I spent US$4,000 on a pro Canon camera – and I'm worried I've been duped, as it doesn't have Content Credentials

Artificial Intelligence, or AI for short, is the buzzword you’re probably sick of hearing. As I’m sure you know by now, these revolutionary algorithm-based apps can do a whole host of clever tricks from helping you write a resume, to translating a foreign language, or even telling you the weather.

Fake news and ‘deepfake’ videos and pictures, using AI to either modify a genuine picture or create a wholly new one from scratch, get better by the day – and are constantly calling the world of digital photography into question. As somebody who judges photography competitions monthly I can’t convey to you how difficult this challenge has become in recent years.

Content Credentials were created by the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) as a way to combat fakes and give photographers a way to authenticate their work. Adobe Photoshop CC has the ability to start tagging your images with Content Credentials, which keeps a digital log of all the edits made in its metadata.

However, my concern is that it means the digital trail doesn’t go all the way back to the image source – so some tomfoolery could still happen and my images could still be called into question, even though I’ve spent $4,000 on a professional camera – the Canon EOS R5.

Fortunately, some camera manufacturers have clocked on and deemed it necessary to ensure Content Credentials is implemented from the moment you press the shutter button – but these cameras are currently in very low numbers.

So far the list includes the likes of the Leica M11-P, which was the first to use the CC tech. The Leica SL3-S, Sony A1, Sony A7S III, Sony A7 IV, Sony A9 III and Nikon Z6 III are a few more modern cameras that have Content Credentials baked in from the get-go, and it’s good to know that firmware updates are coming to add the feature to cameras like the Panasonic Lumix S5 IIX.

In the modern world where there's a growing need to authenticate between real and fake images, will the pictures taken on my Canon EOS R5 be called into question in the future if the original source can't be authenticated? I worry that today's purchase, for all its other upsides, might put me at a professional disadvantage tomorrow…

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Before you add the Canon EOS R5 Mark II to your cart, compare the Canon EOS R5 vs Canon EOS R6 II, or browse the best Canon RF lenses.