Thomas is a professional fine art photographer and writer specialising in photography related instructional books as well as travel writing and street photography.
All tagged Review
The Fujifilm Fujinon 16-80mm lens is one I’ve wanted for a long time, but it has been surprisingly difficult to get hold of here in Ireland. Ever since it came out, the standalone version has been back-ordered, and it was only really available here as part of a kit. I finally managed to get one second hand a couple of months ago, and I’ve been using it a lot since, including taking it on several trips. So, I wanted to do a non-technical review of this lens for those who might be interested.
I’ve been writing reviews for over ten years. I’ve covered all sorts of things from hardware, to software, and I’ve never had as hard a time writing a review as I have with Luminar AI. Since the application came out just before Christmas, I’ve seen many reviews and coverage extolling its virtues, but this wasn’t matching my experience with it. I wondered what I was doing wrong because it seemed like I was reading about a completely different application.
It’s been a little while now since Capture One 21 was released. The new version of Capture One has been accompanied by a bit of a backlash about the amount of new features. Putting that aside, for now, In this review, I wanted to focus on a couple of things, namely the headline features of Dehaze and Speed Edit, and I’ll discuss some of the other improvements too. I’ll also look at whether or not the criticism of this release is justified.
It’s weird writing a review of something that a lot of people have been talking about for quite some time now. Luminar 4 was pre-announced a while ago now, and the company has been drip feeding information about it to the public. Lots of people including myself have already shared details on some of the new features, the new interface and so on, so what’s left to review? Well, I wanted to wait until the software was actually released to put all the disparate threads together and talk about the application as a whole. So with that in mind, here are my impressions of Luminar 4, its new feature and what it is like to use.
K&F sent me some of their new filters to review. They included a polarising filter, a UV filter and two different Variable ND filters. In this post, I’m going to look at the first two, a circular polariser and a UV filter.
One of the things that every photographer should have is a good tripod. Over the years I’ve collected many different ones, and I’m always trying different designs and different models. Some can be very expensive, especially if you want a good and light model. One of the problems that I’ve always had is finding one that is light enough to easily carry but sturdy enough to hold a good DSLR rig. So when K&F Concept wanted me to try one of their bigger compact models, I said, sure, why not!
One of the interesting things that comes with the Spyder X Studio Package is the Spyder LensCal. This is a special test chart that makes it easy to calibrate your lenses on a DSLR. Because of the way that autofocus works on a DSLR a lens can sometimes be off with its focus point, and when you focus on an object it can be either very slightly infant or behind the point at which you’re focussing. Most camera offer a way to offset the focus, and the Spyder LensCal provides a way to reliably measure and set it, at least in theory.
I’m a little late with this but following on from their first Capture One set, Mastin Labs has released another film emulation style pack. This set, called “Fujicolour Original” covers Fujifilm negative stocks, and is similar to their previous Kodak set, and the company’s Lightroom presets of the same name. They sent me a set to try out, and so here is my quick first impressions review.
I’ve had the Spyder X attached to my computer for over a week now, and for the most part there isn’t much one needs to do. It does continue to work away in the background though, so I wanted to give it some time to see what it was like to be using it over a longer period.
Having worked in both the print, photography and video industries for a long time, I’ve always appreciated the importance of having a properly calibrated display. It can actually make a huge difference, especially if you’re collaborating with others or having you work printed or so on. Over the years I’ve used a variety of calibration tools, and I’ve recently been trying out a new calibration system for my computer, the Datacolor Spyder X.
Today, Skylum Software releases the first major update to Luminar 3. The release brings a couple of new features along with lots of other fixes and tweaks. The two headline features of the new version are Accent AI 2.0 and Raw + Jpeg management. I’ve been trying the beta for a few days and here’s what I found.
It’s been over a year since the developers of Luminar teased that the upcoming asset management side of the software would come as a free upgrade to Luminar. Since then, people have eagerly waited for it, but for the longest time, it seemed like the rollout was getting further and further away. Finally, the first iteration of Luminar with this new “library” add-on is here. Unfortunately, it’s not quite what I think people were expecting. It’s a step in the right direction, but the software still has a long way to go.
If you haven’t seen them before, a Lensball is basically a polished glass sphere. That’s pretty much all there is to it, but once you’re aware of it, you start to see them cropping up everywhere, in Instagram and other online photos. A little while ago, the company that makes them sent me one to review, and I’ve been having fun with it ever since.
When I did a recent episode of my “Street Photo Diary” series of videos, in which I shot with the Sony A6000, I got a lot of questions about the lenses that I use. The two that I probably use the most when shooting street photography, str two Sigma Lenses, the 30mm and 19mm f/2.8. In this video, I go shooting with these lenses and give you a quick review as well as showcasing the process.
It’s been a while since I’ve had a new iPad. In fact, it’s been a while since I had an iPad that was actually usable. I hadn’t upgraded since the iPad 3 as I had nothing but trouble with that model, and it kind of put me off. But with the numerous apps coming out on iOS for photographers, I was starting to feel a little left out. I had been considering an iPad Pro, but I just couldn’t afford it. So when Apple announced the new 6th generation iPad with Apple Pencil support, I decided it was finally time.
I was recently contacted by a representative from K&F concept who wanted to know if I would be interested in reviewing one of their camera bags. I actually have some of their other products, in particular some of their adaptor rings, and I’m really impressed with the quality for the price. So I said sure, why not! so they sent me one of their DSLR backpacks to try.
Lightroom Classic is essentially Lightroom 7 in Adobe’s weird new naming scheme. If you look in the about box, you will see the version number is listed as a 7.0 release. While a numbered upgrade like this is normally a major feature release, Lightroom Classic seems to offer relatively little in terms of new features since the previous version. The main areas are the new masking tools, improved importing and overall performance improvements.
I recently had the opportunity to borrow a friend’s Sony RX100. The original RX100 was revolutionary when it first came out and I have always wanted to try one. Having used it, I can see now why it was such a game changer at the time.
