Camera Raw 5.3 and Lightroom 2.3 Release Candidates are now available on Adobe Labs.(Camera Raw 5.3, Lightroom 2.3) The release includes new camera support for the following models:

* Nikon D3X
* Olympus E-30

There are several bug fixes in this update

Heather wrote in with the following question and we thought it deserved more than just a quick email response.

“Hey Guys,

I got a question for ya. Sorry the answer to this might already be on your site somewhere but I’d just thought I would msg you instead. I was wondering if you had any suggestions for photography books either having to do w/ business or the technical side of things.

Do you have dreams of shooting a Canon 1Ds Mk III? The new Canon 5D Mk II? The Nikon flagship D3X? Or how about shooting with a $1,600 70-200 IS L 2.8? If you are like me, that’s pretty much all we can do is dream about the day we can afford high end gear like that. Rentals are always a good option either since most places require a deposit equal to the purchase price of the equipment.

While it may be the middle of winter for some of you, we are going to launch a new photo contest based on an idea from a recent podcast host, Roberto Valenzuela. This contest is going to be about ‘Converging Lines”. Since an image with converging lines adds a nice dimension to your images, it seems like good practice to go out and shoot some images with this as a theme.

D700 Firmware
The following improvements have been made in version 1.01

- When Custom Setting a4 Focus tracking with lock-on was set to Off in Continuous-servo AF, the lens drive moved gradually without achieving focus. This issue has been resolved.
- When the Speedlight SB-800 was mounted on the camera with flash mode set to Distance-priority manual (GN) mode, and then the exposure meters were reactivated or the camera was turned on, the distance information displayed on the SB-800 changed. This issue has been resolved.

Firmware update Version 1.1.1 incorporates the following fixes and improvements.

1. Fixes a malfunction that in rare occurrence causes a low battery indication to be displayed when using the EF 85mm F1.2L II USM lens. Depending on the battery check timing of the camera, the battery level displayed on the camera’s LCD data panel may shows Battery will be exhausted soon or Battery must be recharged, even though the battery capacity is sufficient.

You may be seeing some weirdness in the lists of articles on and off today. We are making some changes to the architecture under the hood so it will be compatible with an upcoming theme change. Please bear with us, all the content is here and all the links work, its just some of the descriptions are a little funky while we are making these coding changes. Thank you.

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If you have been considering getting into Roberto Valenzuela’s Master Class at WPPI “From Purple Cows to Cash Cows” you had better get over and sign up quickly before all of the seats are gone. This promises to be an educational seminar that will help push your business to the next level.

Yes, RAW vs. JPEG, the seemingly endless debate, almost as bad as Mac vs. PC or Film vs. Digital and people have been asking me to write up an article on this based on my opinion and experience and I have really put this article off for a long time as I wanted to be as unbiased in how I write this given that this is a very biased topic.

Oh Canon 5D Mk II, how doest I love thee, let me count the ways. That could pretty much sum up my impressions of the newest camera from the folks at Canon but it probably doesn’t tell you what you really need to know. I certainly don’t have the testing lab that DPReview or Popular Photography has to tell you all the little specs and test results, but as someone who is shooting all the time, I figured I would get my hands on one and see if it really is all that it is hyped up to be.

In this episode Kerry and David talk about some lessons learned over the past couple of years on techniques that do and do not work when doing a bridal show. The discussion covers booth setup, materials, booking meetings, networking, and much more. If you are struggling with poor performance of your bridal shows or are thinking about getting a booth at a bridal show, then you should listen to this episode and it will give you some valuable tips.

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We have seen every imaginable type of light diffuser product you can imagine and have even built different ones yourself for specific purposes all in the name of finding just the right combination of bounce and diffusion. Every device we have seen will work great in some specific situations but will not be ideal in every situation. When we saw the VerteX for the first time, while it may have looked more like a gimmick at first glance, I soon realized the potential and just had to try one out.