Jon Porter

You can also convert your files to DNG format using the free Adobe converter. CS5 can open these

Ken Rockwell is just like all photo blogs. He writes about his impressions and opinions of photo gear and we can make of it what we want. As to whether or not something is pro gear, who cares? "Pro" is a nebulous term. Ask a dozen people their definition of a professional photographer and you'll get a dozen different answers. I consider a pro someone who's primary income is from shooting pictures. Not the guy who shoots an occasional wedding, or a camera store clerk or a photo instructor. Others would disagree with me.

I bought the 50-230mm to augment my 18-135mm for the times I need a little more reach. There are some excellent buys on the lens and I'm impressed with its build quality for a low-cost lens. The zoom ring actually feels smoother than my 18-135mm. I mainly use the 50-230mm for shooting trains, usually at f/11, so the slow speed of the lens isn't an issue for me. The image quality is fine for my uses.

Fuji really needs a 100-300mm that sells for under $1,000. As nice as the 100-400mm is, it's too bulky and expensive for the limited use a lot of us would give it.

Another vote for the 10-24mm/18-135mm combination. It provides a very useful range for general travel photography and also has important overlap in case something happens to one of the lenses. Lose either and I still have the critical 24mm focal length (35mm equivalent) that's most useful for travel/walking-around photography. And with the good high ISO performance of today's cameras, using slower lenses isn't a problem.

I have the same problem with Photoshop CS6 not supporting the RAF files from my X-E2S. As a work-around I've tried converting the RAF files to DNG files, opened them in Silkypix, Iridient and Affinity Photo, and opened them in my iMac's Preview viewer and saved them as TIFF files. I've only had my X-E2S a month, so don't have extensive experience working with RAF files, but so far all five methods have produced excellent prints. I really can't see any significant differences between them. Since doing a batch conversion to DNG is the easiest, I'll probably continue with that while I get more up-to-speed with Silkypix, since that's the software included with Fuji cameras.

I haven't gotten past the trial version of it yet, but definitely plan to buy it once I finish a couple of other projects. It's the best Photoshop work-alike program I've seen. I'm in the same position you are – CS6 not supporting new cameras and eventually it may not run on newer computers. Plus I'm reducing monthly financial commitments, not taking on new ones that will only go up.

I use Photoshop CS6 (on OS 10.11.5) as my only photo editor. It no longer supports RAW files from new cameras, including my X-E2S, so I convert images to DNG for editing. This works fine but I'm curious if I'm missing anything by not editing from native files. So I did a test of printing an RAF file converted to DNG, another opened in Silkypix, and a third opened in the trial version of Iridient. All three prints look good. I can't see any flaws or advantages in any of the three editing methods. Has anyone else done comparisons between DNG and RAF files? I'd be interested in hearing other peoples' experiences with this.