Hi friends,

Just a quick dispatch this week. I'm writing from Kenya, partway through the National Geographic Cohort trip, and the days have been long, full, and very different from what I'm used to (in the best way possible).

The monopod and the strap-loop trick I mentioned last week are both getting a real workout, and I'll have a proper field report ready for you next Thursday, once I've had time to actually sit with the files and figure out which gear and techniques earned their keep.

For today, I want to pivot to something I've been meaning to share for a while. It's a Lightroom tip rather than a shooting tip, which feels appropriate for a week when I'm sitting on more low-light, high-ISO files than I've ever shot in a row.

If you've been shooting in low light, at high ISO, or pushing shadows hard on a daytime file, you already know the standard Noise Reduction slider has clear limits. There's a point where it stops smoothing noise and starts melting your image.

Adobe's AI Denoise was a major step forward when it first launched, and Adobe's April 2026 Lightroom Classic update finally fixed its biggest workflow problem. Previously, running Denoise on a batch of files would lock you out of the program entirely while it processed. Now it runs as a single background task, so you can keep editing other photos while AI Denoise is chewing through a wildlife shoot or a long take.

How to use it: right-click any file, select Enhance, and check the Denoise box. The default slider value is 50. For most files, anywhere between 30 and 50 gives you a clean result without losing texture. Push it past 70 and you start losing fine detail in fur, feathers, and natural surfaces, which is the opposite of what you want.

A few notes to try:

Denoise creates a new DNG rather than editing the original RAW, so the file gets larger. Make sure you have storage space, especially before a high-volume trip.

Apply Denoise first, then edit. A cleaner starting point gives you more flexibility downstream, particularly with shadow recovery and texture moves.

Skip it on files where you actually want noise. A misty mountain scene at base ISO doesn't need it, and applying it anyway can flatten the mood.

Nikon Z 120-300mm f/2.8 TC VR S in development. Nikon posted a development announcement on May 7 for a full-frame Z-mount telephoto zoom with a built-in 1.4x teleconverter that extends the range to 170-420mm at f/4. No price or release date yet, but it's Nikon's first Z-mount zoom in this class with a native teleconverter.

Sigma launches the 85mm f/1.2 DG DN Art. Sigma's new flagship portrait prime is now listed at major retailers for L-mount and Sony E-mount. Sigma has built one of the strongest third-party lens lineups for mirrorless, and this slots in at the top.

Camera Grand Prix 2026 winners announced. Japan's Camera Journal Press Club gave Camera of the Year to the Sony α7 V, Lens of the Year to the Sony FE 50-150mm f/2 G Master, and Editor's Choice Technology to the Ricoh GR IV Monochrome. Canon's EOS R6 Mark III took the Readers Award.

GoPro is exploring a sale. GoPro's board authorized a formal review of strategic alternatives on May 11, including a possible sale or merger after multiple unsolicited inquiries. Rumors of GoPro being shopped have come and gone since 2018, but this is the first time the board has publicly opened the door.

Federico Veronesi has been based in Kenya since 2002 and lived for five years out of a tent on the Talek River inside the Maasai Mara. His work is built on a level of access most wildlife photographers never get to, because he simply hasn't left.

What I find compelling about his approach is how patient it is. He follows individual animals across years rather than shoots, and his most well-known images, including a Caracal series that BBC Wildlife published and a Cape Buffalo image that won the 2011 Windland Smith Rice Grand Prize, came out of that long-running familiarity. His third book, Walk the Earth, was published by Prestel last fall and follows Africa's remaining great tusker elephants through more than a decade of fieldwork.

If you want a follow that grounds the romance of safari photography in what it actually looks like to do it for twenty years, his feed is a strong one.

One editor worth mentioning is Zoner Studio, a photo editor that's flown under the radar for a lot of photographers. The culling workflow is one of its strongest features, especially the multi-preview, which lets you compare RAW frames side by side. If you've ever sat in front of a thousand files trying to figure out which ones are actually sharp and worth keeping, that one feature alone speeds the process up dramatically.

Beyond culling, it works as a full editing suite that covers RAW, masks, layers, video, and even physical print orders, with practical AI selection tools for skies, subjects, and objects. There's also an optional catalog you can use for browsing and filtering, or skip entirely to work straight from your local files.

The learning curve is gentle, which makes it a budget-friendly way to consolidate your editing into a single app, especially if you're newer to editing or curious about trying something different alongside your current setup.

One quick note: Zoner is currently Windows-only. If you're on a PC, they offer a one-week free trial, which is an easy way to see if it fits how you work.

(Full transparency: this section is a paid partnership with Zoner, and the link is an affiliate link. Both help keep this newsletter free and my coffee mug full. Thanks for supporting!)

That's it for this week. I'll be back next Thursday with the full Kenya debrief: the gear, the techniques, what surprised me, and the lessons that only show up after you've actually done it for the first time.

This week's question: What's the photograph you keep trying to take and haven't quite nailed yet? Could be a specific subject, a specific kind of light, a place you keep going back to. I'm curious what people are still chasing.

See you next week,
Paige

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P.S. Curious how I edit my photos? These are the exact presets I use for almost every travel & landscape shoot (designed for both mobile and desktop).

P.P.S. Some of my most popular travel and landscape shots are available as prints through Big Wall Decor. If you've ever wanted one on your wall, check them out here.