At the rocks in Vernazza

I was just looking at the new Sony a7R IV specs and while they are good, nothing that really gives me that, I have to have one, feeling. It’s an evolution to what the old one was. The more I take photos, the less I’m impressed by specs of cameras. I dont use most of the things anyway when shooting in Manual.

But let’s get to today’s photo. This one is from the rocks next to the town of Vernazza in Cinque Terre in Italy. It was a very sunny day, with the sun right above the town when I took this. So instead of taking a photo of the city, I did some of the rocks. I used the VFFOTO 10 stop ND filter here to get the water silky smooth.

This is a blend of three exposures, done in Photoshop. I used Topaz Adjust AI to get a bit more color into it.

Lenses

Depending on what kind of photography you do, you will tend to gravitate towards certain kind of lenses. As I do mostly landscape and cityscape photos, I mostly go with very wide angle lenses. But it’s different for everyone. Still, I have also zoom lenses and some fast lenses and similar.

What to take?

I never carry all of my lenses. Actually, 90% of the time, I would be fine with a single lens. One that has a nice range, that fits most of the situations. For me, it’s the 24-70mm 2.8 lens (but a 24-105 would be probably even better). Most of my photos are from this lens and it’s really great in almost any situation. It’s wide enough for landscapes, and you can do panoramas if you need to go wider. It zooms in enough for things like portraits or event photos,  and with a high megapixel camera, you can crop a lot, and get even closer.

I try not to carry more than three lenses. Mostly, fewer the better. You can then just focus on what you are doing, and not thinking about switching the lens and trying something different.

The classic approach for a lot of photographers is to carry multiple lenses, that cover a big zoom range. So the classic would be a 16-35mm, 24-70mm and 70-200mm (or instead of the 16-35mm an 11-24mm or 14-24mm, depending on the brand). This gives a really big range you can work with, from ultra wide to a decent zoom. And it’s together only three lenses, which is not that many.

What do I take?

This three lenses, wide, medium, and zoom is a good tactic if you have no idea what kind of photos you will or want to do. You are ready for most things. I don’t go with it. I just know that I don’t like to zoom in that much, that even if I carry a lens like 70-200mm, I will not use it at all anyway. So while I still carry three I select them differently.

The three lenses I take with me are an all-purpose lens, a specialized lens, and a unique lens. In my case that would be the 24-70mm f2.8, the 17mm f4 TSE lens and the 12mm f2.8 one. Why these three?

As I mentioned, you should always have an all-purpose lens with you. The one that you use most of the time anyway. The 24-70mm or 24-105mm is a good range for it. I would not go with a bigger range. There are lenses that can cover a bigger range, but the quality and sharpness of the photos are worse, and they are not that fast.

The second lens, I choose a specialized lens. For me that the tilt-shift one. It’s just so great for vertoramas, architecture and city shots. Exactly what I specialize in. For you, this may be something different. If you always do portraits, this may be an 85mm f1.2 lens. If you do macro photography that a good macro lens and so on.

The last lens, a unique one. With this I mean a lens, that will give me a view that most photographers won’t get. If you take photos in places that are popular, having a lens that gives you a less common view is a plus. That why for me this is the 12mm lens. Not many photographers use such a wide lens, so my view is more unique. You can even try a very fast lens or a fisheye or whatever you like to experiment with.

I don’t want to get the same photos and views other photographers got, so going a bit differently helps with that. Of course, when I’m going for an assignment, I take the lenses and cameras I know I will need based on the job. But when I take photos for myself, this is what I do.

Night tram on the Old bridge

Today’s photo is of a night tram passing on the Old bridge in Bratislava. As you can see, the bridge is quite colorfully lit up in this one. This is not every day, this was just because of the White night even last year, when they install lights all over the city. I was ever standing on the tracks when I took it, which I would not do any other day there. And I don’t suggest anyone does it.

At first I was not sure if I even edit this photo. It was very dark and a little part of the bridge was missing. And I really don’t like that. But I tried and I got a result I liked. This is a single exposure, broken up into multiple and then blended back together. Then I used a second photo from that night, from which I pasted in the missing part.

And here is also a comparison to the original RAW file. As you can see, it was really dark, and the size is a bit differnt, as I added the part on top.

Prague in 4K wallpapers

As I mentioned, today all the new wallpapers are from Prague, or better said, the Prague castle. As always, they are all in 3840x2160px and you can download them from the 4K wallpapers page here.

Cloud covered sunset

While testing the Topaz Adjust AI, I tried a very similar photo as one of my tests. And since I liked the result, I decided to finish it. I took this photo last year in Manarola, Cinque Terre in Italy. We were waiting for the blue hour, as the sunset was right behind us. But it looked so great, I had to take few shots anyway, even without the tow.

This is a blend of three exposures, combined with the Topaz Adjust AI HDR style result.