Update : After reporting the matter to Instagram, my copyright claim was accepted and the stolen photo was removed from the service. I hope all other affected photographers did the same and reported this user for copyright violations.

I said I hate this topic, but the story evolved from yesterday, so I thought I will post an update.

So looks like the person who used my photo (and other photos from other photographer) without permission, without credit and was quite a jerk about it by deleting comments and changing his Instagram account to private, is a more widely know person in Croatia. So once more photographers started to complain, the local news sites in Croatia picked up the story and published articles about it.

So I have been bombarded by questions, comments and really nice messages from Croatian people who are really disgusted by how he behaves. But here are few answers.

No, I don’t plan to sue him. Not worth it, to spend the time and effort on such a person. I still plan to submit a copyright claim, but not sure how to, as he changed his account to private, and so I can’t link to the offending photo. I think the news coverage will be punishment enough.

I hope he learns his lesson and stops profiting from other peoples work. But since that will probably take a while, and right now he still claims that he is the author of all the photos, here is an undeniable proof that I’m the author, which he can look at while doing such claims :) (sorry for the huge watermarks, I don’t want to give him anything to work with)

So first, my final photo and “his” edit.

Screen-shot of the original RAW image:

And a screen-shot from the photo series, I took that evening:

And for those curious, who also speak Croatian, you can find an article about him here, here and here. Most include examples of other stolen photos by him.

There are few topics I want to mention today, so here goes :)

Free copy of Macphun Focus CK

If you are running a MacOS system, you may find this offer interesting. Until the end of the month, you can get Focus CK from Macphun, for nothing. Focus is used to create blur effects as tilt shift and similar. And did I mention you can get it for free? :) Download it here from the Macphun website.

8000 fans

So yesterday, finally my Facebook page passed 8000 fans. Thank you very much to everyone who liked my page, and I hope there be more and more of you :)

Stolen photo

I hate this topic, but from time to time one has to return to it, as there is no other way. I try to be very lenient with the use of my photos. As long the use is not commercial, there are no edits on the photo performed and one links back to this site, everyone can share my photos as much as they want.

But if a person takes a photo, implies that he/she took it by not including the author, and even modifying it, that something I can’t tolerate. And this is one example of this. This person on Instagram is really a thief, and not only of my photo, but many many more. By pretending to be the author of them, he amassed quite a big following, while stealing other work.

In this cases, I like to leave a comment, give the person a chance to correct the error. Even if he just admitted his mistake and edited the post to show who the true author is, I would be satisfied. But this person is just a thief and instead of doing so, he just deleted the comment and blocked everyone else who also commented on the stolen photos.

I hate this, because now my only option is to file a copyright infringement claim. I love taking photos, I love sharing my work. It motivates me to do more, share more. But people like this add a really sour taste to everything.

If you speak Croatian, here is an article about this thief, and few examples of his other stolen photos. And here is a link to my original photo as posted on this blog. Also you can check out the rules for using my photos here, on the Licensing page.

The new Old Bridge

I went out today, to check out how the reconstruction of the Old bridge continues. So here is for you, my first photo of the new Old bridge (not sure if they will changes the name). It’s this crazy green now, and it looks really good. So may new walkways and viewing areas that will be great for photos, and so many lights that when turned on will make it look great in photos. I can’t wait until they open it to public as I was not able to get closer right now.

This is a HDR from 4 exposures combined in Oloneo Photoengine, finished in Photoshop.

Today I’m starting a new series on the blog, Photography Basics. In this series I will go through the basics of photography, especially meant for those of you, who are just beginning. If you are an advanced or expert photographer, you will probably find this boring :) But if you are just a beginner, this might be exactly what you need. I will try to explain things as simple as I know, to make them easier. So lets start.

Part 1 – Exposure

Photography is about light. When you are capturing a photo, you let light hit the sensor (or film) in you camera. So the most important thing that you have to set up on your camera, is the amount of light it lets in when you take a photo. You can of course let the camera do it all for you, but then you loose control over the look of your photo.

The amount of light that gets onto the sensor, is determined by three parameters. Those are:

• aperture – how big is the opening through which the light gets into the camera
• shutter speed – how long is the opening that let’s the light in, open
• ISO – how sensitive the sensor (film) is to the light.

There three parameters determine if you get a properly exposed photo, and few more things about the photo (which we will take a look shortly). Knowing how to set them up and when to use what values, is probably the most important thing you need to know when trying to take a photo.

Exposure triangle

Aperture, Shutter speed and ISO are usually shown forming a triangle. The reason for this is, that they are all connected. When one of them is changed, one or both from the other have to be compensated, to keep a proper exposure.

For instance, if you change the aperture, making the opening smaller, you either have to use longer time, or bigger sensor sensitivity (ISO), or both, to compensate. If you choose smaller sensitivity (ISO), you have to have a bigger opening, longer time or both, to get a proper exposure. And so on.

Aperture

Aperture, determines how big is the opening in the lens, that lets in the light. A very important thing here to remember is, that bigger apertures (bigger opening) are noted with small numbers (starts at 1 and goes up from there) and small apertures are noted with higher numbers. So if you change the aperture for instance from f2.8 to f16, that means you made it smaller. There main effects of different apertures are:

• the bigger the aperture, the shorter shutter time and lower ISO you need to get a proper exposure
• the bigger the aperture, the less DOF (depth of field – the distance between the closes object in focus to the furthers object in focus) you get, and most of the photo will be out of focus (object in focus are shown as sharp on the final photo, out of focus are blurry)
• the smaller the aperture, the more of a star effect you will get on light points.This is an effect, where light points are captured as small stars, with rays going from them in all directions (see example to the right)
• aperture also influences sharpness, with each lens having a sweet spot, an aperture where it is sharpest. The difference here is not that huge, and in the most of the time you can just ignore this.

So when you are choosing the aperture, you have to think about, what you want to archive and what you require. You choose a bigger aperture, when you are shooting from hand, so making the exposure time shorter, or when you want to have a shallow DOF, for instance in portraits. You choose a smaller aperture, when you want a longer exposure time, or when you want a big DOF to have everything in focus.

Here are two examples for you, one with shallow DOF (big aperture used) and one with huge DOF (small aperture used)

Shutter speed

Shutter speed determines, how long the lens opening is open and allows light to hit the sensor. Most cameras allow this to be set from 1/8000 of a second, up to 30s (the times may wary between cameras). There is a way to go over 30s, but that will be covered in camera modes. The main effects of different shutter speeds are:

• shorter shutter speed freezes motion. The longer the shutter speed is, the more blurred the moving objects are, until the completely disappear by very long shutter speeds.
• faster shutter speeds are much better for handheld photography, as the shorter the required time is, the better chance of being able to hold the camera without moving it.

When choosing your shutter speed, usually you want to go for the shortest that you can. The exception is if you are trying to get a specific long exposure effect. In that case, the time you need varies. For instance getting a bit of softness info flowing water, you need few second, for making flowing water look almost like ice, you need 30s or more.

Here are another two examples. In one the short shutter speed froze the cars in place, in the other the long shutter speed blurred them out, and only light trails remained.

ISO

The last parameter is the sensitivity of the sensor (film). ISO starts at 100 (with few professional cameras being able to go lower) and goes up from there up to 100 thousands. This is more of a complimentary parameter, as normally, one changes it only when really needed. Mostly the goal is to just keep it at low as possible (at the camera default setting). The main effects of ISO are:

• the bigger the ISO, the shorter time and smaller aperture you can use, to archive a proper exposure
• the bigger the ISO, the more noise you will get in your photos. So having a lower ISO will result in much cleaner photos.

So the main reasons for using a higher ISO is, to get a shorter shutter speed. Either you are shooting in a dark place handheld, or you are trying to capture something that changes really fast. Going with a higher ISO is usually the last step in setting up a proper exposure, as except for artistic reasons, one prefers a cleaner photo result.

You should experiment with your camera, too see what highest ISO you can use, what is the biggest amount of noise you are willing to accept in your photos. Also note, a high ISO can result in the loss of detail, as the noise becomes more dominant than small detail.

Here are two examples for ISO. First one was taken handhold inside a church, where I had to use a high ISO of 1600. The second one is taken from a tripod, so I could use an ISO of 100 without problems.

So this covers the basics of exposure, and in the next parts we will take a look at camera modes and when to choose which mode, RAW vs JPEG, white balance, focusing and much more :).

It was so crazy to see the photos and videos of this hotel burning during the New years. I can’t even imagine how it had to look to those who were on the spot. It was so good to see that none of my friends that were there (and nobody else there) god badly hurt. Good to see that the architects of these huge building thought of such situations and a fire does not end in tragedy. I’m quite curious what will now happen with the hotel, if it can be repaired, or they will have to demolish it. Time will tell.

This is a photo taken in 2014 from the top of the Burj Khalifa. This is a HDR from 4 exposures, combined in Photoengine, finished in Photoshop.

Technique: Oloneo Photoengine, Number of exposures: 4, Camera Model: Canon EOS 5D mark II, Lens: Canon 16-35mm F2.8, Focal length: 28mm, Aperture: 5, Middle exposure time: 3.2s, ISO: 200, Tripod used: yes, Location: 25.196557, 55.274810

There are many video tutorials available on the Internet, but it hard to say which are worth it. So today, I will show you some of them I liked the most. Be warned, these are not free tutorials and they are mostly not meant for beginners. Also they are all about landscape photography, HDR and luminosity masking, as those are the areas that also interest me. I would like to mention here also my series Master exposure blending, but probably those of you who visit the blog regularly, already heard about that one :)

Photographing the World by Elia Locardi

There are actually two parts to this, “Photographing The World: Landscape Photography and Post-Processing” and “Photographing the World: Cityscape, Astrophotography, and Advanced Post-Processing“. Both are massive, with 12 and 15 hours of content respectively. Both created by a great photographer Elia Locardy, with the help of Fstoppers.

They are not the cheapest, but you get what you pay for. Lots of content, lots of great informations, and photos from some of the most wonderful locations.

Video tutorials by Sean Bagshaw

Wonderful resources for landscape photographers, with detailed explanations of luminance blending and usage of TK actions panel. Sean offeres tutorials for advanced photographers, but also ones if are only a beginner. They can all be found on his web-page www.outdoorexposurephoto.com.

Video tutorials by Jimmy McIntire

Jimmy like to show many different blending methods in his videos, and he even has his own Photoshop extensions to help. He has separate videos for Luminance masking and HDR, so you can choose what interests you. All can be found on his web-page www.shutterevolve.com

Video tutorials by Trey Ratcliff

Trey provides many different video tutorials, mostly for photographers that are beginners or intermediate in their skill. The videos are focused on HDR, and you can also find specific video tutorials for the newest HDR software Aurora HDR. You can find all the tutorials in the Stuckincustoms stoere here store.stuckincustoms.com

The Ultimate Landscape Photography Course by Jay & Varina Patel

Another huge tutorials series, with videos covering everything from the gear, through the shooting up to post-processing. The series focuses on Landscape and nature photography only. Both Jay and Varina are great teacher, so you will learn a lot from them. The turorials can be found here visualwilderness.com/product/ulpc

Video tutorials by Julien Grondin

Also known as Beboy, Julien creates stunning cityscape and landscape photos. The only problem here is, all his videos are in French. So if you don’t understand, they are hard to follow if you don’t have a very good knowledge of Photoshop. Still, if you do understand French, you should check them out, as they are a great source of information. All can be found under www.beboyphoto.com

Video tutorials by Chip Phillips

Another mostly landscape photography focused series of videos. The topics covered go from luminosity selection, through orton effect to sharpening. There is even a from start to finish video available. They can be found on www.chipphillipsphotography.com.

And there are of course many more, but I think this is enough for this article :). They are all great sources of information, and should be considered if you want to improve you photography skills.