I like to do this every year, and 2016 will not be different. As time changes, my ideas change, so does this blog. So today is the time for this years update. If you look around, you will already notice what changed, but here is a little rundown:

1. New home page – the whole organization of the home page has changed. Now it no longer shows just the latest posts, but it features a random selection of posts on top (or some that I want to point your attention to if needed), the recent updates, most viewed and most commented posts, direct links to top photography pages, and a selection from guides, reviews and process posts. If you still prefer the old way, just click on the BLOG in the main menu, to see just a list of the updates.
2. New categories – guides, reviews, process posts and tops spots are now handled as categories of posts. Like this I can create and overview easily, and they are updated automatically. So no longer you will see just a text list, but nice picture grid of whats available.
3. No more site color – the new site is only black&white, with red links. There are no other colors used. Now, I leave all the colors just for pictures
4. Faster load time – now the site should load faster as before, as the high quality images are available only directly in the post they are included in. All other images, show in previews, overviews, lists, menu and similar, are highly compressed versions, downsized for the particular use
5. Related posts – each post now shows related posts under it, based on categories

And there are many many more small tweaks. My main reason for the changes was, that since the blog already has 2000+ posts, with many guides, review and other articles, everything that is not on the front page gets lost in time. So my goal is to provide a better gate, through which also these can be discovered, and shown to you, the visitors. I really hope that this will work :)

But a little side note. While changing the theme, I also started some needed cleanup tasks (for instance, some posts still used the old blog address, which caused slowdowns and similar), and those are still in progress. So it can happen, that if you access some of the older posts, that there can be images missing, or the formating could be a bit off. I’m working on correcting any problems like those, but it will take a little time, due to the huge amount of posts. I’m also still tweaking few small things, as it’s hard to find all issues without having the theme on the live site. So there will also be few small changes here and there over time. Please have a little patience with me :)

Regrettably, the new theme uses a different post view counting method, so all posts will show 0 right now, so don’t be surprised.

I hope you all will like the update, and we will have a great year 2016 together :)

Together with the Everyday messenger bag (you can read my impression of that one here), I also got the LENSkit from Peak Design. The LENSkit is also a part of the Capture lens pack from Peak Design. The LENSkit is an attachment for the Capture clip, that allows for two lenses to be mounted on the outside of you backpack or on your belt. You can even use it to connect a strap to the lens, and just hang it form your shoulder.

The idea is interesting. It can happen often, that you need to put a lens down, while you are changing for another lens.

 
In the box you will find the LENSkit itself, two covers, two anchors that can be attached in three different points and a carrying bag.

 
The LENSkit looks like if you took two camera lens attachments, and put them back to back. Like this you can attach a lens from either side, exactly the same way you would attach it to your camera. Then the whole LENSkit can be attached to a Capture camera clip (it can rotate in that attachment) or via the provided anchors to different camera straps that Peak design makes.

If you don’t need one of the camera lens attachments, you can cover it with provided covers, so no dirt gets in there. The size of the LENSkit is almost exactly as the size of the Canon 50mm 1.8, as you can see on one of the photos here. It also looks nice with Canon L lenses, due to the red accent color :)

From playing around with it, I would probably never attach it to the bag. I just know I would hit it into the first door-frame I would pass through (happened to me few times with an attached tripod to the bag :)). But the other use, having it hanging from the belt or from the shoulder looks much interesting to me. Especially if I would, for instance, been covering an event, and had two lenses I needed to switch between often (lets say a 24-70 and a 50mm lens).

The LENSkit seems to be more suited for smaller lenses, or one bigger, if you hang it from your shoulder. I would not put two bigger lenses on it, as it would loose balance and would not be comfortable to carry. Also one small and one big work quite well.

I think that the main use here, is if you want to carry one replacement lens. That means, you would have a lens in the bottom position, and a cover in the top. When you would like to replace the lens on your camera, you would remove the cover, put the lens from the camera there, remove the second lens, put it on the camera, rotate the LENSkit and then put the cover back. Thats the main use I would see for the LENSkit.

I don’t think I would use it when shooting from a tripod. In that situation, I’m not in a hurry, and I don’t hold the camera, so replacing the lens from the bag is easy. On the other had, as I mentioned before, if I was moving around, covering an event, having a second lens on the shoulder could prove very useful, without having to carry the whole bag.

I’m looking forward to trying it out in the future, and if you want to know more about the LENSkit, you can check out Peak Design website (btw. you can use the code HDRSHOOTER for a 10% discount of all Peak Design products :)).

I sometimes feel so stupid. Like today, when I decided to go down to Danube, to take a few photos. Of course I didn’t taken into account at all, that there is a huge amount of moisture in the air, and it’s quite cold. That means the rocks near the river were crazy slippery, partially covered with snow and ice. Luckily, I have quite a good balance, while holding a tripod in one hand, and I didn’t end up in Danube :) But it was quite funny, when even the tripos got covered with a think layer of ice.

So here for you, another foggy shot. This one is a HDR from two exposures, created in Oloneo Photoengine (used very mild settings, as I only wanted to darken the bright spots on the bridge) and finished in Photoshop.

Technique: Photoshop Blend, Number of exposures: 2, Camera Model: Sony a7R + Metabones MkIII Adapter, Lens: Canon 16-35mm F2.8, Focal length: 16mm, Aperture: 10, Middle exposure time: 10s, ISO: 100, Tripod used: yes, Location: 48.135830, 17.128345

Last days of Oloneo Photoengine sale

For the next two days, one can still get the Oloneo Photoengine with a huge 50% discount. So if you want to get it, now is the best time. You can find it on their official homepage www.oloneo.com.

Bridge into the fog

The weather this year is really crazy. Almost no snow, and fog all the time. It was not different today, so I thought, I got and take some shots of the SNP brige, while it is partially hidden by fog. But when I got to the bridge, it was completely covered by fog. The fog was so thick, that not even the lights on the restaurant, thats on the top of the bridge, were visible. I could see nothing at all.

You can also see what I had in front of me, from the behind the camera shot I’m including.

This is a blend from two exposures, one for the base, one to darken the lights of the bridge walkway. Other than that I only cleaned dust spots, added contrast, and added noise. You may wonder why I added noise. The reason was, that this photo created crazy strong color banding right from the camera. You can read about that more here.

Technique: Photoshop Blend, Number of exposures: 2, Camera Model: Sony a7R + Metabones MkIII Adapter, Lens: Canon 16-35mm F2.8, Focal length: 29mm, Aperture: 10, Middle exposure time: 6s, ISO: 100, Tripod used: yes, Location: 48.139544, 17.103889

Lets look today together at how I edited this long exposure photo from Budapest. And this time, If you want to try editing yourself, you can download the raw files of it from this Dropbox folder.

This photo was taken during a not so colorful sunset, so the biggest task here was to get some color into the photo and detail into the shadow areas.

 
I didn’t do much in Lightroom, just removed the chromatic aberrations. From there I exported all the files and loaded them into Photoengine. Here I made two HDR version. Most settings were the same, just strength and contrast, but in one I also applied the Natural HDR mode, so the grass in the foreground gets a more natural color.

 
From there I continued in Photoshop (layers numbered from bottom up)
1. The more colorful version of Photoengine result.
2. The less colorful version, from which I painted in the grass and flowers.
3. +2EV exposure, to brighten up few shadows
4+5. -2EV exposure brightened, to remove a bit of ghosting from moving grass
6+7. Color Efex briliance/warminth to get more color into the photo. I split it into two layers, so I can use different opacity on top and on bottom.
8. Added overall brightness and contrast using curves.

 
And that’s all I did with this image. To find out more on how I edit, check out the guides and before after categories on this blog, or check out my video tutorial series here.