To say it has been an unusual year so far when it comes to cameras is an understatement. From The Great Slowdown to the Compact Camera Revival, here’s what’s happening and what comes next.
The camera market in 2026 is stranger than it looks: fewer new cameras, booming compacts, a memory crisis, and a wave of big announcements just around the corner. Here are six things worth considering when trying to pin it all down.
The pace of new camera releases has slowed dramatically. In the 2000s, a major manufacturer might launch a handful of new models before Christmas, another clutch in spring, and half a dozen more in September. Maybe the industry is finally saturated and every niche is filled, but in 2026 that cadence feels like ancient history.
The only notable launches of the year to date have been a 5 MP retro camera and a compact that only shoots black and white, the Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo Cinema and the Ricoh GR IV Monochrome respectively.
None of the cameras forecast to launch at CP+ 2026 broke cover, with only a handful of lenses new at the show. A show which was, incidentally, totally stolen by Canon’s waist-level concept camera rather than anything that was set to be productised and brought to the market any time soon.
Amateur Photographer’s Why have there been no new cameras in 2026? piece gained serious traction online and echoed what many people feel. “This is the least activity in the camera market I've seen in the last 25 years,” wrote Gavin Stoker.
CIPA forecasts tell the story in numbers. The organisation expects mirrorless shipments to fall 2.6% in 2026, to around 6.82 million bodies. Lens shipments are also predicted to drop slightly. The Trump administration tariffs are undoubtedly playing a part, leading the overall camera market to be forecast to grow just 1.6% to roughly 9.59 million units. And that growth is being driven almost entirely by one category: compacts.
CIPA predicts 2.77 million fixed-lens cameras will ship in 2026. This is a 13.6% increase over 2025, which itself saw a 29.6% jump.
There are two distinct trends driving this at opposing ends of the market. At the premium end, cameras like the Fujifilm GFX100RF (a 102 MP medium format body with a fixed 35 mm (28 mm full-frame equivalent)) are finding buyers who want serious image quality in a portable form factor.
At the other extreme, the $35 Kodak Charmera keychain camera — 1.6 MP, blind-box unboxing experience — recently topped B&H's trending list. Meanwhile, vintage Sony CyberShots and Nikon Coolpix models are selling for inflated prices on eBay.
Canon is one manufacturer that has responded by increasing compact camera production by 50%, and rumours point to three new PowerShot models in 2026. This includes a new G7-series with a fast lens, a super-telephoto compact, and an affordable mass-market model. At CP+ 2026, Canon said its next compact would be packed with tech.
It seems that people are buying cameras again who are not traditional photographers. They want a device that is the opposite of a multitasking smartphone; something that just takes pictures and nothing else with no email and no doomscrolling thrown in.
Fujifilm's executives have a gleeful tendency to use the word "fun" more than any other camera company. In a PetaPixel interview the company went so far as saying it believes fun cameras will keep photography alive, and that without something exciting people simply won't stay interested in photography itself.
The comparison to Nintendo holds up well. Nintendo regularly zigs while Sony and Microsoft zag, prioritising play experience over raw horsepower and managing to create some of the greatest gaming experiences ever released while doing so. Fujifilm also releases products that seem eccentric on paper but gain traction with the buying public.
The X Half is a digital half-frame camera with a 1-inch sensor that creates automatic diptychs and has a Film Camera mode recreating the experience of shooting a roll (you cannot see images until the "roll" is done). The Instax Mini Evo Cinema looks like a miniature Super 8 and spits out instant film prints. The GFX100RF puts 102 MP medium format behind a fixed lens.
None of these are what the spec-obsessives are demanding, but all of them are selling. Fujifilm has increased both sales and profits across its digital camera and Instax lines, attracting young users who started with Instax and are now moving into digital. That growth funds the rest of the camera business, and Fujifilm ends up with the best of both worlds without having to choose between them.
AI is making your memory cards more expensive. Data centres are consuming massive amounts of NAND flash, creating a global shortage that is hitting SD and CFexpress cards hard. NAND wafer costs surged 25% in February 2026 alone.
This is having a real-world impact: a SanDisk Extreme Pro 128 GB SD card went from around $30 at the start of 2026 to about $52 by March. One European retailer saw a CFexpress 512 GB card jump from €160 to over €360 in two weeks. Across the board, CFexpress Type A and Type B cards have seen increases of 20–60%, more in some cases.
The outlook is bleak for photographers: relief likely won't come until mid-to-late 2027 when new fab capacity comes online. This is particularly painful given the push towards higher resolutions, 8K video, and high frame rates — all of which demand fast, high-capacity cards.
As we wrote about Ramageddon in February, when it comes to camera bodies manufacturers have three basic options. One, raise prices; two, trim specifications; three, alter internal architectures to reduce buffer sizes and processing demands — effectively nerfing their own products. None of them sound much fun for consumers.
First off, let’s deal with what may be coming at NAB next month.
GoPro will be likely releasing a series of cameras based on its GP3 processor, with a pre-NAB announcement likely. The video footage released so far looks very cinematic. Add that to the timing of the new camera’s launch, and it looks like it feels it has something disruptive on its hands.
Blackmagic is, of course, the arch disruptor and strong rumours point towards the unveiling of an URSA Cine 6K LF. Same body as the URSA Cine 12K LF but with a 6K RGBW sensor optimised for high frame rates, including an impressive 320 fps in 6K Open Gate.
April 2026 marks the 50th anniversary of the Canon AE-1, and everything points to the forthcoming RE-1 (working title) as a digital homage. This will feature the same 32.5 MP sensor as the EOS R6 Mark III, DIGIC X processor, Dual Pixel CMOS AF II, but with tactile dials and film simulations aimed at street shooters and the film-curious. Expected price around $1999, which is significantly below the R6 III.
That takes us into post-NAB territory where the sketchy detail becomes even sketchier. But, the rumour mill suggests the following might all come to pass at some point in 2026 and make up at least in part for the slow start to the year.
There’s enough going on in the action camera segment that it gets a section all on its own.
GoPro, as already mentioned, is fighting for survival and swinging for the fences at the same time, so there is a lot riding on the GP3 processor. This is not only going to have to successfully move it into more cinematic territories it is also going to have to reinvigorate its core market with a Hero 14, a Max 3, and more.
It will, of course, not have it all its own way. Persistent rumours suggest that DJI is developing a larger-sensor mirrorless or cinema camera, a move that would put it in direct competition with Sony, Canon, and Blackmagic. Insta360, meanwhile, appears to be targeting DJI’s Osmo Pocket 3 vlogging category, with patent leaks pointing to a compact vlogging camera.
Both companies are profitable, growing, and increasingly hard to categorise as “just” action camera makers. They also have to watch their own backs. The Leaptic Cube, for instance, is an 8K modular action camera from robot vacuum maker Dreame, of all people, which debuted at CES 2026 and won attention for its modularity. The segment is attracting new entrants from unexpected directions, and might well be the most exciting part of the camera industry to track through 2026.