Last week review 15-2024

Last week in review 15-2024 and this week we had the first warm summery days but also rainy weather again 🙁

This week Skylum has made its mark with the Luminar NEO 1.19 beta, which was not released until Thursday due to the embargo. Luminar NEO now also takes over the log of the iPad version and presents itself with only minor changes. I think it’s great that you can now finally switch off the background image. This was a bit annoying depending on the image.

New functions include the “Water Enhancer” and the “Twilight Enhancer”. The Water Enhancer automatically masks water areas relatively well, which can then be adjusted in terms of exposure and/or color. The automatic masking is not perfect, but on the one hand it can be corrected, on the other hand a completely perfect mask is not really necessary, especially with water.

The Twilight Enhancer works in a similar way. However, I have noticed a few minor bugs that will hopefully be corrected by the official release on 25.04. And right now there are discounts on buying Luminar NEO.

Then there was the update of WordPress to version 6.5 last week. You can read the details of the version called “Regina” here. In the course of these updates, of course, some plugins were also updated.

And depending on the plugin, you have to be careful whether it is compatible with the WordPress version. Fortunately, that wasn’t a problem for me. But on Tuesday, version 6.5.2 arrived directly via the automatic update, a security update that you should always install.

Panasonic has announced a firmware update for its Lumix S5 MK II models that improves online functions as well as shooting situations and AF. The firmware update affects both the S5 II and the S5 II x and will be available as version 3.0 from April 21. Initially, it will be possible to send videos directly from the camera to the frame.io platform. This will increase the online capabilities of both models.

The extension goes in the same direction by saving proxy clips triggered directly in the camera and uploading them to one of the platforms via Camera-2-Cloud. The proxies then have either 1080p or 720p resolution. With S5 IIx it will then be possible to save the actual material on SSD and e.g. proxies on an SD card.

There is also an extension of the object detection in AF and a burst recording mode and an improvement in stabilization.

All in all, another very eventful week. I hope you enjoy the articles and look forward to your questions and comments.

ciao tuxoche