Anatomy of Podersdorf Lighthouse

3 vertical merged @
24mm shots @0.6s, f/11, ISO 50

The moment I looked through the window in the morning (around noon...) I knew today would be good photo session day. Patchy clouds, some clear sky and changing light conditions. No time to waste! Just to touch base about noon morning..., I am not so lazy, I simply live in different time zone, shoot at crazy hours i.e. concerts till 1 a.m. then scroll through pictures till 3-4 a.m. and still need some sleep. Next week will be opposite, I will be more on sunrise side, however now in winter it is not such an issue.

Anyway, having seen the sky, I knew I had to head for Neusiedlersee to get some stunning shots. Now in December and for few more weeks sun sets right behind 'famous' Podersdorf lighthouse  This spot is probably the most photographed scene in Austria, if not in Austria, definitely in Burgendland. In any case, I love the place, and every time I go there, I always try to find something new.

Today's challenge or exercise was to practice tilt shift functionality at relatively narrow pier. I was after really wide shot with good expected sunsetting light.

It was about half an hour before sunset, I knew up front what sort of frame and shot I was after, ver low angle and wide utilizing shift and tilt functionality and wanted the lighthouse right im the middle. Piers' wooden planks should lead viewer's deep into the frame. This part was quite simple know the place inside out. New part was new tilt shift lens. Up to now I used to photograph the place with 16mm wide angle having to fight massive distortion in order to get similar effect. 

Good idea to have second camera... framing with reds enhancer

Every Year Is the Same, December and Christmas Pass By So Fast...

Paul Chuey playing Sax
300mm, f/2.8, 1/400, ISO 3200

It happened again this year....

I have completely no idea when whole December simply passed by. I still have a feeling we are the very beginning of the month, and now all of a sudden I realized I was in the middle of Christmas shopping madness and actually now we are already celebrating Christmas. Beginning of the month seems like yesterday, I had to travel to Poland for a week or so to take care of certain business matters, and today is almost end of the month... and I am already preparing myself for next trip. This time to UK purely for shooting landscapes... 

will say few more words in a moment.

In general I have been learning new camera and lenses. After those few weeks I feel already way more comfortable with new buttons' layout and start to use them more comfortably and intuitively.

Another thing has been to find camera's limits in low light situation. Last few concerts I shot, I used unimaginable ISO levels 12'800, 25'600 and in few cases 50'200!

Images shot at 12'800 are really usable, and I can shoot concerts with shutter speeds of 1/500 or even faster. This of course depends on the venue and its light setup, and also band. Over all I am really happy with new gear and its capabilities. Here's a picture of Paul Chuey playing sax with Mojo Blues Band in Metropol, where typically light is very good and consistent. I can shoot totally clear and crisp picture even at ISO 3200 while having shutter speed of 1/400s which in most cases is enough to freeze the motion, well at least Blues players. 

600mm, f/5.6, 1/320s, ISO 12'800

With Metal guys it becomes more complicated. Mojo Blues Band Show at Metropol, Vienna.

Here's an example of 12'800 image taken at ((Szene)) during Dime Bash event.

I stand behind audience and above, on the gallery with light and sound consoles, about 30-40 meteres away from the stage. I used 2x extender on top of 300mm lens to get 600mm focal length. This pictures is full frame, and not cropped. Unfortunately 2 times extender takes two stops of light thus minimum aperture I can get is f/5.6. Compromise must always be found.

Guitarist is frozen but beer drops not fully. Because light situation was not so brilliant I had to step down to 1/320s which was really minimum, but to have even this speed I had to pump ISO to 12'800. And the pictures is absolutely usable. 

I had to hand hold camera with lens. I tried monopod but hanging gallery vibrated too much together with heavy bass tunes. (good workout to hand hold about 5kg gear for 1-2 hours...)

What a Crazy Weather, Keep on Shooting Against the Odds

Weather has been crazy recently and looking at it from this angle, we can say it is quite constant. Generally it got quite cold and during one day it can be sunny, cloudy, raining and snowing and again sunny. Great photography opportunities and I tried to take my chances and visited places I know quite well and wanted to see them under those changing light conditions.

The other day I got up for "sunrise", which is not so problematic now in winter. I placed word sunrise in quotes because I was not really after rising sun light, I knew there would not be any. Forecast was clouds and rain. But I wanted to witness dawn by Danube river and shoot some birds. Thick clouds in this case can really help. OK, you do not get great colours, but birds do not care about this, they stick to their business and I just wanted to be there. 

Sleeping Swans, 600mm, 1/640s, f/5.6, ISO 6400

When I arrived to Haslau an der Donau (Donau Auen National Park), it was still pitch dark. With dawn approaching it started to rain, tens of swans kept on sleeping. When they heard me coming, some of them raised their heads, scanned environment, seeing no threat, simply went to sleep again.

I looked around for a good spot where to sit and setup my gear and waited enjoying the silence, fresh cold air and simply nature.

One behind was way more in playing mode
600mm, 1/500s, f/5.6, ISO 6400

New day has come and swans started slowly waking up and carried on with morning cosmetics so to speak. Some were more active and some still in waking up mode. There were two or three young ones more energetic than other and I concentrated on following them with the lens, at the same time still keeping an eye on others.

Testing New Gear. Very Shallow Depth of Field

ValSans' Drummer
85mm, 1/1250s, f/1.2, ISO 12800
(Insane values! His hand is already way out of focus!)

For a week or so I have been testing new equipment. Some new lenses and especially new camera. I took a deep breath and leap and went for 1Dx. This camera is insane, not to mention that after two days of using it I got error 80 message on LCD screen, hehe. Was suspecting perhaps slower memory cards, but then reading through posts on internet I got some more details. Still have no idea what error 80 means, probably Canon will never reveal it but found links to new firmware and upgraded camera's software. Body out of the box had 1.0.2, quite fresh, now I am on 1.1.1, so quite a big jump. In any case I have sent a message to Canon support. On the other hand I was not really surprised about the error. It is new piece of gear and, having been in IT for over 20 years, I know shit can happen. 

Just came back from really low light situation, chosen on purpose, and have not faced error issue any more. Touch wood, firmware upgrade did the trick.

Assuming all issues are solved for now, at least for the time being, I am going through heavy learning curve with new buttons and functions. I got through the manual few times already, but every now and again when read some other topic, I keep finding new great features. The biggest changes are around auto focus system, for me at least. It is completely new world, especially when you switch from 5DMKII, which was (and is) a great camera but has had well known auto-focus issues, especially in low light situation.

Long Exposures - The Big Stopper Tests

I had proper quiet session with Lee's Big Stopper - neutral density filter stopping 10 stops of light. I have already had 10 stops filter from B+W but it was screw-on one with 77mm thread thus I was not able to use it on 16mm lens with 82mm thread diameter, and there were so many situations when I really could have done better with such strong filter on really wide angle. I simply had to get one.

Today's end of the session shot.
16mm, 280 seconds, f/16, ISO100
Filters: 3 stops ND, reds enhancer, 1 stop ND grad

The Big Stopper is really fantastic piece of glass. Extending exposure time to minutes during a day can alter photographed scene to something magical and mystical. I really like to work with long exposures.

So here's what I have done today.

To start with I chose so obvious and well known location - Lighthouse in Podersdorf by Neusiedlersee (Nuseidler Lake), that it would be difficult to find something more typical. The place have been photographed I think by every photographer in this country and millions of tourists just as well. I was after getting some different mood especially on grey and cold afternoon. The place looked so grey and dull and empty. With Big Stopper, this was exactly what I was looking for.

Jurassic Coast in Dorset Scouting

Portland Bill Lighthouse
60mm, 2s, f/16, ISO50, Polarizer, 3 stops ND ; 4:5 ratio

I drove to England last week and spent few days in different locations merely to have a look around for planned longer trip (2-4 weeks) in February or March next year.

I read an article the other day about Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. The site stretches from Orcombe Point near Exmouth in East Devon to Old Harry Rocks near Swanage in East Dorset, a distance of 153 kilometres.

Absolutely amazing location if you like coastlines, and rocks, and tides, and changing weather. 

I was aware that I might not come back with many great pictures as I had only 2-3 days time slot, and I had to move around, so I left everything to spontaneous shooting just to have reference for the future. 

I started with one of the most famous spots around, I believe, Durdle Door - natural limestone arch near Lulworth, and probably the most photographed as well. In any case I wanted to go there to get the feeling of the place and see where I can stay while waiting for good light.

There is huge camping located just by Durdle Door opened from March until end of October. However while driving through Lulworth I have passed some Bed & Breakfast signs and assume, I can find accommodation also in February.

Busy Shooting. Sort of Wrap-Up. Daily Schedule.

Sunrise (behind me) at Hohe Wand

Last few weeks were really busy, and coming period busy will still be.
I thought I would wrap up those bits and pieces.
Perhaps not so many new pictures are visible on my website, but there are quite a few new ones, however still on my disk and await their turn to be selected and published (I need new disks by the way...).

I have been torn apart quite a few live events at Vienna Gasometer Hall (see previous posts), and ((Szene)), and my ongoing landscapes project. On top of that I am preparing to UK trip this coming week with JBModel, and also plan to have few seascapes photo sessions.

Weather has been crap, and most of the time still is, and despite this well known fact I keep trying to make the most of it, especially chasing foggy and cold mornings and vivid autumn colours.

Since schedule has been so tight it happened on few occasions when I was heading for sunrise around 5-6 a.m., drove roughly 100 kilometres to a location, took pictures (better or worse depending on light conditions), drove back, and then on the same day I had a gig to shoot in the evening!

CRO Live @ Gasometer, Vienna

Then if you do it few days in a row, you must come up with some sort of new daily work plan.
Generally I like to get through at least first pictures selection right after the shoot even if it happens during the night or at other crazy hour.

So when I am back for instance now in Autumn at 10 a.m., I spend 1-2 hours looking at the pictures, building rough idea about results, some pop-up immediately, in some cases I need to leave it for later.
Then around noon or after lunch, I am going to sleep :)... the best part of the day. Depending on how tired I am I can fall into the land of dreams within a minute or it may take me a bit longer. In any case, even a nap will be a nap.

Most of concerts start around 8 or 9 in the evening. I need time to get myself sorted out thus my new wake-up alarm clock starts to scream around 6 in the afternoon. Food, get the gear ready and pack the lot, actually only what is essential. When running around the stage or pit, you do not want to have too much to carry and worry about.

Gig or show starts, full concentration, shooting for 15-20 minutes for support band, depending on the show and who you work for. Then main event starts, more shooting and typically with better light conditions. Might be you have to cover whole event, then you will be busy whole night. One night I had two shoots in 2 different places, music school concert and concert at Gasometer and had less than half an hour between them! It was CRO show, where I really had to rush to be on time... if you miss your 1st three songs, you will miss the shooting.

Steel Panther Show at Gasometer Hall, Vienna

Last night I went to shoot Steel Panther gig at Vienna Gasometer. The band from Los Angeles, California, mostly known for their profane and humorous lyrics as well as their exaggerated on-stage personas that reimagine and parody the glam metal music and lifestyle of the 1980s. 

Formed in 2000 as Metal School, and changed their name to Steel Panther in 2008.

It was their first show in Vienna, and the concert was completely sold-out, the hall was packed full. The band was rock solid on sound, I could hear bass guitar through my guts. You may wonder how can you get such great sound from only one lead guitar and one bass.

Guitarist Satchel with his furious, fantastic solos, drummer Stix Zadinia, singer Michael Starr resembling Motley Crue singer Vince Neil is not only vocally good, but he surpassed him by now, bassist Lexxi Foxx with his extravagant look. He kept fixing his hair and make-up.

Steel Panther do not have to cover others artists any more, they  can provide their own songs to get wild applause.

Combining humour with music may well be the ultimate form of entertainment, and if that is the case I just witnessed the best, when it comes to the heavy metal genre. 

Steel Panther simply blew me away.

One listen to Steel Panther's songs will tell you all you need to know about what direction the band is taking. Song titles like "Supersonic Sex Machine", "Asian Hooker" or "Let Me Cum In" conform to the perfected to the last detail showmanship, Steel Panther have more show than concert. 

Words like fuck and pussy kept coming from the mouths of musicians with a speed of machine-gun. 

Breaks between songs were filled with jokes and even more show. 

These guys, and particularly lead vocalist Michael Starr and guitarist Satchel, were absolutely hilarious and they connect so well with an audience. 

Steel Panther's charm is to deliver their music in a tongue and cheek way while poking fun at themselves and their audience. What was a common occurrence throughout the show was the laughter and smiles from most in the audience as the band kept cracking jokes and simply making one ridiculous statement after another.

Self Portrait - Alternative To Pouring Rain Weather.

Weather decided to stay stable i.e. wet, and grey and on top of it rained like hell today. I had this desire to shoot something indoor. In the end I chose myself - let's do low key self-portrait. Perhaps I can start model career on top of JBModel.eu :-) Or perhaps not, I am shooting and not modelling in terms of being a model.

I used one strobe with softbox as key light, reflector, and second strobe to highlight my hair to get some separation. Very simple setup.

580EX II flash at full power in manual mode, actually everything in full manual mode, second flash at 1/4 of power. Camera on tripod with 70-200mm lens with focal length set to around 150mm. Camera pre-focused and set to 1/160s, ISO 200, f/16. Such settings completely kill any ambient light, and everything around falls into complete darkness. In fact I shot myself with lights on and they not visible at all. So closed aperture - f/16 - also gives me relatively large depth of field which is helpful when shooting yourself and you can always position yourself few centimetres further or closer to pre-defined distance. As a backdrop I used piece of black paper.

Softbox is placed exactly to camera left of the model (me), on the other side I mounted round white reflector to give me fill light coming from the key light. To get some separation and to highlight my messy evening hair I placed second strobe above me pointing almost exactly towards my head but also slightly swivelled towards reflector, so some light would bounce back onto my face. 

Getting correct manual focus

Note, that I am wearing glasses, my eyes are not as good as they used to be... I need them to read. I put them for the portrait on purpose.

Glasses are built of glass, and glass reflects light. You have to take care of lights' angles and their reflections in order to see through the glass and see eyes properly. This is one of the reason I put lights on both my sides and above and not in front. If I had an assistant... I might have played more, but I was on my own thus went for safest option, and you can see my eyes normally.

To trigger everything the whole lot I used radio poppers, which also fired the camera remotely. 

First things first -  find your correct exposure. As mentioned I wanted to kill fully ambient light so I had to play around 1/200s - 1/160s shutter speed - 1/200s is typical synch speed of most of the cameras. Key strobe set to full power but soft box takes quite some light so in fact real output is way weaker. 

With little experience you will know where to start and what to tweak, I typically start with 1/4 of power and f/8 and keep on adjusting to my needs. 

Bad Weather Cont'd - Höllental Valley

Bridge over Schwarza river in Höllental
by Reichenau an der Rax
16mm, 13 sec, f/16, ISO 100

Weather has been quite stable, all the time grey and wet and sometimes also foggy. For shooting concerts assignments that occupied me recently it did not really matter but for landscapes, I had to take that into consideration. If you cannot change it, you have to adapt to the conditions and find advantages of the situation. This morning I got up quite late... way after 10, however considering the fact I came back from the gig shooting last night and had one day before, it was quite early... I need to sleep from time to time. (CRO pictures from Gasometer Halle can be seen on my site).

I looked through the window and saw same grey and wet world. But I had to go out somewhere, I needed some nature, and silence, and water, and colours, and trees, and fresh air. When whole surrounding is covered by thick layer of clouds time of the day does not matter, I mean to have quality light. You can shoot all day under that massive soft box spread all over you. I headed towards Höllental around noon in the end. Höllental means... Hell Valley, it is a narrow valley between the steep limestone massifs of the Schneeberg and Rax with Schwarza river in between. Magnificent location to say the least, you have got mountains, forest, river, waterfalls, from time to time you even loose phone coverage.

Playing with Clouds and Fog and Guitars

Quite a long time since last post. Been extremely busy and been away just as well, and have six gigs to shoot this week. Anyway, it is high time to catch up with some photos for the blog.

Recent weather conditions i.e. rains and fogs encouraged me to play with it and take them into my advantage. Not always successfully or to my intentions but still interesting.

Few days ago I headed to Mörbisch by Neusiedlersee to shoot some guitars equipment, pictures needed for one of my new projects. 

16mm, 30sec, F16, ISO 200
Lee Circular Polarizer and Reds Enhancer

I was after some great wooden texture and rising sun, that should have come up at specific moment and place (right side of the frame above). And probably it did, but thick layer of clouds and fog successfully covered it. I was after great morning colours, brought my strobes and softbox to play with and to illuminate guitars and great old Marshal amplifier... but let's rewind a little bit.

Don't Trust Your Camera Preview, Use RAW and Gold-N-Blue Polarizer

Orth an der Donau

Don't Trust Your Camera Preview,

Use RAW, and Gold-N-Blue Polarizer... so many topics in one title.

I wanted to share a story of one picture. Here you can see final result, later at the bottom you will see 2nd version of same frame with different polarization. You may like the other one... I like both, but had to choose one.

I drove to Orth by Danube, not far from Vienna towards Slovakian border, to have a look around, still looking for Autumn, and thought that with late afternoon sun I can get something.

Overall the day and scenery looked quite dull, I did some shots here and there but I am not too happy with them. Real colourful Autumn has still not arrived. Then at one stage I spotted this shed built on water with its reflection and setting sky and reflected in water. I thought then, well, I will come back with at least one picture today. 

70mm, 1/5s, F16, ISO50
No filters

I liked the composition, old wooden shed with lots of texture, it had some atmosphere that captured my attention. The only thing I do not like is advertisement text, which I might in the future remove in photoshop. For now it is there.

Scenery as such is quite tough to capture properly not talking about focal length and f stops. But since I mentione them, this time I wanted tighter frame and I used 70 mm length with my typical f16 to have large depth of field. The problem was tonal range which is really great here. You have really bright sky, not seen by our eyes, then really dark stripe with trees, bushes and the shed and then again really bright water with reflecting sky. Here you can see the picture straight from the camera with no filters used, and what can you say... boring and grey.

Nostalgic Night of Steam - Railroad Musem in Strasshof

Wow, wow and wow again.

25mm, 30 sec, f/5, ISO 400 

The sound, the heat, the smell, almost the taste of burning coal. Fantastic to say the least. 

My grandfather used to drive one of those during the war... there was one here in the museum built in 1942, and he must have been driving one of very similar type. To see all those locomotives aged back from end of 19th century breathing again is fantastic. And to see them at night with all the lights on was even better.

16mm, 4 min,  f/11, ISO 200

So many memories came back when I used to visit my grandparents as a kid, back in late 70s  many of those steam engines were still in use, I used to visit engine house in Białogard (Belgard). I loved it as kid and still have some special feeling about trains especially older ones. I bet, I know, I am not the only one. Those nostalgic trips bring something special.

Boars and Deers - 300mm + 2x Converter Tests

Boar heard me...
600mm, 1/25s, f/5.6, ISO 6400

I keep on testing 300mm f2.8 lens and yesterday afternoon I also took 2 times converter to give whole setup a go. Results are good and bad, I am still not sure if I should go for the lens in the longer run. 300mm is a lot but sometimes still not enough. Problem with 2x times converter is that it takes 2 full stops of light i.e. from f/2.8 you start with f/5.6 which is crucial in the woods.

I went to Lainzer Tiergarten, at the edge of Vienna, and headed deep into forest where I spotted boars last week and hoped for new meeting. Afternoon light relatively strong, simply disappeared within shadows of wood, when I measured the scene and camera metering system told me simply... it is dark. To get relatively fast shutter speed I had to pump up ISO to 6400 and even 12800 in some cases. Even with those settings I was not able to go higher that 1/100s. Boars, and deers were relatively still but if I had to shoot running object, I would not be able to do so.

On the other hand 600mm is 600mm. Few days ago I was complaining about stabilization while shooting sports, this time having to go down all the way to 1/100s and even 1/50s stabilization and monopod did the miracle. The basic rule says that shutter speed should not be slower that focal length, in my case that would have to be 1/600s... I had to go down by around 3 stops and in this situation I was really grateful for stabilizer.

Boar in Lainzer Tiergarten
600mm, 1/50s, f/5.6, ISO 12800

Baseball Cont'd. Vienna Wanderers Won Finals

Shortstop throwing at 1st base
300mm, 1/400s, f2.8, ISO 6400

Vienna Wanderers won Austrian baseball finals. First few innings game looked quite tight and I hoped Diving Ducks would go ahead and win this game, then tomorrow I would have had a chance to watch and shoot next game of the finals. But it did not happen.

I was surprised to see so many photographers and media today including national TV. Ok, this was Austrian finals and some coverage was required. Funny thing, I was explaining to few guys from Gepa, Kurier basic sequences of actions, most of them (all of them) simply had no idea what was going on baseball field. And with baseball, actions anticipation is crucial... when you have runner on 1st and/or 2nd base with 1 out, and 3-2 count, or runner on 3rd and game is tied with one out... you have to feel it!

You point your lens to where the most probable action might happen like nice tagging at home plate when runners tackle catcher who finally even drops the ball after impact and runner is safe and scores... you do not want to photograph all the time the batter, there is so much happening besides home plate.

Johannesbachklamm - Is Autumn Late Or What Is Going On?

Johannesbachklamm
16mm, 30 sec, F16, ISO 100

I cannot find those great deep autumn colours those weeks. We have entered into October on our calendar, at least the one in front of me, and still everything is more or less green. Leaves are falling and falling and still things are green. Wherever I go I look for colours of Autumn and to me it has not waken up yet fully. I keep visiting different places with trees and nothing ends up as planned. One, two weeks I hope. At the most. Then it will be only few days and all will be over for this year, snow will come and all will change. Gosh, I need to get new winter tyres this month.

Anyway, today in search of autumn I decided to visit Johannesbachklamm (gorge) by Würflach (Schneeberg Land, Niederösterreich) not far from Hohe Wand, one of my favourite locations around Vienna. The gorge itself is approximately 1 km long and 60m deep.

In principle I was after deep reds and yellows and water streams with floating fallen leaves. I got streams, rocks, greens in quite good quantities but reds and yellows are still not there, at least not as much as I wished for. I went shooting during midday and this was another reason to head into woods to kill sunlight above me. Shadows from trees even during midday can create nice atmosphere and produce good soft diffused light. So in the end I should not complain.

Schloss Pottendorf - Two Birds With One Stone

Schloss Pottendorf
17mm, 4 sec, f16, ISO 100,
ND 2 Stops Grad and Reds Enhancer

Schloss Pottendorf - Two Birds With One Stone session so to speak...
I thought I would have some photo fun today. I Drove to Pottendorf located basically at border of Burgenland and Niederösterreich. I wanted to scout the location and do some basic shots of Pottendorf castle. The castle Pottendorf was first documented in 1130 by Rudolf von Pottendorf and was probably built shortly before. Originally romanesque gothic and then baroque especially the first free-standing, mainly late gothic chapel was connected to the main building in 1519. The three-story water tower had a nearly square courtyard. In 1737-38 two corner towers were added and the mighty Roman gate tower from the 13th Century. The castle belonged for a long time to Esterházy family....

All buildings are surrounded by moat... next time I will get my waders and will get even closer. But today wanted to get some water reflections and have fun with... second camera, flash, and radio transmitters . This is what I meant by "two birds with one stone". Besides taking photos of the castle I also was shooting myself from different positions. And all shots were triggered by main camera doing actual castle photos. Radio popper on the camera triggered transmitter on camera behind me or somewhere by me, this second camera triggered by radio flash mainly hidden by my bag illuminating me.

24mm, 1/6s, f16, ISO 200, 580EX flash at 1/4 power placed behind my bag
Picture slightly desaturated. Effect achieved, eye wanders from the castle to my face
leaving ruins as main subject, me only as an add-on

Some Baseball. Vienna Wanderers vs. Diving Ducks at Wr. Neustadt

Diving Ducks Batting
600mm, f5.6, 1/800s, ISO200

Time to shoot some action, haven't done it for a while
Been in Prague, Czech with my JBModel stand for last few days (no time for real shooting...) but today, back in Vienna, had to test new 300mm f2.8 lens!
Austrian Baseball League moved into their finals and today Vienna Wanderers played Diving Ducks in Wiener Neustadt. This is was 2nd game of the finals. Weather was good sunny with some clouds and dry. Perfect conditions with soft light and relatively bright. Next weekend I will follow further games.

It was purely one lens day, as I mentioned 300 mm and few times I mounted also 2x converter which gave me focal length of 600 mm! Problem with the converter though is that you loose 2 stops of light (from f2.8 to f5.6) and focus is slightly slower. In any case it is great and cheaper solution and worth trying.

My Press card helped me to get in without any questions and was able to shoot the game from and around dugouts. Every inning or so I kept changing position to get different angle and also when sun broke through I wanted to have it behind me. Most of the time though sun was behind the clouds.

Double Play by Diving Ducks
300mm, 1/1600s, f2.8, ISO400

New Filters Tests - Glass Enhancer, Straw, Blue, Sepia from Lee

I bought few new Lee filters during last weekend at Photokina in Cologne:
Glass Enhancer - unusual filter enhances any red or orange features within an image, leaving other colours unaffected.
Landscape Set which consists of
Straw Graduated - a greater yellow warm-up for landscapes. Accentuates foregrounds when inverted.
Real Blue Graduated - gives a deeper effect to skies.
Sepia Graduated - gives a brown tinted monochrome look.

It was time to run few fast tests at Wienerberg, in the park close to my house.
I setup the tripod chose simple composition with some water, bushes and sky. Setting sun was almost right behind me. Found correct exposure for the foreground took the shot with manual focus set 1.5m and settings: 16mm, 0.5 sec, F16, ISO100... and no filters at all:

16mm, 0.5 sec, F16, ISO100, no filters

Sky is clearly way to bright, I metered before the difference and it was about 3 stops brighter than foreground so I mounted 2 stops ND grad and placed my new Glass Enhancer. The scene does not contain too many reds but still wanted to see the result. Glass Enhancer takes 1 stop of light so I increased exposure to 1 second:

16mm, 1 sec, F16, ISO100, 2 stops ND Grad and Glass Enhancer

Difference is clear, colours are much vivid. You can see the moon on blue sky. Both pictures are straight from the camera without any post processing, and of course second is the winner. Tomorrow I will make more tests with clear reds.

Photokina 2012, Köln, Germany

Manfred Baumann's Photo Workshop

In almost last minute I (we) decided to visit Photokina 2012 fair in Köln, Germany. With two of my photographers friends based in Vienna - Rafal Konkol and Robert Kolsut - we were planning outdoor shooting and then idea popped-up... let's got to Cologne for Photokina 2012, one of the biggest photography fairs in the world, definitely the biggest event in Europe. Fast idea and fast decision and trip's plan quickly evolved and matured. It is only 900 km and that can be covered in roughly 8-9 hours using German motorways...

Just about to enter Photokina 2012

We left on Friday noon and arrived to our booked room outside Cologne, in Düren, little bit before 10 p.m. Quickly unpacked and looking for some food had a chance to see this small city's centre. Could not really go off having in mind early wake up in order to be at Photokina at 10 a.m.. We decided to leave the car and travel to Cologne by train. We found out that Photokina ticket also covers train trip to and from the fair.

Finally we got there... the place huge, massive to say the least. I do not remember so many people around me with cameras and tripods. Seemed like everyone had a camera, people were shooting each other like crazy. During those few days millions of pictures must have been taken.

Erlaufsee by Night. Night Photos Cont'd

Erlaufsee, 20mm, 36 sec, f/2.8, ISO 6400

Being in the mood to shoot at night and having good weather support I had to go somewhere last night as well. Somewhere further away from Vienna city lights. I thought Erlaufsee by Mariazell would be good choice. Small lake surrounded by hills and relatively far from larger city. I have been there some time ago remembered calm crystal clear waters of the lake. 130 km drive is nothing special so let's do it.

Having had short nap in the afternoon (got up at 6 p.m.) I headed south west towards Erlaufsee (lake). Border between Lower Austria and  Steiremark (Styria) roughly divides the lake into two halves. I have problems with captioning the pictures. Physically I was on Steirmark soil but overlooking Lower Austria (Niederösterreich) at the same time. How to classify such photos...

Anyway, got to the place after 9 p.m., and my hopes to be in really dark surrounding died instantly out of natural causes. Drove for an hour or so via serpentine deep dark forest surrounded roads just to see nice and calm place with small piers, as it used to be, now covered with restaurant tables and restaurant lights all over. What else could go wrong?!

Besides building's strong yellow lights there was number of strong lanterns placed along lake's beach so to speak. Light was all over me while I was looking for complete darkness!

Stars Trails, Night Photography

60 1 minute pictures stacked together
16mm, f/2.8, ISO 6400, 60 x 1 minute

Last night we had new moon.
Best time to shoot stars and night sky. Month before I was not able to shoot stars for the simple reason - bad weather. Yesterday and today conditions seemed to comply. I had to take the chances.
Stars and sky are one thing but you also need some foreground interest in the frame. I checked what old ruins are available within 100 km radius of Vienna and are located on some hill. I really like this website http://www.ruine.at/. Very good source of information with coordinates and google maps links.

Things to consider when shooting stars and sky:

• You need dark place. Really dark place, 50-100 km away from large cities. Even the location from last night was not dark enough, there was small town below and it casted yellow tungsten lights. However this time I used to my advantage. I had old tower lit...
• Solid tripod. Has to be really solid as all frames will be shot with 30 seconds and more. Sometime even 16-30 minutes. 
• Wide angle lens, wider - the better.
• Cable release to be able to (A) - remotely shoot the frame, (B) - lock the shutter button when in BULB mode i.e. when shooting with times over 30 seconds.
• Intervalometer - handy tool to have when you can setup long exposures e.g. 16 minutes and you do not have to stand by the camera and monitor time. Also it will automatically shoot as many shots as you need with defined intervals. I used it last night.
• Some source of light...

Pumpkins Fields. Fantastic Cloudy Weather

Over last few days, actually last weekend plus Monday I added close to 2000 km, driving to Poland and around Silesia with my JBModel stand. This is the reason for less activity on the blog and websites.

On the way back to Vienna, right after Czech border I noticed few pumpkin fields and they reminded me of coming Autumn. While driving along the fields I thought I would have to come back to the place to take some shots. It took me few days to organize myself including clearing out shop stuff. Finally today I found time to come back to the location and to my joy the weather also played correct tune. 

Nice thick clouds and forecasted rain. Then you think, deep grey world around you with decent orange and green pumpkins - they must pop out of the images with their contrast colours and zero harsh light. Lower Austria (Niederösterreich) is not really the land for pumpkins comparing to Styria (Steiermark) but you can still find some pieces here and there. 
This was really one of last moments around here to shoot pumpkins on the ground, on most fields they were already cleaned from leaves and sorted in rows ready for collection. I found only spot were the still laid around in natural manner. But leaves and branches were already dry.

Pumpkins ready for collection, Lower Austria, Drasenhofen area.
16mm, f22, 0.3 sec, ISO100, 

Wien Donaustadtbrücke (Bridge) - Playing Colours, Black & White Wins

Donaustadtbrücke, Vienna

I shot only one picture today.

Well not fully true but close...

Once I setup the tripod and framed the scene I have not changed the position till the end of the session. To be completely honest - I did once to test vertical frame, but I did not like it as much as horizontal, so all subsequent shots are framed horizontally.

Also vertical composition was cutting off my longest line - the bridge and here I am explaining what I mean.

I was looking for simple composition with lots of lines, and what better can be found with lots of lines than the bridge, and especially suspension bridge. There are lines everywhere - horizontal, vertical, diagonal.
Whole picture is composed of lines that lead the eye around from left to right and up and down. You just cannot stop wandering around the frame building up the desire of crossing onto other side to see what's there. This is what I wanted. I got almost there... I was after more dramatic weather effect but today's sky did not comply with my wishes. Cloudy forecast happened to be fairy tail. Later towards the evening the sky completely cleared.

Meeting Friend in Budapest After 20 Years

Old Fence by Danube
185 mm, 1/2000, f2.8, ISO 100

Internet and photography are simply fantastic. All of a sudden you can find your friends from good old school times. It just happened to me. Got in touch with old time mate from high school - Greg - who happened to live in Budapest for now... and has similar interests i.e. photography. We simply had to meet.
So last weekend I spent in Budapest, Hungary, at his place to remember great old school times and took the opportunity to take snaps around the city. At the same time I tried to explain to Greg and his family some of my tips and tricks.
Photography wise it was tough Saturday, in the morning we had few minutes of showers and some clouds and I was hoping for more clouds but then the sun simply started to pour its light onto us, and that was it. I had to deal with harsh and flat light for the rest of the day. I have been to Budapest before quite few times but never had enough time to scroll around and to concentrate on shooting. This time it was different, my main objective was to scroll around together and shoot or mainly to find good spots for the future. Of course we started with the most known places and tried to take different photographs. I am not sure if I had fully managed that but I tried. I must spend few weeks in Budapest to really capture the feeling of this great city. Danube banks in Budapest are simply amazing and so much different to Vienna. There are so many spots you want to capture and so little time, especially with good light. Good sunny weather is not ideal for that purpose.

To deal with daylight sun I decided to use mainly my 10 stops grey filter to be able to use long exposures that would give me some different feelings. In general I like long exposures, pictures shot with 10-30 seconds or minutes show different reality. Like if we were somewhere frozen in longer chunks of time, like if we stopped by and the world kept spinning around by us and left us intact.
In some cases I also applied soft ND grad filters and also tested with Singh-Ray Gold-N-Blue polarizer. I wanted to transform dull scenes into something more interesting.
I am posting few examples.

We are by Budapest Citadel, Gelert's Hill, noon sun high in the sky slightly behind me. Composed the frame to get more clouds and wanted to pop-up some non-existing colours from flat light.
Mounted Gold-N-Blue polarizer and used 3 stops soft ND grad and 3 stops grey filter from Lee.
It is not ideal, but I still like it. Especially bluish sky and dark clouds. They remind me of Iron Maiden album's cover - Brave New World. You should see that cover to compare (and of course listen to the album!)...
Just cut off trees in front and crop square and it is like Brave New World cover....

Scale Models Photography - X-Rite Color Checker

Yukikaze, 1:700
43mm, 1s, f/16, ISO100

Slightly different topic from my usual landscapes and concert photos this time. I mentioned the other day that my trip to Poland was a combination of different objectives. One of them was Polish Scale Ship Modellers' Convention in Tczew.

Being modeller myself and a photographer at the same time I had to take a chance to shoot some good quality pictures of some of the models exhibited. I actually waited till exhibition was over and had a session in  a... kitchen.

Using just one fluorescent light covered with white A4 sheet of paper to diffuse light . As a background I used relatively large piece of white backside of wall calendar. The setup could not be simpler. Light source was positioned around 30 cm above of the model.

Gdynia, Baltic Sea Behind The Scene Snaps, Cont'd

Dębki Beach, Poland

Following up with the post from yesterday featuring Baltic Sea shots, I have received pictures of myself from Basia Kramczyńska from Gdynia, Poland, who snapped me on few occasions while I was fiddling with the camera.

All pictures (except two) in this post - courtesy of Basia Kramczyńska.

Even those few shots show that I love low angle and vertical framing. 16mm on full frame in vertical mode and shot from very low level produce really nice pictures.

Few Days by the Sea in Poland

Dębki Beach, Poland
16mm, 2.5s, f16, ISO 50

Lots of kilometres last longer weekend. Just came back from Polish seaside having on the clock over 2'500 new kilometres. Took me one day longer as I had small issue with the car and had to service it before hitting the road back to Vienna.

Nothing major, but could be very major if not fixed on time. 

I attended Polish Scale Ship Modellers’ Forum Convention in Tczew, about 30 km south of Gdansk. Being there I had to take the opportunity to take some shots by the sea. Especially being land locked all the time here in Vienna.

Dębki Beach, Poland
27mm, 4s, f16, ISO 50

Unfortunately I have not had much time to move around but tried to make the best from what I could. On Saturday afternoon we went all the way to the north to hit open sea - to Dębki to shoot sunset. For the following day we planned sunrise in Gdynia and trip to Hel peninsula. So the plan was tight. Distances are not dramatically big but when I saw what was happening on the roads I knew I would not be able to do very much. It is middle of the holiday season and tourists with their cars simply flood everything and everywhere.

Aha, I forgot to mention, I travelled with my friend’s sister and her friend who both have lived in Gdynia for years and knew the places and are very keen on photography. I very much appreciated their help and tried to show them some of my tips and tricks in return.

Coming back to day 1, that is Dębki beach (coordinates 54.833486, 18.062457).

Shooting Panoramas

I have recently watched video tutorial by Gavin Hoey about shooting panoramas and thought I would give them a try. Up to now I was not really into panoramas, sort of left them for later. He made it look so easy, and now having been inspired by Gavin I headed towards Vienna city centre, its old town and started to shoot...

Vienna Hofburg Panorama stitched from 7 vertical images

You need extremely wide and interesting building or structure. What could be better than Hofburg and Parliament, perhaps Schönbrunn but I will shoot it the other day...
I was after specific oval distorted effect to bring some extra visual impact. I stood in front of the central point of the structure and looked from left to right. It was supposed to be almost 180 degrees panorama. You need series of images that overlap by at least 30%. More overlapping areas will help to generate better and smoother panorama.

7 vertical images used for panorama

Elvis Lives!

Elvis (Chris Kaye)
1/160s, f/2.8, ISO 3200, 50mm

Elvis' You Were Always on Mind performed by Chris Kaye at the end of the show simply blew me away, knocked me down, I almost shivered. I was standing by the stage with my camera ready but for first few moments I simply could not shoot... mentally. I simply wanted to listen and enjoy the atmosphere. The sound, the voice... Elvis was there and singing! Stunning moment.

I was invited to to shot The Elvis Show and the Blue Moon Band & Countryside Singers in Gerasdorf by Vienna. Definitely something different for my metal roots but on the other hand when you hear Elvis' songs all of a sudden you realize that you know them all, you must have heard them here an there for ages.
I can simply say Elvis lives!
Absolutely awesome event and can recommend any future shows like that. I think next one should take place in October or November. I hope I will be invited again :)

Electric Wizard LIVE @ ((Szene))

((Szene)) from above
1/30s, f/2.8, ISO 6400

Last night I photographed for Catapult Promotions Electric Wizard gig at Vienna ((Szene)). English band formed in 1993 in Dorset. They were supported by Kadvar (Germany) and Iron Heel from Vienna. Electric Wizard are often referred to as the "heaviest band in the universe". I really enjoyed the show. Decent heavy rhythmic music took me back all the way to 70s. The way musicians were dressed with their bottom wide long jeans and shoes intensified the past feeling. It was like trip back to the past. Great show shortly speaking.

Photography wise, very tough. Guys apparently wanted to keep the mood quite dark to match their music. I had to adjust to the conditions with very little light and almost all the time backlit shots. On the positive side last night I had full stage access which allowed me to look for different angles and I wanted to make the most of it.

JBModel.eu Site Upgrade

K.u.K Huszar Class JBModel Set
Built by Katarzyna Manikowska

Heavy day(s).
Since I had no chance to go out and shoot, let me share few pictures of JBModel models and give some background.

I spent basically the whole day yesterday and working today updating, upgrading customizing my web shop - JBModel.eu. Shop installation is peanuts but when it comes to customization it is a nightmare.
Then when I thought all is fine I realized payment module does not work properly. After tons of cigarettes I found the root cause - firewall was blocking cURL communication. Now all is fine, I hope at least. Orders start to arrive through new interface and hope they keep coming :) Thank you my dear modeller friends!

SMS Planet. JBModel Set
Built by Jim Baumann

I have also initiated major restock as after summer holidays, they are half way through, modellers' world be quite active again.
We (me and few friends) are working on new sets that should be available for autumn period which should be quite busy.
Starting from October JBModel will attend Scale Model Challenge in Eindhoven, Holland. Then 2 two weeks later C4-Open, Malmo, Sweden and again 2 weeks later - Scale Model World in Telford, UK. Lots of driving to a location, return trip, fast restock and hit the road to new location. Might as well happen we will attend some other modelling events in between. Perhaps even in September. I got some hints about Fields of Glory (polish - Pola Chwały) event in Niepołomice, Poland. Typically such events are full of modellers and history enthusiasts. It can be fantastic photography opportunity just as well. So two in one :-)