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Murray Foote

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Everything posted by Murray Foote

  1. Introduction to Infrared Photography (40 images) . Click image or link for 40 images and detailed commentary. ,
  2. How to spend some time on setup then end up with a simple yet powerful camera. It is then quick to switch to different situations and you're less likely to forget important settings. Setting up a Fujifilm X-E4.
  3. I have discovered how to add links to the Table of Contents (and back). This should make it easier for people to navigate and to come back to particular sections. I have also added sections on On1 Photo Raw and Working with Lightroom and Photoshop. The table of contents is now. Intro Why? Why RAW? Why Bracket? Why FastRawViewer? Why Lightroom? Why Auto Tone? Process Importing to Lightroom Creating an Import Preset Assessing Images in FastRawViewer Updating Images in Lightroom Auto Tone Further Processing in Lightroom Launching to Photoshop Alternatives RAW conversion of Fuji Files Plug-Ins Alternative RAW Processors ON1 Photo Raw Capture One Using Lightroom and Capture One Luminosity Masking Switching RAW Processors Application Mortality Backing Up Final comments
  4. DxO is in receivership so they may have limited capability for support and upgrades.
  5. I have updated the article with some comments on the new "Enhance Details" feature in Lightroom, towards the end of "RAW conversion of Fuji Files" in Part 3.
  6. I’m using both. I think "worms" and artefacts in Lightroom are a consequence of the way you sharpen rather than a property of Lightroom as such and you can match default Capture One sharpening in Lightroom so that's not my reason for using Capture One. I have more about this in the "A RAW Workflow" art5icle in a nearby thread. Capture One is a more powerful editor in many ways, especially for colour including regional control of colour and to a lesser extent, clarity and structure. There are still many things I can do in LR and PS that I can’t do in C1. There’s also no point switching my catalogue over. I have 160,000 files which come to around 5.2TB. If I had to save them as TIFFs that would be five times as much disk space. I’d rather have a single catalogue for searching and printing and Lightroom is better for printing anyway. I am processing most images in C1 but some work better in LR. I am often dual processing currently. I export finished images from Capture One as TIFFs, copying them inside Lightroom as ProPhoto JPEGS and then deleting the TIFFs. When C1 gets Windows support for JPEGMini, I will be able to do that directly. The files have a _C1 filename suffix and are marked as Blue, so I can know which to go back to C1 to modify if necessary. C1 does take a lot of effort to understand though, much more than LR I think.
  7. I have extensively updated the article with new sections on: RAW conversion of Fuji Files Plug-Ins Alternative RAW Processors Capture One Luminosity Masking Switching RAW Processors Application Mortality
  8. My latest article for the Canberra Photographic Society: A RAW Workflow. Of interest to JPEG shooters as well as RAW shooters. I’ve tried to write this concisely for everyone at all experience levels. Feel free to comment.
  9. Thank you DFaye and Woodlander, I didn't get notified of your comments. It's true it's not light, though it's around half the weight of the Sigma 180mm f2.8 macro I also have. All a question of priorities.
  10. Ironically, my two most used lenses are the 10-24mm f4 and the 55-200mm f4.5-5.6 and I may not be using either of them any more. The 10-24mm died due to drowning and I expect to replace it with the 8-16mm when it comes out. Now that I have the 80mm macro, I expect to replace the 55-200mm with a combination of 56mm f1.2, 80mm macro and 100-400mm. Last year mind you, my most used lenses were the 23mm f2 and the 100-400mm.
  11. Of course we all know that specific cameras and lenses are far from the most important things in photography but I just got a new lens and here are some images I used it in creating. I expect it will replace my 55-200mm on my next trip. Sharpness in this lens is adequate. In other words, it may well be the sharpest Fuji lens, as other reviews suggest and may make some other lenses seem inadequate in comparison. Mind you, if all you want to do is to post images online, it’s questionable whether you’ll see the benefits in your posted images because even a 4K monitor is only equivalent to the resolution of a 6MP sensor. It’s a genuine 1:1 macro lens that also works well as a general lens. Autofocus works well from macro to infinity and not all macro lenses have good autofocus for macro. I had great difficulty getting focus on the petals of a white rose in low light but that’s more a product of Fuji’s contrast based autofocus than the lens. Using it with the 1.4x teleconverter is excellent. Hardly any additional weight and quite viable wide open. No doubt better if you stop the lens down a stop or two but no need to avoid wide open. Vignetting? Meh. Several reviews have suggested a problem with vignetting. I find it to be minimal and in any case easily correctible. (Out of focus image of clouds included). Bokeh seems fine from my point of view. I didn't do any artificial; testing, though. Image stabilisation works very well. Fuji claim 5 stops and while I have not systematically tested this, the shot of Ashoka (the red Burmese cat) is at 1/15 sec. No good for portraits because it’s too sharp? Several reviewers have suggested that but I don’t agree though I have little interest in portraits unless in the context of live music or street photography (ie unposed, not street portraits). The 90mm is no doubt more of a portrait lens but sharpness is not a problem. It is very easy in the current version of Lightroom to roughly paint the face with the Adjustment Brush, then select skin tones with the new colour range and blur accordingly. I also have a Sigma 180mm f2.8 macro. On the Nikon D3s, that is twice the weight of the Fuji X-T2 + 80mm f2.8 macro + 1.4x TC. That is an advantage for travelling, but ironically because the Fuji is much lighter, it is much more difficult to hand hold steadily for macro focusing. Focus stacking works well provided you use a tripod. There are three possible methods here. (1) You can use the autofocus to select different points of focus. (2) You can use the focus scale in manual focus to set different points of focus. (3) You can use focus peaking in manual to select different points of focus. I don’t recommend (1) because you are likely to miss a focus point but (2) and (3) work fine. I have included examples using both focus methods (2) and (3). The main disadvantage for me is that hand-held focus bracketing is not possible. With the Nikon and the Sigma I could turn the focusing ring from out of focus at the back to out of focus at the front for quick focus bracketing on the fly. Usually I used a monopod but sometimes I actually hand-held. This is not possible with the Fuji alternative. This is a problem with the X-T2 rather than the lens, probably correctable in firmware. Attached images: (1) Lichen on tree. 1/125 sec, f5.6, 200ISO, plus 1.4x TC. Handheld. Cropped in from the sides. (2) White rose. 1/160, f14, 250ISO, plus 1.4x TC. Handheld. Uncropped. The spider in the corner is sharp. (3) Ashoka (red Burmese) at point blank range and 1/15 sec, f2.8, 800ISO. Handheld. (4) Small cactus. Focus stacked.
  12. I haven't had such problems, using my cameras in both hot and humid and very cold conditions. It seems to me that an obvious course of action is to test the batteries. You could test the actual charge but that might not tell you enough. Charge each battery them flatten it by either firing shots off on fast continuous or by taking some say 5-minute exposures. See how many shots you get and compare it to a new battery.
  13. I am Official Photographer for several Blues Festivals and I shoot there with Nikon full-frame equipment. However, I also shoot local gigs with my Fuji system which though not as good is still quite viable for the purpose. My preferred long lens including for live music is the 100-400mm which is probably not a useful suggestion. However, the first thing is to make the best of whatever you have and take what is possible with your equi8pment in the given lighting conditions. Getting a shot with a very high ISO is better than a blurred one with too low a shutter speed and wide open is often necessary. The more you push the ISO, the more important correct exposure is because noise abounds in deep shadows at high ISO as the dynamic range contracts. Taking the image is one thing. Post-processing is also critical and for me, just as important as taking the original image.
  14. I have one on order even though the 23mm f1.4 has a reputation for somewhat better image quality. It all depends what you want from the lens. I'm after one because it's small, light and weather protected. I have it in mind for a long walk of many days in extreme weather conditions and it may be a replacement for my X100S when I don't want to have too many cameras with me. In terms of using just the 23mm focal length, you may be interested in my trip in 2011 to New York where I just had an original X100. (If you go through page by page there's one page not from New York and not with the X100).
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