Astbury's Adventures in Photography

I have recently purchased DXO NIK Collection 6 , here I'll give an outline of why I wanted this software and what my history of using the product is, along with some of the pros and cons as I now see them. Back in 2012 my then photography tutor recommended I look at Silver Efex as it was considered one of the best tools for processing digital images for black and white. At that time NIK sold the tools separately or, for the price of a couple of the tools, you could buy the set as a bundle which is what I did. I got on well with the tools and made extensive use of both Silver Efex and later Color Efex. Around 2014 I swapped computers and was unable to activate the NIK licenses on the new machine, I found Google had taken over the software and via their support team I was able to get an installable version. Subsequently I could reinstall that version as I changed computers a couple of times but when I started using Capture One Pro I intended to manage without it. DXO took over the N...

I've been taking alternate major releases of Capture One Pro over the last few years and was waiting for a good upgrade offer to move from 21 to the current release 23. Can't say there is anything too exciting in it but the previous release 22 did have some functionality that I would like.  Then the following announcement drops into my mailbox:  " Over the past few years many of you have told us you want access to new tools and improvements sooner, rather than have them all in one ‘major’ version of Capture One Pro at the end of each year. That’s why we’ve been investing heavily in our technology to be able release features to you as soon as they are ready. Now we’re ready to fully embrace this approach. From 2023 we will no longer be tied to an annual cycle for major releases. As a result, there will not be a Capture One 24. Instead, we will continuously release new tools and features on a rolling basis throughout the year. Alongside this, we will also be making changes...

I've recently had a new Fujifilm X-T4 camera, acquired as the silver body-only option. Having previously had the X-T1 this post is to evaluate what I liked about the original X-T1, the reasons for buying again with the newer X-T4 and to outline some of the steps involved in making the transition. The X-T1 design is about 6 years old, I've had mine for about 5 years, quite a long time in the life of a digital camera. In this time it has been fault free, had several firmware updates and continues to deliver good photographs. The retro styling may not be to everyone's taste but I like it and more importantly it gives simple quick access to the main controls (ISO/shutter/aperture/exp comp) without resort to menus. The camera is relatively small and light, ideal when I don't want the size and weight of a full frame DSLR, for example when out walking. At 16mp the resolution has been enough to produce a large print if the image is not cropped too much. Jpegs are usually very g...

I've recently upgraded my version of Capture One Pro from 12 to 21, this has been a relatively painless and straightforward upgrade.   Capture One 21 Pro splash screen Please note that this was only a jump of two major versions though it may seem more from the numbering. So after version 12 came version 20 (build 13) and then followed by version 21 (build 14).   Capture One 21 Pro About screen   My decision to upgrade was prompted by a planned move from X-T1 to X-T4 for my Fuji shooting, to handle the raw files from an X-T4 requires a newer version of COP than 12 so hence the upgrade. I had two basic upgrade options: Wait for the next new version. Probably out in the new year but feature list unknown, likely to be full price and possibly with a few bugs initially. Buy the current version when Phase One run there next promotion offer. This gives me a new version without undue delay, a tried and tested stable version and a lower cost. I chose the latter option and picked up...

Here are a selection of recent photographs of subjects around the Oban area. Taken as digital raws, they have been processed through Capture One only as I continue to explore a monochrome workflow without Silver Efex Pro. Nose down in the dirt, Airds Bay Abandoned boat, Loch Etive Converted fishing boat, Oban Bay Kilchurn Castle Tree roots triangle Gate post Cabin in the woods Beyond a short caption I've opted not to say a lot about these photographs, please feel free to imagine your own narrative.

I've already spent some time investigating Lightroom alternatives and identified Capture One as looking likely but you can only get so far with reading reviews and looking at tutorial videos so it was time for me to get hands on with Capture One Pro. My intention is to put Capture One through it's paces for those aspects that matter to me but not to run through every single function or option and not to compare with Lightroom at a pixel by pixel level. I started out simply by going onto the Phase One site, entering a few basic details and then being emailed a download link. Capture One About Once installed I fired it up and created a new empty catalog (tip: I located this on my SSD drive to improve performance). Tip: once installed this is a good moment to review and edit preferences, you'll want to check the "Preview Image Size", it defaults to 2560 pixels, set lower if your screen resolution is lower to avoid having unnecessarily large preview files (NB...

Back in 2017 I upgraded my Lightroom for the last time , essentially this was a decision not to move to Adobe's subscription model , along with various miscellaneous grumbles about the quality of the application. At that time I planned to just keep running the old version of Lightroom and keep my options open. However a year on from that I found that my Lightroom Map module had stopped working ( https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/map-view-no-longer-supported.html ) and this prompted me to give the question of switching raw processing engine a fresh look. The map module issue was a simple one, the Google Maps API had changed and Adobe decided they would only fix this on their latest products. In itself this is not a massive issue for me, it's something I could live without but when and what else will stop working with my version 6 Lightroom, dating back to 2015, as my Windows 10 environment has regular ongoing changes and updates? LR 6.13 Map Module So what raw convert...