Tutorial: Winter & mountains HDR photography

Photographing in winter is one of the most challenging things to do in landscape photography. Not only are the conditions difficult (freezing, snowing or foggy) but also cameras don’t always work well under these circumstances (underexposing photos, problems with AF, batteries drain faster). Photographing winter in the mountains is even more challenging because trekking becomes more tiring and also it might be risky at...

Inspiring Photographers: Michael Woloszynowicz

The easiest and most effective way to learn photography is to learn from the best photographers. They inspire and affect our own work. By looking at their photos you can learn more than from a few tutorials or books. I would therefore like to introduce you to the new series of posts in which I will share details and photos from photographers who inspire me in my photography adventures. Hopefully they will inspire you as well....

B&W HDR from Timanfaya National Park

I love B&W HDR photos. I mentioned that a few times already. Here is another one taken in Timanfaya National park on Lanzarote Island (Canary Islands). I really like how the mountain (which is a volcano in fact) is detailed in this shot.Technical details:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 70 mmAperture: f/8.0Exposure time: 1/400 s ("middle" exposure)ISO: 100Number of exposures: 3E.V. Step:...

Orange vs Blue

I really like using orange and blue complementary colors in my images. It's one of the easiest ways to make the image pop (because complementary colors are especially pleasing to our eyes). You just capture some orange subject against the blue sky and voila - you get great photo :) .Together with symmetry in the image above it works pretty well and results in a quite interesting and pleasing image. Also I wanted the gates of...

Old Town in Madrid

The weather in this case wasn't good so this resulted in somewhat grey and dull look of this image. What I like about this photo, however, is amount of details and its clarity.Technical details:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 24 mmAperture: f/8.0Exposure time: 1/800 s ("middle" exposure)ISO: 800Number of exposures: 3E.V. Step: 2Flash used: noTripod: noFilters: noSoftware: Magic Lantern 2.3,...

Canon 24 f/1.4 L USM II Review

Canon 5D MK II | 1/160 s | f/1.4 | ISO 200For a few months now I'm a lucky owner of a Canon 24 f/1.4 L II lens. It's the fastest prime lens I own and use it for many of my landscape shots and almost for all night landscape shots (including both HDRs and astrophotos).First some technical specs: Aperturesf/1.4 - f/22Field of view84 degreeMinimum focusing distance25 cmFilter thread77 mmDimensions9.35 cm × 8.69 cmWeight650 gNumber...

Royal Palace in Madrid in the morning

I took this HDR photo of a Royal Palace in Madrid in the morning. There were plenty of puddles after all night rain so I decided to use one of them to reflect the building in it.Technical details:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 28 mmAperture: f/16.0Exposure time: 1/160 s ("middle" exposure)ISO: 400Number of exposures: 3E.V. Step: 2Flash used: noTripod: noFilters: noSoftware: Magic Lantern 2.3,...

Soft evening light

I took this image sort of by accident (or with a lot of luck hard to tell!) because it was the last image I managed to capture during that particular golden hour. During the last exposure (5th one - +2EV) of my bracketed sequence there was no more warm light on the buildings. This very beautiful light was gone. It was all grey and boring.Even though I captured as many as 5 exposures I eventually decided to use only 2 of...

Neo-romanesque crypt in Madrid - another HDR photo

Today another HDR photo showing Neo-romanesque crypt in Madrid. I shared one photo of this crypt already but I think I like this one a bit more.BTW today I introduce a new addition to the Technical Details section of my posts (previously known as EXIF Data). Last field, named Photomatix Pro settings is a preset I used to create an image. Import it or load it in Photomatix to get similar look to the one above. Of course the presets...

Case study: sunset in Tatra mountains

More and more people keep me asking how did I process my particular photos. As it's rather difficult to describe in text as this process often involves many steps, many layers masks (in some cases a few dozens!), various blending modes etc. I decided to start new series of short video tutorials in which I will show you some details about my post-processing.In the first part of this new series I'm showing post-processing of above...

New milestone: 200k pageviews!

Yesterday evening my blog reached another milestone - a total number of 200.000 page views! Well, that's really great, especially as back in November 2012 I thought that around April 2013 it would be something around 100k. I would therefore like to thank everyone who visits this site, who finds it interesting, who likes my photos, who downloaded my Photomatix and Lightroom presets. Thank you!!! I also hope that during your visits...

Being happy with your own photos

Believe me or not for a very long time I was unhappy with my photos. I found all of them, but just a few, of very poor quality - both technically and regarding post-processing. However, this changed in the last 3 - 5 months although I'm not completely sure why. I'm now both happy and quite satisfied with photos I manage to make. And you know what? It's a great feeling. I'm now confident with my skills as a photographer. I'm also...

Photomatix Pro presets for night scenes

Night scenes are beautiful but at the same time quite challenging for photographers - exposures are long, images have more noise than in daylight, it's often cold. Although I can't make taking photos any easier for you I can at least help you in processing them. So today I'm sharing 7 presets for Photomatix Pro to process night scenes! I used these presets in many of my night photos (including above) like this or this so I hope...

Frozen lake

It's spring finally here in Warsaw. So today I upload a photo from winter taken during morning blue hour :) EXIF data:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 24 mmAperture: f/8.0Exposure time: 1/15 s ("middle" exposure)ISO: 100Number of exposures: 7E.V. Step: 1Flash used: noTripod: yesFilters: noSoftware: Magic Lantern 2.3, Photomatix Pro 4.2.6, Lightroom 4.2, Photoshop C...

Lightroom 5 beta - evolution not revolution

I took this photo almost 2 years ago in the Old Town of Warsaw, Poland during sunset. There is quite a mess in the frame but what I like in this image is very soft light, resulting in very calm and tranquil atmosphere.With previous versions of Lightroom introducing so many new cool features (eg. version 4.0 reinvented most of the sliders, added Book module; 4.1 introduced tone-mapping as well as improved controls for chromatic...

Being published matters

Yes, being published matters for photographers. However, there is even one thing which I prefer to have my photos published - my articles published or translated to other languages :) it happens from time to time. Just today my recent article about Golden and Blue hours was translated to Italian. Why I think it's so cool? Because I spend great amount of time writing tutorials, tips and articles about photography. If someone considers...

Before/after comparison: Temple of Debod in HDR

Debod Temple (aka Temple of Debod) in Madrid is the oldest piece of architecture in the city and probably one of the oldest in whole Spain. However, it comes from... Egypt. It was built in southern Egypt (about 15 km from Aswan) around 2nd century BC.The temple was given to Spain by government of Egypt as a sign of gratitude for its efforts to save rich historical legacy (by this I mean taking part in archaeological works)...

Night HDR photo of the Cathedral in Madrid

It was late evening when I was taking this photo. However, hundreds of other people were there, most of them taking photos too. I was the only one to use tripod, however, what resulted in people giving me strange looks :) from the faces of guys with DSLRs it seemed they were either jealous or at least regretted not taking a tripod with them :)It was impossible to get rid of the people entirely from the frame so instead of fighting...

Calm sea in the morning

Recently I uploaded quite a few photos from Madrid. To keep you interested, a small change of subject today. It's a long exposure (60 seconds) photo I took in the morning on Fuerteventura island. I wanted to create silky smooth water and I managed to. If you're interested in creating such an effect yourself, read my tutorial about it.EXIF data:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 40 mmAperture: f/8.0Exposure...

Catedral de la Almudena

As I showed recently I really like using puddles for creating reflections. Here is another example showing Cathedral de la Almudena in Madrid. In this case I wanted to create nice symmetry. As the cathedral was symmetrical around vertical axis itself I wanted to give one more dimension of symmetry around horizontal axis (this way the image should be also symmetrical by both diagonal axes) by using reflection. Of course the crane...

Tutorial: Golden and blue hour explained

Quite often I receive questions about two terms closely related to photography which I use commonly on my blog as well as on my Facebook profile. They are:golden hour,blue hour.So in this short post I will try to explain both terms as if you're serious about landscape, architecture or portrait photography it is very important you know them.Golden hour, often referred to as magic hour, is the first and the last hour of sunlight...

Royal Palace in Madrid or 1 in a 1000

Today a photo of Royal Palace in Madrid. Unfortunately it's not allowed to take photos inside it (and really it would make for some amazing images as the palace is absolutely beautiful!). I shared this photo in a few places already but I didn't post any story with it so far. And I would like to give an example of something via this photo.When I approached Royal Palace during early sunset I knew it will make for a perfect location...

Reflection in a puddle - Torres Colon

Reflections are a great way to make composition (and whole image) more interesting. You can use them to add symmetry to your image for instance. Sometimes you can make them look like a portal to another parallel reality.In case of this photo of Torres Colon in Plaze de Colon in Madrid I found this puddle in the shadow of a tree and decided to fill it with reflection of the Torres Colon skyscraper built in the 1970's. Thanks to...

The best light I've ever seen

Debod Temple in Madrid. I researched that site one morning during my stay and since then knew that it's a perfect location to shoot sunsets. However, as it was raining most of the time I started to loose hope there will be any good sunset. But I was lucky to capture above image. I think this is the most amazing light I've ever seen. When I was leaving a hotel room it was raining and it didn't seem there will really be sunset...

Neo-Romanesque crypt in Madrid

HDR really shines when used for church photos. Lighting conditions inside them are one of the most extreme that can be found resulting in extreme dynamic range. It's usually dark (or very dark) but at the same time there are some very bright spots like lamps, candles or windows. Besides, old churches have some amazing textures and detail which after enhancing by tone mapper look much better.However, I'm not a really big fan of...

Arco de la Victoria

There are quite a few triumphal arches in Madrid. Some are in fact remains of old city gates (like the one in the Alcala street). Above, however, was never a gate. Known as a Victory Arch (Arco de la Victoria) was built by general Franco in 1956 (looks much older by the way) as a tribute to his army who defeated the republicans during the Spanish civil war in the late 30'sBTW in the back you can see...

Easter Processions in Madrid

I spent a wonderful week (which was Holy Week) in Madrid, Spain. Although the weather was rather bad most of the time (rain, heavy rain or at least fully overcast sky) what means that I didn't have many opportunities to take nice photos I really enjoyed my stay there. I loved so much about this city, from its atmosphere, fantastic food, interesting history and architecture to Easter celebrations. What really amazed me were martyrs processions. Gloomy and hooded figures walking through the streets of the city (mainly...