And we have another Process Monday here (or does it just sound silly? :)). Today I will show you one of my recent photos, that isn’t actually a HDR. But I think I mentioned it few times, not every photo needs to be HDR. So here goes:

As always, first the result and the original photos.

Finished photo

0EV exposure

As you can see, thank that I used a polarizing filter on the lens, I had enough dynamic range in the single shot. I actually took 5 exposures, just to be sure, as I always do. It’s always better to be safe than sorry. The most editing on this photo was done in Lightroom. For the 0EV shot, I changed the white to make the photo cooler, added more contrast, opened the shadows, brightened the whites, added clarity and vibrance and removed chromatic aberrations and vignetting. One note to this, if you have white objects in a photo, pushing the whites slider to the right will make them much more dominant, and less grey. Helps a lot in a lot of photos :)

Original exposures

After the Lightroom edit

After that, I opened the photo in Photoshop, where I did the following edits (layers numbered from bottom up):
1. The Lightroom result
2. Copy I created, to do a dust spots clean up.
3. Color Efex pro contrast, to get more local contrast from the photo
4. Color Efex glamour glow, used only on the clouds, to make them look a little brighter and softer
5. Color Efex Detail extractor, painted just on the hills, to get more detail in them
6. Brightened the top corners, as there was a little vignetting visible, and I found it distracting.

 
And that’s all I did with this image. To find out more on how I edit, check out the guides and before after categories on this blog, or check out my video tutorial series here:

Capturing fireworks eBook

Usually when I post a new fireworks photo, I like to remind you that you can still get my Capturing fireworks eBook for free. And I’m doing so also now. Just head over to the eBook page and download it :)

Sparkling fireworks

I like to return to my fireworks photos and edit a new one from time to time. They just look always so great. I tent to leave them a little more saturated, but as you know, fireworks are really colorful. And with the black sky behind them, you can really see the color :)

This is a single exposure, edited in Lightroom, Oloneo Photoengine and Photoshop.

10 of my favorite photographers on Ello

If you are following my Photographers to follow on Ello list, you seen that there are already few hundred different photographers. Here are just a few of my personal favorites, who are also all active on Ello (they post regularly) and are actually all landscape photographers, as that’s my favorite type. Also these are all new for me, as I haven’t been following their work before Ello, and only there I found them for the first time. So I suggest you check them out :)

Of course there are many more great photographers there (again, check out the list to find many more of them) and currently I’m only waiting for Ello to enable re-share, so I can start doing a daily featured photographer (from the list) on my account there. But for that I will still have to wait :)

Schwarzsee

Can you see the lake? It’s so small compared to the Matterhorn behind it. Almost invisible :) The whole area around Matterhorn is just wonderful. It’s going on my list of places to revisit.

This is a single exposure edited in Lightroom and Photoshop. I darkened the sky by using a polarizing filter (as the sun was to my left) and I had no need to do a HDR blending here. There is just no point in using HDR, when it’s not needed.

One needs to check a lot of thing before going out to take photos and since I seen many people doing the same mistakes over and over (and I did some myself :)) here is a short list, of what one should check before going out to take photos. This is more for the beginners, as I hope pros don’t do these mistakes :)

1. Check the battery status

First thing that needs to be checked. And not even the battery in the camera, but also all the backup batteries one takes. As batteries can loose their charge over time, if you haven’t used a backup battery for a while, it can be completely empty. Also, cold environments tend to kill the batteries quicker, so have at least one spare.

2. Check that you have a memory card

First check if you have a memory card in the camera, then if you have at least one spare. Even if a memory card works, that does not mean that it wont fail on you during a photoshoot, and it’s very hard to continue without a new one. Also check if the cards are empty. A card full of photos you haven’t copied to your PC yet, is the same as no card at all.

3. Check that the camera works

One never knows what could happened after the last time you took photos. Always turn the camera on and at least try to focus. Electronics can fail unexpectedly, and finding it out after you spend time and money to get to a location, is just to late.

4. Check the camera settings

This is something that I always forget to do. Especially, if like I, one shoots in the same settings all the time. Especially things that one does not see immediately. A crazy white balance, auto ISO selected, wrong shooting mode, bracketing turned off/on, self-timer and similar. If one had to shoot something different, and then goes back to the regular stuff, it’s very easy to forget about one or more of these being changed.

5. Check the lens setting

There are actually only two settings here. Auto-focus and image stabilization. Again, checking if these are properly set, can really help avoid one or few bad photos. For instance, if one tends to shoot a lot of landscapes with manual focusing and then goes to shoot some people shots, it’s easy to forget to switch the Auto-focus on. And it’s even easier to forget to switch it back off again afterwards. Same with the images stabilization switch. Forgetting to turn it one when shooting handheld and forgetting to turn it off when shooting from a tripod can really easily happen. Also, don’t forget to clean the lens every time :)

6. Check the tripod

Here I don’t mean to check if you have the proper plate on the camera (even if that’s also important :)), but that one should check if the screws on your tripod are properly tighten. One does not have to do this all the time, but it still should be done regularly. You never want to do a long exposure, just seeing the camera slowly moving down due to a loos tripod leg. Not all tripods are the same, and not all need to have the screws tightened. So do this based on what type you have.

7. Check that you have all you wan’t to use

And last but not least, all the other stuff. Make sure you have your remote, filters, leveling cube, and anything else you think you may need.

Radian time-lapse device

Some time ago, I posted about the Radian tile-lapse device, and at that time, it was not available for order. More people asked me where one can get one, and until now it was kind of hard. But just recently the things changed, and one can now order Radian right from the manufacturers page. You can find more about it in my review, or order it on the Alpine Labs page here.

Windy evening over Hainburg

I did a little photo-shooting on Tuesday, at this really nice place above Hainburg in Austria. The weather was not the best, but since it’s the middle of Octorber, that not so surprising. But as the low clouds and the fog low on the horizon reflected a lot of color from the city, it looked quite interesting anyway. Still the photo got a little noisier than I like, but as it was windy, I had to use a higher ISO to try and avoid camera shake.

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