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As I have mentioned before I have been going through my catalog and looking at some of my older images. This time around I took at look at an older one that I have edited and seeing if it could be improved with the latest software.
Recently Topaz upgraded their DeNoise AI program to version 2.4 and it includes an improved Low Light model. Better detail preservation through improved AI architecture and more training time.
So I thought I would give it a try on a favorite Film Days scan of an image I had.
And I think it did a great job.
I particularly wanted to bring out the bridge and mountain in the background.
Below is a comparison of the before and after of that part of the image. Notice the sharpness and detail that are now shown in the red bridge. You can see all the cross bars.
And here is the final full image. I now it is hard to tell on this small image, but I’m loving the detail in the bridge, the trees on the left and even the right. And Mount Taranaki.
Mount Taranaki, West Coast of the North Island of New Zealand.
Give it a try on your own image. And if you decide you want to purchase don’t forget to use the Topaz Coupon code of MDPDEAL to get 15% off the product.
With the recent passing of an Aunt that was the last of my fathers immediate family, I been thinking a lot of New Zealand, my first home. Even though I left New Zealand as a young child, I still consider it home and still have many family members there. I do occasionally get to go back and visit but not as often as I like.
For the photographers out there and anyone who likes outdoors, New Zealand is a beautiful county and I think is one of the places where you can experience every kind of environment from the Snowy Alps in the south to Desserts in the central highlands, and of course everything in between like the tropics or at least subtropics.
The photo below is one of those places that I just had to visit my last time back home.
Cathedral Cove
Cathedral Cove on the Northeast side of the Coromandel Peninsula of the North Island. There is a little hiking involved to get down to this beach and some area’s are very steep, but the track was well maintained when we were there.
Cathedral Cove Beach on the New Zealand North Island East Coast
First I have to say this one is a little overdue as I thought I had already posted this, but had not. So forgive the lateness.
After extensive online searching for the best price on a rental vehicle on my trip to New Zealand last May, I settled on renting from Ace Rental, Airport branch.
We booked very early in that I booked the People mover (Van for those in the US) back in Oct when our trip wasn’t until the following May and got the best rate out of all the rental agencies I could find for Auckland.
Booking online we easy and convenient. The only confusion I had been when I got the confirmation it showed as “Tourism Enterprises Ltd trading as “Ace Rental Cars””.
When we arrived in Auckland we called the Airport branch from their courtesy phone at the airport and they arrived in their shuttle van with a trailer for our luggage within 10 mins.
At the branch, the staff were friendly and got us squared away with the paperwork rather quickly. We did opt for the full insurance which I think made the paperwork go much quicker.
Now here is where I had the only problems.
After getting the paperwork done, they walked us out to check out the vehicle and walked up to a car, this was not what we had reserved as we had reserved a People mover (Van for those in the US)
I showed them my booking receipt and they apologized and we walked back in while they got the People mover ready. We went out and checked out the vehicle, put our luggage in and drove off. This vehicle had a problem right from the start in that at about 50K it had a horrible engine noise and no acceleration and then the check engine light came on. We immediately took it back and after waiting another 10-15 minutes they got us another People mover for us and we drove off into the city without issues this time.
We were very happy with this vehicle and had no issues with it while on our trip. At the time of our booking, they offered AA (AAA for those in the US) roadside assistance, if you needed it, but we did not, so I cannot speak to that. But most Auto Associations have very good service.
I would recommend getting the full insurance, as many roads outside of the city have loose stone and can easily chip the windshield, which did happened in our case. That and you do not have to deal with the large hold on you card (what they call Excess and Bond)
When we returned the People mover it only took a few minutes to check the vehicle in and the shuttle to take us to the departure terminal was already there, so we when right off to the terminal.
Despite the minor problems, I would still recommend this company due to the value for the service. The next closest competitor was at least $300 more and that was a similar service to Ace. If you went with the name brand agencies I would have spent over $1000 more.
Also, these are late-model vehicles with higher mileage than you would find at a name brand agency, but that is how they keep their costs down. Since they are late-model vehicles, the might get lower gas mileage/kilometers that a newer vehicle, but I in our case the gas consumption was about the same as a newer model and thus didn’t justify paying the higher rental fee. The vehicles all seemed well cleaned and in good shape as I checked out several of the cars while we were waiting for People mover to become ready.
I would take a copy of your rental confirmation with you and do one thing that I didn’t, call or email the branch you are renting from the day before just to confirm your reservation. This way they should have the right vehicle ready for you when you arrive.
A People Mover rented from the Auckland Airport Ace Rental
Entrance to Ace Rental on Manu Tapu Drive, just a few Kilometers from the Airport.
As I’ve posted before, I recently took a trip to New Zealand. Although this is where I’m from originally and still have several relatives that are living there, on this trip, I had to find lodgings in places where I no longer have relatives that I could stay with.
I wanted other options to standard Hotel/Motel, so I started my internet search. I ended up using a site called Holiday Houses New Zealand (https://www.holidayhouses.co.nz/). Through this site I was able to find either an entire home or a home with a guest apartment. Staying in these lodgings gave you the feeling that you were living in a house instead of just a room somewhere. It even ended up being less expensive than staying at a local Hotel/Motel.
There seems someone is renting out their house or apartment for almost any place you want to go to in New Zealand. Some areas have more offerings that others, so check the area you are looking to visit and book early.
On this trip, I ended up in 3 such homes.
In Rotorua we stayed at a home with a separate apartment on the first floor for the guests called Matipo Haven. This house was relatively new and had all the amenities you could ask for in your stay. The home is owned by a retired couple who were very inviting and helpful to us while we were staying with them. It is just outside Rotorua on the south side, but is convent to all the local tourist attractions.
Early morning before as we were getting ready to head out for our activities that day
In Te Aroha we stayed at an old farm-house that had been renovated called Aroha View. They even had a hot tub, which we were not able to take advantage of due to our late arrival. This place is in the Central Waikato region halfway between Hamilton and the Coromandel Peninsula. It is not to far from Hobbiton (about 45mins) if that is one of your places on your list to visit.
We arrived pretty late the night we stayed, so we did not have a chance to meet the owners of this house. Despite that, they made sure we were able to get in and were very helpful over the phone even with our spotty cell coverage at the time.
Getting ready to head out in the morning as the fog was lifting at Aroha View
In Dargaville we stayed at a home with a guest apartment attached called Leslie Lodge. The house is located just out-of-town on the north side of town on Rt 12. It is just 5 min to the center of Dargaville and is convent to many of the areas attractions and beaches. The owners are a wonderful retired couple who know the area well.
The guest apartment is the section that the deck steps lead up to
All the places I stayed at on this trip offered everything we needed from tea/coffee, towels, and sheets, blankets, clothes washer, and more. Not all places do, so make sure to read the description before you book. Not only did we get a “home” environment to stay in, the owners who lived on premises were able to give us many “local” insights and tips for the areas we visited. In our case, we got some great recommendations on where to eat and some free locations to visit that were just as good as the paid tourist sites. One of the other advantages of this type of lodging is that you can cook your own food if you wish as they do offer kitchen ware for cooking and eating. On this trip we just ate breakfast there and decided to take in the local food for lunch and dinner.
If you are looking for a different experience on your travels in New Zealand I would check out the Holiday Homes website (https://www.holidayhouses.co.nz/) to find your home while away from home. If not traveling to New Zealand, I would see if there is a similar service offered for the area you are traveling to as I think it is well worth it.
Well I had all the intentions in the world of making at least one post a day to this blog while on was on my trip in New Zealand. Well that turned out to be a total bust. Didn’t even get to one post let alone one a day.
The plans fell apart almost immediately after arriving in New Zealand. I ended up spending the first 2 days spending time with relatives and figured time spent with them was much more important that writing a post here, especially since I have not seen some of them in, ahem, 20+ years.
During the rest of my trip I just didn’t seem to have the time, between driving from place to place, visiting the sights at each place, needing time to sleep, and sometimes, no internet or at least very slow internet.
The other part of my big plan was to have a picture a day posted along with a description of the area I was in or the activities and sites I had seen that day. This became a bust as well as I was not always able to upload my photos from my memory card to computer everyday and when I did I had the brilliant idea of correcting the timestamps as I imported. This turned out to be a very bad idea. I plan on making another post related to this on what my problem was, how I fixed it after a few weeks, and what I would recommend on how to avoid the whole timestamp mix up in the first place. So keep an eye out for that.
So now that I’m back in home and have fixed my photo timestamp issues to the best of my ability, I plan on creating some of those posts that I had planned to. Not sure if I’m going to back date them or not just yet. My thoughts at the moment are that I will as I would like them to fall into the correct timeline for when the post should have been posted, but then again, is it better to just post on the day I actually create the post and mention the date the photo or content refers to? Have some time to think about that until I actually create the posts, but if anyone out there has some thoughts, feel free to post a comment as I’m interested in knowing your thoughts. So let me know, Backdate or Not.
