There and Back Again by D.A.Webb

An untold secret used by many landscape photographers is to replace skies with something more exciting. Within Photoshop, it is an automated process beginning with selection of the replacement sky from a library and ending with manual refinements to optimize results. When done properly, the images are fantastic. The world cruise seemed like a perfect opportunity to create a custom sky library. Since we have a balcony suite, capturing those early morning and late evening shots can be accomplished in comfortable PJs. The library is growing with a wide selection of skies. The attached example demonstrates not all skies have to be dramatic. Just like life, sometimes it is better to just blend in.

When it comes to landscapes, mother nature doesn't always cooperate especially with interesting skies. One great feature in Photoshop is sky replacement.  The Ultimate World Cruise offers perfect opportunities to create and expand a sky replacement collection.  This is the first of hopefully many interesting skies from around the world.   

This artistic image characterized by its dreamy glow, soft focus, swirly background and vivid colors was obviously based on reality but then something happened. Was it 'Shopped' by an aspiring artist? Could it have been rendered by an AI program? Actually these unique characteristics were created by a vintage lens adapted for use on modern digital cameras. To make things more interesting, the lens was also modified to accentuate the very optical flaws designers worked hard to minimize. Optical imperfections make images interesting and rarely exist in today's optically sanitized lens designs. In our quest for technical perfection, have modern lenses lost the very characteristics that differentiates them?  Given the rising demand for 'flawed' vintage lenses on modern mirrorless cameras, is a market developing to remanufacture these vintage classics? Let's begin examining the world of vintage lenses with the Helios 44m 58mm f2.0 lens and the industry's ongoin...

CONTENT WARNING: The following post contains excessive technical material non-geeks may find boring. Restating the mission statement defined earlier. My goal is to capture and share these moments, thoughts and experiences with nothing but old fashioned words and still images. With that said, now is the perfect time to discuss why the Fujifilm ecosystem and X-T5 were packed for this trip. If you are expecting detailed specifications and technical comparisons between different manufacturer's equipment you are going to be disappointed.  That is the approach commonly taken by the professional YouTube photographers.  Reviews and recommendations presented here are very subjective and focus on producing a predetermined outcome.  Achieving a specific goal usually requires a unique set of features.  Therefore, equipment selection is based on a required feature set to produce the desired outcome rather than purchasing the latest and greatest equipment based on detailed sp...