Welcome back to iPhoto News, your fortnightly catch-up on what’s been happening in the world of photography. The fortnight from 1 to 15 May has been a busy one — Photo London opens at its new Olympia home this weekend, Canon and Sony have both fired off proper announcements on the same day, and Panasonic has quietly slipped out a compact that’s worth a serious look.
I’ve picked six stories this fortnight to talk through. Some practical, some aspirational, one that’s about going outside and actually looking at photographs rather than making them. Grab a cup of tea — let’s get into it.
Photo London 2026 lands at Olympia this weekend
Photo London 2026 is open this weekend at its new home — Olympia in West London — running Thursday 14 to Sunday 17 May. It’s the UK’s biggest photography fair, with galleries and curators from around the world bringing work into one room for four days only. This year the Master of Photography honour goes to American fashion legend Steven Meisel, with a rare exhibition of his earliest London portraits.
If you’ve never been to a big photography fair before, this is the one I’d point you at. The pictures hang at a scale you simply can’t see online — that’s the point of the room. You wander, you stop, you look at how a print is actually made, you have a coffee, you wander some more. Compared with a new lens or even a course fee, a ticket is genuinely good value for the inspiration you’ll come home with.
For our members within reach of London, it’s worth a day. For everyone further afield, the official Photo London site publishes photographs and films of the fair every year — no substitute for being there, but a generous look at where photography sits right now, who’s making it, and who’s buying it.
Download the iCAMERA eBook
Get started with your camera and we’ll also send you the latest photo guides and amazing deals straight to your inbox.
Already a member? Click here to login and download this eBook.
Canon's new EOS R6 V wants to be stills and video in equal measure
On 13 May Canon announced the EOS R6 V, the latest version of its mainstream full-frame mirrorless body, alongside a new RF 20-50mm f/4L IS USM PZ lens — Canon’s first L-series power zoom. The R6 V steps up to a 32.5MP sensor with 7K video, and the kit will retail at around $3,699 USD when it ships in June and July.
Here’s my read. The R6 V is clearly built for hybrid shooters — people who do paid video work as well as photography — and that’s reflected in the price. For the rest of us, the R6 Mark II that already sits in the line-up is a very good camera, and a much better fit for a typical hobbyist’s budget. If you’re shooting stills for love rather than rent, save your money and put it towards a lens.
Panasonic's new Lumix L10 is a proper one-camera-fits-all compact
Panasonic announced the Lumix L10 on 12 May — a fixed-lens compact with a Leica-branded 24–75mm f/1.7–2.8 zoom built in. No swapping lenses, no extra bag, just a small body that covers wide-to-portrait length in one go.
This is the kind of camera I get genuinely excited about, and I think a lot of members will too. The idea of one camera that does most of what we ask of it is back in fashion — and for travel, walks, family days out, or a quiet morning in town, a small, sharp, fast-aperture compact is hard to beat. Worth a look if you’ve ever lugged a DSLR through an airport and asked yourself why.
Sony's A7R VI lands with 66MP — and a faster 100–400mm to go with it
Sony has updated its high-resolution flagship with the Alpha 7R VI — roughly 66.8 megapixels, a new BIONZ XR2 processor, and a fully-stacked sensor. A new FE 100-400mm f/4.5 GM OSS lens has been announced alongside it, with autofocus Sony claims is around three times faster than the previous version. The lens is priced at around $4,300 USD and ships in June.
Sixty-six megapixels is glorious if you print very large or crop hard — and frankly overkill for most of us.
The more interesting story for our wildlife and birding members is that 100-400mm lens, which sits in exactly the focal length most of you actually use. Treat both as inspiration rather than shopping list, unless your birds-in-flight folder is already full enough to justify it.
Joel Meyerowitz honoured for a lifetime behind the camera
Last fortnight’s Sony World Photography Awards handed its Outstanding Contribution to Photography honour to American photographer Joel Meyerowitz — a name worth knowing if you don’t already. Meyerowitz spent decades photographing New York streets in colour at a time when serious photographers were expected to shoot black-and-white, and changed the conversation in the process.
I mention him this fortnight because his name keeps coming up when our members are asked which photographers they actually love. Slow, considered, generous in interviews, respectful of the craft — exactly the kind of voice worth listening to in an age of noisy gear-channel content. His books, talks and BBC interviews are all online and free. Two evenings well spent.
Midjourney V8.1 and GPT Image 1.5 — AI image-making keeps shifting
Midjourney pushed out version 8.1 at the end of April with HD output and improved prompt-following, and OpenAI is replacing DALL·E with a newer GPT Image 1.5 model through May. The output from these tools keeps getting more photographic — to the point where some recent competition entries have been disqualified for being AI rather than camera.
I keep telling members the same thing about all this. These tools are useful for sketching out ideas, building mood-boards, or thinking through a composition before you shoot it. They’re not a substitute for going outside and pressing a shutter.
The thing AI can’t do is be there when the light goes — and that’s still the bit of photography most of us are in this for.
Final Thoughts
That’s your fortnight. A new fair to visit if you can get to London, two big camera launches on the same day, a clever little Lumix compact, a lifetime honour for one of the photographers our members keep coming back to, and AI doing its restless thing in the background.
If any of these landed with you — or if you’ve spotted a story I’ve missed — drop a comment below.
The next iPhoto News is back on 1 June. See you then.