What’s really required?
As 2026 begins and everybody has locked in their “Colours” for the year, there may be a few just getting started and thinking of the options – there are a lot. Here’s my picks and thoughts to open the year with:
Function vs Form
With makers (pretty much all of them bar Canon) producing at least some type of retro-styled, film-inspired body and lens combination, it makes looking at the history of body design from an evolutionary perspective. When DSLRs became current, and grips became bigger, lens technology advanced (and so did the number of elements) and things just got “bigger”. But why?
It’s more apparent looking at the largest camera movements (sales & hype) where the current camera market is going – style. It’s reached the point where smaller is better, and unless you are a pro shooting sports, there’s really no point to be lugging a 1.3kg body with another weight attached to the front.
But function is the point of a camera. They need to be better than an iPhone – much better. And they need to be better than what has been available a decade ago. So manufacturers have filtered some absolutely fantastic power into some fantastically compact units. For this reason, I have absolutely no opinion on selecting a camera for its appearance, and unless you are trying to be trendy – neither should you. As long as the camera can perform how you want it to, it’ll do.
At the end of the day, it’s just a sensor that captures the light from the lens you stick in front of it.
Leave a Reply