I took this shot so many times. And few of those I also shared on this blog. But this is still my favorite composition with the Bratislava Castle. And each time I’m close by, I take a new shot. This time I almost didn’t, but as I was waiting for another photographer, and the reflection was so nice, I just had to take 2-3 shots :)
This is a HDR created from 7 shots in Oloneo Photoengine and then finished in Photoshop.
As I’ve been shooting photos in Bratislava for a few years now, it happens that I revisit the same spots. I try to get some new original composition, but it not always works out. But what I found the easiest, is to take a lens I haven’t had before. It really helps to give you a different perspective.
Same with the top of the SNP bridge. I’ve been there many times, but never with the 70-200mm lens. So this time I took that, and zoomed in a little more into the city. And I think it worked out nicely :)
This time I also took my Manfrotto clamp, to try and work without a tripod. It worked out perfectly. I hanged it from the bridge and all the time I had absolute confidence that it would hold the camera. It didn’t move a bit when I touched it. You can see a photo on the side of how I had my camera attached.
This photo is a manual blend from 5 shots.
I really hope that you are able to see the same color on this one as I do on my screen. The water here is completely golden. The color was a result of very low clouds and all the yellow light around the water. It really looked interesting.
This is a manual blend from 5 exposures.
I haven’t been out shooting photos in Bratislava for a long time, so when it stopped raining today, I thought it would maybe make for a nice sunset. But not really. But during the blue hours, the clouds above the city were so low, that they completely reflected all the yellow city lights. The whole scene got a completely yellow/reddish glow over it.
This is a manual blend from 6 shots. I took a -3EV for the castle here.
Today I have for you another photo process post. This photo of the Bojnice castle is one of the most popular photos I ever posted, so I think the way I edited it would be interesting to you. So to get to this final image:
I used luminance mask to combine the shots. To be exact I did the following steps (layers numbered from bottom up)
1. original 0EV exposure
2-3. -1EV and -2EV exposure to darken the sky and other bright spots
4-5. +1EV and +2EV exposure to brighten the foreground
6. -1EV exposure once more to recovel some lost contrast from the blending
7. added contrast to basic midtones
8. added detail using high pass layer
9. darkened and added contrast to the brighterst parts of the image
10. added more local contrast using the Color efex Tonal contrst preset
11. added more contrst using the Color Efex Pro contrast preset
12. removed noise in the foreground elements
13-14. added glow using a blured layer
15. additional brightening for dark areas
To see the original 0EV exposure, please continue to the full post
