Jon Sienkiewicz Blog

Freezing rain is falling, your tomcat is suing you for royalties from the YouTube videos he starred in, and every bird in the city boycotts your feeder because of your snoopy telephoto lens. Cheer up! We all have those days when we feel like f/16 in an f/1.4 world. But there’s always something to take pictures of—and it often can be found as close as our own kitchen.

The photo backpack is the best innovation since dry dog food, so when an iconic camera bag brand like Domke produces their version, people expect to see lightning in a jar. Does the Domke Everyday Backpack deliver? Or is it just another bowlful of puppy kibbles?

A short time ago I was shooting with a Tamron 18-270mm zoom lens on a Canon EOS 40D and discovered something very surprising. When I reviewed the images of some leaves that were backlit against a bright sky I didn’t see any DPF. You know what DPF is, of course: Dreaded Purple Fringe. It usually inhabits the contrasty edges that separate highlight and shadow areas in some digital images. I’d upload an example, but I know you have plenty of your own.

DxO just released PhotoLab 4, a major update of their innovative photo-editing software. This latest version features DxO DeepPRIME, a game-changing technology you’re going to be hearing about over and over from now on. DxO DeepPRIME is a groundbreaking demosaicing and denoising engine based on artificial intelligence and trained with deep learning. And I'm not kidding when I say it will make old Raw files from your 10+ years old camera look like they were shot with the best and latest camera model on the market.

The Nik Collection of eight uber-creative plugins has been updated to version 5 with significant enhancements to Nik Color Efex and Nik Analog Efex, plus the addition of DxO ClearView, in a sweeping upgrade that now includes DxO PhotoLab 5 ESSENTIAL Edition and is available from DxO Labs starting today for the inflation-fighting price of $149.

What’s proper etiquette when capturing chow with a digital camera? If you like to shoot your food, here are a couple handy tips.