New year in the fog

Happy new year everyone. Hope you all have a great start into the new year. For me in Bratislava, it was a bit foggy. As every year, I tried to get some new photos of the fireworks. And while I got some, you can’t see much in them. The whole city is currently covered in a heavy fog, and it got even worse when the smoke from the fireworks was added. Still, here are few from today, looking more artistic this time :)

Happy New Year

Since I don’t have a really nice photo from today, here is a backup one, from few years ago, that I edited today :)

Fireworks over the years

How about one more recap post to end the year with. Since I started taking photos 8th years ago, I tried to take a fireworks photo every year. And since I live in Bratislava, all were from Bratislava. And before I try and take a new one in few hours (if the weather is better than yesterday) how about we take a look together at one from each of the last years. Something like a little countdown to 2018 :) It’s also a nice look back at all the cold New Years nights I spend taking photos. Especially the last one, over the river was crazy cold :)

So here goes.

Btw. If you need help taking fireworks photos, there is a free ebook for all newsletter subscribers. You can subscribe by going here or on the bottom of every page of the blog.

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

My favorites

And another year slowly approaches it’s end. For this blog, it was the 8th year from it’s conception in 2010. 2017 was an interesting year for me. I traveled a lot, while visiting 15 different European countries. Regrettably, this work schedule resulted in fewer updates to the blog, but even so, I think I shared some nice photos with you :) I already have quite a lot of plans for updates here for 2018, so hopefully there is time to do so.

As every year, I would like to share with you my favorite updates from 2017. You may notice that a lot of them are panoramas. Recently I just enjoy taking them so much, that most of my photos are panoramas. Hope nobody minds :)

Also here you can see my favorites from past years: 2016,2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2010 :)

My favorites from 2017

And since I shared also Plotagraphs this year, here are five of my favorites :) (if you are on mobile, please hit play to see them)

Pocket Tripod Pro – impressions

So my luck with only backing Kickstarter campaigns that only deliver continues. Few days ago I received another delivery from one, that was a bit late, but arrived. This time it’s the Pocked Tripod Pro, a credit card sized, collapsible tripod for mobile phones. And today I will share my first impressions and some photos of it.

What is the Pocket Tripod Pro?

As I already mentioned, is a mobile phone tripods, that when not in use is the size of a credit card. Like this, it’s something you can always on hand, either with your documents or wallet. It comes packed inside the instructions, together with a fit card. As phones are of a different thickness, you would use the fit card to measure you phone, to know what width of the adapters you need. There is one size on the tripod (depending what you ordered) and others can be ordered separately.

How do you use it?

The Pocket Tripod Pro is very easy to setup. You just rotate it around the middle, and the flip the both sides up. You can also split it apart in the middle, in case you want you phone in landscape. Like this the legs are further apart, so more stable. Putting it away is the same procedure, just in reverse. Takes all only few seconds.

You can also take the adapters out and rotate them, in case you want to insert the phone the other way around.

Stability

I had not time to try it somewhere out yet, but I tried it at home a lot. With my current phone (Xiaomi Mi Mix 2), which is not the lightest one you can get, it was pretty stable. When in landscape orientation, with the split Pocket Tripod Pro, I could go from having the phone vertical to completely horizontal.

When in portrait orientation and the tripod together, I could go quite low, but not completely horizontal. The weight of the phone was just too much in that case. But around 45 degrees was no problem. This is of course with a 6 inch phone, with a smaller one it should be even more stable.

Final thoughts

For now, I’m quite impressed how small the Pocket Tripod Pro is and how stable it is while being this small. I don’t need a tripod for my phone often, but if I have this one always on hand, I think I will use it more. Especially for video.

You can find more about Pocket Tripod Pro on the manufacturers website here.

Buying the same bag again

I have been using the ThinkTank Sling-O-Matic 30 bag for around 5 years now and I really like it. But over time I thought about switching from this sling bag to a normal backpack. This was mostly due to the amount of gear I use, and the weight it has. So almost every year, I bought a new backpack a nd tried to use it. But every time I ended back by the ThinkTank in a week or two.

So in the end, I just gave up, and just ordered the same bag again. Not that the one I have is no longer usable. But from all the travel its already beaten up a bit. Now I’m wondering, if I don’t buy one more, just to have a backup, as they don’t make them anymore. Will see :)

At the Christmas market in Cologne

The weather last week was quite horrible for me. So much rain everywhere. But I did have a bit of luck in Cologne, where for about one hour I was not bombarded by raindrops. So I went to the Christmas Marked there, and while it was very busy, I managed to find a small spot for me to set up a tripod and take few photos. And here is one of them. Taken right next to the cathedral, under the big Christmas tree.

This is a two shot panorama, edited only in Lightroom. I’m not really 100% sure about the look of this one. The reason is, I edited it on the Surface Pro. And over time I noticed, I have the same problem on Surface that I have on mobile screens. The resolution and quality of the screen is just so high, that everything looks too good on it. If I then put it on a lower resolution screen, it no longer does, and I see problems I could not see on here. So I hope that is not the case with this one :)