New Meike Hand Grips for Fujifilm X-T2, X-T1 and X-Pro2

Meike has introduced new hand grips for X-T2, X-T1 and X-Pro2

Meike X-T2G hand grip for X-T2 improves the grip on the camera and reduces the chances of camera shake, especially when using heavy, large aperture lenses. Can be used as a quick release with compatible tripods. This metal grip can be left in place when using a tripod and enables users to change the battery and SD card without having to remove the grip from the body.

via ephotozine

Fujifilm X-T1 Snaps World Wildlife Photography Image of the Year – Animal Portraits Award

image courtesy: Peter Delaney – peterdelaneyphotography
Fujifilm X-T1; 50–140mm lens at 140mm; 1/75 sec at f2.8 (–1.3 e/v); ISO 3200

World Wildlife Photography Award

Hm… this must be fake news, because everybody knows that only full frame cameras can be used for Pro work…

… and yet, here is today’s story ;)

The wildlife photography award of the year is the benchmark for wildlife photography. And this year, one of the winning images has been snapped with by Peter Delaney with his Fujifilm X-T1 and XF50-140 in extremely difficult conditions: in the rainforest with very dim and tricky light.

The image called “Contemplation” won the “animal portraits” award, which the organizers of the award call “our most popular category every year“.

“Peter had spent a long, difficult morning tracking chimpanzees through dense undergrowth. ‘Photographing in a rainforest with dim light and splashes of sunlight means your exposure settings are forever changing,’ he says. Keeping his camera at its optimum ISO setting meant a slow shutter speed, so it was hard to keep a sharp focus without a tripod. The troop of 250 chimpanzees had spent the morning high in the canopy. Totti, named after an Italian footballer, is a favourite with the rangers, but perhaps not the ladies. After trying everything to entice a female to join him on the ground – posturing, gesturing and calling seductively – he gave up and flopped onto the forest floor.”

To know more about the image and also see the other stunning images, check out nhm.ac.uk. You can also find the whole list of winning images at theguardian and bbc.com.

The whole award was trasmitted in live stream and is now available on youtube. It’s worth every second, but here on FujiRumors I will highlight only the parts that are relevant for Peter Delaney’s image.

Minute 1:28:47 here: discussion about the image + interview with Peter after he won the award. I like the adivce Peter gave to wildlife photographers to take better images. “Practice, practice, practice. And keep looking at the work of other artists, be it in sculputre, in painture… it doesn’t matter what the medium is. Keep looking at art, and eventually everything begins to sink in and then you recognize a great image, when it happens.”

Minute 43:41 here: award speech of Peter Delaney

Congratulations Peter from me and the entire FujiRumors community.

And thanks to the FR-reader for passing us the news :)

Fujifilm X series cameras…

  • won the world wildlife photography award (story here)
  • made the cover of the TIME magazine (story here)
  • won the World Photography Arts&Culture Award 2015 (story here)
  • won the First Prize of the World Press Photo Category “Stories (stroy here)
  • made the front page of the Wall Street Journal (story here)
  • were good enough for God’s work (story here)
  • captured America’s most hated man (story here)
  • distracted a French presidential candidate during his interview (story here)
  • and more…

Adobe NEVER Promised Lightroom Standalone Forever :: Lightroom Alternatives :: And More X-Trans Content

Did Adobe Really Promise LR Standalone Forever?

Now, I can get it that many people are annoyed by the fact that, unlike rumored elsewhere, Lightroom 7 will never come, and that now you have to pay a monthly subscription to get Lightroom Classic CC instead.

I’m with you: I don’t like monthly subscriptions, and I join the criticism.

But now I see websites claiming, that Adobe “promised” us to offer forever a Lightroom standalone version and these claims bring the hate and shitstorms against Adobe to a level where it should not be, since Adobe never promised such a thing.

In fact, here is their full official quote from blogs.adobe back in 2013:

“Future versions of Lightroom will be made available via traditional perpetual licenses indefinitely.”

I’m not a native English speaker (it’s actually my 4th language), but to my knowledge “indefinitely” does not mean “forever“, but more “for an unspecified period of time“. So let’s critizise Adobe based on what they do and not based on fake clickbait news.

With that said, the new reality is called Lightroom Classic CC… so let’s see how it works.

Some Lightroom Alternatives

  • Capture One is a great alternative, especially since they recently improved the X-Trans support (but we still wait for a few more things sich as Fujifilm GFX support and film simulation profiles). Check out also this Fujifilm-centric Capture One webinar.
  • Also ON1 has made progress in the Fuji X-Trans world. They improved the X-Trans demosaicing first on February 15 here, and then on June 7 here. They promised film simulation profiles on July 21 here and On1 Photo Raw 2018 is coming with a lot of new features.
  • MacPhun Luminar is coming big in the last few months, with versions for Mac and Windows. Definitely worth to check it out.
  • Iridient is a much-loved RAW demosaicing software by the Fuji X community.
  • The “RAW Power” App brings Aperture style interface & functions to MacPhotos. We reported about it here.
  • Another appreciated alternative is darktable. It’s free and is full of features (now also for windows). Moreover, the sourcecode is opensource and if the development stops, other people can go on with it.

X-Trans Zone

  • Image Editing Experiments With The Fujifilm X-T2 and Film Simulation JPEGS at thewanderinglensman
  • Image Editing Experiments With The Fujifilm X-T2 and Film Simulation JPEGS; Part II at thewanderinglensman
  • There’s a special offer at this moment to get DXO Optics Pro 11 Essential for free! Check it out at: dxo.com/us/practicalphotography. Keep in mind that DxO does not support Fuji RAW files, so you have to convert your files to TIFF to be able to use them. Offer expires November 30. Thanks to Arnoud for the link: www.arnoudlievense.nl
  • ApolloOne, a very popular photo viewer for Mac just got an update to version 2.0.0. Version 2 adds a number of new features. The most notable ones are: fast image tagging/culling with Auto Advance mode, new built-in RAW decoder (based on LibRAW, same as the one used by FastRawViewer), and the association of XMP sidecar files for RAW images (change rating, delete, rename). In addition, you can now view HEIC image files (and HEVC videos) on macOS High Sierra with complete EXIF info. The best part is that it is now free to download at the App Store here, so you can try before you buy. Check it out!

Iridient Developer 3.2 Now Available with Fujifilm X-E3 Support, Fuji Specific Improvements & More

Iridient Developer 3.2 is now available with support for the Fujifilm X-E3, an all new Lightroom plug-in, a the folllowing Fujifilm specific bug fixes and improvements:

  • New Features:
    • New Lightroom plug-in for faster, easier round trip transfer of RAW images from Lightroom to Iridient Developer and back.
    • New option added to easily invert negatives.
    • Support added for RAW images from the Fujifilm X-E3.
  • Bug Fixes:
    • Fixed issue with loading PEF format images from Pentax KP where the image would be all white. This issue did not effect DNG format images.
    • Fixed default crop values for 24MP Fujifilm models when using compressed format to match up with camera JPEG and uncompressed RAF images.
    • Fixed an issue with the baseline exposure levels for RAF images from the Fujifilm GFX 50S at extended ISO values of 51200 and 102400.
  • Improvements:
    • Improved per body white balance calibration for recent Fujifilm models.
    • Improved handling of automatic lens vignetting correction for some body/lens combinations for RAF images from recent Fujifilm X series models.
    • Improved default camera profile for the Fujifilm GFX 50S.
    • Improved GPS metadata coordinate precision for some GPS units and image formats (Fujifilm RAF).
    • Updated default DNG color matrix values for new models added in Adobe Camera RAW through version 10.0.
    • TIFF export libraries updated (libTIFF 4.0.8).
    • PNG export libraries updated (libpng 1.6.32).

The download is here:
http://iridientdigital.com/products/iridientdeveloper_download.html

and full release notes:
http://iridientdigital.com/products/rawdeveloper_history.html

Adobe Launches “Lightroom Classic CC” (and Drops LR Standalone) + Releases Camera RAW 10 with Fujifilm X-E3 Support

Adobe_logo

Adobe Camera RAW 10 and Lightroom Classic CC

Adobe Camera RAW 10 is now available and it adds Fujifilm X-E3 support. Check out all the the details lightroomjournal.

They also announced Lightroom Classic CC at adobe.blog.

Check out techradar to understand better the difference between Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic CC. What’s new in Lightroom Classic CC? Discover it at morethanwords (video below).

The End of Lightroom Standalone

Adobe said it clearly: there will never be a Lightroom 7 version.

“Lightroom 6 is the last standalone version of Lightroom that can be purchased outside of a Creative Cloud membership. There will not be a Lightroom 7 perpetual offering. Lightroom 6 will remain for sale for an undetermined amount of time, but will no longer be updated with camera support or bug fixes after the end of 2017. Lightroom 6.13 with support for the Nikon D850 will be released on October 26, 2017.”

It’s the end of standalone version for Lightroom.

Since Adobe moved Photoshop to the subscription based model, they are making record profits every year. So we can’t really be surprised, that the same is now happening with Lightroom.

Embedded & Sidecar workflow in Lightroom “Classic”

John has written a post specifically on the new Embedded & Sidecar workflow in Lightroom “Classic” which really applies to fellow Fuji users.

The key point for us is that to get the most out of Embedded & Sidecar, Fuji users should switch to Raw + JPEG. That’s because the raw files may be 6000×4000 but the embedded previews are 1/3 that size. Sidecars are full res. The article covers this and other important options.

John, who is the author of the X-LR plugin which automatically applies film simulations in Lightroom, adds “wouldn’t it be great if Fuji issued a firmware update to put full size embedded previews in raw files? Let’s all ask Fuji – it’s in their interests, and I know Adobe would love it too.”

Read it at lightroomsolutions