At the beginning of the year, 2017, I decided to review the camera equipment I had, and consolidate it, for want of a better word. My Canon 5D MkII and associated ‘L’ lenses which were increasingly being left at home due to their size and weight, along with My Fuji X100 (Original Limited Edition), were traded in for a new camera. A Fuji X-Pro2, with a Fuji 23mm F2 lens. I got to use straight away with the X-Pro2, which would have been fine, only when I downloaded my images to import in to Lightroom 5, I found that the files were not compatible. Correct, I should have checked that I would need to upgrade to Lightroom 6, or Lightroom CC for the privilege of processing the RAW images from this camera. Other software does exist, but I have already bought in to the Lightroom workflow and catalogue arranging system and giving that up will be hard.

This is the problem with digital photography, it’s always moving on and easy to get left behind. I have been in this situation now since the beginning of February, I am tired of chasing digital technology and I lack the commitment to sign up to the monthly subscription fees required for Adobe. True, I can upgrade (?!) to Lightroom 6 for a one off cost, an option I might yet explore. A useful blog-post at ‘Have Camera Will Travel‘ suggests a few alternatives to Lightroom, some with fantastic RAW processing engines, but the Library management doesn’t appear quite as solid, or user friendly as Lightroom.

While I am in this predicament of having no raw processing engine for my digital files I have had a couple more rolls of film developed. The situation has been made worse, by the fact that I upgraded to Lightroom CC for a trial. This has now expired, so I have no image processing at this moment at all, just image management in the expired trial. So, while this is the case I have scanned in one of the films, this time a KODAK E100VS, which is a Colour Transparency film. I have found the film forgiving so far with respect to exposure, but not so much the ability for it to help me ‘see a picture’. These are the results from a roll that expired back in November 2013, developed in May 2017. I forget when the film was exposed, but was probably summer 2015. The film has been scanned on an Epson 4490, with the proprietary software. If I had software, I could adjust the images, maybe I could polish them a little?