Palms, dandelions and the Burj Khalifa

I wanted to post my first impressions of the Innorel 85C tripod that I got yesterday, but I did not manage to finish it, so instead a new photo today. This one is from right under the Burj Khalifa, where there are these cool huge dandelions. The change colors ever minute or so, and just look great. For this photo I used the 12mm Laowa lens. It’s hard to see it here, but I was standing really close to these dandelions. The walkway between the fence and the Dubai fountain is not really that wide there. But with the 12mm lens I was able to capture quite a lot.

This is a blend from three exposures, blended and edited in Photoshop.

Hot summer day in the Dubai Marina

What better photo to share while we still have winter (more or less depending where you are) than a summer photo. And this one is a panorama from a very sunny a hot day in the Dubai Marina.

This is a two shot panorama each shot blended from three exposures. Normally I would not even take a photo at a time like that. It was just too bright and the sun created a shadow over half of the marina. That did not really help when editing. I tried to edit this photo maybe 5 times before, but never got to a result I liked. Until now that is.

And here are few details, the huge yacht just looks crazy :)

Burj Khalifa at night

Burj Khalifa does not really make for an easy composition. It stands out from the surroundings just so much. And mostly you even can’t get it into one photo. Like here, where I did a vertorama to get it fully. But then I ended up with a lot of empty sky. But since there were few stars visible, I decided to add few more, to break it up. And that worked quite nicely.

This is a two shot vertorama, each shot from 3 exposures. I could have used one more darker exposure but I forgot to take it. This was right after I lost my luggage the day before, and I was in a horrible mood. And that makes one forget.

Framed shot from the Dubai Marina

Quite randomly, here is another framed photo from Dubai. This one was actually taken from the flat we stayed in while there. I personally prefer AirBnb to hotels (not that I did not stay a lot in those too :)), as usually I get better price, and most of all, better location. And that’s really important for me.

So this was the view from the apartment. And as the owner of it said, it was much better before, but then they build another skyscraper right next to it. But that’s the risk of having a flat in such a location.

This is a three shot HDR created in Lightroom, finished in Photoshop. Most of editing was just to get rid of light reflections, as it was taken through a thick glass window.

Fish-eye frame

I don’t take that many fish-eye photos. Probably it’s because I don’t carry the fish-eye lens with me that often. Actually I usually carry only three lenses with me. A 24-70, a 17 TSE and a 12mm. I like wide views so this are my go to lenses. All other I carry only when I have a specific photo in mind.

I Dubai I had the fish-eye, but only because a friend wanted to try it out. But I still took few photos, like this one in the middle of the Jumeirah lake towers. I tried to create a frame around the center of the photo by using part of the balcony and the nearby skyscraper around the edges of the shot.

This is a blend of three photos, done in Photoshop.