Macphun is becoming SKYLUM

This is starting to get spooky. I mentioned yesterday, that just last weekend I talked to a fellow photographer that someone should buy Nik Software. And it was announced yesterday. We talked that the a7R3 should come soon, and it was announced yesterday. And we also discussed that Macphun should change their name, now that they make windows software. And what happened? It was announced yesterday. Now I think that we should have been discussing how to win a million dollars :) Will do that next time :)

But back to Macphun. Yesterday they announced that starting next year they are changing their name to Skylum. I think that this is a very good change for them, as with them doing multiplatform software, the new name would not discourage Windows users to check out their products. I also still have to have a better look at their recent updates, but hopefully now with the weather getting worse, I will have the time.

You can check out all Macphun products on Macphun website here.

Cold morning in Prague

There has been a lot of color and warmth in my latest updates, so for today I chosen a much colder photo. This one is from a very cold morning in Prague, early this year. The weather that day was not the best, but i still got few nice shots :) I left the white balance here also on the colder side, to keep this nice blue color, and to keep the overall feeling of cold.

This is a two shot vertorama. Combined in Lightroom, edited in Lightroom and fininshed in Photoshop.

Wow this was such a huge amount of birds. I have been in Prague many times, but never seen so many of them there at once. In one moment, it looked like the completely covered the Vltava river, from side to side. And since there were many people feeding them in this areas, they concentrated really close to where I stood.

It was quite a spectacle, just too bad the weather was not a bit better, more fit for photography.

The bird invasion in Prague

For this photo I had to decide to either go with a quick exposure at hight ISO, to freeze the motion, or with a slow shutter speed and blur it. Of course I did both and got few shots in both setups. When going throught the photos afterwards, this is one I liked the most. It has a nice balance. The movement is there, but its not as much so one doest not see the birds anymore. It’s just enought.

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

As I said yesterday, when inspiration strucks, I tend to work until late at night. And yesterday ended like that. I had an idea how to update the blog, and I ended working on it until 4am. Not really that unusual :). If it goes well, you will see the changes to the blog sometime later.

Foggy evening at the Charles bridge

But for today, a nice foggy shot. This was taken about a week ago, during a not that nice evening in Prague. It just did not look how I wanted. As mostly I use a wide angle shot, this time I took the 70-200m lens, to try and compress the image. There were just too many people on the bridge to try something there, but I got this from the side of the bridge.

This is a single exposure edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

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Winter morning at the Charles bridge

I just got back from Prague about a hour ago, and thought I edit one of the photos I took for the blog. It was not that great of a weekend to take shots, as the weather was a bit awful. Not cold enough for there to be still snow, and no warm enoughs to have a spring feeling. It was mostly foggy, but not foggy enough for a great fog photos. But still foggy enough to not be able to get some nice views. You know how it is. Of course right around we were boarding the train back to Bratislava, the sky cleared and the sun showed up. It sometimes like this :)

But I got some shots on Saturday, especially early in the morning at the Charles bridge. My friends would not believe me that there would be people there at 5 am (the sunrise was at about 7.30) but once we arrived they saw it for themselves. Even funnier was, when a young man passing around us gave a question to one of my friends. What were we doing there so late? He presumably did not understand, that for us it was still early. For him, since he probably did not sleep at night, it was still late. But as you can see in the behind the camera shot on the side, it still was quite dark.

But to the photo. This one was taken right before sunrise. It was very cloudy, but it caught a hint of blue during the morning blue hour, and thats when I got this. This is a two shot vertorama, combined in Lightroom and edited in Photoshop.

Back from repair

Today my camera, the Sony a7R returned from the service, where it was for the last two weeks. Looks like part of the motherboard and the charging board were replaced, as the camera kept freezing and restarting in the recent weeks. Looks to work fine now, so I will see how it works out. But to tell the truth, I’m buying a new camera soon anyway. I just still haven’t decided which one (5D mark IV or 5DsR are my candidates :)).

Sunset Prague

For this next weekend I’m off to Prague, to spend the few day’s taking photos. I never been to Prague in winter and with a bit of luck, there still be snow there (there is in Bratislava, but it’s already melting away). I have two ND filters from VF FOTO to test during the trip (especially curious about the ND2000 filter), and I’m also taking the Peak Design Everyday Backpack for the first time, so the goal is to test that one as well. You will find my finding probably in an update next week.

And since I’m off to Prague, how about a photo from there, taken during one of my previous visits. This one was taken from Vyšehrad fort during one quite cloudless, but still very colorful sunset. This is a single RAW edit done in Lightrom and Photoshop.