PhotoActive

Part of enjoying photography is understanding photography. What makes a “good” photo? How much of that is based on the circumstances around its creation? In this episode, we talk about looking at photography with a critical eye. Hosts: Jeff Carlson: website , Jeff's photos , Jeff on Instagram , Jeff on Glass , Jeff on Mastodon Kirk McElhearn: website , Kirk's photos , Kirk on Instagram , Kirk on G...

Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS) is a running joke among photographers (and musicians), but it's also a real thing that can spin us up with the desire to buy some new camera or lens. We look at what drives this compulsion, and try to be honest about whether it affects us as photographers. Hosts: Jeff Carlson: website , Jeff's photos , Jeff on Instagram , Jeff on Glass , Jeff on Mastodon Kirk McElhe...

Gentleman Coder Nik Bhatt returns to talk about Nitro, his all-new photo editor for macOS (and soon, iOS and iPadOS). As the successor to RAW Power, Nitro has a lot to live up to. Nik talks about what prompted him to build a new app from the ground up, adding new features like masking, supporting cameras that Apple ignores, and more. Guest: Nik Bhatt Hosts: Jeff Carlson: website , Jeff's photos ,...

We were recently asked about where we find inspiration while making photos, which led Kirk and Jeff to muse on the idea of being primed to find photo subjects. It’s not enough to arrive at a destination with a blank slate—you’ll create better photos and enjoy the experience more if you prime yourself to see what’s in front of you. That can come from photo books, online photos of the same area, and...

The entire Internet - yes, the whole thing, trust us - is going crazy for the new Fujifilm X100VI compact fixed-lens camera. What’s the appeal of this not-inexpensive camera? Its predecessor was in such demand that Fujifilm just stopped manufacturing it because it couldn’t keep up...for more than a year. And now the X100VI is backordered until summer. Is it all just influencer hype? [Main photo cr...

In five years, will our cameras look anything like today’s cameras? We’ve seen staggering advancements in AI technologies in photography, so in this episode we stretch our imaginations to think about where things are headed. Hosts: Jeff Carlson: website , Jeff's photos , Jeff on Instagram , Jeff on Glass , Jeff on Mastodon Kirk McElhearn: website , Kirk's photos , Kirk on Instagram , Kirk on Glass...

What would you do with 100 megapixels? Jeff recently had the opportunity to shoot with the new Hasselblad 907x/CFV 100C, a medium format camera in the form factor of Hasselblad’s classic film bodies. This $8,200 (body only, of course) system made him rethink the photographic muscle memory he’s developed over the years, as well as the mental-muscle-memory of how to approach making photos. Hosts: Je...

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking the photos on your old hard drives are perfectly safe. But are they really? Our guest Derrick Story needed to extract 200,000 images saved in Apple’s discontinued Aperture software on an old Drobo storage array. Using a combination of an old MacBook that could run Aperture and modern software like Peakto for organizing the extracted images, he was able t...

To wrap up the year, we thought we’d turn our attention to selections from The Photo Book, a massive, rich collection of photography from some of the best photographers throughout the history of the art form. Out of hundreds of images, we each picked five photos and explain what about them caught our eyes. Hosts: Jeff Carlson: website , Jeff's photos , Jeff on Instagram , Jeff on Glass , Jeff on M...

It’s time to talk about the B-word again! Jeff couldn’t trick Kirk into saying “bokeh,” but this week we’re looking at a few ways to get background blur using Portrait mode in the iPhone and editing in Lightroom. Technology has improved quite a lot in the last couple of years, to the point where simulated bokeh can sometimes pass off as natural lens blur. Hosts: Jeff Carlson: website , Jeff's phot...

The photographer’s dilemma rears again. Not only are we sometimes struck by gear acquisition syndrome when new cameras are announced, we run into it when new computers that can process our images come to market. In this case, it’s the new M3 MacBook Pro and M3 iMac models from Apple. Will the M3 processor make a difference when working with photos? If you bought an M1 iMac when it came out, is it...

Google’s Pixel phones are held up as the Android smartphones to follow, and their cameras are often pitted against the iPhone as examples of the state of the art. However, as Kirk discovered when he bought a Pixel 8, the details matter... such as the Pixel 8 not being able to use the full resolution of its main camera. Also in this episode, we check in with some new developments in the generative...

On the surface, making photos with the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro is relatively simple: pick a zoom level, pick a format (raw or not), and go. But as soon as you get just below the surface, you’re faced with a surprising amount of complexity. In this episode, we wade into all the megapixels (including from the iPhone 14 Pro) to try to make sense of it all. Hosts: Jeff Carlson: website , Jeff's ph...

Who wants to talk megapixels and tetraprisms? In this episode, recorded shortly after Apple announced the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro, Kirk and Jeff look at the specs and possibilities of the newest cameras-that-also-make-calls. Hosts: Jeff Carlson: website , Jeff's photos , Jeff on Instagram , Jeff on Glass , Jeff on Mastodon Kirk McElhearn: website , Kirk's photos , Kirk on Instagram , Kirk on G...

In episode 111, we talked to the founders of the photo app and community Glass about their approach to making a social photo service that isn’t exhausting or frustrating like Instagram or many others. For this episode, we catch up with Daniel Agee, the head of Marketing and Community at Glass, to talk about Glass’s two year anniversary, eschewing VC funding, and how community is making such a diff...

“With writing I’m trying to use a story to create images, and with photography I’m trying to use images to create a story.” That’s S J Watson, best-selling novelist of Before I Go to Sleep . In this episode we talk to him about how street photography feeds his writing and vice-versa, and the way different endeavors contribute to creative mindsets. Guest: SJ Watson , Photography . Hosts: Jeff Carls...

Is photo editing too difficult? Layers and sliders and specialized apps and lots of options are available to us for processing our digital photos. How much is too much, and are we moving away from photography and getting lost in software? Hosts: Jeff Carlson: website , Jeff's photos , Jeff on Instagram , Jeff on Glass Kirk McElhearn: website , Kirk on Instagram , Kirk on Glass Show Notes: ( View s...

When we record PhotoActive, Kirk is at the end of his day in the U.K. and Jeff has just begun in Seattle, which means we both start off with steaming mugs of our favorite caffeinated beverages. For a change, we thought we’d make this the tea and coffee episode, essential ingredients for any photographer. Hosts: Jeff Carlson: website , Jeff's photos , Jeff on Instagram , Jeff on Glass Kirk McElhear...

He really went and did it. When Kirk decided to simplify his photography setup, he sold all of his Fujifilm cameras and lenses, put the Leica Q2 Monochrom up for sale, and bought a brand new Leica Q3. In this episode, we talk about the reasons behind such a drastic move and the advantages of simplifying your gear. Hosts: Jeff Carlson: website , Jeff's photos , Jeff on Instagram , Jeff on Glass Kir...

If you’re like Jeff and Kirk, you probably have multiple photo libraries spread across your disks. Whether it’s because you use several editing apps, or some libraries are tied to outdated applications (RIP Apple Aperture), you don’t want to lose track of all those photos. This week, Matthieu Kopp of CYME joins us to talk about converting and managing multiple libraries using CYME’s utilities Aval...

The weather is warming up, the skies are clearing, and we point our eyes and cameras to the sky. But capturing the night sky well requires more than just snapping a photo of the heavens. Mike Shaw, author of the new book The Beginner’s Guide to Astrophotography , joins us to talk about what gear you need—yes, you can do it with a smartphone!—and how to make stunning star photos. Guest: Mike Shaw ,...

The folks behind Pixelmator Pro have just released Photomator for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and it’s won us over. Designed as a straightforward photo editor (versus the can-do-everything that is Pixelmator Pro), Photomator is surprisingly deep for an app that on the surface is non-intimidating. In this episode, we look at the new Mac version and why it’s likely to become Kirk’s main photo editor. Hos...

Camera resolution is easy, right? More pixels, more quality, more options, more better! But as soon as you start digging into it, from the iPhone 14 Pro’s 48 megapixels to Sony sensors with 60 megapixels, all sorts of considerations make themselves known. Do you need that much resolution? How did we survive with less than 20 MP in the recent past? We pixel-peep and also look at the big picture. Ho...

Adobe added a new AI-assisted denoise feature to Lightroom and a Remove tool in the public beta of Photoshop, both of which are impressive. But how many photographers find themselves using these and other tools? Hosts: Jeff Carlson: website , Jeff's photos , Jeff on Instagram , Jeff on Glass Kirk McElhearn: website , Kirk on Instagram , Kirk on Glass Show Notes: ( View show notes with images at Ph...

It’s time to rant. Are photographers spending too much energy in front of the computer instead of behind the camera? Does posting a photo to a public forum make it an invitation for criticism? And is there actually a good street photo of a woman looking at her cell phone amid all the copycats out there? This isn’t just curmudgeonly banter—we dig into some photographic issues that have been gnawing...