Say goodbye to my blog...

After 4 years of blogging here on Blogger, I would like to announce that I'm shutting this blog down soon...

But here is good news as well - I started a new blog and moved all existing content there ;)
New blog can be accessed here:

http://hdr-photographer.com/ 

Apart from brand new and professionally looking .com domain there are more changes. I switched to WordPress finally what means virtually no limits as far as layout & features are concerned. Blogger is a cool blogging platform because it requires virtually no webmaster / developer knowledge - everyone can use it to share their thoughts quickly. But with ease come limitations - it's very hard to make any significant changes to how the blog looks. I achieved different look but it required a lot of effort and as a developer myself I'm aware that changes I did shouldn't be as difficult to achieve.

Blog on Blogger will remain accessible for the next couple of weeks (until all remaining content is moved) but all new posts will be published on http://hdr-photographer.com/ from now on (including my review of Lightroom 6 which was released just yesterday). After that period of time I will set up redirection. 

Also if you're following my blog, please make sure to subscribe to that new blog.

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Most Interesting Posts of 2014!

List of best posts in 2014

Time for another summary :) This time regarding blog content in 2014.

Below you will find a list of 10 most popular posts on my blog written in 2014. There are two interesting & a bit surprising things about it - the list is hugely dominated by reviews (4 posts) and posts about Magic Lantern firmware (also 4 posts). There are also 2 tutorials on the list. It gives me better idea on what type of content I should focus in the future ;) Ok, so here's the list:

1. HDR tutorial - it was clear winner with more than 10% of all views in 2014! Despite the fact the tutorial wasn't written in 2014, I still decided to list it here as I make constant changes to it and it evolves slowly over time,
2. Magic Lantern, 5D MK III and Firmware 1.2.3 - in this post I shared some news about update to Magic Lantern which provided support for firmware 1.2.3 in Canon 5D MK III. I never expected this post to be really popular so I'm quite surprised to see it so high.
3. Turn your DSLR into a beast with Magic Lantern - another post about Magic Lantern - this one was about reasons why you should give Magic Lantern a try if you use Canon cameras.
4. Why I love Magic Lantern - several years later - in this post I listed my favourite features of current version of Magic Lantern
5. Magic Lanter Dual-ISO - First Impressions - and the last Magic Lantern-related post on the list was about my initial impressions from using Dual-ISO feature.
6. Wacom Intuos Pro M Tablet Review - in January 2014 I wrote a review about Wacom Intuos Tablet. Starting to use tablet was one of the biggest changes to my workflow I did in 2014 and I think that it gave me much more freedom and control than mouse.
   
7. Tack Sharp Photos in 10 Easy Steps - most popular tutorial written entirely in 2014 was about tips for getting razor sharp photos. 10 easy tips everyone can follow to improve sharpness of their images.
8. Sony NEX-6 Review - another review - this one was about Sony NEX-6 mirrorless camera. I loved this camera at the time of writing that review and I still do! Why? Make sure to read this review ;)
9. SmugMug Review - in January 2014 I set up account on SmugMug - one of the most popular photography hosting services. I still use it. Do I like it? You can find out in this review.
   
10. Benro Travel Angel Tripod Review - I was searching for light and steady tripod for ages. At the end of 2013 I came across Benro Travel Angel carbon-fibre tripod and bought it. It isn't ideal but is one of the best tripods I have ever used. Why? Again - make sure to read this review.

Daily photo - Last Light

Today I would like to share another photo from Tatra mountains. This one was taken during late sunset when most of the mountains and valley was already covered in darkness.

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2014 in Review - Not the best year

So it's the last day of 2014. It means that I should write some summary I guess :)

Frankly speaking, 2014 wasn't the best year for me as far as photography is concerned. I simply travelled less than in the past few years and without travels it's rather difficult to get a lot of good travel photos. Yes, I've been to Mexico, which was my long-lasting dream and it was a truly amazing experience and I still have tons of unedited images from there. Yes, I visited London in United Kingdom where I also managed to capture some nice images despite really British weather during my stay but that's pretty much all. Apart from additional photos taken in my home town, that is Warsaw, I didn't take more images. I was simply too busy to take and post-process images this year. I even found it difficult to share new posts here on my blog regularly despite very interesting plans I had for this year.

But biggest disappointment this year was that my blog started to fall... sort of. My Alexa rank dropped from 900k to around 4 million and although this alone wouldn't be a big deal, numbers of visitors also dropped significantly to around numbers from year 2012. Why? I'm not sure. I disappeared from Google searches and it was a pretty big hit but it wasn't the only problem I guess. But I have several ideas on how to change this in upcoming year.

Good thing is that future looks bright. I have a few travel ideas for 2015 already, I also have a bit more spare time recently so I should be back to taking photos more frequently very very soon (in fact I started to drag camera with me much more often) and to post-process some older ones. I also have a lot of ideas for interesting blog posts and tutorials. So I hope my blog will start to be popular once again.

It would be unfair to say that this year was completely bad and wasted though as there are plenty of positives about this year in photography. My photos have been published several times, I even got Editor's Choice award in Camerapixo (you can read more about it here). Also I experimented with various photography techniques and styles, I adjusted my post-processing style (and I think I finally like it), I took a few beautiful photos - some of which you can see in the image above. Finally I reached several milestones, like 500k views on 500px, having my HDR tutorial displayed 50k times or HDR tutorial eBook downloaded 10.000 times.

So it wasn't the best year, but it wasn't worst either :)

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Share your best of 2014

NOTE: Submissions are now closed. You will have next chance at the beginning of 2016 :)

Share your best photos from 2014

Last year I invited you to share your best photos taken in 2013. Quite a few of my friends took part in that small project and so as current year is slowly coming to an end I decided to start another edition. I hope this year edition will be even better! With more participants and some really great photos!

If you would like to be part of this year's project, simply send me the links (in comments to this post) to 2 of your best photos and I will share them on my blog on 14th of January 2015. Additionally it would be good if you could email me those images (watermarked if you want) resized to 900px on longer side.

It doesn't matter whether you are pro or amateur - you will be featured on my blog. If there will be too many photos I will share them in a few turns but I will share all of them.

Some conditions that must be met:

• The photos should be taken in 2014 (or at least be edited in 2014),
• The photos must have at least 900px on the longer side,
• Please provide the link to your page (and/or Facebook profile, 500px profile, SmugMug etc.) as well as the name under which you would like to be credited. You can also write short bio that I will put next to your photos.
• Links to photos must be sent in the comments under this post,
• You have to provide links to exactly 2 photos,
• Please send both photos resized to 900px on longer size to tomanw@gmail.com with subject "Best of 2014". I will use the photos only to embed them in the post. They can be watermarked of course. If you can't or don't want to send the photos - that's fine :) It would just make my life a little bit easier but it's not necessary.

Also please share this post with your friends - the more photos, the better :) 

Daily photo - Colourful sunrise

Today I would like to share old HDR image I took in 2012 on Fuerteventura. I really like reflection in that puddle as I think it adds a lot of interest to this sunrise image.

If you would like to learn how to create HDR photos yourself, make sure to read my free HDR tutorial which will guide you thru the process - from taking photos to post-processing them on your computer.

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750.000 page views of my blog :)

750.000 page views of my blog

I'm thrilled to announce that my blog has been viewed more than 750.000 times! I just discovered that a few minutes ago :) Thank you everyone for paying a visit, I really appreciate that. Next milestone - 1 million.

Daily photo - Sunset in Madrid

Honestly speaking, I'm slowly running out of photos I would like to share with you. There are still tons of unprocessed images, many of which look quite promising but I will probably just never manage to edit majority of them. Too many of them and so little time for post-processing. Anyone eager to help ;) ?

Anyway I found this image from Madrid that I haven't published here yet. It was taken during sunset near Debod Temple. Dynamic range was pretty big so I decided to use 7 exposures. Also, as I wanted a little blur on water, I stopped the aperture down to f/16 what allowed me to use longer exposures and achieve the effect I wanted.

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Layout changes and City in Motion

Layout changes

As I mentioned in my previous post my blog is undergoing some serious changes at the moment. You can see some of them today (but there are much more to come in following days but they should follow current direction). In a few weeks or months I will also probably switch from Blogger to Wordpress because I'm getting a little fed up with limitations Blogger imposes on its users. Well, ease of use comes at some cost.

This time I decided to make layout much simpler, less cluttered and better for viewing photos and reading tutorials. It means that I spent some time increasing readability (increased font sizes) and changed theme to virtually black & white. There might be some colours still remaining but I'm working on that too.

Also navigation should be now simpler as I made a few adjustments here as well. Also different sections of the blog should be now better highlighted what should also improve ease of navigation.

I also replaced images shown in the slideshow in top part of the blog (and made the slideshow simpler with much less text which could be distractive). They are also now stored in higher quality what should make them more crisp and detailed. And hopefully will make visitors hungry for more ;)

I would really appreciate your feedback on the changes I made so far. What do you like and even more importantly - what you don't?

Daily photo - London. City in Motion

A bit different photo today. It shows colourful light trails created by passing cars and buses on Westminster Bridge. To create such effect I used long-exposure (13 s). I went a bit crazy with post-processing on this because I thought that this photo deserves really vibrant and bright colours.

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Follow me for more updates

Follow me for more updates

If you like my photos or tutorials (or both) and would like to stay in touch with me, you can follow me in various social networks as well as on the blog. I'm most active on Facebook and Google+ (for the reasons described here). Here are the links:

• YouTube - some time ago I started posting my video tutorials on YouTube. There isn't many of them yet but recently I try to record new ones more often so expect more content there in following weeks.
• Facebook - I'm most active on Facebook. I don't only post new images there but sometimes I also give some tips and answer various questions (also from private messages).
• Google+ - another social network where I'm quite active although on Google+ I mostly post images and comment on friends' images.
• Newsletter - you can also subscribe to this blog's newsletter to be notified about most interesting content I share. However, if you would like to be notified about new posts more frequently you can consider subscribing to RSS feed instead.

I also post images quite regularly on 500px, so if you're there make sure to add me to your friends too.

Daily photo - Sunset in Mexico

Today I would like to share high dynamic range image I took in Mexico during late sunset. I decided to use longer exposure to blur water to get rid of any waves and ripples and thus to make the whole image calmer. I think the boat is a nice addition (without it the photo would be rather empty and boring).

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