Welcome back to our Question of the Week series! This reader-focused series aims to get our photographic community to share thoughts on all sorts of photography-related topics in our forums. We pose questions about gear, favorite camera stores, advice, problem-solving and more, and you share your thoughts and opinions.

This week, we’re leaning into the holiday spirit! The season of giving (and occasionally re-gifting) is upon us, and that means it’s time to unwrap some memories – both heartwarming and hilarious.

What’s the best photography-related gift you’ve ever received? Maybe it was a dream lens that caused you to take on an adventure deep in the mountains, or a handmade camera strap that’s now an essential part of your kit. And what about the worst? Perhaps someone thought you needed yet another "World’s Best Photographer" mug, or that odd lens filter set that turned every photo a shade of green.

In this edition of our Question of the Week series, we want to hear your gift stories: the memorable, the useful and the truly baffling. Share your favorites (and flops) in the forum link below. Photos of the gifts (or what you created with them) are also more than welcome! We'll highlight some of your most entertaining and heartfelt responses in next week's roundup.

Click here to answer the Question of the week

Lampreys are able to stay securely attached to whales and sharks as they hurtle through the ocean, so you'd think they could teach us a thing or two about suction. It turns out that they can indeed, as scientists have developed a lamprey-inspired suction cup that can lift over 800 times its own weight.

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Category: Technology

Tags: Biomimicry, Peking University

A new telescope called MOTHRA (Modular Optical Telephoto Hyperspectral Robotic Array) looks less like an observatory and more like a photography gearhead’s fever dream. The system consists of 1140 high-end Canon telephoto lenses, all aimed at the night sky. Instead of a single giant mirror, the rig stitches together the views from every lens to chase down some of the faintest structures in the universe.

This isn't the first time a collection of lenses has been used to function as a single giant telescope. The MOTHRA project stems from the Dragonfly Telephoto Array concept, first commissioned in 2013. It started with eight commercially available Canon EF 400mm F2.8L IS II USM lenses and gradually expanded to two clusters of 24 lenses each. The bug-themed names probably hint at the inspiration they drew from insect eyes, which use a bunch of what are effectively lenses to maximize light capture.

Whereas the Dragonfly array used CCD sensors, the newer project uses nearly 1200 astrophotography cameras built by Atik Cameras. It says it will use an mixture of Apx26 and Apx60 cameras, built around Sony Semiconductor IMX571 and IMX455 BSI CMOS sensors. These are versions of the 26MP APS-C and 60MP full-frame chips familiar in a range of cameras from Fujifilm, Sony, Ricoh, Sigma and Leica. Each camera is controlled by its own Raspberry Pi 4B computer, with another 90 Raspberry Pis helping to guide the array.

MOTHRA takes that idea to a new extreme, and represents a "dramatic upscaling of Dragonfly." Like the Dragonfly, though, MOTHRA will use Canon EF 400mm F2.8L lenses, each fitted with ultra-narrowband filters to isolate the faint light of hydrogen gas. The central wavelength of the filters is also adjustable by tilting them, letting each pixel sample a slightly different wavelength. The lenses will be arranged in 30 mounts, which will be held in two buildings, as you can see in the rendering above.

The group says the array of 1140 telephoto lenses will be equivalent to a single 4.8-meter-F0.08 refracting telescope, making it the world’s largest all-lens telescope. The array will be powerful enough to detect ultra-faint gas between galaxies, helping scientists better understand where that gas exists and how it moves through a "web" of dark matter.

"MOTHRA is a telescope designed around a single idea: maximize discovery space for the dim glow of intergalactic gas," said Pieter van Dokkum, Co-Founder of Dragonfly FRO. "The combination of a huge effective aperture, wide field, and tunable ultra-narrowband filtering opens a new observational regime."

Dragonfly FRO, a research organization spun out of the original Dragonfly Telephoto Array project, is building MOTHRA at the Obstech / El Sauce Observatory in Chile. Construction started in the spring of 2025, and it's expected to be operational by the end of this year.

Construction underway of world’s largest all-lens telescope, unmatched by any existing instrument on Earth or in space

First-of-its-kind telescope funded by Alex Gerko

NEW HAVEN, CT / TORONTO, ON / NEW YORK, NY / LONDON, UK — March 11, 2026 — Dragonfly FRO, LLC, a Focused Research Organization (FRO), today announced the construction of MOTHRA, a next-generation telescope designed to reveal the cosmic web — the vast network of gas and dark matter that connects galaxies across the universe. MOTHRA employs a first-of-its-kind distributed aperture architecture with special filters to isolate the faint light of hydrogen gas. The FRO, a new type of scientific enterprise, was launched in partnership with Convergent Research and backed by Alex Gerko, the founder and CEO of XTX Markets.

Dragonfly FRO was founded in January 2025, and now introduces its mission, team, and technology alongside the launch of its website: mothratelescope.org.

A Radical New Telescope Design for Probing the Spaces Between Galaxies

MOTHRA is a distributed-aperture telescope composed of 1,140 high-end Canon telephoto lenses, which together synthesize the power of a single giant telescope. This design has grown out of the Dragonfly Telephoto Array concept which demonstrated the capability to find and study extremely faint, extended structures, previously undetected using conventional telescopes.

MOTHRA is a dramatic upscaling of Dragonfly, enabling it to detect ultra-faint gas between galaxies that traces the dark matter distribution of the Universe. This "cosmic web" is a complex network of structures imprinted in space at the earliest moments after the Big Bang, growing to enormous size as the Universe expanded. MOTHRA can be precisely tuned to detect faint glowing light from intergalactic gas trapped by this web of dark matter. The telescope will not just reveal where the gas is, but also how it moves along the spokes of the web.

"MOTHRA is a telescope designed around a single idea: maximize discovery space for the dim glow of intergalactic gas," said Pieter van Dokkum, Co-Founder of Dragonfly FRO. "The combination of a huge effective aperture, wide field, and tunable ultra-narrowband filtering opens a new observational regime."

MOTHRA is being built at Obstech / El Sauce Observatory in Chile. The telescope’s construction started in the spring of 2025 and it is expected to become fully operational by the end of 2026. By fusing its many images together digitally, the array of 1,140 telephoto lenses will be the equivalent of a single 4.7-meter diameter lens. It will be the world’s largest all-lens telescope, with capabilities that are unmatched by any other telescope on Earth or in space.

"This is an ambitious project to build something astronomers have wanted for a long time: a practical way to directly see the cosmic web, and to get it done in a couple of years rather than decades," said Roberto Abraham, Co-Founder of Dragonfly FRO. "MOTHRA harnesses advances in optics, detectors, and computing power to look at the universe in a new way. The telescope is totally unique."

A New Model for Tackling Hard Scientific Problems

Dragonfly FRO is the first Focused Research Organization centered on astrophysics. Inspired by the pace and focus of tech startups, FROs are designed to tackle bottlenecks and build high-impact scientific public goods over a finite multi-year timeline. These efforts are often too large or too infrastructure-heavy for a single academic lab and don’t fit traditional funding structures or market-driven models.

"Focused research organizations are built for precisely this kind of problem: a clear mission, a hard technical bottleneck, and a capability that can benefit an entire field," said Anastasia Gamick, President and Co-Founder of Convergent Research. "Dragonfly FRO brings the FRO model to astrophysics, and MOTHRA is the kind of ambitious, enabling instrument that this model makes possible."

The launch of Dragonfly FRO and MOTHRA has been made possible through a donation from Alex Gerko. "Breakthrough instruments developed at speed often require new approaches — organizationally and technically," said Gerko. "I'm proud to support such an ambitious project focused on generating long-term scientific value, and to help pioneer a model designed to drive meaningful research progress on hard, foundational astronomical challenges."

Pieter van Dokkum said, "Alex's impact on this project extends well beyond funding. He has been a hands-on strategic partner from the start — shaping how we structured the organization, helping us find the right project partners and site, and guiding us through procurement and infrastructure challenges that would have slowed us down considerably."

While the rest of the eFoil industry seems to be quietly shrinking its designs – smaller boards, lighter motors, more discreet profiles – Hydroflyer went the other way entirely, bringing a dirt-bike sensibility to electric hydrofoiling and building what's claimed to be the quickest, most powerful eFoil on the planet.

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Category: Marine, Transport

Tags: Hydrofoil, Surfing, electric surfboards

If you've shopped for any sort of electronic device recently or have kept up with the news, you've likely caught wind that there's something up with memory chips. But what exactly is going on, and will it affect photographic gear too?

The inescapable tech story over the past few years has been the emergence of generative AI systems. For reasons that are, frankly, mostly boring, the companies making the AI models need tons of memory and storage to train them. And because investors have been feverishly throwing money at anything branded "AI," they can get their hands on as much as they want. Which is to say: most of it.

RAM, aka memory, is the short-term storage that computers and cameras use to store temporary data. Typically, data stored in RAM will disappear once the device is turned off. It's made with DRAM chips.

Storage, meanwhile, is more permanent. That job is handled by devices like SD cards, SSDs, and hard drives. Solid-state storage is typically made using NAND chips.

There are currently three companies making the chips that end up in almost every device with memory and storage: SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron. They've all said that demand for both their DRAM and NAND chips has increased enormously, and that they're essentially selling as much as they can make.

Producing these chips is one of the most complicated things that humans do, so you can't just spin up production overnight; it can take years to plan and build new factories, even if you're willing to bet that this isn't all a bubble and that demand will stay this high. That means these companies have to decide where to allocate their supply: do they use the limited number of silicon wafers and production lines they have to make the high-power, expensive chips that several companies with seemingly infinite money are frothing at the mouth to buy, or the lower-margin, run-of-the-mill stuff that powers consumer devices?

You probably won't be shocked to hear which one is winning out. As a result, the prices that consumers and the companies making any consumer devices that have storage and RAM – essentially any piece of tech – have gone up substantially. As for how that's specifically impacted photographers...

It might seem like SD cards should be completely unrelated to the AI fracas; surely the companies training those models are using something much higher-end, right?

Well, yes, but the rub is that SD cards use the same kind of NAND chips as the super-fast SSDs that datacenters need. They're not as advanced, sure, but making one means not making the other, so SD card makers will almost certainly have to pay more for the storage chips they're using.

We're just starting to see price increases hit camera storage, but it's happened fast; according to data from Amazon price tracking site CamelCamelCamel, several of the cards we checked have nearly doubled in price since the end of 2025. This was true of both lower-end cards with 32GB and 64GB capacities, as well as higher-end ones.

A post shared by Houston Commercial Photographer (@laurieperezphotography_htx)

We found a few CFexpress Type B models that didn't seem to have changed much in price over the past year, but those appeared to be exceptions, rather than the rule. Some of our community members, as well as creators on social media, have found models whose prices have increased by over 100%. While it's still possible to get some for pre-AI boom prices, we wouldn't rely on that continuing to be the case as manufacturers continue to sell through stock.

Computer memory, or RAM, has perhaps seen the biggest impact, with prices on upgrade kits doubling or tripling in price. While consumers don't typically install new RAM into their computers – or indeed, even own computers with upgradable memory (thanks, Apple) – those that do will really have to weigh how badly they need it.

It will also likely hurt if you're looking to buy a new computer; manufacturers will also be facing difficulties getting their hands on memory, and will either have to cut how much they include or raise prices. Before the boom, we would've suggested getting at least 32GB of memory, since it was typically a sensible upgrade that could ensure your computer was usable for longer. Now, though, we'd just advise not going below 16GB, if you can help it.

Storage has also been impacted. While SSDs (both portable and internal) don't seem to have their prices hit as hard, many suppliers seem to be struggling to keep them in stock. Unfortunately, conventional spinning disk hard drives also seem to have been hit as well; we've seen several reports from people struggling to find any available to buy, and manufacturers like Western Digital are saying they've sold out their production capacity for at least the next two years. If you're running out of storage on your computer or think you may in the near future, we would suggest you start looking for an external drive now, rather than later.

While most cameras don't have built-in storage, they still need memory for their buffers and to run their operating systems. So far, we haven't seen any manufacturers explicitly cite the shortage as a problem or raise their global prices substantially. However, we also wouldn't be surprised if we see something like that in the future.

It's hard to say when the situation will get better. Both Micron and SK Hynix have reported selling out their entire production capacity for the rest of 2026. That doesn't mean that nothing will be produced for consumers – presumably some of that capacity has been sold to companies that will package those memory and storage chips into consumer devices – but it does mean that the supply situation isn't likely to change for a while. It's also hard to imagine the situation changing all that much next year, either. Unless stock market enthusiasm for AI tanks and companies have to severely cut back on how much memory and storage they're buying, it's not like there's a ton of new production capacity set to come online in the short term.

As for what you can do about it, I again have to be incredibly unhelpful and say that, in the short term, there's not really much to be done on an individual level. Voting with your dollar doesn't work all that well when you're so economically outgunned.

There are a few options, though: you can continue to make do with what you have, while recognizing that you're using a scarce resource. If you were previously a little careless with your memory cards or external hard drives, now's the time to start taking a little better care of them.

If you know you'll need to purchase new computer equipment, memory, or storage in the near-to-mid term, you can just accept that prices are more likely to go up, rather than down. Sadly, that means stocking up on what you know you'll need. Or, you can wait it out, with the hope that the AI bubble will deflate before you need to make any purchases... and that when it does, it's in a controlled enough manner that memory and storage prices are still in your top 10 biggest financial concerns.

We're hard at work on finishing up our review of the Ricoh GR IV Monochrome, a version of the company's latest enthusiast compact with its color filter array removed. We've already seen how it performs in our studio, but in the process of testing it, we've also taken it out and about to capture the world (minus a bit of color).

Please do not reproduce any of these images on a website or any newsletter/magazine without prior permission (see our copyright page). We make the originals available for private users to download to their own machines for personal examination or printing; we do so in good faith, so please don't abuse it.

Sonos just launched its new Play wireless speaker, bringing back the moniker for its portable range from over a decade ago.

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Category: Home Entertainment, Consumer Tech, Technology

Tags: Speaker, Bluetooth Speakers, Sonos, Portable

Laowa is continuing to be the torchbearer for bringing tilt-shift lenses to modern mirrorless mounts. The company's latest release is the 17mm F4 Zero-D Tilt-Shift / Shift, which is available for Sony E, Nikon Z, Canon RF, Fujifilm GFX, Hasselblad XCD and L mount, though the latter comes with a pretty big caveat that we'll cover in a bit.

There are two versions of the lens, both of which use the same optics: 18 elements in 12 groups, with four extra-low dispersion lenses, two glass aspherical elements and five ultra high refraction glass elements. They both have 14-bladed apertures.

One just supports shifting, which gives you the ability to change perspective while keeping the camera level, which can be especially helpful when shooting architecture. The shift-only model supports 11mm of shift in either direction on full-frame system, or 8mm on a medium format camera.

The tilt-shift model bumps that up to 12mm of shift on a full-frame, and adds 12° of tilt (10° on medium format), giving you the ability to manipulate the plane of focus. You can use that to either maximize your depth of field without having to worry about diffraction or to create the miniature effect that tilt-shift lenses are famous for.

The company promises that the lens has no barrel distortion, and says it can focus on subjects as close as 0.25m (9.8") away. It has an 86mm filter thread and a built-in Arca-Swiss compatible lens foot. The mount can easily be rotated with a click of a button and has preset rotation positions in 15° increments. It weighs 810g for the tilt-shift model and 770g for the shift model.

Given that the lens is manual focus only, and that Laowa has brought its other tilting and/or shifting lenses to a wide variety of mounts, it's not surprising to see this lens coming to mounts that are usually more restricted. It is, however, worth noting that the company says the L-mount version isn't compatible with some of the system's most popular cameras: the S5II/X, S1II, S1RII and S1IIE. The company told us this is because the overhang of those cameras' EVF housings protrudes forward over the lens mount. While you can physically mount the lens on one of the camera, the barrel will run into the EVF cladding essentially as soon as you try to rotate it, which severely limits the lens' functionality.

Given that we haven't seen major camera manufacturers like Canon or Nikon release tilt-shift lenses for their most recent systems, it's exciting to see Laowa continue to expand its lineup of them.

The 17mm F4 Zero-D Shift costs $999, and the Tilt-Shift costs $1249. Both are available starting today.

You can now use Frame.io, the video and image workflow platform that integrates with several pieces of editing software, to automatically upload stills files from certain Nikon cameras to the cloud. The software has supported this kind of workflow for video files for a while, but the new JPEG and Raw support could be convenient if you have a Z6III, Z8, Z9 or ZR.

While some cameras from companies like Fujifilm and Panasonic can connect directly to the Adobe-owned service, that's not quite what's going on with Nikon's implementation. As Frame.io's update notes say: "Using NX MobileAir (iOS and Android), images upload directly from the camera to Frame.io—no need to remove cards or manually transfer files before sharing. From there, editors can move seamlessly into Adobe Lightroom for immediate editing and delivery." It feels a bit funny to describe images as being uploaded "directly" when you need another app in the mix to do it, but theoretically it should be relatively hands-off once you establish the connection.

If this all sounds familiar, it may be because Nikon offers similar capability with its Imaging Cloud service. With it, supported cameras can automatically upload images to Nikon's cloud, which will then transfer them to services like Dropbox, Google Photos or Lightroom.

While that approach is more convenient in some ways – you use it by directly connecting your camera to Wi-Fi, rather than your phone – the Z8 and Z9 famously haven't received support for Imaging Cloud, despite lower-end cameras like the Z5II and Zf having it. This update gives owners of those cameras an easy way to offload the images they take directly to a cloud service, even if it is a little less flexible.

When it comes to systems for cleaning up marine oil spills, most of them simply float in place, waiting for the oil to come to them. A new robot, however, could proactively move through oil slicks – and it's inspired by both a dolphin and a sea urchin.

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Category: Robotics, Technology

Tags: RMIT University, Environment, Oil, Biomimicry

To touch grass, venture outdoors and take a break from doom-and-gloom news, what can one do to pass the time without a smartphone? Perhaps they can take a peek into the infinitesimal world outside with Bubo, a 2-in-1 digital microscope currently on Kickstarter.

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Category: Consumer Tech, Technology

Tags: Microscopes, Kickstarter

To touch grass, venture outdoors and take a break from doom-and-gloom news, what can one do to pass the time without a smartphone? Perhaps they can take a peek into the infinitesimal world outside with Bubo, a 2-in-1 digital microscope currently on Kickstarter.

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Category: Science

Tags: Microscopes, Kickstarter

Clever game fans have made an affordable, tactile plug-and-play system – a pressure-sensitive floor mat that mixes arcade-style rhythm-based titles with a broader library of more casual programs that focus on relaxed movement. Something for everyone, you might say.

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Category: Consumer Tech, Technology

Tags: Kickstarter, Gaming, Physical activity, Fitness

When it comes to tiny houses, space is always at a premium and it's all too easy for them to feel cramped inside. The eONE XL Wide & Tall addresses this by stretching out wider and taller than is standard to ensure an open and comfortable interior.

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Category: Tiny Houses, Outdoors

Tags: Tiny Footprint, Micro-House, House, Home, Building and Construction

Google recently released its latest entry-level smartphone, the Pixel 10a. The updates are modest overall, with the most visible change being a redesigned camera array that now sits flush with the back of the phone. We took the 10a on a recent trip to Japan for CP+ to see how its cameras handled a variety of situations.

Despite the slimmer design, the camera hardware is unchanged from the Pixel 9a. Like the previous model, it features a 48MP main camera with a Type 1/2 (~31mm²) sensor and a 13MP ultra wide camera with a Type 1/3.1 (~19mm²) sensor. Google has carried over some of the AI-focused photography features from the 10‑series phones, such as Auto Best Take and Camera Coach, which aim to help users capture stronger images with less effort. Otherwise, the Pixel 10a feels very familiar if you have used the 9a.

That similarity extends to image quality. You would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between photos from the 9a and 10a. In good light, the phone's two cameras perform well enough. When the light gets dim, though, along comes the noise. That's especially evident in the night photos with vast expanses of open sky or other dark areas, which you can see in the gallery below. Night Mode does seem to help with some of that noise, and also adds some lightness at times. But it's important to note that, unlike other phones, the Pixel 10a does not automatically switch between camera modes. If you want to use Night Mode, you'll need to manually select that in dark conditions.

The Pixel 10a is not aimed at photographers who want to use their phone as a somewhat serious camera; that role remains reserved for the higher-end 10‑series models, especially the Pro versions. But for people who want a compact, relatively affordable phone that can reliably capture everyday memories, the Pixel 10a’s cameras can get the job done.

The DPReview team recently returned from CP+, the camera industry's official trade show held in Yokohama, Japan. Most of our focus was, naturally, on the show and interviewing executives from the major camera and lens companies. However, we also had some time before and after CP+ to wander around, taking photographs and checking out some of Japan's camera store offerings.

This trip marked Abby's first time in Japan, and it was a second journey to the country for Mitchell. Now that we've been back for a bit, we wanted to take some time to reflect on our experiences there beyond CP+.

If you've spent any time on gear-related forums such as ours, there's a bit of advice you've probably seen pop up anytime someone asks about upgrading their equipment: you should spend the money you would've spent on a camera/lens on taking a trip with your current kit instead.

While I obviously don't think that's always true, this trip showed me that there is definitely some wisdom there. Being in a completely new place (I've been to Osaka, which has quite a different vibe from Tokyo and Yokohama), where many things are unfamiliar, helped get me out of my photographic groove. I found interesting new angles to shoot things in, and tried out things I might not have at home, just because I was inspired and excited to be doing photography again. Travel, even if it's mainly for work, was a great way to get my creative energy going (especially after what's been a particularly dull and uninspiring winter at home).

Even when I wasn't taking pictures for work, I was constantly pulling out my phone to capture interesting compositions that I saw.

iPhone 15 Pro | Rear wide camera | Cropped to 4:3
Photo: Mitchell Clark

As someone who often shoots at night, I was also delighted to find that Tokyo, in particular, is one of the most well-lit cities I've ever been in. That meant that I was still able to get pictures late into the evening, no matter where I went, something that's definitely not the case in my more rural neck of the woods.

It's also astoundingly dense, its streets and alleyways bursting with people and things to take pictures of. If I'm doing a photowalk in downtown Spokane, it might take me an hour or two to come up with 10-15 good images, especially if I'm trying to find subjects I haven't shot before. In Tokyo, it felt like I could do that or more in fifteen minutes and a few blocks.

The colors, textures and lights in Tokyo and Yokohama were feasts for my eyes. Edited in Adobe Photoshop.

Panasonic S1RII | Viltrox AF 16mm F1.8 | F3.5 | 1/80 sec | ISO 500
Photo: Abby Ferguson

I'll start by echoing Mitchell's comments about taking a trip somewhere new. Just like he experienced, this trip to Japan felt like a little rekindling of my photography. It was very refreshing to be someplace new in general, especially somewhere drastically different in almost every way from where I currently live.

Both Tokyo and Yokohama, where I spent all of my time, are absolutely filled with color and lights. The densely packed architecture and infrastructure of both places create lots of interesting opportunities for photography, with rich lines, textures and shapes to play with. It was like a photographer's playground in many ways.

SOOC JPEG

Panasonic S1RII | Viltrox AF 16mm F1.8 | F2.2 | 1/20 sec | ISO 640
Photo: Abby Ferguson

Now, this could very well be the case in any major city (which I do not live in at the moment), but it was still fun to have so many opportunities for photographs. I went out with my 35mm film camera on my last day, with just a few hours before needing to catch a train to the airport and easily shot through an entire roll of film. It typically takes me a few days to do that, even when I'm in new locations that I'm excited about.

Another thing I noticed was that we were far from the only photographers wandering around, even well away from CP+. Yokohama is a tourist-rich city, so that may be part of it, but I saw a good number of people walking around with dedicated cameras, which is quite different from what I'm used to. Even though I live in a touristy area, I rarely see photographers out and about. Maybe I felt emboldened by this, but I even worked up the courage to ask two women who were painting near a bridge if I could photograph them, something I never do where I live.

I love old cameras, particularly old film cameras. Where I currently live, and really everywhere I've lived in the US, options for shopping around for these cameras in person are remarkably slim. There are a few stores more than an hour's drive away from me right now, but the selection is very small at each. That's also more than I had access to in most of the other places I've lived, and this is the seventh state I've called home.

My experience in Japan was completely different. We went to Shinjuku City while in Tokyo, and within just a few block radius, went into six different camera stores. There were more in that immediate area that we didn't check out, too, and countless beyond that one neighborhood. Even in Yokohama, I found a handful of shops within walking distance and a few more within public transportation distance of CP+.

While most of these shops were quite small, they were absolutely filled to the brim with cameras and lenses. Each was packed with glass cases with rows and rows of cameras and lenses, and many also had boxes on the floor with even more to choose from, if you were willing to hunt through them to maybe find a gem. The selection was downright overwhelming at times, especially since I didn't have a specific one in mind (other than my husband's request for a Canon P). I could have easily come home with a suitcase full of cameras if my budget had allowed for it.

I hadn't set out specifically for the Olympus M-1. But I saw one in the last shop I checked out, and looked it up since I hadn't heard of it before. The history (and condition of this one) sold me.

Google Pixel 10a | Rear wide camera
Photo: Abby Ferguson

It was also fascinating seeing so many brands and cameras that I'd never even heard of. I am kicking myself for not writing some of them down to look up later, because there were some very intriguing names and form factors. I ended up buying an Olympus M-1 for myself, which I hadn't even heard of before I looked it up in the store after seeing one.

My one thought as a 1.8m tall American who was wearing a backpack to carry all our filming gear: these stores were DENSE. I barely had room to turn around, and trying to get to a specific aisle could feel like a sliding tile puzzle if someone was between you and it. I remember one store in particular where it was the three of us, and then another person shopping there; when two more people came in, the shopkeeper laughed, saying, “Too many people!”

This isn’t at all meant to be a complaint – it’s part of the density that gave the city its charm – but it’s worth being aware of if you’re going shopping at them. Had I realized just how small they were, I might’ve opted to film with a phone, rather than my full-size camera and backpack full of supporting gear.

My local Best Buy is a surprisingly competent camera store, but certainly doesn't stock every color of the Nikon Zf... nor practically every other camera and lens that Nikon makes.

iPhone 15 Pro | Rear wide camera
Photo: Mitchell Clark

As part of our trip, our coworker Dale Baskin recommended that we all go to the Yodobashi Camera store in Akihabara, partially for the sheer experience of shopping at a photographic Mecca, and partially because he thought it'd make for a really good video for social media (it did). And despite all the things he told us about it, it still ended up being a much more interesting experience than I'd thought.

The first thing that became apparent right when we walked in was that, despite its name, the store sells much more than camera gear (though I suppose that should've been obvious given that it was seven stories tall). You don't even get to the main photography section until the third floor, after you've gone through a maze of smartphones, computers, monitors, networking equipment, printers and enough cables and accessories for the aforementioned to make a Best Buy blush.

Once you make it to the photo level, though, it is absolutely glorious. They have pretty much every current camera and lens, not just available, but out on the shelves for you to play with. (Though, perhaps unsurprisingly, the one camera I didn't see was a Fujifilm X100VI). Basically, every kind of photography is represented: there were booths for pretty much every brand, as well as displays for various lens makers, video cameras of all shapes and sizes, flashes, film cameras and film to put in them and more. They had pretty much every kind of Instax (which we noted were all completely sold out), and even a wide array of itty-bitty toy cameras for the kids or camera-curious.

It's not all fancy cameras at Yotobashi; they also stock the increasingly popular cheap point-and-shoots and charm-sized cameras.
Photo: Dale Baskin

Of course, it's not just the cameras, it's the accessories too. You can get flashes, tripods, printers and paper for them, bags, film, straps, whatever. The experience really highlighted the fact that there's currently nothing even remotely comparable where I live; no stores that I could go to and feel assured that they would have a particular hotshoe cover or filter ring adapter. For most types of photo gear, if I want it, I’ll have to order it and wait a few days for it to arrive. It’s very cool to experience a store that sells basically everything I could ever want as a photographer.

One final note is that I was told to expect complete sensory overload, and I have to say that I was a little disappointed. Sure, the constant music and announcements took some getting used to, but it wasn't particularly overwhelming; I was mostly just excited to be there. However, your mileage may vary: it may just be that I've completely cooked my brain by listening to YouTube videos at 2x while also playing video games, and that others would find the sheer density of products and information to be too much to take in.

Overall, I very much agree with Mitchell's takeaways. I was surprised by the sheer variety of items at Yodobashi, as there's plenty there that has nothing to do with photography. I really enjoyed and appreciated how well-rounded the photography items were, though. There were products for every step of the photographic process. That included a wide range of inkjet papers, which you normally don't see in camera stores.

Where our opinions differ, though, is in regards to sensory overload. I have not destroyed my brain like Mitchell has, so I did find it completely overwhelming. I was very glad to leave the store when we did for the comparatively quiet streets of Tokyo.

The Sony World Photography Awards, put together by the World Photography Organisation, are now in their 19th year and for the 2026 contest received a massive 430,000 images from more than 200 countries and territories across four different competitions. Here, the Open competition focuses on the strength of a single image taken at some point during the year, and as the category suggests, welcomes entries from photographers of all levels.

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Category: Photography, Consumer Tech, Technology

Tags: Sony, nature, Photography, Sony World Photography Awards, Environment

The latest piece of gear from adventure hardware brand Orioner looks like a great way to start building a versatile everyday carry kit. It'll put a durable folding blade in your pocket, along with a set of essential tools, all in a uniquely designed frame small enough to fit on a keychain.

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Category: Knives and Multitools, Gear, Outdoors

Tags: EDC, Knife, Outdoors and Camping, Camping, Kickstarter

There's a new X-plane in town. Bell Textron's tilt-rotor aircraft being built for DARPA's Speed and Runway Independent Technologies (SPRINT) program, which aims to combine the features of a helicopter and a jet, has officially been designated the X-76.

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Category: Military, Technology

Tags: DARPA, Bell Helicopter, Tiltrotor, Aircraft

Airstream launched the original Mercedes Sprinter 170-based Atlas Class B+ small motorhome back in 2017. It's now split the model into a small lineup, launching an alternative floor plan called the 25RT. The new model sizes down from the expandable Atlas mold, offering a streamlined floor plan without any slide-outs. And in order to make it as comfortable as possible for a pair of adventurous road travelers, Airstream reorganizes the floor plan to create an eat-in kitchen and full two-room dry bath.

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Category: RVs and Motorhomes, Adventure Vehicles, Outdoors

Tags: Airstream, Motorhome, Motorhomes, RV, Camping, Outdoors and Camping, Campervan