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Near Carmel, California, there is a small beach studded with rocks, shells, and sand formed over thousands of years. The tide pushes in daily with a great, uninterrupted force of life, pounding the giant rocks and sand, yet gently feeding and refreshing the sparkling tide pools that spawn life in all its amazing micro detail. Nearby on the cliffs above are paths carved between giant boulders, set next to majestic Cypress trees and greenery. This area is Point Lobos, and this beach—Weston Beach—is named for a man who changed the way many people saw these natural wonders, and so many other everyday things as well. Edward Henry Weston was his own great force of life. His photographs have become synonymous with the beauty of the West and California in particular, inspiring many photographers and admirers, and leaving his indelible mark as one of the 20th century’s most important photographers.

Advertising photography could be thought of as simply making images designed to sell a product or service. Traditionally, this meant a company hired an advertising agency to create ads to sell their products and services, so the ad agency hired a photographer to do the shoot or sought stock or other image sources to fulfill their image needs.

The Panasonic FZ150 is a super-zoom bridge camera with a 12MP sensor and an integral 24x zoom lens. The design of the body is similar to classic SLR systems, but the camera has no interchangeable lens system. It offers a zoom lens that ranges from a wide-angle setting (25mm) to an extreme tele setting (600mm, 35mm film equivalent). The FZ150 utilizes Panasonic’s newest version of the O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer), dubbed “Power O.I.S.” It works very well and allows users to shoot images with long shutter speed settings as slow as 1/20 sec when using the maximum tele setting of 600mm.

DxO Optics Pro Version 7 is a Raw converter for Mac and Microsoft Windows with some nifty tricks up its sleeve. It offers its own brand of nondestructive image editing, with tonal, exposure, geometric, and optical corrections that make it stand apart from the crowd. As was true of Version 6.6, Optics Pro 7 supports the company’s new FilmPack 3 film emulator plug-in (see sidebar below). We will have a more complete review of the film emulator in a future issue.

 

Optics Pro Version 7 is a dramatic departure from earlier releases. The Select pane is gone, so you no longer have to deal with tedious Projects (unless you want to). Now you go straight to work after opening a folder. Double-click on an image and that takes you right to the nondestructive editing phase, in Customize. Beyond this point the Mac and Windows versions part ways in one key respect: the Windows version runs faster than the Mac version, which continues to be laborious.