Not long ago the sub $1,000 camera was a competitive segment of the photography market but as costs increase and inflation rises, the options have become less and less. More importantly are any of the cameras you can get for under $1,000 even worth buying in 2025? In this article I’ll cover all your options for new cameras that fit a budget of $1,000 or less and exactly the ones you should consider. One of them is so good, I bought it myself!

I recently got to spend some time with the Fujifilm GFX100S II (thanks Fujifilm!) and from the moment I took the first shots, I was skeptical. Not because the images weren’t great, they were incredible. So much so that it seemed too good to be true. Was it just the moment, the light, or was there something more going on with this sensor?

This isn’t my first time shooting medium format. Recently I owned the Hasselblad X2D and while those images were full of detail, they never made me question my camera choices, which is why I was so confused by my first shots with the GFX100S II as they have the same sensor.

I’ve spent the past couple months taking lots of images on the Nikon Zf, and I haven’t needed to edit a single one. This got me thinking, how often do we see reviews or content from cameras without editing? There’s quite a lot of people out there looking to take images without needing to edit at all, or at the very least have a great starting point before they sit down in front of a computer.

I didn’t expect to fall for the Nikon Zf. Honestly, I barely knew it existed. But with a long trip ahead and no Fujifilm X100VI available to buy, I gave it a shot—and it completely caught me off guard.

From the moment I took it out of the box, the Zf felt different. The dials are the most tactile I’ve ever used in 15+ years with cameras. The on/off switch has a deliberate resistance. The shutter sound? Addictive. Nikon didn’t just build a camera—they built an experience.

Glow filters (aka black mist or bloom filters) are nothing new in photography yet I feel like I don’t see them talked about very much in the space of nature photography. I suspect this is likely because the majority of people in that space are very technical and want to capture images in the flattest, purest ways possible. I must admit it feels a little wrong to put something in front of my lens that, for all intents and purposes, slightly reduces the sharpness and “pure” quality of the images I’m capturing.

Is that such a bad thing though in today’s world of pristine images?