New look for 2017

This time I went with a more open look, with bigger photos, full screen sliders and more. The biggest change I did, was to return the full blog to the front page. While I liked the way it was showcasing all different content from around the site before, I noticed that a lot of things got last that way. As I like to include all the new stuff in daily post, it was missed by those that only visited the frontpage. So like this, with this latest update, it is right there in the center.

The return should also bring back the easy way to look over recent posts. Lets call the last years theme an experiment. While there were things I liked, and I will keep, there were also ones I did not like. You know how it is. You may like something on the first look, but over time you start seeing faults.

So I hope you will like this new look, and you will enjoy visiting my blog more than you did before :)

The bridge in Vienna

As I mentioned yesterday, I already wanted to try out the 5D mark IV. But since the weather is still quite bad and everything looks quite gray, I needed a spot where this would not be such a problem. I decided for the hill Leopoldsberg above Vienna. Since I would be taking photos of a city from far away, I will not be able to see how the trees have no leaves and similar. Just the colors of the city.

And as the weather played along, this is what I got. The shot came out a bit less colorful that I hoped, but I let it be. This is close to what it actually looked like. This is a two shot panorama, combined in Lightroom, finished in Photoshop.

Night under the Eiffel tower

For todays daily photo, I selected this vertorama, taken early last year under the Eiffel tower. As you can see, even with how much you can get with a tilt-shift lens, it’s not enough to capture such a tall structure from such up close. But I actually don’t mind this bit of distortion, as I think it works nicely with this composition and the blurred cars creating a balance from the side.

This is a two shot vertorama, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop. The biggest problem in this shot were the lens flares. As there is no lens hood for the tilt shift lens, and its a bulb, it catches so many of them. But with a bit of editing, one can clean them out :)

The Danube view

I like to include foreground elements in my photos, but it not really possible all the time. But it worked out for this shot. I took this one from one of the pontoons by the Danube river, quite a long time ago. This is from one of the spots I recomment in my Top Photography spots in Bratislava list.

I took this shot with a normal wide angle lens, so I had to correct quite a strong perspective distortion. And as the castle ended at the most top corner of the shot after the correction, I ended up also compressing the river a bit, to move the castle and its reflection closer down. Maybe I do a post about that sometime :)

This is a blend of three exposures, one for a base, one to darken the highlights of the castle and one to brighten the foreground. Edited in Lightroom and finished in Photoshop.

At the Neusidler See

For todays post a quick edit of one of my older shots, taken at the lighthouse at the Neusidrell See in Podersdorf in Austria. This is one of my go to locations, where I like to test new gear.

There are few webcams in the are (you can find them easily by googling for them), and so I can check how the weather looks there and if it’s worth it to try and go take photos there. And it usually does not disappoints.

This is a single exposure, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.