Hi ,

As Samwise said at the very end of the Return of The King, "Well... I'm back."

I figured that was a fitting quote, since I just returned from Middle Earth, or as it's commonly referred to in modern times as New Zealand. 

We spent three weeks traveling around both the North and South Islands, hiking, riding bikes, exploring, and barely scratching the surface of an amazing place that I'd wanted to visit for my entire adult life. After all these years, I finally made it happen, and now I can't wait to go back.

Highlights of the trip include, Tongariro National Park, the Ferry Ride across Cook Straight, the mountain bike trails along the shores of Marlborough Sound, cycling on the West Coast Wilderness Way, hiking Ben Lomond, the huge Tasman Sea storm that battered the west coast with dramatic winds and high surf, and the beautifully calm, but richly cultured and adorned city of Christchurch.

Going minimal with my photography gear, I took a very lightweight kit, consisting of my Fujifilm X-T5 and three lenses: XF16mm f/2.8, XF35mm f/2, and XF70-300mm. This gave me the essential combination of Wide, Middle and Long. If you have those three ranges covered, then that's all you really need. Why carry more, especially if you're going light and fast?

If you've seen my video review, then you know that I can't say enough good things about the 70-300 lens; it was by far, my most used lens of the trip. It's perfect for bringing those distant scenes up close, compressing your backgrounds, adding that telephoto drama to your scenes, and it's just so light and compact for all that it does. Once again, it proved itself as Fujifilm's ideal long lens for outdoor and travel use. 

As I often do, I mostly shot in JPEG mode, using the X-T5's built-in film sims to experiment with different looks while on location. My favorites these days are Velvia for bright sunny days, and Classic Neg, Nostalgic Neg or ACROS+R for those more moody, stormy, overcast environments. 

When faced with very high contrast light, or if there was a scene that I knew I'd want to play around with on the computer, (like the opening mountain shot above), then I'd switch to RAW+JPEG. 

I have RAW set to one of my Fn buttons, so in certain situations, I can hit that button and switch to RAW+JPEG for the next shot. After I take the photo, the camera reverts back to JPEG. 

This allows me to shoot freely in JPEG as my default and only swtich to RAW if I need for select scenes, which save both card space and computer time later. Watch this video to hear more about why embracing the Fuji JPEGs can add a unique sense of creative liberation in your photography.

On our second to last day, as we were driving back to Christchurch, we were treated to a sight of Mount Cook as it came out of the clouds. For this scene, I shot in Panorama mode on my X-T5, which is something I don't do very often, but sometimes, it's just what you need to capture certain scenes. 

I hope you enjoyed this brief look of my take on NZ. I promise, there will be more photos coming soon!

EXCLUSIVE DISCOUNTS on DxO Software

DxO PhotoLab 8

This year, DxO Labs celebrated their 20th anniversary in the industry and released the latest version of their award winning photo editing software, PhotoLab 8.

During my long history with photography, I've used a variety of photo editing sofwate, including Lightroom, Photoshop, Capture One and Luminar, but in the past 5 years, I've used DxO PhotoLab almost exclusively. I'll even use to add a bit more life to my Fuji JPEGs, as you can see in the images above. Nothing drastic in these examples, just small changes to exposure and contrast, or in the case of the second wave shot, a slight tweak to the color. Plus dust spotting when it's needed. 

An extremely powerful and well-designed program, I think that PhotoLab 8 hits the sweet spot with its capabilities, editing performance, user interface, and the fact that it's flat price program with no subscription. 👍

Some of the features include a customizable workspace, a comprehensive, but easy-to-use toolset, a built-in photo library and image browser 👍👍, before/after viewing, custom camera/lens optic profiles for advanced distortion correction and reducing chromatic aberration and fringing, and their incredible DeepPRIME noise reduction algorithms that allows for extremely sharp, clear and detailed photos.

Whether you're looking for a full-featured photo editing program for processing RAW files, tweaking your JPEGs to make them stand out even more, or a photo library and image management solution, I highly recommend checking out PhotoLab 8.

Free Trial and Exclusive Discount Code

They have two versions of PL8. ELITE has everything, but the less expensive ESSENTIAL version has most of the standard tools you'd need, minus the advanced masking, color calibration, LUT support and the highest level of noise reduction. 

It's still incredibly capable, and would be a more economical choice if you like don't like to spend a ton of time editing images. You'll still get great results. and the built-in Photo Library feature that lets you add keywords, tags, ratings and easily find/sort your images. 

Click here to check out the program and download the free 30 day trial. Play around with it over the weekend and see what you think.

I'll send you an exclusive discount code next week, so if you think that the program is right for you, you'll be able to use that to save on your purchase. 

NIK COLLECTION 7

I know that many of you have used the wildly popular NIK COLLECTION of plugins for Photoshop and Lightroom in the past. At one point, Google acquired the collection, but sadly stopped development of the software after a few years. Thankfully, in 2017, DxO Labs bought the NIK COLLECTION, and they've breathed new life into this much-loved suite of processing tools with their biggest upgrade ever.

With faster performance, and the addition of new and enhanced adjustment tools masks, filters and presets, the NIK COLLECTION 7 includes Color Efex, Silver Efex, Analog Efex, Dfine, Vivnza, HDR eFex, and Sharpener, and offers a wide range of options for problem solving or adding your own creative touches to your images, and it allows you to jump between each of the different plugins as you work.

If you're already a LR or PS user and don't want to switch to PhotoLab 8, or if you're already familiar with the NIK plugins, then this might be a better choice for you. 

Click here to check out the NIK COLLECTION 7 and download the free trial. And please note, the exclusive discount code I'll be sending next week will also work if you want to purchase the NIK 7 software as well. 

That's all for now. As always, thanks so much for reading, take good care of yourself these days and find/tag me on Bluesky @dantaileyphoto.com!