Who would have thought that one of the most interesting products announced at Photokina 2018 would come from Zeiss, a brand mostly known for its high quality still and cinema lenses. The company is no stranger to designing cameras but up until now, its portfolio has only included film models, with the last one being the Ikon M-mount rangefinder released 14 years ago.

The ZX1 is Zeiss’ first digital camera. It is designed to act like a smartphone as far as quick editing and sharing are concerned but maintains the form factor of a proper creative photographic tool. To be fair, this is not the first attempt of this kind. Many Samsung cameras in the now-discontinued NX series didn’t require a connection to a mobile device thanks to their direct sharing capabilities (email, social media). The Korean brand also released a camera with 4G run by an Android operating system (the Galaxy NX) but the experiment was a failure.

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Update: Fujifilm announced the GFX 50S II in September 2021. Check how it compares to the 50R model in our dedicated article.

The Fujifilm GFX system was announced two years ago, along with the GFX 50S mirrorless medium format camera and a roadmap of six GF lenses that has since been expanded to ten.

We had the chance to review and compare the 50S to the Sony A7r III and we were impressed by the quality of the sensor and lenses. The body is large for obvious reasons but doesn’t detract from the user-friendly interface that has characterised Fujifilm cameras since the original X100.

Fujifilm’s choice to skip the 35mm format and go medium format was an interesting move, and something quite unexpected as well. The only drawback of the GFX series is that it is much more expensive than the X-Series which has been Fujifilm’s primary focus for the past six years.

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The success of the Sony A7 series caused many of us to wonder when Nikon and Canon, two of the biggest players in the digital industry over the last decade, would join the battlefield as direct competitors to Sony. Even though both brands have already released mirrorless systems (the discontinued Nikon 1 series and Canon EF-M), a 35mm sensor solution seemed imminent given the rise in popularity of the full-frame E-mount.

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Fujifilm has come a long way since the release of its first interchangeable-lens mirrorless camera, the X-Pro1, having worked hard to improve the performance of its products by eliminating weak points such as slow autofocus and poor video capabilities and preserving the user-friendly design so many of us have come to love.

The X-T3 lifts the X Series to a new level of maturity. In some ways it surpasses the competition thanks to its impressive video capabilities (including 4K/60 10-bit internal recording), a new advanced autofocus system and a true blackout-free live view (the second model after the Sony A9 to manage this). These features combined make this APS-C camera one of the most advanced on the market today.

The A7 III is Sony’s most popular camera to date as it inherits many qualities from the flagship cameras. Its image quality, video and autofocus have all become a reference on the market and its affordable price tag makes it very competitive within the full frame/35mm segment.

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Canon has been accused of lacking innovation in recent years, partly due to the slow and uninspired development of its EF-M mirrorless system. The brand also made the somewhat controversial decision to keep the best video specifications for its Cinema camcorders series after revolutionising the filmmaking industry with the 5D mark II.

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