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The weekend is here, and it's Firmware Friday time once more! This week, we have news to report from Panasonic, Phase One, Sigma and Sony, with the latter in particular providing a whole raft of updates.

Phase One XF Camera System

We'll start with Phase One, whose second feature update for its XF Camera System is packed with new features. There's a refreshed look for...

 

 

By IR Reader René Theuillon

One often says that still life is a boring part of art, the following story tends to prove the absolute contrary.

One day, or may be one night (I don’t actually remember) I intended to shoot an original but nevertheless classical composition of a bottle, glass and apple, using...

 

 

[Update 3/21/16: Thanks to our reader Levent Hasanreisoğlu for catching an error on my part in the crop comparisons below. I inadvertantly pulled the Canon 7D ISO 6400 sample, as opposed to the Canon 70D sample, for the comparison. It's now been corrected, my apologies for the error, and a big thanks to Levent for...

If you're in the market for a new camera -- or you've just bought one -- and you want to be able to process raw files on your computer, then Adobe has good news for you. It's just released updates to both Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Camera Raw / DNG Converter adding support for a raft of recently launched...

 

 

There are some places on our planet with which we're all very familiar: The Pyramids of Giza, the Grand Canyon, Stonehenge, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal -- the list goes on, and every one is instantly recognizable. Other places, though, are rather more secretive, and it's much less...

 

 

Wake up with IR! Here's today's cup of Caffiene Priority.

We had good reason to give the Panasonic 42.5mm f/1.7 a "Lens of Distinction" in our 2015 Camera of the Year awards. It's sharp, it's fast, and it's lightweight! And since this lens and its 85mm eq. focal length is made for portrait work, I snuggled it up...

 

 

Late last year, the Canon G9X launched, adding yet another option to the company's fast-growing line of premium compact cameras based around 1-inch sensors. In the process, it took these popular cameras back to the heart of their original concept, when all around they were gradually shifting in another direction.

 

 

Back in September of last year, Panasonic surprised us with a few product announcements, including the debut of the new Panasonic 25mm f/1.7 prime lens. Joining the ranks of Panasonic's other compact, budget-friendly f/1.7 primes -- the wider 20mm f/1.7 and longer 42.5mm f/1.7 -- this latest addition is a nice,...

 

 

Before the Sony A7, there was the RX1 (and the anti-aliasing filter-less RX1R version), Sony's first foray into the combination of a full-frame sensor and a small, highly portable camera body. The RX1 and RX1R were stunning but expensive cameras, yet the images they produced were excellent. Now, with the updated...

 

 

Do you want to base your photo editing workflow around the Adobe RGB color space, but find it difficult to stretch to the cost of the necessary monitor? You're probably not alone. Even at the 24-inch screen diagonal, Adobe RGB-capable monitors typically cost somewhere in the region of US$400, and larger sizes...

 

 

A year ago, British software developer Serif -- then best known to photographers for its consumer-oriented Windows app PhotoPlus -- took its first step onto Apple's Mac platform with the launch of Affinity Photo. Initially released as a beta, Affinity Photo offered a potential lifeline to Mac users who'd found...

 

 

Snap question: When is the last time you cleaned your lens? If you had to stop to think about the answer, chances are that it has been a while, and although that's probably not having much of an effect on your photos yet, it could still be subtly degrading image quality and shortening the life of your lens.

 

 

For the last few years, pretty much everyone in the camera industry has been searching for an answer to the rise of the smartphone. With tiny -- but arguably just about satisfactory -- cameras built into our phones, the average person on the street just doesn't see the need to buy a separate, standalone camera any...

 

 

By IR Reader Ludwig Heinrich 

My main photographic interest is landscapes. As I travel Australia, visiting family and friends, along the way I venture into National Parks—and sometimes even more out of the way places. But circumstances often prevent me travelling and, while the streets and surroundings of...

 

 

Wake up with IR! Here's today's dose of Caffeine Priority...

Thanks to modern imaging technology and space-faring crafts like Cassini, we're getting a whole new perspective on our own backyard these days, the wonderfully mysterious Solar System. Infinitely more interesting and perplexing than we imagined just a...

Have you ever noticed that people rarely smiled in old photographs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries? Vox discusses several theories for why this is in a newly-published video.

The first explanation as to why is that the exposure times were simply too long for people to be able to reliably hold a smile. It is much easier to...

Photographer Barry O'Carroll put together an excellent tutorial aimed at landscape photographers covering hyperfocal distance and how to use it for capturing sharp images.

While hyperfocal distance can be calculated using formulas, Barry does a great job simplifying the concept and providing photographers with easy methods for calculating it...

Chinese lens manufacturer Venus Optics announced the completely manual Laowa 105mm f/2 (t/3.2) Smooth Trans Focus Lens, which they are referring to as "the Bokeh Dreamer." The lens utilizes an apodization (APD) element, similar to Fuji's specialied 56mm f/1.2 APD lens, to "produce images with smooth and creamy bokeh while maintaining excellent...

Since purchasing a Lee Big Stopper filter a few years ago, it has provided me with many distinct photographic opportunities. Without a Big Stopper, I wouldn't even consider taking landscape images at certain times of the day or with certain lighting, but its ability to block ten stops of light allows me to capture images in challenging...