Thomas is a professional fine art photographer and writer specialising in photography related instructional books as well as travel writing and street photography.
With cameras constantly being released, I have found that a lot of the commentary around certain brands and models revolves around comparing the tech specs. People argue about things like minute differences in dynamic range or noise response as reasons to pick one camera over another. But there's so much more to choosing a camera.
It’s something of a new years tradition to look aead for the new year and set goals, while also keeping in mind where you’ve come from over the past 12 months. Last year was a really interesting year for me. In this post I want to outline my pans and goals for the next year!
Last year I got up early with the aim of capturing the sunrise for the first day of the year. I took some nice shots of the light before dawn but it clouded over too much before the actual sun rose. Still, I wanted to make it a tradition, and so, once again, I headed to the same spot in order to catch the first rays of sun for 2018.
It’s two hours to midnight here in Dublin as I write this, and it’s hard to believe that 2017 is nearly over. It was a really interesting year for me and my photography. The average visitors to this site increased significantly over the past year, and I’ve gained new audiences in areas I hadn’t expected. I started my Patreon Project and I also re-started my YouTube channel.
Since my initial testing of the X-Pro2 in 4K the other day, I’ve had a chance to do a little bit more shooting, and to do a comparison of the various film simulation modes. I’ve put together a compilation of clips of the same scene, using the various film simulation modes, and these are all ungraded and straight from the camera.
With the release of firmware 4.0, the Fuji X-Pro 2 now supports 4K video. I did some quick testing, recording some footage in some local parks. There is a mix of hand held and tripod. All was shot using ProNeg Standard as the film profile. There was some very light colour correction done in Final Cut Pro as well as a custom profile to give the footage a slight grade, but this was kept to a minimum. I didn’t stabilise or adjust the geometry of any footage, so as not to affect the detail.
Last week in Dublin a major engineering project was finished. The “Luas” cross-city tram project was finally completed. When the tram network was originally built there were two lines, which severed different parts of the city, but they weren’t connected, and there was no way to cross the city on the tram. Recently the city undertook a major civil engineering project to join the two lines. Over the past four years, I've been documenting the construction progress.
I have to say, I’m having somewhat mixed feelings about Adobe’s new Lightroom CC. When I tried it initially I didn’t like it at all. I thought it was way too limiting and I didn’t really see the point of it. My mind has shifted somewhat, after the most recent update, and now I just don’t know what to think anymore.
One of the things that struck me about the new artificial intelligence based automatic function in Lightroom was that it sounded a lot like Luminar’s accent AI filter. I was curious to see how they would compare, so I made a quick video see.
Adobe has issued some updates for both version of Lightroom today, and they add a few new features as well as the usual round of new camera support. Of particular note, Lightroom CC now gets some of the features that were missing, including a point curve tool, and a split tone tool. Of note in the new camera compatibility, is the addition of Sony A7RIII raw file support.
There has been a lot of talk lately about Lightroom alternatives. Much of this has been amplified by disquiet over the recent decision of Adobe to go subscription only, although there have been grumblings about this for a while. A lot of people are looking for alternatives because of this, and many people are making claims that x software will replace Lightroom and so on. Unfortunately because of the internet echo chamber, many of these claims are either untrue, out only true for specific purposes.
One of the key new features of Capture One 11 is the new layers system. As I mentioned in my first look at the software, it’s a really useful features, especially when it comes to applying creative looks to your image. You can do your creative editing on a new layer, and then use the opacity slider to fade the results, controlling the overall look. I really wanted to be able to apply a style to a new layer, but at first it wasn’t obvious how to do so. I figured it out though, and so here’s what to do.
I have had to temporarily disable sales on my online store as a technical problem has occurred that is affecting payment processing. I am working with the server administrators in my hosting company to resolve the issue, but in order to prevent any problems with customer purchases I am disabling sales until I can find a solution. I am also putting backup plan into place should this take too long to resolve.
Yesterday Phase One released the newest version of Capture One, Capture One 11. This new update features several major new features as well as some changes under the hood. The biggest difference in the upgrade is the new layers system, but there are also a lot of little features too.
I’m really enjoying shooting more Vlog style videos recently, and i’ve been trying a few different options for recording. All of the cameras that I have that record video, have some limitations, but I didn’t want to have to buy a new camera, and so I wanted to try and make the best with what I have. Of all of the models that I have that shoot video, I prefer the A6000 for this kind of thing, but it lacks a front facing screen. After a bit of research I found a really cheap option on Amazon.
As many of my readers shoot with Fuji cameras, and many of you have expressed an interest in using Luminar 2018 for processing Fuji files, I wanted to give an overview of what I think is the best way to work with Fuji files currently. This is just an overview, and doesn’t go into a huge amount of detail. I am planning do a proper guide for this, but for now, this is a basic outline of what you need to know.
Ever since Lightroom CC was announced - The new cloud based cut down desktop version - not to be confused with the old normal version - I have been thinking about ways to get around some of its limitations. The solution was to create a set of presets that allowed you to apply some of the effects that Lightroom CC is missing.
For a while now, I’ve been running a series of posts here on this blog called “Street Photo Diary”. I’ve also been practicing and testing various setups to allow me to produce “Vlog” style videos. After much testing and messing up, I have finally come up with a reasonable setup and idea, and that is to make a video version of my “Street Photo Diary” series. And so, a new monthly (for now) video series is born, also called “Street Photo Diary” !
