Welcome back to iPhoto News, your fortnightly five-minute catch-up on everything worth knowing in the world of photography. Mid-summer is usually a quiet spell for camera news, but this fortnight has served up a proper mix — a comeback nine years in the making, a lens that costs less than a decent tripod, and the best week of the year to point your camera at the stars.
I’ve picked out six stories worth your time. As always, I’m less interested in the spec sheets and more in what any of this actually means for you and me, out taking pictures.
Sony brings back the RX10 — nine years on
On 9 July, Sony finally revived one of its most-loved cameras. The RX10 V is an all-in-one “bridge” camera with a fixed 24-600mm ZEISS zoom, a 1-inch stacked sensor, 4K video at 120p and blackout-free shooting up to 30 frames a second.
It lands in August at around $2,299 (roughly £1,800), and it’s the first update to the RX10 line since 2017.
The appeal here is simple: one camera, one lens, and a zoom range that takes you from a wide holiday snap to a distant bird without ever changing glass or lugging a bag full of kit.
For travel, wildlife and days out where you just don’t want to think about gear, that convenience is genuinely lovely.
Is it worth two grand, though? That’s the honest question. The 1-inch sensor is much smaller than the ones in similarly priced mirrorless cameras, so in low light it won’t quite match them — you’re paying for reach and simplicity, not outright image quality. If you love wildlife or safari-style shooting and hate swapping lenses, it’s a joy.
If you mostly shoot in the evening, or you want the very best files, your money may stretch further elsewhere.
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An $89 autofocus 50mm? TTArtisan says yes
If you’ve ever fancied a fast “nifty fifty” but baulked at the price, TTArtisan’s new AF 50mm F/1.8 Neo might raise an eyebrow. Announced on 7 July for Sony E, Nikon Z and Leica L cameras, it costs just $89 — making it the cheapest full-frame autofocus 50mm you can buy. It’s tiny and light, and it strips things right back: no focus ring, no aperture ring, no switches at all. You can even 3D-print colourful “shells” to dress it up.
A 50mm is one of the best first primes you can own. Its wide F/1.8 aperture blurs backgrounds beautifully for portraits and keeps you shooting as the light fades. At this price it’s almost an impulse buy.
Reviews are mixed on outright sharpness, so don’t expect miracles — but as a cheap, fun way to try a fast prime and see what a shallow depth of field can do for your people pictures, it’s hard to argue with the maths.
It's prime Milky Way season — here's how to make the most of it
Mid-July is one of the best times of the year to photograph the night sky.
With the new moon around 14 July, the skies are at their darkest just as the bright core of the Milky Way rides high overhead — and there are meteor showers building through the month too. ProMaster and Digital Camera World have both put out handy summer guides to help you plan a night out.
The good news is you don’t need exotic gear to start. A sturdy tripod, a wide-angle lens, a wide aperture around F/2.8, ISO somewhere between 800 and 3200, and an exposure of 15 seconds or so will give you a recognisable Milky Way on almost any modern camera.
The single biggest thing? Get away from town lights and let your eyes — and your sensor — drink in the dark. It’s one of the most rewarding things you can try all summer.
Capture One's new AI wants to speed up the boring bit
Adobe isn’t the only one leaning into AI.
Capture One’s latest update (version 16.8, with a 16.8.3 tune-up on 2 July) adds a clever feature called Assisted Review — it uses AI to automatically flag the duds in a shoot, spotting closed eyes, missed focus and dodgy exposures so you can skim straight past them.
There’s also built-in AI noise reduction for high-ISO shots and, for the medium-format crowd, full support for Hasselblad cameras.
None of this changes how your photos look — it changes how long you spend at the computer. If you’ve ever come home from a day out with 400 frames and lost the will to sort them, tools like this are quietly brilliant. The photography still comes from you; the software just clears the tedious admin out of the way so you can get to the keepers faster.
Samyang completes a lightweight ‘holy trinity’ for Sony
Sony shooters have a tempting new telephoto. The Schneider-Kreuznach x Samyang AF 60-180mm F/2.8 — released this month for Sony E and L-mount — weighs just 730g, which the makers say is the lightest in its class.
At roughly $1,099 (around €999) it undercuts Sony’s own 70-200mm F/2.8 by a good margin, and it completes a matching set of three F/2.8 zooms covering 14mm all the way to 180mm.
A constant F/2.8 telephoto is the classic lens for portraits, sport and wildlife — that wide aperture lets you freeze movement with a fast shutter speed and melt backgrounds into soft, creamy blur.
The catch has always been weight; these things are usually heavy beasts. Shaving off a few hundred grams makes a real difference on a long day, and affordable third-party glass like this is exactly why it’s never been cheaper to build a serious kit.
Will cameras soon shoot themselves?
Here’s one to make you think. On the PetaPixel Podcast this fortnight, the boss of action-cam maker Insta360 described a future where cameras act as fully autonomous “operators” — devices that don’t just record a scene but understand it and decide what to capture, so you can simply live the moment instead of fiddling with settings. “The best camera is the one that disappears,” he said.
It’s a bold vision, and there’s something appealing about a camera that never misses. But I’d gently push back. For most of us the joy isn’t only in the final image — it’s in the deciding: the where-to-stand, the wait for the light, the little choices that make a photo yours rather than the machine’s. AI will keep getting better at the technical side, and that’s fine. Learning to see, though? That’s still the fun part — and it’s still ours.
Final Thoughts
That’s your fortnight in photography. Whether it’s Sony’s grand comeback, a cheeky $89 lens or a dark sky full of stars, there’s plenty to tempt us all — and, as ever, plenty we can happily admire without spending a penny.
If you do get out under the Milky Way this month, I’d love to see what you capture — tag us and share it. And if any of these stories sparked a thought, drop it in the comments below.
I’ll be back in two weeks with the next edition. Until then, keep shooting!