Captured #18: October 2025

Hello there 👋

It’s been a wee while. I’ve had an unplanned autumnal break from this newsletter because, well, life. You know how it is.

September and October have actually been lacking in the photography department for me. I’ve been on a few (non-photo) trips where I managed to take a few shots, but I’ve not been feeling it if you know what I mean? The nights have now drawn in, it’s damp and freezing, but I’m feeling more motivated. An impending trip to New York City is helping. In fact, I’m sat in the airport right now, rucksack jammed with cameras and lenses, waiting to board. I’ll make the November newsletter a special NYC edition, all being well.

In the mean time, I’ll share some pictures I took across September and October that I like, and I’ve got a bunch of links for you to check out. See you next time!

🤓 Tech Corner

• Project Indigo — a computational photography camera app from Adobe. This is a free (beta) app from Adobe and it’s really quite amazing, from a technical perspective. HDR used to blow my mind (it’s really clever, right?) but these days, since it’s used for every phone photo ever, not so much. The Indigo app is using a lot of computation (goodbye, battery life) to process multiple images into one like HDR, but with a focus on making the images look more natural rather than fake. It looks very impressive, and perhaps this is a glimpse of what we’ll see as the default in our smartphones in the future.
• !Camera. I’m not sure how to pronounce this one (“Not Camera”? “Bang Camera”? “Camera”?!) but it’s a new camera app from quirky app developers Not Boring. It looks gimmicky at first glance (well, it kind of is) but it’s a wonderful take on user interface for phone cameras. I find the iOS default app a bit fiddly, whereas !Camera is the complete opposite. It’s great fun and really intuitive! The app seems to be doing a load of filter processing to make your pictures look more film-like, but it’s hard to review it properly since most features are stuck behind a £14.99/year paywall. I might give it a spin at some point, but right now I don’t have the inclination. One to watch though!
• Leica M EV1. Here I am moaning about a £14.99/year paywall when Leica drop a new M series camera body that costs £6,840. That’s 456 years of !Camera subscription fees! Like many photographers I’ve drooled over the Leica M cameras (I tried the M11 Monochrom earlier this year), but as a quinquagenarian that minuscule rangefinder focusing box doesn’t work for me. The EV1 ditches the rangefinder for an EVF which must wind up the purists, but is pretty cool for us eyesight-challenged photographers. Can’t see me owning one, but maybe I’ll do a loaner at some point.
• iPhone 17 Pro. This doesn’t really feel like news because Apple release a new iPhone every year so it’s kinda yawnsome, but by all accounts the camera upgrade is notable, especially the monster zoom. I have a 15 Pro which is fine from a camera perspective, but it has dire battery life which is the main thing that makes me want to upgrade. I’ll wait to see what happens next year.

📚 Books

👓 Blog posts

I published a couple of blog posts. I’m especially interested to know what you think of Irys now that it’s fully released. I have high hopes.

• Irys Photos app — a review of the new Instagram alternative for photographers
• Edinburgh Life magazine front cover – Sept/Oct 2025

📺 YouTubes

A few I liked.

Listening Party 🔈

I don’t buy vinyl any more but if I did this would be my slab of choice.

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