Discover the three killer new features of the upcoming Luminar 4

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that I think that Luminar by Skylum Software is one of the most interesting new developments in terms of photographic software. There are several reasons for this:

• Luminar is affordable;

• It exists in a Windows and a Mac version

• It can be run by itself as a Lightroom alternative (Luminar 3) but also as a plug-in (Luminar Flex);

• It is relatively simple to use:

• It makes intensive use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) to automatically and quickly speed up complex image retouching jobs.

Skylum is currently working on Luminar 4, that is expected somewhere this fall. Every once in a while, they give a sneak peak of the new features that will be in that version 4 and this week, they teased a fantastic new tool for portrait photographers. I was lucky enough to be asked to make a video about this tool for Skylum that will be on Skylum’s YouTube channel later this year but as a reader of this blog, you can already watch it here. But first, let me tell you some more about the new philosophy for Luminar 4.

Luminar 4 ss the future for both Luminar 3 and Luminar Flex

An important new development is that Luminar 4 will be the upgrade for both Luminar 3 as well as for Luminar Flex. Luminar 3 and Flex will kind of melt into Luminar 4. During the installation procedure of Luminar 4, you will be able to choose whether you want to use the application as a stand-alone piece of software, as a plug-in, or as both. Personally, I think it is a good thing because now, Skylum can focus on this one product instead of having to update to different yet very similar pieces of software. This also means that if you want to use Luminar as a standalone and as a plug-in in the future, you’ll only need one license.

AI Sky Replacement: the first new dazzling feature of Luminar 4

Luminar 4 will contain a lot of smaller and bigger new features. One feature that will definitely interest landscape photographers, is the AI Sky Replacement filter. This lets you swap out a boring sky in a landscape or a cityscape for a more interesting one without having to make tedious selections. It all happens automatically. Luminar 4 even makes sure that the perspective matches and that where necessary, the foreground is color graded to match the new sky, for example when you put us warm sunset sky into an image that was shot earlier in the day. As you can see from these animated gifs, the tool works surprisingly well and of course there are sliders for more advanced tweaks should you need them.

AI Structure: the second new feature of Luminar 4

Everybody loves Clarity, Structure and Texture. Lightroom just recently added a new Texture slider and Luminar also has a number of sliders to emphasize details in your images. Yet, up until recently, you always have to use a mask to make sure that all that extra structure and detail didn't add 10 or 20 years to your model. With AI Structure, this happens automatically this tool recognizes things like faces and skies and can give different areas in an image each their own (or none at all) dose of extra structure.

AI Skin Enhancer en AI Portrait Enhancer: the third main new feature of Luminar 4

The previous two tools were mainly interesting for landscape photographers, but this tool will be right up your alley if you are a portrait photographer. AI Skin Enhancer can't automatically recognize faces and can soften the skin in those faces while retaining texture. I was pretty sceptical myself but I think the result is nothing short of amazing. I know photographers that would happily pay the price of Luminar 4 only for this feature. Even more so, the only direct alternative that I know is a plug-in called Imagenomic Portraiture and although that plug-in is really good, it costs more than double then all the tools in Luminar 4 combined and it's not as flexible or automated.

In the video below, I show you these two new portrait tools in more detail.

What if you want to buy Luminar 4 or you want to upgrade to Luminar 4?

If this blog posts as aroused your interest for Luminar 4, there are a couple of options, depending on the scenario…

1. You want to start using Luminar already now as a standalone application
   You can now buy a special, discounted ‘Early Bird’ bundle of Luminar 3 + Luminar 4: you can already start using Luminar 3 now and as soon as Luminar 4 is released, you can start using that. Luminar 4 will automatically upgrade your Luminar 3 catalogue. On this bundle, discount code MORETHANWORDS will knock another $10 off of the prize and you can also receive a number of bonus Luminar presets. The regular price for this bundle is $99. With the code you only pay $89.

   Click here to go directly to the sales page for this bundle on the Skylum website. The bundle you’re looking for is the most right-hand one of the two.

2. You want to start using Luminar already now as a plug-in
   You can now buy a special, discounted ‘Early Bird’ bundle of Luminar Flex + Luminar 4: you can already start using Luminar Flex now and as soon as Luminar 4 is released, you can start using that. On this bundle, discount code MORETHANWORDS will knock another $10 off of the prize and you can also receive a number of bonus Luminar presets. The regular price for this bundle is $99. With the code you only pay $89.

   Click here to go directly to the sales page for this bundle on the Skylum website. The bundle you’re looking for is the most right-hand one of the three.

3. You're okay with waiting until Luminar 4 is officially released, but you want to get it at the best possible price
   In that case, you can pre-order Luminar 4 right now via this link for $69. Choose the leftmost option of the two. The price will increase soon (although I don't know when exactly) but by pre-ordering, you are sure to lock in the current price and you get a number of bonus presets for Luminar on top of the deal. In any case, you have a 30 day money back guarantee that only starts when the software is actually out.

4. You're already a Luminar 3 customer and you want to upgrade to Luminar 4.
   In that case, you can pre-order your upgrade for $59 via this link and you’ll receive a bonus presets pack valued at $49. Until Luminar 4 actually comes out, you can simply continue to use your existing version of Luminar 3.

5. You're already a Luminar 3 customer and you want to upgrade to Luminar 4.
   In that case, you can pre-order your upgrade for $59 via this link and you’ll receive a bonus presets pack valued at $49. Until Luminar 4 actually comes out, you can simply continue to use your existing version of Luminar Flex.

How do you enter your discount code in 1) and 2)

To claim your discount code MORETHANWORDS, in the checkout window, you click on Enter a Promotional Code (1). If you have a VAT number, you can even enter that and VAT will be excluded from the price. For that, click on (2) Enter VAT ID.

DISCLAIMER: The above links are affiliate links: when you use these, MoreThanWords receives a commission. This commission is entirely paid for by the software manufacturer. So you do not pay extra. On the contrary, in some cases, you can use a special discount code that lets you pay even less than if you would buy directly from the software manufacturer. Commissions like these allow me to continue adding free contents tutorials and reviews on this blog.

Meet Luminar Flex: a new plug-in for Lightroom that uses Artificial Intelligence - and save $10

If there is one developer of image editing software that doesn't seem to sit still, it's Skylum (formerly known as Macphun).

At the end of last year, Skylum released an update to their Luminar 2018 app, called Luminar 3. Luminar already had a couple of interesting filters on board, such as the Accent AI filter, that uses artificial intelligence to automatically enhance your images. Recently, they added the AI Sky Enhancer which, as you might guess, automatically recognizes and improves the skies in your photos. Another strong point is the ability to work with layers and layer masks in the plug-in.

Luminar 3…

The Luminar 3 update also added a Library functionality, or at least the start of it. While you could also use Luminar 3 as a plug-in for Lightroom and Photoshop, that wasn't really the intended use and the workflow wasn't ideal. Luminar 3 really positions itself more as a Lightroom alternative rather than a Lightroom plug-in.

However, not every Lightroom user is willing to throw their existing workflow overboard and start completely from scratch with a new application. Some people (such as myself) would prefer to integrate Luminar’s strong features in their existing workflow, such as the Artificial Intelligence driven filters and the ability to apply all adjustments locally instead of just a handful as is the case with Lightroom.

… versus Luminar Flex

If you're one of those people, then you will be super excited about the new Luminar Flex. At its core, Luminar Flex is basically Luminar 3 without the library functionality but with improved plug-in support for Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Photos (on Mac).

Existing Luminar 2018 and Luminar 3 users get a free license for the current version of Luminar Flex, which is a nice move from Skylum. The code for that free version should have been added automatically to your Skylum account. Skylum did announce however that from now on, Luminar 3 and Luminar Flex will be treated as separate apps with separate development trajectories and separate upgrade paths which will in the future also require separate upgrade fees. But that's only logical: normally, you will want to work with one or the other, not with both, and therefore you would only need to update one of them.

It's also important to know that future versions of Luminar 3 will no longer be usable as a plug-in.

Save $10 with code MORETHANWORDS

if you're not yet using Luminar, but this blog post raised your interest, then you can obviously just buy Luminar Flex. You can do so via this link. Luminar Flex is affordably priced at $59 and on top of that, code MORETHANWORDS shaves off another $10 (click on the blue text that says Enter Promotional Code in your shopping cart). Artificial intelligence has never been so cheap :-) By the way, the code also works for Luminar 3, if you prefer that solution.

Also for Lightroom 6 users

Quite a lot of Lightroom users are still working with Lightroom 6 and if you're in that situation, then Luminar has another ace up its sleeve for you: the ability to work with pixel layers inside of the plug-in. Indeed, it's possible to combine different images into one by using Luminar’s built-in layer functionality. I’ll explore this interesting feature in a future video on the blog!

Save 20 percent on 'Portraits' by Damien Lovegrove

I know very few professional photographers who manage to photograph at Damien Lovegrove's pace all while still sharing so much of their knowledge through live workshops, lectures and videos. Take a look at Damien's excellent lighting videos, I can recommend all of them, especially his latest Lumen release or his Portraits ebook, the subject of this blog post. In fact, I think if you'd go look up the word 'prolific' in a dictionary, chances are that after the description, you'll read 'see also: Damien Lovegrove'. I once jokingly asked Damien which pills he was on because I wanted to see the same pharmacist. 

Shot during an urbex shoot with Damien and fellow X-Ambassador Ioannis Tsouloulis in Belgium. FUJIFILM X-Pro2 | XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR @ 17 mm | 1-160 sec at f - 8,0 | ISO 200

The master himself in action in this set-up shot: we used two Cactus RF60 speedlights and a Cactus V6 trigger. Modifier was an SMDV 70 Speedbox with a grid. 

“I don’t know what vitamins Damien Lovegrove is on, but I want the same!”

— Me

The eBook is available in two different covers. This is one from Damien's 'Figure in the landscape' series which he shot in the USA.

Damien was in Gent (Belgium) recently for a highly acclaimed (and sold out) evening talk. He had a special discount code for his Portraits eBook. Originally, it was only for the participants but I asked if I could also share it publicly, and he agreed. As Damien says himself, everything he knows about portrait photography is in this book.

In Portraits, Damien takes you through his complete portrait making process. He starts at the planning stages and obviously covers capture in great detail, both using natural light and flash, but he also talks about how he delivers files to clients and how he archives them.

Portraits has 356 pages with 384 high-resolution photographs that have all the exposure and lighting details that were used to create them. Because it's so high-res, you actually get two download sizes to choose from: a high-res one (e.g. for on your computer or tablet) and a lower res one (e.g. for on your phone).

“Everything I know about portrait photography is in this book. I hope it helps you to achieve a lifetime of enjoyment from your photography.”

— Damien Lovegrove

Imagine Damien sitting next to you in a bar, giving you 50,000 words worth of lighting and career advice. Believe me, that would cost you a lot more in beers than the 36 € / $40 (+ tax) Portraits is currently selling for. And better still, if you use code GENT€ (if you pay in €) or GENT$ (if you pay in $) upon checkout, you can get 20% extra off. On the eBook, not on beers! But hurry, because that code is only valid through the end of June 2018.

(Sneaky extra tip by yours truly... the ebook costs about 10 percent less in $ than in € due to exchange rate fluctuations - I think we can thank 'The Donald' for that... just make sure to use the right discount code!)

What do these 5 images have in common?

So, I've got a little quiz for you. What do these five images have in common (other than the fact that they show models or ballerinas in a dance pose and that they were taken in industrial environments)? Let me give you a hint: it has to do with the way they were lit.

The answer is... in this video!

I'd like to thank the people over at Photoshop Becker for supplying me with a review unit (they speak English, btw). Here's the full link to the product on their site.

Want to improve your own lighting skills? Check out the 2-day Fine Art Portrait Workshop with Michael Schnabl (English) or the Control Your Flash workshop with Tom Museeuw (Dutch)

The Fine Art Portrait Workshop is an in-depth, hands-on two day workshop in which you'll be producing portfolio-worthy images and learning lighting and postprocessing skills that you can use in your own portrait work.

In Control Your Flash (Dutch) you will learn everything you need to know about mixing flash with available light.

5DayDeal product review: David Duchemin's "After The Camera" Lightroom video tutorial

As you may have noticed on the blog, it's 5DayDeal time again. The 5DayDeal is a once-a-year event in which an extraordinarily valued bundle of photographic training content, Lightroom presets, Photoshop actions and other digital tools such as overlays and textures are offered at an incredible discount. This year's bundle contains over $2,750 worth of content and it's being sold at more than 95% off, for only $117.

There's something for everyone (see this post for the full lowdown), including a lot of Lightroom training which - as a reader of my blog - I know you're interested in! One of my favourite products in this year's bundle is a After The Camera, a video tutorial series by David duChemin. I reviewed this tutorial last year on the blog. Below is the recap. By itself, this tutorial costs $40 but right now, it's included in the 5Day Deal, along with over 70 hours of other training content, 1400 presets and actions and much more. Some of the training titles cost more than the price of the entire bundle!

The only catch is that you have to buy the bundle before October 18th, because this sale only lasts for five days.

Here's my original review of 'After the Camera'

What can I say. I love postprocessing. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you probably know this by now. The great thing about digital cameras and raw files is that postprocessing has become very accessible. Back in the film days, you had to be a digital alchemist even only for performing basic tasks such as dodging and burning or adding some contrast to your print.

Postproduction in the digital age

These days, it's just a matter of dragging some sliders around. At least, that's what software manufacturers want you to believe. But all the sliders in the world won't make up for a lack of vision, both at capture time but also during postprocessing.

And that's where “After the Camera. Vision-Driven Editing and Postproduction”, the brand new video series of David "Gear is good, vision is better" DuChemin comes in. In 20 video episodes totalling 4 hours of tuition, David introduces you to what he calls his "vision-driven editing and postprocessing workflow".

This video series does not claim to be a complete guide to what every button and slider in Lightroom does. There are already plenty of resources like that, including my own Lightroom Unmasked eBook over at Craft & Vision.

What it does do is show you the entire workflow of a living, breathing, money-making professional photographer. Nothing more, nothing less.

What's in the box?

Well, first of all, there is no box. We're in the digital age, remember? What you do get is an access code to watch the videos online on Vimeo.com, but you can also download them so you can view them offline. The first chapters are about the Library module and give an introduction to importing, organizing, working with collections. As a Lightroom trainer, it still surprises me how many people don’t use collections. It’s like buying a convertible and never taking the top off.

Although the main focus lies in the Develop Module, David does touch on some important aspects of the Library module as well, such as importing, collections and back-up.

David also – rightly – mentions the importance of backing up and explains his own – simple but effective – workflow.

Editing your work

As of Chapter 4, we dive into the meat of the videos: the first couple are about the editing (some say “culling” process): how do you separate the wheat from the chaff. The answer lies again in what your intent, your vision is. David talks about the importance of having a project, even an imaginary one, in mind when you go through your images.

Maximising mood & Minimising Distractions

The next chapters are about “Maximising mood” and “Minimising distractions” and to me, that’s really the core of what good post-processing should be about: good postproduction should make your viewers feel what you felt when you were at the scene while minimizing the uninteresting details.

Drawing the Eye

The bulk of the remaining videos are about the photographic principles (what pulls and pushes the eye) and the tools in Lightroom that you can use to apply those principles.

Whether you work with a Radial Filter...

... or the Adjustment Brush...

Local adjustments help to draw the eye to where YOU want it to be.

I’m happy to see that David gives a lot of attention to local adjustments as well.

Before and Afters

Everybody loves a good Before & After and I’m not different. That’s why I especially liked the 6 cases-studies, in which you get to follow along with 6 images and see the principles and the techniques applied. But again, that’s the difference between this tutorial and many others: it’s as much about the why as it is about the how. Or, to use David’s terms, as much about the artist as it is about the geek.

Final chapters

The final videos are about the importance of sharing your work and speeding up your workflow by using presets so that you have more time to do what you love most (that is, if that’s what you love most): go out and shoot!

Conclusion

Every once in while, a video tutorial comes along where I think "I wish I made that". Well, this is one of those tutorials. If you’re a beginning Lightroom user, I very much recommend this course. But even (or maybe especially) if you’re already more advanced and you know what all the buttons do of the Lightroom cockpit do, but you feel like no-one ever told you where to fly the bloody plane to, you will learn a lot from this video series.

After the Camera is very reasonably priced at $40 (+ VAT in Europe). After The Camera is available here at Craft & Vision.com. UPDATE: If you read this between October 13 and October 18, you can also get After The Camera as part of the 5DayDeal bundle, with over $2,700 worth of other training titles, for only $117. Still not entirely convinced? Watch the trailer below.

The 5DayDeal is back! $2.500 worth of photo education and tools for only $117

From now until October 18th, noon PDT, it's 5 Day Deal time again! The 5 Day Deal is a unique bundle of photographic training content. If you were to buy every item separately, you'd be looking at a total bill of over $2.750. Now, you're only paying $117 (+ European VAT unless you have a VAT ID), a savings of more than 95 percent! The total bundle contains over 75 hours of video training, several eBooks and over 1400 Lightroom presets, Photoshop actions and other digital tools. In total several gigabytes worth of training goodness.

Yes, but what's in it for me?

Of course, the real question is: 'What is this bundle worth to you?' Unless you're really into all genres of photography, probably not the full $2.500. But I can guarantee you that even if you're only remotely interested in photography, the 5 Day Deal bundle is certainly worth more than the measly $117 it's selling for. In fact, this bundle will do more for your photography than the umpteenth camera bag or a shiny new UV filter. 

To help you determine if it's worth your dollar, I've broken the bundle down into three typical areas of interest: general postprocessing, landscape photography and portrait photography. You'll see that even if you're only really into one of those three areas, the bundle is a steal. Heck, if you're into two or more, you should already be ordering!

1. You're into Lightroom, Photoshop and Postprocessing

Postprocessing seems to be the main theme of this year's bundle, so if image editing is your thing, you're in for a treat. The bundle is ideal to hone your editing skills over these cold winter months and get you ready for a great start in 2018. There's hundreds of Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions, overlays like smoke and sun flares and loads of training videos. As you can see, I'm very honoured that my own Black & White Lightroom Preset pack is included in the bundle. But even if you already have that, there's still $2.767 of other stuff :-) The total value of the highlighted items alone is over $1.500. The 5 Day Deal price is less than ten percent of that. If you're a Lightroom or Photoshop user, this bundle really is a no-brainer.

2.  You're mainly interested in nature photography, landscapes, cityscapes and how to postprocess these

The total value of the highlighted items is about $700. From previous 5 Day Deals, I remember the excellent quality of the stuff that people like Jimmy McIntyre and Christopher O'Donnell put out, so I'm looking forward to discovering their new courses. Also, note that I've only counted items that have a direct relationship to landscape photography. There are lots of resources, like the many preset packs, that will without a doubt also be useful when you're editing your landscape images.

3. You're mainly interested in portrait photography and portrait retouching

The total value of the highlighted items is almost $800. Again, there are some hidden gems in this line-up. For example, I really enjoyed Jeff Rojas' no-nonsense approach on how to interact with, light and photograph 'normal people'. After all, we not always get to choose who winds up in front of our lens!

Still in doubt?

Here's 5 final reasons why you should really consider this bundle:

10 percent of each sale goes to charity. Since 2013, people buying the 5DayDeal have raised over $1.000.000 for charity.

1. This way of learning is one of the cheapest to improve your photography skills, at your own pace, when and where you want it. Furthermore, there's always a couple of hidden gems in bundles like this. For example, I really enjoyed Andrew S. Gibson's Black & White Presets and Jeff Rojas' posing and lighting video.
2. A lot of this bundle's resources are new and if they aren't new, at least they've never been in any other 5 Day Deal bundle, so there's no overlap with previous 5 Day Deal purchases.
3. The bundle is gone forever on October 18th, noon PDT.
4. 10 percent of the entire turnover (not the profits, but the turnover, so almost $10 on every sale) goes to charity. Since the start of the 5 Day Deal in 2013, over $1.000.000 was donated to good causes. To that effect, upon checkout, you can opt for the 'Charity Match bundle'. This is an extra, separate bundle, worth over $900 which costs an extra $24,97, half of which goes to charity. Some 50% of people who bought the bundle so far have chosen this option. If you want to maximise your savings and in the mean time maximise your charity donation, look for the 'Charity Match' section, you'll see it on the 5 Day Deal page.
5. But wait, there's more :-) Another extra option is the 'Pro Bundle Addon'. That's almost $500 worth of content for an add-on of only $12,47.

You see, I'm shutting up already. Yes. I'm that easy :-)

For an extra $24,97, you not only double the amount of money that goes to charity, but you also get access to over $900 worth of extra stuff. There are two photography courses in there, including the world-famous one by Fstoppers, one of the largest photo websites. Then, if you still have another $12,47 to burn, you can get the Pro Bundle Add-on as well...

Travel Plans? A Review of the Think Thank Airport TakeOff V2

If you're traveling a lot with heavy photo gear, you know a roller bag can be really helpful. But then sometimes, when you have to do a lot of stairs or deal with uneven terrain, a backpack would come in handier. The folks over at Think Tank must have thought the same thing and they came up with a hybrid bag: the Think Tank AIrport TakeOff. This bag's main use is as a roller bag, but thanks to the concealed and padded carrying straps, it converts into a backpack. Now, I wouldn't go on a full-day hike with it, but for short stretches it's a really great feature to have. I have been using the original version of this bag for over five years (and like all other stuff made by Think Tank, it's virtually indestructible) but now they have a new Version 2 out. My good friend Matt Brandon from The Digital Trekker, who I do the Varanasi and Kolkata Location Portraiture and Lighting Masterclass with, has just done a very extensive review on it, in which he also compares it to two other roller bags by Think Tank. So if you're in the market for a new bag to get your gear safely and effortlessly to your next photography destination, make sure to check out the AIrport Takeoff V2. There's a couple of really cool new features in this second version, not to mention the fact that it's 15 percent lighter than it's predecessor. That means you can pack an extra lens, or in my case probably an extra flash :-)

5 Day Deal 2017 Photography Business and Marketing Bundle

Over $2.200 of resources for only $97

If you've followed this blog, you probably know about the 5 Day Deal. The folks at 5 Day Deal bundle photographic training resources, Lightroom presets, video tutorials and Photoshop actions into one heavily discounted bundle. Starting now, they have a new bundle out, which is very interesting because it touches on the business and marketing aspects of photography. As a professional photographer, expecially if you're a one-man-band, you're really only using a camera 10 percent of the time. The rest of the time is spent on marketing, finding new clients, putting in bids, doing your taxes, and so on. Yet, most of the training available always focuses on the creative part of photography or on postprocessing.

This bundle is a much-needed change from that. It's a must-buy for anyone who is making or is thinking of making aake a living, either full-time or part-time, in photography. At only $97 + tax, it's one of the best investments you can make, especially knowing that the full retail price of the bundle is well over $2.200. Some of the individual courses in the bundle cost more than the bundle price. Where's the catch, then? There isn't any, other than the fact that it's only around for 5 days, until noon on January 24th, to be exact.

My top-5 of what's included

There's something for everybody and if you get tired of the marketing and business talk and advice, there are even a couple of creative resources as well. Check out the full list of resources here!

1. Susan Stripling's Wedding Business Fundamentals

The wedding photography industry is probably one of the most competitive businesses out there. It's really a mine-field and the fact that you're photographing a once-in-a-lifetime (well in some cases twice-in-a-lifetime) event won't ease your mind as a budding wedding photographer. This course covers over 300 pages and dozens of videos with do's and don'ts to help starting and more experienced wedding photographers alike with marketing and pricing. 

Normally, this resource is $199 by itself, now it's included in the Complete Photography Business and Marketing Bundle 2017.

2. Perfect Facebook Ads: The Photographer's Guide by Photography Spark

Ever tried Facebook ads? It's a minefield. Or should I say, a swamp. A swamp that sucks your hard-earned money away faster than you can earn it. Yet, if you play it right, Facebook ads can help your business tremendously. This in-depth eBook will teach you all you need to know and the mistakes you should avoid when setting up a Facebook ad campaign.

Normally, this resource is $99 by itself, now it's included in the Complete Photography Business and Marketing Bundle 2017.

3. Marketing Bootcamp 2.0 by Donal Doherty

Like the previous resource, Donal also talks about Facebook ads but that's just one of the subjects. He also covers the importance of automation (after all, you don't want to spend too much time on repetitive tasks. You want to photograph, right? Donal also covers blogging, Instagram and Google Adwords. 

Normally, this resource is $60 by itself, now it's included in the Complete Photography Business and Marketing Bundle 2017.

4. What Should I Charge by Joel Grimes

This is probably the biggest question facing the beginning professional photographer after 'Where do I get my clients' (on which there's also a course in this bundle, by the way). Too many starting (and even more experienced) photographers have no realistic idea about prices. It's so hard to put a value on your own work. Charge too little and it's hard to raise your prices afterwards. Charge too much and you run the risk of not getting a job in the first place. Joel Grimes knows what he's talking about: he's a very successful commercial photographer and in this one hour course, he covers positioning yourself in the market place, how to avoid pricing pitfalls, and how to successfully prepare a bid.

Normally, this resource is $80 by itself, now it's included in the Complete Photography Business and Marketing Bundle 2017.

5. Mastering the Model Shoot on Location

In any photography business, it's 80 percent business and marketing and 20 percent shooting. That's why after 4 business and marketing oriented resources, I'll finish this top-5 with a creative resource. Frank Doorhof, himself an example of a highly successful photographer, has included his 100 minute Mastering The Model Shoot on Location video. 

Normally, this resource is $35 by itself, now it's included in the Complete Photography Business and Marketing Bundle 2017.

The total value of this top-5 alone is $473. But there's plenty more. In fact, let me give you one more tip myself. 10 percent of the sales of this bundle go to charity. But during checkout, you get the option to double the charity amount (It's called 'Charity Match'. This will cost you only $19.47 extra and if you do, good karma will come your way by way of some extra free content, like Serge Ramelli's Interior Design Photography Bundle (a $147 value by itself), Kevin Kubota's Lightroom Presets Workflow Collection (a $49 value), Blake Rudis' Beginners Guide to Photoshop Actions ($29 value). The 5 Day Deal is a no-brainer and the Charity Match option is a no-brainer within that no-brainer.

The Charity Match option costs 20 dollars extra in exchange for which you receive $400 worth of extra content and you also get that warm, fuzzy feeling of having doubled your charity contribution!

If you're even only remotely interested in becoming a semi-professional photographer, this will do so much more for your career than any filter, camera bag or leather strap ever will!

Just don't forget, the sale of the Complete Photography Business and Marketing Bundle 2017 ends forever at noon, January 24th (PST).

The Fujifilm GFX Files, Part 1 - Review

Today Fujfilm have officially announced their Medium Format Mirrorless camera, the GFX 50S. The camera had already been pre-announced at Photokina, but now we have the full specs and, not unimportant for a camera of this calibre, the price!

Specs

I won't bore you to death with all the tech specs (they can be found on Fujifilm's own website) but here's the most important ones:

• All new G Mount with 12 pins to ensure a maximum of information can be exchanged between camera and lenses. Diameter of 65 mm and a flange back of 26.7 mm.
• 43.8 x 32.9mm CMOS sensor, rumoured to be the same as in the Pentax 645Z but with Fujifilm tweaks added to it (and of course Fujifilm's own processing which is done by the X-Processor Pro). This means the sensor is 1.7 times as big as a fullframe sensor and almost 4 times the size of a regular X system sensor.
• The crop factor is 0.79. To know what a G-mount lens is like in fullframe terms, multiply the focal length by 0.79.
• The sensor array is Bayer, not X-Trans. Personally, I think that's a good fact. As it's still unclear as to whether Capture One will support the GFX, Lightroom currently seems to be the only mature raw converter that will support it and it does a great job with Bayer sensor patterns.
• 51.4 megapixel sensor with 8256 x 6192 files (4:3 native aspect ratio). Other aspect ratios can be set in the camera and, contrary to medium format cameras with an optical viewfinder, the GFX can show you an exact preview of what your crop is going to look like in its EVF.
• Base ISO of 100. ISO up to 12.800 and extended ISO modes up to 102.400.
• Mirrorless design
• Focal plane shutter to 1/4.000th of a second, electronic shutter up to 1/16.000 of a second
• Weather sealed
• Dual SD Card slots
• WI-FI
• Contrast-detection AF with joystick for quick focus selection (just like X-T2 and X-Pro 2)
• 117 focus points all around the frame, pretty unique in the medium format world!
• Tethered shooting support (Lightroom)
• HDMI, PC Sync Port, USB3 and Remote Control connectors
• Flash Sync Speed of 1/125th - HSS should be available through Fujifilm's own EF-X500
• Detachable viewfinder with a 3.69 M-dot viewfinder
• Two-way 2.36 M-dot tiltable screen (like the X-T2) with touch capability
• New, more powerful battery
• E-ink display that shows essential shooting data even when the camera is turned off
• Full HD Video @ 30 FPS. Although, if you want a video camera, get the X-T2: it's four times cheaper :-) Matt Brandon from www.thedigitaltrekker.com and Serge Van Cauwenbergh from www.fotografieblog.be used the X-T2 to film my GFX challenges video and we were all amazed by its video capabilities!
• Weight: 825 grams including battery and card for the body-only. That's less than typical pro-level DSLRs. 1230 grams with the 63 mm attached. Or in other words: medium format quality for fullframe weight!

 

G-Lenses

Of course, no system is complete without lenses. Just like the X-Pro 1 some five years ago, the GFX is available with a choice of three lenses, and a promise of more to come. Of the three lenses that are currently available, the 32-64 is the one I used the most. In fact, Lightroom tells me I shot 87% of my images with this very versatile lens. In order to know what these lenses are like in fullframe terms, you have to multiply their focal length by 0.79. This means this lens translates into about 25 to 50 mm. My second-most used lens (ten percent of all shots I made) was the 120 mm f/4.

The Filter Bar in Lightroom: a great source for information. It's no surprise that I used the 32-64 the most. I cannot wait for the 23 mm that is announced for later this year!

I really appreciate the fact that it's stabilised and while waiting for the announced 110 mm f/2, it makes for a nice portrait lens which has the advantage of having macro capability and being stabilised. Finally, the lens I used the least (only 3 percent) was the 63 mm f/2.8. Not that it's not a nice lens, in fact, with it's relatively light weight and relatively fast aperture (in medium format terms), it's got a lot going for it. It's just that 50 mm fullframe equivalent is not my favourite focal length to shoot at.

The 120 mm is a crazy sharp portrait lens. This downsampled, compressed JPEG does not really do the lens much justice, unfortunately. Its OIS came in really handy for making this hand-held available light portrait. All images in this blog post were processed in Adobe Lightroom using my Lightroom preset packs | www.lightroompresets.be

FUJIFILM GFX 50S | GX120mmF4 R WR @ 120 mm | 1/125 sec. f @ 4 | ISO 500

Price

At Photokina, Fujifilm had already hinted at a price 'Well below $10,000' and it looks like they have kept their word. Body-only price in the US is $6.499. In Europe, it's $6.999, including VAT. So, for you professionals out there who can reclaim VAT, that's under €6.000! This makes the camera not only a serious contender for other suppliers of digital medium format cameras like Pentax, Hasselblad or Phase One, but this aggressive pricing strategy is clearly also aimed at winning over people who now shoot high-end fullframe DSLR cameras.

So what about the lenses? In Europe (Belgium) the price is as follows:

• Camera: 6.999 € including VAT
• 63 mm: 1.599 € including VAT
• 32-64 mm: 2.499 € including VAT
• 120 mm: 2.899 € including VAT

In the US, the prices are (excluding sales tax):

• Camera: $6.499
• 63 mm: $1.499
• 32-64 mm: $2.299
• 120 mm: $2.699

So, the camera is indeed 'well under $10.000', even including the standard lens. Although still a considerable investment, as far as I know, this is not only the latest, but also the most affordable medium format camera you can buy new, today.

Using the GFX in the field

The internet will probably explode with opinions about this camera, lots of which will be based only on the spec sheet. After all, few people have had a chance to really use the camera for a prolonged period of time. As you probably know by now (see this blog post), I was one of those lucky guys who had the opportunity to test a prototype for a couple of weeks, back in November. Below is the video I made for Fujifilm about it. Special thanks to Serge, Matt, Matt's wife Alou and fixer Manoj for their help!

The actual camera felt very finished, but the firmware was still very beta and buggy. However, this still gave me a very good idea of what it should be like to use the finished product. In summary, the GFX gives you the quality of medium format while combining the best in handling from the mirrorless and the DSLR world. If you're used to a traditional DSLR or - even better - any Fujifilm camera and especially the X-T2, you'll feel right at home. If you're used to using other medium format cameras, you'll probably appreciate the ergonomics and all the little extras that aren't necessarily present on the camera you're currently working with.

My Top-10 features

This brings us to my favourite features of the camera. 

1. Image Quality

When I saw the first shots in the viewfinder and later on my monitor, I was simply stunned, and I still am. And mind you, this is even without having worked with the RAW files as there currently isn't any support for them, yet. I did capture uncompressed RAF files along with Super Fine JPEGs (a new setting, delivering JPEGs of up to 20 Megabyte in size). 

What you might think is natural light, is actually a flash firing through a window. Just don't tell the available light purists. They're everywhere :-)

FUJIFILM GFX 50S | GX32-64mmF4 R LM WR @ 36.2 mm | 1/60 sec. @ f/4 | ISO 1000

2. 24 megapixels is plenty, 51.4 is plenty more! 

I was (and still am) happy with the 24 megapixels of my X-Pro2 and X-T2 bodies and especially for the APS-C sensor size, I think that is a nice sweetspot. However, with the GFX's sensor being almost four times as big, there was obviously room for more megapixels. The GFX 50S should actually be called the GFX 51.4S, as this is the actual pixel count. It's funny, really, that the number just gets rounded off. 15 years ago, the first affordable digital cameras were about 1.4 megapixel. Now, that is considered pocket change! The GFX has a 4:3 aspect ratio, which takes some getting used to. However, I have started to appreciate this aspect ratio, especially with regards to printing. The images are 8256 by 6192 pixels tall.

This Lightroom screenshot might be the best way to give you an idea about the size and the detail in the files. This is a screenshot of my 2560 x 1440 iMac monitor. The image in the middle is zoomed to 1:1. In the Navigator to the left, the rectangle shows you how tight I'm zoomed in.

The first advantage of having this many megapixels is obviously the resolution if you want to print really big. At 300 dpi, without any upsampling in Photoshop, you can print images that are 28 inches or 70 cm on the long side. Now, if you're printing on inkjet printers, 200 to 150 dpi is actually a much more common resolution. This means that you can print up to almost 60 inches on the long side, without needing to upsample in Photoshop. With some upsampling, even larger, sharp prints are absolutely possible. Simply amazing.

The second advantage is cropping. Although I try to get my crops right in camera, there will always be situations where you could not get the crop you wanted, or a layouter wants to use a crop from a shot because it better matches the layout. In the example below, I was actually shooting vertically. It was a staged, lit shot which I wanted to be quite dramatic. However, suddenly, the dogs - a quintessential part of Indian daily life - came walking through the frame and I wanted to capture that, too. I had no time to change the camera's orientation. The horizontal crop puts the focus more on the street scene. And it's still some 25 megapixels, so even more than an uncropped shot of my X-T2.

I was actually setting up for this type of more posed shot... when some dogs walked by. 

FUJIFILM GFX 50S | GX32-64mmF4 R LM WR @ 35 mm | 1/125 @ f/4 | ISO 200

I had no time to turn the camera, but made a vertical photo and then cropped it into this 4:3 landscape shot. The resulting image still measures 5701 x 4276 pixels! The blue light in the background is a Cactus RF60 flash with a blue gel on it. I chose the colour because of the contrast with the warm, orange clothing.

FUJIFILM GFX 50S | GX32-64mmF4 R LM WR @ 44.9 mm | 1/125 @ f/7.1 | ISO 320

3. Dynamic Range

Another reason many photographers invest in Medium Format, is to have more dynamic range and much more postprocessing leeway with the raw files. As I mentioned, there still is no raw support so it's hard to fully appreciate this already. I will report back on this as soon as I can but from tests I did with the camera's built-in converter, I'm very optimistic!

The best angle for this shot was when the diver was back-lit. Not a problem for the GFX. And... this is based on a JPEG. Can't wait to see what Lightroom can pull out of the GFX raw files.

4. Autofocus system

Traditionally, with medium format cameras, autofocus is the achilles heel of the system, requiring you to either use the LCD in Live View mode or the central AF point and then focus and recompose. This makes these cameras rather slow to use. The GFX is different. Although not as fast as its smaller, recent X-siblings (because it's contrast-detection only) it was surprisingly fast to focus (in medium format terms) and, more importantly, the 117 focus points cover the entire frame, so no need to focus and recompose. The latter technique could really cause you to lose your critical focus if you're working with shallow depth of field (like the upcoming 100 mm f/2 lens offers). To change your focus point, you can use the 'joystick' which most of us know (and love) from the X-Pro 2 and the X-T2. And of course, in those cases where the autofocus does not work, it's an easy switch to manual mode, where the manual focus aids (like 3 or 10 times magnification in the EVF) can help you focus manually. Try that with an OVF!

I rarely put my subjects in the centre. Which is why I really appreciate the fact that the GFX has autofocus points everywhere across its viewfinder. 

FUJIFILM GFX 50S | GX32-64mmF4 R LM WR @ 36.2 mm | 1/100 @ f/4 | ISO 800

The optional grip turns the GFX into a squarish block. This improves the ergonomics when holding the camera vertically.

5. It's mirrorless!

Analog viewfinders are so 20th century... I really like the EVF on my other Fujifilm cameras and it's no different on the GFX. I like that I can see what I'm going to get even before taking the shot, the live histogram and the fact that I can set the camera up to show me a preview of my ambient exposure in manual mode. This is super handy when working with flash. Set the ambient, dial in the flash and review the picture immediately in the EVF. No need for chimping! I have done a full blog post covering the advantages of an Electronic Viewfinder in more detail. Check it out here.

6. Dual SD card slots

I love the fact that Fujifilm sticks to SD cards. They're readily available and so are card readers for them, unless you happen to own the new MacBook Pro, of course. 

7. A lens roadmap

Remember when Fujifilm only had three lenses available at the launch of the X-Pro 1? Some people were hesitant to buy into the system but Fujifilm was smart: they released a lens roadmap that shared all the lenses they were considering making for the X-system. That not only showed that they were committed to the system, but it also made it easier for people buying into the system. If your favourite lens wasn't among the three initially available, you at least had an idea if it was coming. Fujifilm are repeating this launch strategy with the GFX. Already we know that 3 more lenses are scheduled for this year: a 23 mm f/4 super wide, a 45 mm f/2.8 and a 110 mm f/2. I love super wide angle shots. So, the fact that I know that the 23 mm wide angle is under development is important to me. The same goes for the 110 mm f/2.

These 3 extra lenses have been announced for 2017. As mentioned, I am really looking forward to the 110 mm f/2 and the 23 mm f/4. Together with the 32-64, they would be my personal 'holy trinity' of GFX lenses.

8. Size and weight of the system

Although the lenses are what you'd expect from medium format lenses that have to cover a sensor this large, the actual body is surprisingly small and lightweight. It's about 1.2 kg with the 63 mm lens. Size-wise it's more compact than most other digital medium format cameras, except maybe for the Hasselblad X1D. However, with that camera, goodlooking as it is, I cannot help but feel that the design process has emphasized form over function. And although the GFX (or the X-T2, for that matter) don't look as retro-sexy-good as the X-Pro 2 and definitely not as the X100 series in my opinion, in the end, it's the handling that matters most. 

With the 63 mm 'standard' lens, you could almost consider the GFX as a 'walkaround' camera. Only one that delivers 51.4 megapixel files. It certainly isn't much bigger or heavier than typical pro-DSLRs.

FUJIFILM GFX 50S | GX63mmF2.8 R WR @ 63 mm | 1/125 @ f/2.8 | ISO 400

How would you like your GFX today? From full-blown battle dress with the EVF and the grip to minimalist and as lightweight and small as possible, with the EVF detached. The modular design lets you adapt the camera to the needs of your shoot.

9. Love those old view cameras?

The GFX has got you covered! One of the things I love about the old view cameras is that you can hold them at waist level and then look down in the viewfinder. The GFX lets you simulate that with the two way tilt screen. You can tilt it both horizontally and vertically. If you're more into EVFs, then you will be able to purchase an accessory for the EVF that lets you rotate and tilt it. But back to the LCD: it also features a touch screen, which wasn't working yet on my prototype. So I can say nothing about it but from what I saw it will definitely be useful, if only when reviewing images.

10. Other odds and ends

There's really so much more to like about the camera: the fact that it will have tethering support (for Lightroom; apparently Phase One are still on the fence if they will open up their Capture One for the GFX) or the fact that it has built-in WIFI and that you can print to an Instax printer. That might seem like a gimmick, but I can assure you that for travel photography, the Instax really is a door-opener. Or how 'bout the C-position on the lenses. They have aperture rings (like in the good old days) but for those of you who have forgotten how these work, Fujifilm have added a C-position on each lens. Put your lens on the C-position and you can control the aperture with the command dial, pretty much like you can with a DSLR. Finally, another nice feature are the crops you can set in the camera. If you shoot RAW, you still record all the image data, but seeing only the crop in the EVF or the LCD really helps you with composition, especially with the new panoramic 65:24 format, which I really like and which I plan to do more with. It's just another one of those EVF advantages, I guess.

The new panoramic 65 x 24 Aspect Ratio is almost 3:1. The preview in the EVF is a big help in composing these shots. The resulting images are still 8256 x 3048 pixels, or more than 24 megapixel. If you change your mind afterwards and want a different crop, the full 51.4 megapixels are still available in the raw file.

FUJIFILM GFX 50S | GX32-64mmF4 R LM WR @ 32 mm | 1/60 @ f/5.6 | ISO 200

Just another one of those cool features. The small LCD on the top left of the camera shows you the shooting essentials. It stays on, even when the camera is turned off.

What could be improved?

Well, nothing is perfect. Not even the GFX :-) For example, the position of the Play button takes some getting used to. The eye cup is a little too easy to lose (at least it was on my unit), but those are all minor things. Probably the biggest drawback is the 1/125th sync speed. I use a lot of flash outdoors, and the faster your sync speed, the more you can overpower the sun with a flash of a given power. I was a bit worried that this would prove to be a problem in India but it actually wasn't. I used a lightweight yet powerful 360 Ws portable battery-powered flash (the SMDV BRiHT 360) and most of the time, that was powerful enough, even when used with a softbox. I'm also happy to hear that HSS support is available with the EF-X500 flashes and the next time I have a GFX at hand, I will try if the Cactus V6 Mark II, which offers HSS with other brands' speedlights and even studio flashes on the other X-series cameras (see this blog post), will also perform that same magic with the GFX.

In conclusion

The GFX is a mighty fine camera. Or, as Jonas Rask calls it in his review, a 'portable beast'. All 825 grams and 51.4 megapixels of it. I am not a pixel peeper by nature but it's kind of addictive to scroll through those files in 1:1 view in Lightroom or Photoshop, hitting Page Down and being amazed by the level of detail that unfolds in front of your eyes. As is also indicated by the videos of the other photographers who used the GFX, this is a camera that can please a very diverse audience, Except maybe for sports shooters, everyone from the studio photographer over the landscape photographer all the way to the portrait and travel guys like myself should all seriously consider this camera. And you know, although I wouldn't take it to the Olympics, in a pinch, thanks to its 4 frames per second, it can even shoot sports, too :-) As I did in this wrestling school in Varanasi.

I had loads of misses, but I also had a couple of tack sharp shots. Not bad for a medium format camera! In situations like this, or with the boys diving into the water, the four frames per second (which is like Formula 1 in the mirrorless world) really help.

That's it for now. If you want to hear more about the GFX and the other gear I used on this trip in conjunction with it, check out the video-interview that fellow X-shooter Matt Brandon, who also edited and partly filmed my GFX Challenges video, did with me while we were waiting for our plane from Varanasi back to Delhi. There's some great gear tips in there!

Join Matt Brandon and me in Varanasi in 2018

Each year, Matt Brandon and yours truly do a photo workshop in Varanasi, India and we also have a workshop in Ladakh in the works. If you are interested in these, fill out the form below and you'll be the first to hear. We love our newsletter subscribers so they always get the scoop. The 2017 edition sold out in one hour after sending out our newsletter. Although we are both Fujifilm shooters, this workshop is open to all camera beliefs. But you might go home converted :-)

In an upcoming blog post, I will show you some still unreleased images of that I shot back home, during a couple of urban exploring photo sessions I did with dancers in order to get to know the camera a little better, before embarking on a plane to India with it.

Looking to add that extra 'oomph' to your images?

All images in this post have been processed in Lightroom with my Black & White or Colorific Color Grading Lightroom preset packs. Buy them all and save 25 percent | www.lightroompresets.be

eBook review: 'Portraits' by Damien Lovegrove + 20 percent discount code

Leaving on a jet plane

On Thursday evening, July 17th, 2008, I boarded an airplane. My camera bag was filled with a Nikon D300 and a cheap Sigma zoom lens but my heart and mind were filled with priceless excitement. I was out of a job but not unhappy to be so because I had grown tired of my old job anyway. Even way back then, I was already heavily into digital photography and Photoshop. In fact, I was the kind of guy who faked a shallow depth of field using the lens blur filter instead of simply using a fast lens - rest assured, that has changed! I wanted to brush up on my photography skills and I was following a five year photography evening course in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts where I lived. Although I'm all-digital again, now, I'm glad I still got to work with analog cameras and print in a darkroom.

Secretly, like so many of the enthusiasts I know, I had a hope of turning my hobby into a job, maybe teaching post processing. But for that, I obviously needed some great looking pictures to work on. Evening school is all fine, but sometimes the pace can be a bit slow. So I decided to speed things up a bit by taking a workshop. As the one I had set my eye on, involved flying to the UK, I decided to add an extra day. Having written a book about Lightroom, I already knew a thing or two about postprocessing and I had already played around with off-camera flash. All these cool flash gizmo's and triggers really appealed to the gearhead in me but I knew little to nothing about working with models, posing and so on.

I used one of the pictures from the workshop as the cover of the second edition of my Lightroom 3 book, published by Pearson back in 2011. In the mean time, the Lightroom 6/CC edition is available in Dutch (print and eBook) as well as in English (eBook).

The flight was to Bristol, a UK city close to Nailsea, where Damien Lovegrove has his studio. Back in the day, Damien still shot a lot of weddings and he had a resident picture editor working for him. I had booked a workshop with Damien on the 18th and a second day with Marko Nurminen, the picture editor, on the next day.

I don't use the words 'career defining' easily, but this workshop really was. I already knew Damien's enthusiasm from his videos but to see the man in real life was a treat. Back then, his workshops were 4:1 and he showed us around Bristol all day with a professional model. I had a blast. He taught us how to use virtually any background as a cool portrait background, how to make use of existing light when possible and how to add flash when necessary. My D300 was doing overtime. The next day, I had a one-to-one Lightroom session with Marko. I knew Lightroom by heart but I was still struggling to find a professional workflow. I still remember Marco say:

“Your problem is you know Lightroom too well!”

— Marko Nurminen

Portraits, an eBook by Damien Lovegrove

Fast forward to now. Damien and I run into each other quite often, as we are both Fujifilm X-photographers and Ambassadors and I consider him as a friend. Every once in a while, he comes to Belgium for some fun shoots, which underlines the importance of doing personal shoots and not only client shoots. We recently did an urbex shoot in Belgium with lovely model Cato. Damien was testing the X-T2 at the time. He then told me he was working on what would be his (and maybe even 'the') ultimate book on portrait photography.

FUJIFILM X-Pro2 | XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR @ 17 mm | 1-160 sec at f - 8,0 | ISO 200

I know very few professional photographers who manage to photograph at this pace all while still sharing so much of their knowledge through live workshops, lectures and videos. Take a look at Damien's excellent lighting videos, I can recommend all of them, especially his Illumination ones. In fact, I think if you'd go look up the word 'prolific' in a dictionary, chances are that after the description, you'll read 'see also: Damien Lovegrove'. I once jokingly asked Damien which pills he was on because I wanted to see the same pharmacist. 

Shot during a recent urbex shoot with Damien and fellow X-Ambassador Ioannis Tsouloulis in Belgium. FUJIFILM X-Pro2 | XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR @ 17 mm | 1-160 sec at f - 8,0 | ISO 200

The master himself in action in this set-up shot: we used two Cactus RF60 speedlights and a Cactus V6 trigger. Modifier was an SMDV 70 Speedbox with a grid. Here's my review of the V6 and the RF60 and that of the V6 Mk II.

“I don’t know what vitamins Damien Lovegrove is on, but I want the same!”

— Me

The eBook is available in two different covers. This is one from Damien's 'Figure in the landscape' series which he shot in the USA.

After being two years in the making, Damien’s Portraits eBook is finally there. As he says himself, everything he knows about portrait photography is in this book.

In Portraits, Damien takes you through his complete portrait making process. He starts at the planning stages and obviously covers capture in great detail, both using natural light and flash, but he also talks about how he delivers files to clients and how he archives them.

Portraits has 356 pages with 384 high-resolution photographs that have all the exposure and lighting details that were used to create them. Because it's so high-res, you actually get two download sizes to choose from: a high-res one (e.g. for on your computer or tablet) and a lower res one (e.g. for on your phone).

“Everything I know about portrait photography is in this book. I hope it helps you to achieve a lifetime of enjoyment from your photography.”

— Damien Lovegrove

Imagine Damien sitting next to you in a bar, giving you 50,000 words worth of lighting and career advice. Believe me, that would cost you a lot more in beers than the 36 € / $40 (+ tax) Portraits is currently selling for. And better still, if you use code GENT€ (if you pay in €) or GENT$ (if you pay in $) upon checkout, you can get 20% extra off. On the eBook, not on beers! But hurry, because that code is only valid through the end of June 2018.

Although Damien is currently using Fuji gear, this book really is useable regardless of your camera brand. For example, it will show you that you can use overexposure to achieve a particular high-key effect, but it won't tell you how to do overexposure on your specific camera (it would have become a very boring book, otherwise!) That's what your manual is for, after all. However, if you'd like to hear Damien's more camera-specific thoughts on the Fujifilm X-system, read on:

A second eBook: The Fujifilm X System Guide

I told you Damien's prolific, didn't I? If you go to checkout, you will see that you can also purchase a second eBook, The Fujifilm X System Guide. This one is obviously of particular interest if you're a Fujifilm user. Think of it as Damien joining you on a trip to a camera store to help you make an informed decision on what to buy, based on your shooting style and interests. I like to think that I know my X cameras pretty well, but I still picked up a couple of valuable gems from the eBook. If you're new to the Fujifilm system, it will really help you in deciding which lenses and body types are the ones you should go for. It's 20 GBP when purchased separately, but if you buy it along with Portraits, it's only 10 GBP extra (actually 8 GBP thanks to the discount). And, thanks to Brexit, a pound sterling is not what it used to be, anyway. So spending 10 GBP might save you a couple of hundred choosing the wrong lens our camera.

So, that's all for this review. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to slaving away at my own upcoming eBook, which will be a more technical and gear guide about on- and off-camera flash (so it will be a perfect complement to Damien's Portraits). More on that later!

The 2016 edition of the 5 Day Deal: What's in it for you?

From now until Wednesday, October 19th, noon PST, it's 5 Day Deal time again! The 5 Day Deal is a unique bundle of photographic training content. If you were to buy every item separately, you'd be looking at a total bill of over $2.500. Now, you're only paying $97, a savings of more than 95 percent! The bundle contains over 60 hours of video training, 15 eBooks and almost 500 Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions. In total over 25 gigabyte of training goodness.

From Lightroom presets over video courses on how to shoot wine or photograph models to a complete landscape postprocessing photography course: there's something for everyone in this bundle.

Of course, the real question is: 'What is this bundle worth to you?' Unless you're really into all genres of photography, probably not the full $2.500. But I can guarantee you that even if you're only remotely interested in photography, the 5 Day Deal bundle is certainly worth more than the measly $97 it's selling for. In fact, this bundle will do more for your photography than the umpteenth camera bag or a shiny new UV filter. 

To help you determine if it's worth your dollar (well, 97 of them), I've broken the bundle down into three typical areas of interest: general postprocessing, landscape photography and portrait photography. You'll see that even if you're only really into one of those three areas, the bundle is a steal. Heck, if you're into two or more, you should already be ordering!

1. You're into Lightroom and Photoshop

Postprocessing seems to be the main theme of this year's bundle, so if image editing is your thing, you're in for a treat. The bundle is ideal to hone your editing skills over these cold winter months and get you ready for a great start in 2017. There's hundreds of Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions, textures and loads of training videos. There's also a lot of HDR training, and I mean photographically interesting HDR, not the headache-inducing variety! The total value of the highlighted items alone is over $1.600. The 5 Day Deal price is less than ten percent of that. If you're a Lightroom or Photoshop user, this bundle really is a no-brainer.

2.  You're mainly interested in nature photography, landscapes, cityscapes and how to postprocess these

The total value of the highlighted items is about $700. From previous 5 Day Deals, I remember the excellent quality of the stuff that people like Jimmy McIntyre, Klaus Herrmann and James Brandon put out, so I'm looking forward to discovering their new courses. Also, note that I've only counted items that have a direct relationship to landscape photography. There are lots of resources, like the many preset packs, that will without a doubt also be useful when you're editing your landscape images.

3. You're mainly interested in portrait photography and portrait retouching

The total value of the highlighted items is also some $700. Again, there are some hidden gems in this line-up. For example, I really enjoyed Serge Ramelli's no-nonsense approach to compositing: he photographs a model and then puts her in front of a different background. This course alone by itself normally costs double the entire 5 Day Deal bundle price.

Other areas of interest

But that's not all. There's also more general, introductory courses such as David duChemin's 26 part email course on the one hand but also some highly specialized ones on the other: how 'bout an in-depth course on Photo Mechanic (I know I can use one since I'm using this app more and more as a front-end to Lightroom). Or what about a course on how to photograph wine? It's all there.

If you're still in doubt, here's 5 final reasons why you should really consider this bundle:

The ever-funny-yet-to-the-point Zack Arias has written an eBook of over 100 pages with business advice for photographers. It's an excellent and at times hilarious read.

1. This way of learning is one of the cheapest to improve your photography skills, at your own pace, when and where you want it. Furthermore, there's always a couple of hidden gems in bundles like this. For example, I thoroughly enjoyed Zack Arias' 'Get To Work - Business Primer' eBook. It's not something I'd probably buy (in fact, I didn't know it existed), but it was included in the bundle anyway! 
2. A lot of this bundle's resources are new and if they aren't new, at least they've never been in any other 5 Day Deal bundle, so there's no overlap with previous 5 Day Deal purchases.
3. If you're more interested in the business side of photography, there's a couple of interesting items as well, like the afore-mentioned guide by Zack Arias. Zack's studio is doing great now, but he once was nearly bankrupt. So, he knows what he's talking about.
4. The bundle is gone forever on October 19th, noon PST (that's 9 PM Brussels time).
5. 10 percent of the entire turnover (not the profits, but the turnover, so almost $10 on every sale) goes to charity. Since the start of the 5 Day Deal in 2013, over $650.000 was donated to good causes. For this year, the 5 Day Deal team is hoping to achieve $250.000 of charity donations and they even silently hope to reach $350.000, which would bring their total over one million since 2013. To that effect, upon checkout, you can choose to pay an extra 10% ($9.7) which goes entirely to charity. And, as a token of good karma, you get an extra bonus-download worth $250. Some 50% of people who bought the bundle so far have chosen this option. It's called 'Charity Match', you'll see it on the 5 Day Deal page.

You see, I'm shutting up already. Yes. I'm that easy :-)

5 products that caught my eye at Photokina 2016

I have just returned from a bustling two days at Photokina, the biannual photographic gear lovefest that is held in Cologne, Germany. I was travelling in the exquisite company of fellow Belgian X-photographers Isabel Corthier and Ioannis Tsouloulis. I want to thank the people from Fujifilm Japan and Belgium for inviting us over. Trade shows like Photokina are as much about people as they are about products. So, it was great to reconnect with longtime friends such as Tom, Bert (who used Tom’s bald head as a reflector during his 'Small lights, big results’ demo on the Fujifilm stand), Rob, Damien (energetic as ever), the German ‘rock star’ trio Dieter, Jens & Peter and Marco, Julia, Shusuke and Kunio. I also had the privilige of being introduced to new people such as Patrick La Roque, Jens Krauer, Martin Hülle and their impressive work. Finally, I am happy I got to meet Rico Pfirstinger. He’s the author of the unofficial Fujifilm manuals. If you are struggling to get the most out of your camera, his books and workshops are among the best resources to turn to.

Now of course, apart from the social aspect, Photokina is obviously also about gear. Lots of gear! In fact, it's probably the most GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome)-inducing show on the planet. Even during those two days, I was unable to visit each hall, let alone each booth. Yet, there were a couple of products that caught my eye. Because the Internet loves lists, here's five of them, in no particular order. Well, except maybe for the first! 

1. Fujifilm GFX

The GFX looks like a beefed-up X-T2. Image © Fujifilm.

Call me biased (I'm an X-photographer after all) but the Fujifilm GFX was the star of the Fujifilm booth and probably even of the entire Photokina. In case you've just returned from another planet, the GFX 50s is Fujifilm's first digital medium format camera. It has a sensor size roughly 4 times that of the other X series cameras and a pixel count of 51.4 megapixel. The GFX 50s will be available with three lenses at launch, which you should be ‘early 2017’. By end of 2017, another tree lenses should be available.

Literally everybody wanted to get their hands on the camera of which only a couple of prototypes exist. I was lucky enough to get to hold it in my hands for a couple of minutes. I was surprised at how well it focused even in the dark venue where I was and also at how lightweight it was: this beast of a camera weighs less than many a professional DSLR! If you want to read more about the specs (even more than is available on Fujifilm's own website) read this excellent article by Rico Pfirstinger.

The price of the GFX hasn't been set yet, but Fujifilm management did promise it would be 'well under $10.000' with the standard lens. We have yet to see into how many Euro that will translate...

Official press release here.

You'll be able to use two EVF viewfinders with the GFX: a regular one and one that can be tilted and rotated, allowing almost every imaginable capture angle. It will even be possible to use an external monitor.

2. Phottix Spartan beauty dish

As you know, I use a lot of artificial (flash) lighting in my images, so I'm always eager to learn about cool new lighting accessories. One interesting modifier I came across was at the stand of Phottix. The Spartan beauty dish (full specs here) is a modifier that seems to come straight out of a Transformers movie: it's easy to set up and you can remove the disc in the center to turn it into an octabox. I also like the fact that it comes with a grid. More and more, I seem to be using grids in my own lighting. The Spartan comes in two sizes: 50 cm and 70 cm. Price for the latter is about $145. That is very affordable, considering that some companies charge about that much for just a grid!

3. SMDV BRiHT-360

The SMDV BRiHT-360 is a lightweight 360 Ws battery-powered barebulb flash with removable battery that slides into the main unit.

Just as I thought I could finally finish the manuscript of the second edition of my Making Light e-book, I came across the SMDV stand... I could not help but notice their BRiHT-360 portable barebulb flashes (there were about 10 of them placed along the counter). As you may know from previous blog posts, I am a fan of their easy to set up (and even easier to break down) Speedbox series of softboxes. At Photokina, it was the BRiHT-360 that stole the show, though. As its name implies, this is a 360 Ws barebulb flash. What I like about it is that it's super lightweight at only 1.25 kg including the battery. The latter lasts about 300 full power pops. Basically, this thing produces the same amount of light as four Speedlights at the weight and price of only two. What I also like, is that it works well with SMDV's Speedboxes, who happen to be also very lightweight: the combination of the BRiHT and an 85 cm Speedbox only puts 2 kgs on the scale!

The BRiHT does TTL and HSS with Canon and Nikon cameras (using a compatible SMDV Flashwave 5 trigger) but luckily enough it also works in manual mode on my Fujifilm cameras. I am looking forward to testing this unit more in-depth and to see whether I might even be able to get some sort of HSS with my Fuji cameras by using the Cactus V6 Mark II triggers, which I reviewed here.

In the mean time, you can read the full specs of the BRiHT 360 here. In Europe, the BRiHT will be available through www.foto-morgen.de. Price should be somewhere around €700 / $750.

4. Godox

The AD600 exists in a Bowens and a Godox mount and in a TTL and manual version. All versions support HSS with Canon, Nikon and Sony (provided you use the matching Godox X1 trigger). Image © Godox.

Godox, whose Lithium battery-powered Ving V850 speedlight I’ve reviewed here, also had a stand at Photokina. Their AD600B battery powered studio flash has recently been reviewed in Shoot, the Belgian photography magazine I write for (Dutch link here). This unit packs 600 Ws of power in an affordable package with TTL and HSS support for Nikon, Canon and Sony. By default, it comes as an all-in one light with a battery that attaches directly to the body of the flash. The advantage is that you don’t need cables and you don’t have a separate power pack to worry about (or carry around).

The potential disadvantage is that if you put your light on a boom stand, especially with a heavy modifier, the setup can get a bit top-heavy. Also, if you’re using an assistant instead of a light stand, it’s quite a workout to hold a setup like this in the air for any prolonged period of time.

Image © Godox

So I was happy to see the 600 Ws Extension Head. This accessory allows you to separate the pack from the head. Just unplug the flash tube from the AD600, plug it in the Extension Head, connect the power cable to where the flash tube used to be and boom, you've transformed your all-in-one into a pack-and-head system.

Godox also had a 1200 Ws Extension Head on display: this accessory has a special, more powerful flash tube which effectively allows you to turn 2 AD600s into one 1200 Ws pack-and-head system. With so much power, you can overpower the sun even when using larger modifiers. Or, you can benefit from faster recycle times.

Finally, Godox also had an AC adaper on display which allows you to turn the AD600 into a mains-powered flash. The adapter includes a fan as well.

If you live in the US, note that the AD600 is sold by Adorama under the Flashpoint XPLOR 600 brand name.

Image © Adorama

The 600 Ws Extension Head ships without a flash tube because you use the one that comes with the AD600. Price is around $80. Image © Adorama.

The 1200 Ws one has a special flash tube which actually consists of two 600 Ws tubes. Price is around $300. Image © Adorama.

5. 3 Legged Thing Albert Tripod

I have been using the Three Legged Thing Brian tripod during my travels for the last couple of years. The main reason is that it is a lightweight travel tripod that still can be extended really high. For me, it serves a dual purpose: I can use it as a traditional tripod for long exposure photography (in which case I obviously don't extend it all the way up) but I actually use it a lot more as an impromptu light stand. Having this versatility (transformability really seems to be a theme in the products I selected in this blog post) allows me to travel with less weight without compromising on photographic opportunities. Alas, the Brian is no longer available. At Photokina, I was introduced to his successor: Albert. The Albert was improved on a number of points but still shares the Brian’s adventurous and multi-purpose DNA. Price of this carbon-fibre travel tripod system is about GBP 400 (including a ballhead).

Full specs here.

The Brian used as a light stand.

So there you have it, a quick round-up of some of some of the products that caught my attention at Photokina. If you were there, I’d love to hear what caught yours!

Review: The Cononmark i6T EX Leopard portable studio flash

I am currently updating my Making Light and Making Light 2 eBooks on off-camera flash. They will be merged into one completely revised and updated eBook with loads of new case studies and lighting diagrams. I'll keep you posted on when the eBook will be ready. As all my other English titles, it will be published through the fine folks at Craft & Vision. 

One thing that was a lot of work, but also fun to do, was updating the gear section of the book: a lot has changed since the original eBooks were published over four years ago. Luckily, most of that change is for the better: gear has become more powerful and cheaper. Maybe the only downside is that there’s simply too much stuff to choose from, nowadays. In the eBook, I'll offer you some guidelines to help you choose a system that works.

One of the main trends is that we now have a lot more choice in powerful, battery-powered studio strobes that offer TTL (Through-The-Lens) metering and HSS (High Speed Sync which allows sync speeds up to 1/8000th of a second). In this and a couple of future blog posts, I want to introduce you to some of my favorites. In this first installment, I’ll talk about the i6T EX Leopard by Chinese Lighting manufacturer Cononmark, who kindly sent me a review unit to try out. If you live in the US, you can find a rebranded version of this flash at B&H Photo, where it sells as the IMPACT Venture 600 TTL.

600 Ws is good to have when you want to overpower the ambient light and still use a large modifier like I did in this shot. Exposure: 1/800 @ f/7.1 | ISO 100. I used the SMDV Alpha 110 Softbox.

Why a portable studio strobe?

When you start to explore off-camera flash, your first stop will undoubtedly be speedlights: they’re affordable and light-weight. After a while though, chances are that you’ll start using them in ways they weren’t really intended: to overpower the sun on a bright day and/or in big modifiers because you want a softer light.

One thing you can do - and which I personally did a couple of years ago - is combine a couple of speedlights on a multi-speedlight bracket. However, the fun of that wears off quickly!

If you have one speedlight at full power and you want to underexpose the ambient light by one extra stop (or add one extra stop of flash light), all you have to do is add another speedlight. That’s still doable, right? But what if you find that you’re still one stop short with those two speedlights? If you want to double your amount of light again, you now have to add two more, leading to a total of four. Good luck to you and your budget if you happen to be using premium speedlights like the Nikon SB-910 or the Canon EX600-RT! And… if this setup still leaves you needing an extra stop of flash light, you have to add another four. Hello second mortgage!

After a while, charging all those batteries becomes almost a day-job in itself, too... Not to mention you'll want to carry some spares, too!

Battery powered studio flashes

The Cononmark i6T EX Leopard is relatively small and light but it does not feel flimsy.

That's where a more powerful, yet battery operated studio flash like the Cononmark i6T EX Leopard comes in. Portable flashes like these exist in two varieties. The pack-and-head systems have a separate battery pack with a cable that you plug into the head. The advantage is that the head is generally a little lighter, which is handy if you want to angle the light on a boom stand. The disadvantage is that they take a little more time to set up, and that they are also slightly more cumbersome to handle because of that power pack. The Leopard is part of the other variety: battery and head are one unit. The battery is detachable, though, so you can charge it separately or even buy a spare and use one while you charge the other.

Cononmark i6T EX Leopard: what's in the box?

The Leopard comes in a metal case that looks like it comes straight out of a James Bond movie. At first I thought I’d prefer a soft case, but the advantage of this case is that it protects the flash really well and that in a pinch, you could use it as a small step to put yourself or your model on, depending on who’s taller.

The James Bond-style metal case comes with all of these goodies. I especially found the grip to be handy. A trigger is included in the price.

The flash itselfs also packs a couple of features that might have been invented by Q himself. For example, the flash is rated at 600Ws output but by default, it is set up in High-Performance Mode, which offers an impressive 1 second recycle time but only delivers 300Ws. To get the full 600 Ws power, you have to press the Test button for a couple of seconds. The ring around the button will then turn blue, indicating you can now blast away at 600 Ws. Doing this will decrease your recycle time to a 3 seconds, which is still respectable considering that this flash is approximately the power of 6 to 8 speedlights.

For indoor use, the Cononmark also sports a 15W, dimmable LED modeling light.

One of the things that struck me is that the unit is very lightweight yet solidly built: with the default Comet mount, it puts a mere 1.8 kg on the scale, making it one of the lightest portable 600 Ws strobes around. The default swivel adapter that comes in the box has an opening for an umbrella so if you add 200 grams for an umbrella, you can start to produce loads of beautiful soft ligt on location while carrying only 2 kilograms in lighting equipment. I used the Leopard with the optional Bowens adapter though, because I own a lot of lighting modifiers that feature this mount, such as the cheap and easy-to-set-up Phottix Luna Folding Octa or the SMDV Alpha 110. Including the Bowens mount and the battery, the unit weighs 2.2 kilo.

Other specifications

• Power: 600 Ws
• Flash Duration (t0,5): 1/380 - 1/18500 sec
• Wireless remote receiver: built-in, auto-switches to the trigger used
• Sync Mode: wireless trigger, photosensitive receiver, sync cable
• Color temperature: 5500 K +/- 100K
• Modeling lamp: Led, 1500LM, 4200K
• Recycling time (power): 0.2 - 1 sec
• Recycling time (standard): 0.3 - 3 sec
• Full power output flashes (5s for one flash): approximately 400 times
• Overheat Protection: yes
• Dimensions: 210 x 100 mm
• Net weight: 1.4 kg (battery not included), 1.8 kg including battery
• Battery properties: Li-Ion battery, 2000mA (29.6Wh)

Nikon, Canon and Sony HSS and TTL triggers

Although there’s a plug to sync the flash with a cable, if you want to take advantage of the cool features like TTL and HSS, you’ll need Cononmarks wireless ABC Radio Trigger. This trigger exists in a Nikon, Canon and Sony version. The photos in this blog post were made with a Sony Alpha 7 RII. The trigger lets you fire up to three groups of remote (compatible Cononmk) flashes and you can combine manual and TTL settings in those groups. First and Second Curtain Sync and High Speed Sync up to 1/8.000th are available.

And Fujifilm?

As you might know, I'm a Fujifilm user. There currently isn't a dedicated Fujifilm trigger. I don't know of any portable studio flash system that has one, for that matter. My test unit came with a Nikon and Sony trigger and I was able to use the Nikon trigger with my Fujifilm cameras, albeit obviously only in manual mode and without High-Speed Sync. Still, I could remotely change the manual power levels from the trigger, which is convenient. By adding 2 Cactus V6 Mark II triggers to the mix, I could also use the Leopard in Power Sync with my Fujifilm X-Pro 2 (all the way up to 1/8000th). More on that in this blog post.

Cononmark's ABC trigger gets its name from the fact that it can control up to three groups of flashes. You have a choice between manual (with power settings from full power down to 1/128th), TTL (including up to 3 stops EV) or a combination of both. The trigger exists in 4 versions: Canon, Nikon and 2 for Sony. The Brightness of the modeling lamp can also be set from the ABC trigger.

Having never worked with either the Sony or the Leopard, I was expecting all kinds of issues but everything worked straight out of the (Bond-styled) box. I was impressed! The less you have to struggle with your gear, the more you can pay attention to your model.

Pricing and availability

The i6T EX Leopard is available directly from Cononmark for about $1.000 (excluding shipping and taxes). Contact Sue (queok@163.com) for more details. If you live in Europe, I would recommend buying the unit through a reseller such as Mikrosat (this is a link to the Nikon version). At 1.299 € including VAT, the Leopard sits in the mid-range of battery powered studio flashes. Note that the trigger of your choice is included in that price. The Bowens adapter is 35 € extra.

What I liked

• All-in-one concept: battery and flash are integrated
• Easy to set up and works as advertised
• Super fast recycle time of 1 second if you're working at 300 Ws
• Lightweight and compact, even with optional Bowens mount
• Trigger is available in Canon, Nikon and 2 Sony versions. The flash will auto-detect which trigger is used
• Nikon trigger will also work with my Fujifilm cameras (although manual-only and no HSS)

What could be improved

• If you’re into multi-flash setups, the trigger only works with other compatible Cononmark flashes. There currently is no way to include for example a regular speedlight (e.g. as a fill light) in an HSS and TTL setup, although you could obviously still use that flash when you set it up as an optical slave
• Locking mechanism of the optional Bowens mount is perfectible. I added an extra washer under the release lever to facilitate the release

High Speed Sync is essential to get shots like this as it allows you to freeze the movement. Exposure: 1/1000th @ ISO 200 @ f/8. I made this shot in High Speed Sync after having only used my test camera, the Sony Alpha 7 RII and the Leopard together for one hour. 

A big thank you to my model: Matthias, dance instructor at I Believe in Lebbeke, Belgium. You rock!

Tutorial review: The Complete Guide To Portraiture by Sandro Miller

When I first heard about ‘The Complete Guide To Portraiture & Building A Body Of Work For Print & Publication’ I knew this was one I just had to watch. After all, it’s about all the things I love in photography: travel, portraiture, lighting and retouching. So I contacted the guys over at RGG EDU (that's short for Rob and Gary's Great EDUcation), the producers of this video, and they were kind enough to set me up with a review copy and a really cool discount code for readers of this blog. Full details are at the end of this post but basically, it means that as a reader of my blog, you can get RGG EDU's newly released 6 hour Capture One Pro training video as a free bonus when you purchase the Sandro Miller tutorial.

UPDATE: the discount code no longer works, but there is currently (until May 29th, 2017) a 66 percent discount on this tutorial, making this an even much better deal than the one I had for you back when I originally wrote this review...

This tutorial follows internationally acclaimed photographer Sandro Miller from start to finish on a project in which he photographs indigenous tribes in the remote and sometimes downright dangerous parts of Papua New Guinea. Here's the official trailer below.

This day and age, everyone and his dog seem to be producing video tutorials geared towards photographers. As I can tell from my own area of expertise, Lightroom training, there’s a lot of chaff amongst the wheat. Yet, the videos from RGG EDU, a relatively young photography tutorial website, definitely fall in the ‘wheat’ category. Having bought, watched and highly appreciated their ‘The Complete Guide To Composite Photography, Color & Composition with Erik Almås’, I knew I could expect high quality, and I wasn’t disappointed. By the way, here's an in-depth (Dutch-only, unfortunately) review of the Erik Almås tutorial.

Sandro Miller

One of Sandro's most recent books is the result of a seventeen-year collaboration between photographer and subject. I'll try and keep that in mind the next time I make a one-minute portrait of someone :-)

To be really honest, I did not know Sandro Miller. At least not by name. But I did know some of his work, and chances are you do, too: just google his latest book Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich, which features photographs that Sandro made during his 17 year friendship with this incredibly versatile actor.

Incidentally, this is just one of the things this tutorial taught me: getting a book published takes time and patience. Sandro visited Cuba 14 times before he did a book on it. But... it is not undoable, especially after watching this tutorial...

What’s in this tutorial?

In this tutorial, we get to follow Sandro while he is preparing a new book project: a series of portraits of tribal people in Papua New Guinea. 

Obviously, the highlight of the tutorial is the actual documentary in which you get to see him set up a makeshift studio, set up his lights and interact with the people he photographs. If this tutorial where a five course dinner: this would be the main course. But the appetizers, served as 'prerequisites' and desserts (the compositing tutorials and final interviews) are just as... mouthwatering.

Gear and Lighting Prerequisite 

First of all, there are a number of so-called prerequisites or series of introductory videos: there's one about the gear that Sandro uses and then another series of videos about lighting where you can see how he puts that gear to use in his studio in Chicago. The contrast between the high-end equipment (Sandro's studio looks like a mix of a Profoto and Broncolor flagship store) and what he used in Papua New Guinea could not be bigger. It’s another proof that it’s the photographer matters more than the gear, or as the publisher of my own eBooks, David duChemin would say: Gear is good, Vision is better!

The idea of the prerequisite videos is to teach you some of the basics so that you can follow along better when the tutorial shifts to a higher gear. To that effect, we see Sandro make 2 portraits: a moody male portrait and a fashion portrait of a woman. During these sessions, Sandro explains why he uses a certain light and how he modifies it with flags. We also get to see that lighting is often a game of inches...

“‘I can create a novel in a man’s face by the way that I light it’”

— Sandro

I found it interesting to see the progression in the images: from ‘I can do that, too’ to ‘Damn, that’s a setup I have to remember’. It was also kind of comforting to see that even a highly respected portrait photographer has to work a scene and a model to get to great results. Success does not come easy. In fact, if there’s one theme that recurred throughout the work of Sandro Miller in general and this tutorial in particular, it’s the importance of practice, perseverance and attention to detail. I really picked up lots of little nuggets from those prerequisites.

Digitech prerequisite

Another thing that I found really interesting was the interview with Shad Wilson. Shad works - amongst others - as a so called Digitech: a digital tech assistant. He even has his own custom truck stacked to the roof with tripods, pelicases and light stands. Sandro being a high-end photographer, he can afford the budget for a Digitech to come along on this project.

'I'll be in the shed...' Shad WIlson talks Gary from RGG EDU through how he turned a regular Pelicase into a sun-shielded laptop case.

But even for mere mortals like you and I, this section has some really interesting advice on backup and workflow that can be helpful when you have to be your own Digitech. I also learned an interesting idea from this section: Sandro already had a specific idea from the start as to how the final images should look. He created that specific style in Photoshop and then gave that file to the Digital Tech. Shad emulated the look in Capture One so that he could apply it to the images while shooting tethered.

Postprocessing and retouching prerequisites.

As this tutorial is as almost as much about postprocessing as it is about photography, there’s also a couple of introductory videos on postprocessing and retouching.

In these videos, we get to know Pratik Naik of Solstice Retouch. Pratik is a world renowned retoucher and another example that RGG EDU will only work with people who really know their stuff.

Pratik has some interesting ideas on how to redefine some of Photoshop's shortcuts so they are grouped together better for retouching. Even though these prerequisite tutorials were primarily aimed at beginners, I picked up a couple of interesting tips, not in the least about Capture One, which I I'm not so familiar with as I am obviously more of a Lightroom user. Yet, the things I learned definitely made me want to check out Capture One more in detail.

Again, the idea is to get you up to speed for the ‘real’ postprocessing sections towards the end of the video, where the Papua New Guinea portraits that were taken on a green screen are composited into the backgrounds which were also photographed on location, but separately.

Sandro shot the backgrounds separately. At first, I had a hard time understanding why but after seeing the whole series come together, it made sense!

I have to admit that at first, I thought it was a strange idea to be shooting people against a green backdrop and then, sometimes as little as 100 feet further, shoot the actual backdrop separately, only to combine them later in Photoshop. I mean, why not just put your subject against the backdrop of your choice and photograph him right there and then, right?

It's what I have been doing so far with all of my travel portraits. It was only after viewing a number of finished images that I understood why this at first sight overly complicated procedure made sense: by having separate control over the background and the foreground and by also being able to exactly control the lighting of the subject in his makeshift studio (much more than under the glaring Papuan sun), the resulting photographs work much better together as a series. This in turn makes the work better suited for a book. It's definitely something I might also try in the future. 

The actual Papua New Guinea documentary

Although ‘only’ slightly over an hour, this is obviously the ‘pièce de résistance’ of this tutorial. Here we get to see Sandro created the raw material (pun intended) that will form the basis of an actual book project. We see Sandro check out locations that can either be suitable to create his makeshift studio or as a so called black plate, a background for compositing.

The setup (left) and the resulting raw file (right). Sandro used a digital Hasselblad on this shoot so he has virtually unlimited postprocessing options in terms of recovery and dynamic range.

To me, the most important take away from this video was that you don't need expensive or complicated lighting setups to create really impactful images. Everything was done within a relatively simple, double diffused soft box. No rim light, no reflectors, nothing.

The video below has some behind-the-scenes footage and it gives you a good idea of what to expect in the full-length tutorial.

For me, the tutorial also re-emphasized the importance of having a good fixer on location. When you spend a lot of money on a location project in an area or a country that you're not familiar with, it really is a good idea to set some money aside and hire someone who can help you, not only logistically but most importantly help you scout interesting locations and faces and interact with them.

In terms of makeshift studios, it does not get much more makeshift than this :-)

On my most recent trip to India, I did exactly that: we hired a really great local guy who helped us find interesting people and locations and who at the same time could translate  as my own Hindi is limited to ‘Hello’ and ‘Look this way’ and ‘Look that way’.

I would rather buy an f/1.8 portrait lens and have some money left for a fixer, than buy the most expensive lens there is and not have any budget left for travel, let alone a fixer. If you're interested, below you can find a short video with some of my own location lighting work. Although it's not in the Hasselblad range, I'm very happy with the dynamic range of my Fujifilm X-Pro 2 and I'm even happier its price isn't in the Hasselblad range, either!

The Compositing videos

As much as I liked the actual on location video in Papua New Guinea, I was even more looking forward to the compositing videos. And again, I was not disappointed. Pratik does a really good job of explaining how to blend these rather complex subjects with all their feathers and beads into the background. I found his explanation on how to get rid of the green fringes that remain (shooting against a green backdrop is no miracle solution) and how to use the blur and smudge brushes to tweak the mask, invaluable.

Before... As you can see from the screenshot, the original mask leaves a lot of problems in terms of green fringing. Pratik shows a couple of really interesting tips that I have never seen before (and Lord knows I've watched my share of compositing videos) on how to get rid of those.

And after... The final image is dark and moody. Yet, by keeping everything nicely organized in layers, adjustment layers and groups, everything can still be changed should the photographer prefer a different blend of foreground and background, or a different white balance. By the way, these quick screen grabs don't do the images much justice...

As a photographer, you have to have your own characteristic style. Part of that style is obviously created during capture, but this tutorial really made clear that an important part is also added in postproduction. The original files were rather dark and flat. Using a bunch of adjustment layers and filters, Pratik turns them into very moody portraits. As a nice extra, the tutorial includes a number of backgrounds and original raw files so you can follow along with the compositing videos. And I really recommend you do because it's the best way to learn anything. 

Two images waiting to be combined into one...

Another advanced technique I picked up was how to use Photoshop's Blend If options to restrict the effect of an Adjustment layer to specific areas.

The printing videos

In these videos, we see Sandro meet up with his longtime friend and printer, Jon Scott of JS Graphics. We get to see Jon prepare the final images for print and if you have ever printed on a large format printer yourself, you'll recognise the mix of anxiety and excitement that you feel when an expensive large-format print comes rolling out of the printer. This section wasn't as in-depth as I wanted it to be but on the other hand, you could probably easily fill another 11 hours with just a printing tutorial.

Sandro and Jon inspecting a large format print. As an interesting side-note, this image, which was shot with available light and was not composited, is one of my favorite images of the entire series.

Final interviews: hug a book!

This tutorial wraps up with two more interviews: the first is with Sandro’s publisher, Martha Hallet from Glitterati. It's an interesting talk about the publishing business and all of the artistic, financial and marketing considerations that go into  publishing a book. I chuckled when I heard Martha say that Sandro wanted to use seven inks for the Malkovich book (compared to the standard of four) and how they finally settled for five.

“I dont’t want to look at a book on an iPad. That’s ridiculous. You want to feel a book. You want to hug a book!”

— Sandro

This section really is an ode to the printed photo book and rightly so. One thing I found missing was some insight as to how to actually layout a book like this. The publisher goes briefly into it but an interview with the graphic designer would really have interested me, too. Well, I guess the RGG EDU guys had to draw the line somewhere!

The final interview not only gives an insight in Sandro's career, which spans four decades, but also in his amazing collection of photo books, which seems to span 40 feet!

That ode continues in the last interview with Sandro about his life and career. Sandro is filmed against a bookshelf that literally contains hundreds of photo books. After all the tech talk of the previous videos, this more inspirational interview is a great way to end a great tutorial.

Conclusion

As you may have guessed by now, ‘The Complete Guide To Portraiture & Building A Body Of Work For Print & Publication’ is an excellent tutorial in my opinion. If you're into location portraiture, postproduction and the entire process of working towards a published book, whether it's self published or with a publisher, this is something you must watch and then... probably watch again.

“Everything is relative”

— Einstein

Update: the discount codes in the next paragraph are no longer valid but as mentioned in the introduction, there is currently (until May 29, 2017) a Memorial Day discount on this tutorial that offers no less than 66 percent off, making the price only $98. And, even better, if your total bill exceeds $99 (in other words, if you buy two tutorials), code REMEMBER gets you an additional 25 percent off your entire bill AND if you spend more than $300, code REMEMBER35 shaves 35 percent off your total bill! Only for two more days!

Two fantastic RGG EDU discount codes for readers of this blog

Now... about the price. At first sight, $299 isn't cheap but as Einstein said: 'Everything is relative'. For the price of a camera bag, you get 11 hours of very well produced, in-depth, concise and above all very motivating training that will probably do more for your photography than any camera bag ever will!

Knowing what it already takes to produce a relatively simple Lightroom or Photoshop tutorial, I can only imagine the planning, effort, time and money it has taken to create the Sandro tutorial. So I would say that although not cheap, the price is more than fair for the length, quality and production value of the tutorial.

“With code MTW25, you basically get RGG EDU’s new 6 hour Capture One Pro tutorial for free!”

And if $299 is too much to pay in one go, you can even finance it in monthly installments of $29.

Better still, I’ve got two very cool discount codes for you, my dear readers: code MTW10 gets you 10 percent off the Sandro tutorial (or any other RGG EDU tutorial, for that matter). Code MTW25 even gets you 25 percent off on any order that's over 375$. That basically means you can get RGG EDU's freshly announced Capture One tutorial (a $79 value) completely free: the trick is to add both tutorials in your shopping cart, enter the code MTW25 and you'll pay less for both than the regular $299 price of the Sandro tutorial alone! But don't wait too long, because these codes expire end of August, 2016.

Before I forget: the RGG EDU contest!

When you buy the tutorial, you also get access to a private Facebook group and you get to enter the Sandro Portrait Photography Contest which RGG EDU specifically set up for this tutorial. The contest has $50.000 in prizes! I told you these RGG EDU guys don’t do half work… Find out more about the contest here.

Subscribe to my newsletter and get my '10 Tips for Better Travel Photographs' for free.

And - shameless plug to end this long review - if this tutorial gets you in a traveling mood, don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter: you’ll receive my 10 tips for better travel photographs absolutely free.

Finally, if you want to do more than just read about travel photography, Matt Brandon and I have just announced the 2017 edition of our Location Portraiture and Lighting Masterclass in Delhi and Varanasi, India.

High Speed Sync for Fujifilm cameras: a review of the Cactus V6 Mk II radio transceiver

The shot above is probably the most important Fujifilm image I have shot in the past 4 years.

I am joking obviously, at least as far as the contents of the image go. This is by all accounts a crappy, ill-composed, flash-lit picture of a toy bulldozer!

Yet, it’s the fact that it was obviously lit by flash that makes this picture so interesting. Because… look at the Exif-info: that 1/8.000th isn’t a typo. No, after 5 years of Fujifilm X-series, it marks the start of a new era where Fujifilm users who are into flash photography, will no longer be limited by their Fuji’s sync speed. On an X-Pro 2, that is 1/250th, on an X-T1, it’s 1/180th of a second. From now on, you’ll be able to use these cameras with flash at up to 1/8.000 of a second. The little wonder of technology that makes this possible is a radio transceiver called the Cactus V6 Mark II. And the opening shot is the first image I shot with it. 

The Cactus V6 Mark II. Affordable High Speed Sync for Fujifilm users.

As I wrote in this review, I was already quite fond of the original Cactus V6 Mark I as a radio trigger for Fujifilm cameras because it lets you control the power of say a Nikon SB900 manually and remotely by connecting it to a V6 switched to Rx (receiver) mode. Pop a second V6 on your camera’s hotshoe in Tx (transmitter) mode, and you’re good to go. You have 4 different groups that you can assign flashes to and each group’s power can be controlled individually. When changing power levels, you can do it all conveniently from the V6-transmitter on your camera and you can do so for one group separately or for all groups proportionally. The V6 Mark II keeps all those cool features and adds what I have been hoping and waiting for ever since I switched to the Fuji X-system: High Speed Sync. Short of TTL, which I rarely use anyway, and High Speed Sync, which is about the only thing I miss from my DSLR days, the original V6 did everything I wanted it to. And now the Mark II adds just that one missing feature.

What is HSS?

Let’s backtrack a little. When you shoot flash, traditionally, you have to take the so-called X-sync speed - typically around 1/200th of a second - of your camera into account: you can only sync a flash at shutter speeds up to the sync speed.

“No longer having a sync speed to worry about, means you can use your expensive fast Fujifilm primes wide open and still use flash!”

Now, did you notice the word ‘traditionally’? I put it in there because, for a couple of years already, most camera and flash manufacturers have found ways around this limitation, effectively letting you use your flash with sync speeds all the way up to 1/8000th of a second.

A flash used on a camera with a sync speed of 1/200th of a second. Left: 1/200th of a second, middle: 1/320th of a second. Right: 1/500th of a second. Failure to respect the X-sync speed of your camera will result in the infamous black bar across your image.

Why is this such a big deal for Fujifilm users?

Working at 1/250th or 1/180th of a second with flash forces me to use very small apertures, resulting in a very busy background.

As I said in the previous paragraph, most camera and flash manufacturers already support HSS, except… Fujifilm… They are working on an HSS enabled flash (the EF-X500), that would even have the advantage of throwing TTL in the mix. By contrast, the V6 Mark II is manual-only, although you can change that manual power level remotely. However, that flash still isn’t available. Latest rumors point at a September release. According to Fujifilm’s press release, the EF-X500 would sport an optical triggering system. The V6 Mk II uses radio, which is more reliable in direct sunlight, is exactly the kind of situation where you would need HSS in the first place. So, the upcoming EF-X500 and the Cactus V6 needn’t be competitors. On the contrary, they might end up working well together…

Now about those HSS advantages: there are two of them, and they’re both super important for flash users. First of all, no longer having a sync speed to worry about, means you can use your expensive fast Fujifilm primes wide open and still use flash, as the example below shows.

Compare this image to the previous one: the background here is nice and blurry. It makes you focus on the subject in the foreground.

Thanks to the Cactus V6 Mark II, I was able to use flash (in this case a Cactus RF60, but I also tried it with a Nikon SB-900) and shoot at f/2.8 at 1/8.000th of a second. With any other trigger, I would have had to shoot at 1/250th of a second on my X-Pro 2 (and even 1/180th of a second on the X-T1). That means I would have to use an aperture of f/16. I don’t know about you, but I did not buy the 56 mm or the 50-140 mm to use it only at f/16! HSS works with Cactus' own RF60 flash and with a large number of third-party flashes (some 60 of them), too. The full list is detailed at the bottom of this page. Apparently, one of the most important criteria that the third party flash has to have is that it has to support HSS.

Now, in all honesty, there’s another way you could solve this problem, at least when your subject is stationary. That’s by putting a neutral density (ND) filter over your lens, in this example a 5 stop one. However, as anyone who’s ever used NDs will testify: using them adds another layer of complexity to your flash photography. Also, as they’re an extra piece of glass, the cheaper ones may have a slight impact on your image quality and the stronger ones will often introduce a colour cast, too.

And finally, ND’s won’t help you if you want to freeze fast moving outdoor action, like dancers jumping, with flash outdoors. That’s because at those slow regular sync speeds, the ambient light that falls on your subject will cause some blur around it in the final image. For that blur to disappear, you need to use faster shutter speeds.

Without High Speed Sync, the only way to use flash, e.g. as fill light when the light is really bright and contrasty outside, is to use a truckload of neutral density. In this image, I had to use over 10 stops to get the aperture down to F/1.8 to get the cinematic shallow depth of field that I wanted. 

This image was shot with a Sony camera and a 600 Ws CononMk i6 EX Leopard using High Speed Sync. Up until now, you simply could not make this kind of action-freezing, flash-lit shot with a Fujifilm X-series camera other than the X100 series. Thanks to the Cactus V6 Mark II, now you can.

Normal HSS

This is where High Speed Sync comes in. I won’t copy the V6 user manual - in fact, it’s 100 pages long and you can download it here if you want to - but the procedure is rather straightforward. It took me 5 minutes to get my X-Pro 2, one cactus V6 Mark II trigger and one Cactus RF60 flash shooting in High Speed Sync. Honestly, I was surprised at how smooth it all went.

The Cactus RF60 is a manual flash that has a built-in radio receiver that allows HSS with the V6 Mk II trigger. In the case of non-Cactus flashes, you have to attach them to a Cactus V6 receiver. Although the trigger on your Fujifilm camera needs to be a V6 Mk II, Cactus are working on a firmware update that will support Power Sync if you use the V6 as a receiver with a non-Cactus flash. For Normal HSS support with those non-Cactus flashes, you'll always need to use a V6 Mk II as a receiver.

The Cactus V6 Mark II will not only enable HSS with Cactus’ own RF60 flash, but with just about any speedlight, like the Nikon SB-900 or the cheap Godox V850 flashes. The advantage of Cactus’ own RF60 is that it has a built-in receiver. In the case of non-Cactus flashes, you have to attach them to a Cactus V6 receiver. Although the trigger on your Fujifilm camera needs to be a V6 Mark II, Cactus are working on a firmware update that will enable users to use the V6 Mark I as an HSS-enabled receiver.

The only thing you have to do - once - is ‘train’ your trigger to get to know your specific Fujifilm camera: for that, you need to go into the trigger’s menu and it will ask you to fire one shot at 1/1000th of a second. That’s all. Once that’s done, you simply set the trigger to ‘Normal HSS’ mode. Specifically for Fujifilm cameras, as they don’t officially support High Speed Sync yet, you also have to set ‘Forced HSS’ to ‘On’ when you want to shoot at speeds higher than your sync speed. Luckily, you don’t have to dive into any menus here: You simply push the rotary wheel on the back of the V6. When you’re back to using shutter speeds below the sync speed, don’t forget to push the rotary wheel again. I found myself sometimes inadvertently switching between those two modes simply because the wheel had bumped into something. Cactus have already replied they would fix this in the next firmware update.

I put a flash outside, behind the door. Without the flash, either Serge would have been completely dark or the outside world would have been completely blown out. Thanks to HSS, I could use the 16 mm at f/1.4 and 1/8000th of a second. Without HSS, I would have had to shoot this at f/8 to stay within the X-Pro 2’s 1/250th of a second sync speed.

Without getting too technical, what happens in Normal HSS mode is that the flash fires almost stroboscopically during the shutter speed of say 1/2000th of a second. Yes, it’s hard to believe but in that short period of time, the flash fires more than once but that’s what happens! The downside is that a lot of flash power gets wasted, but that’s the case for all HSS systems that work like this, also Nikon’s and Canon’s!

Power Sync

That’s why Cactus has also included a second way of letting you work beyond the sync speed of your camera, and that’s called Power Sync. This technology works differently: it uses a slice of the flash curve’s tail and matches that up with your shutter speed. So in a way, your flash acts as a continuous light source, if only for that very short shutter speed. For this technology to work, the flash duration needs to be as long (slow) as possible. That’s why it will only work at full power. The advantage is that less light is lost, so when there’s a lot of ambient light you need to tame, or you want to use very big, light-sucking modifiers, Power Sync might give you some more mileage. The downside compared to Normal HSS is that you cannot dial your flash power down from full power. In the V6’s menu, you can adjust which part of the flash curve is used, simply by turning a dial from 0 to 32. For example, for the RF60, I found a setting of 28 to be ideal. Back in the day, the Pocketwizard TT1 and TT5 system offered a similar option of adjusting the sync timing but you needed to program the units via your computer. Compared to this, Cactus’ implementation is incredibly simple and straightforward.

I’d recommend starting out in Normal HSS and using Power Sync when you really need to squeeze every last photon out of your flashes. Power Sync is also the option to choose when you want to work with studio flashes beyond the sync speed.

Two shots, both with the flash at full power. The darkest one (left) was shot in Normal HSS mode. The slightly brighter one (right) was shot in Power Sync mode. In both shots, the subject was standing at the same distance to the flash. So the difference you see is the extra power that Power Sync gives you over Normal HSS.

Power Sync is also the way to go if you want to use studio flashes. This shot was taken with the 600 Ws Godox AD600B, attached to a Cactus V6 Mark II receiver and triggered by a Cactus V6 Mark II transmitter on my Fujifilm camera. At first, I could not get this to work, but after contacting Cactus' support, they told me that for the moment, when working with these kinds of powerful strobes in Power Sync, you have to to set the receiver in Nikon mode. 

So does this this mean you can sell your ND filters?

Not quite: if you really like to work with flash and use your precious primes wide open, there will still be instances where even at 1/8000th of a second, you’ll have too much ambient light at f/1.4 or f/1.2 and ISO 200. And your Fuji’s electronic shutter is not an option, as it does not work with flash at all. Although in a pinch you could drop your ISO to 100, I don’t recommend you do because it effectively decreases your dynamic range. In those cases, you might still want to use a two or three stop ND filter. Also, although HSS is certainly more user-friendly than using ND filters, it wastes flash power. So, an ND filter can still come in handy on those occasions where you really need to squeeze every last photon of light out of your flash.

Also, Normal HSS and Power Sync do not work on all Fujifilm cameras: I have personally tried it on the X-Pro 1, X-Pro 2, X-T1 and X100T. According to Cactus, it does not work on the X-E2. I don't know about the X-E1, X-A1, X-M1 or X-E2s or older versions of the X100. 

Finally, if you want to work with bigger flashes that don’t play ball with Cactus’ Power Sync technology, you will still need ND filters to keep shutter speeds under your sync speed when working with wide open apertures.

Ergonomics and handling

The V6II is compatible in Normal HSS and Power Sync mode with Cactus’ own RF60 flash (obviously) but also with a lot of flashes that you might have lying around from your pre-Fujifilm days. For example, I tried it with an SB900 and it also worked. Oddly enough, the few flashes HSS does not work with, are the current Fujifilm flashes like the EF-42. For optimal compatibility and performance, you can choose the flash model (e.g. Nikon SB-900) in the menu of the V6.

“The V6 Mark II should be in the bag of every Fujifilm photographer who’s even halfway interested in using flash on location. ”

Putting my old Nikon SB900 back to life - and not just ordinary life but life in the fast lane! By putting it on a V6 Mark II, I can use it in HSS mode with my X-Pro 2.

Putting my old Nikon SB900 back to life - and not just ordinary life but life in the fast lane! By putting it on a V6 Mark II, I can use it in HSS mode with my X-Pro 2.

The Cactus V6 has an easy-to use interface with 4 direct-access buttons, a control wheel and a pass-through TTL hotshoe, but as a result of that, it’s also quite wide. In fact, on some cameras, especially the X-T10, it makes it hard to adjust the shutter speed dial. The easiest workaround is to set your shutter speed dial to the T-position and then adjust your shutter speed with the front dial anywhere between your fastest shutter speed and 30 seconds. You did know that trick, didn’t you?

On the X-Pro 2, there’s another thing to watch out for: don’t turn the lever that secures the trigger to the hotshoe too far to the right, or you will not be able to change your ISO anymore because it would refrain you from lifting the ISO dial.

Because of the design of the X-T1 and the newly announced X-T2, there is more clearance between the bottom of the trigger and the dials on the top of these cameras and I don’t expect any issues there.

Finally, make sure you slide the V6 all the way in the hotshoe. If necessary, push it a little. I’ve had a couple of instances where my flashes did not fire because I had not pushed it all the way in.

Conclusion

The V6 Mark II should be in the bag of every Fujifilm photographer who’s even halfway interested in using flash on location. It dramatically extends your creative options in terms of working wide open and/or freezing action and it does so in a way that is relatively easy to understand and set up, especially considering that Fujifilm does not have native HSS support at the moment. On top of that, it lets you put those old Canon or Nikon flashes that you might still lingering about in the cupboard to good use. Considering it’s currently the only trigger that currently does that, the price (under $200 for a pair) is a bargain, too. I know more than one Fujifilm photographer whose leather wrist wrap costs more than a V6!

In Belgium, the units can be bought through www.grobet.be, amongst other dealers. In the rest of Europe, the V6 Mark II and the RF60 are available for pre-order through the website of X-Photographer Damien Lovegrove via this link. Damien's even got a cool bonus: if you buy at least two units or a kit consisting of at least one trigger and one flash, you get one of his - excellent - training videos on off camera flash for free! More details over here.

For this image, I exceptionally dropped the ISO to 100 so I could shoot at f/1.8 and still keep the background dark enough.

Interested in more news and reviews?

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The Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers

Over $2.400 of resources for only $87

Every once in a while, I blog about a bundle that I think is interesting for photographers. Now, I nearly missed this one, because I thought it was a bundle for web designers. Turns out it is really much more a bundle with web and marketing tools for professional and semi-professional photographers and bloggers. The Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers bundles a bunch of eBooks, video tutorials, software and templates that, when purchased separately, would set you back over $2.400. Now you can get them for only $87. I was actually planning on buying two courses when I got word that they were included in the bundle and those alone would have cost me around $200. So getting the bundle was a no-brainer.

My personal top-10 of what's included

I'll just give you my personal top-10, but there are many more resources. For example, there's a tonne of Wordpress-based content (photography themes, shopping cart plug-ins, ...) but as I use Squarespace for this website, that content has little value to me. If you're running a Wordpress-based website, chances are that you might want to get the bundle for the Wordpress-based content alone. Check out the full list of resources here!

1. Making your Mark Online: Digital Marketing eCourse for Photographers

This is a marketing for photographers course by Corwin Hiebert, manager to one of the most successful photographers I know: David duChemin. So, I figure, if there's one guy a photographer can learn digital marketing from, it's Corwin! As photographers, we are generally too busy being creative to bother about the marketing. In fact, some of us consider ourselves to be artists and find that 'marketing' is a dirty word. Yet, simply making art does not pay the rent or feed the children or the cat... And even when you don't need the money, wouldn't your rather have thousands of people seeing what you created rather than hundreds? That's what this  course is all about.

Normally, this resource is $79, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

2. The Creative Composites Bundle

In this course by Photoshop wizard Serge Ramelli, you'll learn all about compositing: putting a model you photographed in a studio into a different background. 

Normally, this resource is $135, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

3. Affiliate Marketing - Monetizing Your Website with Value-Based Content

This is a brand new course by Dave Seeram, of which I've previously watched and enjoyed 24/7 Photo Pro on how to make your website make money for you. 

Normally, this resource is $97, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

4. SEO Cookbook for Photographers

This eBook teaches you the basics of Search Engine Optimization. We all know how much time and effort it takes to keep a photography website and blog alive with fresh content. This eBook shows you how investing a little more effort can attract a lot more visitors to your website.

Normally, this resource is $99, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

5. Designer Sets of Social Media Templates

This is a set of drag-and-drop templates that let you easily create Facebook banners and the like.

Normally, this resource is $89, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

6. Photographer Logo & Overlay Templates

If you're looking for a professionally designed logo for your business cards, this set by Brad Wayland has a couple of great-looking options.

Normally, this resource is $48, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

7. Photo Collage Templates for Social Media

A sample of the templates that are included in the bundle.

Another set of customisable drag-and-drop templates.

Normally, this resource is $98, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

8. Original Designer Fonts Bundle

76 script-based fonts that work really well with senior portrait, wedding or other announcement cards.

Normally, this resource is $39.99, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

9. Illustrator Quickstart Video Course

As a photographer, you sometimes need Adobe Illustrator, but if you're anything like me, you haven't got a clue how it works. That's where this Quickstart course comes in. It teaches you the basics!

Normally, this resource is $20, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

10. Power of Planning. A Guide for Creating Your Editorial Calendar.

This is one that interests me a lot: as many photographers and bloggers, I consider myself to be more creative than organised - and that's an understatement. The result is I don't blog as much as I should - and could. This training resource promises to help me get a grip on planning my blogging better. I look forward to trying it out!

Normally, this resource is $79, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

Adding it all up

I've done the math, and this top-10 alone would cost me $783,99. Now I've purchased it (and I did actually purchase it - I did not receive it for free) at a fraction of that cost.

I suggest you head over to the 5 Day Deal website to check what other resources are included that might interest you even more than this top-10. There's a big chance you'll come to the same conclusion as I did: this bundle is a steal!

The only thing to bear in mind - as the name 5 Day Deal implies - is that this bundle isn't around forever: in fact, you can only buy it until July 19th. Then it's gone forever. And in the case of the 5 Day Deal, that is to be taken litterally, as they never promote the same content twice. Final thing, if you're living in the EU, there's 21% VAT that gets added to your bill, unless you have a valid VAT number!

A nice extra touch is that 10 percent of the sales go directly to charity: you can even choose your own charity from the list during the checkout procedure.

Disclosure: if you purchase the Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers, MoreThanWords.be will make a small commission (at no extra cost to you). This helps to support the free content, reviews and tips on this website and its maintenance. However, rest assured that I will only recommend products or bundles that I find interesting enough.

What's the big deal about The Big Deal?

If you're reading this blog, chances are that you are into photography, postprocessing or probably even both. Well, I've got some interesting news for you! There's a new photography bundle out, The Big Deal. I'll immediately cut to the chase: this bundle, which is only available until July 4th, contains photography software, video tutorials, eBooks, Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions. The combined value of all the goodies in the bundle is over $3.000, yet it's priced at $99... and that's really a steal! 

Generally, there's a lot of 'filler' content in these bundles: stuff that you even would not want to get for free, let alone pay for it. But the Big Deal is much more about 'killer content' than it is about 'filler content'.

Let's have a look at what's inside. I won't list everything - there's a full list available over here - just my personal highlights.

Software

Although there's a lot more software in The Big Deal, I've limited myself to my personal top-3:

1. Photo Mechanic 5

More and more high-volume photographers who are using Lightroom, are starting to use Photo Mechanic as a front-end to Lightroom. Instead of waiting forever for Lightroom to build 1:1 previews, they use Photo Mechanic for the culling (selection) of the best images and then import only the selected ones into Lightroom. Ratings and Color Labels applied in Photo Mechanic can be read by Lightroom.

If you're a high-volume shooter, Photo Mechanic is an ideal 'front end' to Lightroom: do your culling in Photo Mechanic and your developing in Lightroom.

If you want to speed up your Lightroom workflow, Photo Mechanic is the way to go. In fact, Photo Mechanic only has one disadvantage: at $150, it's more expensive than Lightroom itself. If you get The Big Deal, it's included in the $99 bundle. For some of you, this should be enough to go for the 'Buy Now' button, so I've included one below, just for your convenience :-) By the way, if you want to see a video on how I use Lightroom and Photo Mechanic together and how it could speed up your workflow, check out this recent blog post of mine.

2. Tonality by Macphun

After Silver Efex Pro, Tonality by Macphun is probably the best Black & White software out there. It's got tonnes of presets and what I especially like is that it has built-in layer capabilities: this allows you for example to blend what one preset does to the sky and what another preset does to the foreground

Tonality (Mac-only) has the ability to work with layers inside the application. This lets you combine presets or easily fade their effect.

Normally, it's about $60, now it's included in The Big Deal.

3. Clarity by Topaz Labs

If you like the Clarity slider in Lightroom, you'll love Clarity by Topaz Labs: it's like a whole plug-in dedicated to creative sharpening effects. It's one of the favorite plug-ins of master retoucher and compositer Glyn Dewis, whose videos are also included in the bundle!

Clarity is normally around $50, now it's included in The Big Deal.

Video Tutorials

There is a plethora of video tutorials included in The Big Deal. Below is my personal top-3. Just as with the software, some of these tutorials cost more if you buy them separately than if you get them in the bundle.

1. Language of Light, Volume 1 by Joe McNally

If you want to learn about off-camera flash, no better source than Joe McNally. I've bought this tutorial myself a couple of years ago and it's worth every penny of its $120 price tag. So this is another example of a tutorial that by itself costs more than the whole bundle itself!

2. Retouching and Compositing Video Bundle by Glyn Dewis

If you're into compositing, British guru Glyn Dewis is your man. I own his book on compositing and it's excellent. I've also seen him live on a couple of occasions and the man knows his Photoshop stuff and he's witty to boot. This bundle contains several of training and again, when purchased separately, would cost more than the whole Big Deal Bundle.

3. Photoshop Training with Dave Cross

Dave Cross is another one of those Photoshop giants. He's got three courses in The Big Deal: one on working non-destructively, one on selections, channels and masks and one on automating Photoshop. 

This is just my personal top-3, but there's also Lightroom training by RC Concepcion, a video tutorial on how to use Photoshop for video editing and lots more. Again, you can see the whole list here.

Presets and actions

Finally, there's a bunch of Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions in the bundle as well, like Lighroom guru Jared Platt's comprehensive preset pack, by itself a $115 value.

Conclusion. Is it worth it?

There's lots more interesting stuff than what I've listed in this post but ultimately, you're the only one who can decide on whether this bundle is worth it or not. What I generally do in cases like this, is have a look at the entire list (scroll down a bit in this link), and check what stuff is in there that I'm really interested in. In this particular case, that would be well over $1.000. So the way I look at it is I get a 90 percent discount on the stuff that really interests me, and I get all the other stuff thrown in for free, in which there will probably be some hidden gems, too!

But that's just me and my rational approach. You could just go and say '$3.000 worth of photo stuff for $99?' That's a no-brainer :-)

Disclaimer:
In the interest of full disclosure: the above links are affiliate links. If you purchase the Big Deal through the links in this blog post, MoreThanWords receives a commission that is paid for by the seller. In other words, it does not cost you anything extra and it helps me pay the bills of running this site and all the free content and videos that are on it. Rest assured that I don't simply advise this bundle because I'm an affiliate. In fact, I have the opportunity to promote bundles like this one quite regularly, but there's a lot of chaff amongst the wheat. So, I only promote the ones that I think are interesting, like this one. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments.

Review: Cactus V6 Transceiver and the Fujifilm X system

Earlier, I reviewed the excellent Godox Ving V850 manual flash. It still is one of my favorite flashes for off-camera flash photography in general and on my Fuji system in particular. However, recently, I’ve also been working a lot with another manual system: the Cactus RF-60 flash and the Cactus V6 transceiver. As this is a manual system, it isn't exclusive to Fuji users: almost any camera with a central firing pin on the hotshoe can use it. That's the beauty of manual flashes: they work on every camera. In this blog post, I'll focus on the V6 transceiver.

The V6 Transceiver

I still remember using the Cactus V4 on my X-Pro 1 a couple of years ago. It was a small and cheap, no frills triggering system. It got the job done, but that was about it. Two iterations later - I've never used the V5 - the V6 is quite a different beast: first of all, it's a transceiver: the same unit can function as a transmitter or as a receiver. You just slide a switch on the side to set it up. The unit has grown quite a lot in size, but also in specifications: in fact, it seems like remote TTL and High Speed Sync are about the only two things you cannot do with it. And one of those is about to change, as you'll read further down the road! (Images © Cactus)

• Control of up to 4 groups of remote flashes
  The V6 can control 4 groups of remote flashes: either RF60 flashes, or other compatible flashes. In that last case, those flashes have to be attached to a V6 acting as a receiver. The RF60 has its own compatible receiver which obviously makes it a compelling candidate to use in concert with the V6, if you don't already own a flash. To turn a group on or off, you simply press the buttons A through D on the left hand side of the transceiver.
• Change power levels remotely
  You can remotely change the power level of compatible flashes, such as Cactus' own RF60, from the easy to use rotary dial. But, as I'll talk about in the section 'Recycling your old Canon and Nikon flashes', you can even control the (manual) power of those flashes remotely!
• Change power levels independently or in unison
  This one's a biggie if you use multiple groups a lot. Say you're working at f/8 and you've set group A to quarter power, group B to one sixteenth power and group C to one eight power to get the shot looking the way you want it. Now suppose you want to close your aperture down from f/8 to f/11. With many systems, you'd have to increase each individual group's power output by one stop. With the Cactus V6, you can choose: you can change the power individually but you can also change the power of all groups together! A big time-saver.
• TTL passthrough hotshoe
  Although the V6 does not support off-camera TTL flash, it has a hotshoe on top of it. When used as a receiver, this hotshoe obviously lets you slide the remote flash in it, like most recent receivers do. But, when used as a transmitter on your camera, the V6 passes the TTL information from your camera on to a TTL flash you put on it. In other words, you can use the V6 to combine a TTL on-camera flash with manual remote flashes. This is something wedding and event photographers will appreciate. The passthrough hotshoe has another advantage, which I'll talk about later in the section 'Using two trigges simultaneously'.
• A lock system for the selection rotary dial
  Here's another cool thing: because the rotary dial is facing towards you, it's not uncommon on smaller camera bodies, such as the X-series, to have your nose or your forehead inadvertently change settings when your working. In one of the firmware updates, Cactus installed the option of locking the rotary dial. In that case, you have to depress it first to make changes. An ideal setting for people with big noses, such as myself! Here's the how-to straight from the manual:
  • On the TX main screen, pressing and holding the selection dial or the OK button for 2 seconds will lock the selection dial from adjusting all group or single group power level. (Note: The short-cut to adjust a single group power level by pressing a group button and turning the dial simultaneously will be unaffected.
  • To temporarily unlock the selection dial, press the selection dial or OK button once. Alternatively, press and hold any group button to select a group for power level adjustment. The dial will be locked again when no button or dial is pressed or turned for 2 seconds.
  • To permanently unlock the selection dial, press and hold the selection dial or the OK button for 2 seconds.
• Advanced features
  The V6 also has another nifty feature up its sleeve: you can set up a delay in milliseconds. I haven't actually tried this yet, but it looks like you could use this feature as a workaround to do something resembling off-camera second-curtain sync. If you're reading this and you can confirm this, please let me know in the comments. Another nice feature is that you can choose the increments between 1/10th of a stop to half a stop. 

Recycling your old Canon and Nikon flashes

A really nice feature about the V6 trigger is that you can recycle your old Canon and Nikon flashes. After all, if whether you’re only adding Fujifilm camera to your existing Nikon or Canon gear or you’re making the switch entirely, you’ve probably already spent a lot of money on bodies and lenses so anything that you can reuse is welcome. Well, the good thing is that most Nikon and Canon flashes can be used in combination with a V6 transceiver. Although you obviously lose any TTL and high speed sync functionality, you can still set up the system so that you can remotely change the manual power level of your Nikon flash. That’s right: by attaching a V6 transceiver to your Fuji camera and by putting your old SB900 on another V6 transceiver, you’ll be able to manually change the power of that flash! What’s even better is that if you use two different flashes (e.g. an SB-700 and an SB-900) you can set the system up that they have the same absolute maximum output (dictated by the lowest output of both). In other words, when you set them both in separate groups to fire at 1:1, they will both fire at the power of the SB-700. This is handy in situations where you want symmetry in your lighting (think of two lights left and right behind your subject to be used as rim lights) but you don’t have two identical flashes.

Using two triggers simultaneously

This Sadhu was lit by an SMDV Alpha 110 Softbox with a Bowens mount (available in Europe through this reseller), attached to my Jinbei HD 600. The rim light was created by a Cactus RF60, fired through a gridded SMDV 70 Speedbox.

FUJIFILM X-Pro2 | XF50-140mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR @ 129.2 mm | 1-250 sec at f - 8,0 | ISO 400

Let's stack some triggers! Thanks to the hotshoe on the V6, I can stick my Jinbei trigger on top of it and fire both the 600 Ws Jinbei and a smaller flash like the Cactus RF60 together, while still maintaining separate (and remote!) control over their respective power levels.

As I've explained in an earlier blog post, if I want to use a more powerful flash, I often pick up my Jinbei HD 600 II, a review of which you can find here. The problem is that the Jinbei has its own - relatively simple - trigger which lets me change the power of the flash remotely. And this is where the hotshoe on the V6 comes in really handy. If I want to use 2 flashes, one powerful one and a smaller one (e.g. as an accent light), I can slide the Jinbei trigger in the Cactus V6 hotshoe. This makes both flashes trigger simultaneously, and I can still power them up or down remotely (and separately) by adjusting the respective trigger.

Next up: High Speed Sync for Fuji cameras?

This is fairly recent news which got me very excited: Cactus apparently are not resting on their laurels. In fact, they've announced that they are working on a V6 Mk II update that would - through some sort of ingenious hack - allow High Speed Sync with any camera, including Fujifilm cameras. Yes, you've read that right! High Speed Sync on a Fujifilm camera. I'll report back as soon as I've been able to test this out myself. Originally, it was rumored that this HSS hack would also be made available on the current V6 triggers through a firmware update but apparently that's not necessarily the case. Those of you who want to buy a set of V6 triggers now and want HSS, might want to wait a while until things are clearer.

Conclusion

I have to say I really like the V6 transceiver. It's a bit bulky on my X-T1, but on the other hand, unlike some other flash triggers, it is very ergonomical with lots of direct-access buttons and it still gives enough clearance so that I can turn the dials on the top of my camera easily. It just takes some getting used to the fact you can't see the value you set from the top of the camera anymore because the trigger partly obscures it. Obviously, you still see your settings through the viewfinder!

Because the X-Pro 2's hotshoe sits slightly lower (more level with the speed selector dial), there's less clearance and people with very big fingers might find it a more difficult to adjust shutter speed - mine are still ok. However, on both the X-Pro 2 as on the X-T1, you can always turn your shutter speed dial in the T position and then change the shutter speed all the way from 1/4.000th (1/8.000th on an X-Pro 2) to 30 seconds, simply by turning the front command dial. DSLR-style. But you knew that, didn't you?

Availability

• In Belgium, the Cactus V6 Transceiver can be purchased through Grobet.be
• In the UK, Fujifilm X-Photographer Damien Lovegrove is the importer and also sells them through his online shop. Damien is also an avid user of these flashes and triggers.
• International orders can also be made directly through Cactus' own online store.

UPDATE: Contrary to what I said in the original post, it appears that the HSS trick might not be available as a firmwire update after all, but rather only on the soon to be released V6 Mk II triggers. I'll report back on this as soon as I have more info. In the mean time, those of you who are looking at buying a set and want/need HSS, might want to hold off until the V6 Mk II is released. I have updated the blog post.

2 months with the X-Pro 2: my 10 favourite features (part 2)

(Read about features 1 to 5 in this post)

In a month, I’ll be off to India again to teach a travel photography workshop together with fellow X-Photographer Matt Brandon and I hope to take the X-Pro 2 with me. I’m really looking forward to the trip. When I’m traveling, I always hope that nothing bad will happen to my gear because it’s often difficult to replace or repair. That’s why I’m extremely happy with the next item in my top-10 of new features:

6) Weather Sealing

Contrary to the X-Pro 1, the X-Pro 2 is now weather sealed. Now, truth be told I’ve never had any issues with my non-weather sealed Fujifilm cameras and they’ve eaten quite a lot of dust, too, but it’s still a reassuring feature to have.

When you're playing with flour, it's good to have a weather sealed body and lens to keep the stuff on your model and not in your camera. 

Of course, ideally, you then have to pair the camera with a weather proofed lens as well, such as the beautiful XF-16 mm 1.4. I love that lens because, thanks to its wide aperture, it still allows me to play with shallow depth of field although it’s relatively wide-angle.

Belgium's probably got he ugliest coast line in the world (40 miles of ugly concrete skyscrapers) but there are a couple of noteworthy exceptions, such as this the Blankenberge Pier. Working this close to sea and sand, I was happy to be using a weather-sealed combo. Processed with my Colorific Colour Grading presets, but you probably know that by now :-)

One of my resolutions for the new year is to use the 16 mm prime a little more. I used a Formatt Hitech ND filter to get the exposure within reach of the new 1/250th sync speed.

7) Flash improvements

This one is pretty big, at least for me: the sync speed has been increased to 1/250th of a second. That means that when you’re working at the sync speed of your camera, your flashes effectively become one third of a stop more powerful than they were on an X-Pro 1 or an X-T1.

Sofie shot with the X-Pro 2 and the Jinbei HD-600 II flash. To date, still my favourite 'big gun'. I'm very happy that I can now use flash also in Continuous shooting mode. This lets me fire a burst of shots (until the flash has to recharge) rather than one at a time so I dramatically increase my options of having the right expression or composition when using flash). Image postprocessed with my Black & White Lightroom presets.

But even better, you can now also use a flash when the camera is set to continuous shooting. To be fair, it’s something almost every other camera has but it’s great to see that my X-Pro 2 now does it, too. Especially with more powerful flashes like this Jinbei, this means that you can keep on shooting with flash at lower power settings for quite a while until the flash has to recharge. This is the same feature by the way that got introduced for the X-T1 in the latest firmware update that subsequently got pulled because of a bug. So X-T1 users, this one is coming your way, too!

Finally, Fujifilm have announced a new speedlight, the EF-X500, that is capable of doing High Speed Sync. I can't wait to get my hands on that one!

8) Improved Bracketing

I’ve never understood why the bracketing functionality of all Fujifilm cameras was limited to 3 shots with +/-  1 EV. If you want to create HDR images, that range is often too limited.

Maybe it has something to do with the new maximum shutter speed of 1/8000th of a second, but you can now bracket 3 shots with +/- 2 EV. I would still love some more options, like shooting 5 or 7 frames but it's already a big step up. If you want to go beyond what's currently possible, I recommend you do as I do: put the camera on a tripod and use the Exposure Compensation function on the Camera Remote App: this lets you make up to 7 bracketed shots, 1 stop apart, without touching the camera.

9) An improved menu

Image © Fujifilm Corporation

I already like Fujifilm’s menus more than most of the other brands out there, but they have made the menu even better: it’s more legible and there’s also a MyMenu, which lets you assign up to 16 items for quick acess. So between this MyMenu, the (customizable) Quick Menu and the function buttons, there really is no shortage of options of having this camera do what you want it to do, as fast as possible. On thing that did not improve is formatting the card. It takes way too many button presses. Luckily, there appears to be a shortcut which I learned about over at Kevin Mullins' excellent review. If you're thinking about using the X-Pro 2 as a wedding camera, read his review (and then start saving). Oh, the shortcut you ask? Press the delete key for a couple of seconds and then click on the back command dial.

10) 3 Power Management Modes

Let’s be honest. Battery life isn’t the best feature of the Fujifilm cameras. But let’s also be honest in that the batteries (the X-Pro 2 uses the same as the X-T1, X-Pro 1 and X-T10) are very lightweight and compact so adding a couple to your bag won’t break your back. I think Fuji did well in maintaining the same battery. However, what they did is offer three power management modes: Economy, Standard and High Performance. As you might guess, autofocus speed and EVF refresh rates increase as you switch from the first to the latter, but battery life decreases, from 330 shots over 250 to 220. I just use High Performance and I pack a couple of spare batteries. I guess I’ll only use Economy when I see I’m popping in my last spare! Oh, and even in Economy the camera is still a Ferrari compared to the original X-Pro 1. So, as greater minds have already said: ‘Everyting is relative’.

So, that’s it for this highly subjective top 10. As some of these are firmware-related, there's some hope that they might trickle down to other cameras too.

This is what the new interface looks like. Again, evolution, not revolution but it looks and reads better than before. There are loads of smaller refinements, such as this one: you might know there's a digital depth-of-field scale that you can overlay in the EVF and OVF. Only, it did not match up with the one found on lenses like the 14, 16 and 23. Because the lenses' DOF scale was film-based (with a larger Circle of Confusion, in other words, larger tolerance) whereas the digital scale was pixel-based. You can now set the digital scale to film-based as well. If I were a street photographer, I'd love this feature!

There are other features, such as the new black and white ACROS film simulation and the new grain engine, which look nice. But as I explained in this blog post, as long as there is no Raw conversion software that can actually read the raw files of this camera, I set my film simulation to something very neutral as the JPEGs are currently the only thing I can work with. Setting a black and white film simulation would mean I currently cannot work on the image in colour and I want to keep my options open.

If you have any questions, I’ll be happy to try and address them in the comments.

Don't forget to switch off the light.

What about the Tilt Screen?

Yeah, what about it? There isn't one, as you probably know by now. For me, it's not a deal breaker. Sure enough, if the X-Pro 2 had one, I would welcome it, but not if it came at the expense of a bigger, bulkier body. Between the dual card slot and a tilt screen, I'll take the dual card slot any time. Also, don't forget that you'll be able to wirelessly control the camera with the smartphone App. That's even better than a tilt screen, in some cases!

What could be improved?

Some testers have reported the Exposure Compensation wheel is too loose. It did not feel loose on my sample. What I would like is that Fujifilm offer the option of saving 16 bit TIFF files to card. I feel that Lightroom still isn't squeezing everything out of the RAW files and this would be a nice addition, especially for people who shoot rather slow and deliberate, like me. Alternatively, I wish that Fujifilm would release a simple RAW to 16 bit TIFF conversion software. Basically, a desktop-version of the in-camera RAW converter that would allow batch-processing. And no, I don't mean Silkypix, that awfully complex raw converter that ships with the camera. 

Another thing I would like is to see on the accessory list is a 'Long Eyecup' like the X-T1. This helps to block the sunlight and gives more contrast in the viewfinder which is especially helpful on sunny days.

Finally, I would really love to have some more highlight clipping information in the EVF and OVF: we can already program a gazillion warnings in the viewfinder, but the one I would like to see is a Lightroom-style highlight / shadow clipping warning, showing the actual areas that are clipped. Sure, there's the live histogram but that only says there's clipping. It does not say where that clipping occurs. 

As you can see, minor quibbles that are mostly software- or firmware related. Other than that, I really can't think of much. So now, I'm off to shoot some more! Where did I put my spare batteries?

Two months with the X-Pro 2: my 10 favourite features (part 1)

So, I’ve had the privilige of using a pre-production sample of one of this year’s most eagerly anticipated cameras for a couple of weeks. You could already read about that in this blog post. By now, your RSS feed and Facebook status page is probably overloaded with features, comparisons, opinions and what not. The following thoughts are not solely based on specs, but on actual usage of the camera. Given the four year gap between the X-Pro 2 and its predecessor, there’s bound to be a lot of change. In this and the following blog post, I’ll try to outline my personal top-10 improvements of this camera, taking into account the way I use it: as my everday camera, with a focus on travel- and flash photography.

Two of my favourite models: Brecht & Frannie. Shot in an abandoned carpet factory. On urbex (urban exploring) shoots like this, I appreciate the fact that all my camera gear fits in my F-Stop Loka UL, a small and lightweight camera backpack (US link, EU link)

Evolution on the outside...

When I got the camera, it felt like reconnecting with an old friend: it looks almost identical to the X-Pro 1 (which I consider a good thing), especially from the front. In fact, I could probably have taken this camera to a Fuji workshop and people would have thought I was shooting my old trusted X-Pro 1. Outside, there are only a couple of changes, and they're all for the better.

Seen from the front, not a lot has changed: the EVF/OVF lever now not only lets you switch from OVF to EVF, but also between the two OVF modes that we now know from the X100T. Another barely visible - but interesting - new feature is the addition of a front command dial. Image © Fujifilm Corporation.

... revolution within

But on closer inspection, a lot has actually changed for the better. Which brings me to the first point.

1) Improved ergonomics

This one’s so important that I’ve actually put it before the ‘obvious’ advantage (the higher megapixel count, more about that later). The first thing you’ll notice is the joystick on the camera’s back: it has a number of uses but its main use is changing the AF point. The advantage is that this frees up the four buttons surrounding the Menu/OK button. You can now actually program three of them to a custom function. If you like to change your focus points as I do, the joystick works really well, it just takes some getting used to and retraining your muscle memory not to go to the old position. On top of that, there’s 2 more function buttons, bringing the total to 5. There is no dedicated WIFI function button, but WIFI is obviously included, and another big difference with the original X-Pro 1.

Apparently small changes but ergonomically big ones: all buttons are now on the right hand side, enabling true single-handed operation. There's a new joystick-like control that - amongst other things - lets you select your focus point. Image © Fujifilm Corporation.

• One thing I did not like about the X-Pro 1 was that there were some buttons on the left of the LCD. All buttons are now at the right, meaning you can control this camera with just one hand. For you, it might be sipping cocktails, but in my case it leaves the other hand free to hold a flash and an umbrella, for example.
• The grip is slightly bigger and more pronounced. As a result, the camera feels better in your hand. And as mentioned, this is now a camera that you can completely control with one hand! Great news for photographers who like to smoke on a shoot. No more cigarette breaks needed: smoke and shoot as you go!
• There’s also a new Front Command Dial which in playback mode lets you browse flick back and forth through your images (the rear one zooms in and out). While shooting, the FCD lets you adjust the shutter speed to the intermediary settings between the full stops that are marked on the dial. It probably does some other things too, but I haven’t discovered those yet. The manual was even more preproduction than the camera (in other words, non-existent!)

Those clever Fujifilm engineers incorporated the ISO dial into the Shutter Speed dial. To change your ISO, pull up the outside of the dial and rotate it. The EV-compensiation wheel now has a -3 to +3 range and by setting it to the C-position, you can even go from -5 to +5 by turning the new Front Command Dial. Image © Fujifilm Corporation.

• Speaking of dials. Probably the coolest feature is how Fujifilm managed to integrate the ISO dial on the top of the camera. It’s literally on the shutter speed dial: you have to pull the outer ring of the shutter speed dial up and then rotate it to set the ISO. The first couple of times, you’ll probably inadvertently change the shutter speed itself, too, but once you get used to it, it works very well. While turning the wheel, you can see the value adjust in the viewfinder. So no need to take your eye off the viewfinder. Now, in honesty, I liked the old system with the top function button, too but this system has the advantage that you can also see at a glance what ISO the camera is set to. And I do like this implementation more than that of the X-T1. While we’re still talking about dials: the Exposure Compensation dial now has a -3 to +3 range and even a Custom setting that allows you to go from -5 to +5, another use for the new Front Command Dial.
• And finally, another big one in the ergonomics department: a built-in diopter adjustment with the same range as the X-T1. That’s right, no more messing around with little screw-in adjustment lenses that you’re bound to loose sooner or later.

2) 24 Megapixel X-Trans CMOS III Sensor

Same APS-C sensor size but 50 percent more pixels. Image © Fujifilm Corporation.

Although I’ve printed images from my 16 MP X-T1 as large as 30 x 60 cm (12 x 24 inch) and I could easily print even larger, I welcome more pixels any time, provided they offer me the same or even higher image quality. The X-Pro 2 has got 50 percent more of them. So, you can either print prints that are 50 percent larger (in terms of surface, i.e. 22 percent longer and 22 percent taller) or you can crop 1/3 of your image away and still keep the same amount of pixels as the X-Pro 1 or the X-T1. Another nice advantage is that you can experiment some more with alternative crops, like 16:9, or square, while still retaining enough pixels to print relatively big. Especially with the best quality lenses like the 16-55 and the 50-140, the increased resolution actually shows in the image. Those two lenses really are perfect companions for the new sensor.

I have really come to appreciate the 16-55. Sure, it's a bit big and heavier than its prime siblings but boy, what a sharp and versatile lens! If you're an event or press photographer, it's hard not to be impressed by its sharpness. Model: Stéphanie. Image processed with my Lightroom Colorific Colour Grading presets.

3) Faster AF, more focus points and more phase detection pixels

As you might know, cameras use two techniques to achieve autofocus: phase detection and contrast detection. The first is faster, the latter is more accurate. As of the X-T1, Fujifilm has started to combine these two techniques by incorporating phase detection pixels in the sensor. The X-Pro 2 increases both the total number of focus points available and the number of phase detection pixels. By default, there’s 77 points including 49 phase detection pixels, but you can increase this to a whopping 273 points, including 169 phase detection pixels. Just be prepared to use that new joystick controller a lot. Regardless of the number of focus points, what I really appreciate on mirrorless cameras in general and those by Fuji in particular, is that you have focus points all over the frame. If you like to frame your subject off-center, that’s a very handy feature to have. With a DSLR, you’ll be forced to focus and recompose, but if you’re shooting with a shallow depth of field, that can lead to images that are out of focus.

"And how many focus points would you like today, Sir?" I don't think I'll be using the 273 focus points layout a lot...

... but I do like the fact that there are more phase detection pixels (you can recognise them by their slightly larger size in the grid...

I really cannot count the times I have sworn at my DSLR for not giving me a focus point where I needed it. With 273 points to choose from, that’s no longer necessary! Of course, the same AF enhancements that were introduced with the X-T1’s 4.0 firmware upgrade, such as wide tracking AF and zone AF are also present. I just haven’t used them much as most of my subjects are pretty stationary and if they aren’t, like the dancers I shoot, I prefer to pre-focus manually. It’s a matter of habit and preference.

4) Improved viewfinder

Take the hybrid viewfinder of the X-100T, add the resolution of the viewfinder of the X-T1, and turbocharge the framerate to 85 frames per second and you have the recipe for the X-Pro 2’s viewfinder. It’s really as state of the art as it gets. The front lever lets you switch between EVF and OVF and also between OVF modes themselves: simple OVF or OVF with the little EVF screen in the bottom right corner that was introduced with the X100T. This little screen-in-the-screen can be set to three possible zoom levels when you’re in manual focus.

The Hybrid Viewfinder combines the best of both worlds...

... especially since you can overlay a little LCD panel that for accurate framing...

... or manual focus checking options: choose from 100%, 2.5 x en 6 x.

The first is 100 percent view (which basically gives you a mini view of the entire scene in your OVF, ideal for combining the precision of the EVF with the bright viewfinder of the OVF. The second is 2.5 times enlarged and the third is 6 times enlarged. Pressing the rear command dial (you knew that the rear command dial can be depressed, also on the X-T1, didn’t you?) cycles through these magnification levels. Combine those features with manual focus aids such as digital split-level or – what I prefer to use – focus peaking and you have noone to blame but yourself if your pictures aren’t sharp using manual focus on the X-Pro 2! 

5) Dual Card Slot

I haven’t verified this, but according to Fujifilm, this is a first on a mirrorless camera. I know a lot of wedding photographers and generally everyone that shoots unique events that will utter sighs of relief. The card slot can be set to any of the following three options: sequential (when the first card is full, the camera starts writing to the second), backup (anything written to the first card is also written to the second) and RAW/JPEG, where RAW files are written to one card and JPEG files are written to the other.

Needless to say, the write speed to card has also dramatically improved. I remember that on the X-Pro 1, when I accidentally shot a bracketed series of photos, I swore because the camera would freeze up, literally for seconds. None of that on the X-Pro 2. I do recommend that you use fast cards. My sample unit had two Toshiba 16 GB Exceria Pro SD cards installed (the ones with the double row of contacts) and that worked perfectly.

That's it for the first 5 features. In this blog post, I'll cover 6 to 10. But let me leave you with one last image of Stéphanie. After all, it's all about the image, not about the camera, isn't it?