November - new records

November was 12th month in a row with all major statistics of this blog rising. For the first time I reached 5000 visits and 15000 page views in a month. What's more yesterday was the best day for this blog ever, because of my I don't like HDR post (what resulted in 1000+ page views just yesterday). It's pretty amazing to see some discussions it caused (eg. on Google+). Seeing traffic growing keeps me really motivated. Hope you like what I write here and as always I would be grateful for your opinions.

In the very next month I plan to write a few more tutorials and share a lot of photos with you so stay tuned.

About the shot - I took it in February this year in Belem in Lisbon.

EXIF data:
Camera: Canon 5D MK II
Lens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USM
Focal length: 32 mm
Aperture: f/9.1
Exposure time: 1/320 s ("middle" exposure)
ISO: 400
Number of exposures: 3
E.V. Step: 2 E.V.
Flash used: no
Tripod used: no
Filters used: no
Software: Magic Lantern, Photomatix Pro 4.2.4, Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop CS5

Thoughts: I don't like HDR

HDR photo from 7 exposures, taken in Warsaw, Poland. It shows one of the buildings of the Warsaw University.

Yes, I don't like HDR. And if you take HDR photos you know nothing about art. You should only use filters, flashes and nothing more. Well, maybe a bit of Photoshop (but not too much!).

It's not my personal opinion but some of the statements I often hear and read regarding HDR photography.

One other sentence about HDR I somewhat like is: I like your photos but don't you have normal photos? Only HDR? and this was written on my Facebook profile. I like it because it made me smile because it shows that for some people it's quite difficult to admit that in fact they do like HDR photos... telling so is not trendy.

HDR photography has really bad reputation nowadays. Why? I believe that many people not doing HDR when they hear this term they immediately connect it to oversaturated images full of halos, excessive noise, ghosts and other visual artifacts. The problem is that these issues are only typical for photos of beginners (and not all of them - there are some really talented beginners out there). Many great HDR photographers create such amazing and natural looking images that it isn't easy to tell if it is HDR or not. Also are you sure that your favourite landscape/travel photographer doesn't use HDR as well? Well, I wouldn't be certain of that :) Use of HDR can be very subtle, as subtle as using 3-stop gradual density filter.

Many people aren't even aware that HDR photos are all around them - many of them are published (in the magazines and books, eg. tourist guides) or displayed on exhibitions (actually even my own HDR photos were already and I'm not a pro and not amongst the greatest HDR photographers).

Also many people believe that we, HDR photographers, are simply lazy or even lacking skills. Instead of using filters and flashes we just set our tripod, take 3 to 9 bracketed exposures during sunrise or sunset and we're ready to go home to eat breakfast or dinner instead of trying to find perfect exposure for 2 hours. It's so much more difficult to use gradual density filter than to auto-bracket and then merge photos in Photomatix some say. Nope. Not that easy at all. Although many beginner HDR photographers indeed don't use filters (and I really recommend this), most of the most experienced do use them. For instance I use circular polarizer, a bunch of neutral density filters (for different effects), gradual density filter, infrared filter and a few others. This way we can achieve the results we want, whether it is better saturation of colours or smooth look of waterfall.

What about using flashes? I must admit I don't use flash very often but not because I don't know how to use it - I just prefer working with available light whenever possible. However, I know of a few HDR photographers who use flashes even in their HDR photography work and they make wonders.

Moreover, in my opinion it's quite unfair that HDR photos are not allowed by certain magazines and the majority of photo competitions. They are considered evil, fake, unrealistic, psychedelic. Is black & white photography realistic? No, not at all. We do see colours, not greyscale. Is macro photography at magnification of 2:1 and higher realistic? No, because none of use have microscope built-in our eyes. Is long exposure photography realistic? No... Astrophotography? No... so why the hell it's HDR photography that is being banned and "persecuted"? I don't get it. Photography never was and never will be only about ultra-realistic rendering of a scene (unless it's news photography). It's also about artistic expression. And HDR can help in this matter pretty much.

That's all I would like to write on the subject. HDR is just another tool and I hope that one day every photographer will understand this. It is one more tool in our arsenal that can make our photos better. One more tool besides cameras, lenses, tripods, filters, Lightroom and Photoshop. Nothing more.

Before/after comparison: is HDR needed here?

Yesterday along with tutorial about circular polarizer, I posted a landscape photo showing sunrise on Fuerteventura island. It wasn't HDR. Many of you said (eg. on G+) that this photo doesn't really need HDR. Well, I'm glad you said so and I agree that this photo was really nice. However, today here is a HDR version of this very shot. To compare with non-HDR just move your mouse pointer over the image above. As you can see HDR version has generally more details (especially in the shadows) and also colour gradations in the sky are much nicer.

EXIF data:
Camera: Canon 5D MK II
Lens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USM
Focal length: 24 mm
Aperture: f/11
Exposure time: 1 s ("middle" exposure)
ISO: 200
Number of exposures: 5
E.V. Step: 1.5 E.V.
Flash used: no
Tripod used: yes
Filters used: no
Software: Magic Lantern, Photomatix Pro 4.2.4, Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop CS5

Tutorial: polarizer filter - landscape photographer's best friend

Although some of you might argue that the best friend of landscape photographer is either a solid tripod or a 3-stop gradual density filter I believe that it is in fact circular polarizer filter you should always have with you when shooting landscape photos. It is the filter I would pick if I had to choose only one filter to have with me during any of my travels.

In this short post I will try to write a few words about what is circular polarizer filter and what are its advantages.

First of all you have to be aware that colours we see are not "natural" colours. The light is reflected of multiple surfaces, like leaves or water surface resulting in much brighter and often disturbing colours (light is polarized). Circular polarizer filter is capable of reducing these effects to a great degree: colours become more natural and saturated, sky is becoming darker and also more saturated, details are restored in the clouds and finally reflections on various surfaces are reduced (eg. water, glass).

Below is  a very short video footage showing capabilities of a circular polarizer filter. At the beginning of this video I had polarizer "disabled" (by this I mean that it was at such position that it didn't produce any effects). Then I slowly turn it and at the end it's at its full power.

As you can see from the video above circular polarizer filter can remove reflections significantly. It also increases saturation pretty much. If it isn't that clear from the video above compare first and last frame of it:

 

It's easiest to see the difference in the water (it has so much nicer and more natural colour without disturbing reflections). But also take a look at the bottom right corner and compare the look of greens. Green in the second image is much more natural and vivid. Generally the second image is more pleasing and looks nicer. Also it seems to have more contrast.

Here are some facts about circular polarizer filter:

1. Circular polarizer filter works best when you point your camera 90 degrees from the sun. It works worst when shooting directly into the sun or at 180 away from it.
2. When shooting indoors you won't notice any increase of colours saturation but you can still control reflections. Just be sure to shoot them at an angle of 50 degrees with which circular polarizer will be more powerful.
3. Circular polarizer filter might be also used to make exposures longer. Typical circular polarizing filter stops about 1.5 - 2 stops of light what means that it can be used as a cheap alternative to a neutral density filter. 2 stops of light isn't that much but it can be enough for instance to make water a little bit smoother. You should keep that in mind when shooting travel photography. It often happened to me that first I was shooting some landscapes and then entered some darker interiors and forgot to take circular polarizer off my camera what resulted in too long exposures to hand held them.
4. Circular polarizer filter "shines" on the cloudy weather. In point 1 I mentioned that circular polarizer works best at 90 degrees away from the sun... well, when the sky is overcast it doesn't really matter - it works well at all angles! Why? It's because in such conditions light is more diffused (clouds work as a giant diffuser) - the light is being reflected/refracted from the particles in the clouds and it comes from all directions. So cloudy weather is great for using circular polarizer. But you will most likely need to use tripod during such weather (for the reason this filter stops light).
5. Many people claim that circular polarizer filter can't be used with wide-angle (and especially ultra-wide angle) lenses because for focal lengths of 28 mm or wider the sky will be unevenly polarized. Well - in my opinion it's up to you. If you like the effect, why don't you go with it? I use circular polarizer on my wide-angle lenses and am pretty happy with the results. Another issue with circular polarizers and wide-angle lenses is that these filters are often thick what can result in vignetting in the corners of the frame. The solution is to buy "thin" version of the filter - almost all filters manufacturers offer them (although they might be slightly more expensive from "thick" ones).
6. Some people recommend not using circular polarizer when you shoot HDRs. Again - I do this very often.
7. One of the mistakes some people do is removing too much of the reflections. You should only turn the circular polarizer to such a position that the image looks natural and doesn't have disturbing reflections but situation where boat seems to flow in the air doesn't seem to be really natural. So keep this in mind.

That's all folks. Hope it will help some of you :)

Kitesurfer and my article on HDR One

I really like shooting action shots from time to time. When I was on Fuerteventura I also had a chance to do this with so many water sports enthusiasts all over the place. Here is one of such photos. I used shutter speed of 1/800 s to freeze motion but now I can see that using even faster shutter speed would be a great idea.

I would also like to share the link to my article on HDR One page: Understanding HDR. It details what HDR and tone-mapping really are. Hope you will learn something interesting from it.

EXIF data:
Camera: Canon 50D
Lens: Canon 70-300 f/4-5.6 L IS USM
Focal length: 300 mm
Aperture: f/6.3
Exposure time: 1/800 s
ISO: 200
Number of exposures: 1
E.V. Step: n/a
Flash used: no
Tripod used: no
Filters used: no
Software: Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop CS5

Reflection in pavement

One of the things I didn't expect to see on Fuerteventura was rain. And although most of the time I had beautiful weather with sun shining there was one day when it was raining pretty heavily. The worst thing was that on that very day I decided to go to La Oliva town to see a few interesting things there (like church with some of its parts built of volcanic rock and colonels' house). The good thing was that once it stopped raining there were some nice reflections :)

EXIF data:
Camera: Canon 50D
Lens: Canon 10-22 f/3.5-4.5 USM
Focal length: 16 mm
Aperture: f/10.0
Exposure time: 1/50 ("middle" exposure)
ISO: 100
Number of exposures: 3
E.V. Step: 2 E.V.
Flash used: no
Tripod used: no
Filters used: no
Software: Magic Lantern 2.3, Photomatix Pro 4.2.4, Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop CS5

Graphics programming vs photography

One of my few hobbies apart from photography is computer graphics programming. In the past I worked as a video game programmer and was also developing a number of indie and amateur game projects. One of the things I was (and well sort of still am) interested in was 3D graphics programming. It's pretty fascinating trying to recreate reality, use approximations to create something as similar as possible to what we see in reality. I implemented environmental effects such as clouds, water, grass, sky, etc. Although it might all sound simple in fact each of the things was pretty difficult to do for a few reasons. First of all existing mathematical models are often too complex for current generation of PCs. Another is that not all models produce really realistic results. But the biggest issue is that 3D graphics ages pretty fast. What looks realistic one year, looks old-school just a few years later (take any game 10 or more years old - probably you will be shocked how bad it looks). So you have to still improve graphics code. Tedious work :)

Why I'm writing about all this? Well, I just realized that with photography it's so much easier. Of course in the past, equipment wasn't that excellent. Some old photos might be a little blurry, lack contrast or colour saturation but if the composition or subject of the photos is great, it still is a great photo. With digital cameras it's even easier because contrary to the film, the RAW files (or TIFFs or JPGs) doesn't change with time.

Just a thought :)

EXIF data:
Camera: Canon 5D MK II
Lens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USM
Focal length: 24 mm
Aperture: f/9.0
Exposure time: 1/160 ("middle" exposure)
ISO: 400
Number of exposures: 3
E.V. Step: 2 E.V.
Flash used: no
Tripod used: no
Filters used: circular polarizing filter
Software: Photomatix Pro 4.2.4, Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop CS5

Desert near El Cotillo

Here is a HDR photo I took near El Cotillo town on Fuerteventura. Not many colours but for some reason this is kind of landscape that I really really like.

EXIF data:
Camera: Canon 5D MK II
Lens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USM
Focal length: 24 mm
Aperture: f/7.1
Exposure time: 1/250 s ("middle" exposure)
ISO: 200
Number of exposures: 3
E.V. Step: 2 E.V.
Flash used: no
Tripod used: no
Filters used: no
Software: Magic Lantern, Photomatix Pro 4.2.4, Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop CS5

Tutorial: how to use Magic Lantern for taking bracketed photos

As for my other recent HDR photos I used Magic Lantern 2.3 for this one.

I mentioned the fact that I use Magic Lantern firmware modification several times already. One of the most useful features for me are extended auto-bracketing capabilities. Both my Canons (50D and 5D MK II) can normally take only 3 exposures in auto-bracketing mode spaced at up to 2 EV. This is often not sufficient co cover whole dynamic range of a scene. For that reason most of the time I shoot 5 exposures or more. Before using Magic Lantern what I did was to change the exposures manually in camera. The problem with that approach was that touching the camera introduced the chance of moving it slightly what could result in misaligned results. Moreover, it took much longer (as it was: adjust settings, press shutter, adjust settings... process) so it was basically good only for fairly static scenes as otherwise a lot of ghosting occurred.

But with Magic Lantern things are so much easier. I can simply set number of photos I want and the spacing between them and I'm done. Here are the steps:

Magic Lantern main menu

1. Change your exposure mode to Manual.
2. Open Magic Lantern menu and head over to the Shoot submenu using dial (it's 4 icon from the left in the image above).
3. At the top of this submenu you will notice HDR Bracketing option. It's off by default. To toggle it, just press SET button.
4. It will now use your previous settings. If you haven't set ones, or would like to change them press the FUNC button over it - it will open HDR Bracketing preferences.
5. From there you can adjust all the settings, with following being most useful (take a look at the image below for reference):

1. Frames - number of exposures you would like to take. By default you can take any number from 2 - 9. There is even an Autodetect option which evaluates the scene and takes required number of shots. No need to guess!
2. EV increment - EV spacing, values from 0 EV to 5 EV are possible. However, it's good to keep it in the range 1 EV - 2 EV. If you choose anything larger than that you will have not smooth color gradations as described here. If you choose value smaller than 1 EV you will need much more photos to cover the same dynamic range and also the benefit in terms of quality might be impossible to notice.
3. Sequence - you can also adjust sequence in which photos are taken. In this case the choice is fairly limited and I usually keep it at default.

What's more if you need further info on any of the settings just press INFO button on your Canon - quite a lot of useful information will be displayed.

When you want to take a photo just press shutter release button and all the magic will happen :)

Jetty in infrared

Today I decided to upload photo from Masuria. Infrared photo from Masuria to be exact. Sorry for not writing more but I'm really busy in the recent days.

EXIF data:
Camera: Canon 50D
Lens: Canon 10-22 f/3.5-4.5 USM
Focal length: 10
Aperture: f/9.0
Exposure time: 30 s
ISO: 640
Number of exposures: 1
E.V. Step: n/a
Flash used: no
Tripod: yes
Filters: Hoya IR R72
Software: Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop CS5

Hut by the lake

Today a photo from Masuria (there are still more than 5000 photos from Fuerteventura waiting to be processed but I don't have time recently) taken in summer last year. I really like the warm summer light here.

EXIF data:
Camera: Canon 50D
Lens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USM
Focal length: 47 mm
Aperture: f/9.1
Exposure time: 1/64 s
ISO: 100
Number of exposures: 5
E.V. Step: 2 EV
Flash used: no
Tripod used: yes
Filters used: no
Software: Magic Lantern, Photomatix Pro 4.2, Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop CS5

Tip: using HDR doesn't mean you can't use filters

Many photographers doing HDR photography don't use any filters on their lenses (apart maybe from UV filter used as a protection). However, it's a big mistake in my opinion. Why? As I said before, HDR is about light and detail not colour. So basically whatever you can do to enhance colour is good. When shooting landscapes I almost always have circular polarizing filter with me. It helps me in making the colours more saturated and rich and also removes unwanted reflections - not only from water but from objects in the scene. You might consider warming or cooling filters if you like them (I'm not great fan of them I must admit).

Moreover, despite the fact the HDR is about light it doesn't mean that you can't influence exposure to slow down time. HDR just makes sure everything is properly exposed: from the darkest shadows to the brightest highlights - it doesn't care whether shutter speed is fast or slow. Feel free to use neutral (and colour) density filters to create smooth water or even use gradual density filter - the last one might sound weird but I found out that using it with HDR creates slightly different and more dramatic mood. What you can even do is using Infrared filter for HDR photography. Note however that you might end up with very long exposures with the last one.

What I'm trying to say here is that HDR isn't something special and you should treat it differently. Do you use filters normally? Then use them with HDR as well. You don't use them? Then give them a try because often the results are superior to what is possible to achieve in Photoshop :)

Ok, a few words about a photo from this blog post now. I took it near El Cotillo. Although the town didn't impress me as you could have read on my profiles on Facebook or Google+, the surroundings are stunning, from beautiful beaches, cliffs, to a wonderful desert with some mountains in the back. And yes, I did use circular polarizing filter here. Otherwise, even with HDR, the colours would be slightly different.

EXIF data:
Camera: Canon 5D MK II
Lens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USM
Focal length: 28 mm
Aperture: f/7.1
Exposure time: 1/500 s ("middle" exposure)
ISO: 400
Number of exposures: 3
E.V. Step: 2 E.V.
Flash used: no
Tripod used: no
Filters used: circular polarizing filter
Software: Magic Lantern, Photomatix Pro 4.2.4, Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop CS5

Desert or beach?

Corralejo beach on Fuerteventura island is not a desert strictly speaking (it's beach as the name implies). However, as it is just about 100 km away from the shores of Africa it was possible for the wind to "pick" some of the sand from Sahara desert and drop it on Fuerteventura. As the winds are generally the same as on Sahara desert, Corralejo beach really reminds a desert with its beautiful sand and high dunes. It is why it is now a national park.

EXIF data:
Camera: Canon 5D MK II
Lens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USM
Focal length: 55 mm
Aperture: f/8.0
Exposure time: 1/200 s ("middle" exposure)
ISO: 100
Number of exposures: 7
E.V. Step: 1.5 E.V.
Flash used: no
Tripod used: yes
Filters used: no
Software: Magic Lantern, Photomatix Pro 4.2.4, Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop CS5

Sunset over desert

Here is another sunset photo from Fuerteventura island. To be precise I took it a few minutes after sunset. The sky had some beautiful colours ranging from reds and oranges just above horizon through purples to blues high in the sky. Unfortunately the clouds didn't want to cooperate and their colour is quite boring compared to the sky... but still quite a nice image.

EXIF data:
Camera: Canon 5D MK II
Lens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USM
Focal length: 32 mm
Aperture: f/8.0
Exposure time: 1.3 s ("middle" exposure)
ISO: 100
Number of exposures: 5
E.V. Step: 1.5 E.V.
Flash used: no
Tripod used: yes
Filters used: no
Software: Magic Lantern, Photomatix Pro 4.2.4, Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop CS5

One more night shot

Ok, one more astrophoto. From tomorrow I should be back to uploading some HDR stuff and some tutorials as well. In this shot I used slightly different exposure settings to the rest of my recent astrophotos. Instead of ISO 800 + 10 s combination I used ISO 100 + 30 s combo. This resulted in a slightly lower noise (although there is some due to long exposure of course). I'm really happy with the composition and colours.

If you're interested in how I achieved such an effect read my tutorial about taking photos of the starry skies (part 3 should be ready next week). There are much more tutorials in the Tutorials section of this blog.

EXIF data:
Camera: Canon 5D MK II
Lens: Canon 24 f/1.4 L USM II
Focal length: 24 mm
Aperture: f/1.4
Exposure time: 30 s
ISO: 100
Number of exposures: 1
E.V. Step: n/a
Flash used: no
Tripod used: yes
Filters used: no
Software: Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop CS5

Traces of aliens?

Ok, one more astrophoto. There are a few more left on my disk so I hope you won't get bored with them. Some HDRs will be uploaded soon so stay tuned.

In this case I used focus stacking to create bigger depth of field. For details you can read my tutorial about this (or other tutorials in the Tutorials section). Otherwise with aperture of f/1.4 I would have either foreground or background completely blurry. I still regret not taking more photos (I took 3 as far as I remember) because the hut could be a little sharper.

EXIF data:
Camera: Canon 5D MK II
Lens: Canon 24 f/1.4 L USM II
Focal length: 24 mm
Aperture: f/1.4
Exposure time: 10 s
ISO: 800
Number of exposures: 1
E.V. Step: n/a
Flash used: no
Tripod used: yes
Filters used: no
Software: Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop CS5

Milky Way over Corralejo beach

I really love shooting stars and here is one more photo of them. If you're interested in how I achieved such an effect read my tutorial about taking photos of the starry skies (part 3 soon!). There are much more tutorials in the Tutorials section of this blog.

EXIF data:
Camera: Canon 5D MK II
Lens: Canon 24 f/1.4 L USM II
Focal length: 24 mm
Aperture: f/1.4
Exposure time: 10 s
ISO: 800
Number of exposures: 1
E.V. Step: n/a
Flash used: no
Tripod used: yes
Filters used: no
Software: Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop CS5

Sunrise long exposure

It's yet another long exposure photo I took on Fuerteventura island. Honestly speaking, I have a problem with it - I like colours and the look of water but I find composition quite poor or boring. So why did I decide to upload it? After putting it on Facebook quite a few people liked it so maybe I cannot assess my work properly?

If you're interested how to achieve such a look of water you can give my tutorial about it a try. Also make sure to check other tutorials as well.

EXIF data:
Camera: Canon 5D MK II
Lens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USM
Focal length: 100 mm
Aperture: f/22.0
Exposure time: 60 s
ISO: 100
Number of exposures: 1
E.V. Step: n/a
Flash used: no
Tripod used: yes
Filters used: ND400 neutral density filter
Software: Magic Lantern, Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop CS5

New tutorials section

Recently I realized that I wrote quite a few tutorials up to date (more than 30!). Searching them on the blog wasn't very intuitive nor easy as it required using tags cloud (and it seems to be partially broken under some browsers :( ). So what I did today was to add new Tutorials section to this blog. If you want to read any of my tutorials you can just click on the link or on the button at the top of this page. At the moment Tutorials section isn't ideal and I plan to work on its look and readability in the following days but I think it's a good starting point.

I also upload another photo from Fuerteventura island today. It's very simple (too simple for me in fact) but I like one thing about it - colours :)