Up to now, I’ve never found a good solution for managing large lenses in the field. You want to be able to sling the camera and lens over your shoulder for easy carrying, but, especially when you’re using a tripod, a strap is an encumbrance. If you or a bystander catch your hand in it,… [Read More]

The Dehaze tool in Lightroom is pretty amazing. Of course, like most powerful photo editing tools, it can produce some awful effects when used inappropriately or with too much enthusiasm. But yesterday I found a new use for it: taming specular reflections. I started with this image: Note the bluish reflection on the cucumber that’s pointed at… [Read More]

When I was in the fifth or sixth grade, I used to delight in making explosives with my chemistry set. Smoke, fire, and loud noises; what could be better that that? The man is just an older boy, so when I saw this: Objects which appear dark absorb light and dissipate this energy in the… [Read More]

Yesterday, I published a post showing unusual behavior of out of focus point spread functions (OOF PSFs)  using the Mitakon Zhongyi Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95 on a Sony a7RIII. In a PM, Brandon Dube had some interesting things to say about the effect. I don’t know why it happens. It could be genuine apodization caused by poor… [Read More]