All the bridges in Bratislava

There are five bridges crossing the Danube in Bratislava. There are the Lafranconi, SNP bridge (also known as the New Bridge), the Old bridge, Apollo bridge and the Port bridge (in the order from the closest one in today’s photo). I always like taking photos of all these bridges, and you can find many on this blog. But for a while now, I wanted to take a photo with all of them together.

This is not that easy, as they are quite far from each other, and there is a bit of a bend in the Danube. But a while ago I found a spot from which one can see all of them. Over the town of Hainburg in Austria, there is a hill with a small lookout tower. It’s quite the popular sunset spot with photographers and other people, as it’s easily accessible by car, and gives a great view of Hainburg (this one). But if you walk to the other side of the hill, you can see Bratislava in the distance.

I tried before to take a photo from that spot. But as my longest lens is only 200mm, it was just too far. So last week I borrowed a 1.4 and 2.0 extenders for the Canon 200mm lens and I tried again. This time I had 560mm to work with. Still, I could not get the city as zoomed in as I wanted. But I got close and got a photo I liked. It was a bit hazy but still good.

This is a three shot panorama, each one from a single exposure. I start with the most cropped version here, as that shows all the bridges closely, but I’m also including the full version.

And here are a few details:

The small St. Johann Church

Continuing with the photos from the Dolomites, today’s one is of the St. Johann Church (Chiesetta di San Giovanni in Ranui) in Santa Magdalena. This is a bit more typical view of this church. The area, while beautiful, is a bit limited on spots you can take photos from. That is if you want to follow the rules and only stay in the open areas. The whole field is surrounded by a fence, with one spot with a platform, from which you get this exact view.

This is a blend of three exposures. The sky was a bit bland and overcast at that moment, which did not help wit the photo. Because of that I pulled the detail out a bit more this time. Blended and finished in Photoshop.

Sunlit reflection

How about one more photo from Lago di Braies. This one was taken a little bit after the one I posted yesterday, in a different part of the lake. There are just so many beautiful views there. It was right about lunch, so the sun was very high in the sky, creating one very sunlit reflection. In my editing, I tried to keep the feel I had. A very bright view, full of sunlight.

This is a two shot vertorama, each shot from three exposures. I used a tilt-shift lens to create the vertorama here. Blended and finished in Photoshop.

Boats at the Lago di Braies

I’m back. We decided to end the trip to Italy a bit earlier than planned. The reason was partially bad weather, but mostly the huge amount of snow still in the mountains. We planned to hike, but that was not possible with the paths still closed or under a big pile of snow.

But I still got a few nice photos from this week, so let’s get to one. This one was taken yesterday at Lago di Braies in the Dolomites. I had a bit of luck here. People were going up to this pontoons to take photos but right as I got there with my camera, it was empty for at least 5 minutes. So I really quickly could take a few photos of the view. I really like how the boats made for a perfect foreground element for a photo.

This is a two shot panorama, taken with the help of a tilt-shift lens. Each shot blended from 4 exposures, blended and merged in Photoshop.

Peak Design Travel Tripod

So as I said, Peak Design expanded into another category. They started with clamps, then moved into leashes, backpacks, bags and now to tripods. Their portfolio is really getting big.

The new tripod, named Travel tripod seems to fit it quite well. It looks nice, very compact and the specifications are decent. There are actually two variants, an alloy one (MSRP: 349.95 USD) and a carbon one (MSRP: 599.95 USD). So what are the specs?

• Weight limit: 9.1kg
• Colapsed lenght: 38.7cm
• Max height with center column up: 148.6cm
• Max height with center column down: 126.4cm
• Min height: 11.4cm
• Weight: alloy one at 1.56kg, carbon at 1.27kg
• Leg sections: 5

It’s a bit short for my taste, but as a travel tripod, it’s still quite reasonable. And comparing that to the weight limit and how compact it is, it’s a good enough compromise.

They also changed the shape of the legs, to make the collapse together better. I think that it’s a good idea, and also that they try to move away from all other available tripods. The ball head that its build in also looks interesting, but it’s hard to say from the photos how good it is in use.

All and all, this looks like a very interesting approach to a tripod. I definitively want to try it out to see how it is, and how it compares to classic ones. But for that, I will have to wait.

I’m not sure if I will back this at Kickstarter, as I got a new tripod only recently, but will think about it. If you are interested, check it out on Kickstarter here. It’s a good way to get a discount on it, as usual, the prices on Kickstarter are lower than they will be once it’s fully launched.