Hi everyone,

I recently upgrade purchased DXO’s Nik Collection 9 which has been working just fine. All of a sudden it stopped working either standalone or as plugins, it just won’t load. I contacted their support and after repeatedly following their diagnostic suggestions including numerous uninstalls and reinstalls and running their NIK cleanup tool etc. and quite a few of my own including various graphics driver versions, virus and malware scans, removing any more recently installed software which might conflict, disabling antivirus, running SFC, DISM etc. and it still won’t work. Three days ago they told me that they’d escalated it to their developers since when I’ve not received any additional useful information. It’s very frustrating as the Nik Collection has always been one of my favourite pieces, if not my favourite piece of processing software. In addition to their diagnostic suggestions I have literally turned my computer upside down and inside out trying to resolve this and I have a great many years of computing experience.

So far I’m £150 out of pocket, something that I can ill afford and no closer to getting a working piece of software. I have told them politely to either fix it or give me my money back to which I’ve not yet had an answer. I don’t have this problem with any of my software, and I have a lot of software. Previous versions of Nik Collection have always worked just fine. I was thinking of updating my version of their Filmpack product after also recently updating my version of PureRAW but unless they can come up with a speedy solution I’m now more than having my doubts as to whether to buy any more DXO products in the future. This situation has dragged on for nearly a week and my patience is close to being exhausted. I’ve usually resolved issues like this by myself by now but this one is a real PITA and I’m beginning to think that their support people don’t care.

Kind regards

Leigh

Hi everyone,

Another shot taken the other day with my Lumix 12-32mm lens. As always, resizing down for my blog doesn’t do justice to the sharpness of the lens so I decided to include another 100% crop.

Kind regards

Leigh

Hi everyone,

As it was a sunny morning I went for a coffee and a stroll down the seafront here in Bognor. I wasn’t expecting to find anything new to photograph more a case of keeping exercising my legs. I took my Olympus E-PL8 and a Lumix 12-32mm lens in a small pouch that I picked up the other day in a charity shop for £2.50 🙂 which is very inconspicuous. I know that I’ve often waxed lyrical about this lens but I have to say that it’s an excellent tiny walkabout lens. Sure it’s made of plastic, it wouldn’t stand up to any real knocks, it has to be extended before using and it doesn’t have a manual focus ring but for all of that one simply can’t fault it’s image quality, size and weight (Approx. 70g/2.47 oz). If one picks one up used/split from a kit then as my American friends would say, its a great “bang for one’s buck” and a “no-brainer” 🙂 . I have two, they only differ in that one has a metal lens mount and the other is plastic not that that bothers me unduly.

I forgot to take my clip-on EVF for the camera and was very quickly reminded why I detest just having an LCD screen on a very bright day. I could see more of my reflection than what I was photographing, not so much a case of point and shoot as point and hope. One of my shots with only converging verticals correction as well as a 100% crop. In terms of image quality I think that this lens holds its own with many of my much more expensive lenses and that includes my prime lenses, the level of details is pretty phenomenal.

Kind regards

Leigh

Hi everyone,

I’ve splashed out and upgraded to the latest iteration of one of my all-time favourite programs, the NIK Collection, a constant companion of many years. I’ve temporarily shelved my plans to upgrade my copy of DXO Filmpack from my current version 5 to the latest version 8 which I’ve much enjoyed trialling but it’s something that I definitely want to do when funds permit. The new version of the NIK collection has some very exciting new additions, as always, it’s an incredibly powerful suite of editing tools. There’s plenty of reviews online but it does add some nice features like colour grading, blending modes, depth masking, AI masking, halation, chromatic shift and glass effects and others. I’ve always really liked it’s selective adjustments and used them a lot over the years. If there’s one piece of software that I wouldn’t like to be without it’s this one.

Kind regards

Leigh

Hi everyone,

Over the years I’ve spent a lot of money on Skylum products. Unlike all my other software Luminar NEO runs very badly on my system, it used to run fine, it takes an eternity to load if and when it loads and it frequently hangs and requires me to end it with Task Manager. I spoke with their tech. support and they advise me that my system no longer meets their minimum system requirements. Their advise, roll back to a much earlier version for which they sent me a download link and loose a lot of functionality or spend a considerable amount of money, which I certainly cannot afford upgrading my computer besides I wouldn’t do this even if I had the money just to run this one piece of software. I regard this as unfair practice on their part and I shall not be spending any more money with them and, to be perfectly frank, I’m quite sorry that I’ve done so in the past. I’ve never come across a piece of software that has changed it’s system requirements like this. Yes, a new product but not a current product. This leaves a very bad taste in one’s mouth as does their practice of annual licensing certain “bolt-on” features not included in their base product. I’m happy to pay a one-off purchase for these features but I’m not paying an annual “season pass”. I did so last year not realising that it wasn’t a one-off payment, I’m certainly not doing this again. Their software has some nice features but I can live without it. I think that they’re being clever clever and keep adding features, many of which I don’t even require until it becomes too bloated and demanding for my PC specs. If they made these features available on an individual one-off payment basis at a fair price then, if they were of interest to me, I’d consider paying for them.

Update:

Skylum confirm that they have changed their minimum system requirements as I suspected and their list of supported CPUs. I have rolled back to Luminar NEO version 1.19.0 (13323) which so far after a few quick tests seems more stable. In doing so I no longer have access to later bug fixes, performance improvements and their Spring Update tools: Bokeh AI, Skin AI, Face AI, and Mask Feathers. But, as someone who doesn’t do portraiture I don’t care as, metaphorically-speaking, it’s a price that I don’t mind paying in order to get a product that still works. They say that their list of system requirements is on their website but I wonder how many people check this out every time before updating to a new version when the software makes them aware of an update to make sure that the software update won’t render their hardware obsolete. As I cannot update further I’ve asked them if there’s a way of stopping their annoying update notification every time I run the software which now serves to only add insult to injury. Whilst waiting for their Tech Support, I’ve blocked Luminar from prompting me for updates when loading by adding a rule to my Firewall which blocks the program’s Internet Access. If it can’t check it won’t prompt me. 🙂 In total fairness I found Skylum’s Tech. Support excellent.

Kind regards

Leigh

HI everyone,

I’ve changed my mind as to which camera to take with me as a backup to my Olympus PEN-F. I originally thought I’d take my Olympus E-PL8 but I’ve decided instead that I’ll be taking my Olympus PEN E-P5. This camera still fits beautifully in my add on pouch for my Billingham camera bag, It takes the same BLN-1 battery as my other cameras thus giving me one more additional battery and means that I don’t have to take two battery types and two different USB camera battery chargers. Another significant benefit is that it has five-axis image stabilasation rather than the E-PL8’s three axis stabilsation. It doesn’t have an electronic shutter option which is something that I use all the time on OM-D and PEN-F cameras. principally to reduce wear but this doesn’t bother me as I’m thinking that, apart from serving as a backup it’ll be a good camera to take out in the night time and, with the possibility of banding under artificial light when using electronic shutter I’d rather be using a mechanical shutter. Lastly, it has a small built in pop-up flash, I don’t really use flash that much but it’ll no doubt come in handy if I need one for family shots etc.. I’m also taking my EVF4 plugin electronic viewfinder, the last camera in the series to have this option as,, without it, it only has a back LCD screen. I do like this camera, it’s compact, stylish and has all the features that I require. Over the years I’ve become more and more a fan of their PEN series cameras. Fit one of the small pancake lenses like the Lumix 14mm f/2.5, 20mm f/1.7 or 12-32mm f/3.5-5.6 and one has a very compact, lightweight yet still feature-packed camera which is ideally suited for travel.

Kind regards

Leigh

Hi everyone,

A quick update, I tried out my new Rigu magnetic lens filter adapters yesterday. They works very well, I had no worries about the filters or magnetic caps falling off, they save a lot of time when fitting and changing filters and removes the possibility of a stuck filter. One thing that I did do is pack a couple of centre pinch lens caps in my filter pouch as well as the magnetic ones fitted to the lenses. When no filter is fitted the magnetic ones are absolutely fine but I prefer not to keep screwing and unscrewing the magnetic lens cap (which is also threaded) from the filter. I find that the centre pinch ones suits me better when a filter is fitted. This is not something that one has to do but just something that I prefer. Rigu have since promptly introduced selling the lens-side and filter-side adapter rings in pairs after some initial confusion on my part, yet another of my “senior moments”. 🙂 . It’s great to still be able to buy just one half if required.

If interested see my previous post for more information on the adapters..

Kind regards

Leigh

Hi everyone,

Some years ago I bought some Manfrotto XUME magnetic filter adapters which worked well for me at the time. In hindsight, I made a mistake as I ordered 62mm ones which at the time was fine as they were for my M.Zuiko 12-40mm lens which was my staple go to travel lens. As things turned out since then I have standardised on 58mm filters. The XUME ones are no longer on sale and change hands for ridiculous money on E-Bay etc… I’ve ordered up 4 of each 58mm lens and filter adapters to fit to my most frequently used lenses and filters from a cheaper make to try out. I’ll post when I’ve tried them as they’re very attractively priced and I do like the convenience of magnetic filter attachment especially when frequently changing filters and it does speed things up considerably and save the lens filter threads from wear and tear and the possibility of cross-threading as I’m always somewhat wary of the longevity of plastic lens filter threads. If one somehow manages to strip or otherwise damage the lens thread, then, to use a good old British expression, one is “stuffed”. As I very rarely use very wide angle lenses wider than 24mm equivalent there shouldn’t be any problem with vignetting.

Kind regards

Leigh