Back from Linz

And I’m back. This one was very busy work week. Sorry for not updating, but I just had no time and energy to do so. But will do now again, for at least until the next trip (which is in a week :)).

Golden sky at the Eiffel tower

The photo for today, is one from my archives, taken during one of my visits to Paris. I edited it only few days ago. I think I tried it once before, but I did not like the result. But as the skill advance, so one can get more from photos, one would once find unusable :)

So if you are curious, I’m again including a before/after comparison of this photo. You can see as it was right from the camera, and how it compares to my editing result.

For this photo, I used a single exposure, edited in Photoshop.

Learning new things

Beginning of the year is always the time, when I find the need to improve my editing skills. So as every year I go through video tutorials from my favorite photographers and then try to implement what I learned. To tell the truth, I often don’t see much new what I haven’t seen before (I been doing this for a while now :)). Still, it’s great for some inspiration.

And if you need some, here is a list of tutorials that I would suggest.

Quickly approaching rain over Paris

For today, I edited a photo I took already few years ago. This one is from the top of the Eiffel tower in Paris. That day, right as the sun went down, it started raining. The rain movied towards us from the direction of the sunset. It really made for a very spectacular view. Good that the 5D mark II I used at that time is a weather-sealed camera. I could just take photos without the need to hide from the rain.

For this photo, I took 10 exposures. 5 normal and 5 with my hand in front of the sun. I needed the second set to get rid of the lens flares (you can learn on how to remove lens flares here). In the end I used I exposure for the base, one for the sky, and two from the ones where my hand shaded the sun.

And if you are curious, I’m including a before after shot to the side. You can see how the 0EV exposure looked like and how the final shot turned out after about 30 layers of tweaks in Photoshop :)

Fist shoot with the 5D mark IV

I wanted to share with you today, a photo I took already with the 5D mark IV. But as I only got home and I’m crazy tired, will move that for tomorrow.

Here is just a quick behind the camera shot I took this evening. It was from the top of the Leopoldsberg behind Vienna. I actually was lucky with the weather. When we arrived it was raining, but right around the start of the blue hour, the sky started clearing and the fog dissipated, so I managed to take few, I think nice, photos. It was just a pleasure to work with the 5D mark IV.

Night under the Eiffel tower

For todays daily photo, I selected this vertorama, taken early last year under the Eiffel tower. As you can see, even with how much you can get with a tilt-shift lens, it’s not enough to capture such a tall structure from such up close. But I actually don’t mind this bit of distortion, as I think it works nicely with this composition and the blurred cars creating a balance from the side.

This is a two shot vertorama, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop. The biggest problem in this shot were the lens flares. As there is no lens hood for the tilt shift lens, and its a bulb, it catches so many of them. But with a bit of editing, one can clean them out :)

Taking photos through glass windows can be such a pain. Good that there are things that can help. I took this photo of the Gare Montparnasse in Paris, from the top of the Tour Monparnasse right next to it. And as they are very close to each other, the only way is to take the shot through the glass windows of the top floor.

And this is vhere the Lenskirt came really handy. I stuck it to the window, put the camera in and got no reflections at all. It was a bit harder, as I used a 17mm tilt-shift, and that is really wide. I could see the Lenskirt in the corners of the shots. So I ended up trying to move the camera around and closer to the window. I had to be quite careful also, as the lens front is a bulb, not flat. I would not want to touch it to the glass. In the end, I took only around 6 photos that evening, but they are worth it :)

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

My favorites

I used to have a Portfolio option in the menu here, that would open my other site www.hdrshooter.net, but since that includes all my photos, I thought I change it to something more manageable. So now, there is a new option in the menu, My Favorites, and that only show a page of 60 of my favorite photos I took over the years. I think that works better for those that visit my blog for the first time.

From the Alexander bridge

Funny how this photos seem so unusual for me. It’s a portrait shot, it’s taken in the middle of the day and it’s not a wide landscape. But I still like it, so here it is :) A change can be good from time to time.

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