Affinity Photo is one of the more interesting Photoshop competitors out there, and it has a powerful feature set. I find myself using it more and more for various tasks, and its speed makes it a very useful software tool to have in your arsenal. The software has its own raw processing engine, and while it hasn’t ben updated to include X-Pro 2 support yet, you can still open and edit X-Pro 2 raw files with the software thanks to a semi hidden feature.

I’ve been busy with a few ongoing projects at the moment and I wanted to provide you with a few updates that I thought you might be interested in. I’m working on a few interesting things here for the blog, and also a few new interesting products for my store, so stay tuned for that. In the mean time, here are a few updates that you might be interested in...

I have just updated my Fuji X-Trans Lightroom guide with some significant changes. I’m calling it “version 1.5” and it contains some updated information, including some notes on processing 24mp X-Trans files, such as those from the X-Pro 2. I also tried to incorporate as much of the feedback and questions that I’ve received since the initial release. I also used the opportunity of releasing an updated edition to make some other changes and include some additional detail. If you had previously purchased this guide, the updated version is available for free to download from your account

When the rumours of the new Sony A6500 surfaced a few days before it was announced, I have to say, I was a little skeptical. I really didn’t think Sony would release another camera in the range so soon after the A6300 but I was happy to be proven wrong. The newly announced A6500 is a step above the 6300 and pretty much addresses all the criticism of the 63000 which is also still fairly new

I was walking through a local park here in Dublin the other day, and I loved how the low Autumn sun was creating these lovely patterns of Dappled light on the ground. In the shadows of the trees there were patches of sunshine that danced as the breeze blew the leaves. It was quite beautiful and relaxing, and as I had my trusty X-Pro 2 with me I decided that I would shoot some video as well as stills.

I was walking through a nearby forested park the other day, and I caught an interesting sequence of images. There is a large lake in the middle of the park and there’s always lots of ducks and seagulls there. At this time of the year it’s especially beautiful, as the autumn colours on the leaves give the waters of the lake a patchwork of green and gold. 

If you’re a user of any of my presets, then you will know that I’ve designed them with the idea of being used with the “Standard” camera profile. The idea behind this was to provide a base level of compatibility across cameras, without having to create custom colour profiles for different models. Most manufacturers have a standard profile, and while obviously this isn’t exactly the same across different cameras, it’s generally the most “normal” looking profile, which is why I use that as the base for my presets.

I’ve been very busy working on an update for my Lightroom X-Trans processing guide. I had hoped to have it out a while ago, but it ended up taking longer than anticipated. The revised version of my guide, features updates to cover some changes that I’ve noticed in the approach that I take for the newer 24mp X-Trans cameras such as the X-Pro 2 and the X-T2. I’ve also added a few new sections, and made it longer

Ever since upgrading to the latest version of Lightroom, I’ve noticed that the software has been running much slower for me than it had been previously. At first I thought it was something to do with my computer, but I checked it out out on my Laptop, and it seems to be having some issues too.

I’ve always been quite fond of textures and patterns. I find that, even in the seemingly harsh and cold medium of concrete and glass there can be beauty. I spent a few hours the other day in one of the newest parts of Dublin City, where there are lots of modern buildings as well as ongoing construction, and the light was just right to really emphasis the aesthetics of these elements.

As regular readers will undoubtedly know, I’m somewhat preoccupied (some would say obsessed) with various RAW converters and the differences between them, especially when it comes to Fuji x-Trans support. I’ve found that because of the uniqueness of Fuji’s X-Trans sensor, the results you can get from processing RAW files in different raw converters can vary significantly. I reported last week that Apple has (finally) added X-Pro 2 support to Photos and other software that uses Apple’s system wide Raw engine. I only briefly looked at it then, but in this post I want to examine it in more detail.

One of the features of Aperture that I really miss from Photos is the way it handled Raw + Jpeg pairs. If you shoot both, Aperture gave you a great way of managing them. It would allow you to specify which you wanted to import, or it would let you combine them into a RAW + Jpeg pair. It would let you decide, at the time of import, which you wanted as the primary source and you could easily switch between them in the software afterwards. In Photos, while it still combines Raw + Jpeg pairs, there’s no control over the import process, it always sets Jpeg as the primary source and you can only switch between them one at a time in the edit mode.

Continuing on from my post the other day, I’ve done some more shooting with my borrowed Sony A7II using some of my Canon lenses. This time, I was back out in the city of Dublin. I wanted to do something a little different, and so I used my 17-40f4L Canon lens to get some cityscape shots.

Adobe yesterday released a new update to Lightroom. This brings the release to 2015.7 for CC users or 6.7 for non creative cloud owners. Among the numerous bug fixes and new camera and lens support were a couple of new features. One in particular bears a bit of discussion. Apple has added the option to use Smart Previews instead of originals as a way to speed up Lightroom. 

I recently had the opportunity to borrow a friend’s Sony A7II and I was keen to try some Canon lenses on it via a Metabones adaptor. I had borrowed the camera off him before, but that was using an older firmware. Since then Sony has added the same autofocus update for adapted lenses via a firmware upgrade (v.2 I think) from the A7RII and A7SII, and I wanted to see how good it was. I had read lots of reports about the performance on the A7RII, but not many on the upgraded A7II, and I was really pleasantly surprised by the results.

Trees bathed in a patch of light as they grow on the side of the mountain. Glendalough National Park, Co. Wicklow, Ireland

Apple has finally added RAW support for the Fuji X-Pro 2 to Mac OS X. The latest Digital Camera Raw Update released yesterday adds support for just two cameras, the Fuji X-Pro 2 and the Pentax K-7. It’s taken a while for X-Pro 2 support to come to Apple’s system level Raw services, but you should now be able to use X-Pro2 Raw files in software that uses that service, such as Photos, Affinity Photo or Aperture

Street photography seems to be a topic that stirs a lot of emotion in people. Some, understandably passionate photographers seem to think that street photography is a sort of religion, with strict rules for devout followers. Those who deviate from the faith are deemed not to be true believers and exiled by the keepers of various internet blogs for fear of corrupting the pure ideology of the religion. Personally, I shoot it because I enjoy it, and I don’t really take it that seriously. I do find some of the discussions somewhat amusing though.

It was a beautiful sunny Autumn morning here in Dublin last Sunday, and so I set about doing something I had wanted to do for a while, but I had kept putting off for various reasons. When I saw the beautiful light, I decided to head out and shoot some video (semi-properly) on my Fuji X-Pro 2. I had shot some clips before, but I hadn’t set out to do a proper shoot. For this test, I wanted to try and shoot reasonably properly, so I took my tripod, and more importantly, a proper variable ND filter. While I had a few hiccups, for the most part I’m happy with what I shot.