Second issue of the HDRshooter newsletter

Yesterday evening I send out the 2nd issue of the HDRshooter newsletter. It included a lot of whats new on the blog, but also a link to the Capturing fireworks eBook and also a free set of brackets to play with (for the photo I described in the yesterdays post). If you have missed it and don’t want to miss again, feel free to subscribe now. In the welcome email you will get the link to the eBook, and also a list of all the recent issues. Visit the newsletter page to subscribe, or use the form in the sidebar.

And those who got it, please excuse the few typos in it. I have one in the predefined values and that reflected in the newsletter. That should teach me a lesson not to create accounts when I’m on my tablet :)

First page in popular and strange followers

I haven’t posted this yesterday, as I don’t want to include extra stuff in the process posts, but my photo Moving Underground got to the front page of 500px. I have to say big thanks to all of you who voted, liked and commented on my photos there.

On the other hand, since I got a photo selected for the 500px Editor’s choice, I got a big boost in new followers there. Whats strange is, that all of these look like new accounts, no likes, no favorites, no photos. That would be normal, but what is strange, all of these account follow the same people (mostly the last 10 from the Editor’s choice, few more or less sometime). So to me, these all look like fake accounts. But I just can’t figure out what good are they for. What do you think? Btw. to illustrate this, here is a screenshot, showing a page from my followers, and three of those accounts.

Summer evening in Budapest

Same as almost every winter, I just don’t have enough new photos to post on the blog. So as every time, I have to go back to earlier to choose new photos to edit. So for today I chosen one from my summer trip to Budapest.

This is a HDR created in Oloneo Photoengine from 5 exposures and then finished in Photoshop.

Capture PRO v2

I just received my Capture Pro from Peak Design. This was the second project I backed on Kickstarter, and the second one that delivered. It looks quite promising, and I really hope it works as suggested. I will be shooting at an event this weekend, so I will have a lot of time to try it out. I plan to write a review of it after that, so stay tuned :)

More info about this can be found here: Peak design , and here are few photos of it.

The bridge lions

At first I thought I will discard this photo. While I was taking it a group of people passed next to me, so the whole walkway on the left was one big ghost. But than I thought I would give it a try, as I really like the two lions here. So the result is a little darker than I usually prefer, but I still like it.

This is a manual blend from 7 shots. A little done using luminance masks and most just hand painted to blend the exposures.

I really like it when they have the fireworks earlier. Around the end of the blue hour is the best time in my opinion. It’s dark enough so you see the fireworks, but still there is enough light so you get very nice photos. Of course they don’t do that very often and you get fireworks late at night. Of course it was the same in Budapest, so I only got a black sky here.

This is a single exposure edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

I really wanted a photo without a bridge today, but when my head hurts I just cant create anything usable. And as I’ve been sick for the last week, it hurts like hell today. After three hours of trying to create something, I just gave up. So instead, here is one I already had finished few days ago.

This is a HDR created in Oloneo photoengine and finished in Photoshop.

Usually when I take photos of churches, I try to show the symmetry there and so take the photos exactly from the center. But when I’m done with that I always take few photos from the sides, just to have also something different. And here is such a side photo from the Pannonhalma arch-abbey.

This is a HDR created from 6 shots in Oloneo photoengine. Btw. the circle window in the back had no decorations and it was this milky white color, so that’s why I left it overexposed, and haven’t pushed the exposure more down.