I’ve driven 22 hours straight by myself in the distant past, but these days Susan puts in more hours than I do on our rare longer drives. Got to love alpha women.

On knee-holding a long lens: for those who can’t get perfect sharpness at 1/200, I see no reason with Topaz DeNoise not to bump up the ISO to much higher levels. Even with my ancient 5D mark IV, I’m now going to 3200 or even 5000 anytime I need more shutter speed or DOF. After DeNoise, I can’t see any difference from ISO 400 or even 200. The other night, walking home from the beach in the dark, something flew up from the ground and landed on the extended wiper blade of a neighbor’s Class A motorcoach maybe 20 feet away. I was still set up for blurred-water seascapes at ISO 100 and f32 with the 100-400, so it took some fumbling, but the Screech Owl stayed still and I went to ISO 12800 to get the shutter speed under a second. It was just a fun shot to show Susan and the neighbor, but still, after DeNoise, it looked perfect viewed at 100% pixels. Incredible, inexpensive software.

GM Quazi, I am fine and hope that you are too.

“Focus internally” is correct. From the excellent Photography Life (PL) article here that does a great job of explaining focus breathing:

Most modern lenses today feature “internal focus” design, which basically moves a group of internal lens elements instead of the whole lens barrel when focus is adjusted.

With regards to your last question, you need to go back and re-read the blogs posts from the last month where I have been raving about Topaz DeNoise AI, Sharpen AI, and Gigapixel AI. Here is some great news:

Right now Topaz is offering price reductions on the Utility Bundle and the Creator Bundle. The former normally sells for $359.96. It is on sale now for $249.95. Click here, scroll all the way down to the sale, and enter the ARTHUR15 code at checkout to save an additional 15%! The Creator Bundle usually sells for #279.97 and is now on sale for $149.99. Using the ARTHUR15 code at checkout brings the price down to $127.49! The e-mail me for the Topaz Getting started e-Guide.

with love, artie