So many games

Have you seen the Xbox sale? So many games to play. I already picked up few, but now if they somehow managed so a day had more hours so I got more time to play :). Did you picked up something?

Cloudy skies over Strbske Pleso

I posted a similar panorama of this view months ago, but here is one more. This time I went a bit more darken with the editing, making the clouds much more prominent.

This is a three shot panorama, combined in Lightroom, edited in Photoshop. I used a 10 stop ND filter to get a long exposure here. The panorama is 42Mpix big. Would be bigger, but I like to leave quite a lot of overlap for merging.

And here are few details:

Why so many panoramas and vertoramas?

You may have noticed I post a lot of vertoramas and panoramas. And you may wonder why it is. I just like them :) But that’t not the main reason. The main reason is, that I often take photos in popular photographer spots. And trying to get a different photo than everybody else, is just not that easy. And going with a different view, that panoramas and vertoramas provide, is one of the ways one can accomplish this.

There are of course also many other options. One could do long exposure, infrared, some crazy post processing, include a model or many more other options. The more unique, the better :)

The beautiful view of Vernazza

Let’s stay in Cinque Terre in Italy for another day. This spot is one on the steps above the town. But this is not the one, popular with the photographers (you can see the view from that one here), instead, this one is from a bit higher up. I like them both, but there is one major difference in photos. If you look closely, on this one, the tower in the town does not cut into the horizon line of the mountains behind. In the other one, it does. And for me that just does not looks right.

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

Covered brands

I got asked why all the brands on my camera and my lenses are covered up with duck-tape. And the reason for that is really simple. To be exact, there are these reasons :)

1. I don’t want to advertises what camera I have in case of thief’s
2. I don’t need to promote any brand or show off what camera I have
3. The white label on front of the camera and on lenses can disturb a subject you are taking photos of (not really applicable for landscape photography).

Thinking about it, I don’t even like brands on anything else, like clothes and similar. The only brand I use is my own :)

Blue sky over Manarola

I really like this view of Manarola, and of course it’s popular with many other photographers. Just to have a bit different photo than everybody else, I vent with a vertorama here. Like this I got much more sky and the sea, to make this very nice and blue. And the little ship

This is a two shot vertorama taken with the tilt-shift lens. Combined in Lighroom, finished in Photoshop. You can see how to create panoramas/vertoramas in Lightroom here.

3:2 wallpapers

I see quite a lot of people visiting my blog while searching for Surface Pro 4 wallpapers. So today I have for you few more wallpapers specifically sized for the screen of that device. And even the newer Surface Pro (2017) has the same resolution. And if you have other device with a 3:2 aspect ratio screen, they will fit you device to.

New Surface wallpapers

All these wallpapers are 2736×1824 pixels in size and can be downloaded with all the other wallpapers from the wallpapers page here.

Reading list

Have not done a reading list in a while, so how about today.

I read only a single book in the last two weeks. It was the 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson. It’s actually funny how this book reminded me of something in a play of the Cimerman theater in Prague. There they split smart people into two groups. Those who can’t leave a subject, and those who can’t stick to a subject. And the author of this book is a perfect example of the second group. You don’t pay attention for a second, and he is already on something else. While he usually go back, it makes for such a hard reading or listening.

Overall, some good points, and some quite stupid ones here, but worth a read.

Looking up in Dubai Marina

If I remember correctly, this part of the Dubai Marina, is the tallest block in the world. I wanted a photo like this when I visited Dubai few years ago, but then I forgot. So I took one this time. And I used the Laowa 12mm lens, to get as much in the shot as I could. I did had to crop it a bit in the end, as the lamps around me just made for a lot of flares. It’s funny how this gives you a feel of vertigo, even though you are looking up :)

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