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Well, it's that time of year once again
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Welcome to the 2025 DA Awards. This is the third annual DA Awards of completely meaningless and entirely arbitrary awards that
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I make up myself. When I look back over 2025 and the various things that I have reviewed over the course of the year
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in fact, in this case, that's 119 different YouTube reviews that I have published in 2025
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And as I look back over them, there are some things that stand out to me as being exceptional
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And so I am here tonight to award those things. Thank you for joining me once again for our annual awards
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Now there is basically just two criteria when it comes to these awards. First of all, it has to be something that I reviewed in 2025. And the second criteria is entirely subjective. It is how much that particular product impressed me and stood out from the competition
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So let's jump into our first category, which is camera of the year. I had the opportunity to
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review cameras from Canon, from Nikon, from Sony, and from Fujifilm in 2025, and there are a few that
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stood out to me. I will give one caveat in that my review of the Sony a75 is still a review in
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process. I just received it within the last 24 hours and have just started to review it
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And so right now I am going more on what I'm aware of from a briefing and from what I've
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seen from other reviewers, but it certainly stands out as one of the best camera releases
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of 2025. However, just in terms of the specifications, doesn't stand out to me as much as another
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camera that I'll get to in just a moment. But some definite standouts there, the ability to really function in a lot of ways, like an
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A1 Mark II Lite with that great burst feed, blackout free viewfinder, and other great features
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And so it's pretty awesome. I also really found the Nikon Z5 Mark II to be an incredibly impressive
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camera for the price point. And I will note that it is competing at a lower price level than any of
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these other cameras that I'm mentioning here. And so it is a great, great value camera, a really
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awesome camera for the money. My winner, however, this year is the Canon R6 Mark III, a camera that
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really stands out as one that has very few limitations. One of those limitations where the
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a75 does surpass it is when it comes to a blackout free viewfinder. But outside of that, it has
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tremendous capabilities, both as a stills and also as a video camera. And it's in the latter point
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where I think it could be argued that it surpasses the Sony a75 and some of those areas with the
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open gate video, the ability to shoot a huge variety of codecs and produce really high resolution
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footage. It is a really fantastic camera. And what's more, I feel like it's a camera that feels
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great in the hand. It just works really, really well. So kudos to Canon for continuing to raise
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the bar of what is possible in the R6 series, which has been competitive from day one
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second category is the zoom lens of the year and this was a really competitive category in 2025
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there was a lot of great zooms that were released in 2025 and not just great zooms but also unique
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zooms that whereas i feel like we're getting to a place of maturation in a lot of the various
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lens makers and so it allows them to be a little bit more creative and we reap the benefits of that
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as consumers. My honorable mentions for this year include a Sigma lens, the 300 to 600 millimeter
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f4 sport, which is a fantastic lens. It's big and heavy and maybe beyond what most people are
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looking for. And so I didn't get my top award here, but it is an amazingly good lens and one
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that really is a strong value compared to the prime lenses that it really competes with. And so
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a very, very impressive product from Sigma this year. Also, Tamron's 25-200mm f2.8-5.6 is a
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fantastic travel zoom. Does just a lot of things really, really well, and it impressed me a lot
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And from the response from the audience, there's a lot of you out there that are interested in that
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lens. My runner-up, however, is a lens that in some ways kind of flew a bit under the radar
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And that was the Schneider Cruzenauts and LK Samyang 14-24mm f2.8. Right now LK Samyang doesn seem to have quite the momentum that they had a few years back but that should not dissuade you from looking at this lens it is a really impressive zoom lens that you know for example i tell you that the
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best kind of reward that i can get it is i'm traveling preparing to travel tomorrow and so
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i'm putting together what needs to be a very compact kit for this trip one of the lenses that
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absolutely had to go in there was the 14 to 24 millimeter f 2.8 it is so versatile it does so
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many things well and it's nice and compact and so I really really love it however the winner this
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year is more of a high-end zoom lens that is one that a lot of people would consider their zoom of
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the year and that is the Sony 50 to 150 millimeter f2g master lens it's heavy it's expensive but it
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is amazingly versatile and amazingly sharp the fact that they nailed this formula in a lens that
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is just so versatile in its focal length makes it a really really impressive lens and for those that
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shoot events shoot weddings shoot portrait photography it is a lens that is going to
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appeal to a lot of people and it's got the speed even with an f2 aperture to be an amazing like
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short distance sports lens as well and paired with one of sony's better sports bodies it can do
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amazing things in that metric so it is my zoom lens of the year the third category that i want
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to dive into is the budget APS-C prime lens. And so I define budget as being under $600 as the
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threshold that I use for that. There are a couple of lenses that were runner-ups for me. One of those
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is Sigma's 12 millimeter F1.4. It really advanced this series in terms of the feature set and the
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focus motor. And also it's just a really, really good lens optically at F1.4. And so if you're
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looking for a wide angle prime for APS-C, it is pretty impressive. Also, the Viltrox Pro AF 56mm
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f1.2 is a fantastic lens. It adds the combination of focal length and 56mm and maximum aperture f1.2
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that wasn't available on Sony and Nikon, and of course goes head-to-head with the Fuji's own 56mm
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f1.2, and I did a video that compared those two and showed just how much the Viltrox gave the far
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more expensive lens a run for the money. And so both of those are impressive runner-ups, but my
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winner this year actually goes to a budget lens, and that is the Viltrox Air 9mm f2.8. It is a lens
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that I found to be very, very good, not only on Sony, but it really impressed me on Fuji X-Mount
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where I reviewed it on Fuji's extremely demanding 40 megapixel sensor. And I was really, really
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impressed by just how sharp that lens was even on that sensor. It is as sharp as any wide angle lens
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that I've seen on Fuji period. And so it was a really, really impressive lens. And the fact that
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you can get it for under 200 bucks is just a bargain. And so I was very, very impressed by that
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Moving on to category number four, let's talk about my budget full frame prime lens under $600
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of the year. Again, a couple of runner-ups. And in this case, I got three runner-ups because
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Viltrox killed it in this category this year. The Viltrox Pro AF 85mm f1.4 is a lens that has sold
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a lot of portrait photographers because it has beautiful rendering, beautiful sharpness
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and an amazing price. The Viltrox Air 14mm f4 is really the full frame equivalent of that 9mm f2.8
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that I just praise so highly. And I actually, in some ways, like the full frame 14 millimeter better
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And the fact that you can get such a wide angle of view, the ability to use filters
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and have such a strong optical performance and a lens that cost less than 200 bucks
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Likewise, the Viltrox Air 50 millimeter F2 was every bit as sharp as the Sony 50 millimeter F1.4 G Master
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that I'm filming on right now. And yet again, it's another lens that can be had for under 200 bucks
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But my winner this year has to go to yet another Viltrox lens, and that is the Viltrox Evo 85mm F2
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This is a lens that launched a whole new series for Viltrox and did so in such impressive fashion
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It's so good optically. It has great autofocus, and despite being small and compact, it has a great feature set
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It's got an aperture ring that you can click or de-click. it's got the AFMF it's got the function button on it and it is beautifully made and can be had for
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around 270 bucks what an amazing value for a lens that is just really really good and by the way it another lens that going into my travel kit I wanted a short telephoto to bring along and it is so compact and so good It made the cut and
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it's coming with me on the trip. So kudos to Viltrox for, as I said, cleaning up in that
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category. This is, I think the space that Viltrox as a company really, really thrives. And I don't
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know that anybody is doing it better than them in the sub $600 prime category. The fifth category
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is premium prime lens. And there were a number of great lenses that cost more than 600 US dollars
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that fell into this category that I want to praise today. A couple of runner-ups include Sigma's
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135 millimeter f1.4. A lot of you love that lens as do I. It's amazing the combination of that
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large maximum aperture and that focal length provides images that are just pretty uniquely
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special. Also the Viltrox Lab 35mm f1.2 is another in that category, just another one of their high
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end Lab series lenses that now has come out on Z mount as well and on both Sony and Z mount. It is
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impressively good and competes with the very best on both of those platforms. Also we have the Sigma
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200mm f2 Sport, another amazing high end lens that I really have to praise. My winner however this year
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comes from Sony and it's Sony's 100 millimeter f2.8 GM macro lens. It is a lens that is pretty
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rare and that it's a macro lens at a traditional focal length that managed to push the bar of what
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was possible. It is optically better than pretty much any macro that I've tested before, but the
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ability to use teleconverters with it and increase that magnification up and the flexibility of how
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you can use the lens really set it in a different category. I also love the clutch mechanism that
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Sony has managed to design that gives you more of a true manual focus experience with hard stops
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It kind of gives you all of the best when it comes to macro experience and it is probably my next
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personal lens purchase and so I give them kudos for that. It's the lens that out of all the releases
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in 2025, I think is the most impressive for a prime lens for me. One of the categories that I
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added last year was the company that had the best year. And so my runner up this year is Viltrox
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Viltrox has been just growing year by year. They get stronger. It seems like every year
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and it feels like the day is coming very shortly where they're going to win in this category
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Every release in 2025 was pretty much a hit. I liked all of the air series lenses
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all of the pro series lenses the lab series lenses and they launched the new evo category that just
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won an award right here very impressive work by viltrox but my winner for the second year in a row
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has to be sigma sigma is they had a killer year releasing one hit after another and that includes
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creative zooms like the 17 to 40 millimeter f1.8 which again was one of the best aps-c lenses of
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the year and already is proving very popular on all of the platforms that it's sold for
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I've already mentioned their 300 to 600 millimeter f4 sport, which is a, just a kind of a groundbreaking
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zoom that comes at a price that is about half of what the competing prime lenses are, even though
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it covers all of those focal links. So great job on that front. Their 20 to 200 millimeter travel
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zoom is one that a lot of people are buying and loving because it stretched that focal length down
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to 20 millimeters, allowing you to get more in frame than any of these travel zooms before
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for full frame. Also, they released some fantastic primes, all of which I've mentioned
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including the 200 millimeter F2 Sport, 135 millimeter F1.4 arc. One that I didn't mention
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was their 35 millimeter F1.2 Mark II, a really well-rounded high-end prime lens that is pretty
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special. And then the 12 millimeter F1.4 for APS-C we mentioned previously. All of those are
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fantastic lenses. Lenses that I think could have competed for lens of the year in all of their
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categories. So kudos to Sigma. They continue to do a fantastic job of releasing lenses that are
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very desirable and often stretch the limits of what's possible at the focal length and aperture
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combination. Keep up the good work Sigma. I have no idea what you have coming next, but
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I can't wait to see it. How about the lens or the camera that most surprised me in 2025
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That has to be the Viltrox Air 50 millimeter F2. The Air series to that point had been lenses that
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I had largely considered to be good, but not necessarily great. They kind of, their strength
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have been in their APS lenses and the fact that they released a sub 50mm f2 that had the kind of sharpness that that lens has It really kind of blew my mind how good it really was Even when I tested on a 61 megapixel
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sensor, it had no problem resolving from corner to corner. It is a really impressive little prime
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lens, easy to bring along, easy to love and easy to afford. So it is the one that surprised me the
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most, my most disappointing lens or camera this year was the Fujifilm X half. And I recognize that
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I'm probably not the right market for that camera at all. But frankly, I found the camera to just
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I didn't hardly get it. I'll be honest. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around it. And I
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recognize it's more of a hipster product that will appeal to a certain kind of person, but
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there wasn't much about it that I enjoyed from autofocus to image quality, uh, to the ergonomics
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of it. It just did not press the right buttons for me. And so I would say it was my biggest
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disappointment of 2025. What was my most popular review of 2025? Ironically, it was part two of
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what was the most popular review of 2024. In 2024, I did a three-way comparison between
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the Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 on Fuji, and then the 16-55mm f2.8, and then the 18-55mm OS lens there
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And so that was my most popular 2024. I came back and revisited that in 2025, putting the Sigma 18-50mm
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f2.8 up against the newly released 16 to 55 millimeter mark two and the 16 to 50 millimeter
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f2.8 to f4.8. And people were really interested in seeing how all of those lenses compared on that
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demanding 40 megapixel Fuji sensor. And it was the most popular review of 2025. Now the flip side
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of that was what was my least popular review of 2025? It was the Hohem iSteady M7 Mobile Gimbal
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a motorized gimbal design for phones. It had only 679 views and it was released early on
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in 2025. The only upside compared to 2024's least popular reviews is that while I gained
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not one subscriber over that review. I didn't lose any, whereas the least popular of 2024
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I lost six subscribers over that video alone. So progress folks, at least I'm not turning you off
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by the reviews that you don't like. Finally, we're going to look at the reader's choice awards. Over
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the last three or four weeks, I have been polling you, the audience, to see what is your top camera
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Your top camera of 2025 is the Sony a75 and tied in second place are the R6 Mark III from Canon
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and the Z5 Mark II from Nikon. Both of those got 25% of your votes, but the Sony got over 40%
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And so it was your most popular camera. What was your top zoom lens of 2025? It was the same as
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mine the sony 50 to 150 millimeter f2 in second place was the sigma 300 to 600 millimeter f4
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sport your top prime lens by your votes was the sigma 135 millimeter f1.4 and you picked that
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over the second place of the sony 100 millimeter macro gm my findings swap those two results but
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we're both in the same ballpark your top aps-c lens of the year and in this case there really
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is even hardly a second place. You picked the Sigma 17 to 40 millimeter F1.8 by a landslide
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Over 80% of the votes went to the Sigma, making it easily the most popular APS-C lens to you
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the audience of 2025. I want to conclude by saying a big thank you to each and every one of you for
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your support in 2025. I thank you for continued growth on this channel, for being so supportive
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so loyal and so kind in your comments. You are a well-educated audience. You always push me to
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grow and be a little bit more careful always in my review process. And I really, really appreciate
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you. To all of you, I wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and hopefully 2026 is our best
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year yet. As always, thanks for watching. Have a great day. And remember, let the light in
