Instax Mini Evo 2 lands (and splits reviewers), CIPA's compact surge, Nikon's 105mm macro at $896.95

Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo 2 — a digital compact bolted to an Instax Mini printer, announced October 26 for about $289.95 / £229.99 / CA$379.99 and shipping at the end of November. The sensor grows from 1/5-inch to 1/2.77-inch, a 4.5-inch touchscreen swallows the back, and ten film looks times ten lens effects give 100 combinations. Battery is rated at 90 shots, and there is no finder. It is the cheap end of the compact boom the CIPA numbers describe, and the reviews already disagree sharply about whether it is worth it. Digital Camera World calls it a winner; The Phoblographer gave the same camera 2 out of 5. Digital Camera World

“Yes, it's a low-resolution, cheap camera – but it's way more fun than a cheap camera ought to be.”

Nikon Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S — Nikon's life-size macro and short telephoto, now $896.95 at B&H with a filter kit thrown in, down from $1,146.95. It does 1.0x magnification, carries 4.5 stops of optical VR, and adds the S-line extras: customisable control ring, OLED panel, weather sealing. It is the rare case where a lens Digital Camera World rates among the best Z optics it has tested falls under $900 — and it doubles as a portrait lens, so it earns its slot in a weekend bag. The saving is $250, roughly 22 percent off the previous price. Digital Camera World

Jan Wegener's 400mm and 600mm comparison — a 20-year bird photographer putting Sony's FE 400mm f/4.5 GM and FE 600mm f/6.3 GM against Nikon's Z 400mm f/4.5 S and Z 600mm f/6.3 S. The 400s are near twins — both focus to 2.5m, no image-quality gap he can see — while the Sony 600mm is about 400g lighter and roughly $1,500 cheaper. This is the lightweight-supertele class most hobbyists can actually carry, and it is now a genuine two-horse race rather than a Nikon walkover. Nikon's 600mm will not focus closer than 4m against Sony's 2.5m, but Nikon's current body discounts undo much of Sony's list-price advantage. Fstoppers

Sony FX5 week-long test — Anthony Gugliotta spent a week finding out whether open gate, in-body stabilisation and anamorphic desqueeze can be switched on at once. They cannot: desqueeze kills both stabilisation systems and autofocus through his Tilta PL adapter, and open gate only exists in Cine EI mode while recording raw. A useful reminder before any big body purchase that modes share one processor and heat budget — the spec sheet lists features, not combinations. Sony's most compressed raw writes about 429 Mb/s at 5K open gate, roughly one bit per pixel; Canon's C50 keeps digital stabilisation and autofocus with desqueeze on. Fstoppers

Chris Gampat on camera hacking — an opinion piece arguing that makers deliberately withhold capability to sell the next body, citing Canon pulling in-camera multiple exposure with raw and Nikon narrowing Creative Lighting support, and cheering the people who hack their cameras instead. It puts a name to something you have probably noticed while shopping: the reason more photographers are buying older, cheaper bodies and getting on fine. His precedent is Magic Lantern, which gave the Canon 5D Mark II raw video; he wrote the piece on Sigma FP2 launch day and argues the much older Sony a7R III still beats it in most ways. The Phoblographer