What's That?

Today I was on a photo-trip with a friend of mine and again, I have hardly ever taken my Lensbaby Composer off my camera!!! This shot is the one I liked most thanks to the composition and the nice cold colors. The photo was not manipulated in any way, I only added little bit of contrast and vibrance in Lightroom, that was it. Love this lens! Can you guess what is on the picture? Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Lensbaby Composer at 50mm, F5,6 @ 1/320, ISO 100.

Edgy

The more I play with my new Lensbaby Composer, the more I like it. The focusing is still quite tricky; I have become better in manual focusing on closer subjects, however, at longer distances using the life-view option works better for me. The photo above I took today during a short walk and I am amazed to see what possibilities this lens offers. It stays constantly on my camera these days. What I like probably most is that it forces me to think hard before taking a picture and manual focusing helps to slow me down. Today's photo was enhanced in Lightroom, I simply used the preset PH Edgy Church and adjusted little bit the curves afterwards. I think that it adds quite some artistic mood to the selective focus and I am happy about the final result. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Lensbaby Composer at 50mm, F5.6 @ 1/100, ISO 640.

Merry Christmas

Yesterday I have got a new toy: a selective focus Lensbaby Composer. This is one of the very first pictures I have taken with it. I am surprised to see how sharp this lens is! Take a look at 100% crop from the area in focus. It is pretty amazing but also quite tricky to achieve a good focus with this lens (manual focusing is the only option here). I am looking forward to more experiments with this new piece of equipment. I have a feeling that it has quite some potential. By the way the lighting was achieved by my on-camera flash pointed to the wall on my left. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Lensbaby Composer at 50mm, F5.6 @ 1/30, ISO 800.

Tropical Island

I am now safely back in Europe and when browsing through the photos I took in Rio de Janeiro, this one kept popping up. I like the colors and the simplicity of this tiny tropical island. Good bye Rio! Camera spec: Canon 20D with Canon 28-105 3,5-4,5 USM at 50mm, F9 @ 1/400, ISO 200.

Santa Teresa View

Today I had a walk up to the Santa Teresa hill in Rio de Janeiro and photographed this stunning panorama. It was raining the whole day but luckily the sky cleared up little bit in the evening so that I could make six expositions that were stitched together in Hudin. I like the result also thanks to the composition: the panorama is bounded from both sides by the green and the U shape of the trees in the foreground does not allow the viewer's eyes to escape. Camera spec: Canon 20D with Canon 28-105 3,5-4,5 USM at 28mm, F8 @ 1/100, ISO 200.

Sugar Loaf Panorama

Yesterday I decided to try a panorama photo of Sugar Loaf. I stichted together 7 expositions of vertical photos in Hugein. All expositions were in the manual mode and with manual focus. Hugein works flawlessly and the final result is very nice panorama photo. Camera spec: Canon 20D with Tokina 11-16 2,8 at 11mm, F11 @ 1/200, ISO 100.

A Tropical Paradise

Today I am blogging a photo I took two days ago after my arrival to Rio de Janeiro. The photo is taken from the top floor of the Military Institute of Engineering (IME) on a foggy day (unfortunately it has been raining cats and dogs since we arrived to Rio). I really like how the palmtrees are displayed over the ocean surface, giving it a nice contrast, complemented by the background hills partly covered in fog. The picture was enhanced in Lightroom, in particular I missed some element in the right-hand top corner, so I cloned there the three birds that add a final touch to the photo. In fact the original bird was at some other place on the photo, so I simply moved it to another position using the clone tool and replicated it tree times (see the original photo here). I think that the final result is very pleasing. Camera spec: Canon 20D with Canon 28-105 3.5-3.5 USM at 38mm, F8 @ 1/250, ISO 200.

Look at You

Here is another photo I have recently taken close by to the shot on the previous post. The girl was lit from the right by Canon 580 EX with 1/4 CTO through an umbrella. I think that the photo worked best in sepia toning. Note the two repeated S-curves at the background that help to bring the attention to the girl and make the photo more interesting. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Canon 70-200 4L at 98mm, F5.6 @ 1/250, ISO 200.

A Man with Confidence

This is a recent portrait that I have taken on Saturday morning last weekend. The sun was just showing up so I placed my subject in the direction that created a nice loop lighting pattern on his face and used the negative space on the left to add drama to the photo. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Canon 70-200 4L at 73mm, F5.6 @ 1/640, ISO 100.