A list of blog posts about photography

As some of you know, I bought the GR III again. This time a Diary Edition. I think at this point no one can accuse me of not giving the camera a proper chance! I bought it new and sold it 3 times in total, including this one. Because yes, I sold it again. I… Continue reading My final opinion about the Ricoh GR III

Do you remember when it became trendy to emulate cross processing? Or when bleach bypass became all the rage? Or when HDR was suddenly the new thing everyone was trying? All the photos made in these trendy bubbles are now obsolete and not pleasant. That’s because they were a reaction to what was perceived as… Continue reading Film simulation and Dehancer

I believe there are strong reasons to oppose AI’s involvement in creative works, especially photography. This is a topic that’s very dear to me, and I hope you will also find it interesting and will want to share your opinion about it. I will start with a brief mention of the marketing aspects and then… Continue reading Against generative AI

So we want to learn to do something new. Here I talk about photography, so let’s stick to that topic –– but really, this could apply to many other activities. As I was saying, let’s imagine we want to learn doing something new, and we really put ourselves to it. We watch a couple tutorials,… Continue reading Patience, practice, discipline

I have bought and sold tens of cameras and lenses: Canon, Nikon, Ricoh, Pentax, Olympus, Panasonic, and that’s only for the digital ones. If we look at film, then we can add all kind of soviet made cameras, and then Yashica, Rollei, Olympus, Holga, Diana, AGFA, etc. I never believed in amassing objects, that’s why… Continue reading Micro four thirds and selling regrets

Had this been a YouTube channel, the title would have been something like “What is wrong with the Nikon Z6 II” or “Why I switched from Nikon to …” or “I tried the Nikon Z6 and THIS happened!”. And so on. I sometimes find it difficult to decide which video to open, because the titles… Continue reading My experience with the Nikon Z6 II

There is an idea that is floating in my mind since a while. I managed to somewhat express it with a tweet a couple days ago, and I think it could be the topic for a nice photography discussion. As you may have guessed, it’s about AI cameras. Here it is: The matter of this… Continue reading AI cameras

One of the common observations regarding the Ricoh GR is that the whole concept of a compact camera seems obsolete — or at least redundant — in an era where we already carry a camera phone in our pockets. The dubt grows as we consider modern smartphones feature good quality cameras, thanks mostly to their… Continue reading Ricoh GR vs iPhone

We are constantly proposed ways for becoming successful. YouTube videos, courses, books. The aggressive marketing of these products is a reflection of a great interest into this topic –– becoming successful –– but what is success? And how does it relate to photography? When we think of success, we usuall picture money, luxury, nice clothing,… Continue reading Becoming a successful photographer

Lately we saw a proliferation of YouTube videos about VERO social network and its role after the decline of Instagram. This happened because Peter McKinnon did a video about it, and many photography channels just copy what the popular ones do — a rushed repetition of each other’s content, editing and aesthetic. The rise of… Continue reading YouTubers and the third coming of VERO for photographers

My Ricoh GR II got dust on the sensor and for this reason I have been using it less and less. I guess this is quite a common event in the life of a Ricoh GR lover. If we shoot it a lot, sooner or later dust will come. This made me sort of sad,… Continue reading Removing dust from Ricoh GR II sensor and filter

How much time do we spend trying to emulate film aesthetic? Or trying to copy the style of a photo we saw on social media? How much time do we waste reading reviews for equipment we don’t need and we will surely never buy? How much time watching informative videos that give us no actual… Continue reading Time and knowledge in photography

This lens kept me company for the last 20 years or so: I bought it for my Yashica FX3 Super 2000 and I then adapted it to pretty much all of my digital systems, starting with the Canon EOS 300D, using that combination for shooting — among the other projects — most of the light… Continue reading A review of the Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm f1.7

We are living in terrible times, dear friends. Not much is left but doing what we can for helping each other –– and hoping for reason to win over madness –– empathy over hatred. I am trying to be useful and so I am hosting a Ukrainian refugee family with a 1 year old baby.… Continue reading Hosting a Ukrainian refugee family

Ansel Adams apparently once noted: “the single most important component to a camera is the twelve inches behind it.” I say apparently because I don’t know where he wrote it or if there is any proof that he said it, so let’s take that with a grain of salt. It is quite a popular quote… Continue reading What makes a good photo

I sometimes caressed the idea of opening my own channel on YouTube — intrigued by communication through an experience of time that is so different from the written word. In the end though I never do that, mostly because I like the written word so much. I like to read — and I like it… Continue reading YouTube & Photography

What a title. A better one would have probably been “Comparing the Ricoh GR II and the Pen-F mounting a Panasonic 14mm f2.5”, because that’s what this little post will be about — but that would have definitely been too long. The idea for this post came to me when I remembered the Pen-F has… Continue reading Ricoh GR vs Olympus Pen-F

Instagram is transitioning from being a photo based community to being a global marketing platform. They always shifted their focus in a way or another: it started with snapshots taken with the phone and it then embraced photos taken with other cameras: I remember the drama –– purists wanted Instagram to be used only for… Continue reading Online photography communities

A couple of weeks ago I was shooting some editorial for a brand. The owners became fans of the Ricoh GR after I used it for some of their photos, so they let me know they would enjoy for it to be used whenever possible. That would have been a pleasure as usual, if I… Continue reading Dust in the Ricoh GR II & my opinion about the GR IIIx

Note: I wrote this article in Junuary 2021 but I didn’t publish it until now. It is virtually unchanged apart from some minor edits reflecting recent events. It started as an opinion piece about Olympus and in the end it touched the whole m43 system. I removed a very long analysis of sensors tech, which… Continue reading Which future for Olympus and Micro Four Thirds?

In this post I will talk of my experience shooting for a client using only the Ricoh GR II camera. This article covers the first shooting session and why I decided to shoot with the Ricoh GR II. Crime London is a succesfull contemporary Italian fashion brand focused on sneakers design. Their shoes and accessories… Continue reading Shooting lifestyle and fashion with the Ricoh GR

As you may know from my previous post, I didn’t exactly enjoy the GR III, and I ended up sending it back — all this while being enamoured with the GR II and using it for pleasure and for job since many years, as narrated in this other post. In last months I kept noticing… Continue reading A few more words about the Ricoh GR III

I started shooting photos long ago — my first camera was a Rolleiflex SL35 ME my parents had collecting dust in a closet. I have few memories of it, and no photos to prove my messing around with it. As a teenager I moved to a compact film Olympus mju2, and from there to a… Continue reading About mirrorless cameras

The last post dates back to March 2020 — what happened since then apart from the obvious? Well no, let’s not ignore the obvious. A global pandemic happened and it made us change the way we live and work. I’m lucky enough to say the virus didn’t impact much on my profession. From my point… Continue reading Random updates

I started creating graphics and editing photos long ago, on DOS operating system — using software like Deluxe Paint II, Neopaint and others — moving then to Windows 3.1 quite soon. In these years I could definitely not afford Apple computers — although dreaming of them — I could barely afford a very slow IBM… Continue reading The problem with Adobe’s subscription model

Being original in photography became almost impossible — that “almost” leaves the door open for the dream, but I confess I don’t believe in it. I think we can’t create anything radically new in photography. This brings at least two questions: why is it pointless to pursue originality, and what’s the point of taking photographs… Continue reading Originality in photography

The camera I am going to write about is out of production and will very unlikely get an improved model, as Olympus declared a while ago — and yet I think it is worth writing about it, because this is a good camera — dare I say, a unique one — and because talking about… Continue reading Olympus PEN-F Review

This post had to be called “Ricoh GR III review” but I had to change the title, because this won’t be a review after all. I received my Ricoh GR III some days ago and I started playing with it, doing tests and trying to understand what had been improved and what not. My goal… Continue reading About the Ricoh GR III

What a title. This won’t be a post that will try to declare which camera brand or model is the best, of course. There is not such a thing to begin with. The post will be about what in my opinion defines the best camera. I don’t especially think this definition is needed but it… Continue reading Looking for the best camera

This post won’t be about photography but it does fit in the general scheme of things and it does touch the photography profession. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Medium.. what do they have in common? They have users providing free content for these platforms. I say free because I believe what these platforms give back to the… Continue reading Let’s blog in 2019

The Ricoh GR II –– I’ve been using and loving this camera for years and it’s about time I write about it. I’ll try to avoid the usual review format –– the specifications are everywhere in the web anyway, this is a 3 years old camera after all. I’ll be focusing instead on my direct… Continue reading Ricoh GR II Review

With digital photography we got used to the fact that we can shoot and then change the picture in all kinds of ways.  We can make it black and white with endless variations or try to simulate a film look and so on. This created a sort of fetish for having the best RAW possible… Continue reading The fetish for endless editing

Instagram started as a simple mobile app for sharing photographs, optionally applying them some filters inspired by slightly older Hipstamatic app and by Lomography. Once a couple of celebrities started using the app, its huge marketing potential became evident. Facebook bought it and started changing the platform, making it more efficient in terms of advertising.… Continue reading Instagram has no love for photography

Yes I tend to talk a lot about smartphone cameras, and for good reasons. First, we always have them with us and they got to a point when they provide decent quality even if you print the photo with a 18×15 cm or kinda A4 size. Which is more than enough for most of us.… Continue reading About exposure, white balance and smartphones.

I sometimes forget the marvel of having a great quality camera always with me — even better, a camera that features my favorite focal length nonetheless. I’ve always been a fan of 28mm and even if modern iPhones moved closer to a 31mm equivalent I still find them a joy to use. I work as… Continue reading Capturing Architecture with an iPhone

Did you ever fall for that mellow feeling and ended up saying to yourself  “I guess I just wasn’t made for these times” like in that beautiful song by The Beach Boys? I did, but I ultimately realised that’s just not the case. I was born in 1980. This allowed me to live the actual 80s,… Continue reading Creatures of our own time.