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Ten years ago we ran an article extolling the virtues of soft focus lenses and explaining how to make a pretty sophisticated one yourself. And now, in the DIY video below, you’ll learn a less expensive method for making a basic version.

Tony Sweet says that smartphone photography “isn’t officially part of the show” at his photography workshops, but the subject does come up with increasing frequency. “They’ll do their big camera work first,” Sweet says of the students, “then they’ll pull out the phones and shoot a few things, discuss among themselves, and ask me some questions.”

Here’s more great advice for beginning photographers in the form of a helpful how-to video from landscape photographer Serge Ramelli. Titled “Mistakes to Avoid as a Beginner Photographer,” the 6.5-minute clip below discusses six things Ramelli did when he was just starting out in photography, which he now regrets.

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.

Ricoh Imaging has just announced the Pentax KP, an ultra-compact, weatherproof DSLR designed for outdoor and travel photographers who shoot on the run and want to travel light. The camera packs many of the advanced features of the sophisticated Pentax K-3 II into a slim, mobile body that weighs only 1.4 pounds.

Sometimes less is more as you can see in these striking graphic images from Dutch architectural photographer Theo Peekstok. Working mostly in black-and-white, Peekstok's minimalist style reduces his scenes to their key elements and nothing more.

Photographer Nathaniel Dodson is one of our go-to sources of helpful tutorials that unlock the secrets of Photoshop. In the comprehensive video below, he reveals 10 tips and tricks he says changed the way he works and have been “massively helpful” in improving his images.