New Peak Design bags

If you been following photographers around the web, you probably already noticed this. Peak Design, makers of many photography accessories (you can find reviews of most of them on this blog), have started a new kickstarter, for their new line of bags. These include two backpacks, in different sizes, a sling and a tote.

Peak Design has quite a reputation of quality products and it’s always worth to check out what they have new. And I’m already also a backer. My search for a new backpack that would replace my Think Tank Sling-O-Matic 30 is ongoing (it’s already few years old and no longer meets my size needs), so I decided to back the 30L backpack this time. So you can expect a review once it is available :)

You can check out all the info on the new back on Kickstarter here.

Clear Blue

I spend the last week in Budapest, and while I did not manage to get that many photos I got some. One I wanted to try was a vertorama of the Matthias Church, as I never could get it nicely whole into one shot before. And to have even more in the shot, I included also the Holy Trinity Statue here. As you can see, the was not a single could that day, which was quite similar to most of the week.

This is a two exposure vertorama, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Few months ago, I posted here a review of the LENSKIRT. For those unfamiliar, LENSKIRT is a shade one uses to take photos through glass (examples in the review).

In the review, I explain that while LENSKIRT works well, I felt disappointed with the quality and the way it was put together. And it seem I was not the only one. Few weeks ago, I was contacted by the makers of LENSKIRT and they offered to send me a new, updated version, which addressed these issues. And since it arrived last week, today I will take a look and how they succeed with it.

Update

On first look there is not much change. The way the LENSKIRT works stayed the same, and it also looks the same. It’s hard to say if the materials changed, but the front material feels a tiny bit thinner, while the back material feels thicker. Where I before complained about the materials feeling cheap, now they are much better, and I have more confidence in them lasting longer.

The biggest difference is in the way the pieces of the LENSKIRT are put together. This updated one, was properly aligned, the logo was stitched in properly and also all the connections are now very clean and you don’t see the inside of the material. It’s a total 180 in quality compared to the previous one. Here you have comparison photos of the old and the new one. You can easily see the change. The suction cups are also a tiny bit different, but I have not noticed any change in usage.

New version, nicely stitched

Old version, horribly stitched

New version, straight logo

Old version, crooked logo

Conclusion Update

It’s really nice to see that LENSKIRT corrected all the problems I had with the previous version. Now it works as it should and also has the build quality one would expect. It now makes it so much easier to recommend. So as I stated before, if you know you will take photos through glass, you should get one.

I really do more city than landscape shots, but to have more variety here, here is another shot taken in the Souther Moravia in Czech republic. This fields are really beautiful and just great for photography :)

This is a single exposure, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Small Photoshop tip

A little tip for Photoshop. If you hate the start screen, that shows you your recent opened files as much as I do (it slows down the opening of Photoshop for me, as my files are on different, not just local, hard-drives), there is a simple way to turn it off, and have Photoshop as it used to be few version back.

So to turn it off, go to Edit/Preferences/General and find “Show Start Workspace When No Documents Are Open” and just remove the check-mark.

The tiny police car

To be fair, everything almost everything looks tiny under the Eiffel tower. I really like these shots I got using the tilt shift lens in Paris. Having a foreground element while taking a photo of such a huge building is just wonderful.

This is a three shot vertorama, created in Lightroom, edited in Lighroom and Photoshop.

Fireworks

Since I’m sharing a fireworks shot today, just a small reminder, that if you would like to remind you of the Fireworks bundle from MacPhun, which is only available for the next few days. You can find it here, on the MacPhun website.

Ship Christenings

While last time in Germany, I also attended two ship christenings in Vilshofen. And since one ended with fireworks, and I love fireworks photos, here is one of the shots I took that day :)

This is a single exposure, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.