Tis the season- new technology is starting to get released. Not all is at market yet, but I’m seeing some of the preview designs.
You’re gonna like what you see.
Last night was another Press Preview in NYC, and it was a good one.
Here are just 2 items that caught our eye:

Lot’s more that we want to check out first, but these coupla items could go right under the Christmas tree, Hanukkah bush, or whatever.
Great price points, simple concepts.
Always takes the day.

Today, Nikon Inc. announced the world’s first waterproof, shockproof interchangeable lens camera1, the Nikon 1 AW1.

Say, did you see that flash on top of the camera? Yep, WATERPROOF!!!
We are seeing every camera manufacturer make a strong move to the mirrorless camera, with interchangeable lenses.
Nikons entry, the 1 series, has already gone through a couple of iterations, and this latest addition fills a strong niche for the target user.

A high quality camera with amazing glass, a selection of lenses and accessories that’s shockproof, freezeproof and waterproof. So Beach, Skiing, and whatever else you want to tackle.
Had this one in my hands and have to say, Nikon knows waterproof.
The input covers were tight. The main attraction, the lens, has a rubber gasket system that while giving you full protection, is easy to change lenses.

So now you get a camera that covers all your activities, above or below sea level.
Well done, Nikon!

And now, more of the company line:
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Adobe also released Lightroom 5.2, the first major update to the newer version of the image editing and cataloging software. There was no Lightroom 5.1 because of timing complications involving the release of Lightroom and Photoshop, which share the same engine for processing raw-format photos.

Lightroom 5.2 adds a new editing tool, a slider called “smoothness” that’s designed to reduce color-mottling artifacts that are most obvious in digital photos taken at high sensitivity, high-noise settings. These mottled colors often show up as large blotches of reddish or greenish tint to the photo colors.

Adobe also brought improvements to the spot-healing tool, which is used to do things like remove skin wrinkles or dust spots, for example by letting photographers feature the edge of the area being edited. And the auto exposure algorithm has been improved for those who want to let Lightroom take a first pass at photo editing settings, Adobe said.

Also new in Lightroom 5.2 is support for the Canon 70D, an SLR likely to be popular with photo enthusiasts. Other new cameras supported:

• Canon PowerShot G16

• Casio Exilim EX-ZR800

• Fujifilm FinePix HS22EXR

• Fujifilm FinePix HS35EXR

• Fujifilm FinePix S205EXR

• Fujifilm X-A1

• Fujifilm X-M1

• Leica C (Typ 112)

• Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX7

• Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ70

• Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72

• Pentax Q7

• Pentax K-50

• Pentax K-500

• Sony DSC-RX100 II

• Sony A3000 (ILCE-3000)

• Sony NEX-5T

Lightroom also includes preliminary support for two very new cameras, the Canon PowerShot S120 and Olympus OM-D E-M1. Preliminary support for Phase One’s medium-format IQ260 that was in the beta version was taken off the list, however.

For those who shoot tethered — in which a USB cable pipes images directly into Lightroom from the camera as they’re shot — Lightroom 5.2 now supports the Canon EOS 6D, the Canon Rebel Rebel T5i / 700D, the Canon EOS Rebel SL1 / EOS 100D, and the Nikon D7100.

For lens corrections, Lightroom 5.2 can fix images from the GoPro Hero 3 and a variety of Hasselblad, Sony, and Sigma lenses.

Its kinda like brushing your teeth, getting dressed, checking your email.
Just a natural part of every day.
I’m talking about using Adobe Lightroom, now in V.5
There are so many pre-sets available that whenever I upload even the simplest images, like iPhone,I know where it’ll go and how I can retrieve it.

It has always been superior asset management software, and the amount of non destructive adjustments you could make were/are fairly handy.
Still, you should be going to Photoshop for the superior tools, then bringing the image back into Lightroom for management.
But with every upgrade, they keep adding tools that make the skip to another program uneccessary.

So What’s New?
•There is a greatly improved healing function, which works like content aware fill in PS, matching surrounding areas for the fill. Sure sensor dust, or specular hightlights, are mighty offensive, but to remove an object and keep a clean BG, used to require the power of PS.

See if you can point out the removed objects. Kept a little rough so you can see easier:

•The next new feature is of particular interest to me as a traveling photographer.
Of course when media cards are ingested, I use a portable RAID, a Touch Tech Duo, to make sure I’m backed up.
Thankfully with SMART Preview,essentially offline editing, I can work on the images while on the plane, without hooking up the external drive. Once back on the ground, the work is effected onto the images once the master file is hooked up via the RAID drive.

A coupla small bits: one button UPRIGHT tool, corrects perspective. They had the tools before, but this is one button.
check it:

The last of the biggies for me is a Radial Filter or Gradient.
Essentially this is a scalable oval that allows you to correct with all of your favorite sliders all within the oval.
In my world of commercial production, we have had this in color correction for years and called them Windows.
You won;t be able to tell the magic that is possible til you learn the delicate touch.
Too many folks take the tool and make it into a vignetting tool which is the wrong way to approach it.
Lot’s of power there and you can use multiple “Gradients”

SO there you have it.
Strong tools from the company that lives and breathes images.
Just saw it on sale for $100.

Why wouldn’t you be using Lightroom?

With the onset of Phablets, larger screens, mini-tablets as phones, and the camera in your hands getting thin but large, Nikon went the other way.
Today they introduced the COOLPIX S02.
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