Show Notes
Greetings everyone, you’re listening to the Liam Photography Podcast, I’m your host Liam Douglas and this Episode 435 for Thursday January 2nd, 2025. First of all I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year and let’s see what 2025 has for us in the world of Photography.
10 Best Selling Cameras of 2024
Map Camera, one of the largest photography retailers in Japan, published its annual breakdown of the 10 best-selling cameras of the year, including new and used models.
While Map Camera’s sales charts, spotted by Sony Alpha Rumors, don’t deliver an exhaustive or global view of the best-selling camera gear of the year, the retailer is big enough to make the data interesting and well worth checking out. 2024 was an excellent year for new gear; five of the 10 highest-selling cameras debuted in 2024.
The best-selling camera of 2024 is, somewhat unsurprisingly, the Fujifilm X100VI. Even though the X100VI remains very hard to find in stock, Fujifilm still manufactured enough to top the charts at Map Camera.
Fujifilm also took the second spot with the new X-T50. Launched in May, three months after the X100VI, the 40-megapixel camera’s blend of X-T5 performance and affordability struck a chord with photographers.
Speaking of the X-T5, that made the list, too, occupying the fifth position, one spot ahead of the Nikon Z6 III, which PetaPixel readers selected as their favorite camera of 2024.
While readers should head over to Map Camera to see the rest of the top 10, it is worth noting that the Canon EOS R5 II, which arrived relatively late in the year and costs $4,300, still cracked the best-selling camera list, landing in a very impressive ninth spot, one ahead of the other most expensive camera on the list, 2023’s Nikon Z8. By the way, the Nikon Z8 topped Map Camera’s sales charts last year.
It was a very strong year for Fujifilm and Nikon, each with three of the top-selling cameras of 2024. Fujifilm scoring three of the top five most popular cameras is especially impressive; what a great year for Fujifilm. Sony did well, too, with the a7C II in third and the a7 IV in seventh.
Alongside its breakdown of the best-selling new (sealed, in-box) cameras, Map Camera also detailed the popularity of its various used cameras. The top three best-selling used cameras this year were the Sony a7 III, Nikon Zf, and the original Canon EOS R5.
Some other interesting observations are that the OM System OM-1 cracked the list, finishing 10th, while the Ricoh GR III (seventh spot) remains extremely popular.
Further, the Sony a7 and Nikon Z6 series both made the list twice. While the a7 III was the number one camera used in the year, its successor, the a7 IV, finished fourth. The Nikon Z6 II finished fifth, while its predecessor, 2017’s Z6, was sixth.
A lesser-spotted American yellow warbler visiting a sleepy village in England has prompted hundreds of nature photographers and bird watchers to turn out in the hope of catching a glimpse of the tiny yellow bird.
The American yellow warbler hasn’t been seen in the U.K. since 2017. Its presence in the village of New Hythe, Kent motivated bird enthusiasts from all over the British Isles to travel to the area southeast of London.
One photographer who got an image of the warbler tells the Daily Mail that hundreds of people came to to see the bird.
“We were 15 minutes away and out visiting friends when the news broke,” says Neil Colgate. “We nipped home and went down there. It was right place, right time for a change. It’s really really rare. People came from Yorkshire to see it. It has drawn a big crowd.”
Colgate adds that even though he was early arriving, there were already about “60 or 70” people in New Hythe.
“But on Christmas Day there were three or four hundred people there, I’ve been told,” Colgate tells the Mail. “It wasn’t seen yesterday [December 26] but it could be hunkering down in the cold weather.”
The bird is believed to be an infant male and may have flown from North America assisted by stormy winds that have battered the U.K. in recent weeks. The British Trust for Ornithology describes the warbler as “an extremely rare visitor to Britain and Ireland.”
From an uncontacted tribe living deep in the Amazon rainforest to an animal previously believed to be extinct, trail cameras have captured some incredible images in 2024.
Trail cameras, also known as remote cameras, first became popular in the 1980s. Since then, the camera technology has been offering humans an unprecedented glimpse into the hidden world of nature.
A trail camera, set up by PixCams, captured rare photographs of the elusive “fisher” in Pennsylvania — centuries after the species went extinct in the state.
Fishers were completely eliminated from Pennsylvania during unregulated hunting and intense deforestation in the late 1800s. However, in the mid-1990s, nearly 200 fishers were reintroduced to six sites in northern Pennsylvania and the population has been slowly growing.
Fishers — which are omnivorous members of the weasel family — are one of the few animals capable of killing and eating porcupines.
Incredible photos, that were taken on remote cameras set up inside Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, revealed an uncontacted tribe living in complete isolation.
The fascinating images show the never-before-seen indigenous community, known as the Massaco tribe, thriving despite threats from mining and logging companies this year.
The photographs were taken by trail cameras placed in the rainforest by Altair Algayer, a government agent with the Brazilian National Indigenous Peoples Foundation (Funai).
Algayer has reportedly spent more than three decades protecting the Massaco territory. He placed the cameras in the rainforest in an attempt to better quantify the tribe’s population without risking contact.
The remote camera images show that the Massaco tribe has a population of around 200 to 300 people.
A black bear so large that he was described by a wildlife agency as a “thicc boi” was captured on a trail camera in Colorado.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife filmed the hilarious footage and were stunned by how big the bear had gotten before hibernation.
“We thought we had seen really fat Durango bears before. But this one takes the cake,” writes the wildlife agency. “It also probably ate the cake. Every cake.”
In the winter months, bears are in an arms race to fatten up — a process called hyperphagia. During hyperphagia, bears experience an intense drive to eat and drink almost continuously to prepare for the long, foodless months of hibernation.
In this period of intense feeding, bears can consume tens of thousands of calories per day.
Photos of an epic fight between two golden eagles and a coyote over a deer carcass captured on a trail cam went viral in 2024.
The stunning showdown was filmed over the course of 30 minutes in Utah’s West Desert — with social media users comparing the vivid images to a Renaissance painting.
The photos were captured on a Reconyx trail camera which appears to be running an HDR effect meaning that it captures details in the shadows and highlights of the image.
These trail camera images were taken by HawkWatch International, a raptor conservation charity, back in 2022 but were previously unknown until they were shared online by the Nature is Metal Instagram page this year.
A missing dog was seen alive on a trail camera in the Colorado backcountry after nearly a year of searching for the animal after it was lost in an avalanche.
Jacob Dalbey’s lost dog Ullr was seen in two trail camera photos captured on February 17 and 18.
Ullr was initially lost in the wilderness near Marble, Colorado, on March 17, 2023, when Dalbey, Ullr, and Dalbey’s friends traveled over an unstable snowpack. The snow cracked, and the group was caught in an avalanche near Chair Mountain. Ullr escaped the avalanche, although he got separated and has been lost since.
Dalbey set up trail cameras and left food in various places in the hopes of finding Ullr. And 11 months later, Dalbey finally captured images of his beloved pet.
“Please, everyone take a moment to tell him what a good job he is doing out there, and that, whenever he chooses, we’re all ready to help him come to safety,” Dalbey writes of the trail camera images of Ullr.
A rarely-seen Canada Lynx was filmed majestically striking a pose in incredible trail camera footage.
The images were captured by the Voyageurs Wolf Project in the woodlands of Kabetogama Peninsula in Voyageurs National Park, northern Minnesota — where Canada lynx roam in small numbers.
Biologist Tom Gable, lead of the Voyageurs Wolf Project, discovered the extraordinary footage while reviewing thousands of hours of recordings of one of 350 trail cameras that his team sets up.
The footage was captured on the morning of April 11 — offering a remarkable glimpse of an elusive animal.
While the Voyageurs Wolf Project has filmed lynx on its trail cameras before, Gable says that most of the trail cameras that have filmed lynx only catch them at night or at a distance — never in the daylight and never so close.
Filmmakers may never look at their iPad or Mac the same way again after using CineMon.
Field monitors have long been indispensable tools for filmmakers, offering a real-time view of what the camera captures. Traditionally, these monitors are specialized devices, often expensive and bulky, tethered to high-end camera setups.
First seen on CineD, CineMon is a new app, currently in public beta, that seeks to disrupt this paradigm. By turning iPads and Macs into professional-grade cinema monitors, CineMon promises to make high-quality monitoring accessible and portable. While similar products, such as Orion, have explored this territory, CineMon aims to distinguish itself with a rich feature set and a focus on practical, professional use.
CineMon positions itself as a cost-effective alternative to traditional field monitors. The app works with various devices, from an iPad Pro to a MacBook, and connects to cameras via affordable HDMI or SDI adapters. This flexibility, coupled with a robust suite of tools, makes it a compelling option for filmmakers seeking a lightweight yet capable monitoring solution.
CineMon assumes users won’t factor the cost of their iPad or Mac into the app’s affordability. Given Apple’s premium pricing, this “affordable” solution becomes significantly less so for those who don’t already own the necessary hardware. Then again, many people already own a Mac or iPad.
CineMon operates on a simple premise: leveraging the high-resolution screens and processing power of modern devices to replace standalone field monitors. Connecting an iPad or Mac to a camera requires adapters like Elgato’s Cam Link 4K or the UltraStudio Recorder 3G from Blackmagic Design. The former supports HDMI inputs, while the latter offers uncompressed video capture.
What sets CineMon apart is its comprehensive range of tools tailored to professional workflows. These features are designed not as novelties but as practical aids for precise monitoring and decision-making on set. To use CineMon with an external camera, users must have an iPad equipped with a USB-C port or a Mac alongside an HDMI or SDI-to-USB video adapter.
One of CineMon’s standout features is its image-based spot metering, a patent-pending tool exclusive to the app. This function lets users place movable probes directly onto the live image, providing precise luminance values relative to middle gray in photometric units such as stops or EVs. The tool is designed to work with log-encoded video signals and supports profiles from Blackmagic Design, Arri, Sony, Fujifilm, Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, and RED.
Another useful feature is image overlay, which allows filmmakers to capture a frame from the live video feed or load a reference image. By using mix and wipe controls, users can compare the reference frame with the live feed to match camera positioning, object placement, exposure, contrast, and color.
For those working with green screens, the Color Key Preview tool offers a detailed assessment of backdrop quality. Users can select target colors with a picker and refine the matte using adjustable sliders. This tool can be instrumental in detecting hot spots, matching exposures for visual effects plates, or enhancing the final composited image.
The app includes customizable overlays such as grids, center marks, and safe area indicators. Users can adjust the color, opacity, and layout of these guides to suit their specific needs. The framing guide, for instance, allows precise aspect ratio adjustments, making it easier to compose shots for cinematic formats like 2.40:1.
Manual focus can be challenging. CineMon’s focus assist highlights high-contrast edges to indicate the in-focus plane. Additionally, users can pinch to zoom and drag to reframe the image, with a mini-map providing orientation.
CineMon gives exposure monitoring tools like false color overlay and zebras. These tools help visualize clipping and ensure proper exposure for key areas, such as skin tones. CineMon supports multiple zebra thresholds, enabling both highlight and shadow monitoring.
The app includes sliders for exposure compensation, contrast, and saturation. This allows filmmakers to preview the effects of different exposure settings or simulate black-and-white imagery for focus evaluation.
CineMon supports the import of cube LUTs, enabling users to apply show-specific looks to the live feed. This is particularly useful for productions that rely on consistent visual styles, as filmmakers can preview the final color on set.
Professional-grade scopes, including histograms, waveforms, and vectorscopes, are integrated into the app. These tools are GPU-accelerated to ensure minimal impact on device performance while providing critical insights into color and luminance.
For many filmmakers, the question is not whether CineMon works but how it fits into their workflow. The app’s ability to turn consumer devices into cinema monitors has obvious cost advantages, but its feature set makes it relevant for serious productions.
On smaller shoots, an iPad Mini mounted atop a camera could serve as a lightweight and portable field monitor. For directors or DITs working in a video village, a MacBook Pro connected via SDI offers high-quality uncompressed monitoring. These setups reduce the logistical burden of traditional monitors while maintaining essential functionality.
One potential limitation lies in the app’s dependency on adapters, which vary in quality and price. While the developer has demonstrated compatibility with affordable options, professionals may prefer higher-end adapters for reliability. Additionally, features like uncompressed video monitoring are exclusive to Mac setups, which may limit some workflows.
CineMon’s capabilities invite comparisons to existing solutions like Orion. Both apps aim to repurpose iPads as field monitors. Still, CineMon differentiates itself with tools like image-based spot metering and customizable false color. However, whether these features perform consistently across various setups and devices remains to be seen.
The app’s public beta status is another factor to consider. While early demonstrations highlight its potential, users may encounter bugs or incomplete features. Users can learn more about the public beta and sign up now via CineMon’s website.
A photographer who usually reserves her lens for dogs embarked on a project focusing on rescue cats and their stories.
Traer Scott tells PetaPixel that rescue cats are an invisible problem as 3.2 million of them enter animal shelters each year and almost half of those end up being euthanized.
“There aren’t enough homes so spay/neuter education is critically important,” Scott says. “Unlike dogs, I think there is also still a widely held perception that cats are interchangeable, replaceable, and that has to change.”
Scott’s project, which is now a book titled Rescue Cats, saw her follow a selection of rescue cats mostly working inside people’s homes with minimal equipment: just a DSLR, a flash, and occasionally a portable background.
“Although some cats travel well, most don’t and I wanted to be able to photograph them when they were feeling as relaxed as possible,” Scott explains.
“Dogs can generally be won over with food but cats are much tougher to convince. One of my three cat gurus accompanied me to every shoot and helped wrangle and cajole the subjects. Together we determined where the best place to shoot was, usually a compromise between where the cat was most comfortable and what seemed most aesthetically viable.”
Scott shot the project over the course of eight months around New England. In total, there are 22 cats featured in the book, plus a litter of kittens that “the reader gets to see grow up.” She says that she “learned a great deal about all of the cats’ histories and many had truly heartbreaking stories”.
“The one thing that they all have in common is of course the rescue factor,” Scott says.
“One or more people cared enough to fight for them, to intervene, to foster, to adopt, and ultimately save a life. I don’t know that I could pick just one favorite but some of the ones that really stuck with me were Forrest, Juliette, and Linus.”
Rescue Cats is published by Chronicle Books and available here. More of Scott’s work can be found on her website and Instagram.
After a torrid pace in 2023, during which time Nikon launched a pair of cameras and nine all-new lenses, the company slowed a bit this year, releasing just two new cameras and three lenses. Nonetheless, it was a strong year for the Japanese company and one that helped Nikon continue to claw back market share in the mirrorless era. Plus, Nikon bought RED, so there’s that.
Nikon finally unveiled the long-awaited Z6 Mark III in mid-June, and the wait was worth it. Although not quite as swift or as high resolution as the fully stacked 45-megapixel sensor in the Nikon Z8 and Z9, the Z6 III’s brand-new (and novel) partially stacked 24-megapixel chip offers a lot of performance at a fairly aggressive price.
The new sensor may compromise a bit in terms of dynamic range, but it is fast and effective for a diverse range of photo and video applications. The Z6 III isn’t perfect, but it’s an excellent all-around camera and Nikon’s best overall choice for most hybrid shooters. Ultimately, as Chris Niccolls concluded in PetaPixel‘s Nikon Z6 III Review, “The Z6 III is the best all-around full-frame hybrid camera in this price range.
PetaPixel readers agreed, decisively awarding the Z6 III PetaPixel‘s People’s Choice Award for 2024. The Z6 III ran away with the vote, securing 21.8% of the tallies, well ahead of the Sony a9 III in second place (16.7%). The Z6 III earned the bronze award among PetaPixel‘s editors, losing an absolute nail biter to the a9 III and Canon EOS R5 Mark II. It was extremely close, a testament to the Z6 III’s versatility and performance.
In early November, Nikon released another long-awaited successor to a popular camera: the Z50 Mark II. The Nikon Z50 II is Nikon’s latest APS-C mirrorless camera, and it, like the Z6 III, responds to the growing content creator market by including new and improved video features.
The Z50 II is a “robust and capable entry-level camera,” and well-suited to beginners moving up from their smartphone.
“There is plenty to love about the latest Nikon APS-C camera, and at a body-only price of $959.95, the Nikon Z50 II is available for almost everyone to enjoy,” Niccolls wrote in his Nikon Z50 II Hands-On.
Nikon has been crushing it with its Nikkor Z telephoto lenses. There are so many great ones. However, sometimes photographers don’t just want reach; sometimes, they want wide-angle performance without changing lenses. Enter the Nikkor Z 28-400mm f/4-8 VR. This impressive 14.2 times zoom lens for full-frame mirrorless cameras aims to be an all-around, do-it-all zoom.
It’s a groundbreaking lens, although not without compromise. The most apparent trade-off for the extreme versatility is the f/8 max aperture at its slowest. However, while it cannot do everything with perfection, it can do nearly everything quite well. For photographers who value flexibility over speed and optical excellence, the Nikkor Z 28-400mm has a lot to offer.
Three months after announcing the 28-400mm zoom lens, Nikon returned to the prime lens well for not one but two excellent new f/1.4 primes. The Nikkor Z 35mm f/1.4 and Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.4 primes may not be part of Nikon’s S-Line series — the Nikkor Z spin on “gold ring” F lenses — but they are still optically sound lenses.
Better still, they are reasonably compact, lightweight, and affordable. When Nikon announced the 35mm f/1.4 in June, PetaPixel theorized that it would be the start of a new series of affordable fast primes. The 50mm f/1.4 two months later gives credence to the notion, and hopefully, there is even more to come (24mm f/1.4, please).
Both new f/1.4 primes are great, with the Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.4 proving especially exciting for Niccolls, a well-known detractor of the 35mm focal length.
Beyond the pair of new cameras and the trio of lenses, Nikon did something else this year, it bought American cinema company RED for about $85 million. In a move that Nikon believes will increase its market share and give the company a massive leg-up in the video space. The acquisition sent shockwaves through the industry and caught competitors off-guard.
The surprise purchase won’t pay dividends in Nikon or RED’s cameras for a bit, as camera development takes time, but the two companies began working on integrating their technologies almost immediately. The partnership has already been felt through new RED-developed LUTs for Nikon Z cameras, and those are great.
Speaking of Nikon and video, Nikon also announced that its first-ever full-frame video lens will be the Nikkor Z 28-135mm f/4 Power Zoom. While this lens isn’t counting for Nikon’s grade this year since there is no actual release date information yet, it is worth mentioning.
The Nikon Z6 III is the star of the show this year — it’s a fantastic camera. However, the Nikon Z50 II is an important model within Nikon’s lineup and a broader strategy to acquire additional market share. And the company’s three new lenses are all great: the Z 28-400mm f/4-8 because of its versatility and the pair of new f/1.4 primes because of their performance and affordability. Nikon did not release a lot of new products overall, but what the company did launch — and its purchase of RED — show that Nikon is on the right path and poised for an even better 2025.
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