Happy holidays and the trends in photo news
Whether celebrating Easter or just enjoying a break, the editors of c't Fotografie say thank you by offering both new and classic reading material for you.
Spring makes everything colorful again and motifs are everywhere.
(Image: Christine Bruns)
In the first quarter of 2025, there were more new cameras, trends and other devices than there have been in the photography industry in such a short space of time for a long time. In this column, we are taking the Easter holidays as an opportunity to stop chasing after the latest news and pause for a moment to look back and forward. And to thank you for your interest.
We can't avoid a very current situation, so let's start with the biggest annoyance at the moment. We are, of course, talking about the customs chaos unleashed by the US government under Donald Trump at the beginning of April. It is still not clear what impact this will have on the camera market, particularly with regard to delivery times and prices, including in Europe. The supply chains for cameras, lenses and accessories are almost as globalized as for other technical devices. It is correspondingly unclear which components should be subject to customs duties, where and how high they should be, or whether duties only apply to the entire device when it is imported into the USA.
The customs chaos has only just begun
If this is the case, some market observers fear that the almost exclusively Japanese camera manufacturers – yes, Leica is the big exception – will take the profits they miss out on elsewhere. It can hardly be assumed that the companies are trying to achieve higher unit numbers in Europe by offering lower prices, because: New equipment in particular, which first has to recoup its development costs, is always in short supply at the beginning of the product life cycle in the photographic market.
At best, we can speculate that availability in Europe could improve somewhat. But even here, the last word has not yet been spoken, because: First of all, the tariff increases have been suspended for 90 days, and by June at the latest there should be more precise regulations, particularly for electronic products. Whether this will also affect cameras is still completely unclear. The only recommendation now, in the first warm days of spring, is that if you want to buy a new camera anyway, for example for your summer vacation, you shouldn't wait. However, it would be nonsensical to buy something now that you don't really need or have always wanted, because the photography industry in particular, with its very loyal customers, is highly unlikely to collapse due to ever new or constantly changing US tariffs.
Retro, filming and AI autofocus remain mega-trends
The new products launched so far in 2025 clearly show that the retro look of many cameras is established and not always just a fashion statement. This is exemplified by Fuji's compact medium format camera GFX100RF. The many dials and switches make perfect sense to make the many options easy to use. Nevertheless, a cursory glance from the front makes the camera look as if it was released 40 or 50 years ago. That doesn't make it technically any worse than a modern-styled device such as the Lumix S1RII, but that has a completely different claim.
The Panasonic is one of the representatives of the "hybrid cameras", which are intended to be equally good for filming and photography. Videos from a system camera with a convincing film look, depending on skill, are no longer a matter for specialists, and no longer just for so-called content creators. Even on a trip to the zoo with the family, a short video, which can be made much better with a long telephoto than with a smartphone, is a nice memory in addition to photos.
Videos by heise
This is where what every new camera now offers for focusing can be particularly useful. AI autofocus, or to put it in less marketing-technical terms: pattern recognition of image content, is the biggest advance since mirrorless system cameras. Anyone who doesn't believe it should simply try it out for themselves, for example in a specialist store. This is an invaluable advantage, especially for portraits and low light, as well as for fast-moving subjects. And if you don't trust the machine, you can always intervene yourself.
You should also do this with what is increasingly being called "looks", "recipes" or something else with new cameras, i.e. the supplied templates for interventions in the internal image processing of the cameras. Although they are nowhere near as one-dimensional as the one-click filters of early image processing on the PC or Mac, they are not really flexible. While the looks can certainly make it easier to get started with design, raw images and good software on the computer are still the way to really good images that don't always look like those of all the other photographers. And if you archive your original raw images properly, you can still get more out of your old photos in ten years' time.
(nie)
