Hi {name},

Welcome to Lenscraft in Focus for March 2023.

February was a remarkably quite month for photography, at least it was for me. I had hoped for cold weather, frost and perhaps some snow. In the end it wasn’t to be. Even a snowshoeing trip to the mountains of Austria didn’t produce much snow as you can see in this shot.

This was captured using a Panasonic Lumix G9 with Leica 12-60 lens at 14mm. It’s a handheld exposure (snowshoes and tripods don’t mix) at 1/15” at f/8.0 and ISO200.

I’m finding the G9 is a great outfit for trekking and now prefer it to my Fuji system for this kind of work. I’ve also decided to hold off making the upgrade I previously mentioned of the Fuji XT3 to an XT5. Having read several reports, some people are finding the older Fuji lenses produce soft images on the XT5. How true this is I don’t know, but I’m waiting until the situation becomes clear. In the meantime, my existing equipment is fine.

It’s also been a quite month in the photography press. I suspect most of the new camera and software launches are behind us now as we head into the Spring. I’ve therefore busied myself writing new articles and updating a couple of old ones. You will find these later in this month’s newsletter, along with news about my latest book projects, the winner of last month’s competition and another free prize draw you can enter.

I hope you enjoy it.

Robin

Affinity Universal License Competition

Last month, I launched a free prize draw to win an Affinity Universal License v2. The license covers Affinity Photo, Affinity Publisher, and Affinity Designer for the Mac, Windows, and iPad platforms. These are professional level products and a true alternative to using Adobe. I even use Affinity Publisher to do the layouts for my print books.

Congratulations to the winner of last month’s prize draw which was David Joyce from Cumbria in the UK.

If you entered the draw and didn’t win, don’t worry. You now have a second chance because I have another Universal License to give away. If you would like to enter, you can find out how on my competition page. And whilst you’re there, please take a moment to share it with someone who might benefit.

New Lenscraft Content

Over the past month I’ve focused on publishing new tutorials and updating old ones. Here’s the list of what you can find on Lenscraft.

From Around the Internet

A selection of interesting photography related resources from the internet.

Software Updates

Several of the photo editing products that I cover (and personally use) have seen new releases over the past month. These are what I would call minor releases, so there isn’t much in the way of new features. It’s more about enhancements to what’s already there, together with bug fixes and support for new cameras and lenses. Here are the links to the release pages:

• ON1 Photo RAW 23.1
• DxO PhotoLab
• Luminar Neo

Then there is Topaz Labs with the excellent Topaz product line. They seem to have a new update to one or more of their products each week. In all honesty I struggle to keep up with the changes, but the products just keep getting better.

Photography News 104

If you want to keep up to date with developments in cameras and lenses, Photography News is a great resource. Edition 104 is now available to read for free online at

https://online.bright-publishing.com/view/716216279/

Wikimedia Images of Earth

I can’t remember how I found this link, but it features some great landscape and nature photography. It’s well worth a look.

https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/experience-some-of-the-worlds-most-beautiful-places-with-wiki-loves-earth-2022-9e22fa72a3c0

Photographers You May Not Know – Dan Ballard

Dan Ballard is a Pro Landscape and Travel photographer from Colorado. I don’t know much about him myself other than what you can read on the About page of his website. I found his work on Instagram and followed the link to his website, where he has a great landscape portfolio. But strangely (for me as a landscape photographer) I found his Western portfolio more interesting. Perhaps it’s because the images reminded me of the western films I watched as a child.

You can check out Dan’s work on his website or Instagram. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Books & Course News

Latest book and course news.

New Book Published

The revised version of my Lightroom Masking book has just been released. It’s now called “Mastering Selections & Masks in Lightroom Classic CC 2023” to reflect coverage of the latest version of Lightroom (v12). I’ve been able to hold the price at £4.99 (similar in other currencies) and you can purchase it from either Amazon or my Lenscraft shop. The book’s been expanded to cover the new Select Object and Select People tools and includes two new full-length examples.

A few people have also asked if I will be publishing a print version. Unfortunately, the answer is no, as the book has never sold in sufficient quantities to cover the cost. Also, when I published the previous edition, I released an Adobe Camera RAW version. Regretfully I won’t be able to update this as I wasn’t able to cover my costs on the original book. I hope you understand.

Next Book Project

I’m now underway with my next book project which is “Mastering Photoshop Luminosity Masking”. This is one that I started some time ago and then paused. I’ve decided that it’s now time to resurrect this because of the importance of this subject. I use the techniques in this book in almost all my photo editing work and they can bring a huge improvement to your photography. And if this book proves to be popular, I intend to publish a version for Affinity Photo, later in the year.

I’ll share more about the project in the next newsletter.

Until next month, enjoy your photography.

Robin

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