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ON1 NoNoise AI 2021

ON1 NoNoise AI 2021

A couple of months ago I did a direct comparison between Topaz DeNoise AI vs DxO Photolab 4 DeepPRIME in which I thought DxO PhotoLab 4’s DeepPRIME noise reduction trounced Topaz With more speed, more noise removed, more detail preserved and better colour rendering. And now ON1 has just released NoNoise AI 2021 and seems to be getting great reviews so far. So I used the same image to process…

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The Legendary Olympus OM SLRs This is a very nice article on the Photoblographer.com about the legendary Olympus OM-1 35mm SLR which provided unparalleled compactness and ergonomics without compromising image quality. That legacy is still very much reflected in today's OM-D mirrorless digital cameras.

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Book Review: Street Photography Now

Book Review: Street Photography Now

I recently started buying a bunch of photography books to improve my skills. They generally fall into two categories: the “How-To” books, and the “Inspirational” books. This particular book is of the latter category. 

Street Photography Now was published in 2010 by Thames & Hudson Ltd, and it was edited by Sophie Howarth and Stephen McLaren.

This mid-size book is printed on top-grade thick…

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Debunking the M4/3 is Dead Myth Here's an excellent podcast debunking Tony Northrup's "M4/3 is Dead" clickbait.

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2019’s Best Innovations in the Photography Industry

2019’s Best Innovations in the Photography Industry

Technology continues to move at lightning speeds, and as a result, photography doesn’t stop evolving. The visual nature of photography, combined with cutting-edge advancements that won’t stop cutting, has resulted in innovations that, much like the photos they help generate, are nothing short of amazing.

If you’re a photography enthusiast, here are the best innovations in the industry to keep…

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Book Review: Street Photography, Creative Vision Behind The Lens

Book Review: Street Photography, Creative Vision Behind The Lens

This is a review of the book Street Photography, Creative Vision Behind The Lens by Valérie Jardin. Instagram: @valeriejardin ISBN-13: 978-1138238930

I just finished reading this excellent book and learned a lot from it, so I thought I should do a quick review to share my thoughts with my readers. Valérie Jardin is an accomplished French photographer based in the USA. She started her career…

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Lumix 35-100mm f/4-5.6: A Tiny Wonder

Lumix 35-100mm f/4-5.6: A Tiny Wonder

Recently I’ve been looking to add a longer focal length to my super-small prime-lens-based kit. I currently own the M.Zuiko 45mm f/1.8 which is a tiny but excellent portrait lens and short-telephoto (90mm FF.Eq.). I also have the excellent M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 Macro but that lens has a very long focus throw (by design) which makes it slow to focus out on the street. It is also not that much longer…

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My Photo Story in Street Photography Magazine Just got my first Photo Story published in the May 2019 edition of Street Photography Magazine: San Telmo – La Boca, Art, Rebellion and Tango.

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12-step program to eliminate GAS

12-step program to eliminate GAS

We all want to be better photographers; we all struggle with our art at least at some point in our life. Even the best pro photographers go through some periods of doubt and lack of creativity and motivation. We often react by thinking that if we buy a new camera or a new lens, our photography will improve or our motivation will come back. While in some cases that may be true, like when I dumped…

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Classical Arts & Photography This video by Adam Marelli is an excellent introduction to the Classical Arts and how they apply to photography.

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Inspiring Street Photography Video This is a video by Sean Tucker featuring Joshua K Jackson and it is one of the most inspiring Street Photography videos I've seen in a long time. Worth watching and re-watching. 7 more words

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Macro Photography: Advantage M4/3

Macro Photography: Advantage M4/3

We keep hearing about the disadvantages of smaller sensors but rarely hear about the advantages. Of course, there’s the obvious ones like smaller cameras (mostly) and much smaller lenses, but there are many more advantages that are almost never mentioned so I decided to do a series of posts on them.

The first one I will tackle is Macro Photography (M-P). The generally accepted definition of…

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Longer Focal Lengths for Street Photography

Longer Focal Lengths for Street Photography

I was just reading this article by Simon King in PetaPixel on how he now likes to use a 90mm lens for Street Photography and the advantages that it brings to the table. I wholeheartedly agree with him and I would add one more advantage: perspective compression, which is particularly useful when you want to emphasize crowds or how buildings are stacked together.

Plaza San Fernando, Medellin

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Street Photography Is Really Hard!

Street Photography Is Really Hard!

About a month ago Forest Walker published a thought-provoking article on PetaPixel titled “7 Habits of Boring Street Photography”. That article got me thinking about the fact that in Street Photography, perhaps even more than in any other style, the image must tell an interesting story, or capture a unique moment, or capture the essence of some interesting person, or at least be a visually…

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Filter Size Standardization

Quality lens filters are expensive, delicate and awkward to carry around. So it would make sense for lens manufacturers to standardize to one or two sizes for the bulk of their line-up (of course, some lenses are just too odd in size to do this). And they sometimes do. For example, the three Olympus f/1.2 PRO primes all use 62mm filters, which is great.

But somehow, Olympus screwed that up…

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Why Buy a GX85 in 2019?

Why Buy a GX85 in 2019?

Back in 2016 when I made the decision to switch from Nikon FF to M4/3,I actually wanted to buy a Lumix GX85 as it seemed to be the best value and the best fit for my needs (mostly street and travel photography). But just before I clicked the “Buy” button I found a killer deal on a nearly new Olympus E-M1, so that’s the way I went. But 2 years later I found myself wanting a second body and in…

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Affinity Photo 1.7 Beta

Affinity Photo 1.7 Beta

I’ve been using Affinity Photo 1.65 for about a month and I’m really enjoying it. It is a great replacement for Photoshop/Lightroom but with a much more refined UI and excellent performance. This morning I downloaded the 1.7 Beta version and wow, tons of refinement, and some new functionality as listed here. They keep evolving the software and innovating at a pretty good pace. Best of all,…