Category Archives: photography

Accessories, Landscape Photography, photography, Sony Alpha 7, Travel-Report

Travel report: A journey through the Balkans

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Travel report: A journey through the Balkans

Last two years I already visited (by airplane) the Balkan countries Montenegro and Albania for a hiking vacation with my girlfriend and a photography trip with my photo buddy Rick. The wild nature of the Balkans attracts me a lot. As the Balkans are not well known yet, and a lot of people from West Europe think its still dangerous there (most area’s are safe nowadays), you can walk around in the mountains without seeing anyone for a whole day.
The Balkan countries also have very nice, often old cities at the Adriatic coast which are touristic, but not nearly as those in e.g. Italy.

Below you can find a few pictures from my trip last year, which convinced me to go back again this year.  Most photo’s of this year can be found in high resolution here. The timelapse video my friend Rick made is also worth checking.

a7s | Samyang 14mm t/3.1 | Montenegro 2018
a7ii | Loxia 2/50 | Montenegro 2018
a7s | Voigtländer 4.5/15 | Montenegro 2018
a7s | Samyang 14mm t/3.1 | Montenegro 2018

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camera, Opinion, photography, Review

How good a camera you need? – A closer look at the Huawei Mate 20 Pro

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Introduction

huawei mate 20 pro phone photography smartphone small sensor resolution review bokeh computational photography
Huawei Mate 20 Pro | 27mm equivalent | polarizer

Very often we get asked questions like: should I get lens X or lens Y? Out of lens X, Y and Z: which is the best performer? Which 35/50/85mm lens should I buy? Do I need a camera with 42mp? Is the Zeiss Batis 18mm 2.8 or the Zeiss Loxia 21mm 2.8 sharper?
For several reasons we usually cannot answer these questions: rarely we know what you want to use the lens or camera for and often the difference between a good and a bad sample of the same lens is bigger than that between two different lenses.
So, to give you a different perspective, in this article we will look at the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, a smartphone with above-average camera capabilities and see what results can be obtained from this pocketable 200g device.

Sample Images

huawei mate 20 pro phone photography smartphone small sensor resolution review bokeh computational photography
Huawei Mate 20 Pro | 27mm equivalent
huawei mate 20 pro phone photography smartphone small sensor resolution review bokeh computational photography
Huawei Mate 20 Pro | 16mm equivalent
huawei mate 20 pro phone photography smartphone small sensor resolution review bokeh computational photography
Huawei Mate 20 Pro | 80mm equivalent

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Manual Photographers, Manual Photographers series, photography, The creative process

THE MANUAL PHOTOGRAPHERS SERIES PART 9: Hispan

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manual photographers series hispan hungary budapest
Dr. Vintage – photo credits: Hegyi Júlia Lily

B: Hi Hispan, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to use manual lenses?

H: Originally I studied history at the university (my PhD is still in progress) but I’ve always been interested in theoretical physics and cosmology, which is a quite wide range of interest. Photography came to my life later, in 2011 to be exact, and I was using only modern lenses in the first 3 years. The beginning of my “vintage adventure” dates back to 2014, after I got my first “fast” Canon 1.4/50 USM lens, and I wasn’t really satisfied with the image quality.

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Meta, photography, Uncategorized

Building a lens kit

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Introduction

carl zeiss loxia 85mm 2.0 sonnar sony a7 a7r a7r2 a7rm2 alpha alpha7 review
Loxia 21mm 2.8 – Loxia 35mm 2.0 – Loxia 85mm 2.4

When you start getting more involved with photography – and especially when you prefer using prime lenses – at some point it makes sense to spend some thoughts on building a lens kit.
In this article we want to give you a few ideas of what to consider when building your own lens kit and show you some of ours in the end.

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photography, The creative process, Uncategorized

The best lenses for Brenizer / Bokehpanoramas

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Introduction

bokeh panorama bokehpanorama brenizer bokehrama mechanical vignetting guide review
Sony A7s | Canon EF 135mm 2.0L | 55m f/0.81 equivalent

Brenizer or Bokehpanorama is a panorama technique to get a wide angle shot with the much better bokeh of a longer tele lens. In this article I will show you what it is all about and which lenses work best.

What is a Brenizer/Bokehpanorama?

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4×9 single shots before stitching in Microsoft Image Composite Editor

By using longer lenses and taking a panorama you can simulate the look of fictional, wider, very fast lenses that are not even technically possible to build.

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