This is a little different top photography spots list to the others. Instead of focusing on a single town or city, It will be for a specific area of Austria. That area would be the Wachau Valley.

Wachau Valley

Wachau Valley is an area in the North East of Austria close to Vienna. It’s a valley around Danube stretching from the town of Melk to the town Krems. It’s full of beautiful nature views, vineyards and castle ruins all around the Danube bends.

The whole area is perfect for a day trip by car, as most areas are easily accessible without much walking. I will mention in the list how to get to the spot the easiest way. You can get here in about one hour from Vienna.

Don’t forget to check out other available lists:

Opposite Dürnstein

Probably the most well know view in the Wachau Valley. Right opposite of Dürnstein, there is a small beach. From there, you get a wonderful view of the town, framed by the hill behind it. If you do long exposure photography, you will even get a nice reflection in the Danube.

If you staying in the town of Dürnstein, you can get to this spot by taking the little boat ferry that goes across every few minutes. By car is not as easy to get across, as the closes bridge is in Krems.

Also, be careful when a bigger ship passes by. The water level on the beach can go up rather quickly from the created waves.

View this location in Google maps. GPS 48.392249, 15.516131

On top of Dürnstein Castle

The view from the other side is also great. You can walk up to the Dürnstein castle ruins and have the whole town under you. It’s not an easy climb as the steps are quite steep, but it’s manageable. There are many spot along the walk that make for a good photo oportunities. These two photos are from the complete top, from a huge rock in the middle of the ruins.

View this location in Google maps. GPS 48.397972, 15.521980

Abbey Church of Dürnstein

You can also visit the Abbey Church while in Dürnstein. I’m not 100% sure if tripods are still allowed inside, as I have not been inside in a while, but last time they had no problem with them. So you can always try :)

View this location in Google maps. GPS 48.395140, 15.519004

Spitz castle ruin

The Spitz castle ruin is another great spot with a great view. It’s on a small hill above the town of Spitz. You have to walk a bit up from the parking space, but it not far. The ruin is freely accessible (as the sign says, enter at your own risk) and can be entered at any time.

You can also walk up to the tower that’s in the middle of the ruin, but the steps there are a bit more steeper.

View this location in Google maps. GPS 48.358477, 15.406861

Red gate in Spitz

On the completely opposite side of Spitz you will find the Red gate. This is also a ruin, a part of a fortification. You can get really close to it by car and there is a small parking space for few cars next to a nearby house.

The area is freely accessible, there are not fences or anything like that there.

View this location in Google maps. GPS 48.371864, 15.414471

Spitz vineyards

Right form the Red gate, you can walk into the vineyards in Spitz. You will find no fences or gates here, and you can walk all around the town through them. The vineyards make for a great foreground element when you try to take photos of the town of Spitz.

View this location in Google maps. GPS 48.369897, 15.416635

Aggstein castle ruin

Let’s continue to another castle. The Aggstein castle ruin is on another hill further down the in the valley. Again, it’s very easy accesible, as there is a road going completely up to the castle. There is also a big parking space right next to it.

The castle is not always open (there is a winter break) and you will have to pay an entrance fee. You can use a tripod inside without any issues. You can go up to both sides of the ruin and from one you get a nice view of the castle, from the other the view in the Wachau valley is just spectacular.

View this location in Google maps. GPS 48.313708, 15.421122

The rocks behind the Aggstein castle ruin

Right behind the castle, there is a huge rock formation. It looks like you can’t climb onto it, but that’s not the case. If you go along the walkway, that is in front of it, you can get around and on top of it. From there you get to view the whole castle. But be sure, there are no railing or anything, so you enter there at your own risk.

View this location in Google maps. GPS 48.315023, 15.422529

Melk Monastery

The monastery in Melk is just huge. You can go in for a tour, but you can’t take photos there. Still if you like to see a very beautiful cathedral from inside, you should visit it.

It’s not that easy to get a nice shot from the outside, as the monastery is on the hill. But my favorite spot is from the nearby bridge, where you can see the front of the monastery in a reflection.

I’m missing a photo here, as while I have been in the are few times, I either had no time to get a shot or the monastery was under reconstruction. But will add one here as soon as I have one :)

View this location in Google maps. GPS 48.227894, 15.327821

And that’s all the spots I want to share with you in this list. There are of course many more great views, as the Wachau Valley really is an area worth exploring.

Don’t forget to check out other available lists:

Fireworks over the years

How about one more recap post to end the year with. Since I started taking photos 8th years ago, I tried to take a fireworks photo every year. And since I live in Bratislava, all were from Bratislava. And before I try and take a new one in few hours (if the weather is better than yesterday) how about we take a look together at one from each of the last years. Something like a little countdown to 2018 :) It’s also a nice look back at all the cold New Years nights I spend taking photos. Especially the last one, over the river was crazy cold :)

So here goes.

Btw. If you need help taking fireworks photos, there is a free ebook for all newsletter subscribers. You can subscribe by going here or on the bottom of every page of the blog.

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

My favorites

And another year slowly approaches it’s end. For this blog, it was the 8th year from it’s conception in 2010. 2017 was an interesting year for me. I traveled a lot, while visiting 15 different European countries. Regrettably, this work schedule resulted in fewer updates to the blog, but even so, I think I shared some nice photos with you :) I already have quite a lot of plans for updates here for 2018, so hopefully there is time to do so.

As every year, I would like to share with you my favorite updates from 2017. You may notice that a lot of them are panoramas. Recently I just enjoy taking them so much, that most of my photos are panoramas. Hope nobody minds :)

Also here you can see my favorites from past years: 2016,2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2010 :)

My favorites from 2017

And since I shared also Plotagraphs this year, here are five of my favorites :) (if you are on mobile, please hit play to see them)

Pocket Tripod Pro – impressions

So my luck with only backing Kickstarter campaigns that only deliver continues. Few days ago I received another delivery from one, that was a bit late, but arrived. This time it’s the Pocked Tripod Pro, a credit card sized, collapsible tripod for mobile phones. And today I will share my first impressions and some photos of it.

What is the Pocket Tripod Pro?

As I already mentioned, is a mobile phone tripods, that when not in use is the size of a credit card. Like this, it’s something you can always on hand, either with your documents or wallet. It comes packed inside the instructions, together with a fit card. As phones are of a different thickness, you would use the fit card to measure you phone, to know what width of the adapters you need. There is one size on the tripod (depending what you ordered) and others can be ordered separately.

How do you use it?

The Pocket Tripod Pro is very easy to setup. You just rotate it around the middle, and the flip the both sides up. You can also split it apart in the middle, in case you want you phone in landscape. Like this the legs are further apart, so more stable. Putting it away is the same procedure, just in reverse. Takes all only few seconds.

You can also take the adapters out and rotate them, in case you want to insert the phone the other way around.

Stability

I had not time to try it somewhere out yet, but I tried it at home a lot. With my current phone (Xiaomi Mi Mix 2), which is not the lightest one you can get, it was pretty stable. When in landscape orientation, with the split Pocket Tripod Pro, I could go from having the phone vertical to completely horizontal.

When in portrait orientation and the tripod together, I could go quite low, but not completely horizontal. The weight of the phone was just too much in that case. But around 45 degrees was no problem. This is of course with a 6 inch phone, with a smaller one it should be even more stable.

Final thoughts

For now, I’m quite impressed how small the Pocket Tripod Pro is and how stable it is while being this small. I don’t need a tripod for my phone often, but if I have this one always on hand, I think I will use it more. Especially for video.

You can find more about Pocket Tripod Pro on the manufacturers website here.

Mobile Wallpapers

For a long time, I wanted to add a new category to the wallpapers section, that being mobile wallpapers. But here the choice for resolution is a bit harder, as not every photo has the same resolution or even the same aspect ratio. And to avoid having every photo in many resolutions, I decided to go with the most average one. So for now, all wallpapers here are 2:1 aspect ration with a resolution of 1080×2160. This will fit most screens quite well, even if on some a bit from the edges gets cut off.

As always you are welcome to share these further, just please mention me as the author and link back here. Thank you.

Don’t forget to check out other available wallpapers:

1080×2160 mobile wallpapers

Nature themed 1080×2160 mobile wallpapers

Don’t forget to check out other available wallpapers: