Professional photographer and journalist, founder and editor of magazines PHOTOpro, Photon, Freelance Photographer, f2 and Cameracraft. For 25 years director of the Minolta Club. Fellow of the BIPP and Hon. Fellow of the MPA.

Lightroom Version 2 released

The latest release of Adobe Lightroom, v2, handles pretty well all digital camera raw formats including the latest Sony, Canon and Nikon models. It is updated along with Adobe Camera Raw 4.5 to handle Nikon D700. Because Canon appears to have left their filetype identical to the A400, their new 1000D was recognised immediately by ACR even in 4.5 Beta. Continue reading »

Lightroom 2 tackles all Alpha RAWs

The latest release of Adobe Lightroom, v2, handles all Sony Alpha and earlier KM digital camera raw formats including the Alpha 700, 200, 300 and 350. It is also updated, along with the final release of Adobe Camera Raw 4.5, to handle Nikon D700. Because Canon appears to have left their filetype identical to the A400, their new 1000D was recognised immediately by ACR even in 4.5 beta version. Continue reading »

Portrait Professsional 8 – now for Mac

Portrait Professional, the downloadable software from Anthropics which resculpts face shapes while smoothing out skin imperfections and signs of ageing, has been updated to Version 8 and launched for Apple Mac as well as Windows PC. We tested it briefly as a first look in our magazine Master Photo>Digital.
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Cashback deal extended, prices cut

SONY Alpha prices are now the lowest of any competing DSLR system – for current-model bodies – on the UK market. Dealers are now selling the Alpha 200 body for as little as £229.99 and even the Alpha 350 has dropped to under £400 body-only. £100 cashback on the Alpha 700 body, £150 on any Alpha 700 body+lens kit, has been extended to September 30th.

A typical specialist Sony ACE dealer advertisement from London Camera Exchange, about to be printed in Photoworld, reveals the latest price deals:

Click on the ad to view a full size copy. If you call LCE be sure to ask about their deals offering one year’s FREE membership of Photoclubalpha with four issues of our full colour quarterly Photoworld magazine.


Alpha Live View in the studio – solved!

One of the problems with the Alpha 350/300 is that the Live View is linked to the settings when you use Manual exposure. It provides a form of metering, a relatively accurate preview of under or over exposure. This makes it impossible to use Manual with studio flash (AC mains strobe) setups. Currently, there is no menu setting to turn off ‘exposure preview with manual’ and enable ‘auto LV gain with manual’. But there is a solution.
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Win a Sony Alpha Lenses hardback book

London Camera Exchange Colchester manager David Jenner has two of these hardback books, which showcase the Alpha lens range as it was in 2007-8 and feature photography from round the world plus technical data and diagrams for both Sony G and Carl Zeiss designs.

He has agreed to give them away to two UK-based Photoclubalpha readers, and you can find the link and instructions hiding in our Forum now. Happy hunting! Just click the Forum link, register with the forum, and locate today’s new post about the lens book giveaway. It closes end of July 31st. By entering this draw you agree to allow LCE to email you with any appropriate news of Sony Alpha system offers in future.

Sorry, it is only open to UK addresses. Drawn winners will be asked for their postal address by email.

– David

Sony unveils ‘ACE’ dealers in UK

What we thought would be the ‘Alpha Pro’ project – display centres for the entire system sited at key retail outlets through Britain – turned out to be the ‘ACE’ project. That is, Sony Alpha Centres of Excellence. London Camera Exchange Colchester, one of the selected dealers, supplied these shots of the new showcase.

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