I was in the mood to post a Dubai photo today, so I went back and looked through all photos I took there, if I can find one interesting to edit. And in the end I chosen this one, taken at the public beach next to the Burj Al Arab. Not that I really enjoy beaches that much (I don’t like to spend much time in strong sunlight and I can’t swim), but if its about getting a nice photos, I’m willing to go to one :)

This is a single exposure edited in Lightrom and Photoshop.

You can get a nice view of the Hungarian parliament from the smaller bastions next to the Fishermans bastion there, but you just always have a church tower in the middle of it. But if you manage to get onto the Fishermans bastion itself, you get a nice unobstructed view of the whole parliament. One just has to have a bit of luck, for it to be open.

And this time, I had luck, and it was open. I got few photos, and I thought I get more when it becomes a bit darker, but they closed it rather early, so I had to leave. But I got at least something :)

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

This is another vertorama of the Matthias Church in Budapest, taken the same evening, but from the exact opposite side as the one I posted yesterday. This is a similar composition I tried mostly in Amsterdam, with the lamp being a big foreground element, but this time I caught much more lens flares. It’s not that easy to avoid them, when one shoots directly into the light source :) I thought if I should remove them, but than decided against that, as I didn’t find them that distracting.

This is a two shot vertorama, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

New Peak Design bags

If you been following photographers around the web, you probably already noticed this. Peak Design, makers of many photography accessories (you can find reviews of most of them on this blog), have started a new kickstarter, for their new line of bags. These include two backpacks, in different sizes, a sling and a tote.

Peak Design has quite a reputation of quality products and it’s always worth to check out what they have new. And I’m already also a backer. My search for a new backpack that would replace my Think Tank Sling-O-Matic 30 is ongoing (it’s already few years old and no longer meets my size needs), so I decided to back the 30L backpack this time. So you can expect a review once it is available :)

You can check out all the info on the new back on Kickstarter here.

Clear Blue

I spend the last week in Budapest, and while I did not manage to get that many photos I got some. One I wanted to try was a vertorama of the Matthias Church, as I never could get it nicely whole into one shot before. And to have even more in the shot, I included also the Holy Trinity Statue here. As you can see, the was not a single could that day, which was quite similar to most of the week.

This is a two exposure vertorama, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Few months ago, I posted here a review of the LENSKIRT. For those unfamiliar, LENSKIRT is a shade one uses to take photos through glass (examples in the review).

In the review, I explain that while LENSKIRT works well, I felt disappointed with the quality and the way it was put together. And it seem I was not the only one. Few weeks ago, I was contacted by the makers of LENSKIRT and they offered to send me a new, updated version, which addressed these issues. And since it arrived last week, today I will take a look and how they succeed with it.

Update

On first look there is not much change. The way the LENSKIRT works stayed the same, and it also looks the same. It’s hard to say if the materials changed, but the front material feels a tiny bit thinner, while the back material feels thicker. Where I before complained about the materials feeling cheap, now they are much better, and I have more confidence in them lasting longer.

The biggest difference is in the way the pieces of the LENSKIRT are put together. This updated one, was properly aligned, the logo was stitched in properly and also all the connections are now very clean and you don’t see the inside of the material. It’s a total 180 in quality compared to the previous one. Here you have comparison photos of the old and the new one. You can easily see the change. The suction cups are also a tiny bit different, but I have not noticed any change in usage.

New version, nicely stitched

Old version, horribly stitched

New version, straight logo

Old version, crooked logo

Conclusion Update

It’s really nice to see that LENSKIRT corrected all the problems I had with the previous version. Now it works as it should and also has the build quality one would expect. It now makes it so much easier to recommend. So as I stated before, if you know you will take photos through glass, you should get one.