Steve Meltzer

A smartphone is, in a way, the gateway drug that can lead to a lifelong addiction to photography. For millions of aspiring photographers, these multi-purpose devices are their first introduction to image-making and many smartphone users eventually get hooked on the craft.

On September 9, 2019, legendary photographer Robert Frank died at the age of 94. At the heart of Frank's photographic legacy was his groundbreaking book "The Americans." As one critic wrote about that seminal book: "(it) changed the nature of photography, what it could say and how it could say it. It remains perhaps the most influential photography book of the 20th century."

Great photographs are not the result of great cameras. Superb cameras help, but the real secret to making great images is the ability to see photographs in your mind’s eye before you take them. Once this ability to “pre-visualize” an image is learned, it quickly becomes second nature. Here are five simple tips to jump-start your thinking outside the camera.

Like the Olympus Pen, the Panasonic GX8 and the Fujifilm X-T10, the Df’s clean lines, sharp edges and large controls are reminiscent of the finest cameras of film’s glory days in the 1980s and 1990s. They are part of the “retro style” trend that, in the words of the inimitable Yogi Berra, is “déjà vu all over again.”