The Week I Started Taking the Post-Adobe Workflow Seriously

I'll be upfront. I'm a Lightroom Classic lifer. My entire Kess Media workflow runs through it. Thousands of government and infrastructure shoots, all catalogued, all processed, all exported through the same application I've been using since it was called Lightroom 4. Photoshop sits next to it for the retouching that Lightroom can't do. Together, those two subscriptions are the last thing tying me to Adobe.

So when DaVinci Resolve 21 dropped a dedicated Photo page this week, I didn't read it as a tech story. I read it as a personal one.

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The Subscription I've Been Meaning to Cancel

Here's the thing about Lightroom Classic: it's fine. It's reliable. It does what I need. But I don't love it. I haven't loved it for years. The catalogue system is clunky, the masking tools arrived late, and every update feels like Adobe is pouring its energy into the cloud version that I don't use and don't want.

DaVinci Resolve 21 doesn't just add photo editing as an afterthought. It brings the same node-based colour engine that professional colourists use on feature films and points it at RAW stills. Tethered shooting for Canon and Sony. (Nikon support: if you're reading this, Blackmagic, my Z9 would like a word.) Non-destructive processing. And it's free.

I already use Resolve for video editing on Kess Media jobs. The idea of collapsing my stills and video post-production into one application, with colour tools that make Lightroom's look conservative, is properly appealing.

But the thing that actually made me sit up was the second story.

Affinity Closed the Gap I Didn't Know Was Open

Affinity Photo files now open natively in both Capture One and DaVinci Resolve. Not through an export. Not through a flattened TIFF. Natively.

This is the piece that was always missing. I've tried Affinity before. It's good. But handing files between applications always meant destructive exports, lost layers, broken round-trips. That friction is what kept me in Photoshop.

Now the non-Adobe editing stack is genuinely coherent for the first time. Resolve for RAW processing and grading. Affinity for detailed retouching. Files move between them without losing anything. Total cost: one Affinity licence, one time. Everything else is free.

I'm not switching tomorrow. I've got a decade of Lightroom catalogues and muscle memory. But I'm giving Resolve and Affinity a proper spin this month, on a real client shoot, not a test batch. If the output holds up, the Adobe subscription is gone. Lightroom and Photoshop are the last two things keeping me there, and this week that grip got noticeably weaker.

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GoPro Just Made My OM-1 Glass More Interesting

I'll admit I didn't see this one coming. GoPro making an MFT-mount cinema body? With 8K open gate, GP-Log2 10-bit, 32-bit float audio, and a Media Mod with timecode?

I own an OM System OM-1. I have MFT glass. So this isn't an abstract hardware story for me. Every lens I already own just became compatible with a rugged cinema body built by a company that understands what "weatherproof" means when you're actually outside, not just walking to a coffee shop.

For Kess Media work, I could see this as a BTS rig or a mounted B-cam on infrastructure jobs where I need something small, tough, and locked off. The action-cam DNA means it's built to survive the kind of environments I shoot in: construction sites, government facilities, outdoor events in Western Sydney heat.

The bigger picture is more interesting. Insta360 is reportedly building an MFT mirrorless body too. Two well-funded companies with deep computational imaging expertise, both choosing Micro Four Thirds as their entry point. A format that most people had written off suddenly has serious new players with real R&D budgets. If you've been in the MFT ecosystem wondering if you backed the wrong horse, this is the best week you've had in years.

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The DJI Story That Scares Me

Most coverage of the DJI situation is framed as a US problem. American drone operators losing access to gear, FCC approvals drying up, the Osmo Pocket 4 blocked from retail shelves.

I'm in Sydney. I fly under CASA. This shouldn't be my problem.

But it is, because the precedent terrifies me.

I run four DJI airframes for Kess Media: Mavic 4 Pro, Mini 5 Pro, Mavic 3, and Mavic 3 Pro. My aerial workflow is entirely DJI. My pilot proficiencies are on DJI platforms. My clients expect DJI-quality output. If the Australian government decided to follow the US lead, even partially, my aerial business would be frozen overnight.

CASA is already restrictive. But at least they listen. There are pathways to get flight approvals, even for complex operations. The system is bureaucratic but functional. What's happening in the US feels different. It feels like a government deciding that an entire category of professional tools can just be switched off, and the operators who built businesses around them are collateral damage.

The Lito might be the last DJI drone to get FCC approval in America. That's not a product story. That's a regulatory cliff edge for thousands of working professionals. And the uncomfortable truth is that no other manufacturer makes anything close to DJI's reliability, feature set, or price point. The "just switch to Autel or Skydio" advice is easy to give and expensive to take.

I don't think Australia will follow the US ban. But I also didn't think a lot of things that have happened in the last few years. If you're a drone-op anywhere in the world, this week should make you think hard about platform dependency.

One bright spot: the FAA rolled back those legally dubious no-fly zones near law enforcement operations. Press and documentary drone operators in the US just got airspace back that should never have been closed. Small win, but it matters.

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The Quieter Stories Worth Your Time

Arri changed hands. Thomas Riedel acquired the company behind most of what you watch on streaming. Ownership shifts at companies like Arri don't make immediate waves. They make ten-year waves. Watch this space.

Fujifilm is killing RA4 colour paper. If you run a colour darkroom, stock up now and start trialling Kodak Endura or Ilford's offerings. The analogue supply chain is thinning, one SKU at a time.

Atomos bought Flanders Scientific. FSI monitors are the reference standard for colour-critical work. Whether Atomos ownership means better integration or a slow dilution of that standard is the question that matters.

Freefly joined L-Mount. Future cinema cameras and drones with native access to Sigma Art primes and Lumix S glass. No adapters. If you're in the L-Mount ecosystem, that's a real workflow win.

Voigtlander APO-Skopar 75mm f/2.8 for Leica M at $556. APO-corrected optics in a barrel so slim it barely registers on the camera. If you shoot M-mount, you've probably already bookmarked it.

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What This Week Actually Means

Three things happened at once. The post-Adobe editing stack became genuinely usable for professional work. The Micro Four Thirds mount got two serious new entrants with real money behind them. And the US government showed what happens when regulators decide your professional tools are a national security problem.

The common thread is platform dependency. Adobe's grip loosening is good news for photographers who've been locked into a subscription they resent. GoPro and Insta360 entering MFT is good news for a mount that needs fresh investment. DJI's US situation is a warning about what happens when you build a business on a single vendor's ecosystem.

I've been guilty of all three. Lightroom because it's always been there. MFT because I love my OM-1 but wondered if anyone else still cared. DJI because nothing else comes close.

This was the week I started taking all three dependencies seriously. Resolve is getting a real test. The MFT glass stays. And I'm watching the DJI situation with the kind of attention I usually reserve for CASA rule changes.

Same time next week.

Alex Kesselaar is a photographer, drone operator, and the person behind Pixelfetch. He shoots for government and infrastructure clients through Kess Media in Sydney.

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