A while ago I was pointed at Noise Ninja which is a great program for reducing picture noise. While investigating, I found a few other options, but no open source options. Looking at it again today I found that there are a few plugins for The GIMP in the works: most notably Dcam Noise 2, but also ISO noise reduction. I wonder what’s keeping the open source world away on this, but I’m glad to see someone’s working on it at least. At the moment I’m just adding a bit of blur to my images using GIMPShop and *shriek* iPhoto 5

In my photoblog I’ve started a series on manual lenses. The first lens out is a Hanimex 72-162mm f/3.5 lens with a FD mount that I’m using with my Canon EOS 20D and a FD-EOS adapter. It’s my defacto concert-lens and I’ll be starting off with a series of concert pictures. Next up is a MIR-1 37mm f/2.8 M42 mount lens. Be sure to follow the photoblog for the next couple of days and see if you find these lenses usable. I’ve payed £10 for the 72-162mm and $20 for the MIR-1 through eBay, so perhaps you’ll find that you can have great lenses for a bargain! Then again, perhaps you’ll conclude that it’s a waste of time and money and be glad that I tested this and not you. Let me know what you think!