Thoughts: What HDR can give you?

For many HDR is artificial, surreal about what I wrote in a I don't like HDR post. Today I would like to focus on something different. I would like to share some thoughts what HDR can give you, what skills it can teach you and how it can help you in becoming a better photographer. I started HDR photography pretty soon after picking photography and it is what motivated me to learn more and more (and is still motivating me in fact):Thinking...

Eduardo VII Park

For me golden hour is favorite time of day. Warm light, long shadows - all that makes beautiful landscape or cityscape photos.HDR photo above was taken during that hour in Eduardo VII Park. The park was named after British king Edward VII who visited the city of Lisbon in year 1903 to reaffirm the Anglo-Portuguese alliance. Frankly speaking I didn't like the park very much (especially as I was tired after travelling all day...

Step-by-step HDR. Episode 2. Blue hour HDR

So it's time for another part of my video series about processing HDR photos. If you haven't watched Part 1 - here it is. This time I will show how to merge, tone-map and process 5 exposures taken at 1.5 EV spacing taken during blue hour. For more details on my workflow, read my comprehensive HDR tutorial.My plan is to release new episode every 2 - 3 weeks but if you will find it useful, I can do it more frequently. What you...

Colourful splash

Today I would like to share yet another macro splash photo. I used some yellow background to create this golden reflection. I think it looks fairly nice :)EXIF data:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 100 f/2.8 L IS USM MacroFocal length: 100 mmAperture: f/14.0Exposure time: 1/200ISO: 100Number of exposures: 1E.V. Step: n/aFlash used: yes, 580 EX IITripod used: yesFilters used: noSoftware: Magic Lantern 2.3, Lightroom 4.2, Photoshop...

Water splash and updated tutorials section

I planned this for quite a time but could never find enough time to do that: I slightly modified look of the Photography tutorials section. Now each of the tutorials apart from name, difficulty level and description has its own thumbnail which shows the effect that will be created in the tutorial. This should make finding interesting article a bit easier and quicker. There are a few tutorials that don't have their own thumbnail...

Cat portrait

I really like shooting photos of animals (one of my favourite photos from last year is a photo of jaguar) with one of my dream being going on a safari. It's something different. You get what animal want to give you and nothing more. Will it play, sit still, look into the lens... it's totally up to it. You can try influencing its behaviour but it won't always help much :) With landscapes I also get what nature wants me to give...

Tutorial: fixing distortion in photos. Part 1. Perspective crop

Unless you own a tilt-shift lens (or a large format camera) from time to time you will face a problem of distortion. Lines that in reality should appear as straight seem to bend as they go upwards.Look at the photo I took in the La Oliva town on Fuerteventura island to see an example of what I'm talking about: There are a few ways to minimize this effect:shoot with narrower angle. Using wide-angle lens, and especially ultra wide-angle...

Integration with Facebook and bubbles made big

First things first. Today I added integration with Facebook. It means you can now comment using your Facebook account (no more need for Google/Wordpress). Normally you should be also able to respond to other people's comments directly on FB but I'm still testing it (i.e. I don't know if it works ;) ). So it means there are temporarily two comment boxes under the post. Looks weird? I agree. I will decide what to do with that after...

The Hieronymites Monastery (Mosteiro dos Jerónimos)

I published similar photo some time ago. I took it in the Hieronymites Monastery (Mosteiro dos Jerónimos) in Lisbon. Although I prefer monochrome version, I think this one is still nice.EXIF data:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 24 mmAperture: f/4.5Exposure time: 1/100 s ("middle" exposure)ISO: 800Number of exposures: 3E.V. Step: 2 E.V.Flash used: noTripod used: noFilters used: noSoftware: Magic...

Free Topaz Adjust presets

Presets are a very important part of my workflow. In each program I use I have a rich collection of my own settings. No matter it's Photomatix Pro, Lightroom or Photoshop. Using presets has a few advantages for me: I can work much faster (I usually just make small adjustments to them) and also my photos have more consistent look.So after sharing presets for Photomatix and Lightroom 4 a number of times it's now time to share some...

Thoughts: There is no HDR photography...

Back in November 2012 I wrote a post titled I don't like HDR in which I focused on the fact that so many photographers and viewers don't like HDR photos just because they are... HDR photos. No matter how they look and how much effort was put to make them look this way, the pure fact is enough to reject them as good quality art. Well, of course I disagreed but I have some further thoughts on that.People using HDR workflow are...

HDR One - fantastic free HDR magazine

Today I would like to share with you a link and a few thoughts about HDR One magazine. Many of us, HDR photographers, do share their knowledge in a number of places - our blogs, Facebook/Google+ accounts or simply when talking/chatting with fellow photographers. HDR One is about that - about sharing knowledge. However, it is different from photography blogs. Not one but many HDR photographers write there. From very well known...

Pink layered sunrise

Sunrises and sunsets are the best times of day for landscape photographers. You can get a very rich palette of colours in the sky - yellows, oranges, reds, pinks.What I like about above image are those colours. Very rich, very intensive. But there is one more thing - layers - you can clearly see a few of them in the image - sky, 2 islands, water, rocks, foam and again rocks. It makes composition quite interesting in my opinion.EXIF...

Isn't Milky Way beautiful?

Isn't Milky Way beautiful? Full of galaxies, stars and planets. Billions of billions of them (or maybe even more? who knows if we're right in our estimations). All far far away... that always amazes me.Also I just got 2x teleconverter (from Kenko as Canon's is more limiting...) so I plan to test it and write a short review in the days to follow.EXIF data:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24 f/1.4 L USM IIFocal length: 24 mmAperture:...

Before/after comparison: Just before sunrise

Sometimes HDR is just inevitable. One of such examples is above. Without HDR I could either expose for foreground or background. But it was impossible to have both properly exposed. I did the first and it resulted in sky and parts of water surface being completely blown out. Even gradual density filter which I tried didn't produce effect I wanted. HDR helped a lot. Before is a 0 EV photo and after tone-mapped one which was fine-tuned...

Is Magic Lantern safe?

Since I first mentioned Magic Lantern, I receive quite a lot of questions whether it is really safe. I'm using it for more than a year now (almost 1.5 I think) on both my bodies: 50D and 5D MK II. In previous version I had some small issues. Restarting a camera was all that was needed to "fix" them though. With latest release, that is 2.3, I haven't run into any problems so far. It runs perfectly for me and is invaluable addition...

New feature: Step-by-step HDR. Episode 1

So I promised a completely new feature this week on my blog. And here it is! In a series of videos I'll show you how I usually process my HDR photos step-by-step (think of it as of a case study or something like this). Today something very simple, only 3 exposures, hand-held and some simple edits in Photoshop (no masking) using Topaz plugin. It isn't meant for advanced users, rather beginners in HDR photography. I want to show...

New HD HDR wallpaper

Time for a new wallpaper - just head to the Wallpapers section and download the image above I took during one beautiful sunrise on Fuerteventura island. I used ND8 filter to smooth the water a little bit.Expect more downloads later this week (presets, presets :) does it ring a bell? ) and some new HDR-related feature around middle of this week. I hope that beginners will love it.EXIF data:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105...

100k pageviews!

I didn't expect it to happen so early in the year (a few months ago I thought it would happen around March) but today a total number of pageviews to this blog exceeded 100.000. Given that most of them were in the last 4 months it's a pretty nice achievement for me. It means that more and more people like my HDR photos and tutorials. I took this photo in St. George's Castle (Castelo de São Jorge) in Lisbon. I really liked this...

Symbol of Warsaw

Palace of Culture and Science is the one of the symbols of Warsaw and at the same time the highest building in the city. Loved by some, hated by others was built by the workers from the Soviet Union in early '50s of 20th century. Why so many people hate it today? Given Polish history it shouldn't be really surprising (communism introduced by the Soviets after World War II lasted till 1989...).I hoped to write some HDR tips/tutorial...

Starry sky again

I haven't uploaded any photo of a starry sky recently but still a few remain on my hard drive. Here is one of them. I really like amount of detail as well as the colours in this shot. Sorry for not writing anything more this time but I'm short of time today. I hope to write something more (and maybe post some useful tips about HDR photography) tomorrow.EXIF data:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24 f/1.4 L USM IIFocal length:...

Before/after comparison: Warsaw at blue hour

My blog is undergoing some heavy changes recently. After updating HDR tutorial, changing layout I'm now adding some cool gadgets. One of them you can see above. It's a before/after comparison of a photo. Just drag the handle in the middle to see either 0 EV photo (before) or tone-mapped HDR photo (after). It's a lot more convenient than hovering an image because this way you can see both images side by side what makes comparison...

Major changes to the blog

As you probably noticed my blog changed a "little bit". I hope you like it but I would be glad for any feedback. Not everything works at the moment but it's just a matter of a day or two.EXIF data:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 24 mmAperture: f/18.0Exposure time: 10 s ("middle" exposure)ISO: 100Number of exposures: 7E.V. Step: 1 EVFlash used: noTripod used: yesFilters used: noSoftware: Magic...

New HDR tutorial!

So two pieces of news today. First of all after many months I updated my HDR tutorial! You can read it in the HDR tutorial section. I added a lot of additional information and hints and also updated a lot of stuff (not only text but also example photos so it looks more fresh even for people who read it before). More updates are to follow in the next few weeks.Second piece of news is that yesterday I officially became HDR One's...

Being published matters :)

Having your photos used/published/exhibited/sold is always nice when you're an amateur. It doesn't happen very often in my case so I'm always excited when it does. For that reason, today instead of a new photo I publish an excerpt from Gallop, which is a Polish horse riding magazine (of the biggest), featuring one of my photos (one at the bottom of the page) :) In fact two of my photos were used in that very issu...

Warsaw at blue hour

I promised new photo yesterday and here it is. I took it from the highest point in Warsaw - from viewing terrace of Palace of Culture and Science. It was pretty difficult to take a shot from there because there is a safety grid there. Fortunately enough, eyes in it were pretty big, enough to put my lens through one of them. Positioning a tripod was another challenge so I ended up with one of its legs being outside... but the...

Park in Milan

As I have still no new photos to post, here is an old photo I took in Milan. I plan to capture some new photos today so hopefully I will have something new to upload tomorrow :)...

Longing for winter

Well, yes, I'm sort of longing for winter. I mean, it's there but without snow and ice... so is it really winter? The reason I like this season is that it creates some amazing opportunities for landscape photographers with warm light reflecting in cold surfaces like ice or with some very nice haze in the morning that creates some amazing moo...

Sleeping king

I took this photo last year in Lisbon but haven't published it yet. It is a tomb of a Portuguese knight or king that can be found in the Carmo convent. I really liked details and textures in that scene and decided to go with a slightly desaturated look to enhance them.EXIF data:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 35 mmAperture: f/8.0Exposure time: 1/60 sISO: 1000Number of exposures: 1E.V. Step:...

Tutorial: removing halo artifacts in a HDR photo

This is quite a simple shot but I like how this one tree stands out from the crowd.Halo artifacts. One of the nightmares in HDR photography. They appear between regions of different luminosity and virtually ruin any photo. You might have great composition, light and colours but if you have halos in your photo - it won't be considered good - rather poorly executed.There are many ways of dealing with them and here are just a few:In...

Frozen splash and New Year's resolutions

Another action shot today. This guy was making a turn when I captured this photo - I wanted to freeze both motion and splash and I think I managed to. Also the amount of detail is quite nice.I have some ambitious plans for this year. Apart from improving my skills in HDR field and travel photography (I have a few travels already planned for this year) I want to step out of my comfort zones again. Last year it paid off - I captured...