HDRshooter

Austria, Plotagraph

Moving pink sunset

February 21, 2017 No Comments

Trying out Plotagraph Pro

For the last few days I have been experimenting with the Plotagraph Pro. I wanted to try it earlier, but I did not want to pay for a full year without trying it out first. And since they introduced a monthly plan recently, I thought I will give it a try.

I have to say, I’m enjoying it quite a lot. It’s quite fun to add a bit of movement to a photo. It makes it look quite mesmerizing in a way. I already edited quite a few, and I still want to try it on more photos, so I will share with you some in the following days and weeks.

Please note, I’m sharing the plotagraphs as looping mp4 videos, not as gifs. The reason is that I can get a much smaller file (10-20 times smaller) and of a comparable or higher quality with MP4 than with a GIF. So if you are on mobile, or are using an older browser, it may be that you will see a static image, instead of the motion. I’m looking into how to make it work on all browsers, but have not found a way yet.

Moving pink sunset

This is the fist ploatagraph I was happy with. The subject really lends it self for a bit of motion. The movement in the sky and the reflection in the puddle really pull you into the photo. I tried to leave it quite subtle, so it looks still quite realistic, even with a bit faster movement that there would be. I do hope you like it :)

Also for those curious, this is a 10 second video, 5times 2 second loop, with a resolution of 1200×798. And it is only 600kb big :)

Articles, Misc

New look for 2017

February 20, 2017 No Comments

I have been updating this blog for almost 7 years now, with over 2000 posts and pages. And to keep the site fresh, I like to updated it every 1-2 years with a new, hopefully better, look. And you may have already noticed, if this is not your first visit, that yesterday evening the site changed again.

New look for 2017

This time I went with a more open look, with bigger photos, full screen sliders and more. The biggest change I did, was to return the full blog to the front page. While I liked the way it was showcasing all different content from around the site before, I noticed that a lot of things got last that way. As I like to include all the new stuff in daily post, it was missed by those that only visited the frontpage. So like this, with this latest update, it is right there in the center.

The return should also bring back the easy way to look over recent posts. Lets call the last years theme an experiment. While there were things I liked, and I will keep, there were also ones I did not like. You know how it is. You may like something on the first look, but over time you start seeing faults.

So I hope you will like this new look, and you will enjoy visiting my blog more than you did before :)

HDRshooter new look, site, surface, samsung

And as always, please note that there may be some errors here and there. I did tweak the theme I use quite a bit, and while I tested it for over a week on my local server, it’s never exactly as on the live one. So some problems may arise. I try to correct all I find right away, but as I mentioned, there are over 2000 posts here, and I just can’t go over everything.

Austria, Vienna

The night bridges in Vienna

February 19, 2017 No Comments

RAWs from Canon 5D mark IV

As today I’m sharing with you a photo from the 5D mark IV for the first time, I thought that you might find it interesting to have a look at the RAW files. So from here you can download the two RAW files I used to crate this panorama.

Feel free to check them out, but as always, please don’t use them for anything else without my permission.

The bridge in Vienna

As I mentioned yesterday, I already wanted to try out the 5D mark IV. But since the weather is still quite bad and everything looks quite gray, I needed a spot where this would not be such a problem. I decided for the hill Leopoldsberg above Vienna. Since I would be taking photos of a city from far away, I will not be able to see how the trees have no leaves and similar. Just the colors of the city.

And as the weather played along, this is what I got. The shot came out a bit less colorful that I hoped, but I let it be. This is close to what it actually looked like. This is a two shot panorama, combined in Lightroom, finished in Photoshop.

The night bridges in Vienna, Austria, panorama

France, Paris

Night under the Eiffel tower

February 18, 2017 No Comments

Fist shoot with the 5D mark IV

I wanted to share with you today, a photo I took already with the 5D mark IV. But as I only got home and I’m crazy tired, will move that for tomorrow.

Here is just a quick behind the camera shot I took this evening. It was from the top of the Leopoldsberg behind Vienna. I actually was lucky with the weather. When we arrived it was raining, but right around the start of the blue hour, the sky started clearing and the fog dissipated, so I managed to take few, I think nice, photos. It was just a pleasure to work with the 5D mark IV.

Night under the Eiffel tower

For todays daily photo, I selected this vertorama, taken early last year under the Eiffel tower. As you can see, even with how much you can get with a tilt-shift lens, it’s not enough to capture such a tall structure from such up close. But I actually don’t mind this bit of distortion, as I think it works nicely with this composition and the blurred cars creating a balance from the side.

This is a two shot vertorama, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop. The biggest problem in this shot were the lens flares. As there is no lens hood for the tilt shift lens, and its a bulb, it catches so many of them. But with a bit of editing, one can clean them out :)

Night under the Eiffel tower, Paris, France

Bratislava, Slovakia

The Danube view

February 17, 2017 No Comments

Exposure bracketing on the Canon 5D mark IV

As I mentioned yesterday, I have been playing around with the Canon 5D mark IV. Before I got it, I was interested in it’s bracketing capabilities, and since I did not find much about that, today I will show you in this little video, how the bracketing works on it. Few more additional points to this:

You can do 2, 3, 5 or 7 brackets
The difference can be from 1/3 to 3 EV
The biggest range you can get is -9 to +9 EV
The timer takes all shots for you automaticali
The 30 second limit for the brightest shot is still there :/
The build in bulb timer can make longer shots than 30s
You can choose the order the photos are taken in

Overall it works really well and I’m quite pleased with it.

The Danube view

I like to include foreground elements in my photos, but it not really possible all the time. But it worked out for this shot. I took this one from one of the pontoons by the Danube river, quite a long time ago. This is from one of the spots I recomment in my Top Photography spots in Bratislava list.

I took this shot with a normal wide angle lens, so I had to correct quite a strong perspective distortion. And as the castle ended at the most top corner of the shot after the correction, I ended up also compressing the river a bit, to move the castle and its reflection closer down. Maybe I do a post about that sometime :)

This is a blend of three exposures, one for a base, one to darken the highlights of the castle and one to brighten the foreground. Edited in Lightroom and finished in Photoshop.