Thomas is a professional fine art photographer and writer specialising in photography related instructional books as well as travel writing and street photography.
After a few months of slowly ramping up the effort I put into it, my YouTube channel seems to be starting to gain some traction, especially with my Street Photo Diary series. I’ve just published the tenth episode on YouTube, and my channel has just crossed the 3000 mark. These two albeit minor milestones have caused me to reflect and look back on how I got to this point, and where I want to go next.
The latest update to Luminar has just been released and it contains the new “Sky Enhancer” filter which Skylum have been plugging for a little while. The feature is another of the companies AI tools and it is specifically designed to enhance skies.
As a companion to the recently published Issue 36 of Street Photo Diary, I also shot another episode of the companion video series of the same name. It’s hard to believe that I’ve done ten of these now, and when I look back, they’ve really come a long way since my first attempts. In this episode I go searching for the winter light in Dublin city with my Fuji X-Pro 2 as my main camera.
As Autumn draws to a close here in Dublin, and the first days of winter begin to take hold, the cold days have one big plus for photography: the light is absolutely gorgeous. The low sun of the northern(ish) latitude brings with it beautiful long shadows and a golden light, while the skies take on a deep hue of blue.
A little while ago I posted a video overview of the new “express” version of Capture One. That video generated a lot of interest, and I also got a lot of questions about the software. With that in mind I created a follow up video where I answered the most common questions.
When you think of photography, the idea of reverse engineering probably isn't something that immediately comes to mind. Yet the concept is actually a pretty powerful learning technique. By examining an image that inspires you and figuring out how the photographer or artist created it, you can learn a lot, perhaps even more than if you were just told the solution.
While Fujifilm has a reputation for the quality of its lenses, when it comes to its primes, they may be good, but they are expensive. At the moment, while Fuji cameras are competitive, for those on a modest budget, it’s still pretty expensive to build up a collection of lenses. In some focal lengths the cheapest options are still really expensive.
Having repaired the detached mirror on my original Canon 5D I headed out onto the streets of Dublin city to do some street photography and test out the newly repaired camera.
Today Adobe is holding it’s “Max” conference, and the company officially announced a whole bunch of updates to the various creative cloud apps. I won’t go into everything here, but the ones that interest me the most, are the updates to Lightroom and Photoshop. I’m also pretty interested in the new Premiere Rush.
I realise that I’ve been covering Capture One quite a bit lately, but that’s mainly because of the announcements around Photokina regarding its partnership with Fujifilm. However, there’s lots of other software related news and releases, and I haven’t quite kept up with it all. Skylum, in addition to launching Aurora HDR2019, has also been making some announcements regarding Luminar, all of which are pretty interesting.
With the launch of the new free version of Capture One for Fuji shooters, I figured a lot of people would be trying the software for the first time. The software can be a little confusing at first however, especially if you’re coming from Lightroom, and some of the features may be a little hidden or not work the way you think. With that in mind I created a video to give you an overview of how to use the software.
One of the many things I like about Capture One, is the way you can create some really nice monochrome images with it. I’m not sure what it is about the software, but whatever is going on behind the scenes gives black and white images a really rich black look to them. It was this that caused me to create my first set of Capture One styles: Silver Lux.
While I’ve covered quite a few photo workflow applications here on the blog over the years, especially as it pertains to Fuji processing, one of the applications that I haven’t really dealt with is Alien Skin Exposure. It’s also probably the application I get asked about the most. A new version has just been released, and so I decided to give the trial version a spin, and here are some of my initial findings. This is just a first look and is by no means a comprehensive review.
This week Phase One released a new cut down version of Capture One which is free for Fuji shooters. While it doesn’t have all of the features of the full release, it can do quite a lot, considering that it is free. If you’re a Fuji shooter, and you were looking for a Lightroom alternative, then it’s worth giving it a try. In order to evaluate this, I downgraded my full version on one of my computer to check out what was included in the express option.
While the rumours of Panasonic planning to release a new full frame camera were fairly rampant in the lead up to Photokina, I think the announcement of a partnership between Sigma, Panasonic and Leica took many by surprise. Once you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Panasonic and Leica already have a long partnership, and Leica have an existing mount and system, so using that makes a lot of sense for Panasonic. Sigma also joining this group is interesting, because it means that there will be the potential for the system to expand much more quickly than it would with just one manufacturer.
Of the news coming out of Photokina today, this probably flew under the radar amid all the camera announcements, but I think it is one of the most significant for Fuji shooters. Phase One has basically done a deal with Fuji to better support Fuji cameras including its medium format cameras. It will also release a Fuji specific version of Capture One (similar to what the company currently does for Sony).
I have been a bit busy over the past few weeks, so I am a little behind with the announcement of the next version of Aurora HDR from Skylum Software. Also, given that the press release was pretty much covered on every site out there, I didn’t want to post something about it without trying it first. So having played with the beta for a little while now, I made a quick video to give you a run through of the new version.
With the new mirrorless camera options from Nikon and Canon there has been a lot of discussions about the various specs and pros and cons of these new cameras. Now that the initial craziness has died down a bit we’re starting to see reactions from those actually using these cameras, and for the most part the opinion from those with real world experience seems to be mostly positive. Something struck me though when reading some of the reviews, and also readings some comments on my own content, is that people may be missing the most important thing about these releases: Its about choice.
