Narrower focal lengths like 28mm-equivalent 18mm and 35mm-equivalent 23mm often demand leaving out more image information than I’d like with little to no background space left around the central figures. The XF 14mm f/2.8 may not be the lens for all seasons that Fujifilm’s recently released XF 18mm f/1.4 and 23mm f/1.4 R LM WR “Fujilux” primes might be, but the lens’ width is wonderful for opening up cramped places and for placing figures within well-designed image spaces. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying carrying the Fujinon XF 14mm f/2.8 R prime lens as my default lens mounted on our Fujifilm X-Pro2 digital rangefinder camera, and using the combination every day is improving my understanding of what this incredibly well optically-corrected lens is capable of. The current La Niña weather pattern has kept us indoors more often than we’d like, which equates to photographing in available light that amounts more to available darkness. We’re still waiting for our COVID-19 booster shots thanks to the Australian federal government’s various incompetences so are limited to making new photographs in reasonably safe settings such as cafés and outdoors in our local suburbs.

Information is crucial in documentary photography and photojournalismĭocumentary and photojournalistic images rely on plenty of well-chosen and well-depicted data, or information, of the subjects and their settings and blur has little to no value given bokeh is the opposite of data. I had hoped DeNoise AI might also be of use in processing raw files from Fujifilm and Panasonic Lumix cameras but with DxO recently adding X-Trans support to DxO PhotoLab 5 and DxO FilmPack 6 I’ve happily been applying DxO’s excellent DeepPRIME demosaicing and denoising function to all my raw files regardless of which camera produced them. I’ve yet to work out the optimal settings and workflow combinations of the three Topaz Labs products but have most often been using Gigapixel AI to blow up undersized JPEGs and then use Sharpen AI on the exported TIFF files before reducing them down to fit Unititled.Net‘s standard image sizes. Photographed with Fujifilm X-Pro2 and Fujinon XF 14mm f/2.8 R then the raw file processed with Topaz Labs Sharpen AI with exported DNG file further processed in Adobe Camera Raw and Adobe Photoshop.

Topaz denoise ai or sharpen ai