The Camera & Imaging Products Association published its full 2025 shipment figures in February 2026, completing the picture of a year defined by two diverging trends: crop-sensor lenses gaining ground in units while full-frame glass quietly contracted, and an industry-wide lens-to-body ratio that hit the lowest point in CIPA’s recorded history. The Crop Lens Revival The most consequential shift in the 2025 data is the performance gap between sensor formats. Lenses for APS-C and smaller sensors rose approximately 9 percent in units and 21 percent in value through the final reporting period, while lenses for full-frame and larger formats declined around 4 to 5 percent in units and 6 to 7 percent in value.

The 2026 NAB Show closed in Las Vegas this week after drawing more than 58,000 registered attendees, with photography and videography gear among the central draws on a show floor that spanned the equivalent of nearly eight soccer fields. Canon, Sony, and Blackmagic Design were among the major imaging brands exhibiting alongside Adobe, Ross, Google Cloud, and AWS — a lineup that reflects how thoroughly software and cloud infrastructure have merged with the physical camera and production hardware space.

The Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM is older than the camera it is mounted on by more than three decades, and the pairing still produces the cleanest subject isolation this system can deliver at the price. Adapted to the R100 through the EF-EOS R adapter, the lens lands on an APS-C sensor with a 1.6x crop factor, which pushes the effective field of view to roughly 136mm. That reframing matters. The optical characteristics remain those of an 85mm — the same depth of field at a given distance, the same rendering of out-of-focus light — but the tighter angle of view forces the photographer further from the subject, and the compressed perspective does the rest of the work.

SIRUI picked up a Best of Show award at NAB 2026 for its Vision Prime T1.4 Full-Frame Cine Lens Series and used the occasion to announce significant expansions to both the Vision Prime and IronStar families, filling out focal length ranges that previously left gaps at the wide and telephoto ends. The Vision Prime series launched with 24mm, 35mm, and 50mm primes. Three new focal lengths now extend the coverage: a 15mm wide-angle, a 75mm medium telephoto, and a 150mm designed for close-up and macro-style work.

SmallRig is using NAB Show 2026 to advance on three fronts: a modular accessory ecosystem for the DJI Osmo Pocket 4, a compact multicolor LED fixture, and a hydraulic monopod built on the TRIBEX platform. The Pocket 4 ecosystem is the most expansive of the three announcements. SmallRig has organized the accessory lineup into four pre-configured rigs addressing distinct use cases — dual-camera narrative work, daily vlogging, outdoor and adventure shooting, and mobile live streaming.

GoPro has announced pricing for the MISSION 1 Series, a line of compact cinema cameras built around a new 50MP 1" sensor and the company’s GP3 processor, claiming the title of world’s smallest and lightest 8K and 4K Open Gate high frame rate camera system. The flagship MISSION 1 PRO sits at $699.99 MSRP—dropping to $599.99 for existing GoPro subscribers—and delivers 8K60, 4K240, and 1080p960 in 16:9, with 8K30 and 4K120 in Open Gate 4:3.

The assumption that building software requires a computer science degree has collapsed faster than most engineers expected. A photographer who can compose a shot, negotiate a client contract, and deliver a gallery under deadline pressure already possesses the cognitive toolkit that custom software development now demands. The engineering part, increasingly, is delegated to machines. What remains human is the problem definition — and photographers are unusually good at that. The starting point is not a technology choice.

Most brand about pages make the same mistake: they choose a hero image that announces effort rather than attitude. A polished studio shot, perfectly lit, perfectly composed, and perfectly empty of anything a viewer would want to linger on. The image signals production value. It communicates nothing. The shot used on the BrandsToShop.com about page takes a different approach. It is candid London street photography — a woman mid-conversation at a West End crossing, Fortnum & Mason bag in hand, white ankle-strap heels on tactile-paving, the red stop signal just catching the background frame.

Wireless connectivity in cameras has never been a marketing priority. Megapixels sell. Autofocus systems sell. WiFi module generations do not. Which is exactly why the gap between what Canon is shipping in 2024–2025 and what the other major brands are offering is larger than it should be, and largely unreported. A quick orientation: the relevant standards in current camera hardware are WiFi 4 (802.11n, introduced 2009), WiFi 5 (802.11ac, introduced 2013), and WiFi 6 (802.

NAB Show 2026, April 18–22, Las Vegas Las Vegas opens the week with that particular convention-center energy photographers and camera people know well: long halls, bright overhead light, black drape, giant LED walls, and a constant stream of lenses, rigs, monitors, gimbals, and people trying to decide what actually matters once the show-floor glow wears off. NAB Show 2026 arrives as a media industry event on a massive scale, but from a photography and imaging perspective, what makes it interesting is not just size.