New tutorial videos from Trey Ratcliff

I just noticed today, that Trey Ratcliff released new tutorial videos, focusing this time on the use of Lightroom. Even if I don’t really agree with the recent direction of Treys post-processing (he relies too much on filters and presets), Trey has always been a big inspiration for me, and also a big influence on my HDR beginnings. So the new videos are on my to watch list, and once I get to them, I will write up a short review, of what I think about them. For now, you can find more about the videos here.

Sunset at the lighthouse

I usually don’t remove bigger things from my photos, but in this case, there was a ship right next to the lighthouse, which really bothered me. And since this was a long exposure, it was just a blurry mess. So a lot of clone stamping, and it was gone :)

This is a HDR from 5 exposures, created in Oloneo Photoengine, finished in Photoshop. I used a 10-stop ND filter for this photo.

I’m still so tired after yesterday. I have been taking photos at the Vienna Latin Gala, and as that was until late at night, and my first train to Bratislava was in the early morning, I decided to go to the city to catch the morning blue hour. For a moment I thought also of waiting for the sunrise, but after the disappointment the sunset was, I rather went home. And without any clouds, the sunset was boring anyway :)

But as I went to bed at 7.30am, I’m still quite tired, even if I slept already twice today. I’m probably no longer so young that I an be up the whole night. Somehow I remember this was never a problem when I went to the university :)

I also had the pleasure meeting and doing a little sunset shooting with Cosmin Stoleac, who is a photographer in Vienna, an you can check out his photos on his Facebook profile here.

So this is one of the photos I took in the morning. It’s of the St. Stephens Cathedral there. I wanted a photo of it for a longer time, but during the day and in the evening the area is just always full of people. It was much better in the morning, but still few people passed through the shot. I can’t really say I understand the lights they have there. I don’t think they add anything interesting what a beautiful architecture without them.

This is a HDR created from 5 exposures, in Oloneo Photoengine, finished in Photoshop.

This was not exactly the composition I wanted, but I just didn’t wanted any people in the shot. And for the few minutes during the sunset, when there were no people near the lighthouse, I just took the best shot I could. But still I had to remove one ship from the photo, I just didn’t like it there. Still, the sunset was nice and the whole trip to this spot was a success :)

Right now at this moment, I should be shooting a sunset in Vienna somewhere, so if all goes well, I hope I will have for you a nice new photo tomorrow :)

This is a HDR from 5 exposures, created in Oloneo Photoengine, finished in Photoshop. I used a 10 stop ND filter while taking this photo.

What lens to take?

Last week I was going to out for a short trip and as I was going with friends, I haven’t planed to take many photos. But as I also knew that I will be at some nice places, I took my camera with me. But than I got to a dilemma, which lens to take. I normally use three lenses, the 16-35, the 24-70 and the 70-200. The 70-200 was of course immediately out, as it a more specific purpose lens. But which one from the other two to take. The 24-70 is a better all around lens, but the 16-35 is much better if I’m in a city and also for interiors. But the 16-35 can be horrible for shots with people (the distortion is really visible if you stand too close)

So in the end I chosen the 16-35, and took most people shots with my phone (Nokia Lumia 1520, it has a really nice camera :)), but I wonder what would you take, or better said, which lens do you take when you only take one with you?

And I included here a shot from the Lumia 1520, just to show how it looks :) I’m actually very pleasantly surprised with the quality of the photos from it.

A lovely blue hour

And how about another photo from my recent photo-shoot at the Neusidler see. This one is taken a little later than the previous one, already during the blue hour. Actually during the whole sunset, there was a ship docket right next to lighthouse, completely in a way of a nice shot. But at least they left right after the sunset, and I got few shots without it :)

This is a HDR from 5 exposures, created in Oloneo Photoengine, finished in Photoshop.

Raffle winners

And the winners of the raffle are: Marko and Thomas Zlabiroth. Congratulations, and you both will be receiving and email from me later today with your discount codes. (The emails have been already send, so if you haven’t received them yet, please check you spam folder and if still nothing, contact me under miroslav.petrasko@hdrshooter.com)

For all those who din’t won, and still would like the tutorials, for the next week you can use the code “TWENTYOFF” to get a 20% discount on the Master exposure blending videos.

Sunset at the Neusiedlersee

Yesterday I spend the sunset at the lighthouse at the Neusidlersee in Austrial, and again I had quite luck for a nice sunset there. Compared to the last time I was there, there were just much more people this time. But that’s probably normal, as last time it was in a late October. Still in between the people walking up and down the pear, I managed to get some nice shots of the sunset and the lighthouse. Just the boat docked right next to the lighthouse was so in the way. Will have to do a lot of retouching on some of the shots :)

I’m including a behind the scenes shots today, just for fun of it :)

This is a HDR from 5 exposures, created in Oloneo Photoengine, finished in Photoshop. I used a 10 stop ND filter, to get the smooth water.