Considering the slowdown that’s hit the camera industry due to various issues related to the Covid-19 pandemic – the current component shortages and supply chain difficulties both being significant knock-on effects – there were still a lot of products on the long list for this year’s TIPA World Awards.
OK, so in the camera categories, some models pretty much nominated themselves by not having a great deal of competition, but everywhere else – especially with lenses – it was a knock-’em-down, drag-’em-out contest with plenty of contenders vying for the win. As we’ve noted on a number of occasions in this magazine over the last 18 months or so, lenses are a big deal as more and more photographers make the switch from DSLR to mirrorless. In fact, this year there are a record 12 categories for lenses, and there could really have been more except that we had to stop somewhere. It’s very much a sign of what’s happening in the market at the moment... as is the extensive rejigging of the full category list for this year, which also reflects the growing market interest in photo monitors, image editing software other than Photoshop and ever more camera-capable smartphones. All this kept the Technical Committee up at night – well, actually only me. Given the time differences with Europe and North America, the Zoom meetings took place at 10pm local time in Sydney and routinely ran past midnight… my best finishing time being 1.30am. Still, it’s an indication of just how much went into compiling this year’s list of winners as we whittled the long list down to a short one, then narrowed things down again to the candidates-most-likely. This is my third year on the TIPA Technical Committee, and it was certainly the most challenging in terms of adjusting the categories for relevancy and determining how products would compete within them.
This year’s annual TIPA General Assembly was a ‘hybrid’ meeting with those members that could travel – or felt able to – gathering at Leica’s superb facility at Leitz Park in Wetzlar, Germany. As it turned out, perhaps not surprisingly, the majority of these were Europe-based, while the rest of us participated via Zoom. Consequently, as with last year (which was an entirely Zoomed gathering), the Technical Committee was again tasked with pinning down a fairly tight set of Award winners, leaving only the categories where the candidates were very closely matched open to debate at the voting session. Of course, this list was circulated to all the member editors well before voting so they could have their say and suggest any changes. Given how much time wed put into fine-tuning it, we weren’t really surprised that everybody was happy with what had been proposed. And so, on the day, the whole voting process went very smoothly.
The period of eligibility for the 2022 Awards was from 1 May 2021 to 30 April 2022, with the key provisos that everything has to be available to buy in most markets by the closing date, and have been tested by one or more member magazines. In terms of the latter, TIPA is now partnering with the French engineering company DXOMark Image Labs for the testing of cameras, lenses and smartphones. This provides us with comprehensive and, most importantly, fully independent evaluations of a product’s performance in many areas. Of course, there’s always room for subjective input – driven by the heart rather than just the head – which is often a major part of a buying decision. especially for a new camera.
So... drumroll... here are the products that ticked all our boxes over the last year.
OM System OM-1
BEST MFT CAMERA
with a processing engine that’s three times faster than its predecessor. This new flagship camera is ideal for recording images in low light, with a native ISO range up to 102,400, as well as for capturing action with ultra-high speed sequential shooting modes and fast subject tracking. It includes AI-based Detection Autofocus recognition for cars, motorcycles, aeroplanes, helicopters,
