blurmagic

Love the creamy/dreamy bokeh you get with this lens.

. Love the blues in the second photo. All images have a bit too much boring sky in them. One option would be to crop some sky out. Another option would be to replace these boring night skies with ones with stars/moon/comets/northern-lights etc. That is quickly and easily done in post these days with software like Luminar Neo. I detect a bit of wide angle distortion in the patio bricks in the second image, and in the lower right part of the last image. I am sensitive to wide angle distortion. Personally, I have not found any lens wider than the Zeiss 25mm f/2 (on full frame) that does not have unacceptable distortion. Given your G9's 2X crop factor, to avoid wide angle distortion, you might not want to shoot buildings wider than 14 or 15mm.

There is NO NEED to suffer without electricity! I built my own solar system. Learned what I needed by watching YouTube free videos (dozens and dozens of them), and the total cost was under $2,000 for my little 4 solar panel set up. It does not power my more power hungry appliances, but it does power less power hungry gear and it certainly makes power outages less uncomfortable. If your electrical blackouts are temporary/intermitant and no more than 3 or 4 days in duration, you can get by with a couple 12V DC AGM batteries, a battery charger, and an inverter. With these three things, all you have to do is every few weeks top off your batteries when you do have access to electric power. The batteries and inverter will power all but your most power hungry appliances. Might handle a small air conditioner, but even if it does not, it can easily handle electric fans. An even cheaper alternative is just one 12V DC battery, a battery charger, and DC appliances that run directly off the DC battery (without an intermediary inverter). I buy my inexpensive DC lights, DC fans, and little DC refridgerators from Amazon.com

. I don't understand the need for a dry cabinet. I keep my photo gear (over a dozen cameras and about 60 lenses) in my basement. I have a large dehumidifier down there and various humidity gauges. I never let the humidity down there get above 45%. Also, I'm a nut about saving water. I catch all my rainwater from the roof and use it. Each day, I get one or two free toilet flushes using the water that I collect in my basement humidifier.

I have not had a subscription in years. I get by just fine with a combination of the following programs: # Adobe PS "Elements" # Adobe Lightroom version 6 (the last stand alone version) # Affinity Photo # Luminar Neo

. Similarly... Here's a link to daily podscasts ("Here's A Thought") on the photography art life. https://www.lenswork.com/

"Wild Dahlias" Created with a custom adapted, reversed, old Zeiss projector lens...

. Dallas, I currently shoot 7 different camera systems (including Fuji X). Two things I like about my Fuji: 1. Best focus peaking - makes nailing manual focus lenses a breeze. 2. Love the "Q" menu. More than once I've had people claim my Fuji X body was a Leica camera. So if making a pro appearance is important, you could do worse...

Dallas, just thought of another option... I shoot MFT, Nikon, Fuji X, and Pentax camera systems these days. I enjoy hanging out at the following blogs that specialize in these systems: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums https://nikongear.net/revival/ https://www.fujix-forum.com/ Unfortunately, I have never found a good photography blog that specialized in MFT. Maybe your new and improved site could specialize in MFT camera systems? You already have lots of high quality content on MFTs, AND I consider you extremely knowledgeable on everything MFT. To make this new site the talk of the MFT world, you'd probably want to invite to join you established experts in both Olympus (https://www.youtube.com/c/robinwong) and Panasonic MFT systems (I don't have a name for this one). Good luck, Dave

. I'm into a very specialized niche of photography, namely creating/building/adapting fast vintage film era lenses (and even non-photographic lenses) for use on either full frame digital cameras, or MFT bodies with .64x Metabones Speed Boosters to create ultra shallow DOF bokeh images. There are only a handfull of people in the world who can teach me anything in this very unique and specialized area. The last thing I learned of value was from an in-depth discussion I recently had with an expert in Mamiya Sekor 645 medium format lenses. Based on what I learned from him, I decided to purchase some Mamiya 645 lenses, and will be conducting a medium format "bokeh shoot-out" of these new-to-me Mamiya lenses comparing them to similar medium format lens made by: Pentax, Bronica and Carl Zeiss Jena. General photo blogs out there and gear review blogs are numerous and well established. I believe that the demand for new photography blogs will likely be in highly specialized areas (like my experimental bokeh niche), especially in those areas that are not served by smart phones. Also, I've always believed that teachers should only teach what they are expert in. I could never teach a photography class that involved the use of auto focus lenses, because I have not shot an auto-focus lens in years. Dallas, teach what you are an expert in (real estate photography, wildlife safari photography, etc.). Specialize, and don't have a website with images that could just as easily been taken with a smart phone.

very organized and "professional" looking!

. I've tried/owned/used many image editing software's over the years. Heck, 10-20 years ago I even taught PhotoShop classes at a technical college. Since Skylum came out with Luminar, I've been using it. Earlier versions were OK, but didn't meet all of my needs. Then, a week or two ago Skylum released an update to Neo that had "AI Masking". Revolutionary! I now like Neo so much that I've deleted/purged both PhotoShop and Lightroom from all of my computers. If you want to buy Neo, get it using Jim Nix's discount link. Jim does an outstanding job of developing free Neo training programs on YouTube ( https://www.youtube.com/c/JimNix ).

Not surprised to see the "plastic jetsam" had washed up on shore in such large quantities. My wife is "nuts" about recycling everything, including plastics. She doesn't know that very little of it gets reprocessed here in the USA. Most gets loaded on large ships and is transported to the Vietnam area where unscrupulous companies are paid to process the plastics. Being that processing plastics costs more than it's worth, much of it gets clandestinely hauled out to sea and just dumped into the ocean. I contend it's better to just bury one's used plastics (with the other garbage) near where you live; that way it does not pollute the oceans. I truly believe that the majority of mankinds problems are caused by greed.

Your furniture looks so comfortable! Nice....

I currently own many systems, and in the past have owned/tested most everything from the tiny Pentax Q/Q7 to medium format. Being a confirmed "Bokeholic" my choice is easy - micro four thirds (preferrably 20mp sensor) with a fabulous .64x magnification Metabones Speed Booster. Such a set up enables me to shoot inexpensive/fast vintage, premium, manual-focus, full-frame glass (mostly Canon and Nikon) and realize sharper results and better/thinner bokeh than that lens produces on a full frame camera body.