On the Paris trip I was lucky enough to see the Olympus OM D camera and play with it a little. My first impressions were great. I loved the retro style which had the look and feel of an old film camera from the David Bailey days. Cost is around £1000 with basic lens, the sensor looks good and noise minimal. However after a couple of days my enthusiasm faded a little. My main problem was with the layout and functions. I didn’t find the layout very intuitive and in some cases it was really difficult to find my way around the menus. That being said the camera is jam packed with features so perhaps that is to be expected. The camera certainly has the ability to be be able to cope with pretty much everything and there were some great processing features in camera like the art filters which gave some very pleasing effects. The pictures in low light were very good with little noise and the inbuilt curves function was a joy.

Positives +

Good quality image

Weather sealed

All aspects customisable

Great Art Filters

Negatives -

Focusing cumbersome

Small fiddly controls

Key features buried in menus.

In Summary

I would say I wanted to love this camera but became frustrated by the complexity of some of the settings. I think it would suit someone who likes to create the whole image in camera rather than use photoshop and if you are prepared to invest the time in this camera the results could be very rewarding. If anyone has had experience of using the camera I would love your feedback.  Please leave a comment.

Adobe made the announcement via a blog post and also listed the important new features in Lightroom 5. These are:

Advanced Healing Brush – Enhancements to the Spot Removal tool allow you to heal or clone using brush strokes. A new “Visualize Spots” tool highlights sensor dust spots for easy removal.

Radial Filter – Apply any of Lightroom’s local adjustment attributes to a circular mask. The area of the mask can be resized, feathered or even inverted to give you maximum control over the focus of your images.

Upright – Automatically level horizons, straighten buildings, and correct other askew lines.

Smart Preview – Lightroom allows you to edit offline images by storing a smaller version of the original image, called a smart preview. Edits made to the smart preview will automatically apply to the original once reconnected to Lightroom.

Click on the link below to get the beta release.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 | photo management software beta – Adobe Labs.

Off to Paris for a few days to check out some new locations for the Paris trip next month. Weather not looking brilliant but I have a packed itinerary to fit in during the 3 days so I will be very busy. If anyone has any ideas for  unusual shots let me know and I will try and check them out.

We have just one place left on this trip at the moment so if your interested in a 4 day trip in early May then check out our web site and follow this link:

http://www.fotocourses.co.uk/Paris/4_day_Paris.html

Sketch by teddybear from freedigitalphotos.net

Everybody should be back form the trip to America now. I hope Maria enjoyed here extra days in Vegas. A big thanks to Andrea, Maria, Jessica, Jon and Derek for coming on the trip and working well as a team during the 10 days. The trip was great fun and the new places visited this trip will be included again next year. I will be posting up a new gallery of shots in a few days and I hope some of you will send through some images for inclusion in the web site.    I hope to see you again on other trips. The picture is by Jon Lane taken at Monument valley - great shot Jon.

FOCUS ON IMAGING 2013.

Soon to be released Camera from Nikon looks to be a a great buy for the Nikon faithful. Around £1200 and released on the 21st March. Check out the link below for specs from the Nikon web site.

Nikon UK – Digital Cameras – SLR – Consumer – D7100 – Digital Cameras, D-SLR, COOLPIX, NIKKOR Lenses.

With just over 2 weeks to go until the start of the America trip preparations are nearly complete. ESTA forms, airline tickets and accommodation has been booked for the first part of the trip. (We need to keep things fairly fluid for the later stages when the weather can be a little more unpredictable in Bryce and Zion). We will be completing a daily post on Facebook so you can see how the trip progresses so if you are interested in coming on the trip next year check out our facebook page. New places we are going to visit this year are the Neon Sign Museum and the Fremont Street Experience in Vegas. We will be posting pictures as we go and will be updating the galleries when we return.

It was sad news to hear about the departure of the Jessops brand from the high street on Friday. It really seems like the end of an era. For many years Jessops did all our printing for our social photography down in Bournemouth and I would go into the branch and chat with David, Lynne and Joe who are always helpful and cheerful. Then the reports started coming in of financial problems and there was change in the way people did their shopping with the internet becoming the dominant force. People would come on my courses telling me they had gone into their local Jessops for advice then bought on the internet because the price was lower. I can’t say I blame them as I have done the same but the writing was on the wall for the high street camera shop. Lets hope some of the small shops can keep going as it is going to be difficult to see and get an opinion on equipment. Maybe the larger camera and lens makers like Canon, Nikon and Sigma etc will get together and run a store promoting their products in the larger cities in a similar way to Apple. It certainly works for them as the London stores have proved.

I send my best wishes to all the staff at Jessops who deserve better.