If You Think ‘Cameras Have Gotten Boring’ You’re Looking at Photography All Wrong

This year we saw some really outstanding cameras come to market. In fact, somehow, 2025 was even more packed than last year. Yet now as the dust settles and we are winding down, I am regularly seeing complaints that the Sony a7 V and the Canon R6 Mark III — two of the year’s most impressive cameras — have “gotten boring.” Excuse me, what?

A camera is a tool, and it is my opinion (and it’s not unique to me) that the best tools perform at a high level in the most circumstances. So when I see comments on Threads, YouTube, and in PetaPixel‘s own comments section lamenting how “boring” cameras have gotten, it put me at a loss for words for a while. But I think I’ve found them.

What, pray tell, did these people want the a7 V to do to not be “boring?” Do tricks? Come in a bunch of bright colors? Somehow make all the photos they take look perfect and exactly like they dreamed?

“Lately, when I see new cameras, the only thought that comes to mind is: ‘Is this all you have been able to do in the last 3-5 years?'” one comment on YouTube reads.

“The iterative nature of the industry is leading it to a stagnation of innovation. Increase this spec here, increase that spec there, boom a new model! Win an award!” another laments.

These are two of hundreds I’ve seen over the past two weeks and I’ve spent that time wondering what these people are even looking for. Sure, I’m all for a camera that has form and function, but at the end of the day we’re trying to take pictures here, guys.

Have you all forgotten what the point of photography is?

Everything I’m seeing as “Sony is falling behind” or “Canon isn’t interesting” isn’t actually about any slowing progress of innovation. It’s about the gap between the mythical product you personally want (which is always at an improbably low price, in this dreamland) and the product category the cameras in question were meant to serve.

Buy the Canon R6 Mark III new on B&HBuy the Canon R6 Mark III used on KEH.com

These cameras are chock full of insane technological advancements that have taken years to progress to the point where they can be purchased by the masses. None of these companies have stopped innovating, they’re just focused on tailoring a product to fit the market segment it’s meant to compete in.

Let’s look at the a7 V for a moment, because it’s currently the Internet’s favorite punching bag. When Sony created this camera, it did so with the goal of making a mass-market, hybrid photo and video product. They aren’t going to, therefore, fill it with cinema flagship features any more than they’re going to shove a global shutter inside of it for perfect sports shots because that’s not what a mass-market hybrid camera is supposed to do.

Buy the Sony a7 V new on B&HBuy the Sony a7 V used on KEH.com

Filmmakers who are bummed that the camera doesn’t have cinematic workflows, open gate, or flexible post production pipelines are projecting those demands onto a camera whose purpose is to serve the largest, not the loudest, segment of working photographers.

Let’s compare the Lumix S1 II to the Sony a7 V for a moment. When we first saw the S1 II announced, our immediate reaction was “oh wow this thing is powerful” followed quickly by “oh shoot this thing is really expensive.” The weight of the price hung over us for our review period for that camera to the point that we probably undersold how good it is. Lumix’s goals weren’t to create a mass-market hit, they were to deliver a super high-end video camera packed into a hybrid camera body. That comes with a literal cost.

Buy the Panasonic Lumix S1 II new on B&HBuy the Panasonic Lumix S1 II used on KEH.com

Conversely, Sony managed to increase resolution, improve processing for better autofocus, and modernize the overal operation of the a7 V for several hundred dollars less than Lumix did so that it could be more approachable to the mass market.

The a7 line has always been about being a pragmatic, high-volume camera, not a video-first one. It’s not meant to be a specialty, high-end product like the S1 II is. Any brand that tries to make an “everything” camera ends up with something that costs way more than most people can afford or creates a camera that can’t even stand out in its own line.

Look at Nikon and the Z6 III and the Z9. When the Z5 II and the Z8 sit right next to them, these camera have an incredibly hard time rationalizing their own existence — and that’s just inside of Nikon’s bubble, notwithstanding the greater camera market. Nikon had to really shift the Z6 III’s price after launch in order for it to find a reasonable home.

This All Misses the Point

My friend Zak wrote this on Threads: “I think a lot of consumers have delusional expectations of what to expect of a particular camera in a particular price range. The expectations increase with the amount of time between releases, I think.”

It’s irritating that some people want everything they want to be in the specific camera they want at the price they want to pay, and that if a camera doesn’t do that for them, then they loudly shout that it doesn’t deserve to be liked by anyone.

And what’s weird to me is how hyper-focused we are on these expectations when every camera in the mid-range is capable of doing a lot more than a vast majority of photographers are ever going to ask of them. Saying a camera is boring, iterative, or lackluster feels, to me, like those photographers are using these complaints as a crutch to explain away their inability to be better photo takers.

A camera was never going to make a person a better photographer. They actually have to work at that.

But work is hard. It’s much easier to blame Sony.