I wrote a while ago about the issues I was having with my Canon RF24-105mm F4L. I noted that for some bizarre reason, the lens got softer at 24mm as you stopped down from f4. This is the opposite of what normally happens with a lens. I went through significant testing to make sure I wasn’t doing something stupid and to try to identify the problem. I also contacted Canon, and they said this was not normal behaviour and that I should send it in for service, as it was still under warranty. So I did that, and last week, after it took a month, I got the lens back. The results, unfortunately, were disappointing.

We were recently heading to Belfast for a meeting, and because the road from Dublin to Belfast can be a bit boring and monotonous (it’s just one long motorway), my wife and I decided to take the coastal route instead. So, we turned off at Newry and first stopped at Warrenpoint for Lunch, before heading on to Newcastle. I had never taken this route before, and I was quite impressed by the scenery. But it was coming into Newcastle that really blew me away.

With Adobe recently adding lots of new features to Camera RAW that so far aren’t in Lightroom, users of Lightroom may be wondering how to get access to some of those new tools. Well, it’s actually very straightforward, and you can use Camera RAW from Lightroom entirely non-destructively. You just need to follow the simple workflow below.

The news that Adobe has agreed to acquire Topaz Labs has hit the creative community with a collective “what the f….”. For anyone who relies on tools like Gigapixel, Photo AI, and Video AI, I’m sure this news is a bit of a worrying development, especially if you’re one of those creators who had exited the Adobe ecosystem (”you fool … there is no escape!”).

After a rather bleak and dull start to the year, it’s always nice when the grey world of winter springs to life. And while Spring has its own charms, things really explode into vividness once summer hits. I have always been fascinated by flowers and plants, not necessarily from a “nature” point of view, but by the wonderful colours and textures of the natural world. I guess the designer and artist in me just won’t quit.

With the last few Photoshop releases, Adobe has kept adding new features to Camera RAW. Usually, these would be added to Lightroom either at the same time or with the following release, but so recently, this hasn’t been the case. And these haven’t been minor features either, we’re talking some big, long-sought-after tools, including the colour corrector in masks, and the ability to adjust the edges and feathering of AI masks. Are we seeing a different strategy emerging from Adobe regarding its photography applications?

I’ve finally upgraded the site to Squarespace 7.1 and used the opportunity to redesign the layout and try out a few new features. It’s not perfect yet, but it already feels cleaner and more modern, with changes like removing the old sidebar and adding a new “Featured Posts” section on the home page. There are still some quirks to fix, like featured images no longer appearing automatically, plus a few spacing and menu tweaks still on the list. Read on for more details.

DXO is running a special Father’s Day promotion, and my readers can get 20% off with the code THOMAS_FD26. That’s pretty much it, really! The offer runs until June 28th, and it’s only valid for new customers, I’m afraid.

A set of June updates to Adobe’s Photography applications will be released later this week. This will include Lightroom Classic, Lightroom, Photoshop and so on. For the most part, these will be bug fixes and new camera support, but there are a couple of things worth noting.

The start of this year has been a bit weird for me, photographically speaking. I haven’t taken a large number of photographs for various reasons. The terrible weather being one of them. However, over the first six months, I have taken a few street photos, and while there aren’t many, I thought I would share them here.

With the number of software and service subscriptions at an all-time high, and the loathing of software subscriptions even higher, maybe it’s time for governments to admit that there is a serious problem here. Companies will never regulate themselves, so maybe it’s time to consider legislation to address the issue. I’m not talking about banning subscriptions or anything, but rather regulating them so that they are a little more consumer-friendly, and a little less corporate-evil.

I’ve been publishing this website in one form or another since back in 2011. That’s fourteen years ago! Over that time, I have changed a lot, the world has changed a lot, and this website has…well, changed a bit, but frankly not enough. The amount of time I’ve spent posting here has consistently dropped off recently, and I realise that at least part of the reason is that I kind of hate this website now. I know that’s quite a strong response, but it’s true. Well, mostly.

I was playing around in Lightroom and Photoshop the other day, and I was trying to do something totally different, but in the process of experimenting, a brainwave hit me. I was thinking about the new Chromatic Shift effect in the recent Nik 9 release, and wondered what it would be like through 3d glasses. Then it occurred to me, what would happen if I combined it with the depth map? So I went on to Amazon, ordered some 3d glasses, and when they arrived 2 days later, I set out to try this technique out. It actually worked - sort of. And so, of course, I made a video!

I was chatting online with fellow Irish photographer David Cleland, and he told me of a rather unfortunate situation that has happened to him. I’ve been following David for a long time. He was one of the first people I knew who was embracing the Fujifilm ecosystem in the early days. He is actually a former Fujifilm X-Photographer, and you may know him through his website, FlixelPix. Unfortunately, through a series of unfortunate events, David has lost control of that domain, and now has a new website where you can find his work.

Capture One has released a new beta version of the software, that adds a much requested feature. The new release adds AI noise reduction to the photo editing application, and while currently only in Beta, it looks promising.

I’ve had my Fujifilm X-E4 for a long time now, and for the most part it’s a great little camera. I’ve used it as my main “lightweight” travel and walk-around camera for years now. Any time I want to bring a camera with me and I don’t want to lug my Canon R6II, I throw the Fujifilm in the bag. I had originally bought it to replace my ageing Sony a6000 for street photography, but that never really panned out. Mainly because I didn’t do street photography as much any more, but also, an annoying bug in the camera made it difficult to use with my style of street photography. But I finally found a solution.

This is one of those things that you might only ever come across once in the blue moon, but when you do, it’s useful to know how to fix it. If you’re shooting with a wide-angle lens, something like a 24mm or wider, and you have people at the edge of the frame, they can be distorted. This is especially true when shooting in portrait orientation and looking up. Like I said, this is a very specific situation, and it’s only by chance that I knew how to fix this.