20k pageviews and last post this year

Yesterday my blog reached yet another milestone - 20.000 pageviews in a single month! For me it's a great achievement because at the beginning of this year my blog had only around 200 - 300 pageviews monthly so now it's 100 times more. I hope to have 200.000 pageviews per month at the end of next year :) that would be nice (but would be hard to achieve as well but I hope you will help ;) )You can view my summary of this year...

Tutorial: MagicLantern + Lightroom + Photomatix + Topaz = Perfect HDR Workflow

I prefer not to repost images but end of year is a great occasion to look back. I took this image in 2011 in Rome and it's still amongst my favourite photos.Back in April 2012 I posted details on my HDR workflow. However, I always try to make my workflow better and more effective. My seek to improve it resulted in quite a lot of changes in recent weeks and months, mainly addition of two new tools: MagicLantern and Topaz filters...

On the walls

I took this photo in February 2012 in Sintra, Portugal and it shows ruins of the Moorish Castle. I regret taking only 3 exposures but unfortunately there was no way of taking more. I needed to shoot hand-held because there was no place on the walls of this enormous castle to set up tripod.EXIF data:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 24 mmAperture: f/9.0Exposure time: 1/320 s ("middle" exposure)ISO:...

Tutorial: creating star bursts in camera

You have probably seen a number of photos with all light sources looking like tiny stars (also referred to as star bursts). If you haven't, take a look at the photo above to see what I mean. All point lights look like stars. This effect is especially effective in the night photos taken in the city as it makes such photos much more interesting.You can create such an effect easily in post-processing but in fact it's possible and...

My Top 5 this year

With year 2012 getting to an end I decided to make a small summary of it. It was a very nice year for me concerning photography. I greatly improved my skills (both as a photographer and retoucher), I became Shutterstock contributor, some of my photos were exhibited and also a few were used in a magazine. That's all great and I hope the next year will bring even more interesting things. But the most important thing is I took a...

Christmas Tree

Christmas are almost over but the Christmas atmosphere is still there.EXIF data:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 24 mmAperture: f/14.0Exposure time: 1.0 s ("middle" exposure)ISO: 400Number of exposures: 7E.V. Step: 1 E.V.Flash used: noTripod used: yesFilters used: noSoftware: Photomatix Pro 4.2.5, Magic Lantern, Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop C...

Colorful lights

Warsaw Old Town looks beautifully now with a lot of colourful lights and beautiful reflections in the wet pavement. Here is another photo from there.As you probably know I'm a great fan of Photomatix Pro's Details Enhancer algorithm. However, recently I started to use Fusion/Natural it offers quite a lot. For instance I used it to process the image above. Why? It produces very natural looking images and noise isn't a amplified....

Glowing lamps

Another Christmas themed photo from Warsaw.Also make sure to view my free eBook full of travel photos from 2012.EXIF data:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 24 mmAperture: f/13.0Exposure time: 2.5 s ("middle" exposure)ISO: 200Number of exposures: 7E.V. Step: 1 E.V.Flash used: noTripod used: yesFilters used: noSoftware: Photomatix Pro 4.2.5, Magic Lantern, Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop C...

Merry Christmas

This will be a very short post - I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas everyon...

Mountains and 2 years with Photomatix

I remember taking my first quite nice HDR images about 2.5 years ago. I started using Photomatix by that time (I used trial earlier for some time earlier but I didn't understand HDR by the time so the results were rather poor). Later that very year (2010) I checked HDRsoft web page to see if there were any updates. There weren't updates to the software but I found out HDRsoft was recruiting. As a programmer with a few years of...

Drawing from Warsaw

When I uploaded this image for the first time on my Facebook account I didn't expect many likes nor comments because I did it mostly for fun. However, in a very short time it became one of my most popular uploads. For that reason I would like to share it with you today.To create it I used one of my recent photos from Warsaw. What I did was quite simple but I won't share all details now as I would like to write a tutorial about...

My first free photo eBook

Inspired by +Jim Nix and +Dawid Martynowski I decided to give it a try and to create my own first photo eBook. It contains the best photos I took this year. Hope you like it! I'd be grateful for any shares and comments.You can view it here or download her...

Buying books

This might be one of the best of my photos ever taken. It's just one of the few (2 or 3?) that I'm really happy about and really satisfied with the result. I wouldn't change much in it. Colors, light, mood, composition - everything is quite nice. Here is the story behind the picture: I saw this man in front of that very book store and thought it would make a great photo. I set up my tripod quickly and just hoped he won't go away...

Christmas Market in B&W and new wallpaper

Just a few days ago I uploaded a photo of the Christmas market in Warsaw. You can view it here. Today I would like to share black & white version of this photo. I really like it because it makes you focus more on details and light.What's more I finally added new wallpaper to the Wallpapers section:Hope you like i...

Rush hours

Today I would like to share with you a photo showing light trails during rush hours in Warsaw.EXIF data:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 24 mmAperture: f/22.0Exposure time: 45 sISO: 100Number of exposures: 1E.V. Step: n/a Flash used: noTripod used: yesFilters used: noSoftware: Magic Lantern, Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop C...

Thoughts: I'm against watermarking photos

Yes, my photo was stolen. I know of at least one incident like that, maybe it happened a few more times (it's hard to tell really unless someone informs you of such a case). It's sad and makes me angry because someone else gets attention because of my own work. Of course my work is on Creative Commons licence (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported) but it doesn't mean it's free nor that one can put...

Christmas market in Warsaw

I love this very feeling when I take a shot and I know how it'll look after merging, tone-mapping and post-processing. I knew it will be nice when I came up with an idea of taking it and I was sure about than when I was setting my tripod and framing my shot. I just knew it. I was still very surprised by some very positive comments because some of you think this photo is great in fact.EXIF data:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon...

Blue Hour in the Old Town

After yesterday photo got some nice feedback (mainly on Facebook though), it's time for another one taken during that shoot. I took it just before blue hour... well there wasn't golden nor blue hour really as there were boring clouds all over the sky...  still I managed to get some of this blueish light into the shot and I really like how nice the lights of the Old Town look against it.As for the composition - it was the...

Christmas atmosphere in the Old Town

The Old Town (and its surroundings) of Warsaw looks really beautiful right now! So many colours, nice decorations are all over the place. And there is some nice market on the Old Town square (I'll post some photos of it soon). Also the pavements are wet so they reflect all those lights, colurful buildings and Xmas trees. It makes your eyes really really busy - you don't know what to focus on. I was like a kid running from a place...

My favourite lens is...

I took this HDR photo of a dead tree in Masuria from 5 exposures at 2 EV spacing.And the answer is: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USM. I used it for as many as 21% of my already developed photos since I started photographing with digital cameras back in 2008.I already mentioned it a few times but I will repeat it once more: it's a really great lens and very universal one too. At the time I was buying it I was also considering Canon 24-70...

Thoughts: Being an amateur means... worse?

I took this long exposure photo during sunrise on Fuerteventura island.Yes, I'm an amateur photographer and I'm happy about that. For many people being a good photographer requires being a professional. You need to behave like a pro (and talk all that buzzwords some of which I don't really understand), have the best pro equipment and so on. It makes you better in their eyes. Ok, I do use nice equipment but I'm not buying a new...

Triumphal Arch in Rome

I took this image from Colosseum in February 2011. I really like the amount of detail in i...

Some changes and focused on the toy

Today I upload a photo of my Maine Coon cat looking at her favourite toy. I love how focused her eyes seem to be on the target.I also made a few minor changes to this blog. First of all you can now Pin my photos to the Pinterest. Just click Pin it button under any post to do this. I would be more than grateful for that. I also changed layout and look of the blog a little bit with plans to enhance it further (or to change completely,...

Having photography blog makes no sense

I took this photo during sunrise. There was storm over the island in the back (Lanzarote) and it was initially heading in my direction but then the wind direction changed so I could stay and continue taking photos.Is there any sense of having a photography related blog? Well, I'm sometimes not sure about this.For me and probably for many other photographers writing a blog is one of the most important aspects of their existence...

Summer, summer, summer

I wish it was summer again. It's cold, snowy/rainy... brrr. So I upload a photo I took last year. I hope warm light in this image will make you feel better.EXIF data:Camera: Canon 50DLens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 67 mmAperture: f/18Exposure time: 1/10 s ("middle" exposure)ISO: 100Number of exposures: 5E.V. Step: n/aFlash used: noTripod used: yesFilters used: noSoftware: Photomatix Pro 4.1, Lightroom 4.1, Photoshop...

Tutorial: dealing with waves and long exposures in HDR

In this photo I used techniques described in this tutorial.If you ever photographed seascapes in HDR (especially with long exposure, for instance during sunrise or sunset) you know there is one big problem problem. Waves are a really difficult subject for HDR. Why? Because in each frame they differ significantly. This becomes even a bigger problem when photographing sunsets or sunrises because in such case you deal with long...

My first ever timelapse movie

My first ever timelapse movie. Ok, the first one I decided to upload. It's more a test than finished work but I still decided to share it. As for technical details - I used Magic Lantern 2.3's intervalometer with bulb-ramping turned on. After taking all the pictures I created a timelapse video inside Photoshop CS6.I hope to deliver something better soon (as I have a few more timelapses waiting to be processed).My opinion on timelapse? Well, it's quite an interesting technique, however, I don't think I will shoot it...

The Colosseum

Today I decided to upload a bit older image, taken in Rome in February 2011. I wanted to capture this amazing building from a bit different perspective and I think I managed t...

Tutorial: useful Photoshop shortcuts

HDR photo taken at the beginning of sunset on Fuerteventura island.More a tip than a tutorial today. I believe that using keyboard shortcuts are one of the best ways to improve efficiency when working with any computer application. I use them in every software, whether it is a programming IDE or an imaging application. Today I would like to share with you a set of my favourite and most often used Photoshop CS shortcuts.Layers...

Doing tricks

Another action shot today. This guy was doing some very nice tricks so I captured a few photos of him.For the next week I have at least one tutorial planned (and there is a chance for 2!) so stay tuned. I also have plan for some nice shots and hope you will enjoy them as well.EXIF data:Camera: Canon 50DLens: Canon 70-300 f/4-5.6 L IS USMFocal length: 300 mmAperture: f/6.3Exposure time: 1/800 sISO: 200Number of exposures: 1E.V....

Realistic presets for Photomatix Pro

It's been a while since I shared some presets for the last time so today I decided to share two Photomatix Pro presets I use almost exclusively recently and I call them realistic presets. I used them for instance when processing image above which shows one of the churches in La Oliva on Fuerteventura island. Note that these presets require further processing (either using Finishing Touch in Photomatix Pro or in Lightroom/Photoshop)...

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...

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...

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...

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...