Recently I’ve shared a few thoughts about my new Panasonic G9 and its subsequent return to Wex Photographic. I’ve now received the replacement camera with lens, and I’m delighted to say I’m extremely please. The combination of the G9 and the Leica 12-60 is excellent, I love the size, weight, ease of use, and I love the detail they can resolve.
Unfortunately, the weather has been so poor that I don’t have anything I can share in the way of pictures. But this did get me thinking about my Olympus EM5, so I decided to process some of the old images. That’s when I came across this shot from Bolivia in 2014.
I can recall this scene vividly. We were driving across a vast salt flat when the sky started to darken, and the most amazing storm developed. It never rained on us but our guide (also amazed by the storm clouds) pulled over so we could photograph it. This is three frames stitched together in Lightroom and the detail and quality from the EM5 captured is quite amazing.
More G9 Landscape Processing
Despite not having any shots to share from the G9, I did capture some on the old G9 camera where the lens problem isn’t quite as noticeable. With the Nik Collection celebrating its 25th birthday I decided to produce a video demonstrating how I edit my landscapes using Nik. You can see the video now on YouTube with this link (https://youtu.be/3NORnydhJss).
Fuji XT3 Image Quality
The other thing that I’ve been talking about is the performance of my Fuji XT3 and trying to extract more from it in Lightroom. Whilst I use Capture One for my Fuji processing and love the results, sometimes I need to use Lightroom and I know others have the same problem. If you want to get the best from your Fuji RAW files in Lightroom my recent experiments might help you.
That’s it for this week.
I hope you like the photo and have a great weekend.
The Lightweight Photographer 
Enjoyed your Salt Road, Bolivia picture. Great perspective.
Thank you
Love the Bolivia image ..right place right time right subject right light springs to mind too .
Glad that you like the Topaz Ai products with your Fuji raw files . I’ve been using them for a long while now..they get better and better with the very regular updates . I use their products alongside Adobe . I apply no sharpening or noise reduction in Adobe though .
Many thanks for giving us all of this …very much appreciated.
Yes, I’ve been using Topaz products for the past 10 years or possibly more. I’ve received a lot of value from them over this time. It’s a shame they have gone to an annual payment model for updates but I totally understand why.
I’ve been following your post of sharpening Fuji files with interest so will download a version of Topaz and give it a go. I do have Capture One and have started to use more. I have never liked the way Lightroon sharpen my Fuji files but found Adobe Bridge better strangely. Different algorithm maybe? I found my files were sharp enough in Bridge by using sharpen at around 90, no noise reduction unless needed but crucially the ‘details’ slider set to zero. This has served me well for ages on admittedly mainly portraits or people. Unfortunately with the latest version of Adobe Bridge the sliders have changed and the details on gone altogether. So there is now just the sharpen and noise sliders! So the wiggles have made a return as I assume the ‘details’ is now set someone in the background.
So I will have to use something else or go back to the original version of Bridge. So thanks for your thoughts.
Yes, I think there are some differences between the two products in their sharpening. I’ve found using Camera RAW seems to give better results than Lightroom for some reason. The Smart Sharpen filter in Photoshop is another great tool for Fuji Files once the RAW conversion is done. I’m a little confused by your comment about the sliders in Bridge because Bridge doesn’t do any processing. Are you referring to Camera RAW? When you open a RAW file from Bridge to process it usually defaults to opening in Camera RAW (which was recently redesigned). If you are, I have good news. The sliders are still there. Look to the right end of the Sharpening slider and you will see a small white triangle pointing to the left. Click this and it will expand the area below the slider to show the Radius, Detail and Masking sliders. It’s the same with the other sliders as well.
Yes I should have clarified I use Camera Raw. Thanks for the info on the sliders. Really don’t know how I missed them!
Have you still got any Olympus gear?
I’d love to see a comparison of Oly v your new G9
Yes, I still have the Olympus gear and may well do a comparison with the G9 if the weather ever improves.
Apart from your informative musings, this is a very striking image, quite reminiscent of the stark and seemingly-endless salt flats in the western US. But I never would have guessed that this was Bolivia. What took you there in 2014, if I may ask?
Thank you and yes the flats are just like in the west of the US. I went to climb an old volcano called Acotango as well as explore some of the surrounding regions.