Top photography spots in Budapest updated

I continue to update the look of the blog right now, and part of it, is also to reformat all the Top photography spots pages. And while I was doing that with the Top photography spots in Budapest page, I noticed that it’s probably time to update the page as a whole. So that’s what I did.

Now, if you check it out, it does not only look different, but the number of spots almost tripled, there are new photos and new description. And as always, each spot has a GPS location with a link directly to google maps.

Let me know what you think of the update :) The direct link to the Top Photography Spots in Budapest here.

I already got questions if I plan to do a list like that for Cinque Terre, and the answer is yes. I started working on the list, but while I already chosen the spots I will share with you, I have not yet edited all the photo I need for it. But I’m working on them, so the list should be up shortly :)

Amsterdam Panorama

As Amsterdam is quite flat, I really like to do panoramas there. It just gives such a nice sense of the city if you do it. So for today, I have for you another Amsterdam Panorama. This one is taken very close to one of my suggested photo spots in Amsterdam (the second one). It’s only a shot walk from the train station, so it’s quite easy to get here by foot. There are always some people, bikes, cars and boats passing by, but that’s the same everywhere in Amsterdam :)

This is a two shot panorama combined in Lightroom, finished in Photoshop. I took this already more than a year ago, so it’s one of the shots taken with the Sony a7r.

And here are few details:

Phone setup

My friends think it’s funny how I setup my phone, so let’s see what you think of it.

I use and Android phone, with the user interface from the Windows Phone, with the gesture navigation similar to the Iphone X. In a way you can say I use the best things from every system I can :). It also means, that most people would not be able to navigate around my phone at all, but that is nothing new for me.

For those curious, this is the Mi Mix 2, running the Launcher 10 launcher, and the gesture navigation is a new feature in the latest builds of MIUI. The wallpaper used can be found in yesterdays post.

What do you use? Are you as crazy as me with tweaking your phone to suit your needs and style perfectly? Or just sticking with the default setup?

Light glow over Dubai

The light pollution in Dubai is really strong. There are just too many light always on in the city, that the whole city glows into the sky. Especially if you go a bit further, you can see it quite clearly.

Same in this shot, taken from Palm Jumeirah. The light glow is all over it. And while I was taking this photo, a ship passed by, creating this quite nice light trails. First I did not like it, but looking again at the photo, I kind of do. It made it different from other photos I took that evening.

This photo is a single exposure, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop. You may notice there is still a lot of noise in the sky, but that can’t be removed without introducing color banding (more about that here in the article about dealing with color banding). One can’t correct everything all the time.

Phone wallpapers

While editing today’s photo, I noticed that it’s almost a perfect 1:2 ratio. And that’s exactly what most of the recent mobile phones screens have. So I cropped it into a wallpaper. And so it’s not just one, here are few more.

These are 1080x2160px in size. Will maybe add more in the future if you like them.
 

The tallest reflection

So many people take photos of the Burj Khalifa. And with that, it really is not easy to get a unique photo here. But of course I tried. And one I have not seen before (not that I seen all photos of Burj Khalifa :)), is one with the full reflection of the tower in the nearby pool. So I tried to get one.

It’s not really that easy though. The tower on it’s own is already huge, so just getting it into the shot you need a really wide lens. For this photo I needed even more, so I had to go with a vertorama. To avoid some crazy distortions, I went with the 17mm tilt-shit lens, in vertical orientation. Like this I could shift it up and down, instead the usual left to right. Like this, I could fit the whole Burj Khalifa with it’s reflection into only two shots. I still needed to do some perspective correction, but not too much.

This is a two shot vertorama, combined in Lightroom, finished in Photoshop. For my recomended spots to take photos in Dubai, check out the Top Photography Spots in Dubai list.

No more Facebook

Those that follow me on Facebook maybe noticed that I have not posted there in a long while. And actually, I don’t plan to anymore. Maybe I set it up to automatically update when the blog updates, but that’s about it. I even stopped going to Facebook website and blocked most notifications from the app. Over the last few years Facebook just became more anoying than useful, and I just had enough.

For now, I only use two social networks. Twitter and Instagram. Those are updated regularly, and there where you can find me. And of course here, on the blog :)

Fireworks at the AmaLea christening

I visited Vilshofen in Germany this weekend, where I was taking photos at the christening of the new AmaWaterways ship, the AmaLea. This is another wonderful river cruise ship, and if you ever can, you should experience river cruising in a ship like this.

And as by each christening, there were fireworks at the end, and today I will share with you a photo taken during these fireworks. This is a single exposure, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Reading list

I mentioned before I like to listen to audiobooks while I take photos, and mostly while doing anything else. Especially if I put on noise canceling headphones (currently I use the Bose qc35) I can enjoy them so much better.

So what I am reading/listening to right now? I like to combine fiction with non-fioction, and switch based on the current mood. So for fiction, I’m currently getting through the second book in the The Themis Files series from Sylvain Neuvel. I listened to it before, but since the third book came as audiobook only recently, I want to get back into the full story first, before continuing. The whole series is a great sci-fi story, with the whole story being presented as a set of interviews with participants.

For non-fiction, I, currently reading two books. As I mentioned minimalism yesterday, I’m reading The Goodbye, Things from Fumio Sasaki. It does have some good ideas about the topic. Secondly, since I have not read any history books in a long while, I’m right in the middle of the The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. This is a huge audiobook, with over 57 hours of audio. But it’s also very detailed and interesting. Worth the time spend to learn more about WW2.

So what’s next on my list? For fiction, I finally want to get through Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Have not seen the movie and I do prefer to read the book first if I can. For non-fiction I will go with Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed or Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. Both seem intriguing and I think both are worth the time.

What are you listening to or reading? Feel free to leave a tip if you have a good one :)

Chained mountain at the Traunsee

Ok, it’s not really chained, but it does looks so a bit. This is another photo I took during my trip to Austria, to the Traunsee lake, in January this year (yes, this is in the middle of winter in the mountains :)). It was just so nice and sunny, even if not so warm. Traunsee is one of the many lakes in Austrian alps. Maybe not the most popular, but looks great anyway.

I used two separate techniques here. Fist, this photo is a long exposure. I used the Formatt Hitech 10 stop ND filter to get the water so perfectly smooth. Secondly, this is a focus blend. This means, I took a photo where I focused on the foreground and a second photo where I focused on the mountain in the back. Blending them was really easy, as the blend is in the middle of the blurred water, so it can be down with just little masking in Photoshop. More on focus blending here.

This is a blend of two exposures, done in Photoshop.