In today's episode higher pricing for the new Ricoh GR IV Monochrome, Apple releases creator studio, an exhibit of Ansel Adam's Pre-WWII images of LA and more.
Show Notes
Welcome back to the show everyone, Liam here and this is Episode 489 of the Liam Photography Podcast for the week of January 15th, 2026. In today’s episode, The Ricoh GR IV Monochrome, Apple’s Creator Studio, Ansel Adams Pre-War photos of Los Angeles and more.
Ricoh has finally announced pricing for the GR IV Monochrome — a camera it officially revealed last October — and it’s steep: $2,199.95. That’s $700 more than the base model, which represents a 46% price increase.
It’s not uncommon for monochromatic versions of existing cameras to see a price increase compared to their full color brethren, although the examples aren’t numerous, given that most camera brands don’t bother releasing black and white only cameras. In the modern market, only Leica and Ricoh Pentax have even tried.
Last year, Leica debuted the Q3 Monochrom and priced it at $7,790 — more than a $1,000 premium compared to the $6,735 asking price of the base Q3 camera. Leica did the same thing with the $10,160 M11 Monochrom, which is more expensive than the standard $9,840 M11.
Even Ricoh Pentax has done it. The K-3 III Monochrome had a $200 premium over the standard K-3 III’s launch price when it released back in 2023, but the K-3 III Monochrome also arrived two years later than the standard K-3 III, not four or five months later like the GR IV Monochrome is. Combined with the steep jump up in price between the GR III and GR IV, Ricoh might be playing a bit fast and loose with the goodwill it has built up over the years.
It tends to look like photographers are being asked to spend extra money for a company not to put a color filter in front of the sensor. While that’s an oversimplification, it’s often how it comes off. Many photographers can’t see the logic in paying more for what amounts to less, but PetaPixel‘s Chris Niccolls has repeatedly advocated for a fully black and white camera experience.
“Many photographers, myself included, love black and white photography enough to justify a dedicated camera that offers various tones of monochromatic imagery. It is also nice to get the ability to use classic color filters to control selective contrast,” he wrote in his Q3 Monochrom review.
“I would argue that photography isn’t always about the most efficient tool, or the easiest path to a final result,” he adds in his GR IV Monochrome review published today.
While the GR IV Monochrome’s price is nowhere near Leica’s, the audience is different, too. It’s basically a forgone conclusion that Ricoh will sell every single GR IV Monochrome it produces; it just remains to be seen how many photographers will feel good about it.
“The Ricoh GR IV Monochrome evolves the essential values of the GR series while newly incorporating a monochrome-dedicated image sensor. The new camera fully draws out the capabilities of the high-performance GR lens by eliminating the color filter used to acquire color information, as well as the interpolation process required to generate color images, thereby delivering refined rendering and rich tonal gradation,” Ricoh says. “The camera’s built-in red filter enables more distinctive monochrome photography, and its newly developed Image Control options — dedicated to monochrome imaging — provide deep and diverse monochrome expressions.”
The $2,199.95 GR IV Monochrome camera can be pre-ordered today and will be available “mid-February.” It will be showcased in the GR Space facilities in Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, and Brisbane starting January 15.
In a shock move, Apple has unveiled Creator Studio, a new collection of the company’s most powerful creative apps, including Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Logic Pro, and more.
Apple characterizes its new Creator Studio as a “groundbreaking collection” of powerful creative apps designed to deliver “studio-grade power into the hands of everyone.” As Apple explains, its Creative Studio collection caters to a wide range of users across iPhone, iPad, and Mac, including video editors, photographers, musicians, illustrators, and more.
Alongside a new subscription option and rebranded apps, Apple is introducing intelligent new features across the board, including in popular apps Final Cut Pro and Pixelmator Pro, which Apple formally acquired nearly a year ago.
Specifically, Final Cut Pro features new video editing tools for Mac and iPad designed to improve efficiency in complex workflows. At the same time, Pixelmator Pro is coming to iPad for the first time, with an experience designed explicitly for touch and the Apple Pencil. Logic Pro for Mac and iPad promises a new Synth Player and Chord ID to help artists dial in the perfect mix.
Although not explicitly creative apps, Apple’s Office competitors — Pages, Numbers, and Freeform — also live within the new Creator Studio. These apps are typically free, and still are, but premium Apple Creator Studio subscribers will have access to additional content and “intelligent features” across Apple’s entire ecosystem, the company explains.
“Apple Creator Studio is a great value that enables creators of all types to pursue their craft and grow their skills by providing easy access to the most powerful and intuitive tools for video editing, music making, creative imaging, and visual productivity — all leveled up with advanced intelligent tools to augment and accelerate workflows,” says Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services.
“There’s never been a more flexible and accessible way to get started with such a powerful collection of creative apps for professionals, emerging artists, entrepreneurs, students, and educators to do their best work and explore their creative interests from start to finish.”
Apple says that Final Cut Pro for Mac and iPad now delivers improved performance thanks to smart on-device “intelligent features.” One such intelligent feature is Transcript Search. Available on both Mac and iPad, users can easily search through hours of footage to find the perfect soundbite through simple text searches.
“Video podcasts and interviews can be assembled quickly, eliminating extensive time spent skimming through footage,” Apple explains.
A similar search function is available for finding the perfect video clip, too, through an intelligence-based Visual Search. Apple says users can find specific moments in their video projects and add them to their visual timeline “in seconds.”
Final Cut Pro for Mac and iPad also includes Beat Detection, which uses an AI model from Apple’s Logic Pro app to analyze music and display a beat grid that users can match to video clips. Final Cut Pro also includes tools to help users re-edit music tracks to the perfect length.
iPad users get a special new Montage Maker tool. Montage Maker uses AI to analyze and edit a video from a selection of footage. The dynamic video can be fine-tuned for pacing, music, and even reframing to vertical video using Auto Crop.
Finally, Apple Creator Studio subscribers have full access to Motion within Final Cut Pro. This motion graphics tool includes features such as Magnetic Mask, which isolates and tracks people and objects within video clips. Subscribers also get access to Compressor, which lets them customize output settings for distribution.
When news broke in November 2024 that Apple was going to acquire Mac-based photo editing company Pixelmator, speculation quickly began that Apple might go for Adobe’s jugular with a full-blown suite of photo editing software, maybe even bringing back the glory days of Apple’s Lightroom competitor, Aperture. Based on today’s Creator Studio news, it doesn’t seem to be happening.
However, Apple is absolutely targeting Photoshop. Pixelmator Pro includes powerful image editing and illustration tools and, for the first time, is available in full for iPad. The new iPad version of Pixelmator Pro features a touch-optimized workspace that fully leverages the Apple Pencil. Apple says the two versions deliver feature parity, so users can jump back and forth between iPad and Mac or collaborate with others across multiple platforms. Pixelmator Pro for iPad has been built from the ground up to take full advantage of Apple’s latest tablets and iPadOS.
Pixelmator Pro on iPad includes a complete layers-based workflow, AI tools like Super Resolution and smart selection (masking), and Pixelmator Pro continues to offer its class-leading Demand and Auto Crop tools.
Apple Creator Studio subscribers get special access to some new tools as well, including a powerful new Warp tool that twists and shapes individual layers.
Apple Creator Studio will be available on the App Store beginning January 28, starting at $12.99 per month or $129 annually. A one-month free trial will be available. College students and educators can subscribe for $2.99 monthly or $29.99 per year.
All of the creative apps in Creator Studio, including Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage, remain available separately as one-time purchases in the Mac App Store; however, some features are locked to the subscription versions of these apps. One-time purchase versions of Apple’s creative apps will continue to be available and will be updated, but they will not offer access to all intelligence-based features.
An exhibition that examines some of Ansel Adams’ lesser-known work taken in 1940s Los Angeles in the lead-up to World War II opens in Santa Barbara tomorrow.
The Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art offers a “groundbreaking exhibition” that reveals a little‑known chapter of America’s most celebrated photographer in Beyond the Wilderness: Ansel Adams in 1940s Los Angeles.
While Adams has earned universal recognition for his majestic black‑and‑white landscapes and his pioneering Zone System, this show spotlights a body of work that diverges sharply from his familiar wilderness imagery.
Many of the featured works in the exhibition come from the collection of the Los Angeles County Public Library. The photographer offered them a series of 217 negatives portraying Los Angeles as America prepared for war.
Adams shot the images on assignment for Fortune magazine to document the lives of workers in Los Angeles’ booming aviation industry driven by aircraft company giants Douglas, Lockheed, and Northrop.
The exhibition also includes many of his iconic wilderness images, including three of his most famous landscapes on view in large format.
“Unlike many of Adams’ nature images, these offer us a raw and untouched glimpse into his eye for setting up and framing a photograph, instinct for finding rhythm and structure in everyday scenes, and willingness to experiment beyond the boundaries of his established aesthetic,” says Chris Rupp, interim museum director.
Adams became well known for his love of nature, his pioneering efforts toward conservation and environmental stewardship, and his moral convictions regarding the United States’ internment of Japanese Americans.
“Viewed together, the photographs in this exhibition remind us that Ansel Adams was far more than the maker of pristine wilderness icons,” Rupp says.
“He was an artist attentive to the world as it was and how it ought to be. Whether documenting factory workers on the brink of war, confronting the injustice of incarceration at Manzanar, or shaping luminous visions of the Sierra, Adams used his camera to advocate for dignity, clarity, and stewardship.”
The Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art hosts a free, public opening reception for the exhibition on Thursday, January 15, from 4 to 6 P.M. The show runs until March 28, 2026.
In a landmark moment for wildlife monitoring, trail cameras in Northeast China have captured never-before-seen footage of a wild Siberian tigress with five cubs — the first time such a large tiger family has ever been recorded on camera in the country.
The footage was captured in November 2025 by remote camera traps in the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, the world’s largest tiger reserve and a crucial stronghold for the endangered Siberian tiger.
The images were recorded automatically by motion-triggered trail cameras, part of a long-term monitoring network designed to track elusive wildlife without human disturbance. These cameras revealed something biologists have rarely witnessed directly: a mother Siberian tiger raising five cubs. In the wild, Siberian tigers, also known as Amur tigers, usually give birth to one to four cubs, making this five-cub litter exceptionally rare — and even more remarkable in a landscape where prey populations are still recovering.
The WWF reports that the trail camera footage shows the nine-year-old tigress moving through forest corridors with her six-to-eight-month-old cubs in tow. This family is distinct from another tigress with four cubs recently recorded by the same camera trap network. The repeated detection of multiple breeding tiger families through camera monitoring underscores the effectiveness of conservation efforts and highlights the essential role of trail cameras in documenting recovery progress.
“This extraordinary footage literally took my breath away. It’s the first time that a mother with five cubs has ever been filmed in China. China’s commitment to tiger conservation is delivering incredible results and creating a bright future for these magnificent cats,” says Stuart Chapman, Leader of WWF’s global tiger program, Tigers Alive.
China estimates that there are now 70 wild tigers in the Northeast of China, up from an all-time low in 2010 of 20 individuals. Tigers require large, connected habitats and healthy prey populations.
The WWF says that the appearance of a tigress with five cubs should be treated as a beacon of hope for tiger conservation worldwide.
“It demonstrates that with sustained investment, science-based strategies, and community engagement, even the most endangered species can recover,” the organization adds.
You may be forgiven for not knowing the name Dreame, a company that is best-known for its robot vacuums and lawn mowers, but the Chinese firm has just entered the photography industry in the form of the Leaptic Cube action camera.
The small modular Leaptic Cube is comparable to the DJI Osmo Nano and Insta360 Go Ultra, except that, unlike those models, Dreame says its product can record in 8K.
The camera, which is yet to receive a release date, has a Type 1/1.3-inch sensor, the same as the DJI Osmo Nano, and a 155-degree wide-angle lens, a touch wider than the Osmo Nano.
Shooting in 8K restricts the Leaptic Cube to 30 frames per second, but the higher resolution gives you more flexibility to crop and reframe footage later, while also improving the effectiveness of the camera’s built-in stabilization. Switching down to 4K increases performance, allowing 60 frames per second while recording with HDR or up to 120 frames per second for smooth slow-motion capture.
The Cube’s camera detaches from its display and can operate as far as 98 feet (30 meters) away while still providing a live view of what’s being recorded. According to Dreame, attaching the magnetic external battery dock can stretch total battery life to roughly 220 minutes. The camera can also be mounted on either side of the 2.27-inch screen, turning it into a handy selfie camera.
According to Dreame’s Cube website, there is also a host of other features, including a custom wireless transmission system with nearly 98 feet of range, AI-based subject tracking and automatic framing, plus a voice-controlled AI assistant that works through the mobile app to manage camera functions.
The cameras can record in “10-bit P-Log,” which captures over “1.07 billion colors with smooth gradients and enhanced detail retention from shadows to highlights.”
The company says the action camera delivers up to 13.5 stops of dynamic range with true-to-life color reproduction, even at 2x zoom.
The Leaptic Cube was debuted at CES 2026. Pricing and availability are not yet known.
One of the late landscape and nature photographer John Fielder’s most famous photos captured in Colorado will be featured on the upcoming Colorado Statehood Stamp, released by the U.S. Postal Service to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Colorado becoming a state. It is a fitting honor for Fielder’s legacy, who Colorado’s governor calls, “Colorado’s Photographer.”
John Fielder, widely considered Colorado’s most famous nature photographer, passed away in August 2023 following his battle with cancer. Months before he died, Fielder donated his entire life’s work to the public domain, entrusting his thousands of exceptional photographs to History Colorado.
History Colorado is opening an exhibition of Fielder’s work on January 24, 2026, the same day as the new stamp arrives. The exhibition, “Mountains Majesty: On the Summit with John Fielder,” features many iconic prints from the organization’s collection of more than 6,000 John Fielder photos.
“This exhibition is a love letter to John Fielder and his mountain photographs from History Colorado’s members,” says historian Katherine Mercier, who developed the upcoming exhibition. “As History Colorado members selected photographs, I was struck by their deep emotional connection to John Fielder’s work. His powerful photos of Colorado’s mountains brought back personal memories of the state’s beauty and wonder.”
The exhibition will be proudly displayed in the John Fielder Mezzanine Gallery, which, as its name suggests, is dedicated to John Fielder’s memory and his life’s work documenting and protecting Colorado’s natural beauty. The exhibition is the third in a five-year run of rotating exhibitions that highlight Fielder’s work and his many contributions to the state of Colorado, which is arguably among the most beautiful in the entire United States.
“Fielder’s photos show his love for the beauty of Colorado mountains, a love that he hoped would inspire others to love and protect our spectacular heritage,” adds History Colorado Member Thomas Whitmore.
Fielder spoke to CBS News very shortly before his passing in 2023, reflecting on his life and career.
Fielder was born and raised in North Carolina but fell in love with Colorado during a school trip at the age of 14. He says he never forgot the first time he laid eyes on the Rockies, and as soon as he set foot in Colorado, the land had a hold on him.
“I realized at that moment that someone or something had guided me to this place, and that I belonged here for the rest of my life,” Fielder wrote on his website.
When Fielder prepared to hand over his life’s work to the public domain and History Colorado, he had to look through all his transparencies again.
“This was my life happening all over again for the second time going through 200,000 transparencies,” Fielder told CBS News reporter Barry Peterson. “It was all very humbling.”
Fielder, reflecting on his life and imminent death, told Peterson: “I never felt that I owned my photos. I felt that was kind of selfish.”
As Fielder said as the interview wrapped up, “There’s always photos to be taken.”
“John Fielder will always be ‘Colorado’s Photographer’ capturing the amazing beauty of our great state. Colorado is thrilled to receive the gift of a USPS commemorative stamp for our 150th birthday. This stamp will feature the awe-inspiring splendor of Jagged Mountain in the Weminuche Wilderness, one of Colorado’s breathtaking landscapes. This special stamp truly honors what makes Colorado unique,” says Colorado Governor Jared Polis.
As I wrote in 2023, John Fielder gave not just Colorado, but the world, a wonderful gift. He lived and breathed Colorado’s natural beauty, fought tooth and nail to protect it, and then left his life’s work to everyone to enjoy, share, and use to continue the mission.
The commemorative stamp celebrates Colorado’s 150th year of statehood and will be available beginning January 24, 2026. The accompanying exhibition, “Mountains Majesty: On the Summit with John Fielder,” opens at the History Colorado Center on January 24, 2026.
The U.S. Commerce Department says it has withdrawn a proposed rule that would have imposed new restrictions on Chinese-made drones over national security concerns.
In September, the Commerce Department said it planned to issue rules that could restrict or potentially block imports of Chinese drones, citing risks linked to information and communication technology supply chains. The proposal focused on Chinese drone manufacturers, including DJI and Autel, and followed national security risks identified by the department in a January 2025 request for public comment.
According to a report by Reuters, the Commerce Department formally sent the draft rule to the White House for review on October 8. However, the department then withdrew the proposal on January 8, ending a months-long review process. The withdrawal comes ahead of President Donald Trump’s planned visit to Beijing in April, where he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Reuters reports that the reversal follows meetings between the White House and the Commerce Department on the drone proposal through December 19, as well as a meeting with DJI officials on December 11, according to publicly posted records. DJI told officials that imposing blanket restrictions on drones manufactured in China would be “unnecessary, conceptually flawed, and would be extremely harmful to U.S. stakeholders.”
Under existing Federal Communications Commission (FCC) restrictions, Chinese drone manufacturers are unable to obtain approval to sell new drone models or certain critical components in the U.S. However, those restrictions do not ban the import, sale, or use of drone models that were previously authorized, and they do not affect drones that have already been purchased.
Chinese-made drones account for the majority of commercial drone sales in the U.S. More than half of those sales come from DJI, which is the world’s largest drone manufacturer. It is widely believed that the decision to withdraw the proposed rule reflects a broader pause by Washington on some actions targeting China ahead of the planned Trump–Xi meeting.
“This decision underscores President Trump’s desire to sustain the trade framework that he and President Xi approved this past October and ensure a cordial meeting between the two leaders during his April visit to Beijing,” Ali Wyne, a senior research adviser at the International Crisis Group, tells the South China Post.
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