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RED’s RAW Patent Falls in Japan | DJI Drones Might be Grounded in US – Focus Check ep129

August 13^th, 2026

by Felix TappeinerAugust 13^th, 2026

For almost two decades, one patent decided which cameras could record RAW internally. This week it fell in Japan – and the company that brought it down is the last one you would guess. On top of that, every major camera manufacturer reported numbers within a few days of each other: FUJIFILM’s Imaging Division is now the group’s biggest earner, Panasonic posted its best quarter in 41 years without any help from cameras, and GoPro is down to $27 million in cash while it looks for a buyer.

Johnnie joins from a rainy, grey Osaka before heading to China on two missions we cannot talk about yet, but are excited to share once we can. He and Nino work through the CIPA first-half figures, Canon’s compact camera engine, Nikon’s China problem, Sony’s sensor profits and the now-confirmed Tamron bid, Videndum’s going-concern warning, the FCC proposal that could reach the drone in your kit, and a long list of lens, audio and software releases.

This episode is sponsored by Hollyland at 12:47. Learn more about the Solidcom Intercom Series on their website.

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CIPA First-Half 2026 Numbers – Compact Cameras Keep Booming While the Market Shifts to Pricier Gear

(01:58 in the episode)

Compact cameras with fixed lenses are still the story of 2026. Shipments peaked in April at roughly 250,000 bodies and were still around 200,000 in June – a comeback for a segment the smartphone was supposed to have killed. The overall unit count is drifting down, but the average price per body is climbing, which means buyers are either choosing more capable models or simply absorbing the price increases that rising memory costs have forced on almost every manufacturer.

Johnnie’s caveat: this is a Japanese picture. Blackmagic Design and DJI are private and do not report, and there is no Chinese equivalent to CIPA – so the day Chinese manufacturers push into this segment properly, the numbers will look very different.

Canon’s Cameras Are Printing Money Again – And Compacts Are Leading the Charge

(13:36 in the episode)

Canon’s imaging segment grew almost 18% year over year with healthy operating margins, and more than half of that annual growth comes from compact cameras. The C50 and C80 get our attention, but the money is coming from PowerShot models bought by people who have never heard of this podcast.

That raises the obvious R&D question. On the interchangeable lens side it is the full-frame bodies driving the result, which suggests Canon is comfortably covered at both ends – and that the prototype compacts shown at CP+ were not an experiment for its own sake.

FUJIFILM Cameras Are Selling Like Never Before – Imaging Is Now the Group’s Biggest Earner

(18:10 in the episode)

The best result of the week. FUJIFILM is a healthcare and materials conglomerate, yet imaging is now the division showing the strongest growth – driven by Instax and by the X100VI, which is doing the heavy lifting in the mirrorless numbers.

One flag for European buyers: after the US price rises last year, FUJIFILM raises European prices on September 1st. The X100VI jumps from €1,800 to €2,000, the GFX100 II climbs €500 to €8,500, and most other models go up by around €100. If you are considering a FUJIFILM camera in Europe, August is the month to buy.

Nikon Misses the Industry Party – Camera Sales Slip in China While Memory Prices Eat Into Profits

(24:59 in the episode)

Nikon is the outlier of the week, with two distinct problems: a China-specific demand contraction, and industry-wide input costs from rising memory and semiconductor prices. Profits have been shrinking for two years now, and unlike Canon and FUJIFILM, it is Nikon’s imaging division that is dragging while the rest of the company does fine.

We also cover the ZR, which European dealers tell us is not selling as well as the US hype suggested, and the firmware update owners are still waiting for to fix the mushy H.265 image. RED-branded sales are folded into imaging, so there is no way to see how those cameras are performing.

Panasonic Posted Its Best Quarter in 41 Years – and Cameras Have Nothing to Do With It

(33:34 in the episode)

$1.2 billion in operating profit, more than double last year and the best first quarter since 1985 – and none of it comes from cameras. It comes from AI data centres: backup batteries, capacitors and circuit board materials.

The AVC unit that contains Lumix actually declined around 14% on weak European sales and soft demand in China. It is worth understanding where Lumix sits in the corporate structure: the Smart Life division (refrigerators, washing machines, hairdryers) contains the AVC unit, which contains televisions, communications networks and the imaging business. None of which reflects on the products – the S1II was our overall Camera of the Year 2025.

Sony’s Money Is in the Sensor – Quarterly Numbers, the Tamron Bid, and the Kumamoto Question

(38:51 in the episode)

Sony’s bid for Tamron is now confirmed in the company’s own earnings context, which tells us far more about intent than last week’s short Tamron statement did. Overall sales rose more than 8% and operating income 40%, while cameras held roughly steady at 2% up – carried by premium stills bodies like the a7 V.

The real engine is sensors: 26% sales growth and more than double the profit, driven by mobile. The open question is the earthquake in the region housing one of Sony’s key sensor fabs – Sony expected to be back at normal output by now, but was not certain at the end of July. We have been down this road before, in 2016, and it delayed camera production across several brands for over a year. Meanwhile FX5 orders are exceeding Sony’s expectations and new orders are shifting from August to September.

GoPro Says Its Sale Process Is in the Later Stages – Camera Sales Fall 38%, Cash Down to $27 Million

(46:09 in the episode)

The bleakest number of the week. Camera sales down 38%, cash down 45% to $27 million – which will not carry the company through a full quarter – and the going-concern doubt flagged by the auditor still standing. Revenue has been falling every year since 2021, from over $1.16 billion to $652 million by the end of 2025.

On the earnings call Nick Woodman confirmed the sale process is in its latest stages and has his full support, naming interest from the financial, military and technical sectors. The Mission One Pro ILS, the interchangeable-lens version with the Micro Four Thirds mount, is still promised for this quarter – which now means September. Both the Mission One and Mission One Pro dropped $100 this week.

Videndum H1 2026 Results – Cine Brands Outperform While the Going-Concern Warning Stays

(54:39 in the episode)

Revenue down 4% to £110 million and essentially flat like-for-like, with a statutory £9.6 million operating profit that should be taken with a grain of salt given the debt write-offs behind it. The detail worth noticing is buried: the flat top line was held up by the Winter Olympics in Italy and the FIFA World Cup, worth around £5.5 million together, while the rest of the business gave back £5.3 million. There is no repeat of those events next year.

The pattern is clear – premium tools with defensible technology hold their pricing, commodity products do not. Teradek and SmallHD are turning the profit; Manfrotto, Gitzo, Lowepro and Rycote sit in the division under pressure from Tilta, SmallRig and others making genuinely good tripods for less. A new CEO takes over on August 17th, 26 new products are promised within a year, and we would very much like to put the hard questions to him at IBC.

Sony FX5 IBIS Lock Service Targeted for December – Sony Answers Our Open Questions

(01:05:44 in the episode)

Sony has answered the questions we put to them after your poll. The IBIS lock service – needed because the sensor can still float slightly even with stabilisation switched off, which matters for crash cam use – is targeted for December. It is a send-in service through an authorised retailer and it is not reversible.

On the missing 25p and 29.97p in H.265, Sony points to the XAVC HS specification, which is a strange answer for a codec Sony owns – 25p is the working frame rate for Europe, China and much of Africa. On a cache buffer for 240fps capture, the answer was no comment. The reboots, meanwhile, are less of an issue than they look: Sony cameras have always rebooted between PAL and NTSC, and the FX3 and FX6 behave the same way. Also new: XOCN files are now natively supported in DaVinci Resolve 21.0.4.

The Drone in Your Kit Could Be Next – US FCC Proposal Targets Thermal and LiDAR Models Already Approved for Sale

(01:14:24 in the episode)

The FCC has proposed prohibiting future import and sale of foreign-made “military grade” drones already authorised for the US market. The definition is broad enough to matter: thermal imaging, LiDAR, agricultural spraying, docking stations, drones over 55 pounds and swarming systems. LiDAR is the worry, because it is in the Mavic line, the Air line and even the latest Mini models.

Everything is still legal to buy, and this only affects the US – but it is a proposal open for public comment, and the FCC is explicitly asking whether its own list captures the right equipment. If you shoot in the US with DJI drones, the link in the article takes you to the FCC’s electronic comment filing system.

RED’s Compressed RAW Patent Invalidated in Japan – Nikon Loses Defending the Patent It Once Fought

(01:17:44 in the episode)

The patent that kept internal RAW recording out of everyone else’s cameras for almost two decades has been invalidated by a Japanese court – and the company that took Nikon to court over it is Panasonic. The irony writes itself: Nikon spent years fighting this patent, then acquired RED partly to control it, and has now lost defending it.

The timeline in the article runs from the RED ONE launch in 2007 through the Sony legal battle in 2013, the dismissed Apple challenge in 2019, and RED suing Nikon in 2022 – the lawsuit Jarred Land has said was the starting point of the acquisition. It is not fair to call the patent dead everywhere, but it is now challenged, and patent courts read each other’s decisions carefully. Worth looking the patent up on Google Patents: it is called “video camera”, and it is astonishingly broad.

Welcome Back, EVF – We’ve Missed You!

(01:24:45 in the episode)

Johnnie’s piece on the electronic viewfinder, and the conversation every manufacturer of a successful camera has had with us: great camera, where is the EVF? The answer is always that market research shows no demand – which is baffling from companies selling to professionals who rely on an EVF for stabilisation, for judging exposure, and simply for the intimacy of composing a shot without an audience.

The FX2 arriving with a built-in EVF was the beginning of something; the FX5’s optional finder is a good solution, if an expensive one. The article runs from Zacuto loupes on the back of the camera through Cineroid, the first company to build one, to Kinefinity. Third-party EVFs remain large and sometimes cost more than the camera. Canon, Nikon, Panasonic – please bring us EVFs.

Atlas Mercury Anamorphic Lens Price Drop – New Lower Pricing Across All Nine Focal Lengths

(01:31:27 in the episode)

Close to a 50% cut in some cases. The 36, 42, 54, 72, 95 and 138mm drop from $8,000 to $4,500 each; the 24, 27 and 32mm drop from $10,000 to $6,000 each, with equivalent pricing in Euros at CVP. Johnnie has been shooting with the 42mm Mercury on several recent reviews, including the FX5 review.

What Atlas has effectively done is move the Mercury line from a rental item to something an owner-operator can justify – and it runs directly against the industry trend of raising prices on anything containing electronics.

Blackmagic Camera 10.2.2 Released – Cinema Camera 6K Gains Phase-Detect Autofocus, Cloud Streaming, and 10-Minute Pre-Record

(01:34:55 in the episode)

Face detection, phase-detect autofocus, cloud streaming and ten minutes of pre-record, delivered by free firmware to a camera that has been on the market for years. Which raises the obvious question: if Blackmagic Design can add a 10-minute pre-record this way, why can Sony not do the same for the FX5? That is one for the next conversation with them.

Autofocus used to be an afterthought at Blackmagic, and recent firmware has genuinely closed that gap across a number of existing bodies. Johnnie’s point is the wider one – updates like this are why people feel their investment has been looked after, and a reminder that in a market releasing cameras at this pace, a lot of very capable cameras are nowhere near obsolete.

DJI Mic Mini 2S Released – 32-Bit Float Internal Recording, 14.5GB Storage, and Four-Transmitter Support

(01:37:39 in the episode)

The first Mini with onboard 32-bit float recording, 14.5GB of internal storage and support for up to four transmitters, at €99 for a one-transmitter kit and €189 for two. Very attractive pricing.

What confuses us is the lineup logic: like the DJI Mic 3, the Mini 2S has no 3.5mm input, so no lavalier. That was supposed to be what separated the professional line from the consumer line. The counter-argument is that the market has moved – with AI noise reduction and voice reconstruction in post, the capsule matters less than it used to.

Saramonic K9 XTX Released – Plug-On UHF Transmitter With 32-Bit Float Recording, Timecode, and 48V Phantom Power

(01:43:32 in the episode)

The more professional audio release of the week: a plug-on UHF transmitter with 48V phantom power, onboard 32-bit float recording as a safety and timecode support. Johnnie’s angle is that this gives new life to shotguns you already own – that Sennheiser MKH 416 sitting in the office because your mirrorless camera has no XLR attachment.

CP+ 2027 Announced – Four Days in Yokohama, Exhibitor Applications Open, and a New Early Bird Plan

(01:45:24 in the episode)

Exhibitor applications for next February’s show are open, with early bird pricing for companies registering now. CineD is a media partner, and CP+ is run by CIPA – the same organisation behind the shipment figures we opened with. It is also one of the few shows in the industry you could genuinely bring your family to, and considerably less expensive to exhibit at than IBC or NAB.

Strada 2.0 Now Available – Mounts Remote Storage as a Virtual Drive, and More

(01:47:00 in the episode)

The feature we have been asking Strada for is now in the shipping version: remote storage mounts as a virtual drive and appears in the Finder like an external disk, with drag and drop. For remote editing on a decent connection this could make a real difference, and potentially save what teams currently spend on cloud services.

HOVERAir VERSA – Pocket Camera Gimbal and Drone in One: Pro Gear or Gimmick?

(01:48:01 in the episode)

A crowdfunding campaign for a drone built around a detachable handheld pocket camera – so the same unit is either a gimbal in your hand or the payload in the air. Johnnie loves the two-purposes-in-one thinking; Nino is more sceptical, because carrying a handheld unit inside a drone costs you flight time, and combining two products often means compromising both. Jacob asks in the article whether you would want a flying, detachable Osmo Pocket 4 Pro too.

Brevidy for Adobe Premiere Pro – AI Captions, Automatic Social Clips, and Vertical Reframing in One Panel

(01:50:58 in the episode)

Animated captions, automatic clip generation from long-form content, active-speaker vertical reframing and a stock media browser, all in a single panel inside Premiere Pro, integrating with Premiere’s own AI caption translation. Subscriptions start at $15 a month, noticeably below comparable online reframing tools. The Autocut function turns podcasts like this one into social clips – we may well give it a try.

Unlocking Performance – Actor-Director Collaboration, Uncanny Choices, and On-Set Immersion

(01:53:29 in the episode)

Our educational article of the week. Masha takes the unsettling performances in The Odyssey and Obsession as a starting point and asks what makes them work – the chemistry between actor and director, what is scripted and what is improvised, on-set spontaneity and immersion, with historical examples like The Godfather and interview snippets from actors who have worked with Christopher Nolan. A longer read than usual, and worth the time.