Free HDR video tutorial

Free HDR video tutorial

MASTER EXPOSURE BLENDING

Find the best ones

Find the best ones

TOP PHOTOGRAPHY SPOTS

Free wallpapers

Free wallpapers

HIGH-RESOLUTION WALLPAPERS

Morning in Hallstatt

Let’s stay in Hallstatt with one more photo. I mentioned this spot in yesterday’s Top Photography spots in Hallstatt. It gives a great view, when there is no boat there. It’s a bit worse with the boat, as that blocks most of the it. Still I took a photo anyway. You can see a winter photo from the same spots here.

This is a two shot vertorama, each shot from three exposures. Blended and combined in Photoshop. I took this photo in 2017, right after a sunrise shoot not far from here.

Morning in Hallstatt

Hallstatt is quite a small town in Austria, that is just beautiful. And it’s usually quite full with tourists. But as those just take few photos and move on, it’s quite easy to take photos there. The whole town is stretched out along one street following the lake shore, so you can easily reach most of the spots I will mention here. You can also use a tripod on all spots here, without any issues.

Don’t forget to check out other available lists:

On the street

If you ever seen a photo from Hallstat, it was probably from this spot. It gives the best view of the town. You will always see other photographers here and quite a lot of tourists taking snapshots. But it never to me, that there would not be a spot where I could put a tripod. Most tourist are there just for minutes, so it always changes. Just be careful of traffic, even if there are only few cars passing during the day, the street is quite narrow.

Top Photography Spots - Hallstatt
Top Photography Spots - Hallstatt

The bus stop

Right as you get into the tow, before you enter the walking zone, there is a buss top on the right. This spot gives a very nice view of the town. Completely opposite the first spot. Again there will be quite a few people here, but again, it changes quickly. There is a boat dock in the way a bit and you can’t get on it, but still the view is nice, especially if you zoom in.

Also if you want a photo with a swan in it, there are quite often around this area.

Top Photography Spots - Hallstatt
Top Photography Spots - Hallstatt

Parking area above the town

When you go through the city, you will notice signs pointing to the church that is a bit up the hill. You have to follow them, up a covered staircase to get to the church. Once you there, turn 180 degrees onto another walkway with another covered staircase and follow it. You will get up onto a parking area that is above the roofs of the town. The view is quite different to other spots here.

Top Photography Spots - Hallstatt



Down at the ship dock

If you want to get a bit closer to the water and get a photo of the front of the town, go here. Just know, boats dock here quite often, so especially during the summer, the view can be blocked. Not much issues during the Winter though. You can also see swans here quite often.

Top Photography Spots - Hallstatt

Five fingers viewing platform

Ok, Five fingers is not it Hallstat. Actually you have to go to the neighboring town of Obertraun, to this spot. From there you take two cable cars to get up to here, and you still have to walk about 20-30 minutes to get to the spot. But the walk is not that hard, as it’s quite even. Once there, you will get the best view in the area you can get. Just don’t go onto the Five fingers platform if you are scared of height :)

Top Photography Spots - Hallstatt
Top Photography Spots - Hallstatt

Other available lists:

Elisabeth bridge in Budapest

The Elisabeth bridge is not my favorite bridge in Budapest. It just looks so plain in comparison. And the old bridge it replaced looked so much nicer. Too bad they changed the style. Still, I always looked for a nice composition with it.

I took this photo already few years back, but when I edited it afterwards, I did not like the result. So it was still in the photo library, but never finished. But few days back I tried to re-edit it again, and this time I liked the result. So here it is.

This photo is was taken from the Liberty bridge. Normally that’s not the best place to take night photos from. The bridge, as almost all bridges, shakes from the traffic, especially the trams. But the day I took this, the bridge was closed for traffic. It was full of people and there was some dance performance in the middle. I have no idea what the occasion was, but I was glad as I could take a nice photo because of it.

This is a three shot panorama, each shot from three exposures. Blended, combined in Panorama and finished in Photoshop. I did not use anything else here. It ended up being a 96Mpix photo, as I used the Sony a7R here and that makes for some large shots.

Elisabeth bridge in Budapest, Hungary

And here are few details:

Elisabeth bridge in Budapest, Hungary

Wallpapers

I have been updating my wallpapers selection on this blog for a while now, and today it’s time to expand it with a new resolution. This time I’m going big with 4K wallpapers in 3840×2160. So I hope all of you who have a screen with a resolution like that will like it. Btw. They will of course look great on anything smaller than this also :)

Don’t forget to check out other available wallpapers:

New 4K wallpapers

I’m starting this page with these four 4K wallpapers, all with the same theme. This time they are all from Dubai. I will be updating the selection soon, as with only 4 it looks a bit empty. But until then, feel free to download these here.

4K wallpapers 3840x2160 HDRshooter
4K wallpapers 3840x2160 HDRshooter
4K wallpapers 3840x2160 HDRshooter
4K wallpapers 3840x2160 HDRshooter

Topaz JPEG to RAW

I shared my impressions of Topaz JPEG to RAW AI last week with you, but I forgot to mention one thing. Today is the last day it’s offered for the introductory price of 79.99 USD. From midnight it goes to the regular price of 99.99 USD. So if you are interested, now is your chance to get it cheaper. Head over to the Topaz Labs website to order, or download the trial there and give it a try.

Triple blend

When one starts blending exposures, one sometime just blends everything. And that’s the case with today’s photo. I call it a triple blend, because it’s:

  • an exposure blend, as I used two exposures to blend the lights on the castle and church
  • a focus blend, as the foreground and background are focused differently to expand DOF
  • a focal blend, as I zoomed in in the background photo. Like this it’s more dominant in the image, and is not just far in the distance.

Somehow it’s funny as one uses all there techniques, that one stops even thinking about them anymore. One just does it automatically.

Snow covered

I posted a similar photo last week, but I liked them both so here is another one. As snow is not that common in Bratislava, in the last few years, I had to take as many photos as I could of it. I don’t think there will be much more this year. And snow covered rocks at the Danube make for such a nice foreground subject.

As I mentioned, this is a blend of three exposures. It’s a vertorama where the top part is a blend of two exposures, and the bottom part is a single exposure. I combined them manually in Photoshop. It’s pretty simple, as the middle is a river, so you just blend them using a layer mask and a bit of painting with the brush. You can’t use any panorama software if you want to do a focal blend, as they will not align the photos that way.

Snow covered, Bratislava, Slovakia
FREE EBOOK!!!
Subscribe to my newsletter and get a free Capturing fireworks ebook. 
Subscribe