My Xbox One X arrived

As I said, I’m also a gamer :) And my new Xbox One X arrived finally today, only 2 days after the launch. I preordered it right as it was available. As I wanted the Project Scorpio edition, I had to. And I have to say, it looks just great. The pattern finish they chosen to use for it makes for a very nice designed product. And so I of course had to take few photos, and I thought I share them with you. It looks so nice on a black background :)
 

Mountains in the morning

It was very foggy the morning I took this. When we arrived to the hill from which this photo was taken, we could not even see the mountains, and we were really not sure if we are at the right spot. But as the sunrise progressed, the fog subsided, and I got some shots. Still, I had to edit them more as I normally would, as I was forced to push the DeHaze function a lot to get at least some detail.

This is a three shot panorama, combined and edited in Lightroom, finished in Photoshop. You may see in the detail shot, that I did not remove the noise, but that is normal for these types of photos. Especially on photos of trees, there is so much detail, that removing noise will make them look too blurry.

And here are few details:

Using Plotagraphs as Live Wallpapers

I was editing a Plotagraph yesterday, and while doing so, I had an idea. What would be a great use for Plotagraphs? Live wallpapers for you phone of course. They are perfect for it. The loops are short and endless, the files can be smaller to the size of a normal photo.

So I looked around, for how to do it. The simplest way I found, is to use an app called Video Live Wallpaper which you can find in Google Play store (I don’t know if something similar is possible with iOS, as I don’t have any Apple device right now, so can’t test). You just install the app, choose the video you want to use, and thats it. There are also other apps, so you can use any one you want.

It just looks great :) It gives so much live into a wallpaper, and since it loops perfectly, there is no sharp transition when the video repeats.

Please let me know what you think about this idea, and if you use them in your phone setup, feel free to share a screenshot :)

Spark remote from Alpine Labs

So my streak of selecting only Kickstarter projects that deliver continues, as I just recieved a product from another one of them. This time it’s the Spark from Alpine labs. You may know Alpine Labs as the creators of Radian, the timelapse rotating motor.

The Spark remote is a camera remote that can work in three modes. It either works like a classic wired remote when connected to the camera, as a IR remote, or as bluetooth remote conected to a phone. There you can use the provided app to take photos, long exposure, HDR bracketing, timelapses and more.

For now, I only tested it if all worked and I had no issues. All paired easy and all that I tried worked. I will be using it when I go and take photos in the next weeks, so I will also probably post a review of it.

For now, you can see more about it on the Kickstarter site of Alpine Labs here.

New stuff from Peak Design

I have been posting quite a lot about Peak Design products over the years, and it will not be different this time. Today, right about now, Peak Design is starting a short 5 day Kickstarter campaign for few new products. To be exact, a new version of the Capture (v3), a new pro Pad, and two new updated straps, the Slide and Slide Lite. All now also available in two colors, a silver and a black, to fit with other Peak Design products.

The capture is a holder system that allows you to attach your camera to your belt or backpack strap. I did a review of the version 2 from few years ago, so you can find my thoughts on that one here. You can find info on the last Pro Pad in the same review. The new one is much sleeker, lighter and overall just looks better.

I personally never tried he old Slide. But I did a review of a second product from the range, the Leash, which I still use. Still, I presume its similar to other straps on the Peak Design products, so high quality is guarantied.

The Kickstarter campaign is available here, and will be open until Nov 10th at 11:59pm PT. So if you would like to grab any of the new products from Peak Design with a bit of a discount, now is the time to get them.
(photos courtesy of Peak Design)

Low sun over Paris

I looked a bit through my old photo of Paris, and decided to edit one of the panoramas I took there already years ago. How time flies. The sharpness is not as good as on the photos from the 5D mark IV, but it still looks good.

This is a three shot panorama taken from the top of the Tour Montparnasse. I did three exposures for every shot, and then I also took most of the shot with my hand in front of the sun. Like this I could completely remove any lens flares that showed up in the photos. Combined in PTgui and finished in Photoshop.

And here are few details: