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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HDR Photo Contest by Photomatix

HDR Photo Contest by Photomatix

Do you make HDR photos? Do you use Photomatix? If answer to either of these questions is 'yes', you might want to enter this competition

Photomatix HDR Challenge - Spring 2015 

which is held by Photomatix team (I just mention it here).

How to enter the contest?

What you need to do to enter the contest is to edit one of your images in any of Photomatix products (eg. Pro, Essentials or Photoshop Plugin) and submit them on the contest page before 21st June 2015 to one or two categories which are Realistic and Creative HDR. You may submit 3 entries per each category - 6 photos in total.

BTW if you don't have Photomatix software, you can use trial version which can be downloaded from HDRsoft website. The fact there will be watermark present on your images won't affect jury decision in any way.

There are other requirements for photos entering the contest, so make sure to read the rules before sending them.

Prizes

What you can win? In each category main prize is 500 USD Amazon Gift Card (good to buy some photo equipment ;) ) and Photomatix Pro Plus bundle license. If you're unlucky and come 2nd place you will win 200 USD Amazon Gift Card (still enough to buy some photo equipment :) ) and Photomatix Pro license.

What are you waiting for?

What are you waiting for? Edit your images and enter the contest!

BTW, if you don't know how to use Photomatix, make sure to read my free HDR tutorial about it to get started. I hope that, it will help you a little bit.

Daily photo - Silent sunrise

Today I would like to share another landscape photo from Thailand. The one below was taken on a beautiful and peaceful island of Koh Lipe in Satun province very close to Malaysian border. It was just before sunrise and amazing purple & magenta tones started to appear on the sky and water. I used 30 seconds exposure here to blur any ripples and waves and thus create very tranquil atmosphere.

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My take on smartphone photography

My take on smartphone photography

Up to now I wasn't great fan of smartphone photography (in fact I avoided it as much as I could) as I was pretty sure the results would be of poor quality, blurry, with low dynamic range, noisy. And with my previous phone they definitely were. But this might change as I recently discovered that my Samsung S5 has quite a capable camera. Apart from using my mighty DSLR, in Thailand I took a looot of smartphone photos. A few of them left me really impressed by what those modern smartphones can do. Dynamic range is quite good, sharpness is very good and colours rendition is very natural. Even in low-light it worked quite well most of the time. There is quite a lot of noise but I still found the photos perfectly acceptable. The only thing I miss on Samsung S5 are manual exposure controls as the only setting I can change is ISO and exposure bias. I cannot set exposure time nor aperture to what I want. RAWs would be nice too but I can live without them (and they would eat phone's memory pretty quickly I guess).

All that is really impressive. I recently read an article on PetaPixel which seems to explain why smartphone cameras are that good nowadays - it seems that 92% of phone users take photos with their smartphones and 36% find quality of camera to be key to decision of buying a phone! So many phone users actually think of their smartphones as cameras. For many it is probably the only camera they have.

I will start to think that way too probably because I don't carry my DSLR camera with me all the time, but I do carry my phone so it's good to know I have powerful camera in my pocket whenever I need it.

Here's a little example. Below panorama was shot and stacked on my smartphone. It isn't perfect but still looks quite nice. And it was created pretty much automatically. In Lightroom I just increased vibrance and contrast a little bit as I found the results a little bit too flat for my liking.

Daily photo - Railay beach at Sunset

When I had been initially planning my Thailand trip a few months ago I intended to spent whole 2 weeks in one place - on Railay peninsula in Krabi province - which is photographer's paradise. But then I read that this place is becoming really boring after more than 2 - 3 days, that there is nothing you can do while being there. And I trusted those opinions and altered my plan (not that I regret as I visited another fantastic place). Lesson learnt: don't believe in opinions of non-photographers.

Generally speaking this place is amazing and even after 8 days there I could find something new to do. I did a lot of swimming, some kayaking, I went on a few trips to nearby islands and spent some time trying local cuisine. If I would had stayed longer I would probably give rock climbing a try (BTW if you're climbing there are a few nice vantage points on Railay peninsula from which you could take some amazing photos). And yeah, this place is just amazing for landscape photography as you could already see from some of my other posts like this or this. Sunsets look really beautiful when you have such amazing cliffs in a foreground (or background depending how you compose your shots).

Here's another photo from Railay, taken during sunset. The place was rather busy at that day so there are a few people in the frame but anyway :)

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Phra Nang Beach at Sunset

Daily photo - Phra Nang beach at Sunset

As I mentioned in some other posts recently, Railay beach in southern Thailand was once selected as one of the 3 most beautiful beaches of the world by National Geographic magazine. Although I wouldn't question that choice as Railay beach is indeed really impressive there is one thing funny about that - just 10 to 15 minutes away by foot there is even more impressive beach known as Phra Nang beach (sometimes referred to as Phra Nang cave).

Phra Nang, similarly to Railay, is closed by high limestone cliffs on both sides. But apart from that you can find several caves and caverns there, you have excellent view on the nearby deserted islands and generally whole experience feels more unreal (really! swimming or kayaking in such place is life lasting memory and I cannot believe I was there). It makes it a great place not only to relax but also to take some landscape photos. And due to location of that beach, it is a perfect place to take some sunset images. Despite the fact, the place is sometimes crowded during midday, near sunset it becomes pretty much deserted with just a few people walking on the beach and trying to capture sunset with their smartphones. And accidentally standing just in front of the lens thus ruining long exposure images :) but I can't blame them of course as they do the same as I do - try to capture beautiful moment.

Anyway, to take the image below I entered one of the caverns on Phra Nang beach during low tide. During high tide it's impossible to take such photo as cavern is full of water and there is no safe place to put a tripod there.

Below photo is a HDR image. I took 7 exposures at 1.5 EV spacing. As you can see even that many exposures aren't enough to recover all details in shadows. However, in case of this image it was done on purpose because I wanted to have top part of the image underexposed to attract attention to spectacular colours in the sky and water.

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Beautiful end of the day

Daily photo - Beautiful end of the day

While I'm still preparing some longer posts about Thailand (and thinking about the ways to get back there), today I would just like to share this sunset image from Phra Nang beach in Krabi district. Phra Nang beach is probably one of the most impressive place I've ever been to with numerous tall limestone formations sticking out from the sea.

I had clear idea what I wanted to achieve with this photo - I wanted the sun to be between various formations and create star-like effect. It worked pretty well. And you can see that Canon 16-35 f/4 L IS creates really nice star-burst effect.

BTW for this image (which had some crazy dynamic range) I used luminosity blending technique - not HDR. I tried to tone-map the image in Photomatix but this time I like manually blended result better and so went with this approach.

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What I like and dislike about Thailand

What I like and dislike about Thailand

I really enjoyed my stay in Thailand and today I would like to share with you things I loved and which I didn't like about this country (as there is no rose without thorns).

Let's start with the list of things I liked most about Thailand:

• Amazing sunsets - really. One of the most impressive ones I've ever seen with colours in the sky ranging from golden to red to purple. Sunrises left me a little disappointed though as I found them rather boring but it's quite possible I simply wasn't lucky enough with them. Maybe more luck next time
• Beautiful landscapes - do you remember Avatar movie? And all those amazing rocky formations standing out from the sea? I mean that kind of landscapes. Krabi district in southern Thailand is just full of them.
• Fantastic cuisine. When I was going to Thailand my expectations weren't very high in this regard. I like a lot of Asian cuisine (especially Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and Indian) but Thai wasn't my favourite. But it changed. Due to the fact Thailand was raided by surrounding countries in the past its cuisine reflects that - is full of influences from countries like India but yet it still has something very own to it.
• Good transportation possibilities to move from one part to another - it's very easy to find transport (by boat, plane, bus or train) from one end of the country to the other. And once you buy a ticket you don't need to worry much anymore as you will be picked up and directed since then.
• It's cheap - you can find both hotels and meals at very reasonable prices. Also prices in the shops are generally lower than in Europe.

And things I disliked:

• Poor English. Most of the folks in the places I visited spoke no or very poor English. Even in the hotels and restaurants what made it quite difficult to communicate. Please note, however, that I didn't spend time in the places most popular among tourists (like Phuket or Bangkok) so I can't say whether it's true for whole country.
• A lot of rubbish and dirt lying around. Beaches and popular places are generally quite clean but try to get a little bit of a beaten track and you will find a lot of rubbish. Also I didn't notice a lot of trash bins even in the cities I visited so most of the rubbish ended up being thrown on the grass for instance (also, or even mostly, by tourists!)
• If someone says it will take a minute to do something it will take much more - eg. our ferry travel was supposed to take 1:30 hours. It took around 3:30. It makes planning a little bit more difficult.
• Some places are overcrowded with tourists - in some famous places it's even not possible to get decent photo without dozens of tourists in the frame. Those crowds are also quite tiring.

Daily photo - Admiring the Sunset

Today I would like to share HDR photo of a hotel boy enjoying the sunset while seating on a trolley he uses to transport luggage. Photo was taken during low tide in Railay West beach, Krabi district, Thailand. Low tide created a lot of puddles that reflected the sunset and made the image much more interesting.

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My Thailand Trip

Recap of my Thailand trip

As I mentioned yesterday, this time I would like to approach my trip a little bit differently. I intend to post not only photos but also some useful tips if you would like to go where I did (if you would be interested in me organizing photography workshops there, I'm open for suggestions though as I intend to start teaching later this year anyway). So it would be something like a guide for the places I visited.

Today I would like to recap my trip. Our, I should say as I was travelling with a person who got me interested in travelling years ago - my fiancee.

Let's start with a map of places we visited:

I started my trip from Warsaw, Poland from where I went with Aeroflot airlines to Moscow and from there also with Aeroflot to Bangkok (Aeroflot had best offer for that date). Here I would like to tell one thing about Aeroflot - if you find any negative reviews about that airline make sure to check review's date. This airline is constantly improving in recent years and my experience is that it is as good or even better than many popular airlines from western Europe. From kind staff to very good meals to choice of entertainment you have in Economy class (e.g. a lot of movies including some newer ones). Similar thing applies to Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport. It isn't dirty and lacking shops and restaurants as you might read in the Internet reviews. It is airport that meets modern standards and have all necessary facilities (I ended up eating in Burger King but anyway...).

Anyway, after getting to Bangkok I changed to Bangkok Airways and flew to Krabi International Airport. From there I took taxi to the city of Ao Nang and there I got on a long tail boat to Railay West beach on Railay Peninsula (this peninsula is only accessible by boat - very high cliffs separate it from the rest of the continent). After 10 - 15 minutes I arrived on Railay Peninsula. Unfortunately it was low tide so I had to drag our bags through the sea (it was around 150 - 200 meters at most but my bags were quite heavy due to including some photography equipment like steady, and heavy as hell, tripod). There are some rocks near the shore and I almost fell down a couple of times but somehow managed not to. Mission accomplished - reached Railay Peninsula after something around 24 hours of travelling.

I spent 8 nights on Railay Peninsula and during that time I photographed a few amazing sunsets there and also made a few trips to local islands (like renowned Phi Phi island, paradise Bamboo island or impressive La Ding island). I will share details and photos about them in separate posts. Railay beach was once selected as one of the 3 most beautiful beaches of the world. As impressive as it is, it is quite funny that there is even more impressive beach nearby (just about 10 - 15 minutes by walking) called Phra Nang beach. It's probably the most impressive beach I've ever seen and let me tell you - it looks much better than on images you can find on-line.

After 8 days on Railay I moved to Koh Lipe island which is even further south, near Malaysian border. To get there I first had to travel to the city of Trang by bus and from there by Tiger Line ferry. All in all whole journey took around 7.5 - 8 hours even though it was supposed to take much shorter. Koh Lipe is a very relaxing place with not so many tourists and very nice views. Sunsets were rather boring there as there were virtually no clouds during our stay there but I managed to capture some starry skies there and some very beautiful sunrise photos.

After 4 days I went back to Ao Nang and on the next day to Bangkok from where I flew back to Europe.

Summing up - 14 days and close to 5000 landscape photos taken :) quite a lot of post-processing work ahead! But it might be very easy this time as even unedited images look really spectacular.

Daily photo - Sunrise on Koh Lipe

For today photo I decided to select single exposure image taken during sunrise on Sunrise Beach, Koh Lipe island. This image shows traditional long tail boats that are nowadays mostly used to move tourists from one place to another.

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