I wrote in my last two street photography diary posts about how I was finding it difficult to keep inspired lately. In my continued effort to overcome it, I've tried to shake up my routine. Previously  I'd talked about going to different places, but this time my goal was to try and take different shots. I set out to try and get more abstract images, and I think it's kind of paid off.

A while ago I wrote a blog post about my issues with A6000 images in Lightroom not being calibrated particularly well. I included some calibration settings in the form of a pair of Lightroom presets. Since then, I’ve been doing some more work on trying to get a starting point that I’m happy with. With that in mind, here is my latest version of my Sony A6000 calibration preset that I’m ow using on my A6000 images in Lightroom.

I was browsing the Mac App Store last night looking for Apps which have photos extensions (which is not an easy task) and I came across a very interesting app which immediately got me very excited. The app, which is a basically just a photos edit extension is called “External Editors for Photos” and it does exactly what it says in the title. It addresses one of the biggest shortcomings of Apple’s Photos by giving it the ability to use any image editing application as an external editor.

I've been having some issues with Lightroom's performance on my mac for a while now. Coupled with some recent crashing, my frustration levels were beginning to rise. However, after a little research and some trial and error, I've managed to stop the crashing, and speed the application up a bit. While these techniques may well be familiar to you, I'm writing about them anyway should someone be having a similar problem and not be aware of what to do.

If you've purchased any of my presets packs, you've found that most of them come with a set of "Setup Presets" and may have been wondering just what exactly they are and how to use them. While there are instructions in the read me files included with most of the presets, some users are still finding them a bit confusing, so here is a more detailed description and short explanation on how to use the setup presets.

I know I'm getting  a bit carried away with posts on the upcoming Sony A6300, but I'm really excited about the potential of this camera. In particular, I'm really looking forward to the video features of the new Sony. On paper it sounds impressive, but now there's some real world testing and footage out there too, and it doesn't disappoint.

I wrote a post yesterday outlining some of the Jpeg settings that I use on a regular basis when shooting with my X-E1. While I mainly use Raw, I generally shoot Raw + Jpeg. Anyway, I wanted to experiment, and shoot specifically within the range of settings that I specified and limit myself to using the Jpeg files, and so I headed into a nearby park yesterday to take some pictures.

When I was writing my epic three part Sony A6000 review, for whatever reason I left out any mention of the two best lenses that I have for the system. They are the Sigma 30mm and 19mm e-mount lenses. I’m not really sure how I managed to forget about these when I was writing the piece, but anyway, I’m making up for it now by writing this mini-review of the two lenses.

I recently read an interesting post on Medium about the advantages of side projects. In the case of the article I read, it was talking about web development, but it occurred to me that the same thing can be true of photography. Depending on your business model, a side project could actually be quite beneficial to you.

On this blog, I've covered the settings and techniques I use for processing Fuji raw files quite a bit, but I've never really discussed the settings that I use in-camera for use with Jpeg images. While I mostly use the Raw files, I do occasionally use Jpegs straight from the camera. Over the years I've been using my X-E1, I've chopped and changed the setup that I use quite a bit, but here are the settings that I currently use.

I recently wrote a post about some features that I'd love to see in an upcoming version of Apple's Photos for the Mac. I also have some ideas on photographer friendly features that I'd like to see on iOS at some point. Some of these I've wanted for a while and written about before, so I'm not so optimistic, but these are features I'd really like to see in iOS at some point. I've tried to keep these ideas to things that would be reasonable to implement, or in-keeping with what one could expect at the operating system level.

I had stated when I launched Coffee Tones for Lightroom last month, that it was my intent to launch a new set of Lightroom presets every month this year. Well, it was getting close, but it looks like I made it with a few days to spare! I’m happy to announce today, that my newest set, MonoLux for Lightroom is now available.

A sneak peek at my upcoming set of monochrome Lightroom Presets, MonoLux. MonoLux will be one of my new smaller packs, like Coffee Tones. I have a number of different looks and variations in the pack including some faded looks (which you can see examples of below), and also some special effects (Just for fun). 

One of the biggest complaints that users of Sony’s Aps-c format E-mount cameras such as the A6000 have is the lack of good, inexpensive prime lenses. In my recent long term review of the A6000 I made this point, and I wished for an equivalent to Fuji’s excellent 35mm f/1.4. In fact, the lack of a good fast native prime for the format has been a real issue. Fortunately Sigma has just addressed that gap in the lineup with the launch of the new 30mm f/1.4mm prime lens for e-mount (and m43).

Sigma today announced a very interesting new product. The inspiringly named MC-11 is a lens mount adaptor designed specifically to adapt Sigma's lenses for use on Sony e-mount systems. It comes in either canon EF or Sigma SA versions for use with corresponding sigma lenses.