XF 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR - first impression

XF 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR is Fuji's first weather-resistant lens, a perfect companion for X-T1.

Today I had an opportunity to test the pre production version and here is my impression.

Walk in the Park with the Fuji Guys

This time Fujifilm Canada organized event at the Evergreen Brick Works. Great opportunity to meet other fellow photographers, take pictures and to try out Fuji cameras and lenses. I also took this opportunity to talk directly to Fuji reps about potential improvements, what can be done better.  And we all know - Fuji are listening!

I knew that Fuji cameras are quite popular but I didn't expect to see such a large crowd of photo enthusiasts on Sunday morning. What a great turnout of people.

Some pictures from the event.

Green snaps from the garden

Green is my new favourite colour. The summer has finally arrived and new life is flourishing after the long winter. What a great time for my Fuji X-Pro1 and XF 55-200!

All photos were post processed in Iridient Developer.

DCRAW 9.21 for OS X Mavericks: using LightZone

The list of applications that are using dcraw is impressive, you have plenty of choices anywhere from  free basic programs to pretty costly well-known commercial products. As a Fuji x-trans user my favourite free product is LightZone (you need to register to access the download area). The latest version 4.1.0~beta9 now includes dcraw 9.21 and improved tone curve for XT-1 raw files.

What is LightZone? Obviously it is more than just a graphical front-end to dcraw. The quote from LZ website: "LightZone is professional-level digital darkroom software for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, that includes RAW processing and editing. Rather than using layers in the way that other photo editors do, LightZone lets the user build up a stack of tools which can be rearranged, readjusted, turned off and on, and removed  from the stack.  It's a completely non-destructive editor, where any of the tools can be re-adjusted or modified later — even in a different editing session. A tool stack can even be copied to a batch of photos at one time. LightZone always operates in a 16-bit linear colour space with the wide gamut of ProPhoto RGB"

I tested LightZone using very basic editing technique.

Analog Efex Pro 2

Google/Nik has just announced "Analog Efex Pro 2, available as a free upgrade for all existing Nik Collection users. (The entire collection is still only $149.) Analog Efex Pro pays homage to the classical, vintage, and alternative processing techniques that photographers used many years ago, allowing you to faithfully recreate them with your own images."

super cool "multi lens" filter (using image from above)

To get your free update, go to http://www.google.com/nikcollection and download the Free Trial.

vkphoto