After years of lagging behind rivals when it comes to video capture (and then suddenly buying cinema camera manufacturer RED), Nikon is pushing new boundaries in that area. Its latest salvo is the 1,699 24-megapixel full-frame Z5 II, perhaps the cheapest mirrorless camera so far to support internal RAW video. It also offers improved autofocus with new AI powers, cleaner images and enhanced image stabilization. The Z5 II is a wholesale remake of the original Z5 and that starts with video. While still limited to 4K 30 fps and cropped 4K 60 fps, it can now capture those formats internally using the company's 12-bit N-RAW format with N-log, along with 10-bit H.265 and 8-bit H.264. Interestingly, it will record in N-RAW to SDXC UHS-II cards, since the camera lacks high-speed CFexpress slots.

As it teased earlier, Canon has launched the R5 II, a successor to the powerful but imperfect EOS R5. With a new 45-megapixel backside-illuminated (BSI) stacked sensor, it not only has superior specs for video, shooting speeds and more, but also adds advanced features like eye-controlled AF. The R5 II was launched alongside Canon's new flagship, the EOS R1, which I've covered in a separate post. With the new R5, Canon has mostly dealt with the original's primary problem: overheating while shooting video. To see what's different and try out some of the new features, I spent some time with an R5 II pre-production camera in Phoenix, Arizona. The R5 II's body is largely the same as before, but there are a couple of key changes.

Nikon has taken its imaging and AI prowess in a unexpected direction with a new system that can warn farmers when a cow is about to give birth, Kyodo News has reported. It's designed to reduce the need to constantly check large numbers of pregnant cows during busy birthing seasons, helping farmers improve efficiency. The system, which costs 900,000 yen per year ( 6,200) for a farm with around 100 cows, consists of a security-style camera married to an AI system. It uses a dedicated smartphone application that sounds an alert when a calf is due, allowing farmers to spring into action if required. Nikon started training the AI in the fall of 2021, then running proof-of-concept tests on four farms in southwestern Japan in February 2023.

Black Friday means savings on cameras for content creation, travel photography and more. This year is no exception as all the major manufacturers, including Sony, Canon, DJI, Nikon, GoPro, Fujifilm and Nikon have some stellar deals. Sony is offering its latest compact vlogging camera, the ZV-1F, at just $398 ($100 off), while Canon's new EOS R100 mirrorless APS-C camera is available with a kit lens for just $449. Panasonic has its full frame Lumix S5 on sale for $1,298 (38 percent off), DJI's Avata Pro-View combo is $999 (30 percent off) and GoPro's Hero 11 is down to $300, for a savings of 14 percent. Sony's ZV-1F for budding content creators is 20 percent off for Black Friday.

Nikon has unveiled its latest full-frame camera, the 24.5-megapixel Zf with retro style and technology borrowed from the company's high-end Z8 and Z9 cameras. With a new sensor and processor, it promises powerful features like 14-fps max shooting speeds, advanced AI autofocus and 4K 60p video. At the same time, it's a highly manual camera with a lot of old-school touches and multiple colorways, all designed to touch that vintage-loving nerve. The body and handling emphasizes manual controls, with no less than five dials on top to control shooting mode, video/photo/B&W, aperture, shutter speed and exposure compensation. It also has a pair of shooting dials front and back and a D-pad style controller, but no joystick.

Nikon has officially unveiled its new flagship mirrorless camera, the $5,500, 45.7-megapixel Z9 with 8K 30p video and up to 20 fps RAW burst shooting speeds. It's Nikon's first camera to use a stacked sensor with built in memory that allows for very fast readout speeds. In fact, Nikon is so confident in the electronic shutter that it has abandoned the mechanical shutter entirely, so the Z9 is the first high-end professional camera without one. With that high-speed sensor (which has the same megapixel count as the Z7 II), the Z9 allows a flash sync of up to 1/200th of a second, which looks like the fastest sync speed ever for an electronic shutter. That should also make it very resistant to rolling shutter, which is crucial if the camera is to be used for sports or action photography. The faster sensor allows JPEG burst shooting at up to 30 fps, or RAW photos at 20 fps.

Nikon has released firmware updates for it latest full-frame Z6 II and Z7 II that should improve eye-tracking autofocus and video performance for the Z6 II. The key feature that applies to both cameras is improved human eye-tracking performance when your subject's face size is small within the frame. That means that it'll pick up and track them more quickly if they're approaching the camera from afar, for example. One of the key new firmware features applies to the Z6 II only, however. You can now shoot 4K UHD video at up to 60 fps, rather than 30 fps as before.

Today's content strategy blog post is a tale of two new cameras. First of all, Google Clips, a tiny'always on' device that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to take photos automatically throughout the day, serving up the best images to your mobile device. In the opposite corner, the Nikon D850, a digital single lens reflex (DSLR) that sets a new standard for professional cameras. Let's get price out of the way first. Google's latest will retail for $250, while the Nikon will set you back $3,300 (body only).

CES kicks off this week from Las Vegas, and PCMag will be there, wandering the floor, throwing some elbows for prime seats at press conferences, and getting you a hands-on look at all the tech that will be making waves in 2017. Here's what we expect to see. AT&T and T-Mobile both have major press conferences at CES. AT&T's presser is usually about connected devices and the Internet of Things rather than phones, but expect some details on 5G, as well. T-Mobile says it's having an UnCarrier announcement, which usually means some big service plan improvement. On the chipset side, the big news will undoubtably be Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835, the mysterious 10-nanometer processor that will be in many flagship phones next year.

Verily, Google's former Life Sciences division, teamed up with a French pharmaceutical company to help treat diabetes just a few months ago. Now, it has joined forces with Nikon to enhance the screening process for diabetic retinopathy and macular edema -- diabetes-related eye diseases and two of the leading causes of blindness in adults. They want to create machine learning-enabled retinal imaging technologies that can detect the diseases in their early stages. That way, doctors can step in and prevent the patients from going blind whenever possible. The details of the partnership aren't entirely clear at this point, but Nikon will apparently use its expertise in "optical engineering and precision manufacturing, its proprietary ultra-widefield technology and strong commercial presence among eyecare specialists."