editable elements: the cover image, title, and subtitle.

The features are so stripped back that I wasn’t even able to change up the font of the subtitle. I wasn’t exactly spoiled for choice when it came to the title font either, as there was a choice of just four styles to choose from.

While I can appreciate the allure of a simple design process, some flexibility is needed to ensure you can adjust the composition of your images.

The fixed ratios of the cropping tool and inability to tweak a photo’s position within its frame meant that our two-page spread of a rocky seascape was cut short, spoiling the shot.

One function I haven’t often seen from other photo book services is the ability to copy a page spread to other books I’m working on.

Rearranging the spreads was pretty easy, too, as I just needed to hold down the tab on the top right of the spread before dragging and dropping.

When adding photos, they’re automatically arranged by the date they were taken, rather than the date they were uploaded. This may not be a problem if you’re creating a memory book of all your holiday snaps, but if you’re collating photos taken on different dates, it could prove irritating.

Unlike other photo book builders, like the one from Mixbook, for example, images cannot be uploaded to an album first, and I couldn’t even select a layout before adding photos to the spread.

I could upload my photos to the spread one at a time or in batches, and they’d be arranged into a layout for me.

They also appeared in an image list at the bottom of the page, but it proved to be redundant, as I wasn’t able to drag and drop them onto the page; I could only select each photo to see the same options I’d get by clicking on the photo itself a smidge further up the page.

When I did want to swap photos, I could do so simply by dragging and dropping them within the two-page spread, though I could see this leapfrog approach getting a little tedious if I needed to swap more than a couple. As was the case with the cover photo, only basic image adjustments were available.

I had to repeatedly click on the layout button for the photos to cycle through different preset arrangements, of which there were only around ten, though there were technically a few more if I hit the mirror button to change what appears on the left or right page.

While some may appreciate this simplicity, I really didn’t enjoy not being able to compare the different layouts easily.

The basic features and restrictive layouts definitely weren’t my cup of tea, but they do at least keep the process of creating a photo book simple and make the Once Upon app easy to master.

I was pleased with how simple and efficient it was to share my Once Upon photo book, as it’s always nice to have the option to build a photo book with others, especially after a big event or holiday.

After I’d shared the link or QR code, I could see a list of active co-creators once they’d created an account. I also had the option to remove co-creators if required, and there was a simple but useful security feature that deactivated the shared link and generated a new one, offering more control over who has access to the project.

The book builder easily handled two people working on the photo book simultaneously. It took around a second to show the changes made by my co-creator, and it didn’t falter when new pages or photos were being added simultaneously.

My first impression of the finished Once Upon photo book was positive. The book arrived in good condition, and the colors of the aurora on the cover photo really popped.

Directly comparing the outer cover of the Once Upon photo book against the others we’ve reviewed revealed that the black of the book's outer cover lacks depth, has a slight yellow hue to it, and is a tiny bit streaky upon closer inspection.

All this being said, the front cover looks nice enough overall, and is satisfactory considering it cost less than £30 and was printed in the UK.

I was fairly happy with the paper quality overall. The paper didn't feel overly thin, but in lighter areas, I could see some show-through from black text and darker images from the opposite side of the page.

On the plus side, the satin finish performed as advertised – I didn’t need to wear museum-grade gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints on the dark cover or the book's pages, which is a bigger advantage than you may think.

The printed photos look satisfyingly crisp and bright, and are of a much higher standard than the printed results from the SnapFish photo book.

I was very pleased to see that there was minimal posterization, which was notable in quite a few of the photobooks we’ve received, particularly in shots showing subtle color gradients in the sky.

In fact, the print quality in this Once Upon book has been the most comparable to our photo book from top-of-the-class Blurb I’ve seen so far, which is high praise indeed.

But as eye-catching as the print quality was, other elements of the photo looked unnatural due to the automatic image improvements that had been applied.

In places, these caused our images to look overly enhanced, especially those featuring black clothing or dark backgrounds, which were overexposed to compensate.

The color accuracy of our shots was also affected by the auto enhancement, as the colors became a little too vivid, and may have been more so if I’d opted for semi-gloss, as the silk matte paper is advertised as delivering toned-down colors in comparison.

This isn’t glaringly obvious, but it was noticeable when I compared them directly against our other photo books and the original photographs.

These enhancements probably won’t cause any issues when applied to sunny holiday snaps or everyday photos, but it’s worth bearing this in mind if your photos feature a lot of dark elements.

Fortunately, this automatic image improvement is voluntary, and it’s easy to request that the shots in the photo book aren’t enhanced in pre-production by unticking a box at the editing stage.

In essence, Once Upon isn’t going to be the photo book service for you if you want to have any creative input.

It is, however, a great choice if you’re looking for a service that’ll make the decisions for you, as all you really need to do is pop your photos and captions in, and enjoy your low-cost photo book with fantastic print quality once it arrives.

Should I buy the Once Upon photo book?

Buy it if…

Don't buy it if…

Once Upon photo book review: also consider

How I tested the Once Upon photo book

• I created a photo book from scratch to recreate our TechRadar photo book
• I explored the Once Upon app, testing the different features and tools
• I ordered a photo book and assessed the quality of the finished product

I explored the Once Upon app on my iPhone and the web browser on my MacBook. I assessed how easy the creation process was, starting with a blank canvas and using the tools available to recreate our TechRadar photo book. Recreating an existing design is important so that we can assess how capable the different services are when faced with different requirements.

I ordered my completed photo book and evaluated the finished product against the collection of photo books we’ve already tested, paying close attention to quality, print finish, alignment, and making notes of any imperfections.

• First reviewed: October 2025
• Read more about how we test

Some superheroes don't wear capes. Instead, they make the most extraordinary photography possible with just a smartphone. In this case, that's the iPhone 17 Pro Max and its Portrait Mode at New York Comic Con, which is going on right now at the Jacob Javitz Center.

Now I have proof.

The kernel of this quest started almost a decade ago, in 2016, when I trekked across town with the then-new iPhone 7 Plus in my pocket. I planned to test the brand new, dual-camera Portrait Mode at that year's culture, comic book, entertainment, and convention, using the new mode to capture what I hoped would be stunning images.

While the results were generally good for that time, it was a learning experience. As I wrote back then:

"First, I got better results in the brightly lit area outside the actual convention halls (the ceiling is all glass). Second, a convention is a difficult place to capture iPhone 7 Plus Portrait shots. There were thousands of people crossing in front of and, especially, behind my shots. The camera often got fooled and would try to focus on the tons of nearby people.

Looking back at my collection of photos (you can see a few below), I can see how 2016's portrait mode was sort of a rough instrument. The bokeh effect stopped and started with the subject, making some cosplayers look almost cut out. The image processing could lose details like the cosplay props (if they were not in front of their bodies), and fly-away hair was cropped away. There just wasn't that much detail.

A few iPhone 7 Plus Portrait Mode shots from 2016

Looking at my new collection of photos, virtually every complaint is answered. I never thought about lighting, and I now have almost infinite control over the amount of bokeh. The level of subtlety is incredible, and generally, Portrait Mode in the iPhone 17 Pro Max is rarely fooled. It knows the subject and her props, and the background has many levels of focus. This has the effect of maintaining depth and realism. Instead of clipping individual strands of hair, the iPhone 17 Pro Max Portrait Mode keeps them in perfect focus with the subject.

Just take a look at the lead image above. The iPhone knew to keep the bat top out of focus, while he's in perfect focus, and then the background is in soft focus again.

Lighting conditions also didn't seem to matter to the iPhone 17 Pro Max. It adjusted and always left me ample information. Other than a few crops and f-stop adjustments, I did not touch the exposure or contrast on any of these images.

Honestly, it's basically impossible to compare today's iPhone portrait mode photography with what was possible in 2016. But I was happy to try.

How often do you use your Best iPhone's Portrait Mode? Let me know in the comments.

iPhone 17 Pro Max Portrait Mode shots (2025)

When Apple launched its new iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, it couldn't stop talking about the new 8x-zoom powered by the 4x optical zoom 48MP sensor. Such an 8x zoom is, they claimed, equivalent to a 200mm focal length. As soon as I heard that, my ears pricked up.

"200mm? Really?"

You see, I've been shooting photos with a Sony Alpha a6000 fitted with a Sony 18-200mm lens for well over a decade. It's my favorite lens, letting you smoothly go from a full-throated close-up of a subject just inches from the glass to an 11x optical zoom that can capture the moon. It's the most compact and, for a time, powerful lens I've ever owned. When fitted with the lens, the Sony Alpha a6000 is relatively small compared to similarly configured cameras, albeit not small compared to an iPhone.

Could Apple have possibly equalled that photographic power in a 6.9-inch, 233-gram aluminum and glass frame? There was only one way to find out.

A camera vs camera test

The other day, I took the new phone and my trusty camera to Bryant Park in New York and started taking photos. For each capture, I made sure to take as close as I could the exact same shot with the Sony Alpha a6000 and the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

For its 8x mode, the iPhone 17 Pro Max shoots at a 200mm equivalent by performing a sensor crop on the full 48MP frame, essentially taking the center 12MP. So it's not a digital zoom, it's just a piece of the whole sensor image. The Sony Alpha a6000 shoots at 24MP with its not-quite-full-frame APS-C sensor.

Throughout the shoot, I didn't touch any of the settings, meaning I never tried to lock or fix exposure or the focus. The 4x optical zoom shoots a f/2.8 aperture, which is what the 8X sensor crop inherits as well.

For the Sony Alpha, I set the camera on auto and, similarly, let it choose all the exposure and focus settings. The aperture for all the Sony images was f/6.3.

Even though these are both effectively 200mm, the Sony does have a stronger optical zoom, pulling 11x, compared to the iPhone 17 Pro's 8x equivalent.

Before we get into the images, a bit of a spoiler: The iPhone 17 Pro Max 8x equivalent lens is, in general, no match for resolution and the optical focal length of the Sony Alpha a600.

Time and again, the Sony camera beat the iPhone in terms of color, clarity, depth, and artistic appeal. On the other hand, the iPhone 17 Pro Max's 200mm focal length equivalent did really well for a smartphone.

Fifth Avenue flower

Apple's computational photography is some of the best in the business, but it's also making decisions about what an image should look like. Typically, it wants to ensure the image is bright enough and that it gathers and presents all available visual information.

Sony's Alpha a6000, like most DSLRs (even mirrorless ones like this) presents what the lens and sensor capture. In some ways, it takes a cookie-cutter approach to the photography because it's not trying to decide if that background should be brighter or more in focus. The lens does what it does, and the exposure and shutter speed define the brightness and clarity. Auto will select the best options (like ISO) for you. If you want more control, you can shoot in manual mode, something I chose not to do for this test.

In this instance, the iPhone 17 Pro Max 8x option made everything brighter. That looks good, but also somewhat unrealistic and slightly washed out. After all, the flower I captured was in the shade. Why not show that? The iPhone's shot is also somewhat busy, and it really lost its way with that neon light in the background.

Sony's shot is, by contrast, full of subtlety, with a deep bokeh and considerable detail in the flower petals, much of which the iPhone didn't capture.

Bryant Park performers

This is an interesting shot because I intended to capture the performers, but both cameras ended up focusing on the officer in blue, who is, in fact, a great subject.

As is the case with most of these images, the Sony Alpha a6000 doesn't try to brighten figures in the shade, which ends up giving the image some real depth and nuance.

The officer is in sharp focus, and there's exquisite detail in his uniform and pleasing nuance to his skin tone.

I think the iPhone 17 Pro Max image suffers here because it's struggling to balance out the uneven light. The 8x camera option is over-brightening the shaded areas and making the entire image look flat and washed out. The shaded performers should not be as bright as the officer.

Because of the overexposure and likely higher ISO, the iPhone ends up introducing unnecessary grain.

Classic NYC skyscraper twin spires

In my mind's eye, I saw the classic twin spires of New York City's Bryant Park Hotel in the distance, silhouetted by soft foliage in the foreground. Only one of the cameras could achieve that effect.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max 8x camera did a good job of bringing the building closer and offers some nice clarity and detail, but the overall shot is flat because both the leaves and building are in focus. There's also the issue of colors, which all look a bit drained.

As you can see, the Sony matched the photo I imagined. The spires are sharp, with noticeable blue highlights, all silhouetted by the out-of-focus leaves.

Direct sunlight and leaves

This would be a challenging photo for any camera, smartphone, or otherwise, but I think the sunlight may have overwhelmed the iPhone 17 Pro Max. I mean, I like the photo, but the backlit leaves look slightly surreal. It's a strange effect. Some might like the lens flare with a touch of green. I'm not a fan.

The Sony Alpha a6000 photo is a lot closer to what I saw. The colors are washed out, but that's the effect I'd expect from so much direct sunlight. Even with all the hard light, Sony's image has a lot of interesting detail.

Woman with mask

The two cameras took very different approaches here. Sony focused on an attractive portrait that stayed true to the lighting realities.

The iPhone appears to have a faster lens in this instance. Not only is the image far brighter, but the water is frozen mid-splash; that's a cool effect.

Unfortunately, the colors are again a bit washed out on the iPhone, but the overall detail is good.

Sony's image is more of a pure-play portrait. The details on the face and hair are strong.

Arrow head guy

This is another instance where Sony favors a portrait-style shot over too much information. The colors here are good, and the only criticism I would offer is that the arrow is too bright yellow.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max does a decent job with the arrow color, even capturing the fabric texture. There's also really nice detail on the subject's hair, but I noticed that the iPhone failed to capture the guy’s ruddy skin tone, which is clearly evident in the Sony photo.

Bryant Park Carousel

This was a challenging shot with the carousel in motion and the horses bobbing up and down.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max failed to sedate the horses well enough to sharpen the action and has such a long depth of field that the image is a busy mess.

The Sony Alpha a6000, on the other hand, gets the lock and plucks the horse out of all the activity, giving me a surprisingly clear picture. At 100% I can just make out a tiny bit of the motion blur on the Sony image.

I am impressed, though, with the vibrancy of some of the colors in the iPhone photo.

Modern building top

This is one photo where the iPhone 17 Pro Max really shines. The image of this skyscraper is clear and bright but with a rich amount of shadow, giving the building the right amount of dimension. Also, the sky pops while maintaining all the cloudy details

At 100%, though, some of the building lines look rougher than they should be.

On the Sony image, every architectural line and element is sharp and crystal clear, and the partially cloudy blue sky matches what I saw in the iPhone image.

Another view of the city performers

In general, I think I did a better job framing the iPhone 17 Pro Max photo here. The amount of bright detail in the background works in the image's favor and brings together the whole performance.

Colors are vibrant even in the evident shadow. It's for that reason that some might find the iPhone 17 Pro Max image more pleasing, but I think it does veer a bit from what I could see with my naked eyes.

Colors on the Sony image are much more muted, and I think that and the much stronger bokeh effect really bring the performance into focus.

At 100% the Sony has far more clarity. There are details, like a stray hair on the woman's face, the stitching on her hat, and discoloration off her dress that are really not visible in the iPhone image.

City street

For virtually all of my shots, I was a good distance from the subject, but this shot was different because, while the distance to the New York Port Authority was long, there was a lot of detail down 41st Street between me and that building. I was curious how both the iPhone 17 Pro Max and Sony Alpha a6000 would handle the challenge.

Sony did a better job of differentiating between the brightly sunlit Port Authority in the background and the shaded buildings and people in the foreground.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max tries to balance out the brightness across the board, which makes the image a little flat. There's also a fair amount of grain.

At 100% it's clear that the higher resolution Sony has more detail.

Bonus round: Shoot the moon

One of my favorite photography subjects is the moon. Unlike the other images, it's impossible to capture the moon with auto settings. The Earth's satellite is incredibly bright at night, so you have to close the aperture and find the right shutter speed. Then there's focus. When I shoot with the Sony Alpha a6000, I switch to manual focus mode, and when I spin the focus wheel, the camera digitally zooms in so I can adjust until things are crystal clear.

You can photograph the moon with any of the best smartphones; you just zoom in as much as possible, tap the screen to lower the exposure, and then snap. The results usually are not great.

To be clear, I'm not talking about the digital zoom capabilities possible with the iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, and Pixel phones. Once you zoom past the optical limit, you are getting a mix of digital and sometimes AI magic that makes guesses about how the moon should look.

Still, when Apple said the iPhone 17 Pro Max has an 8x, 200mm-equivalent lens option, I could not wait to compare it to my 200mm Sony Alpha a6000 lens.

Unlike the rest of the test, the images you're looking at are substantial crops of the full frame, so you can clearly see how each camera handled the moon image.

The good news is that this iPhone is much better at a decent moon shot. The bad news is that there is still no comparison to what I can accomplish with the Sony lens.

Ultimately, this test ended up proving what might be obvious: a smartphone camera, even the wonderful array on the $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,149 iPhone 17 Pro Max is, at least for high-end zoom, still no match for a nearly $1,000 (used price) prosumer-level camera kit. On the other hand, my camera can't make calls, handle email, do AI, or give me access to social media. Also, it doesn't fit in my pocket.

The art of smartphone photography has now advanced to the point that it's flirting with traditional camera quality. It's not there yet, but the iPhone 17 Pro Max and Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra produced the strongest cases yet for leaving the bulky big camera and lens behind.

Naturally, though, there's a question of which phone to take (or buy). If you're a photography buff or even just someone who appreciates a good still image, these two flagship phones and their arrays of cameras and lenses do not make things easy.

I decided to do a somewhat limited test just to see how the two phones handle the basics. No adjustments or tapping on the screen to enforce focus or exposure; just find the subjects, point and shoot with both phones. I did sometimes choose specific lenses for certain scenes, but otherwise I left well enough alone.

So who wins? It's complicated because both smartphones are capable of excellent photography. There are more megapixels than ever and tons of controls. This test, though, is for all the people who don't fiddle with settings; they just pull the phone out of their pocket, point, and shoot. In that scenario, one phone rises ever so lightly above the other.

First, a reminder about the cameras on the two phones:

iPhone 17 Pro Max:

• Main: 48MP f/1.78
• Ultra-wide: 48MP f/2.2
• Telephoto: 48MP (4x optical) f/2.8
• Selfie camera: 18MP

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

• Main camera: 200MP f/1.7
• 5x telephoto: 50MP (also provides the 10x zoom through a sensor crop) f/3.4
• 3x optical: 10MP f/2.4
• Ultra-wide: 50MP f/1.9
• Selfie camera: 12MP

This was an opportunistic challenge, meaning I shot what I saw when I saw it. I generally did not go hunting for moments; I just looked at what was around me, aimed the cameras, and took the shots.

That's why this first image is a macro shot of a pollen-covered bee on a flower. For each photo, I got as close as I could to the bee with the ultrawide lenses, while remaining in focus and not getting stung. I captured these two remarkable images.

A few things jump out immediately. The S25 Ultra's contrast is quite strong, but there's also a lack of dynamic range. While there is an exquisite level of detail in the bee and pollen, the bug is also lost a bit in the dark business of its surroundings.

Apple's macro here is warmer, and the steps from deep black on the bee's back to the white flowers are far more subtle. The green leaves look more sunlit in the iPhone 17 Pro Max image. While in the S25 ultra, we get a vibrant green but lose the sunlit color information.

Winner: iPhone 17 Pro Max

While not a perfect match, I often compared the iPhone 17 Pro Max's 48MP 4x optical zoom to the Galaxy S25 Ultra's 50MP 5x optical zoom.

In this flowerpot shot, the S25 Ultra again pushed the contrast, but in this instance, it works in its favor. Samsung's flowerpot looks far more striking than the iPhone 17 Pro Max's somewhat over-exposed version.

At 100% both images have a bit more graininess than I prefer, but the detail is strong across each one. Still, I prefer Samsung's approach here. It maintained the color truth while adding enough contrast to make the entire scene pop.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

I took the same shot with each phone's main camera and got similar results. Although I had better luck finding the focus point on each. For the iPhone 17 Pro Max, it picked the nearest flower in the vase. The Galaxy S25 Ultra chose a flower on the top left. That focus point gave each photo a bit more depth and clarity.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max shot still looks a little overexposed, at least compared to the S25 Ultra, which offers a better range from deep black to vibrant yellow. While the iPhone 17 Pro Max's depth of field is a bit deeper, the use of contrast in the Samsung image also helps everything look more well-defined.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

I looked up and spotted these buds and three-petaled dogwood flowers against an almost cloudless, azure sky. They were too far away for the main camera, so I used the 4x zoom on the iPhone 17 Pro Max and the 5x zoom on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.

No doubt, most people would be very pleased with either image, but I did spot some differences.

On the Samsung S25 ultra image, the colors are a bit unnatural. The sky is too blue, and the pink petals are too bright. In fact, the entire bunch of buds and flowers has an odd glow and looks a little like a cutout against the sky. Speaking of which, I can spot some stair-stepping pixelation in the sky with some tiny darker blue spots mixed in with the lighter blue.

By contrast, the iPhone 17 Pro Max image looks real and true. The flowers are against the sky background, but seem fully a part of the scene. The colors are clear, bright, and accurate, and the sky is a lovely combination of light and deep blue, with no visible stair-stepping between the color variations.

Winner: iPhone 17 Pro Max

Not all selfie cameras are made equal

Samsung's front-facing camera is a 10MP sensor. Behind Apple's new Center Stage front-facing camera is a new square, 18MP sensor. Apple isn't always using all those megapixels to capture an image. In fact, the new landscape mode, which does not require rotating the phone, is clearly a sensor crop (that's the mode I used for this test shot). Even so, the megabyte difference between my iPhone and Galaxy selfies is notable. The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra selfie defaulted to a roughly 4K 2.3MB image, while the iPhone 17 Pro Max captured a nearly 5K 4.1MB image.

As with other images, the Galaxy S25 Ultra leans into contrast, which makes all the colors a bit less warm. My skin tone and the detail are excellent, and there's a nice contrast between my face and the shadows. Where the S25 Ultra stumbled a bit is in colors. In shadow, my gray sweatshirt turns a dark blue. Plus, the texture of my hat is almost distracting.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max makes it clear that the light source is sunlight; one half of my face is bathed in a warm, yellow glow. The side that's in shadow is, I think, the perfect skintone color and level of detail. The iPhone 17 Pro Max also did a much better job of maintaining the sweatshirt color. It's light gray in the sunlight, and a dark, truthful gray in the shadow.

I didn't adjust the image or try to turn it into a portrait mode shot, but I noticed that the iPhone 17 Pro Max automatically did a better and more visually pleasing bokeh than the Galaxy S25 Ultra, which left the background a little too sharp and oversaturated, distracting from the selfie.

Winner: iPhone 17 Pro Max

Samsung and Apple both offer sensor crop options that essentially double their telephoto efforts without introducing a ton of digital garbage.

For the Galaxy S25 Ultra, a sensor crop on the 50MP 5X zoom results in a 10x-like zoom. Similarly, Apple's iPhone 17 Pro Max sensor crops the 48MP 4X zoom to achieve an 8x approximation. Neither is pure optical, but by taking the center pixels and doing some image pipeline work, both phones produce surprisingly good 200mm lens approximations.

I like testing these capabilities on skies and clouds because I think they're some of the most challenging photography subjects.

Both of these images look good, but where the iPhone 17 Pro Max produces a clear blue and quite smooth sky, the Galaxy S25 Ultra struggles with the blue expanse. I can see pixelation and stair-stepping between lighter and darker blues.

Where Apple's clouds are smooth, detailed, and wispy, the S25 Ultra's cloud formations devolve into some jarring pixellation. Again, these are not issues you'll notice unless you look at the images, as I did, at 100%. Honestly, the level of clear detail in the 17 Pro Max image is remarkable.

Winner: iPhone 17 Pro Max

For this last image set, I focused the primary zoom lenses (4x on the iPhone and 5x on the Galaxy) on some pigeons on my roof.

The quality differences here are minimal. Both phones capture the full range of pigeon colors, including the splash of pink on the bird's neck. The blue sky looks perfect in each image.

Where the iPhone 17 Pro Max nudges ahead is on some of the feather details and, more noticeably, on my eaves. While I wish they were as white and clean as depicted in the S25 Ultra image, I know they're as dirty and mottled as they appear in the iPhone 17 Pro Max frame.

Shadows and other details are more or less a wash.

Winner: iPhone 17 Pro Max

There you have it. Apple's iPhone 17 Pro Max edged out the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra in five of my seven image tests, but it's by no means a slam dunk. I'm sure the majority of people would be pleased with any of the S25 Ultra images. It's only in direct contrast with the 17 Pro Max photos that we see the relatively minor shortcomings.

In the end, though, if you want the best smartphone photography, it's clear the iPhone 17 Pro Max should be at the top of your list.

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Let's get this out of the way: the $1,199 iPhone 16 Pro Max takes better photos than the $799 Google Pixel 10. The differences, though, are not nearly as great as you might think, at least that's what I learned when I took the two phones on my staycation and started shooting the same image with each phone.

Google Pixel phones have long been lauded for their photographic capabilities, with some claiming that they outstrip those of the garden-variety iPhone. I've never quite found that, but I will acknowledge that I have long been impressed with Pixel's image-capture skills. After Google unveiled its Pixel 10 line at its Made by Google event and sent me the base model, I decided that, for the duration of my go-nowhere vacation, it would sit in the pocket opposite the one carrying my everyday handset: the Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Despite the massive price difference (Pixel 10 : $799 / £799 / AU$1,349 vs iPhone 16 Pro Max: $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,149), the camera arrays are more similar than you might think.

From a specs perspective, the main cameras are essentially a wash. Apple's 5x optical zoom has somewhat more megapixels than the Google Pixel 10's, and while the Pixel beats the iPhone in field of view, the iPhone's lower aperture rating will provide better exposure overall. The biggest difference can be found in ultra-wide lenses, where Apple brings a whopping 48MP to the lens, and the more affordable Pixel 10 has just 13MP of capturing power. They match on FoV (120 degrees) and f/2.2 aperture.

Those are the numbers, but in use, the difference could be, depending on the lens I used, somewhat harder to discern.

Virtually every single photo I took with the Google Pixel 10 looks good. They're clear, colorful, and full of details. It's only when I compare them directly with the photos taken with the iPhone 16 Pro Max that I can see the core differences. Mostly, as you'll see in the samples below, it comes down to color and exposure range. (Note: I did ZERO editing on these images and essentially left controls on default settings.)

The Pixel 10 might lose some of the steps between the lightest and darkest parts of the image, and it can lack just a bit of that colorful oomph found in the iPhone photos. I want to be clear, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is capturing reality and not oversaturating the image. For some reason, the Pixel 10 lacks just a bit of that saturation, which might be due to a slight lack of contrast.

Since the lenses are not that different, this might be a result of image processing, which, I believe, is just a tick better on the iPhone.

Speed is, as far as I can tell, a match. There's one image of a memorial fountain where both phones do an excellent job of stopping the fountain's splashing water so we can spot individual droplets.

On the portrait mode images I took of my wife in low light, I think I prefer the Pixel 10 capture. There's far less low-light grain, and the bokeh effect is more pronounced and ultimately pleasing. Sure, the iPhone wins for better sunset color, but the overall clarity and composition on the Pixel 10 is A+.

Where the iPhone 16 Pro Max really shines is on this telephoto image of a turtle. Notice the rich colors in both the water and the aquatic animal. There's a remarkable range of greens, yellows, and white highlights. Even the water is its own shade of green. Here, the Pixel 10 struggles to punch up the turtle colors sufficiently for it to stand out from the surrounding water.

There are other telephoto images where the Pixel 10 stood nearly toe-to-toe with the iPhone 16 Pro Max. This shot of the water tower at sunset is a good example. Timing was a factor here because a man walked in front of the sun just as I was snapping the image with the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Otherwise, the photos are quite similar. Where the iPhone 16 Pro Max excels is in capturing the range of colors in the sky. But I almost prefer the Pixel 10's warmer approach. Both images get high marks for their sharpness and detail.

I was especially impressed with the Pixel 10's Night Sight photography, which helped me capture some excellent fireworks images. Generally, the Pixel 10 fireworks photos are as sharp, if not sharper, than those from the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

One area where the Pixel 10 was the unexpected but clear winner was in panoramic photography. This, though, is less a product of the lens and sensor than Pixel's much smarter capture and processing technique.

To capture a panoramic image on the iPhone 16 Pro Max (or any iPhone for that matter), you hit the capture button and then slowly sweep roughly 180 degrees, but while keeping your image framed so that it doesn't diverge from an on-screen center guideline. This can be tricky, and I tend to veer north or south of that line, which results in less-than-perfect panoramas.

Google Pixel 10's method is completely different and arguably better. Instead of struggling to follow a guideline, you turn slowly in a 180 arc but pause at pre-determined intervals (there are dots), where the camera appears to capture part of the image. Initially, after I did this, I had what appeared to be a jumble of unusable panoramic images, but a second or two later, the system processed the full image into a perfect panorama. We have a winner.

I think the Pixel 10 takes some lovely macro images with its ultrawide lens, but there's little comparison to the iPhone 16 Pro Max, which has a much higher pixel count and lets you get even closer to your subject. If macro photography is a priority for you, and you're an Android fan, you'll probably opt for the $999 / £999 / AU $1,699 Google Pixel 10 Pro, which has a 48MP ultrawide camera.

I'm not arguing that the Pixel 10 is the best camera phone on the market, but for $799, it's a far more affordable smartphone option that, remarkably, includes a 5x optical zoom lens and will deliver generally excellent photography across a range of image styles.

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The Perseid meteor shower is one of the most impressive displays of shooting stars you'll see throughout the year – and it's peaking this week on the night of August 12 and early hours of August 13 in the US and UK.

The display of shooting stars, caused by Earth moving into the path of debris left by the Comet Swift-Tuttle, has been going since mid-July, but traditionally peaks on these dates every year – and that looks likely to be the case again.

That's because the Earth is moving into the most intense part of the comet's stream and ice and rock, which should produce an impressive light show for stargazers and photographers (weather permitting, of course).

Unfortunately, this year's Perseids peak coincides with a Sturgeon Moon, which reached its full phase on August 9. While it's now waning, it's still bright enough that it will impact visibility and make it impossible to see the maximum 100 meteors per hour, even in dark sky areas. The moon's brightness will be less of an obstacle on later dates, but by then the peak of the shower will have passed.

Observant and patient sky watchers, however, should still be able to spot a couple of blazing shooting stars each hour.

Whether you're looking to watch, photograph or livestream the celestial event, here's everything you need to know about this year's Perseid meteor shower.

When is the Perseid meteor shower?

The Perseid meteor shower is peaking this week, with the number of meteors hitting its main peak on the evenings of August 12 and August 13.

The best place to see the meteors is anywhere in the northern hemisphere in a dark location away from light pollution. Wherever you are, aim to head out on the evening of August 12 anywhere between 10.30pm – 4.30am.

According to the American Meteor Society, the absolute peak will be 4am UTC on August 13 (or 12am EDT / 9pm PDT, on the evening of August 12). But a high amount of meteor activity is expected for around eight hours either side of that peak, which is why you simply need to aim for the darkest part of the night.

According to NASA, you should be able to catch around 10 to 20 meteors per hour in most regions of the US, assuming you're away from urban light pollution. That's not quite the 100 meteors per hour rate we've seen previously in some regions – blame the Sturgeon Moon for that – but higher rates are possible, and that still works out at one meteor every few minutes, so well worth staying up for.

In the UK, the Royal Observatory's Finn Burridge told the BBC that observers may only be able to see "1 or 2 fireballs per hour". He also recommends giving things another go this coming weekend. "After the full Moon is more likely the better time to view, since the Moon will rise later in the night, so I would recommend the peak nights as well as weekend of 16 and 17 August."

Naturally, the weather could still also affect visibility, so you'll need to check for cloud cover in your location.

Another influencing factor can be wildfires. In 2021, the Pacific Northwest wildfires produced higher than average amounts of cloud and smoke that affected Perseid visibility, with only California, Texas and the East Coast escaping. So it's certainly possible that this year's wildfires in Colorado, California and Canada could have a similar effect in some regions.

Where are the Perseid shooting stars?

To see the Perseids' fireworks you need three things: complete darkness (so find somewhere remote, or turn off all the lights in the back of your house), clear skies, and the patience to look at the sky for about 20 minutes unrewarded.

If you can manage that last one, congratulate yourself for being among the minority of Perseid watchers: you could then be rewarded with up to 40 shooting stars in the next hour.

You could see shooting stars anywhere in the night sky, though as the name suggests they will appear to radiate from the constellation of Perseus – which means you just need to point yourself vaguely to the north or, if you're in southern latitudes, towards the north-eastern sky.

What do I need and what am I looking for?

The Perseids' meteors can show up in any part of the sky, so you'll improve your chances by finding somewhere with a wide view of the horizon – naturally, the fewer buildings and trees that are in the way, the better.

Most of its shooting stars will be visible for just a fraction of a second from the corner of your eyes. But every now and then, you'll also see big, bright, sparkling 'earth-grazer' fireballs that often appear to leave a trail behind them, and should last a full second or so.

A little patience (and a rucksack full of snacks) is advisable though – it can take your eyes at least half an hour to adjust to the night's darkness.

Resist the temptation to look at your smartphone or go back inside your house – every time your eyes see white light, your night vision goes back to zero, and you will have to wait another 20 minutes for it to return.

If you're venturing out, a torch with a red light can help preserve your night vision. The USB-rechargeable Petzl Actik or the cheaper AlpKit Gamma III remain good choices.

Aside from this and a comfortable blanket or sun lounger, though, that's all you really need – avoid a telescope or pair of binoculars, as these will limit your view of the night sky so much that you won't see any shooting stars.

Settle in for a good two to three hours, though, and you should be treated to an impressive show – even if the weather and moon do intervene.

How do I find Perseus?

If you're unfamiliar with the night sky at this time of year, there are a plethora of planetarium apps for phones and tablets. Use them sparingly, but apps like Star Walk 2 will help you find you the constellation of Perseus, which is just below the W-shaped constellation of Cassiopeia.

Fix your gaze on this patch of sky, and above, but don't get dogmatic about it: a meteor might just as easily start above your head and whizz south. However, to look low to the southern horizon would be a mistake.

You'll probably notice the massive Summer Triangle nearby in the eastern sky – three very bright stars that sits across the Milky Way. Stay outside long enough looking for meteors and your eyes may get sensitive enough to glimpse this wonderful sight.

Are there any Perseid meteor shower live streams?

While there aren't quite as many Perseid livestream opportunities on YouTube as there were during the pandemic (when large observatories like the Lowell Observatory in Arizona hosted online viewing sessions), the The Virtual Telescope Project does have an online observation planned for August 12, starting at 21:00 UTC.

How do I photograph the Perseids meteor shower?

When it comes to photographing the Perseids, there is also a large element of hit-and-hope involved. Despite huge improvements in smartphone astrophotography modes, their sensors still generally lack sensitivity for shooting meteors. What you need is a DSLR or mirrorless camera (ideally a full-frame model) with manual controls, mounted on a tripod.

The setup

Choosing the right lens and focal length is a bit of a balancing act. Generally speaking, the best astrophotography lenses tend to be pretty wide, in the 14-20mm focal range on a full-frame camera (or around 10-14mm on an APS-C model). On the other hand, Perseid meteor trails can look pretty small and sometimes barely visible when shooting that wide.

As you're unlikely to be buying a new lens just to photograph this meteor shower, we'd recommend grabbing whichever lens you have that's closest to the 28-50mm range (or 17-32mm on APS-C cameras).

The Perseid meteors can appear pretty much anywhere in the sky, so it's best to find some foreground interest for your shot – like a tree or, even better, a decommissioned antenna like the ones at The Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory in the UK (above).

The settings

Switch your lens to manual focus and set the focus to infinity – or point it at a bright star and manually focus on it. Set your ISO to 800 and your aperture to f/2.8 (or whatever its widest aperture setting is, if it's above f/2.8), and take some long-exposure shots over 20-30 seconds. You'll need to either use your camera's self-timer or a remote shutter to avoid camera-shake and blur.

Check your test shots to make sure they're sharp and correctly exposed, making any tweaks if needed. Another option is to use your camera's built-in interval timer to shoot a timelapse, taking about 100 or more 3o-second exposures one after the other.

You can then use the likes of Photoshop or StarStaX (on Mac) to create a star-trail, which will (hopefully) have shooting stars all over the image.

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Papier photo book review: specs

Papier photo book: review

Papier's photo books are an affordable way to bring together your favorite snaps, whether you’re looking for an affordable gift or want to log your latest holiday.

They’re available in a wide array of sizes, from a nifty 6.5 x 6.5 inches (16.5 x 16.5cm) to a whopping 12 x 9.4 inches (30.6 x 23.9cm). Papier also offers a good array of cover options, including those with gold foil or die-cut windows showing a photo inside. So what’s it like to use the service to design a photo book?

Well, when using Papier to try to recreate TechRadar’s predefined photo book template, I quickly ran into the platform’s limitations. First of all, Papier doesn’t let you make any alterations to its layouts: there’s no way to add new image or text frames, so I wasn't able to add all the images I wanted to a page.

You get just the basics here. For example, if you're looking for the customizable shapes that some platforms offer, you'll be disappointed – and, unlike many of the best photo book services, Papier doesn’t even offer drag-and-drop clip art to add flourishes such as script or illustrations to your photo book.

Customizability in any form is pretty limited, with all the elements on the page pretty much nailed down. There were times I wanted to shift an image frame from the right of a page to the left, or alter the alignment of text, only to discover this wasn't possible.

You can at least change the size of type, but this is limited to larger text fields only; conversely, captions are restricted to just font or style changes. All in all, as someone who likes to insert some originality into the things I create, I found this limiting.

Surely, for those who have neither the time, nor the desire, to make an endless series of tweaks to layouts, Papier's à la carte selection of templates is just the ticket? Well, I’m not sure it’s getting any Michelin stars there, either.

Yes, Papier offers a range of drag-and-drop templates; but there are only 22 options to choose from, compared to Printerpix's 163 layouts and Mixbook's super generous 891 templates. Want a photo covering half the page with text beneath? Tough. Looking for three images laid out horizontally? Hard luck. There are some creative options available – for example, the one that makes your snap look like it was taken with a Polaroid – but they’re few and far between.

The inclusion of different backgrounds is a nice touch – but, again, there are so few options available that you’re unlikely to get much mileage out of them. Your choices are white, a creamy linen color, almond and a dusty powder blue, or two thicknesses of vertical stripe. I rarely found they complemented individual photos or each other enough to make them worth using.

By contrast, the cover options Papier offers have recently been extended. There are now 90 different cover templates, which is actually pretty impressive, and there are some really eye-catching designs – including fancy cover treatments such as golden foils and cut-out shapes. With fully editable text, they’re also easy to adapt to your theme, providing plenty of really good cover options.

Once you’ve selected your preferred layouts, you may still encounter some detours and dead-ends along your design journey, with Papier offering some odd and irritating quirks.

The most baffling is its insistence on changing layouts to match your image – even when I’d selected my preferred layout, adding an image would revert it back to the default, meaning you need to always select images first. Further aggravation was caused as a result of Papier's drag-and-drop function for adding photos, while layouts have to be clicked on instead. As a result, the design process proved one of frustration, and time-consuming, too: every time I mixed up which gesture I was supposed to use, I’d lose the rhythm entirely.

And that isn't the only wrinkle I found when trying to replicate our sample photo book. For example, Papier doesn’t offer any way to run an image across a double-page spread. While you can usually tackle such a limitation by splitting a photo between two separate frames, Papier has turned this into a frustrating process of trial and error.

Bafflingly, its interface enlarges the off-hand page, making it a larger size to the one you’re currently working on. This makes it almost impossible to ensure the contents of two separate photo frames align. I can't see that there's any benefit to this, so you have to wonder why it was designed that way.

However, while some of Papier’s design choices might have left me baffled, it may not be a concern if the quality of the printed book is high. And here the news is broadly positive. All of our photos came out looking crisp and detailed, with relatively accurate color. There was the occasional suggestion of noise or posterization, with slight color banding perceptible. But this has been apparent with even our highest-rated photo books, so I’m not going to criticize Papier too harshly on this front.

Comparing our Papier photo book side by side with some of our previous samples, it mostly holds its own. Even sat next to the 4.5-star Blurb photo book, Papier's example doesn’t look worlds apart – personally, the slightly better contrast and deeper blacks of the Blurb win out in my eyes, but I don’t feel anyone would be disappointed by the image quality delivered by Papier.

This also extends to the tactile feel of Papier’s photo books. Comparing the quality of its paper stock and covers to its nearest rivals, there didn't seem to be much between them – pages in Papier's photo book feel smooth and substantial. While Papier doesn’t exceed what other services offer, neither does it fall short – which is especially important if you’re considering this for a gift.

Ultimately, if you’re happy to design a photo book within Papier's super-limited format, then you can at least rest assured that you'll get a super-polished product in return. However, if you're someone who likes a bit more creative flexibility, you'll find Papier's service limiting. And, fundamentally, there are other options out there among the best photo book services that offer similarly straightforward, stellar design while providing radically more off-the-rack solutions.

Should I buy the Papier photo book?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Papier photo book review: also consider

How I tested the Papier photo book service

• Tried to accurately reproduce the TechRadar photo book template
• Explored all of its layout and cover options
• Utilized over 10 years working in print and design

TechRadar’s process for testing photo book services requires us to try to reproduce a standardized template, so my first step was trying to recreate it as accurately as possible. This involved reproducing photo frames and text as closely as the photo book service’s templates allowed. I also spent several hours playing with Papier’s templates to explore the various options available.

Once I received our Papier photo book, I first checked it for damage and marks from the printing process. I then compared it side-by-side with some of the other photo books we’ve reviewed, to assess how Papier’s printed products fare in terms of resolution and color accuracy, as well as the quality of its paper stock and construction.

Not only did I establish the testing process for photo books on TechRadar, but I spent many years working as a print editor. As a result, I have gained a lot of direct experience working with images for print and carrying out quality control on printed products to ensure they accurately reflected the source imagery and designs on screen.

• First tested: August 2025
• Read more about how we test

Cewe photo book review

Looking for a thoughtful, personalised gift to give a loved one? A Cewe photo book is designed to be just that. Cewe is a UK and Europe-focused photo printing company that enables you to curate a collection of your favourite snaps into one well-finished, competitively priced photo book. I built a photo book of my own to see how Cewe measured up against its competitors, and I have to say, I was impressed.

First, let me take you through the photo book creation process. Cewe gives you two options: you can download its bespoke editing software; or you can simply use the web app. For ease and consistency with my other photo book reviews, I opted for the web app version. Note that I was unable to view my finished book in the software after building it on my browser, so it’s best to build your book using one method only.

For my 30 x 30cm book, I was locked into using a hardcover design, but there are more options for different-sized products. Something that was highly customizable, though, was the page type. I could select from a wide range, including: classic; matte; true matte; gloss; high gloss; photographic; or recycled. That level of customisability is something we always look for here at TechRadar in our hunt for the best photo book services.

There are more add-ons, too, like cover page highlights, an integrated memento pocket, and a presentation box. However, I didn’t use any of these, selected the classic page type, and got straight into things.

At this stage, you’re able to select a template from a generous list of options. You can go with a theme like Travel Memories, City Break, Modern Art, and so many more. Most of these look great – but instead I went down the custom route to get this book as close to our standardised TechRadar template as possible.

So, there I finally was, ready to build my photo book – and I was instantly struck by the simplicity and ease-of-use offered by the Cewe web app. There are five sections that are easy to navigate through: photos; layout; text; clipart (yes, that’s still a thing); and background. The only other things to check out are an auto-save toggle, the option to lock when moving or adjusting photos, and a smart cropping on/off selection.

Personally, I really appreciated the straightforward nature of Cewe’s editing tool. Sure, I would’ve appreciated stuff like measurements for photos, and potentially guidelines when moving them around on the page, but this is accessible on the free downloadable software. Uploading your photos is hassle-free too – there’s Google Photos integration, you can add snaps via a QR code, and the time it takes for images to load up is nice and short.

After this, finalising my photo book was (mostly) a breeze. There were plenty of masks, frames, fonts, and colours to make use of. In fact, you can even use a hex code to find the precise hue that you want, something that I’ve not seen from many rivals. You can also alter aspects like brightness, contrast, and more after inserting photos, so I could get the perfect balance across each page.

Having said all of this, the creation process wasn’t completely seamless – there were a few frustrations I had from time to time. For example, rather than drawing shapes, I had to select one that resembled what I wanted from clip art, which just feels so outdated now. The layout options are also a little restrictive, you can’t embolden certain letters – only full words, and I already mentioned the lack of measurements (or guidelines) when adjusting images on the web app, which was a tad disappointing.

Oh, and one more small complaint – if you want to add extra pages to your photo book, you have to do so in increments of four. So, in the case you only need a couple more pages, you’re going to be coughing up extra cash for space you don’t even need. Still, these are decently priced – it’s just £3.99 for extra pages.

Speaking of, the Cewe photo book is priced very competitively. My finished photo book cost £47.98 (including those extra pages), with delivery coming in at £5.25, leaving my total at just over £50. That’s a lot less than the circa £90 my Printerpix photo book would usually have cost, and a huge amount cheaper than our Printique photo book, which was around £112.

But now I’m sure you’re wondering… how did the finished product turn out? Well, great news – it looked fantastic! I couldn’t make out any banding (which is essentially unwanted lines appearing on a finished print), colours were accurate and pleasingly saturated, and I couldn’t see any damage after shipping. Pages were also to a high quality, giving the photo book a more luxurious feel than its price would suggest.

I compared the finished article to our Blurb photo book, which wasn’t quite as bright, yet arguably had more true-to-life colours. The more vibrant presentation of the Cewe does make it a little easier to make out the finer details, though, so I’d put each on equal footing – it just depends how vivid you like your photos.

In the end, then, I can recommend Cewe to anyone that wants to forge a quality photo book at a more-than-reasonable price-point. Sure, the online editing tool isn’t without fault, and it’s a shame you have to add four extra pages at a time. But all in all, Cewe presents a simple creation tool and commendable results at an easy-to-swallow cost.

Should I buy the Cewe photo book?

Buy it if…

Don't buy it if…

Cewe photo book review: also consider

How I tested the Cewe photo book

• Built a photo book to recreate the TechRadar template
• Compared against other websites’ photo books and software

I used the web version of Cewe’s photo editor in order to create a custom photo book, but I also messed around with a handful of templates. Here at TechRadar, we have created a standardised template to recreate across all photo book services, in order to fairly compare each platform. Sometimes, certain elements cannot be recreated – but we always endeavour to get as close to the template as possible.

After ordering the Cewe photo book, I observed aspects such as print quality, colour fidelity, and signs of damage. As always, I compared the finished article to photo books from rivals, such as Blurb and Mixbook. For reference, the photo book I created was 30 x 30 centimetres, had a hard photo cover and used the classic page type.

• First reviewed: July 2025
• Read more about how we test

What if editing photos on your phone felt as natural and capable as editing on a desktop computer? That’s exactly what Luminar’s mobile photo editor (available for Android, ChromeOS and iOS) is built for. Whether you’re a photo enthusiast capturing everyday scenes or a working photographer creating content on location, having reliable AI tools on your phone can streamline your workflow and bring more flexibility to your creative process.

Luminar’s mobile photo editor isn’t just another camera app with filters. It’s built specifically for photographers, with tools that focus on enhancing photos so they look real to life, not over-processed or artificial. From subtle corrections to advanced AI-driven enhancements, every tool is designed to support a photographer’s vision while keeping the image natural and true to its original character.

Why mobile photo editing has become essential

Smartphone cameras have evolved into powerful creative tools. Many phones now offer impressive image quality, even in challenging lighting conditions. That means more photographers are using mobile devices not only to capture photos, but also to edit and share them. Even top-level pros use smartphones to take behind-the-scenes photos when teaching, documenting lighting setups, sharing live moments, or posting previews while on location.

However, mobile editing often comes with limitations. Slower apps, clunky interfaces, or basic editing features can make it hard to maintain a consistent creative flow. Luminar’s mobile app addresses that by offering intelligent tools that are easy to use and capable of producing high-quality results.

Built with the same design principles as Luminar Neo and available for both iOS and Android/ChromeOS, the mobile editor provides a familiar experience for existing users. While it doesn’t yet offer full integration with the desktop version, both platforms share a similar editing approach, making it easier to transition between mobile and desktop workflows when needed.

Practical AI features that make a difference

The strength of Luminar’s mobile editor lies in its AI-powered tools. These features go beyond simple filters. Each one is designed to solve common editing challenges in a quick and intuitive way, with adjustments that understand the content of the image.

Enhance AI

Enhance AI simplifies the editing process by combining up to twelve core adjustments into a single smart slider. This includes tone, contrast, color, clarity, and more. Instead of spending time making each adjustment manually, the tool analyzes the photo and applies intelligent improvements with just one control.

It’s a fast way to polish an image without compromising detail or making it look over-processed. Enhance AI also works non-destructively, allowing photographers to make changes with confidence, knowing they can always return to the original version if needed.

Relight AI

Lighting is one of the most common challenges in mobile photography. Relight AI provides a simple solution by allowing users to adjust the brightness of the foreground and background independently. This helps improve underexposed subjects without overexposing the background, creating a more balanced and natural-looking photo.

It is especially useful for portraits taken indoors or in backlit conditions where traditional edits might fall short.

Sky AI and Atmosphere AI

Sky AI makes it easy to replace a dull or overexposed sky with something more fitting. Photographers can choose from a variety of skies including sunny, dramatic, and even stormy settings. The tool aligns the new sky seamlessly, accounting for reflections and lighting to make the final image believable and cohesive.

Atmosphere AI adds another layer of mood and texture. With options like mist, haze, and fog, it helps create more depth and emotion in a scene. These effects can be applied subtly or dramatically, depending on the photographer’s vision.

Portrait Tools: Skin AI and Body AI

For portrait photography, the mobile app includes several AI tools designed to enhance without overdoing it. Skin AI gently smooths skin while preserving natural texture and avoiding that artificial look seen in some other apps. Body AI offers subtle adjustments to proportions, helpful in cases where lenses or angles may have distorted a subject’s appearance.

These tools help bring out the best in a portrait while keeping the result natural and respectful to the subject.

Edit anywhere without extra gear

One of the biggest advantages of Luminar’s mobile editor is its portability. There’s no need to carry a laptop or other equipment when editing can happen directly on your Android phone or iPhone. This is ideal for photographers who are constantly on the move, whether traveling, shooting events, or capturing spontaneous moments.

Quick edits can be done in the field, and more detailed work can be finished later on a larger screen using Luminar Neo. This flexibility allows for a smoother, more responsive workflow that adjusts to the needs of each shoot.

A practical tool that fits any workflow

Luminar’s mobile photo editor is designed with simplicity, efficiency, and quality in mind. The AI tools are intuitive enough for photo enthusiasts and powerful enough for professionals, making them accessible without lowering creative standards.

Most importantly, it’s an app built with photographers in mind. The focus is always on helping images look their best while staying true to how the scene looked and felt when captured. From landscapes and street photography to portraits and travel shots, Luminar helps photographers create natural, clean results they’ll be proud to share.

Ready to see what Luminar’s AI tools can do for your mobile photography? Try the app today and follow @luminar_global on Instagram for editing tips, photo inspiration, and updates from the Luminar community.

• Luminar: Photo Editor on the Google Play Store
• Luminar: Photo Editor on the iOS App Store

At a time when many believe that oversight of the Artificial Intelligence industry is desperately needed, the US government appears to have different ideas. The "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (OBBBA)—recently given the nod by the House of Representatives—includes a 10-year moratorium on state and local governments enacting or enforcing regulations on AI models, systems, or automated decision-making tools.

Supporters claim the goal is to streamline AI regulation by establishing federal oversight, thereby preventing a patchwork of state laws that could stifle innovation and create compliance chaos. Critics warn that the moratorium could leave consumers vulnerable to emerging AI-related issues, such as algorithmic bias, privacy violations, and the spread of deepfakes.

Basically, if the AI sector is the Wild West, no one will be allowed to clean up Dodge.

Why should we care?

History may not literally repeat itself, but there are historical patterns and trends that we can view and hopefully be informed by, and our history books are packed with examples of technology reshaping the lives of the workforce.

And be it in the form of James Watt’s steam engine or Henry Ford’s moving assembly line, the cost of the progress brought by fresh technology is regularly paid by the large numbers of people sent home without a pay packet.

And AI will cost jobs too.

Experts such as those at McKinsey, the Lancet, or the World Economic Forum (WEF) may not agree on exact numbers or percentages of lost jobs, but the consistent message is that it will be bad:

• 30% of US work hours across all sectors will be automated by 2030 says McKinsey
• 25% of medical administrative tasks could vanish by 2035 according to a Lancet study
• 39% of existing skill sets will become outdated between now and 2030 warns WEF

Of course, as with all new technologies, new jobs will be created. But we can’t all be prompt engineers.

The Great Brain Robbery

Essentially, those hit hardest by the bulk of new technologies from the Spinning Jenny onwards were the ones engaged to carry out physical work. But AI wants to muscle in on the intellectual and creative domains previously considered uniquely human. For example, nonpartisan American think tank the Pew Research Center reckons 30% of media jobs could be automated by 2035.

And those creative jobs are under threat because creatives are being ripped off.

Many AI models are trained on massive datasets scraped from the internet, and these often include articles, books, images, music and even code that are protected by copyright laws, but AI companies lean heavily towards take-first-ask-later. Obviously, artists, writers, and other content creators see this practice as unauthorized use of their intellectual property and they argue that ultimately, it’s not even in the best interests of the AI sector.

If AI takes work away from human creatives—devastating creative industries already operating on thin margins—there will be less and less innovative content to feed to AI systems which will result in AI feeding off homogenized AI content – a derivative digital snake eating its own tail.

A smarter way forward would be to find a framework where creatives are compensated for use of their work to ensure the sustainability of human produced product. The music industry already has a model where artists receive payments via performing rights organizations such as PRS, GEMA and BMI. The AI sector needs to find something similar.

To make this happen, regulators may need to be involved.

Competitive opportunity versus minimizing societal harm

Without regulation, we risk undermining the economic foundations of creative and knowledge-based industries. Journalism, photography, literature, music, and visual arts depend on compensation mechanisms that AI training currently bypasses.

The United Kingdom and the European Union are taking notably different paths when it comes to regulating AI. The EU is pursuing a strict, binding regulatory framework, an approach designed to protect fundamental rights, promote safety, and ensure ethical use of AI across member states. In contrast, the UK is currently opting for a more flexible approach, emphasizing innovation and light-touch oversight aiming to encourage rapid AI development and attracting investment.

But this light-touch strategy could be a massive misstep – one that in the long term could leave everyone wishing we’d thought things through.

While AI enthusiasts may initially be pleased with minimal interference from regulators, eventually AI businesses will come up against consumer trust, something they absolutely need.

While AI businesses operating in Europe will be looking at higher compliance costs, there is also a clearer regulatory landscape and therefore more likely to be greater consumer trust – a huge commercial advantage.

Meanwhile, AI businesses operating in light-touch markets (such as the UK) need to consider how their AI data practices align with their (and their competitors’) brand values and customer expectations. As public awareness grows, companies seen as exploiting creators may face reputational damage. And a lack of consumer confidence could lead to a shift in mindset from previously arm’s-length regulators.

Regardless of the initial regulatory environment, early adopters of ethical AI practices may gain competitive advantages as regulatory requirements catch up to ethical standards. Perhaps the wisest way forward is to voluntarily make Dodge City a better place, even if there’s no sheriff in town – for now.

I tried 70+ best AI tools.

This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

• Leica has announced a new 35mm film
• Monopan 50 is a fine-grain monochrome film
• Priced at $10 / £10 (around AU$20) for 36 exposures

Leica’s decided to celebrate its centenary with a surprise. To honor 100 years since the first production Leica camera, the brand with the red dot is dropping its first-ever 35mm film. A fine-grain monochrome roll with 36 exposures, it’s a niche product to launch in 2025. But the bigger bombshell is the price: the Monopan 50 costs just £10 (around US$13 / AU$20).

Leica isn’t a brand often associated with affordability. Its camera gear is known for quality craftsmanship that’s priced to match. When I tested the Leica Q3 43 last year, I was both awestruck by the build quality and terrified of damaging it. Because it costs $6,295 / £5,900 / AU$11,890. Leica is and always has been an unapologetically premium brand.

For most people, the prospect of buying or shooting with anything Leica sits somewhere between bucket list and lottery win territory. Until now, the most affordable way to shoot Leica has been the D-Lux 8 – a premium compact with a Micro Four Thirds sensor, which you can buy today for $1,595 / £1,450 / AU$2,790. Or cross all your fingers and toes in the hope of finding a secondhand analog Leica bargain.

The Monopan 50 changes that. Granted, it’s a 35mm film, not a camera. But it also feels like the first Leica product that’s accessible enough for stills photographers to use on a daily basis.

Leica for all

The Monopan 50 lands 100 years after the Leica I, the camera that effectively invented 35mm photography as we know it. Unlike most Leica releases, the new film feels like something to be used, not collected.

That’s not to say it isn’t special. The Monopan 50 is a fine-grain monochrome film made for black-and-white enthusiasts. With a resolution of up to 280 line pairs per millimetre, it promises gallery-grade detail. Its ISO rating of just 50 makes it a low-sensitivity film, inspired by the the original rolls around when the Leica I launched. In that sense, it’s as Leica as it gets. But crucially, it’s not outrageously expensive. In fact, quite the opposite.

Even for someone like me who doesn’t regularly shoot film, that’s a compelling proposition. It’s even more appealing for those who do, of which are there more and more.

Film photography isn’t just back: it’s quietly booming. Prices for vintage cameras have surged and new analog releases are arriving in greater numbers. Fujifilm is rumored to be resurrecting color stocks, Kodak is upgrading its factories to meet demand and Pentax dropped its new half-frame film camera last year. All of which speaks of a new generation rediscovering film.

It’s into this analog revival that Leica steps. The company still produces three fully mechanical 35mm film cameras, the M-A, the MP and the re-released M6. Equipped with high-quality optics and designed for a deliberate approach, all three are expensive models which cater to purists.

In that sense, the Monopan 50 is a natural companion. Feeding those cameras with a fine-grain black-and-white film will yield gorgeous results, while leaning into the slower, almost meditative experience of shooting with a 35mm rangefinder camera.

But the wider appeal of Monopan 50 film will lie in the fact that it’s democratic. With roll prices for standard emulsions creeping past £10 a pop, a tenner for 36 exposures of premium monochrome film feels like a bit of a steal. That it comes from Leica only sweetens the deal.

Next to the metal-bodied cameras that made its name, there’s something refreshingly humble about the most attainable Leica product in recent memory being a roll of plastic-coated acetate. But it also makes sense. As film becomes more mainstream again, brands are waking up to the fact that the audience has shifted.

It’s no longer just enthusiasts developing Ilford rolls in a home darkroom. It’s Gen Z photographers looking for slower, more tactile ways to create. And if they’re going to spend their cash on film, why not give them a reason to spend it on Leica?

Yes, the real cost of shooting Leica body and glass is in the thousands. But Monopan 50 at least opens the door. More than a nod to Leica’s past, it might be a sign of a different future for the brand, where more people are able to handle and shoot something with the Leica name on it.

Obviously, Leica would love you to pair Monopan 50 with an M-A or an MP. Maybe a vintage M6. But even with a Nikon F, or one of the best second-hand film cameras, its potential for fine detail and tonality is exciting.

Either way, I’m intrigued. Low-ISO film isn’t always easy to shoot, especially in the UK, where overcast conditions are the default. But the Monopan 50 feels like a film worth trying. Not just for what it can do, but for what it represents: Leica, leaning back towards the medium it helped to define a century ago, in a way that’s unexpectedly accessible.

So I didn’t expected to be buying Leica stock this year. But now I’m planning to.

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It's 2025, and the latest innovation from the photography industry is a lens designed to resemble a famed cookie, built from repurposed parts.

‘Add the authentic look of disposable film cameras to your mirrorless [camera] with genuine film optics’, says retro-pia.com, a website selling the lens.

The claim that this is a genuine film optic is indeed accurate, as the lens element is taken straight from a disposable camera, which is then worked into the cookie lens available in today's most popular mirrorless camera lens mounts, including Sony, Canon, Fujifilm and more.

I only wish this were satire.

Of course, I bought one to see it for myself, but not at the incredible $39 / £30 that one Instagram advert was selling it at (and that's 30% off the original price).

Instead, I went straight to the source - AliExpress and parted with just £12 (about $15) - the same price as 168 Oreo cookies. It wasn't lost on me that the price is actually cheaper than you would pay for a disposable camera these days. Two weeks later, arguably the worst lens that I have ever used arrived ahead of a family trip to Paris, France.

Can something so bad, be good?

The lens has an approximate 32mm focal length, a fixed f/11 aperture and fixed infinity focus – everything beyond 5ft / 1.5m should be in focus. At least that is the theory.

The entire thing is made from plastic, including the lens mount. Rather than a lens, it would be more apt to describe this tool as an elaborate lens cap.

By any objective measure, the lens is an abomination; it can't be classified as sharp, so don’t expect any fine details; there is significant vignetting, which, of course, adds to its retro character; everything is soft, and there are pronounced lens aberrations going on.

To be clear, I love characterful vintage lenses, featuring the likes of chrome bezels, metal barrels, minimal coatings, and lens flares. My favourite lens is a Nikkor 50mm F/1.4 E lens from the 1960s.

Still, the cookie lens exhibits vintage character and multiplies it to a level of awfulness that optical engineers have spent decades and millions of Yen trying to escape from.

So why has this work of creative Instagram marketing been a fairly consistent presence on my Sony camera?

First up is the practicality; the Oreo-style lens has quite literally replaced my lens cap. It is so thin that it makes no difference to keep it on my camera at all times. My Sony Alpha is ready to go, pull out, and take a shot at any moment. I don’t even bother with camera settings – what will be, will be.

I’ve used the lens just like I would a disposable camera, taking snapshots of family and moments, and quite honestly, image quality doesn’t matter.

Let’s be real for a minute – 99% of our images are viewed on screens that are smaller than 10 inches, with a resolution less than 4k (around 8 megapixels). You are most likely looking at the images now thinking 'they don't look too bad'.

This goes against everything I, as a pixel-peeping camera reviewer and photographer, stand for. Still, there are occasions when it is the moment that matters rather than the optical excellence.

The fact that this very 1980s / 90s aesthetic is now considered retro horrifies me, a 40-something-year-old man. I have actual prints from disposable cameras that have the same vignette, lack of definition and contrast as the images that this lens produces.

With a tweak in Adobe Lightroom (on my phone, of course), the photos of my children resemble the 6x4-inch prints I have of myself as a child. There is something very nostalgic about it.

There is also a freedom that comes with this poor quality lens. Taking a proper mirrorless camera that costs around $2,500 / £2,000, setting it to Aperture Priority and Auto ISO, and turning it into a point-and-shoot camera, with no worries about depth of field or focusing, is liberating; stop worrying about settings and pixels, and capture the moment instead!

An awful gimmick?

Suppose you do want to take your chances with a drop shipper, such as Temu, AliExpress or resellers on Amazon, this is likely the cheapest ‘new’ lens you will ever buy for your camera.

Continuing with the positives, the practicalities of the lens are great; it is extremely small and light, and can live on your camera.

It's also widely available – the pricier Retropia site lists the Repurposed Disposable Camera Lens for Sony E, Canon RF, Canon EF-M, Nikon Z, Fujifilm X, MFT, L-mount, Leica M and more.

However, this lens is not your only option. The Viltrox AF 28mm F4.5 lens is approximately the same size, features autofocus, and produces significantly better images, albeit at a more reassuring, price of around $100 / £90 (or 1,260 actual Oreos). You can leave this lens on your camera and enjoy it much the same point-and-shoot way as the ‘Oreo’ lens.

You can probably tell I have a like/hate relationship with the Oreo lens – it's optical quality should be consigned to the past, and it's an awful gimmick.

What I will say, though, it has retaught me a valuable lesson – that sometimes working with constraints and stepping outside our comfort zones can trigger our creativity; we can see the world differently.

Perhaps the next time I am shooting portraits I’ll start using on-camera flash, editing the images to have a chronic vignette, adding a slight Gaussian blur to the highlights and go fully in on the disposable camera aesthetic, whilst fighting back the tears that the saying 'everything old is new again' has finally caught up with me.

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Let's start with the obvious: the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is an impressively thin phone. I've held its 5.8mm chassis in my hand and marveled at its svelte titanium frame, but if I'm being honest, its allure was somewhat dampened for me by what I thought at first was a glaring deficit: the lack of a true telephoto lens.

Now, though, after spending a little time with the new Android handset and assessing its unusual set of features, I see things a little differently, and I believe that ultimately consumers will, too.

First of all, here's what you get camera-wise in the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge:

On the front is a 12MP wide-angle selfie camera that, somewhat surprisingly, features a 5-degree wider field of view than any other Galaxy S25 phone (85 degrees as opposed to 80 degrees FoV). Have more friends who want to gather 'round and ogle your ultra-skinny phone? Now you can get them all into the frame.

It's the rear camera array where things get interesting. First, you have the 12MP ultrawide camera (120 FoV). This lens will accommodate dramatic wide-angle shots and macro photography and is, as I see it, table stakes for any good flagship camera system.

The remaining lens is the S25 Edge's most impressive. It's essentially the same 200MP sensor you find on the $1,299.99 / £1,249 / AU$2,149 Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. Stuffing that lens into a phone that shares many of its specs with the base Galaxy S25 Plus is unexpected and quite an accomplishment when you consider this is a 5.8mm, 163-gram smartphone.

Not surprised then relieved

Even before I first saw the S25 Edge in person and long before I learned the full spec sheet, I assumed the phone would not include a decent telephoto lens. After all, there's surely not enough space for a pericope, which needs a prism, a right angle, and enough space to accommodate the optical zoom technology. However, when I learned the Galaxy S25 Edge would start at $1,099.99 / £1,099 / AU$1,849 without any kind of telephoto lens, I was disappointed.

The 200MP sensor has changed my perspective, not only because it's an excellent camera that you'll use to shoot mostly high-quality binned photos (usually in the 12MP or 50MP range) but because of what you can do with that sensor to create a zoom effect.

"2x optical zoom quality" is how Samsung describes what you'll get with the S25 Edge. What it means is that in 2x zoom mode, the phone shoots at the full 200MP resolution of the main camera sensor, and then it crops into the best pixels for a "zoom". The nice thing about this is that Samsung isn't manipulating pixels as it does with the 10X digital zoom. This is all pure artisanal pixels that will essentially make it feel like you were twice as close to your subject.

Zoom versus useful compromise

I'm not gonna lie. I will always prefer more optical zoom. I loved the old 10x optical in the Galaxy S23 Ultra even though it was just 10MP and I rely heavily on the 5X optical zoom lens on the iPhone 16 Pro Max. It's also worth noting that Apple does a similar bit of sensor cropping for the 2X zoom range on its Pro cameras.

What the 6.7-inch Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge offers, though, is a good compromise. The phone is not just a stretched and squished Galaxy S25. It's a hybrid that melds a beautiful thin design with the best sensor in the S25 lineup, one shared only by the pricier Ultra.

So while I miss the bigger zoom, I think the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge may have found a photography sweet spot. Of course, I'll know for certain when we get to test the phone.

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Printique photo book: review

The Printique photo book service offers a great option for whipping up a personal gift for a loved one or presenting your photography portfolio in its best light. It offers a wide range of pre-formatted themes, while allowing you all the flexibility you need to design a truly custom photo book from scratch.

If you’re just looking for quick and easy results, Printique’s photo books offer plenty of templates to choose from. Whether you’re looking for a clean and classy wedding photo book, a striking photography portfolio, or a photo album of your pet pupperino, there are a good number of options – although at 88 themes, its options are dwarfed by the more than 500 options listed by Mixbook. Just select a template and Printique will apply it to your whole project, then all you need to do is drag and drop your chosen snaps into the provided frames.

For those who want a little more customizability, Printique also provides layouts you can drag into individual pages and spreads in your photo book. From full-bleed images that span both pages to inset grids of thumbnail-size pics, these make it easy to include more variation in layouts and really adapt your book to fit your photos, rather than the other way around.

But what if you don’t want to color within the lines? What if you want to make a completely original photo book from scratch? Well there’s good news: building my own DIY Printique photo book was a snap, easily rivaling the best photo book services.

Placing images is simple: I just dragged my photos onto the page and they’d be added as image frames. On top of this, Printique’s built-in snap functionality made it easy to align them with each other or clip them to each spread’s margins. It even allows for really granular control over the size and position of image frames: the pop-up menu’s Properties section let me manually set images to specific dimensions and XY coordinates, as well as checking the DPI of each one to ensure it would print at a decent resolution.

There was the occasional bug here though – some images stubbornly insisted on defaulting to weirdly specific decimals like 4.97 inches, and resisted all of my attempts to set them to a whole integer. Odd behavior, but ultimately not a deal breaker.

Recreating the colored blocks and ribbons from TechRadar’s photo book test template was also pretty painless. Printique offers a range of shapes that you can add to your projects, and these are all super-flexible: I could precisely control their dimensions, add borders, and apply drop shadows from the properties menu. I was also able to change their color by entering a HEX code, setting RGB values or dragging a cursor to set saturation or brightness. However, the latter exhibited some odd behavior – changing either value would cause the color I’d chosen to creep away from my chosen hue, which occasionally proved irritating when I had a specific tone in mind.

Adding captions and credits to my photo book was also easy. Once I’d dropped a text box onto the page, I quickly was able to choose the font, size, styling and alignment. A small time-saver I especially appreciated is the ability to save chosen font settings as a style, which made it easy to achieve a consistent look for text throughout my photo book.

Thanks to some extra settings, it’s possible to get really creative with your layouts. First, Printique provides a wide range of shaped frames that allow you to show off your pics in rounded, slanted or even letter-shaped frames. While some of these are potentially a bit cheesy – star-shaped frames anyone? – they do add a high degree of flexibility that allows you to create some sleek, professional-looking designs.

You can also add extra flourishes and detail to your photo book using Printique’s background and sticker tools. Backgrounds offer everything from customizable block colors to a wide array of illustrations and patterns. Meanwhile, the stickers allow you to add pre-formulated text and illustrations to your photo book, from inscriptions about love to holiday iconography. Personally, some of the stickers aren’t to my tastes, giving things a distinctly clip-art vibe, but there are still a lot of choices there that could make useful ornaments to your text.

You will have to pay a premium for such powerful tools, however. Printique’s photo books were marginally more expensive than some of the other services we've tested. A 12 x 12 inch photo book cost $145.78 including delivery (roughly £112), whereas Shutterfly cost $132.5 (roughly £102) and Mixbook cost $133 (£102.25). It’s only a tiny price increase though, and I would argue one that’s more than worth it, given the flexibility of Printique’s platform.

Printique photo book review: performance

The printed photo book we received from Printique offered very high-quality results, with extra-thick pages and consistently good color and accuracy. Hues looked excellent throughout, whether it was a bright, sunny photo or more nuanced fog with creamy bokeh.

All of the photos were arranged perfectly, exactly as we set them, with no printing errors or unexpected margins. The book excels at photos that cross the binding, with a consistent look that feels mostly unbroken, allowing for very large spreads. I especially liked the brightness of the print and paper on our magenta TechRadar signature cover pages. Branding from Printique was minimal, but still present.

The heavy feel of the Printique photo book adds a nice bit of gravity to photos with the weight of the paper. I was almost worried that I would tear the heavy paper as I turned the pages, but the book held its binding nicely, and the photos feel even more special on such a thick presentation. This would make a fine photo book for wedding photography, very special occasions, or to highlight the best shots in your portfolio.

The pages may be a bit too thick if you're printing a large volume of work, and I still worry about those thick pages tearing with constant turning over the years. But for making a selection of photos feel extra premium, Printique’s photo books are a great choice.

Should I buy the Printique photo book?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Printique photo book review: also consider

How I tested the Printique photo book

• I exactly recreated TechRadar’s photo book test template
• I spent many hours using the platform and experimenting with templates
• I have over a decade’s experience working in print and design

At TechRadar, we use a set photo book template that we attempt to recreate using every photo book platform we review. I followed this as closely as possible, sizing images according to precise measurements, adding colored shapes in specific hues and shades, and recreating captions and credits in specific fonts and styles, allowing me to assess how easy it was to recreate specific designs that users might have in mind.

Our US Mobiles Editor Philip Berne then assessed the final product, analyzing its overall quality and finish, and comparing it to the template to identify any potential errors in the printing process.

Additionally, I spent several hours playing around with the platform’s templates, layouts, shaped frames and illustrations to see how effective its off-the-shelf design elements were.

I’m an experienced photographer, having spent many years shooting both on my Canon DSLR and my iPhone 16 Pro. I’ve also spent many years working in print, creating layouts for magazines and doing post-production on images, meaning I've spent a lot of time using design tools for producing printed products.

• First reviewed: May 2025
• Read more about how we test

Printerpix photo book review

If you’re looking to create a physical manifestation of your treasured memories, then a Printerpix photo book may look like an appealing proposition. You can easily import your favorite photos and integrate them into a photo book with a theme and finish of your choosing, all through its easy-to-use software.

And that ease-of-use is what makes Printerpix a delight to use for creating a custom photo book. Its editing platform has a pretty modern look and breaks down everything you need into key categories within a side bar, including: Photos, Text and Layout. Even when you begin a new project, you’re instantly met with a photo uploader menu, which loads all of your photos quickly and easily.

For reference, I made a totally custom photo book in order to create a product as close to our standardized TechRadar template as possible. That way I could compare Printerpix to its rivals and see if it can compete for a place in our guide to the best photo book services. But if you want a bit of inspiration to get you off the mark, fear not. There are a number of preset themes on offer, including, but not limited to: ‘Wedding Memories’, ‘Vintage’ and ‘Cat Diagonal Strips’ … yep, that’s a real theme. These are separated out into sub-categories too, like ‘Clean and Simple’, ‘Love’ and ‘Family books’, enabling simple navigation.

So, how did making our standardized book go? Well, the whole experience was a bit of a mixed bag – but I’m happy to report that there was more good than bad. Firstly, I was delighted to get through the entire creation process without any nasty glitches or anything. When I reviewed the Shutterfly photo book platform at the end of 2024, I experienced a few issues, like images jumping around the page – no such horrors here! There was one point where the photos menu got a bit laggy, but after refreshing the page, I had no further problems.

But the platform isn’t just smooth sailing, it’s well laid out too. There’s no need for tutorials or digging through menus – everything is super-straightforward, whether you want to alter the size and shape of an image, add a text box or rejig page order.

Having said that, sometimes the user experience felt almost too simple, with a handful of crucial features missing. When adjusting image size, for example, I couldn’t see the exact dimensions in millimeters or inches, which made getting one-to-one likeness with our template decently challenging.

In addition, elements like shapes, which can be added in the Clip Art section, aren’t totally malleable. For example, I wanted to use a rectangle shape on some pages, but this wasn’t available – meaning I had to use a square. I could make this larger or smaller, but couldn’t alter its proportions, meaning I had to mess around with images to cover up excess width.

This rigidness is fairly widespread across the platform. You can’t use custom font size; you have to pick from a list. You can’t use hex code to get a particular shade; you have to pick from a preset list. And there’s no search tool to find a shape or border type that you may want to use. That leaves Printerpix feeling a little bare-boned – perhaps even a touch unintuitive.

But again, the actual creation process was pretty easy for me to carry out. A lot of that was thanks to the Layout tab, which creates one, or multiple boxes that cover the whole page, a portion of it (like a square), or an area within a page border. These can be auto-filled with the images you’ve uploaded and makes for a swift, seamless photo-book-building process. You can also add images freehand, too, which was useful when placing the TechRadar logo on the book’s spine, for instance – something that’s proved tricky to do on other platforms.

What’s more, there are some nice background options, including plain colors or patterned ones like ‘Geometric’ or ‘Striped’. And you can adorn these with plenty of icons, shapes and text from the Clip Art section – some of this does look like it's stuck in the noughties, though. And some of the other graphic elements, like borders and frames do look a little dated too. These aren’t compulsory, of course – I didn’t include any borders or frames in my design. I just wish the decoration elements looked as modern as the user interface.

Now, let’s take a peek at the finished product and whether it met expectations. In honesty, my experience was somewhat mixed in this department.

I was generally impressed by the reproduction of colors in my book. Forest greens on one page were saturated to a pleasant degree and were neatly contrasted by an ensemble of purple flowers. Waves in a cliffside image also looked defined and the azure blue sea was mimicked to a high standard. Also, pages felt thick and durable, meaning I was never worried about accidentally tearing or ripping them when flicking through the book.

But it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. One major sticking point I had with the Printerpix photo book was banding. That’s essentially unwanted lines appearing on a finished print – and there were a number of images affected by just that. For instance, the image of a man looking to the sky and accompanying color block are clearly afflicted with banding issues – a real distraction and something you’d not expect if you’re spending upwards of $100 / £100.

OK, so the finished products ended up being quite middling, but was it worth the money? Well, let me start by saying that I hardly went for the most premium finish. I selected standard pages, a hardback front and back cover and non-HD printing. You can pay extra for a number of aspects though, be it a matte finish, glossy pages – even a removal of the Printerpix logo. All of this will cost you a fair bit more though.

We managed to grab our photo book in the Mother’s Day sale at a cut price, but the finished product would typically have cost a grand total of about £90 (about $115). For reference, delivery came to £7, though you can pay an additional £4 to jump the production queue and have your design prioritized. Our previous creations with Mixbook, Printique and Shutterfly all cost more, but then again, we’ve got books for less with rivals like Blurb. All in all, pricing is solid here – just don’t expect a perfect end product.

In the end, the Printerpix photo book is a slightly flawed, yet solid option for those looking to put their favorite moments to paper. The building process is restricted, but undoubtedly straightforward. The finished product is vibrant and fairly durable, but you may experience some quality issues, like banding. So, if you’re not in need of the most premium print on the market, this could be a worthwhile option for you. Otherwise, I’d recommend checking out the Blurb photo book, which is both cost-efficient and nicely finished, in our experience.

Should I buy the Printerpix photo book?

Buy it if…

Don't buy it if…

Printerpix photo book review: also consider

How I tested the Printerpix photo book

• Built a photo book to recreate the TechRadar template
• Compared against other websites’ photo books and software

I used the Printerpix website to create a custom photo book and test out a handful of templates. Here at TechRadar, we have selected a standardized set of photos to use across all photo book services, in order to fairly compare each platform. We try to use the same layout for each photo book design to help discover which service is the best of the best.

As well as comparing software features, I ordered the Printerpix photo book and observed its print quality, color fidelity and whether there were any scuffs or scratches to the finished product. For reference, the finished photo book I created was 27 x 27 centimeters, had a hard photo cover and used the standard page type.

• First reviewed: April 2025
• Read more about how we test

Blurb photo book review: specs

Blurb photo book: review

Blurb is an affordable printing service that allows you to produce your own high-quality photo books. Offering a wide range of sizes, from a Lilliputian 13 x 13cm to a colossal 33 x 28cm, five kinds of paper stock and three cover options, it offers a huge range of products. And unlike many photo book services, you can design books in a variety of ways, using professional design tools like Adobe InDesign or Lightroom or Blurb's bespoke software, BookWright.

For those who fancy creating a photo book without the fuss, Blurb’s BookWright software has plenty of options. You can let it do all the work: just upload your photos, click the ‘Save Me Time’ button and it will automatically place your photos on the page. However, I did find when trying this feature out that BookWright defaulted to displaying a single full-size image per page, so you’ll likely only want to use this as a starting point.

Helpfully, there’s another option: dragging one of Blurb’s 188 different layouts onto each page, then choosing the order and placement of your photos yourself. These templates offer a great amount of variety, from large images with smaller photographs inset to blocks of free-flowing text accompanied by tiny thumbnails.

Keen to blaze your own trail? Creating your own unique designs using Blurb is more flexible than pretty much any of the best photo book services. Simply select the photo frame tool, draw a frame, and then you can click and drag photos from your uploaded library.

Adding type is just as straightforward: once you’ve drawn a text frame, punch in your text and then you can tweak fonts, styling and alignment to achieve your desired look. And you can also link text frames together, making it possible to automatically flood text from frame to frame.

While most photo book services offer this kind of hassle-free placement, what sets Blurb apart for me is how accurate you can be. I was able replicate TechRadar’s photo book test template with surgical precision, thanks to the detailed properties menu available when you double-click each element. Not only can you precisely set the size of photo and text frames in inches, but you can also easily rotate and flip photographs, and add borders and round the edges of frames, giving you really precise control over the final look of elements on the page.

On top of this, standardizing layouts and alignments is a breeze. Not only do frames handily snap to each other or to the vertical and horizontal midpoint of each page, but you can also set ruler guides to specific measurements, making it simple to use common alignments from page to page. I also really appreciated the ability to save layouts for reuse – this meant I could easily duplicate arrangements for multiple different spreads, without the hassle of recreating them from scratch.

While Blurb doesn’t offer the pages and pages of clip art that some photo book tools do, what it does offer is actually far more flexible than many rivals. Blurb allowed me to create custom shapes with dimensions of my choosing, as well as dialing in precise RGB color values, rather than being limited to a bunch of preset imagery. Sure, it only offers a spectrum of 386 in its color wheel, there's no color picker, and I’d have loved the option to input Hex and CMYK values as well; but Blurb still offers far better precision than many of its competitors.

Once I was done finessing my photo book, all I had to do was click Review and Upload. This runs you through any warnings and gives you a chance to fix flagged issues, as well as running a spell check. That’s a feature not many photo book platforms offer, so it’s a nice additional touch – although its suggestion that I correct ‘TechRadar’ to ‘technocrat’ feels like a level of sass I’m not used to receiving from software.

Colors within were vibrant without feeling like they were oversaturated – the moss on a log has come out in a gorgeous, vivid green, while a shot of an aurora shows off a rainbow of rich pastel hues. The resolution of images also looked exquisitely detailed; for example the bristle of grey hairs in one subject’s beard were incredibly well-defined, adding real depth to the image.

There were few visible print errors either. As you’d imagine from the precision of its tools, alignments looked spot on, with no awkward gaps between frames or ragged corners, and there were no issues with the edges of pages being unevenly trimmed. It is worth noting that my book did arrive with some damage, with an unsightly dent in the front cover. The blame for this probably falls more on the shoulders of FedEx, but I would appreciate some additional packaging to protect books from these kinds of knocks.

But however strong the finished result was, perhaps the most remarkable thing about Blurb’s photo book was how reasonably priced it was. Setting aside the eye-watering delivery costs for the Australian market, the $80.72 / £50.76 / AU$99.44 plus $6.99 / £8.99 / AU$71.49 price for our sample was much cheaper than the $130 (around £100 / AU$200) cost charged by Shutterfly or $145.78 (roughly £112) charged by Printique. That’s a very decent price to pay, particularly in light of the (generally) excellent finish.

Should I buy the Blurb photo book?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Blurb photo book review: also consider

How I tested the Blurb photo book

• I precisely reproduced TechRadar’s photo book template
• I spent a number of hours trying out layouts and putting the platform through its paces
• I’ve worked in the print and design industries for more than 10 years

TechRadar has a specific photo book template that we try to recreate from scratch using the photo book platform we're testing. When testing out Blurb’s BookWright app, I duplicated this as accurately as possible, copying the exact dimensions of photo and text frames, precisely reproducing the positioning and alignment of elements, and using the exact RGB color values from the original. I also spent multiple hours playing with Blurb's various templates to get a sense of the kinds of layouts that were available.

When the final printed product arrived, I checked it for damage and marks from handling or the printing process. Next, I compared it to the photo book template to see how the colors and alignments compared to the original, specifically looking for any patches of low resolution imagery or inaccurate hues.

In terms of experience, I’ve spent many years taking photographs on both on my Canon DSLR and my iPhone 16 Pro. I’ve also had over a decade’s experience working in print publishing, working on layouts and doing post-production on images, which has given me a keen eye for printing errors and issues with image reproduction.

• First reviewed: April 2025
• Read more about how we test

• British photographer Zed Nelson scoops SWPA's $25,000 top prize
• 10 category winners announced
• The exhibition is open to the public at London’s Somerset House until May 5

"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".

These are the opening words describing the Sony World Photography Awards 2025 winner Zed Nelson's project, The Anthropocene Illusion.

The project, spanning six years and four continents, explores humankind's consumer behaviour towards nature and wildlife.

"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...to mask our destructive impact on the natural world."

Powerful words and confrontational images of wildlife in zoos, national parks, and museums across the world, some of which I have included below.

As I prepared to interview Zed during the opening day of the SWPA 2025 exhibition, which is being held at Somerset House in London until May 5, it struck me how severely AI is impacting the landscape of imaging in an equally tiny fraction of the history of photography.

I asked Zed for his thoughts on AI image generation in photography, and here's what he said.

"The biggest worry in documentary photography, is people stop believing in what they see. Already we're at the stage where we can see an image and the first questions are; Is this photoshopped? Did that really happen? Did you move something? Is that image real?

"The problem with that, is that the joy and beauty in photography is to see something and be amazed and think this did happen, this is real, this is a record – even for future generations – of who we were and what we did.

"If AI erodes people's belief in the medium (photography) then we have problems. On the other hand, it may be that we start valuing truth more. And if an image is declared real - this is not AI, but a document of reality – it may be that its value increases.

"As AI multiplies it will cause problems, people will question what's real and what isn't. But I imagine there will also be a move, a valuing of what is real, and so documentary work will start to become more important, not less. People will crave it, they'll want to know it's real.

"I think there will be a separation between what is utterly created through AI, and what is declared real. We will gravitate to what is verified as real, made by people that care, and have a genuine interest in telling stories."

After our conversation, I amble through the SWPA exhibition, soaking in the diverse collection of very real images. A greater appreciation grows in me for those real stories, real people, real places, created in a real moment in time, and they impact me all the more.

I concur with Zed – even as AI-generated images become increasingly believable and plentiful, and the tools become easier and cheaper to access, we'll still need to know and experience what is real, and be moved by it.

We can't afford to be disconnected from photography because of AI image generation, in the same way that Zed suggests in his project that we have become disconnected from nature and are instead consumers of it.

I've included a selection of the SWPA winning images below. Even so, if you're in London, I highly recommend experiencing the exhibition firsthand and seeking out other photography shows near you. More details can be found at the World Photography Organisation website.

The Sony World Photography Awards 2025 winners for each category

The Sony World Photography Awards comprises 10 categories, and the winner of one of these categories is also awarded the overall photographer of the year. As mentioned, this year's award went to Zed Nelson, who also won the Wildlife & Nature category.

In addition to those categories, there is a student photographer and a youth photographer of the year award. I've included an image from each of those winners below.

In all, there were around 420,000 entries from 206 countries – a record for the 18-year-old contest.

You might also like

• 'It’s nothing to do with photography' – Sony World Photography Award winners tell us their mixed feelings about AI
• An entirely real photo wins an AI photo contest – and photographers finally have something to smile about
• These stunning iPhone Photography Award 2024 winners show you don't need an iPhone 16 upgrade after all

Snapfish photo book review

Snapfish offers a vast range of customizable keepsakes and gifting items in over 30 countries including the US, the UK, and Australia. Customizing Snapfish photo books can be pretty simple thanks to a selection of ready-made templates, but my focus was on how easy it would be to add a TechRadar twist to see whether the design interface and resulting print quality are suitable for something a little more creative.

When reviewing different services, we always order a 12 x 12-inch matte hardcover standard-bound photo book. This configuration from Snapfish included twenty 200gsm satin finish pages as standard for a list price of $74.99 / £38.99 / AU$89.95, with the option to add two-page spreads for $2.49 / £1.99 / AU$2.90 each. Our finished book required four additional spreads, bringing the overall total to $84.95 / £46.95 / AU$101.55. Snapfish appears to offer regular deals and it’s always worth keeping an eye out for any banners or pop-ups, as in my experience they don’t apply the offers automatically at checkout if missed.

One thing Snapfish had in abundance was tutorial videos, which I’m sure would prove helpful for some. However, as someone who has used many of the best photo book services, as well as professional design software, I’d rather it had just been an intuitive process, rather than something I’d need to revise for.

The Snapfish photo book builder is fairly basic, but it's not straightforward to use. Tools and settings are limited: there is a top toolbar for saving, zooming, and adding or viewing pages, and a toolbar on the right of the design area, with photo, background, and embellish tabs. There was no tab or dedicated sidebar to offer a quick view of the spreads; instead, I had to click on the All Pages icon or click the zoom out button three times.

Speaking of zoom, the Snapfish builder had frustratingly poor zoom and navigation control. There were simple zoom-in and out buttons with a range of just three clicks, meaning the page was either smaller than I wanted or so large I had to use the browser's scroll bars to move around. I found the “large view” icon at the bottom of the page more convenient, as it increased the page size so that the page height filled the available space, but a manual zoom bar would have been more convenient.

Adding photos was a fairly simple process, but after uploading my first batch of photos I spotted a little “upload preferences” button on the bottom right of the screen. Hidden within this menu, I found the option to upload my photos in standard or full resolution, for no extra cost. Snapfish had this set to standard by default, which is pretty cheeky.

When dragging photos or elements onto the page, it wasn’t possible to know the exact dimensions, so any sizing had to be done by eye. Moving the photos within their frames was simple enough, but increasing or decreasing the size was controlled by a zoom bar, which proved fiddly at times.

I was really pleased to find that guidelines would pop up on the pages as I worked. However, I practically had to move the image pixel by pixel until I hit the right spot, as images and elements wouldn’t snap onto any of the guidelines. On a more positive note, some features I found really useful were the object alignment and size matching options, which popped up whenever I selected more than one element.

It proved particularly tricky to replicate our TechRadar photo book template in the Snapfish builder. While there are around 135 background colors to choose between, other low-cost printing services such as Mixbook offer custom color options from color sliders and hex codes, making it a better choice if you want your photo book to match your branding.

The lack of color options was even more apparent when it came to replicating the colored blocks that accompanied some of our photos. There was no option to apply a chosen color to simple shapes, so I needed to find the best match by searching through the elements. This still didn't prove the quick fix I’d hoped for though, as the shapes were all fixed ratio, forcing me to hide the excess behind the neighboring images or a white shape.

I found text boxes to be another source of frustration throughout this process. There wasn’t a huge range of fonts to choose from, but this did become somewhat of a blessing when I found I couldn’t find a font by typing it in, having to scroll through the list instead. Fortunately, however, recently used fonts were saved at the top of the list, making it easy to switch between a select few.

Initially, I thought the font size was limited to 30, however, I discovered that larger sizes aren’t shown if the text box is too small. This way of restricting the text to the bounding box also proved frustrating when trying to resize text boxes to help with alignment, as the font size subtly reduced on occasion if I made the box a little too small.

You may notice I stated 30, rather than 30pt: this is because the font sizes aren’t standardized, meaning a size 30 in one font could be half the size of another. This may not be the end of the world if you’re creating a photo book to reminisce over fond memories, but if you’re trying to make something cohesive, this makes life much harder.

Once I’d arranged each spread as close to the TechRadar photobook template as possible, I clicked the Review and Buy button. I was warned of a low-resolution photo, something I’d already been made aware of thanks to a warning that appeared on the image itself after I’d placed it on the page. However, it neglected to warn me about images going over the edges of the page, or if an image wasn’t within the bleed margin, which would have saved some errors on the printed article.

After confirming I was comfortable to proceed, I had the opportunity to preview my finished photo book. I was really quite impressed with the way Snapfish presented it; unlike other photo book services I’ve used that show a flat spread, Snapfish shows the pages as if they are in a standard bound photo book, so I could see the effect the spine would have on the photos that spanned over two pages.

Delivery times will vary depending on location, time of year, and demand, but in my case, I ordered my Snapfish photo book on a Wednesday, opting to pay £6.99 for priority, and received it the following Monday. If I’d paid for second-class postage the latest advised delivery date would have only been another two days wait. The photo book arrived in a plastic wrapper inside a simple cardboard outer; despite the plastic protection, there was still a fair bit of debris on the front and back cover, although this was likely worse than usual due to the soft matte finish and dark coloring.

Speaking of the finish on the Snapfish photo book’s cover, it was lovely and soft to the touch, but I would recommend against it if you want a dark cover or if the book will be handled regularly. My Snapfish photo book ended up with lots of marks and fingerprints from just a few hours of viewing and photography, despite being handled carefully, and they proved difficult to remove without leaving evidence of the cleanup attempt.

As the outer lines of the pages on the Snapfish builder were thick blue, and there were no warnings when images went into or over the bleed area, I found one of my images fell short of the edge of the page. This was tricky for me to see on the Snapfish builder, even when looking for it specifically, so this highlights the need for a better zoom function, clear outer bleed margins, and a better warning system that flags when an image is not placed optimally.

It was noticeable that the larger prints were slightly wonky on some pages, as the space between the images and the edge of the page wasn’t consistent in width. I couldn’t help but question the print tolerance too, as it became apparent that the inner border must have been the “outer” bleed line, despite being shown within the page on the Snapfish builder and there being no warnings when my images crossed these boundaries. The image was well within the edge of the page, but the finished result looked like an error.

The cover image of my Snapfish photo book was noticeably darker than the original photo, and to all four of the photo books I was comparing it against. The print lacked the intense vibrancy and detail present on the other photo book covers, which I assume is due to the image being printed onto the black background without any underprinting to preserve the colors.

The color of the printed images inside the book looked fine in isolation, and the print quality seemed acceptable for the price, but they were undoubtedly lower in quality when I compared them to the same photos in the similarly priced Blurb photo book we reviewed. This was especially noticeable when it came to color blending, as the colors of the sky in the Snapfish example showed posterization, leading to obvious steps between colors rather than the colors smoothly blending together, as they did in the same print in the Blurb photo book.

Overall, it’s hard to recommend the Snapfish photo book over one from a competitor like Blurb. The only exception to this would be if it’s on sale, as I could have bought my book for less than £30 if I’d taken advantage of the 40% offer, or if a quick turnaround is key. In my case, a few weeks before Mother’s Day in England, the Snapfish photo book was manufactured in the UK and was in my hands in less than a week. If you’d like to explore offerings from other photo book services, I’d recommend taking a look at our pick of the best photo books.

Should I buy the Snapfish photo book?

Buy it if…

Don't buy it if…

Snapfish photo book review: also consider

How I tested the Snapfish photo book

• I created a photo book from scratch to recreate our TechRadar photo book
• I explored the Snapfish Builder, testing the different features and tools
• I ordered a photo book and assessed the quality of the finished product

I spent time testing out the different features in the Snapfish builder, seeing how easy their pre-made elements were to use, and the different elements they included for free. I also investigated other services providing photo books to compare prices and features.

I started with a blank canvas and used the tools available to recreate our TechRadar photo book. Recreating an existing design is important so that we can assess how capable the different services are when faced with different requirements.

I ordered my completed photo book and evaluated the finished product, paying close attention to quality, print finish, and alignment, and kept a close eye for any imperfections.

• First reviewed: March 2025
• Read more about how we test

VistaPrint photo book review

VistaPrint offers eight photo book sizes in square, portrait, and landscape formats, which range in size from 13 x 10cm (5.1 x 3.9 inches) to 39 x 29cm (15.4 x 11.4 inches). You can have up to 120 pages in a single photo book, although you’ll have to pay £1.50 extra for every two pages beyond 24. Layflat binding is also available on selected sizes for an extra £1.50 per page, and two stocks are available to choose from: Standard and Premium Glossy, the latter of which costs £10.50 more. A photo cover costs an additional £6.50.

The editor for creating a VistaPrint photo book is available both online in a browser and offline as an app for Windows or macOS systems. Books can be created from scratch or using VistaPrint’s Smart Assistant, which judges your best photos from those you’ve uploaded and automatically sets the layout, while still letting you edit as you wish.

Navigating the editor is easy thanks to its clear interface and toolbars for easy access to common elements. I created a book from scratch, although, annoyingly, VistaPrint still thrusts a preset layout upon you, which adds to the labor as you delete the blocks you don’t want.

On the other hand, if you need some inspiration, a menu of template layouts is available for instant insertion, with options containing various combinations of image and text blocks.

Inserting photos is simply a case of inserting image blocks and adding your photos, which can be done in three ways: uploading them in bulk and selecting them from a menu, clicking on a block to bring up a file explorer, or dragging and dropping the file from your computer.

You can then drag the corners and sides to resize your photos as you see fit. However, you’ll be disappointed if you want exact measurements, as there aren’t any, so you’ll have to rely on your eye. Thankfully, moving boxes can be made using the arrow keys, which certainly helps with fine-tuning layouts.

Other common keyboard shortcuts also work in the editor, such as those for copying, pasting, and undoing. However, you can’t select multiple blocks with Ctrl- or Shift-clicks, which is a shame.

Snap lines for horizontal and vertical centers are present, although somewhat frustratingly, they don’t always appear. For instance, I didn’t get a vertical center line when trying to align an image block on the back cover. However, both horizontal and vertical snap lines also appear when lining up a block with another, which is very useful.

When you click on an inserted photo, a popup menu appears with a slider that lets you zoom in and out of the image within its box. You can also drag the image around within the box, allowing you to effectively crop photos with ease.

This menu also has options for moving your image to the front or to the back relative to other boxes, as well as rotate and flip functions. There’s also a filter menu with Black & White and Sepia effects to choose from.

There’s also an Auto Enhancement feature, but there’s no explanation as to how this actually works. As far as I could tell, it makes images brighter, which works well in some cases, but can lead to overexposure and oversaturation in others. More annoyingly, I couldn’t find a way to turn it off permanently; the best I could do was click the delete enhancement button in the top toolbar, but I had to do this every time I inserted a new photo, which was mildly irritating.

Different background colors are available should you want them, but the options are limited since there’s no color wheel or hex code input for inserting any shade you like.

There are far more framing and masking options, ranging from basic looks to more ostentatious offerings. Various clip art stickers are available too. As for text, VistaPrint offers a good number of fonts to choose from as well, along with the usual point sizes, colors, and basic formatting options.

There are a few snags with the editor that are worth pointing out. Firstly, I couldn’t find a way to remove a frame or mask once inserted, which was frustrating and meant I had to delete the block entirely to eliminate it. I also couldn’t scale our TechRadar logo small enough to fit along the spine, despite being able to fit text here.

Other issues include black backgrounds obscuring the margin lines of the spine, and smaller images appearing with strange artifacts, which thankfully remedies itself once you zoom in, so it seems this is merely a GUI issue.

Popups occasionally appear reminding you to save your work, although an autosave feature wouldn’t have gone amiss. Saving is usually quite quick, although it was somewhat sluggish when returning to a saved session.

I also had a popup stating that photos were taking longer to load than usual when starting a new session, recommending I wait before making further changes to the book. Thankfully, this was only a momentary issue.

The projected delivery date for my order of a XL Square (30 x 30cm / 12 x 12 inch) photo book was two weeks, and unfortunately, unlike other services, there’s no expedited option for quicker turnarounds.

Such photo books cost £49.99. I was lucky to catch VistaPrint in a sale, so claimed a 40% discount, bringing my order to £35.69, which included a photo cover and a few extra pages beyond the default 24. Delivery cost an extra £5.50, bringing my overall total to £41.19, although orders over £40 have free delivery.

The book arrived about four days earlier than estimated, which was a pleasant surprise. However, unfortunately there was some damage to the top of the spine and consequently the inside corners of nearly every page, as if it had been crushed from the top.

This wasn’t exactly surprising given how thin the cardboard sleeve was, with no bubble wrap or protective padding of any kind around the book. Thankfully, the damage was subtle, and much of it was hidden from view by the curve of the pages towards the binding.

The printing quality was excellent, though. Images were sharp with no blurring or artifacts. Colors were rendered with plenty of accuracy and vibrancy, which was especially noticeable on full-page spreads, making them a real highlight of the book.

However, some images and text had a slightly jagged edge to them, as did the solid blocks of color, which also contained a few outlines in a darker shade. There were also a few stray dots of color on white backgrounds, but these were infrequent and hard to notice owing to their minute size.

On the whole, though, the VistaPrint photo book delivers pleasing results, especially for those looking to showcase larger photos. Combined with its capable and intuitive editor, this is a service worthy of your attention.

Should I buy the VistaPrint photo book?

Scorecard

Buy it if…

Don't buy it if…

VistaPrint photo book review: also consider

How I tested the VistaPrint photo book

• Made and ordered photo book
• Followed TechRadar's photo book template

I used VistaPrint’s online editor to order a 12 x 12 inch (30 x 30cm) XL Square photo book with 28 pages, following our TechRadar template, which includes a variety of photos, containing both people and landscape, with varying colors palettes and exposure levels, as well as some black and white images.

Our template also contains various page layouts, in order to test the versatility of the service in question, both in terms of its editing capabilities and the final result.

• First reviewed: March 2025
• Read more about how we test

I carry the best camera phones with me every day, but sometimes, a special event provides an opportunity to compare. The New York Botanical Garden in New York City is hosting its annual orchid show, so I brought my favorite camera phones and my own dedicated camera to see how these phones perform.

I used the Apple iPhone 16 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, and OnePlus 13 to take hundreds of photos - more than 300 samples each - of the thousands of blooms to see how they managed to capture these perfect spring memories, and the results shocked me!

Why? Because the OnePlus 13 held its own against both of the top contenders and my Fujifilm X-T5. I was surprised by how buggy the Apple iPhone 16 Pro camera has become and how inconsistent the color accuracy on the Galaxy S25 Ultra can be. While I wouldn't call the OnePlus 13 my clear winner, you can see the results below, and the competition is tight.

How I judge the best camera phones

To judge these images, I look for color accuracy and lighting foremost. I want to see the natural colors of the flowers. Then I want fine details. Finally, I expect a dreamy, blurred bokeh background that looks natural and isolates my subject without distraction.

What surprised me most on this trip was how much the camera software matters. As expected, Samsung offers the most camera options, though some features require additional software and downloads. I was disappointed that the OnePlus 13 offered very little control - I couldn't force the camera to shoot at its highest 50MP resolution using the native app.

The Apple iPhone 16 Pro, however, was the worst of all. Its Camera app crashed often, especially if I used the new Camera Control button to open it. It also had trouble focusing on the proper subject.

I also brought along my dedicated camera, a Fujifilm X-T5, with a 23mm f/2 lens. That's the exact same specs you'll find on Fujifilm's incredibly popular Fujifilm X100VI, and I wanted to see how today's best camera phones compared to today's hottest point-and-shoot camera performance.

The Fujifilm has impeccable color accuracy and soft bokeh, so it offers a great comparison to see which smartphones produce images that look like a real camera.

A focus on focus with phalaenopsis and dancing lady orchids

The first photo is my reference shot, taken with my Fujifilm X-T5. The colors are perfect, with bright white on the moth orchid, crisp yellow on the dancing lady orchids, and a pleasant royal blue on the background wall.

The iPhone 16 Pro had immediate problems with this shot. When I used the main photo mode, the camera app was unable to focus on the moth orchid alone. I allowed the iPhone to turn on macro, which reduced the resolution, and I got this terrible shot with too-warm colors and a seemingly narrow aperture that brought most of the flowers into focus instead of just a few.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra was more accurate with its color, though the image looks underexposed, considering the wealth of natural light in the Botanical Garden. The focal plane is also a bit narrow for my taste, and it was hard to bring all of the moth orchids into focus.

The OnePlus 13 created the best photo among all the camera phones, with excellent color, bright details and lighting, and the right focus on the flowers I want. It's the lowest resolution of the bunch, though, so printing later may be problematic.

• Best Photo: OnePlus 13

Finding drama, not detail, in a mysore clockvine

While the iPhone 16 Pro doesn't capture the most detail in this shot, sometimes detail isn't exactly the point. I wanted accurate colors, enough detail to see the fine strands in the filaments, and a little bit of blur on the background buds to make the clockvine stand out.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra and OnePlus 13 had trouble focusing on just the clockvine, so I let those phones default to macro mode. This was a big mistake, as you can see. The colors and details may be there, but there is no blur to the background, and everything seems flat.

• Best Photo: Apple iPhone 16 Pro

Tuning into the blues and hues of a jade vine

This was purely a test of color to see which camera phone could properly render the remarkable hue of this jade vine in bloom. The flowers are shimmering and almost metallic in color, a blue-green that will test the limits of what you consider blue or green (and you can Is My Blue Your Blue if you want to see your blue-green boundary).

The iPhone 16 Pro may lack the detail of the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but the iPhone produced colors that were true to life, while the Galaxy phone struggled to recreate the real thing. Usually, Galaxy phones oversaturate colors, but here, the jade vine looks a bit duller.

The OnePlus 13 simply flubbed this shot. It got the colors wrong. This is a problem with the OnePlus 13. When it works, it produces photos that look spectacular. When it goes wrong, it goes very wrong, and it makes you wonder if you accidentally switched to a different phone.

• Best Photo: Apple iPhone 16 Pro

The big problem with macro on smartphones

Macro photography is when you get very close to a subject, and smartphones today will all try to switch to a macro mode when you are trying to shoot close up. Whenever possible, you should turn off this macro mode because it will ruin your photo.

First of all, macro is usually handled by the ultra-wide camera, not the main camera. That means it uses a much smaller sensor, which ironically means it cannot capture the same high level of detail. On the iPhone and Galaxy phones, your macro photos will be around 12MP even if your camera is set to shoot at 48MP or 50MP, respectively.

Worst of all, it's clear that these phone makers don't take macro photos very seriously. When the camera shoots in macro mode, you can see an obvious shift in quality, both in terms of resolution and color accuracy. Here are some examples below.

The OnePlus 13 does a better job with its macro mode. You can see here that the color remains consistent, and the only thing that shifts is the focal plane and the details in the image. Still, the photo from Macro mode is unpleasant, with a noisy and distracting background, while the main camera image is much nicer, with a pleasant background bokeh blur.

• Best Macro Photo: OnePlus 13

Which phone is the best? All of them (but they all have issues)

Which of these camera phones is the best? The Apple iPhone 16 Pro produced images that looked closes to my Fujifilm X-T5 camera, with color that was true to life and a depth of field that made photos look like they were taken by a real camera.

However, the iPhone 16 Pro was buggy. The Camera app crashed often, especially when I tried opening the camera through the new Camera Control button. Also, Apple offers far fewer camera control options and shooting modes than the other phone makers. It also had trouble focusing on a subject as close to the lens as the other camera phones without switching to the dreaded Macro mode.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra produced results that looked fantastic, most of the time. It did a much better job focusing and capturing details than the other two cameras, but it had a very hard time producing accurate colors. Shooting thousands of orchids, the Galaxy S25 Ultra often blew out the red portions of flowers so that all detail was lost. It tended to render images warmer than reality, and the difference between image quality when you switch modes can be vast.

The OnePlus 13 was pleasantly surprising. It shot images that had plenty of colorful pop, and photos were mostly accurate - until things went wrong. That's the big problem with the OnePlus 13. I'd call it the best camera phone, but things go wrong too often and the results can be terrible, with colors that are simply inaccurate. I also wish there was a way to force the camera to produce high-resolution images, instead of only 12MP shots.

In the end, I'd have to recommend the iPhone for its more consistent photos and better color accuracy, even if the app has problems. If I could trust the OnePlus 13 with more consistent results or take advantage of the full resolution of the camera, it would be my favorite, but for now, the iPhone remains the camera phone to beat.

Best Overall: Apple iPhone 16 Pro

Apple iPhone 16 Pro Sample Photo Gallery

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra Sample Photo Gallery

OnePlus 13 Sample Photo Gallery

How I tested these camera phones for this story

When I review a phone, I don't adjust the settings on the camera, because most people don't adjust the camera settings. For this test, I wanted to get the best possible results, so I tried to tune each camera properly. I also took multiple photos with a variety of settings to see how they compare.

For instance, on the Galaxy S25 Ultra, I opted for 50MP resolution, even though the camera wants to shoot 12MP by default. At 50MP, I thought I would get enough detail, but the camera would still benefit from its pixel binning techniques. The Galaxy S25 Ultra also gives you more focal range options at 50MP than 200MP.

For all of the smartphones, I allowed the camera app to shoot in Macro mode if the app detected a close subject, and then I always turned off Macro mode and tried to focus on the same subject. I compared the best images, whether or not the camera used Macro mode.

I took at least 5 photos of each subject, from the same distance and with approximately the same hand positioning. For this story, I have selected the best exemplars of the bunch, but there are hundreds of samples that are unpublished here.

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It's here. The Amazon Spring Sale is officially underway. But of all the exciting deals and discounts we're seeing, there's one that's piqued my interest more than any other.

That's because you can get the Netgear Meural Canvas II at Amazon for £599.99 (was £799.99) – which is a huge deal for a truly massive 27-inch digital photo frame. (Not in the UK? Scroll down to see today’s best Netgear Meural Canvas II deals where you are.)

• Shop more Amazon Spring Sale deals

This is an exciting deal in my book for a couple of reasons. Firstly, while this isn't the lowest price the Meural Canvas II has ever been, £200 off is still a major discount. It's only been lower once before, in December 2023, when it was briefly down to £469.80. However, my one real hesitation when I first reviewed this frame was its high cost – this deal has utterly obliterated that one reservation I had.

Today's best Netgear Meural Canvas II deal

I spent multiple weeks testing this digital photo frame for my Netgear Meural Canvas II review, and I was genuinely impressed with its capabilities. Not only did it wow me with its crisp images and rich yet faithful color production, but thanks to its bright display and anti-glare glass, it remained visible in even sun-drenched rooms.

On top of that, its user interface definitely makes it one of the best digital photo frames out there. Gesture control means you can swipe through images and get info on pictures without having to get grubby fingerprints all over it. Its app makes it easy to transfer photos, as well as offering up access to buy a wide array of artworks from professional artists. My only real reservation was that undeniably high price, which is made much less painful by this £200 discount.

But if you're based in the US, you shouldn't feel left out – the Netgear Meural Canvas II has had a significantly reduced price there for some time. It's been available at Amazon US for $499.99 (was $699.99) pretty consistently since June 2024, so make sure you check it out if you want to grab a similar bargain.

Want a great camera to take some snaps for your new frame? Then check out our guide to the best camera deals available. Alternatively, if you've got your eye on some other smart tech during the Amazon Spring Sale, make sure you check out our smart home deals hub for the latest discounts.

More Amazon Spring Sale deals in the UK

• Amazon Devices: up to 60% off Echo & Fire TV
• Appliances: 60% off Ninja and Tefal
• Gaming: gaming headsets from £22.99
• Headphones: Sony and Bose from £34.99
• Health: up to 63% off Philips and Oral-B
• Laptops: Lenovo and Acer from £139
• Music: Music Unlimited - 4 months free
• Phones: Google and Samsung from £129
• Smart home: Ring & Blink cameras from £15.99
• Tablets: Fire tablets from £29.99
• Toys: up to 60% off Lego and Barbie
• TVs: cheap TVs from £139.99
• Vacuums: up to 40% off Shark and Dyson

TechRadar’s phones team handed me the Xiaomi 15 Ultra more than a month ahead of its global unveil. This could be the best camera phone this year, they said, fancy having a play with it?

I’ve looked after all of TechRadar’s camera content for over two years, reviewing the best mirrorless cameras and more. They didn’t need to ask me twice.

The premium-quality flagship phone houses a massive 1-inch sensor main camera, plus three more cameras including a 200-megapixel 4.3x telephoto option. That’s serious stuff for smartphone photography.

All throughout my lengthy hands on with the 15 Ultra, I’ve used Xiaomi’s optional Photography Kit. It comprises a handgrip, thumb grip, shutter button cap(s) and wrist strap (see below).

The Photography Kit has improved my camera experience no end – and that's significant to me because poor handling for photography is a phone's Achilles' heel. With the kit, it felt like I was shooting with a premium compact camera, like my Ricoh GR IIIX.

I decided to see if I could live without my full-frame mirrorless camera throughout this time. Naturally, I’ve compared the 15 Ultra to my own phone too, the Google Pixel 8 Pro.

The Xiaomi 15 Ultra, which starts at £1,299 (it's not directly available in the US or Australia), has impressed me on several fronts in a way that other smartphones haven’t yet – a victoriously struck hardware-software balance. So follow me as I unpack what makes the Xiaomi 15 Ultra one of my favorite camera phones to date.

Serious hardware

Most of the best camera phones rely on software smarts to create superb photos – including my Pixel 8 Pro – whether that's subject detection and background softening for portraits, excellent stabilization for better night-time images, or HDR effects to increase perceivable detail in highlights and shadows.

The 15 Ultra can do those things, but its hardware is also top drawer, meaning it can get you better pictures without relying so heavily on software trickery. Namely, there’s that stellar 1-inch sensor, much bigger than the sensors used in most rival phones from Apple, Samsung and Google.

Sensor size matters – there’s less reliance on computational trickery to get you effects such as background blur for portraits, or noise reduction for night shots and HDR for better tonal range. In short, photos should look more natural.

There is a trade-off, however. The larger a sensor is, the greater the distance between sensor and lens needs to be. That means the 15 Ultra’s camera unit is hefty. It houses those four lenses, including the headline 4.3x telephoto camera which shoots 200MP stills. If you want a slim phone, look elsewhere.

Most other flagship camera phones also have a slightly longer 5x telephoto zoom, while the Galaxy 23 Ultra has a 10x telephoto lens, meaning the 15 Ultra has slightly less reach. However, four lenses without any obvious image quality compromises.

Software smarts

My Pixel 8 Pro mostly shoots in auto, with a HDR-like effect applied. It shoots superb photos, but doesn’t really offer the manual control that I like as a seasoned photographer.

The Xiaomi 15 Ultra does both. I can select a Pro mode and have full control of exposure settings. I particularly enjoyed quick access to exposure compensation on the Photography Kit's dedicated dial (more on this in a moment). It's true that several other phones feature a Pro mode too, but there is an impressive array of controls here, which also includes a few Leica-badged color profiles. I'm a fan of some of the black and white profiles.

In Pro mode, the 15 Ultra won't brighten the shadows in the way my Pixel does. Photos are more natural, more of the time. If you look through my image galleries, the photo of two trees on a misty morning (above) stands out to me in particular. The subtlety is there that I can get with proper camera, and which is almost always lost with my Pixel.

If, however, I do want that HDR-like effect, I can simply tap the HDR mode. It's in a somewhat hidden menus that contains a host of modes and also includes a long exposure effect - another photography trick that I like for abstract effects.

Superb accessories

Most people thinking of splashing the cash on the Xiaomi 15 Ultra are doing so primarily for its camera. To that degree, the optional Photography Kit is a must-have accessory (£179 – there's no direct availability or pricing in the US and Australia). Without the kit, the phone and its camera app largely handle like any other for photography. But with it, now we talking a similar experience to some premium compact cameras.

The Photography Kit’s grip gives extra purchase, even if it would be even comfier to hold with contours for your fingers. Add the thumb grip, however, and the phone feels more secure in the hand, for both vertical and horizontal holds.

The grip features a shutter button, for which there are screw-in caps that make for an even more tactile feel. I have lost one of these caps within a month as they do unscrew a little too easily, so be aware of that.

Next to the shutter button is a dial, which can control exposure compensation – meaning you can instantly brighten or darken the image to taste. This dial is like what you find on a proper camera, and feels a level-up from Apple’s camera control button.

With all the Photography Kit components in play, the setup reminded me a little of my Ricoh GR IIIX, a premium compact camera that I spent around $1,000 / £900 on instead of the latest iPhone, because I still believe there are distinct advantages in using a dedicated camera for photography instead of a phone, including mental health.

A drawback with the Photography Kit fixed in place through the phone’s USB-C, is that in my experience the phone's battery drained quicker. It could just be the phone / photography kit I had, but I’m not convinced by the effectiveness of the battery housed in the grip.

The ultimate camera phone?

So could the Xiaomi 15 Ultra replace pro camera gear? That depends on the person, but for me that simply isn’t true. What I will say, however, is that it's been the next best thing.

Giving the Xiaomi 15 Ultra's camera setup a proper testing; familiarizing myself with its tools and how it works, finding workarounds for the things I don’t like, using the Photography Kit, has shown me that I've less reason to use my camera gear, and that’s certainly true for my beloved Ricoh GR IIIX premium compact.

With its creative modes covering macro photography, long exposure effects, its natural shallow depth-of-field portraits thanks to that 1-inch sensor, together with the choice I want between auto HDR and manual exposure control, I have a camera that is both creative and serious, and slips in my pocket. The Photography Kit only further improves the experience.

Each flagship phone has distinct advantages over the next. I've always loved the natural color and detail in portraits shot with an iPhone, the versatility of the Galaxy Ultra's camera suite, and the computational smarts of a Pixel. But for a rounded photography experience, the Xiaomi 15 Ultra could be the very best of the bunch. Over the course of six weeks of regular use, I've been able to make so many images that I genuinely like, and you can enjoy a few more of my favorites in the gallery below.

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Which is your favorite sensor format? That was the question I posed to camera lovers on TechRadar's WhatsApp channel . I knew which format would come out on top, but I'll admit that the size of the victory surprised me.

From five options, full-frame took an incredible 82% of the entire vote, that's 714 out of 872 votes. That's over twelve times more than APS-C, the second most popular choice. Put simply, the result was a landslide.

So what gives? The quick answer is that full-frame continues to strike a healthy balance of professional image quality and high-speed performance.

Full-frame is also the focus for Sony and Canon's camera departments – two of the biggest names in photo and video – plus Nikon, Leica and others too. That means superb new cameras and lenses are regularly launched.

The best full-frame cameras are also becoming increasingly affordable (besides Leica), meaning enthusiasts and even ambitious beginners are jumping on board, as well as pros.

I'd hardly call the poll a litmus test, however. It simply asked for a favorite sensor format, plus participants could only vote once. Going one step further, therefore, I asked seasoned photographers in the TechRadar team which sensor format is their favorite and why. Popular mightn't always mean best...

Actually, APS-C is the real sweet spot

My first candidate was Mark Wilson, TechRadar's News Editor and former Cameras Editor. Here's what he said:

"While I've often been tempted to switch to full-frame, I still find APS-C to be the sensor sweet spot for my preferred kinds of photography. I tend to switch between landscape, travel, street and portraits, and the Fujifilm X-series still offers a great blend of image quality and size for those – particularly with the option of its little f/2 'Fujicron' primes.

"There's sometimes more noise than I'd like when shooting at high ISOs, but today's AI-powered denoising makes that less of a factor these days. Plus, APS-C cameras are just the most fun around, in my opinion – and a camera that makes you want to shoot is more important than pixel peeping."

Fujifilm is one of few leading camera makers to shun full-frame altogether, yet the popularity of its cameras such as the X100VI premium compact confirm Mark's opinion that user experience is key. Personally, I really rate my Ricoh GR IIIx compact camera, which is also APS-C, for similar reasons.

Another Fujifilm fan is TechRadar's Global Editor in Chief, Marc Mclaren. He said, "I've only ever owned APS-C cameras and don't see that changing any time soon. I've tested multiple models with other sensor formats and have taken some fantastic photos with full-framers – but there's always a trade off with size/weight and price, particularly when it comes to the lenses.

"I'll be sticking with my Fujifilm X-T5 – small body, small lenses for the effective focal length, good dynamic range and low-light performance, not stupidly expensive. The jump from APS-C to full-frame doesn't seem big enough to be worth it. Medium-format is a different matter; now that I could get onboard with. But unfortunately I'm not rich enough for that!"

How about even smaller?

TechRadar's Deals Editor, Alex Whitelock, has a slightly different take on the subject: "I think I have a distinct advantage in that I shoot with full-frame and Micro Four Thirds cameras on a near-daily basis and I love both.

"For me, the main advantages of MFT are value and an undeniable 'fun factor' that I just can’t quite put my finger on. MFT cameras scratch that creative itch for me in a way that other formats often don’t. Yes, I love a full-frame camera (especially in low light), but it's the Olympus (now known as OM System) that I usually throw in the bag when I'm pottering about.

"It’s not even the excellent computational features that stand out to me, but a combination of class-leading in-body image stabilization (IBIS), ergonomics, and beautiful lenses. Right now, you can pick up some stunningly well-built and rugged pro-grade lenses second-hand for well under $500 / £400, which makes MFT the perfect format for those who want to experiment and find their niche in photography."

Like Alex, I use both formats regularly, appreciating the distinct benefits for each one. The compact size and broad choice of MFT lenses stands out to me, while computational modes can make up for perceived drawbacks of the half-size sensor in many situations.

For example, I recently tested the OM System OM-3, and its High Res Shot mode can increase resolution from 20MP up to 80MP for more detailed shots. Select the 50MP option, and you can shoot handheld. ND filter modes enable abstract long exposure photography effects that are addictively fun to create, and again you can get these effects handheld thanks to the system's amazing IBIS.

Picking just one format is unfair

Here's my two cents; different sensor formats serve different needs. I own cameras in every sensor format mentioned above, asides from medium-format (maybe one day, but like Marc said, these cameras are seriously pricey).

My go-to camera for serious photography and video is indeed a full-framer. I often shoot in low light and want the best possible quality; the large sensor size coupled with readily available fast aperture prime lenses is a winning combination. I also don't mind the size and weight of this gear... when I'm working that is.

My Nikon mirrorless full-framer is also my top choice for landscape photography. The large diameter of the Z-mount and shallow flange depth means lens quality is simply superior to smaller formats, especially in the corners of the frame.

But I choose other cameras for other needs. My Ricoh GR IIIx premium compact (APS-C) slips into my pocket for everyday photography and quick snaps while commuting, while my Panasonic and OM System cameras (MFT) are top choices for close focusing and handheld photography, with unmatched image stabilization and smartphone-like computational photography. They also have an enviable selection of lenses to choose from which are small, light and versatile, making them ideal for wildlife.

I don't own a medium-format camera, but have tested many models – even making direct comparisons with my own full-frame camera to see which came out on top. That image quality battle was won by the super-expensive 100MP Hasselblad, with its next-level detail and natural color, but it's a slower camera in general.

There are plenty of other formats not mentioned here too; the 1-inch sensor type is used in many compact cameras and select flagship camera phones like the Xiaomi 15 Ultra and delivers the best smartphone photography quality I've experienced yet.

I'd probably pick full-frame camera if I could only ever use one format again. No single format is best, however, just better for specific needs and budgets. Just because full-frame is the popular choice, it doesn't mean it's the best format for you.

How about you – if you could only pick one camera sensor size, which would it be and why? Let me know in the comments below.

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I'm stoked – a total lunar eclipse blood moon is set to grace our skies on Thursday evening / Friday morning this week (March 13 / 14, depending on where you live) and I know in advance that it's happening.

I don't know about you, but I plan to set the alarm early to find a view and soak in this special celestial event: a total lunar eclipse and full moon last took place three years ago where I live in the UK.

Naturally, as TechRadar's Cameras Editor, I'll be packing my big camera with a telephoto lens, plus a flagship smartphone with a telephoto camera to get some snaps.

Sadly, folks like me in the UK will only be able to see a partial eclipse before the moon sets. However, the position of the moon in the sky during the partial eclipse could still make for spectacular photos that I'm excited to try for.

In the US and Canada, however, night sky gazers will be able to see the eclipse at its maximum point, depending on visibility.

Thankfully, where I am, the weather forecast looks like it could be favorable, and I've got everything crossed it stays that way. So, I've been hatching a plan to ensure I'm prepped to get my best-ever shots of a (partial) lunar eclipse.

In this article I cover the basics – what the celestial event is and what time it's occurring where you are. Then I explain how you can get set with a phone or camera to get the best possible shots where you are, with the gear you have.

What is a blood moon?

There's a full moon on the evening of March 13 and the early hours of March 14, and because it coincides with a lunar eclipse, the moon will also turn a vibrant shade of red, hence the term 'blood moon.'

An eclipse occurs when the Earth sits almost perfectly between the sun and the moon, which blocks direct sunlight from reaching the moon and, therefore, refracting its light through our atmosphere.

The last time this celestial event occurred was almost exactly three years ago where I live. In other words, it's an astrophotography jackpot, especially if the position of the moon and the weather conditions are favorable where you are during the total eclipse.

When and where can I see the blood moon?

Where the blood moon will look its biggest and reddest depends on where you are on planet Earth during the lunar eclipse. The total eclipse lasts for around 65 minutes, with the maximum eclipse in the middle of that period.

The cities of New York (US) and Toronto (Canada) will be able to see 2025's lunar eclipse at its maximum point, when the moon is at its reddest, during unsociable hours in the middle of the night, while in San Francisco (US) the event is earlier, of course, sneaking in on Mar 13.

Meanwhile, in London (UK), the moon will have already set once the total eclipse begins, meaning the full moon won't be seen in its 'blood' form.

Thankfully, for astronomy enthusiasts in the UK, there will still be the chance to see a partial eclipse pre-dawn as the moon sets, which could, in turn, provide excellent photography opportunities, including points of interest in the surrounding landscape.

This eclipse path map can help you determine exactly what time the total lunar eclipse takes place where you are, while NASA's eclipse website is also very helpful. That NASA website link maps out all of the total lunar eclipses between 2021 and 2030 – click on the 2025 Mar 14 option for info about this week's eclipse.

For quick reference, I've listed a few key places in the US / Canada where the eclipse is visible below. If you're in the UK, the best possible time to see as much of the eclipse as possible is at 6:19AM.

How to photograph the total lunar eclipse blood moon

To get your best-ever blood moon photos, you need to plan the best location, pack the right gear and execute using the most suitable camera settings. Let's take a whistle-stop tour of each of those elements.

Planning

It's easy enough to point at the white orb as it turns red in the night sky and snap a photo. However, if you want next-level moon shots, I'd consider its position in the sky in relation to the landscape around you.

Are there points of interest that you can also include in the frame? Can you even see the moon from your desired location? That's where my favorite night sky app, PhotoPills, comes in.

Made especially for astronomy fans, Photopills (available for iOS / Android for $9.99 / £9.99 / AU$14.99) is my most used photography app. For the total lunar eclipse, its augmented reality mode will be particularly handy. It can project precisely where the sun and moon will be in the sky at any time and day (down to the minute – like for the maximum eclipse), which can help you compose next-level shots that include points of interest.

On a basic level, you'll need to know if you can even see the moon during the lunar eclipse. In the UK, the maximum visibility is during moonset, so you'll need an unimpeded west-facing view.

For a deeper dive on how to plan, check out the supremely helpful video from the Photopills team, below.

The gear you need

Technique-wise, getting decent snaps of the moon is surprisingly straightforward, provided you have the right gear.

You'll want to get close enough to see details of the total eclipse and/or include points of interest in the surrounding landscape for perspective. That necessitates a telephoto lens.

I'm packing a full-frame Sony A1 II mirrorless camera with Sony's FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 OSS lens, which, for me, is the ideal zoom range to experiment with composition, whether that's filling the entire frame with the moon at the telephoto end, or including surroundings at the wide end.

The A1 II (below) has a 50MP sensor, which will give me plenty of pixels to play with should I want to crop in further. If you have more than one camera, I'd suggest going for the one with more pixels.

If you're using a phone, you'll want to try the telephoto camera. Samsung's Galaxy S23 Ultra packs a 10x optical zoom, while most flagship handsets include a telephoto lens with a 5x optical zoom (approx).

Those optical zooms will feel a little wide, especially if you simply want a close-up of the moon. The alternative is extending that zoom digitally, but be aware that image quality is worse using a digital zoom. I suggest trying both – clever computational processing applied to images taken with a digital zoom can make for acceptable results.

The moon is so bright that you’ll be shooting with shutter speeds that are fast enough for going handheld, and you should still get sharp detail. However, if you have a tripod, I'd still advise packing one because it'll take the strain and can make precise composition easier.

If you are venturing far and/or hiking somewhere dark, pack the basics to make your life easier and more comfortable: snacks, a flask of something hot, and a headtorch.

Camera settings

If your camera can shoot images in RAW + JPEG, select this option. You might get great photos straight out of the camera, but the RAW file format gives extra leeway for recovering detail, like if the moon blows out.

I will use the Sony A1 II and 200-600mm lens for some compositional flexibility between moon-only shots and those that include surroundings.

Manual exposure mode gives you complete control over aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. At the same time, you might also want to select manual focus if your camera's autofocus struggles to nail sharp focus or regularly focus hunts.

Exposure settings will change during the lunar eclipse cycle. The full moon will be particularly bright before the total eclipse starts and appear much darker (and red) during the maximum eclipse.

A good starting point for the partial eclipse, shooting handheld, is an f/8 aperture, 1/500sec shutter speed, and ISO 200 sensitivity. You'll need to push the camera's capability further when during the total eclipse.

You won't need to use a tripod outside of the total eclipse because the moon is so bright, but I'd recommend one when the eclipse is in full swing.

If you're using a tripod, you can use a slower shutter speed than 1/500sec, even as slow as 1/8 sec even with a telephoto lens, if the support is stable and you avoid camera shake with a self-timer.

A 'proper' camera is what I will rely on for my best lunar eclipse shots, but I'll also give it a go with my Pixel 8 Pro smartphone's 5x optical zoom. That means the moon is small in the shot, but I can include the surroundings.

Night mode increases the amount of perceivable detail in dark scenes, which is a must, given the high contrast between the bright moon and the dark landscape.

I'll also have the Xiaomi 15 Ultra, which features a Pro mode that gives me the option to shoot in RAW format and manually adjust the brightness using exposure compensation.

If your smartphone lacks any of those features, it could be worth downloading an iOS app like Halide Mark II or an Android app like Open Camera, both of which allow for manual control of the camera.

I will also apply the same techniques with a phone that I do my camera, that is using a sturdy support and a self-timer.

Bring on the total lunar eclipse – I can't wait!

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As photographers, videographers, and content creators, upgrading your gear is essential for bringing your ideas to life and maximizing your creative potential. Whether you're a professional, semi-professional, or hobbyist, keeping your equipment aligned with your current needs is crucial, but it can also be costly.

One of the smartest steps you can take is to sell or trade in your existing camera gear that no longer serves your projects. This not only helps you free up funds for new equipment but also supports sustainable practices in our industry.

Why MPB?

To put your plan into action, finding a reliable platform is key. MPB is the largest global platform committed to buying, selling, and trading used photo and video gear.

MPB recirculates over 570,000 cameras, lenses, and accessories each year and have built a community of nearly a million satisfied customers worldwide. Knowledgeable customer experience teams are available to assist you, ensuring you feel supported every step of the way.

The process for selling or trding used equipment to MPB in the UK, EU and US is secure and simple, leaving you with less effort and earning extra money for the gear you've been dreaming of.

How to sell

1. Unlock gear’s value

After deciding on gear to sell, like a camera, lens, or accessory, for example a tripod, adapter, or battery, it’s time to visit the MPB website for the UK, EU or US.

To receive a free instant quote, start by navigating to the "Start Selling/Trading" page. Next, select the gear you wish to sell and choose the condition of your item. MPB provides five categories of cosmetic conditions, ranging from "Excellent" to "Heavily used." If you're unsure about the condition of your gear, MPB offers a user-friendly condition guide for cameras and lenses.

With just a click, MPB will deliver a competitive price using their advanced dynamic pricing platform, so you can instantly see how much they will offer for your used equipment.

2. Get it to MPB

To ensure a smooth shipping process, MPB offers free shipping for customers in the UK, EU and US. Additionally, there is a complimentary courier collection option for UK customers. Both services fully insure your gear during transit, so you can ship without worry.

3. Confirm or decline quote

Once MPB receives your used gear, a product specialist will take a close look at its condition to ensure you receive an accurate item value. If needed, MPB will adjust your quote, as prices may vary based on the item's condition. If you agree with the quote, MPB will proceed to pay you for your gear.

The most convenient aspect is that if you're unsatisfied with the final price, your gear will be returned to you, fully insured, at no extra cost.

4. Get paid or upgrade

Lastly, just enter your payment details online, and MPB will transfer the funds to you within a week. Alternatively, think about trading in the used gear for newer equipment.

It is always worth checking the MPB website to see if the item you want is available. Like your pre-loved kit, their products have undergone rigorous performance and condition checks by product specialists. Plus, the gear comes with a six-month warranty, ensuring that purchasing used equipment does not mean compromising on reliability or quality. For more kit inspiration, visit their Facebook and Instagram pages.