Fall Colors, Great Deals Worth a Look, and Photographers at Work
Plus some new lenses I've been testing.
About today’s photos: I spend a lot of time at DC’s famous cherry blossoms in the spring, but they can also be quite beautiful in their fall colors. Today I’m including some shots I took at the Tidal Basin earlier this month.
Latest Posts & Updates
Here’s some of what I’ve been working on:
Laowa 8-15mm f2.8 full-frame zoom fisheye. A rare zoom fisheye that can create either circular fisheye or frame-filling rectangular fisheye or for switching between APS-C and full-frame cameras. It’s sharp and fun to shoot with. Manual focus. Versions for Canon RF, Leica L, Nikon Z, Sony E, and Hasselblad X. My review | My sample images
Meike 85mm f/1.4 AF. Priced attractively and very sharp. My main quibble is with the speed and reliability of the autofocus. My review | My sample images
Ricoh GR IV memory card recommendations. I’ve been testing SD and microSD cards for years. The GR IV has an unusual combination for this type of camera: microSD as well as 53GB of internal memory. Here are my recommendations.
Great Deals Worth a Look
We’re up to our eyeballs in deals at this time of year. Here are some photography deals I’ve thought particularly interesting (and you can find my running, curated list of 2025 Black Friday Photography Deals here).
Up to 50% OFF DxO apps. DxO is offering great deals on their apps, including NIK Collection (18% Off), PhotoLab (17% Off), PureRAW (23% Off), and ViewPoint (50% Off). There are similar discounts also on upgrades. Nik Collection and PureRAW have been core parts of my workflow for years. And if you’re a new customer, you can get an extra 5% off by using code
HAVECAMERAat checkout. Ends 12/2.$40 OFF Photo Mechanic Standard (annual subscription). If you’re in the market for Photo Mechanic Plus, the same code will take $100 off the first year of a subscription to that. Use code
WORKFAST2025. Ends 12/2.50%-70% OFF Adobe Creative Cloud Pro. Adobe is offering big discounts on new annual subscriptions to Creative Cloud Pro: 50% Off for the first year. This gives you Lightroom, Photoshop, and a whole bunch of other creative apps and services that can come in very useful. For students and teachers, there’s an even bigger discount: 70% Off the first year. No code required. Ends 11/28.
Up to 20% OFF used gear at KEH. After some used lenses or cameras? KEH has been one of my go-to sources for years, and I like the transparency and peace of mind they offer when buying used gear. Use code
BFCM25. Ends 12/1.20% OFF at LensProtoGo. My go-to lens and camera rental service has a flat 20% off all rentals. Use code
RENTLPTG20. Ends 12/3.20% OFF Darkroom gift cards. Shooting film? These can be used for yourself or as gifts for the top-notch film processing, true photographic prints, wall art, etc, at The Darkroom, one of the best remaining labs for traditional analog film photography that I’ve come across and used. No code required.
15% OFF at Framebridge (all framing of digital photos). I’ve had quite a few things framed at Framebridge over the years, and the quality and customer service has always been excellent. Upload your photo to their site, choose your framing options, and the finished product is delivered directly to you. Or you can get a more tangible idea of their frames at one of their stores. This deal applies to framing of digital photos. Use code
VIP15. Ends 12/2.50% OFF at Rocky Nook photography books. Rocky Nook makes some of the best photography books out there. Great content and excellent production quality. They’re offering 50% off sitewide. You can find their extensive photography collection here (make sure to use the page navigation at the bottom — there are way more books than appear just on the first page). Use code
BF25. Ends 12/2.40% OFF SmugMug. Share, backup, or sell your photos with a SmugMug’s slick platform that is dedicated to photography. No code required, but must go through specific link (affiliate link). Ends 12/2, must be a new account. Includes 14-day trial that must be upgraded to a paid account before 12/28 to get the discount.
New Cameras & Lenses
There have been quite a few new lenses and cameras released recently. Here are some I thought were noteworthy:
Leica Q3 Monochrom. With a dedicated black-and-white sensor. Swoon.
Fujifilm X-T30 III + XC 13-33mm ƒ/3.5-6.3 OIS lens. The latest update in Fujifilm’s excellent X-T# series.
Sony FE 100mm f/2.8 Macro GM / full-frame / E mount
Nikon DX Nikon NIKKOR Z 16-50mm f/2.8 VR / APS-C (DX) / Z mount
Nikon DX Nikon NIKKOR Z MC 35mm f/1.7 / APS-C (DX) / Z mount
7Artisans AF 35mm f1.8 Z / full-frame / Z mount
Viltrox AF 50mm f1.4 Pro FE / full-frame / E mount
Laowa 200mm f2 AF FF / full-frame / Z, EF, E. This is the lens here I’m most excited to try out. On paper, it promises a lot, and I’ll be keen to see how it performs in real-world shooting.
Software Updates
Lightroom Classic 15.0 has been released. It’s a major update with a bunch of new features and refinements.
Affinity was impressive from the get-go, but it’s now also completely free. As in, not a free trial — just free. Canva bought it, rebuilt it, and is rereleasing it. It’s a combination photo image editor, vector graphics designer, and page layout tool, all in one. If you’re fed up with Adobe’s subscription price increases, or maybe just want something a bit different, it’s definitely worth checking out as a Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign alternative. Available for Mac and Windows.
Other Stuff
Two photographers are among the 2025 MacArthur “genius” grant winners. Matt Black, known particularly for his work on US poverty. And Tonika Lewis Johnson, who describes herself as a social justice artist based in Chicago.
Highly sophisticated commercial hacking software has been in the wild for almost a year, which can use malformed DNG RAW image files to infect specific models of Samsung Galaxy phones and basically take control of the phone remotely without the user having any idea. Looks mainly to have been deployed in the Middle East for specific targets.
If you’re a fan of Formula 1 racing, or just even watched a race recently, you will have noticed how slick the video production is these days. It’s not just the cars themselves that push the technological boundaries. The camera gear also innovates in ways that can flow down to other camera future hardware. They don’t just rely on off-the-shelf GoPro gear. The days of being limited only to track-side or helicopter shots are long gone, and F1 has pioneered a bunch of different onboard videos. There’s a really interesting new video that breaks down some of the tech and technique that goes into it.
Photographers at Work
There’s a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in DC: Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955-1985. It’s open now and runs through January 11.
Sydney’s Head On Photo Festival 2025 is in its last week, wrapping at the end of November.
Documentary photographer Maddie McGarvey photographed a family in Appalachia for 15 years. The story and photos are in the NY Times.
So, with all these tempting reviews, what’s your actual daily workhorse camera when youre not making us all want to buy new gear, as your recommendations are always spot on and super helpful?
Thanks for including Framebridge!! Thrilled you've had great experiences. :-)