Drinking from a Hose and Playing the World’s Tiniest Violin

Hi, everyone

First, I would like to welcome all the new subscribers. I appreciate you joining our little community (at least, I would like to think of it as one).

Life has been very busy for me this fall (hence the first part of the title of this “definitely not a blog”). In fact, I got so busy with things ranging from business travel to participating in multiple art fairs that I barely had time to take new images and edit older ones (yes, I am still severely behind in my editing process, and that’s all I am going to say about that).

The second part of the title, is just to remind myself that despite being so busy, I am also very lucky to be able to do all these things, and I shouldn’t complain. In fact, I had a pretty good fair season so far, and also managed to combine some business travel with capturing some great images (more on that later).

All that being said, I finally got a little breather now, and am able to get ready for new art fairs and photographic adventures.

Let’s start with a few updates:

Art Fairs

I will be participating in the Paradise City Marlborough November 22-24, and then in the Annual Castleberry Fair in Wilmington November 29th-December 2nd (yes, right after Thanksgiving). I am also waiting for an answer from another fair that would happen December 8th, but that is not yet confirmed. If you are in the mood of visiting a great art fair for the holidays, and maybe get some amazing gifts, come and stop by my booth.

Exhibits

Two of my images were juried into the Fall National exhibit at the Cape Cod Art Center. The exhibit is currently on and will run through November 8th. It is an amazing exhibit, and if you are in the area, do check it out. Both images look amazing framed and are also available for sale, and if you are interested, drop me a line.

Rising from the Morning Mists. Juried into the Fall National exhibit at the Cape Cod Art Center.

The Path to the Sveti (Saint) Jacob Church. Juried into the Fall National exhibit at the Cape Cod Art Center.

Two of my images also made it into the Small Stones Arts Festival that will start in January 2025. Since they haven’t yet put out an official announcement (I got the notice this week), I will hold off on posting the images here for now. If you have been following me for a while, you would know that I participated in the festival for the last two years. It is an amazing event co-sponsored by the Worcester County Camera Club (of which I am a member). Do check out both the online exhibit, which would include significantly more images, and the physical exhibit when it runs. It always looks great, and has some additional programming like lectures by the jury for you to enjoy.

Epson Pano Awards 2024

This was the second year I participated in the Epson Pano Awards competition. It is a unique competition where all images need to have at least 2:1 aspect ratio. As always, the winners and the shortlisted images are absolutely stunning. For those of us who enjoy landscape and travel photography, perusing them is an absolutely awe inspiring experience, and I am just imagining what it would be like seeing these printed large on the wall…

Although I didn’t make it into the shortlist (wouldn’t that be an absolute cherry on top), I did improve over my last year’s submissions. I improved my scores across the board. Two of my images made it into the silver tier, and two into the bronze tier. Given the intense competition, I consider that to be a pretty good achievement.

Interestingly, the images that got the silver certificate were taken a while back (before I got really serious with my photography). A few months ago I was going over some older shots and decided to reedit these. I wonder what I would have been able to do now in those conditions.

After the Storm. Silver badge at the “professional” Epson Pano Awards for 2024

After the Storm at the Dead Horse Point. Silver badge at the “open” Epson Pano Awards for 2024

One of the images that got a bronze badge was also a reedited version of an older image. The second one is from a newer shot taken close to home. All of this just goes to show that you can create amazing images anywhere and with virtually any equipment.

Morning Light. Bronze badge at the “professional” Epson Pano Awards for 2024.

Breakers at Cannon Beach. Bronze badge at the “open” Epson Pano Awards for 2024.

Some Photography Updates

As I mentioned at the beginning, I didn’t have a lot of time to focus on my photography recently. However, I did manage a few things :-)

In early October I went to Virginia for a business trip. Initially, I was planning to spend a few days after I was done there in the Asheville area in North Carolina. It is an amazing area which I visited before, but haven’t yet fully explored. However, the devastation left by hurricane Helene made this impossible. I hope the area is able to recover quickly from the damage.

Instead, I spent a couple of days in the Blue Ridge Parkway area in Virginia, and then headed for a couple more days in the New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia. The park is amazing, and I hope to go there again in not so distant future. I was a little early for the peak fall colors (by probably a week or so), but it couldn’t be helped, and I tried to take full advantage of the conditions I had.

I enjoyed some of the craziest foggy conditions I have ever seen. One morning I hiked one of the trails for a sunrise shoot, but there was so much fog, that I was not able to see anything more than a few feet away. Not really ideal conditions for a sunrise shoot, unless you have a drone (maybe). As a result, I had to change my plans, and go to plan B (always have a plan B when you only have a short time in the area :-) ).

I am still working on editing most of the images from the trip, but here are a couple to give you a taste.

Dunloup Creek Falls

Glade Creek Grist Mill

In addition to the trip, I was also able to shoot a little locally.

While I was participating in the Paradise City Northampton festival, I was treated in the morning to some absolutely stunning conditions on my way. Mostly, I didn’t have time to stop and go exploring (in places where stopping was even an option), but I did manage to capture this beautiful barn on a misty morning not five minutes away from the art fair.

Falling Apart

On another morning, I took my camera with me as I went to work. I was planning to maybe go explore in the evening, but was treated to some interesting conditions along the way. As I was driving, there were pockets of heavy fog. As I got closer, I stopped at one of my favorite spots. The pond in that area always looks amazing in the morning (especially in fall), but I always struggled to create a good composition there as the image always looked too busy to me (this just goes to show that not everything that looks great in real life can be translated to a good photograph). This time, because of the heavy fog, I was able to simplify the composition and got something unique (in my view) with a very oil-painting feel.

Misty Morning at the Pond

This, again, goes to show that you can create beautiful images everywhere.

Well, I think I have rambled enough for one time. I hope you enjoyed this “definitely not a blog” post.

Thank you for being a subscriber

Have a great rest of your weekend

Dimitry

Autumn Updates

Hi, everyone

It’s been a while since I posted. Life interferes it seems.

First of all, I wanted to welcome any new subscribers. As we are heading into Fall, I also wanted to share a few updates regarding some new things as well as upcoming Art Fairs and exhibits. Hopefully, I will be able to post a bit more regularly.

Let’s start with the exhibits and Art Fairs.

Exhibits

Generally speaking, I am trying to keep my “Upcoming Events” tab updated. So, if you don’t hear from but would like to know what I am up to, visit that page. That being said, here we go…

Cape Cod Art Center is currently running an exhibit for the juried artists (of which I am one), called Inspirations. I have two pieces in the exhibit, and one of them won second place in Photography.

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Misty Morning in the Julian Alps. Taken in Slovenia. The image won second place in Photography in the Inspiration exhibit at the Cape Cod Art Center

My “Fire and Ice” piece was juried into the 57th Annual Juried Art Show, running September 21st-October 20th at the Plymouth Center for The Arts. The reception with some food and music is going to be on September 21st 6-9pm.

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Fire and Ice. Image juried into the 57th Annual Juried Art Show at the Plymouth Center for the Arts

Art Fairs

You can check out the list of all the Art Fairs I will be at this Fall in the Upcoming Events tab. Here, I will only mention those coming up in September.

This Saturday (September 7th) I will be at the Codman Estate Fine Arts and Crafts Festival in Lincoln, MA. This will be the third year I participate in this charming small fair. All the events organized by the Historic New England society enjoy beautiful locations for their fairs, and Codman Estate is not exception. Come visit!

On Sunday (September 15th) I will be at the stArt on the Street festival in Worcester. It is a beautiful show with live music and a multitude of vendors in downtown Worcester. Unfortunately, this will be the last year this festival will be held due to insufficient number of volunteers. It is really a shame, as it has been a great event. Hopefully, they will at least be able to continue with the stArt at the Station festival.

Finally, on September 28-29th, I will participate in the Eustis Estate Arts Market in Milton, MA. This is another event organized by the Historic New England society. It is also the first time this event will run two days late September (it used to be one day in late October/early November).

2025 Calendars Are Here

It is that time of year again, when I put together some of my favorite images to create calendars. This year I decided to make two different calendars. One of New England Lighthouses, and another of more general New England images. Let me know if you fancy one!

Quick View

New England is a State of Mind 2025

$30.00

Quantity:

Add To Cart

Quick View

When Other Lights Go Out 2025

$30.00

Quantity:

Add To Cart

New Products

I also decided to offer two new products. One is metal or acrylic groupings. At the moment I am only offering two, but I plan to expand the selection over time. Let me know if you have any specific image/images you would like to see offered as a grouping. In the meantime, check out the two groupings I am offering!

Misty Mountains Triptych. Three Image Metal or Acrylic Grouping

The other new product is a themed print set of five 11”X14” prints. I still haven’t decided whether I will offer these throughout the year or just for the holidays. I currently have five print sets (New England Farms and Barns, New England Lighthouses, Nubble Light, Chasing Waterfalls, and Misty Mountains). Check these out at the link! As with the groupings, if you would like to have a different set, let me know, which images you would like to include in the set.

I guess, this is it for the update. I hope to see you at one of the upcoming exhibits or Art Fairs!

Thank you for being a valued patron

Have a great rest of your week

Dimitry

People’s Choice Award at Cape Cod Art Center

Hi, everyone

I hope you are having a good weekend. It seems the Spring has finally arrived!

First things first. I uploaded a new video tutorial on my YouTube channel. In this tutorial I show how I edited a beautiful fall landscape image from Lake Jasna in the Julian Alps, Slovenia.

Fall Colors in the Julian Alps

Second. There is only one week left until the first half-day workshop of waterfall chasing. Come join me to enjoy the beautiful weather and spring growth.

Waterfall Chasing 1 (Wahconah and Glendale Falls) -- May 11th 2024 (May 12th rain day)

from $120.00

Finally, one of my images was chosen as People’s Favorite in the recent “It’s a Beautiful World” exhibit at the Cape Cod Art Center. They center has also posted a short featurette of me on their website. Below, I am reprinting it with the center’s permission.

Misty Forest

How did you discover your talent for your medium?

I’ve been interested in photography since I was a kid, when my dad used to print family black and whites at home. As I grew older, I always took pictures on vacations etc. Even when I had no idea what I was doing, and only had a pocket point-and-shoot camera, people would comment that I had an eye for composition. I was also fascinated by the technology and the technical side of photography. Finally, when I moved to New England with my family about five years ago, I got serious about my photography and started investing the necessary time to learn. As they say, “And the rest is history…”

Which artist has influenced you most?

I am self-taught and follow multiple photographers on Youtube, taking inspiration from their work. The photographers who influenced me the most in the way I approach photography and in my editing style are probably Nigel Danson and Mads Peter Iversen, though there are many others. My photography really took a leap forward about three years ago when I discovered their channels. In addition to photographers, I enjoy exploring the works of different painters. In particular the Dutch seascapes with their moody skies.

What do you enjoy most about working in this medium?

There is nothing like climbing to the top of the mountain to watch the sunset or getting to see the landscape basking in the first rays of the sun. One of my favorite quotes comes from “The Hobbit” by J.R.R Tolkien, “Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.” My first love is to enjoy the beauty of this world, whether natural or man-made. Photographing it is just an icing on the cake. That being said, I get a thrill from the entire process, starting with planning the shots, trying to predict the weather and figuring out the best angle for the shot at a specific time of day, all the way through the editing process where I bring the image to life, and, finally, holding a physical print in your hands.

How do you describe your artwork?

I am a landscape and travel photographer who dabbles in macro and wildlife photography (I am not very good in these genres, but I am getting better). I enjoy capturing both the natural wonders as well as the man-made structures as they fit and complement the landscape.

Tell us about your creative process.

My work is a combination of pre-planned shots and serendipitous moments. I try to travel as much as my time allows. In cases where the travel is to locations I am unlikely to visit very often, I try to explore possible shots and build contingencies depending on the weather. Closer to home, I tend to return to some of my favorite locations again and again to try and capture them in a different light/perspective. In such cases, I generally have an idea of a shot that I want to capture and wait for the right conditions to go after it. Of course, I try to keep my eyes peeled, as many of my favorite shots were not pre-planned and resulted from me just noticing things along the way.

Is there anything you want people to take away from your work?

My main goal with my photography is to bring that sense of wonder about the beauty of the world to the viewer. I want people to feel like I felt when I took the shot. I want them to experience it, even if only second-hand. Finally, I want to inspire people to get out and go exploring.

Apart from creating things, what do you do?

Read, watch TV/movies, play badminton and table tennis. I also work full time as a research scientist.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a great week!

Dimitry

Quick Update

Hi everyone!

I hope you are having a good week. Happy Passover to those who celebrate.

Just a couple of quick updates.

• I have started a YouTube channel and posted a video demo of an editing session. Check it out!

• There is one more week left before the start of the editing class. There are still spaces available if you are interested in learning how to edit your images in Lightroom Classic with a little help in Photoshop. The class will run weekly for 6 sessions. If you want to participate, but are unable to to join one of the sessions, no worries. The sessions will be recorded and made available to participants. Click on the link to see more details about the class and the tentative syllabus.

• Space is still available in the half-day in-the-field workshops “Waterfall Chasing 1 & 2. These are great fun and a good opportunity to dust off your photo gear and get out to shoot some beautiful spring water flow. They are also a great companion to the editing class. Why not join and also learn how to edit them?

• One of my images received the “people’s choice award” at the “It’s a Beautiful World” exhibit at the Cape Cod Art Center. While the exhibit is over, the piece will stay displayed at the Art Center for another month. Come, check it out!

Misty Forest 2

• I am also happy to announce that two of my pieces were juried into the “National - Spring 2024” exhibit in the Cape Cod Art Center, to run May 13th - June 10th. This exhibit should be excellent. Come join us at the reception on May 17th, 5-7pm!

Cross above the Clouds in Monochrome

Fire and Ice

• Finally, here are a couple of pieces from the trip to the Balkans that I finished editing

Misty Forest 3

Misty Forest 4

Have a great rest of your week!

Dimitry

Dispatches from the Balkans. Part 2: Churches, Castles, Oh My…

Hi, everyone

I hope you all are doing well. I finally finished editing the latest batch of images from the workshop in the Balkans last Fall. It is time for the second installment of “Dispatches from the Balkans”. So, strap in and let’s go…

If you chance to go to the Balkans, one of the defining features of the landscape are the many churches and castles you see on your way. This was most prominent as we traveled around Slovenia. for the purposes of this “definitely not a blog post” I will leave out the many churches in Ljubljana and Piran, as I will devote a separate post to these cities.

Night Descending on Lake Bled

Our base of operations was close to Lake Bled. It is hard to find a more famous location in all of Slovenia, where a beautiful church sits on an island in the middle of the lake, with the mountains and the castle in the background (if you look from the right direction). Although the weather was not very cooperative for a spectacular morning shots of the church, I still managed to capture a beautiful blue-hour shot of the lake, church, and the castle (with a bonus church on the opposite shore of the lake).

Earlier in the day, after we had a nice midday coffee and cake on the promenade, we also had a brief chance to capture a beautiful view of the castle with some atmospheric clouds/fog.

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The Guardian

On our first morning in the area, we came to lake bled in the hopes of capturing morning mists over the water around the church. Unfortunately, this was not to be. However, seeing the conditions, we drove to another famous location, Sveti Tomaz (St. Thomas) church. Boy, did we get rewarded for that move.

As we drove through the mountains, we were unsure what we will see, as we were driving in and out of misty areas. As we finally got to the overlook, we saw a magnificent inversion with the mist filling the valley.

Above the mists

Saint Thomas Church in the Julian Alps, Slovenia

As the sun rose above the mountains, it illuminated the roiling mists in the valley, and the church on the hill in the middle. We spent a couple hours photographing the church and the surrounding landscape (you can see additional images from the location in the first installment of Dispatches from the Balkans).

The next morning, we came to the Jamnik Church for the blue hour and sunrise. The Church is illuminated during the night, until sunrise. During the blue hour, the warm glow of the lights creates a beautiful contrast with the surroundings. This contrast was accentuated by the misty atmosphere. After the sun rose, we walked closer to the church, to capture a different perspective.

Jamnik Church in Blue Hour

Jamnik Church

Rain greeted us on the next day. We spent the morning photographing waterfalls near the Kropa stream. After we were done, the rain let go a little. As we were descending from the mountain area towards the town, we had the chance to capture the church of Kropa, nestled on the opposite side of the valley amid the mist and the greens of the forest.

Overlook

After having lunch, we headed towards Bohinj Lake. As we drove by, we stopped just outside Bohinjska Bistrica to capture yet another beautiful church. The moody dark clouds and mist made it an awesome shot.

Bohinjska Bistrica

Bohinj Lake is a beautiful location amid the Julian Alps for a sunny day. On our visit to the lake we encountered a very different atmosphere, with rain and mists. While, the conditions were not condusive for the typical shots at this location, the dark storm clouds made for some awesome moody shots of the Church of St. John the Baptist.

the Gathering Storm

Church of St. John the Baptist in Black and White

On my last day in Slovenia (after we came back from Croatia), I together with David Longstaff and Jennifer Lin went to explore the Ljubljana area. We ended up driving to the Sveti Jacob (St. Jacob) church. Fall colors were in full swing by this time, and we had the chance to capture some beautiful landscapes along the way.

As was common throughout this trip, we were greeted by mists clinging to the hills. At the church we encountered an interesting combination of sun mixed with mists around the church. This made for a unique image.

Little Church on a Hill

The landscape changed quickly in the windy conditions. Just a few minutes later I was able to capture a beautiful moody shot of the Sveti Jacob church under storm clouds, taken from a different perspective.

Stairs to Heaven

After leaving Slovenia, we headed to Bosnia and Croatia to spend several days photographing waterfalls and mountains. Conditions on these days were very different from the moody, misty ones we encountered in the Julian Alps. One of the evenings in Bosnia we stopped at Ostrožac castle for a beautiful sunset. We spent our time climbing the walls to get to a better viewpoint, though I have to say that I chickened out from some of the areas as there were no railings to prevent a fall to an untimely death.

Ostrožac Castle

On the Walls 1

On the Walls 2

On the Walls 3

Through the Keyhole

After spending a few days in Bosnia, we moved to Croatia. On the second day we drove to the coast area. In the afternoon we headed into the mountains and spent the few hours before sunset at Tulove Grede. The small church at this location is quite different from the ones we’ve encountered in Slovenia. However, it somehow matches this remote mountain spot.

Sunset at Tulove Grede 1

As the sun settled, we witnessed a beautiful afterburner lighting up the sky.

Sunset at Tulove Grede 2

Watching the Sunset

On our last day in Croatia, before heading back to Slovenia, David, Jennifer, and I went to the bridge to Pag Island and the Fortica ruins there. Right next to the bridge there is a small church. We watched the beautiful sunrise with the church acting as the foreground. A satisfying end to a great workshop.

Stairway to Heaven

I hope you enjoyed this second installment of the “Dispatches from the Balkans”. The many churches and the castles of the area give it a unique vibe and offer great opportunities for photographers.

Have a great week

Dimitry

Some More Housekeeping

Hi, everyone

Happy Easter to those who celebrate!

First, I would like to welcome new subscribers. Thank you for joining the newsletter. I hope you will enjoy your stay and find it informative and helpful.

Second, I’ve had a great couple of weeks, participating in the first two Art Fairs this year, one in Wilmington (with Castleberry Fairs), and one in Marlborough (with Paradise City Arts Festivals). The fairs were great, and I enjoyed my time meeting new people and interacting with new patrons and artists. I was honored to have my work chosen as a door prize at the fair in Wilmington. May the winner enjoy my work at their home.

I will be back at the art fair circuit at the end of May in Northampton for the Memorial Day Weekend. Come and join me for a great fair!

Announcing On-Line Editing Class/Workshop

Registration is now available for my on-line editing class. The class will start at the end of April and will run six weeks (2-2.5hr weekly meetings). In the class I will go from the basics to more advanced editing techniques in Lightroom (and a little Photoshop). Although the class will be geared towards landscape photography, the techniques are applicable to any genre. Recordings of the class will be available to customers after it is over, so, if you can’t make it to one of the sessions, you will have the opportunity to watch the video later.

Half Day Workshops

Spaces are still available for the two half-day Chasing Waterfalls workshops in May. Come, dust off your camera and join me to enjoy the beautiful locations in the Berkshires, and Enders Forest in Connecticut. The locations offer plenty of opportunities to capture the multiple small and larger cascades, full will spring flow. You can get a little more information about both the editing class and the workshops here.

Final Thoughts

Meanwhile, I am back to editing my images from the trip to the Balkans last fall. Hopefully, second installment of “Dispatches from the Balkans” is coming next week. That installment will be dedicated to the many picturesque churches and a few castles in the area. Stay tuned! Until then, here are a few shots, taken in Tulove Grede, in Croatia. We were lucky enough to enjoy a beautiful sunset in this mountain area with a small church as the focal point.

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Sunset at Tulove Grede Panoramic

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Sunset at Tulove Grede

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Night is Coming

Thank you again to all the new subscribers and new customers.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and Happy Easter

Dimitry

Announcements and Housekeeping

Hi, everyone

I hope you are having a good weekend.

A few announcements and housekeeping.

Exhibits and Art Fairs

Two of my pieces were juried into the March online “Minimalism” exhibit at the Cape Cod Art Center. The exhibit is amazing. Do take the time to check it out!

Frozen Loneliness

Cross On Top of the Clouds

I will also be participating in the Juried Artist Member Gallery Exhibit running March 11th-April 12th at the Cape Cod Art Center. I haven’t decide yet, which pieces are going into this exhibit (I still have a few days). Exhibits at the center are always excellent, and this one should not be an exception. Exhibit starts March 11th. Reception is March 15th, 5-7pm. Come and say hello to the artists.

The Art Fair season is starting early this year for me. I will be participating in the Spring Castleberry Fair Arts & Craft Festival, running March 16th-17th at the Shriner’s Auditorium in Wilmington, MA. Come and check out the fair and say hi to me.

I will also be at the Paradise City Marlborough, March 22-24th. Come and check it out. Paradise City Festivals are always excellent. I will be at booth 403.

New Workshops for Spring 2024

I will be running two half-day workshops May 11th and 18th (May 12th and May 19th are rain days). The first workshop is going to Wahconah Falls in the Berkshires (Glendale Falls are an optional addition if we have time). The second workshop will return to Enders Falls in Connecticut. Come and learn how to manipulate your image with neutral density filters to create the water flow effect in the water, as well as practice your composition skills in these beautiful locations.

Similar to last year, you can also add an introductory and/or post-processing sessions to the main workshop.

These workshops are a lot of fun. Come and join me.

I am also working on a six session virtual post-processing workshop to focus on Lightroom (and some Photoshop). If this is something you are interested in, drop me an email and I will let you know when the workshop will be ready to go.

Well, that’s it for today.

Have a great week

Dimitry

Importance of Getting Out

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” Wayne Gretzky

Hi, everyone

I hope you are having a great weekend.

The time seems to have gotten away from me. It’s been almost two months since my last “definitely not a blog post.” The winter seems to be winding down or at the very least taking a breather around here. This offers a good opportunity to reflect on the last two months of my photography.

This year I captured far more winter images I am happy with, compared to previous years. And although I have semi-good excuses why previous years weren’t as productive, it still comes down to the title of this post.

Last year I participated in the New England Camera Club Council conference. One of the lectures by Kah-Wai Lin (definitely check him out) was called, if memory serves me right, “chasing the light.” In the lecture Kah-Wai talked about how you could capture multiple prime locations on the beautiful Lofoten Islands at optimal lighting conditions within a single day, if you planned appropriately. Granted, the lecture was mostly a demonstration of the power of planning, but the main theme of the importance of getting the best possible lighting conditions to get the best shot is valid regardless.

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Sunrise at Nubble Light

I often hear a variation on the same statement from clients at the different Art Fairs I participate in — “I have a photo of this location, but it looks nothing like yours.” One of the reasons for this, is that to get the best image from a certain location you need to come at optimal lighting conditions, and maybe come back again and again if conditions don’t cooperate.

Landscape photography is not easy. We, landscape photographers, are left to the tender mercies of Mother Nature, and she is capricious. We can try and maximize our outcomes by careful planning of the shoots, but nothing is perfect.

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Morning Glow

The best lighting conditions are location dependent, and are impacted by the mood you are looking for, direction of the sun, time of year etc. Generally, an hour-hour and a half on both sides of sunrise and sunset offer the best soft light (unless the sky is completely cloudy). This poses a problem. In late spring and summer, sunrise can be very early and sunset fairly late. In winter, cold adds an extra inconvenience.

I am neither a morning person, nor I am particularly tolerant of bitter cold. As a result, in previous years, I didn’t really go out much during winter, and hence didn’t capture many good images. As the subtitle of this post by the great hockey player says, “you miss 100% of shots you don’t take.” If you don’t get out, you won’t get the images. It is just that simple.

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Sunrise at Jenne Farm

So, this year, I managed to overcome my aversion to early mornings and cold, and got out. My first daytrip was to Vermont around mid-January. It’s been a while since I went to Vermont. I always wanted to capture some of the locations in winter. My first destination was Jenne Farm near Woodstock. I researched the location online as much as I could. As the farm is located some 2.5 hours drive away from my home, it was a long slog in the dark. Although I was pretty certain there should be good amount of snow, I couldn’t tell for sure in the darkness until it got brighter.

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Loneliness

I arrived around half an hour before sunrise at the location, took some test shots during the blue hour, and settled to wait for the light. The temperature was a toasty 5-9 F. Thank God for warm layers and hot tea in a thermos. As I was wrapping my shoot about half an hour after sunrise, another photographer came to the location. I think he missed the best light.

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Winter at Jenne Farm

After I was done at Jenne Farm, I drove by the Sleepy Hollow Farm north of Woodstock. I have a beautiful shot of the location in Fall, and it was really interesting to see the contrast. The farm is nestled in an area that doesn’t get much sun in the morning during winter, and I could afford to come a little later.

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Sleepy Hollow in Winter

I drove to Moss Glen Falls in Granville. The access was partially blocked and I only captured a few shots that didn’t make it into this post. I drove around the Woodstock area for a bit, looking for possible locations. As I was about to head home, I noticed a lone tree, lit by the sun, against the backdrop of a hill in shade. It made for a beautiful contrast and a perfect ending for a very satisfying outing. Serendipity and the power of looking behind you for the win.

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Snowy Desert

My second significant outing came just a week later, when I was staying with my daughter in New Hampshire. As she was busy during the day, I took the opportunity to go shooting in the mornings.

The first morning I went to the Nubble Lighthouse in York, Maine. I always wanted to capture this lighthouse with snow on the ground. In winter, the lighthouse is lit during the night, and I envisioned a sunrise shot, where the lights on the lighthouse and the rising sun would be contrasted with the frozen landscape.

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Fire and Ice

This time, the stars aligned. It snowed the day before. As I was driving to the location, I saw that I am going to be greeted by a beautiful sunrise, as the clouds were already lighting up. And, boy, did I get what I wanted. The sun rose right behind the lighthouse, and the clouds above it created beautiful blue-purple streaks, like wings. As a bonus, the light from the lighthouse and the rising sun created amazing color contrasts in the snow and the water. The bitter cold and the wind, were no match for the beauty of the scene.

After I was done at Nubble, I drove to Portland Head Light. The scene at Portland head was beautiful, but although it was just an hour later, the light could not compete with the show I got at Nubble.

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Winter Serenity at Portland Head

The next morning I drove to the Little White Church in Eaton, New Hampshire. This time, I didn’t really know what to expect. The church was a bust from the photographic point of view. The lake in front of the church was frozen, and the sky largely covered in low clouds with no definition. I waited in vain for a bit of light and finally decided to pack it in.

In order not to waste the hour and a half I drove to the location, I drove around for a bit, trying to find something to photograph. As I rounded the lake and came close to the church, I noticed a patch of trees, which were backlit by the sun and glowing silver in the light. Although it was some time well after sunrise, the cloud cover helped by creating a great softbox. Even though getting up early this time didn’t work according to plans, I still got a beautiful shot I would not have gotten otherwise, by paying attention and seizing the opportunity.

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Illumination

Over the next few weeks I got out a few times when the conditions and work schedule allowed it. One of those times, I went to the Old Stone Church in Boylston. The location is not far from my home, and I return to it again and again under different conditions. This time, I came just before sunrise. The lights at the church created a beautiful contrast with the surroundings during the blue hour.

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Wintery Blue Hour at the Old Stone Church

As the snow seemed to melt in most of Massachusetts, I kept checking the forecast. I long planned to go back to the Enders Falls in Connecticut to photograph them in snow and ice. Last week, I finally pulled the trigger and drove to the falls.

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Diamonds

I was not sure whether to go or not up until the last minute, but eventually decided to try although the snow storm promised a few days earlier largely didn’t materialize. I was not disappointed. The area had a light cover of snow from the day before, and the different cascades were half frozen. The combination of ice and flowing water was beautiful in the morning light. As the light hit some of the falls, the ice shone like diamonds.

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Frozen

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Solomon’s Pillars

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Frozen Tears

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Veil

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Enders Falls in Winter

I had a great time photographing the different cascades in the area. As I came relatively early (didn’t need to come at sunrise, but still), I had the area all to myself, with the fresh snow cover untouched. I am very glad I managed to convince myself to get up on that Sunday morning.

To sum up, it can be difficult to get up in the wee hours. It is sometimes hard to convince yourself that spending your morning (or evening) in the frozen landscape will be worth it. And, unfortunately, sometimes it won’t be. But if you don’t get out, you will definitely not get the best shot. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Have a great week

Dimitry

The Year That Was. Favorite Images of 2023. Part 2: International Edition

Hi, everyone!

I hope you had a great holiday week, and enjoying your weekend. This will be Part Two of my favorite images for 2023 (Part One can be found here). It will focus on the second half of the year, though in practice, all the images in this “definitely not a blog” are from the workshop in the Balkans.

Before I go into the images, I just wanted to note a few things that happened in the second half of the year. I participated in a few successful fairs, which I hope to return to in 2024. My images were chosen for several prestigious juried shows at the Cape Cod Art Center. One of my images even won first place in photography at the All New England 2023 show! Two of my images won bronze awards at the Epson Pano Awards. Finally, three of my images were also juried into the Small Stones festival. The festival was supposed to happen in October, but due to water damage at the venue, it was moved and will now run January 27th-February 4th. It should be a great festival, and I hope some of you will make it to the new venue either for the reception or just to visit. As you can see, all in all, I had a great second half of the year, and I hope it continues in 2024.

Now, to the favorite images. In the second half of October I went to the Balkans for a two and a half week trip. I’ve started a series of “definitely not blogs” about the trip here, and hope to continue as I edit the images. You can also find the gallery, which I update as I edit, dedicated to the trip here. It is an amazing area and I only just scratched the surface. I hope to go back in 2025 for a winter trip. This is a good place to plug our great guide, Luka Esenko.

As you might have already gathered from my other posts, I am behind on my editing. Considering the amount of images I brought back from the trip, it will likely take me a long time to finish the editing process. However, even just looking at the already edited images, choosing twelve favorites for this post was difficult (I ended up settling on thirteen instead of twelve). Many great images I really like, did not make it onto the list (so, do take the time to look at the dedicated posts and the gallery).

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Above the Mists

The first sunrise of the workshop really set the tone for the entire trip. We went to visit one of the most famous churches in Slovenia, Sveti Tomaz (Saint Thomas). It is a beautiful location with the picturesque church on a hill (as is very common in Slovenia) against the backdrop of the Julia Alps. To top it off, we had the mist filling the entire valley, and flowing in and out the surrounding mountains and woodland. As Nigel Danson says, “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

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Misty Forest

We spent a couple of hours photographing the area, and apart from taking the amazing wide shots, I also enjoyed picking out beautiful details of the forest/mountains shrouded in mist with my telephoto lens.

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Atop the Clouds

We spent the next few days exploring the Julian Alps, Soca River valley, and the Triglav National Park. We enjoyed beautiful, dramatic, misty conditions in the mountains, always reminding me of Grieg’s “In the Halls of the Mountain King.”

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Hidden Valley

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Window

There are too many shots that I love from this portion of the trip to include in this post. Many are still waiting to be edited, and I tried to choose the few that really capture the atmosphere we encountered (as well as being my favorites).

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Out of Place

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In the Halls of the Mountain King

The conditions also lent themselves to some beautiful, minimalistic black and white shots.

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Mountain Peaks

As we were driving back to Ljubljana on the last day, we stopped to photograph a valley we visited on our very first day. It was a fitting end to the Slovenian part of the workshop. Although the conditions we were hoping for did not materialize, I still managed to capture one of my favorite images of the trip.

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Cross Above the Clouds in Monochrome

After spending a day in Ljubljana, we made our way South to Bosnia. In the next couple of days we explored Una National Park and the surrounding area. The park is located close to the Croatian border and not very far from the much more famous Plitvice Lakes National Park. Although I would say that Plitvice is a more varied location with many beautiful lakes and waterfalls, Una offers the raw power of a beautiful waterfall, and a generally more ragged feel. It is well worth the visit, and unlike Plitvice, you are not likely to encounter endless tourist groups if you come during the day.

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Sunrise at the Una National Park

After visiting the main waterfall (on two consecutive mornings), we also explored the area. This year, waterflow was particularly strong in many locations in the Balkans. It presented its own set of advantages and challenges. The powerful flowing rivers and cascades made for impressive and memorable images.

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Martin Brod

Although this is generally not my main focus, I did manage to take a few beautiful more abstract photos of the flowing water. One of them made it into this list of my favorite shots of 2023.

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Waterflow

After exploring this area of Bosnia, we moved to Croatia. We started at the Plitvice Lakes National Park. Images of this beautiful location caught my eye twenty years ago, and I wanted to visit it ever since. The park did not disappoint. The only real disappointment was that we only spent one day in the park as on the second day it rained heavily almost non-stop and we decided to move on to our next destination. The silver lining for this is that I definitely plan to go back for a more extended visit.

During the morning in the park, we enjoyed beautiful light shining on the fall colors in the trees surrounding the lakes and waterfalls. It was an absolutely magical scene. This image from Plitvice caps the list of my favorite shots of 2023.

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Of Light and Waterfalls

Images from the last part of the trip didn’t make onto this list mostly because I am still in the process of editing them. However, an honorable mention goes to the evening I spent in Piran, Slovenia, after the workshop was over. We went there with two other workshop participants. It’s a beautiful small coastal town, perfect for some street photography, and well worth the visit. Several beautiful shots from Piran are still waiting on my hard drive to be edited.

This concludes the list of my favorite images from 2023 (at least those I am done editing). I hope you enjoyed this and the previous posts.

I wish you a Happy New Year, and a great 2024!

Thank you and enjoy the rest of your weekend and Holiday!

Dimitry

The Year That Was. Favorite Images of 2023. Part 1: Shooting Locally

Hi everyone!

As 2023 is almost over, it is that time of the year when I look over the year that was and choose my favorite images. A lot has happened this year, and it naturally breaks into two halves. As a result, I will make this a two part “definitely not a blog”.

These lists are always difficult for me. Although some images definitely make it onto the list, others can make it or not, depending on the day I look at them. This year I took a large number of images, many of which are not even edited yet, which makes the task of deciding even more difficult.

The year started slow for my photography. I didn’t get out much during winter as my old camera was on its last legs and threatened to die on me every time I pulled it out. Eventually, spring rolled in, and with it, my old trusty Sony a77 finally took its final shots.

Since my old camera was a “dead” system (as in, the mount was discontinued), I decided to switch to an E-mount Sony. I wrote about the switch in this “definitely not a blog” if anyone is interested to read about my considerations.

At the beginning of April I went to scout Ender’s Falls in Connecticut. I enjoyed the location immensely and later led my first workshop to the area. I also captured there several of my favorite images this year. I will be doing another workshop in the area in 2024 (and maybe one in the fall as well). If you are interested, stay tuned for an announcement.

The following image is going to be in the Worcester County Camera Club section of the upcoming Small Stones Festival of the Arts, on which more in the second installment of the favorite images of 2023.

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Of Light and Water

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Ender’s Falls

There were several more images from the location that could conceivably make it into the list, but I decided to limit this part 1 to twelve images total.

In addition to leading my first workshop, I also participated for the first time, in the Paradise City Arts Festival in Marlborough. I am happy to announce that I will be coming back both to the Marlborough and Northampton festivals in the spring of 2024.

One day I went to photograph a sunrise in a nearby apple farm and captured some beautiful apple trees in bloom. As this is a short list, the images didn’t make it, but deserve an honorable mention. If you like white blossoms in a golden morning light, check out this gallery.

One misty morning, on my way to work, I stopped to photograph a small woodland area, and came away with several more wonderful images. Two of these make it into the list of my favorites for this year.

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Of Fog and Trees and Birds

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Misty Wonderland

There is something about this local woodland that draws me, and I am always on the lookout for the right conditions to go back there. It is not a sprawling epic vista and isn’t an impressive waterfall, but gives me the satisfactory feeling of home.

As spring went on, I took a few trips around New England from Portland, ME to Cape Cod and Rhode Island.

It is always fun to go back to the Portland Head Lighthouse, as it always provides a great opportunity to get something new in a different light and weather. Last time I was there, I took some great stormy images. This time, I enjoyed the soft morning light. I came slightly after the sunrise. The park around the lighthouse generally opens at sunrise, but this time, it opened a few minutes late. I still enjoyed the area with only a few people around and captured several images, one of which makes it onto this list.

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Sunrise at Portland Head Light

After photographing several more locations in Portland, I made my way South to photograph the Old Orchard beach in blue hour. I’ve never been to this area before, and it is definitely on my list to go back.

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Blue Hour at Old Orchard Beach

After finishing up at the Old Orchard Beach I went to the Nubble Light in York to photograph the Milky Way. This lighthouse is a wonderful location, and one of my favorite images was shot there a couple of years ago. This year, the Milky Way shot makes it onto the list of favorites in 2023.

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Sky Full of Stars

On my excursion to Cape Cod, on the first evening I captured a beautiful sunset at Grays Beach. This is another one of those locations that are worth coming back to again and again as the area offers different beautiful views in different light and time of year.

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Grays Beach

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Sunset at Grays Beach

During my stay on Cape Cod I also went to whale watching. As we were pulling out of the Provincetown harbor, I captured the following shot, which looks great in black and white.

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Follow the Leader

During the same trip, I went to photograph the Milky Way at the Nobska Lighthouse. That shot didn’t make it onto the list, but deserves an honorable mention. After finishing up with the Milky Way, I napped for a couple of hours in my car, waiting for the sunrise. When I woke up, I was met by a heavy mist rolling over the lighthouse and the beach.

As I was photographing the area, there were two swans swimming in the small pond near the houses in the beach area. I captured one of them taking off.

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Take-off

I am not a wildlife photographer as I lack the patience to properly do it, but with my new kit, I did get a few more wildlife shots this year, and I expect this trend to continue.

Finally, the last image for this installment comes from the Port of Galilee in Narragansett. I came to the area on my excursion to Rhode Island. After I spent the evening at the port, I had dinner at George’s of Galilee, which is a great restaurant right on the beach. As I was walking back to my car, I saw a large flock of seagulls circling the fishing docks. I had to stop to photograph it.

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Feeding Time

To my great shame, I am extremely behind on my editing. There are many more images from these excursions around New England that could have made it onto my favorites list if I finished editing them. Alas, maybe they will make it into the special mention next year.

Speaking of which, here are two images, which were taken in 2022, but because I only edited them this year, they make a special appearance on this “definitely not a blog”.

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Fall Morning in the Berkshires

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Morning in the Berkshires Pano

I hope you enjoyed this walk down memory lane of 2023. Each of these images represents wonderful memories and experiences for me, and I hope you’ll like them as much as I do.

The next installment (hopefully, next week) will be an international edition dedicated to images from my trip to the Balkans. I am still in the early stages of editing the enormous amount of shots I brought back from that trip, but I am sure I will have trouble pairing the already edited images to just twelve favorites. As they say, stay tuned.

Thank you for visiting

Have a great weekend

Dispatches from the Balkans. Part 1: Unleash the Power of Your Telephoto Lens

Holyday Sale

Hi, everyone

I hope you are having a great weekend. First things first. I’ve launched a holyday sale! Prints make a great holyday gift. Some additional amazing images coming over the next couple of weeks. I will try to get them up as soon as I can, so you can get them before Christmas and the New Year. Get 10% off of any print type until January 2nd by using code “HOLYDAYS2024” at check-out.

Dispatches from the Balkans Series: Intro

Check out the gallery!

I have recently returned from a two-weeks workshop with Esenko Workshops in the Balkans. We spent about a week in Slovenia (with a short detour into Italy) and another week in Bosnia and Croatia. In addition, I spent a few more days around Ljubljana (what an amazing city!). First of all, big thanks to Luka Esenko. He is a great guide. Because of his knowledge of what locations work best in what weather conditions, we were able to squeeze the maximum out of the experience. If you are looking for a photo tour in that area of the world, definitely check him out!

I wanted to go to that area of the world for probably more than twenty years. Well before I became serious about my photography. It offers an amazing selection of natural wonders and is well worth the visit.

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Of Light and Waterfalls (Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia)

I came back with an insane 13,000 (!) images. Since returning, I’ve been busy editing as quickly as I can, but have only scratched the surface so far. it’s going to be a long process (probably longer than it needs to be given my slow editing speed :-( ). I will create a separate gallery for the images from the trip. Since, I will only include a small selection of images in the posts, be sure to check out the gallery. It will take some time to set the images up in the store, but in the meanwhile, if you are interested in any of them, just drop me a line and we can figure out what size and type of print you would like.

I plan to write a series of “definitely not blog posts” about the trip that will be called “Dispatches from the Balkans.” I was originally planning to write in more or less chronological order, but eventually decided against it. I settled on writing posts that would be focused on several themes during the trip. So, without further ado…

What is a Telephoto Lens and Why You Need It Badly as a Landscape Photographer

Before I begin, I have to say that this post is not intended as a review of any specific lens (although you might see me gush about mine :-) ). I was definitely not paid any money to promote any brand or even asked to review any brand lens. At the end of the post I will writ a short section offering several alternatives to my lens with a short description of pros and cons for each.

This disclaimer out of the way…

Lenses are generally grouped by their focal lengths (magnification level) into several families. The lines between those families are pretty fuzzy, so, don’t take the boundaries as gospel. The focal lengths below are in terms of “full frame equivalent” (35mm in film days) as the size of the sensor changes the field of view of the lens at any particular focal length (that’s why smartphone lenses are much shorter focal length, but have the “equivalent” field of view to full frame wide/standard/telephoto lenses).

• Ultra wide — 10-24mm (there are wider lenses out there, but they are generally very specialized)

• Wide — 24-35mm (typical “standard” lens on a smartphone is 24mm)

• Standard — 35-70mm (these focal lengths are considered “standard” because they have lower distortion compared to what our eyes see)

• Telephoto — 70-400mm

• Super Telephoto — >400mm

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In the Julian Alps. Wide angle shot at 22mm. Red circle indicates the area for the telephoto shot below

Of Light and Shadow. Telephoto shot at 400mm, picked out from the above wide image

A set of zoom lenses such as 16-35mm, 24-70mm, and 70-200mm (there are some variations on these lenses from different manufacturers and also based on what you are looking for) is generally considered the “holy trinity” of lenses. This is because they offer a good coverage of focal lengths from the ultra-wide and to a telephoto. There are versions of these lenses that are more appropriate for different genres of photography (for example, f2.8 constant aperture variants are the preferred tools for portrait and wedding photographers, while landscape photographers often prefer similar lenses with smaller maximum apertures because they are lighter).

As I described in this “definitely not a blog post”, I relatively recently switched to a new camera and got two lenses to cover anything from 20mm to 400mm. Since then I added a 16mm lens for ultra-wide and night sky shots. In addition, I got a back-up APSC camera (camera with a smaller sensor). It can use the same lenses, but because the sensor is smaller, the equivalent maximum range of my lenses is now 600mm (I am not going to go here into details of pros and cons of the smaller sensor. Suffice it to say, there is no free lunch and there are always some trade-offs. As a photographer, you need to know limitations of your equipment and how to work within them).

Here is the point where I gush about my telephoto lens (Tamron 50-400mm). I’ll give a little more details in the last section on equipment. Until now, I mostly used it for occasional wildlife shot, and for some more standard shots. This was really the first time I put it though the full range of use.

To make the long story short, it is excellent. It also has the great advantage of being relatively light and compact for what it is (it is still pretty big). This allowed me much of the time to shoot handheld with it. Using such a lens handheld offers much greater level of flexibility compared to being always on a tripod (this was especially true in the conditions we encountered). In addition, it has lens stabilization, which is pretty good, allowing me to shoot relatively long shutter speeds handheld. With the two camera bodies I have, it offers insane flexibility that I will show in this post. It is also plenty sharp for real world conditions.

Telephoto Heaven at Saint Thomas (Sveti Tomaz) Church

Saint Thomas Church (Sveti Tomaz) is famous location in the Julian Alps, where a beautiful church stands on a hill against a backdrop of beautiful mountains. The location offers spectacular view, especially during inversion when the valley is filled with mist.

We came to the area about half an hour before sunrise on our first morning in the workshop and it didn’t disappoint. What a start to the workshop!

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Above the Mists. Saint Thomas Church in the Julian Alps, Slovenia. 63mm

As the morning mist flowed and changed in the valley, I put one of my cameras to shoot a timelapse and took out my Tamron lens handheld. The flexibility of being able to capture relatively wide shots (down all the way to 50mm), coupled with telephoto images all the way up to 400mm is everything I needed in such conditions.

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Saint Thomas Church in the Julian Alps, Slovenia. 117mm

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First Light. Saint Thomas Church in the Julian Alps, Slovenia. 154mm

Importantly, such conditions are heaven for a telephoto lens. It offers the option to pick out details that simplify the composition and focus the eye on beautiful minimalistic images.

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Atop the Clouds 1. 400mm

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Atop the Clouds 2. 400mm

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Mist Fingers. 186mm

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Misty Forest. 148mm

Mist and Clouds in the Julian Alps

We spent the next few days in the Julian Alps near Lake Bled, and then in the Triglav National Park. The conditions were made for a telephoto lens, with roiling mists in the valleys and low clouds swirling around the mountain tops.

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Hidden Valley. Triglav National Park, Slovenia. 20mm

This short (ish) post can’t do full justice to the many locations and beautiful conditions we encountered. On several occasions I set up my main camera for a wider shot or a timelapse to capture the beautiful changing conditions. I used my back-up (Sony a6700) camera with the Tamron lens to pick-out details.

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Window. Triglav National Park, Slovenia. 93mm equivalent

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In the Halls of the Mountain King. Triglav National Park, Slovenia. 504mm equivalent

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Mountain Tops. Triglav National Park, Slovenia. 261mm equivalent

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Mountain Slopes. Triglav National Park, Slovenia. 103mm equivalent

It should be noted that a telephoto lens is not reserved for detail shooting only. It offers a unique opportunity to produce large scale panoramic images with the level of details that cannot be obtained in a single shot. Below, for example, is a panoramic image produced from a series of images with equivalent focal length of about 100mm. Althou the camera used for this image has “only” 26 megapixels, the full resolution panoramic image is approximately 150 megapixels of detail.

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In the Triglav National Park

On our way back to Ljubljana, we stopped in a few more locations to capture some amazing images. There are too many to include in this post, and I have many more that I haven’t gotten to editing yet. In the very last location we stopped, I used my a6700 with the Tamron lens to capture one of my favorite images of this trip.

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Cross above the Clouds. Julian Alps, Slovenia. 600mm eqivalent

Minimalistic Monochrome

The misty conditions in the mountains also lend themselves to very minimalistic black and white images. Here is a selection.

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Mountain Peaks 1. Triglav National Park, Slovenia. 102mm equivalent

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Mountain Peaks 2. Triglav National Park, Slovenia. 241mm equivalent

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Mountain Peaks 3. Triglav National Park, Slovenia. 217mm equivalent

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Mountain Peaks 4. Triglav National Park, Slovenia. 600mm equivalent

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Cross above the Clouds in Monochrome. Julian Alps, Slovenia. 600mm eqivalent

In Short, this trip, especially the portion of the trip in Slovenia, gave me a wonderful opportunity to take full advantage of my telephoto lens. It is really an indispensable tool in the arsenal of a landscape photographer and offers opportunities to create unique images.

Below are my few suggestions for gear options for those who are interested.

A Short Note About Gear

As I mentioned, I am using Tamron 50-400mm f/4.5-6.3 Di III VC VXD (that’s a mouthful) as my telephoto lens (and, yes, I had it before Mads Peter Iversen :-) ). It is, obviously not the only choice you can make. Here I will make a few suggestions. As you probably figured out by now, I am using Sony E-mount as my cameras (both full frame and APSC). Other manufacturers have more or less equivalent lens choices (the Tamron is more or less unique in the Sony system because it goes to 50mm on the wide end). In this day and age, all the big manufacturers offer excellent quality cameras and lenses, and you really can’t go wrong with any of them. Some will be marginally better than others, but additional considerations such as weight and cost might sway you towarsds a specific choice.

It should be noted here, that I do not recommend 70-200 f2.8 GM II lens as an option here. Don’t get me wrong, it is an amazing lens with probably the best image quality in this focal range, but in my view, it is more of a portrait/wedding lens as it offers a f2.8 aperture. In my opinion, landscape photographers would be better served with a lens that has more reach.

For the same reason, the recent 70-200 f4 G lens would probably not be my first choice. Again, it’s an excellent lens, offering image quality almost as good as its GM cousin at about half the price. It is significantly lighter than the GM, making it a very good travel lens. In addition, it has a good macro capability throughout the focal range. In short, excellent lens, but I would prefer a longer focal length.

Weight and Budget Options

Sony FE 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G OSS and Tamron 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3 Di III RXD offer a good lightweight option for a telephoto lens. Based on the reviews I’ve seen (I have not tried either of these lenses), Sony is marginally better in terms of image quality, but it is more than double the price (it is, however the most budget friendly option if you only buy OEM). These two lenses (and especially the Tamron version) are on the slow side in terms of aperture, but it is generally not a big deal for landscape photographers who use tripods and stop down their lenses anyway. The possible exception for this would be handholding, but with current generation of cameras and noise reduction software it is not an issue in the vast majority of cases.

It should be noted that if you are exclusively an apsc shooter (or shoot telephoto only on apsc cameras such as a6XXX series), Sony E 70-350mm f/4.5-6.3 G OSS would be the better choice compared to the previous two. It is designed for apsc specifically, and thus is even lighter than the others. It also offers excellent quality and just a tiny bit more reach.

A Little More Reach and Still Budget

Sigma 100-400mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS Contemporary is an excellent budget option with a little more reach. When I got my Tamron, I was seriously considering this lens. It is almost the same size and weight as the Tamron and is significantly less expensive. From the reviews and comparisons I saw, image quality on the two lenses is almost indistinguishable on a lower resolution body such as my Sony a7 IV (Tamron is marginally sharper on a higher resolution body such as Sony a7R IV or Sony a7R V). It is doubtful that any such difference would be obvious in real world results. I finally chose the Tamron because of the extra reach on the wide end and better weather sealing.

Best of the Best, but You Have to Pay

Sony FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM OSS offers a slight advantage in terms of image quality over the Sigma and the Tamron. Since it is an OEM lens, it also offers higher frame rates on camera bodies that support shooting more than 15 fps (though it is not a feature pof huge interest to a landscape photographer unless you dabble in wildlife as well). The Sony is a bit bigger and heavier because it is an internal zoom lens, but offers the best weather sealing of the bunch because of that.

Long Reach Heavy Options

Sony ecosystem offers several options that are geared more towards the wildlife and bird photographer, reaching to 500-600mm. These are too heavy for my taste, but if you are ok with that, they offer even more reach. Out of the bunch Sigma 60-600mm f/4.5-6.3 DG DN OS Sports is the most versatile, but also the heaviest.

In short, Sony shooters are really spoilt for choice in terms of telephoto options for almost any budget and preference. And who can complain about that!

I hope you enjoyed this first installment of Dispatches from the Balkans. Check out the gallery!

Have a great rest of your weekend andh holyday season!

Welcome to New Subscribers and Few Announcements

Hi, everyone!

First of all, I wanted to say welcome to the new subscribers! Thank you for visiting my booth at the Paradise City Northampton. It was a great show and I hope you all enjoyed the excellent selection of arts and crafts. I was very happy to meet you all and to talk to you. I would also like to thank again everyone who purchased artwork from me. Knowing that people enjoy my work, make my efforts worth it.

Upcoming Arfairs/Shows

I will be at two more art fairs this year.

28th Annual Castleberry Faire Arts & Craft Festival — November 24-26 I will be at Wilmington, MA. This is the first time I am doing this show.

23rd Annual New England Holiday Craft Spectacular — December 2-3 I will be in Hanover, MA. This is the first time I am doing this show.

Come, visit me at my booth. It is an excellent time to do some holiday shopping :-)

Juried Exhibits

I am happy to announce that my image was juried into the All New England 2023 show at the Cape Cod Art Center. The show will be running October 16-November 11, with the reception and prize ceremony Thursday, October 19, 5-7pm. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend the reception, but if you are in the are, do take the time, as the Art Center has a fabulous exhibition.

Fields of Gold

Three of my images were also juried into the Small Stones Festival of the Arts in Grafton, MA. The festival is co-sponsored by Worcester County Camera Club of which I am part of. It is a wonderful show, running December 8-17 at the Grafton library. This is the second year I’ve had the privilege of participating in this show (one of my images was juried into the show last year). The camera club will also have a separate section of the show (one of my images is going to be in that section as well). The reception for the show and the awards ceremony is December 8th 7-8pm. Do take the time to visit the show if you can!

Dereliction

Castle in the Sky

Misty Morning in Lancaster

Flow

Epson Pano Awards 2023

Finally, I am happy to announce that two of my images were awarded Bronze Award at the Epson Pano Awards for 2023. I should stress that Bronze Award is not the same as placing 3rd in this context, but means the images scored at a certain level during the jurying process. The awards is a very big international competition with over 1,100 photographers who entered more than 4,400 images. Do take the time to check out the amazing images.

Thank you again for your patronage!

Have a great weekend!

Dimitry

Some More Updates

Hi, everyone!

I hope you had a good weekend and having a good start to this week.

A short “definitely not a blog” this time with a few updates.

Juried Exhibition

My image “Stormy Night” was juried into an online Black and White exhibit at the Cape Cod Arts Center. In addition to my piece, there are plenty of amazing works from other photographers. So, definitely check it out!

View fullsize

Stormy Night

Upcoming Art Fair

Over the Labor Day Weekend I will be participating in Arts and Crafts Festival in Yarmouth, MA. If you happen to be on Cape Cod for the long weekend, or if you just feel like having a day trip, come visit my booth! I am bringing plenty of old favorites and new work.

2024 Calendars for Sale

Just in time for the National Lighthouse Day I assembled fourteen of my favorite Lighthouse images into a 2024 calendar! These are among my favorite images in general.

In addition to the Lighthouse calendar, I am also offering two calendars of my favorite New England landscapes and seascapes.

Finally, I am also offering an amazing collection of images from the Cotswolds and the Jurassic coast in England in a “Quintessentially British” calendar. These are among my favorite images from the trip I took last year.

That’s about it for today! More updates coming soon. Happy National Lighthouse Day!

Have a great week!

Dimitry

Updates

Hi, everyone! I hope you are having a good weekend and a good start of Summer.

It’s been a while since my last update. I don’t have much news as “real” life interferes, but I wanted to write a short update.

I’ve finally uploaded a good number of new works to the website. You can see three of my favorites on the “Home” page, and all of the uploaded artwork in the Recent Work gallery. There is still plenty to come. Some of those I finished editing, and others are still waiting their turn (I might have mentioned once or twice in the past just how behind I am in terms of editing). I am really proud of the work I produced in the last few months, and am happy to share it with you.

In another bit of news, my piece “Sky Full of Stars” was chosen to participate in the “National 2023” juried exhibition at the Cape Cod Art Center. The show will run July 10th-August 12th at the center in Barnstable, Cape Cod. Drop by if you are in the area as the center does a great job! If you are interested in seeing the show and meeting me at the same time, there is going to be a reception on July 14th, 5-7pm. I am excited about the opportunity.

By the way, do check out my “Upcoming Events” to find out about the upcoming exhibitions, art fairs, and workshops.

One other piece of news is that the Small Stones 2023 call for submissions is up. The submission period begins July 15th. I had the privilege to participate in the exhibit last year with my piece “Fire in the Sky”. It was a beautiful well organized exhibit, showcasing high quality photography and paintings. This year, it will be happening in a new location at the Grafton Library. It is my understanding, that the new location is slightly smaller, but well suited for the exhibit. So, if you are an artist and would like to submit your work, make sure you do it early as the submission period will close after they reach 500 submissions. The show itself is going to happen at the end of October. I will send out a reminder as we get closer. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend the show or the reception this year as I will be traveling to Slovenia, Bosnia, and Croatia for two back-to-back workshops during that time. However, I am planning to submit some of my work and hopefully, one or more of them will make it into the show.

I think this is about it for updates for now! Have a great week!

Budget Ultra-Wide Angle Lens Options for Sony FE-Mount (Full-Frame) Review

Click on images to open them in a separate tab for closer inspection

Intro

As a landscape photographer, it is important to have a wide angle lens in your tool kit. Although some people consider these types of lenses to be “landscape” lenses, that’s not strictly true, as pretty much any focal length can be used for landscapes. However, wide and ultra-wide lenses do offer the ability to create stunning landscape images, aided in some cases by the perspective distortion they create.

Let’s define “wide” and “ultra-wide” first. Generally, 24mm-35mm in full frame terms are considered wide, while anything shorter than that would be “ultra-wide”. To give you an idea about the difference, here is an image taken with my Sony 20-70mm f4 at 20mm, 23mm (close enough to 24mm), and 28mm. Some of the mismatch in the images is due to the fact I had to readjust the composition, while taking the image at 28mm. all images are unedited beyond slight exposure adjustments (to even out the image exposure).

Comparison of Basic Ultra-Wide and Wide Angles of View, Using Sony 20-70mm f4

As you can see, there is a considerable difference in the field of view between 20mm and 28mm. Interestingly, when I was still using my Sony a77, my main lens was the Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 Art. In full frame terms, this focal range translates to ~27mm-52.5mm. So, it is wide angle on the wide side, but not ultra-wide. Because of this, I often stitched several images into a panorama to obtain a wider field of view. I did have a wider lens, Rokinon 14mm f2.8 ED AS IF UMC. It’s a manual focus lens intended for a full frame, and translates to ~20mm on my Sony a77. I was never particularly happy with the quality of this lens, and used it only sporadically.

Now that I transferred to Sony a7 IV, which is a full frame e-mount camera, my main lens is Sony 20-70mm f4. It is a great lens, but there are some cases when I wish for a wider option. I did buy a manual adapter for my Rokinon, and it is able to produce good images if you take care, but, as I mentioned, I never particularly liked it. It has relatively significant distortion towards the edges of the image, which always bothers me, and the focus is not great.

Rokinon 14mm, Focus-Stacked

Sony 20-70mm @20mm, Panorama and Focus-Stacked

With this in mind, a few weeks ago I rented two ultra-wide lenses from Lensrentals (They are great, by the way. So, if you need to try out equipment, give them a visit. I am not getting anything from them, and this is based solely on my experience with them). The two lenses I wanted to try were Venus Laowa 15mm f2 zero-D (this is a manual lens, which has been around for a while) and the new Sigma 17mm f4.

I took the lenses, together with my 20-70mm workhorse and the 14mm Rokinon to a short trip in Maine, and used them in standard landscape situations as well as some Milky Way photography.

Size, Build, and Pricing

There are, obviously, many additional ultra-wide options out there from more “standard” 16-35mm f2.8 GM or f4 G by Sony (or the Tamron and Sigma “equivalents’ of 17-28mm f2.8 and 16-28mm f2.8 options respectively), some prime lenses, such as the amazing Sony 14mm f1.8 GM and 20mm f1.8 G (or the Sigma 20mm f1.4 Art and f2 contemporary alternatives), and down to the premium zooms, such as 12-24mm GM by Sony and 14-24mm f2.8 Art by Sigma. My choice of lenses was driven by my needs and considerations (such as weight, ability to take standard filters, overlap with my existing lenses, as well as potential price). If you have a crop sensor, there are fewer options, but you should consider one of the dedicated crop-sensor lenses as they are likely to produce better results compared to full frame ones (besides the fact that they are considerably smaller and lighter).

As such, this comparison is not exhaustive by any means. It is also not particularly scientific. Granted, I tried to maintain the camera settings and composition when comparing things, but landscapes are not really controlled environments, and some differences would naturally exist. On the other hand, these comparisons are “real-life” rather than lab, which, in the end, are the ones most important to me.

Lenses Compared. From Left to Right — Sigma 17mm f4; Laowa 15mm f2 zero-D; Sony 20-70mm f4 G, Rokinon 14mm f2.8 ED AS IF UMC with Fotodoix A-to-E mount Manual Adapter

When you look at these lenses, first thing that jumps out is just how different they are in size and weight. The 17mm Sigma is just tiny. It looks like a toy on my camera. This is all the more amazing given the great quality it produces. It is also interesting that even though the Sony is a zoom lens with pretty big focal range, it is second lightest, albeit pretty close to the Laowa. Rokinon, being an older DSLR design (with an adapter added), was by far the heaviest. I don’t know if the e-mount version is lighter, but I think that the newer designs definitely are, albeit also significantly more expensive.

Despite the size differences, all the lenses are well built. The Sony G , being a zoom lens, also offers the biggest flexibility (there is a reason why it is my main lens).

In terms of price, Laowa and Rokinon are available on the second-hand market (although in case of Rokinon, you probably would look to the e-mount version rather than the A-mount, which I have), while the Sigma and the Sony are recent releases and would be more limited in this respect (I did manage to find several offerings of the Sony). Here is a comparison of weight and price for the lenses (second-hand price is taken as an approximate average from eBay completed sales). For the Rokinon, the pricing is for the e-mount version.

Weight (g) Weight (lb oz) Price New (B&H) Price Used (eBay)

Sigma 17mm f4 250g 8.8 oz 599$ n/a

Laowa 15mm f2 575g 1 lb 4.3 oz 649$ 350-500$

Sony 20-70mm G 545g 1 lb 3.2 oz 1,098$ 800-900$

Rokinon 14mm f2.8 687g 1 lb 8.2 oz 299$ 150-200$
+ adapter

Obviously, from price perspective, Rokinon is the cheapest, and if you can live with its quirks, it would do in a pinch when you are on a budget. Price for the new Laowa is rather high, but you can get it at reasonable price second-hand. Sigma is somewhat expensive right now as it is new, but will likely be available on the used market in a few months as well if you are patient.

Field of View and Image Quality in Good Light

Shooting one morning at Portland Head Light, I compared the field of view between the lenses to get a real world idea of the difference. I also added a 24mm from my Sony 20-70mm for comparison (as this might be what you have if you’ve got the “standard” 24-70mm zoom).

Field of View Comparison Between the Lenses

All images were shot with similar f16 aperture and the only editing done was to even out the exposure to similar levels for comparison (it required a bit more with the Laowa due to the sun being in the frame). As can be seen, there is a pretty big difference in real world field of view. In this case, the difference was all the more apparent when I switched to the Sigma and Laowa, since in these cases the sun was within the field of view. This presents its own set of advantages and challenges, and only you can say whether you can live with the differences. For my taste, 17mm here is probably the sweet spot, though it lacks the versatility of the Sony zoom.

All the lenses have their own distortion and vignetting profiles. Lightroom handles them ok, but in case of the Rokinon and Laowa there is no information transmitted and you need to choose the correction profile manually. Generally, Laowa, being a zero-D lens, offers the lowest distortion despite pretty wide field of view. However, the Sigma is not far behind with the correction applied.

I also compared the center (or somewhere between center and midframe) sharpness by cropping the lighthouse. Although this is no exactly the center, this area is relevant for landscape photographers as we often put our main elements somewhat off-center. If you are a portrait photographer, more centered image might be of more use to you (coming up in a bit).

Lighthouse Crop Comparison

In real life, looking at this crop, it is very difficult to see any difference between the lenses. However, if you really pixel-peep and look at the details around the window of the lighthouse, it looks like the Sony 20-70mm @24mm is the sharpest, followed closely behind by Sigma 17mm, and then Sony @20mm and Laowa. It should be noted that Laowa has the least amount of contrast in this image, but it might be due to some veiling due to the presence of the sun in the shot. Overall, in real life, I would be perfectly happy with either of these.

Second test image

I took an additional test shot to compare the lenses. In this case, I produced two images for each of the lenses, one focusing on the tree trunk (closer to center) and the second one, focusing on part of the hedge closer to the corner. Granted, because of the differences in field of view, Laowa has an advantage here by having this area closer to the center of the image.

When examining the crops, the more central crop of the main tree showed that the Sony produced the sharpest image followed very closely behind by the Sigma. It would be very difficult to tell these apart without extreme pixel-peeping in my view. The Laowa, in this case, still looked good, but noticeably softer, though this might be due to my ability to focus manually.

“Center” and “Corner” Crops from the Second Test Image

In case of the “corner” crop I could not tell the difference (all images were focused on the same area of the hedge). This actually gives a slight advantage to the Sony, as this area is closer to the corner in that lens’ field of view. In any case, again, I would be pretty happy with either in real life.

Milky Way Photography

Milky Way photography is one of the common uses of ultra-wide lenses. 20mm and wider is generally considered as best for this type of photography. If you follow standard advice, you also want a faster lens (smaller f-number). Most people say that you need at least f/2.8 and f/4 really being not a particularly good choice. As an alternative, you can stack multiple images using software such as Sequator to overcome this issue. This is the reason why lenses like Sony 20mm f1.8 G are generally go-to choices for astrophotography.

However, with tools such as Topaz Denoise AI and the recent AI Denoise option in Lightroom, f/4 looks like a more viable option even for a single image capture (which removes the need to stack images). A couple of weeks before this test, I shot some Milky Way, using my Sony 20-70mm at Nobska Lighthouse on Cape Cod. With the applied AI Denoise in Lightroom, I was able to produce a single image pretty decent quality (I still needed to take several images to properly expose the foreground).

Milky Way at Nobska Light, Cape Cod Taken with Sony 20-70mm f4 G @20mm (Single Image Edit)

I went to the Nubble Lighthouse in York and spent a couple hours photographing the Milky Way there. I spent the first part of the evening, before the Galactic center was visible, taking multiple exposures with each lens to be used later for the foreground. These images were taken with a somewhat closed-down aperture to produce deep enough depth of field, and thus don’t offer a good comparison between the different lenses in terms of aperture.

After I was done with the foreground shots, I took 5-10 images with each lens at their respective maximum aperture to capture the Milky Way. Using PhotoPills app, I determined that I could get away with 13-15 second exposure to not create star-trails. For initial comparison, I used ISO of 3,200.

The Laowa image had the widest aperture of f2, and I used it as reference. I increased the exposure by +1 in Lightroom and then tried to match the other images to a similar brightness. This resulted in an adjustment of +1.7 for the Rokinon, and +2.4 for the Sony. Interestingly, although on paper the Sigma is two stops slower than the Laowa, I only needed +2 in exposure (meaning extra stop) to even out the exposure. This implies that the Sigma has a higher T-stop than the other lenses (with Sony also having slightly higher T-stop compared to Laowa then implied by their respective f-stops).

For each of the lenses, I enlarged a crop of the lighthouse as well as a crop from the Galactic center. The images are otherwise unedited.

Milky Way Comparison Between the Lenses with Full image and Crops of the Lighthouse and the Galactic Center

It should be noted that I was unable to properly focus with the Rokinon, no matter how much I tried. I also, unfortunately, slightly misfocused with the Sony. This can be seen by examining the lighthouse crop. Putting that aside, though, the Sigma was significantly sharper than the other images, including the Laowa. On the other hand, the aperture advantage for the Laowa gave it the cleanest images by far (both in the lighthouse area and the Galactic center area).

So far, not particularly unexpected, but it gave me a real life idea of the differences. However, to see whether an f4 lens can produce good results, I ran the Sigma and the Laowa images through AI Denoise in Lightroom and cropped the Galactic center again. I didn’t play with settings too much and used a setting of 38 for the amount of denoise. For comparison, I also stacked seven images taken with the Sigma, using Sequator. I put the Sequator output image through Topaz Denoise with automatic settings for “low light”. For each of the images, I show the comparison between the native image and the one that went through deonoise.

As they say, results were very interesting…

Effects of Denoise and Image Stacking on Noise Levels of the Sigma and Laowa Images

Laowa image that went through denoise was crazy clean, with the noise levels greatly reduced. Surprisingly, the Sigma image, although not as clean, was very clean and definitely cleaner than the Laowa image without the denoise applied. The stacked Sigma images were cleaner than the single one, and the stacked images with applied denoise were cleaner than Laowa untreated image, though not as clean as the denoised Sigma single image. This was most likely due to differences between denoise implementation in Topaz vs Lightroom. It should be noted that both offer decent control of denoise and sharpening levels and, potentially, can produce better images than shown here.

Another couple of things I noticed were that denoise in Lightroom produced some artifacts that you would need to deal with in subsequent editing. The second thing was that stacking images produced a slightly softer image than denoised single image. I am not sure whether this is inherent in the process or due to some mistake I made.

Overall, Laowa definitely produced the best results in this test, but single denoised image from Sigma was not that far behind. This confirmed my previous evaluation that with modern denoise software you can likely get away with an f4 lens for shooting the Milky Way.

Conclusion

I had fun comparing these lenses and came to interesting conclusions. When making the decision, first thing you need to figure out is whether you need the extra field of view compared to the 20mm, offered by the Sony 20-70mm G. It is an excellent lens, and if you don’t need to go wider, you probably will be ok with just that lens as your ultra-wide to normal and short telephoto range. If, on the other hand, you decide that you want to go wider, the choice is not as obvious.

I would definitely exclude the Rokinon from consideration, unless you are really stressed for budget. It is not very sharp, and even in the situation like the Milky Way, where its brighter aperture should offer some advantage, it was basically unusable, and offered only 1/3 of a stop advantage over the Sigma.

Sigma is really a gem of a lens. It is so compact and light, you barely feel it in the bag. In good light situations it is sharp basically edge to edge, and will be an excellent choice. In addition, it appears that it has higher T-stop, i.e. it lets through more light than expected by its nominal aperture. As a result, in the real world, it is only about one stop slower than the Laowa. With the new denoise options, you can almost match the Laowa output in terms of cleanliness, but have a sharper image (Laowa wide open is definitely softer). Finally, it is an auto-focus lens, which has its advantages.

If you are looking for the best astrophotography lens out of the bunch, and don’t mind the manual focus for other situations (you generally use manual focus for astro, anyway), Laowa is a good choice. It is also available on the used market for considerably less money. However, keep in mind that it is larger and heavier.

In the end, the choice between the two will come down to your personal preferences and use cases. Both options are good, and if you wait a little, Sigma will likely pop up on the second-hand market in half a year as well.

Hopefully, this helped you make a decision if you were in the market for an ultra-wide angle lens.

Have a great week!

To Print or Not to Print… a Photobook?

Update:

After writing this “definitely not a blog” I went to check out what’s new on the Mixbook and SAAL Digital websites. Based on this, a couple of updates.

1. Mixbook now offers two types of paper — matte and lustre. I believe that lustre is the one I was previously using. They also offer a choice of “signature” vs “premium” for both paper types. Based on the description, it looks like the “premium” type might be similar to the old pages (thicker and stiffer), while the “signature” is the newer page type (not as thick and stiff, though still pretty good).

2. SAAL Digital added a third paper type (in addition to their glossy and matte, which was actually lustre). They call it portrait/silk photo paper, and describe it as good for natural looking skin tones, being highly scratch resistant, and as having a unique feel (not sure what that means as I' haven’t tried the paper).

3. I did not realize previously that the standard albums have slightly different size from the professional line on SAAL. The difference is not big, and I don’t think it makes much of a difference, but it helps explain the difference in price in addition to the luxury cover types.

4. Pricing has changed somewhat since I last used both Mixbook and SAAL. I now think that SAAL offers a better price, even with a 50% discount applied to Mixbook pricing, though the difference is not big.

End of Update

Recently I got a coupon for a photo album from Shutterfly. The coupon came after I purchased something from Best Buy, and I decided to check it out. Shutterfly is one of the oldest digital printing companies out there. They offer all kinds of photo products, and I figured, how bad can they be? Well… they turned out to be pretty bad.

Over the years I’ve printed photo products for myself with different companies. I even tried Walmart and Walgreens. Printing your work is important for a photographer, and there really is nothing like having a beautiful photobook to do that. Given this latest experience, I decided to put together a short review of the different companies I’ve printed with. There are so many of them out there. Maybe this can help others to make a decision.

This list is not supposed to be exhaustive as there are many other companies. In addition to the companies described here, I’ve also worked with Lulu to print my calendars. They are an excellent company (one of the first self-publishing companies out there). Their printing quality was good (though not as good as some on this list) and they are affordable. However, they are not really a photobook company, and don’t have a dedicated editor. They are an option if you want to print large number of copies of a book/calendar or whatnot. For this reason, I did not include a review of their products here.

Without further ado…

Shutterfly

I will start with Shutterfly as it prompted this “definitely not a blog”.

The Good The Bad

Inexpensive Print quality is poor

Ok editor Construction quality is poor

Ok template selection Slow service and no communication

The editor for Shutterfly is ok to work with, but nothing special. It is relatively easy to work with, though selecting a specific layout and modifying it could be easier. The big advantage is that you don’t need to upload your full resolution images immediately. This is actually very helpful for a person like me, since I generally have more images than I end up including in the album, and it is easier to work with as the interface is not slowing down.

They have a bunch of templates you can use. I poked around the website for a short while, but couldn’t figure out how to use the templates if I wanted to modify them, and ended up building the album from scratch.

Pricing-wise, it was not expensive, but also somewhat more expensive than I expected. I would still put them into the “budget” category.

That’s where the somewhat positive things I have to say about them end. I upgraded my album to a more premium paper and to lay-flat pages (these are supposed to eliminate the gutter and allow you to print on the entire spread). I was not expecting top notch quality for the price, but given how long they have been around, I was expecting a reasonable one. I was, sadly, very disappointed.

The printing came out to be not very color accurate and lacked contrast. There were some weird smudges on a couple of pages, and a few pages came in scratched. The construction was extremely poor (see image above). Despite the album being with “lay-flat” pages, there was still a gutter. What’s more, in a few cases where I printed an image across the spread, the two parts on the two pages were misaligned.

Bottom Line

Avoid.

Blurb

If you want a budget alternative to Shutterfly, but with significantly better quality, Blurb would be a good candidate.

The Good The Bad

Inexpensive Editor is cumbersome

Decent print quality

Good selection of templates

Offer an e-book version

My experience with Blurb was when we decided to make a cook book at my day-job, collecting recipes from different people. Blurb kind of specializes in things like that, having dedicated templates for them. They also offer trade books and magazines.

Their selection of paper/cover is not huge, and you wouldn’t find the really luxurious options there. We ended up using standard paper with a soft cover (we printed one hard cover version for the office).

Pricing really depends on the option you choose, with the lower tier options being very affordable. Additional discounts are available for larger number of copies, and those are substantial.

When I received the cook books, I was somewhat pleasantly surprised, as even the most basic option was well constructed and print quality was pretty good. I have not tried their more premium products, so, I don’t know whether they justify the cost increase.

Blurb also offers a PDF version of the book for free and an e-book version you can use on your Kindle or Apple devices for a relatively low price.

My biggest issue with Blurb is their editor. On the plus side, I didn’t have to upload the images to the web for editing the book. However, it is just terrible. Editing the book was a nightmare. They do have an option of publishing directly from Lightroom, but I am not sure how that works.

Bottom Line

Good budget option, especially if you want to print multiple copies

Mixbook

I have been printing photobooks with Mixbook for a long time. For a while, they were my go-to printer. They offer an excellent balance between price and quality.

The Good The Bad

Good print quality On-line editor

Good construction Full price is a bit high

Excellent selection of templates Newer books have thinner pages

Good customer service Newer books no longer come with a box

Somewhat limited selection of covers/paper

When I first started printing photobooks about ten years ago, I found Mixbook after reading reviews on-line. I gave them a go and fell in love. I’ve been ordering books from them since then (though recently I started printing more with a different vendor).

Mixbook is very reliable. their books are well constructed and well printed. When one time a calendar I printed with them came with a misprint, customer service was quick and responsive. Their lay-flat pages lay completely flat, and you can reliably print an image across the entire spread.

Print quality is good, though I haven’t printed with them any of my more recent work, which is significantly improved compared to just a few years ago. One of their selling points is the excellent selection of templates available. You really can find whatever you need. You can also modify the template fairly easily. You can also switch or adjust the template as you go. The different templates can be very useful if you are making a different type of a book like a family album for example (a couple years ago I scanned a bunch of old family photos and made a book out of it).

On the more negative side, they have somewhat limited selection of paper/cover types. In addition, their editor is on-line. As a result, you need to upload your images first, which can take a while if you have many images in high resolution. The editor itself is pretty good and responsive, though it can slow down a bit if you have a lot of pages in your book and a lot of images.

If you look at their full price, their products are not cheap. In fact, they can be pretty expensive. However, Mixbook run promotions almost constantly, and it is not unusual to find 40 and even 50 percent discounts. So, wait until you do to get the best bang for your buck.

A couple of minor annoyances came up over the years. About five years ago, they made their premium lay-flat pages thinner. They used to be pretty thick and would not bend almost at all. Now, they are still thick, but less so. In addition, albums used to come in a nice box, which you could use for storage, transport etc. They dropped that a few years ago as well. Now, their albums are shipped in a packaging similar to other vendors.

Bottom Line

Very good option if you are looking for a variety of templates to help you design your photobook. Good balance between price and print quality, but wait for the discount to get a good price. Selection of paper/cover types could be better.

SAAL Digital

A while back I got a promotional coupon from SAAL to evaluate their Professional Line photobooks (I also reviewed their wall art options here). I love working with them and they are now my go-to printer, offering excellent quality for a reasonable price.

The Good The Bad

Very good print quality Full price is a little expensive (especially for the

Excellent construction professional line)

Easy to use off-line editor Acrylic cover looks amazing, but has somewhat

Quick service sharp edges

Good customer service Template selection is a bit rudimentary

Excellent selection of covers and paper

I have first heard of SAAL before printing with them through a Youtube channel dedicated to photo books I stumbled upon. These days, a lot of photographers I follow on Yutube shared their promotions. They have two paper types they call glossy and matte (they added a third one recently). Many people say that their glossy paper is amazing, but I generally don’t like printing glossy. I asked them in an email how matte is matte. Turned out, the matte option is actually semi-gloss lustre with a bit of texture. I ended up ordering this paper type and was not disappointed.

Print quality is very good. SAAL offers ICC profiles to color correct your images for printing, but I never used them, and my images in the albums are pretty color-accurate without the need for the profile.

SAAL has a good selection of cover options, sizes, and add-ons like boxes to make your book look more premium. I used standard lay-flat pages, but they also have an XT version, which is even thicker.

When I reviewed their Professional line, I made an album with an acrylic cover. It looks amazing, but I feel that it is also the biggest weakness of the album. I always worry how the acrylic will survive handling over time (I am not particularly gentle with my photobooks). In addition, the edges of the acrylic are pretty sharp. Consequently, when you hold the rather hefty album, they can dig into your arm (it left a mark a couple of times).

After doing the review, I ordered their regular line with a matte cover. I’ve been using this option ever since. The cover looks almost as amazing as the acrylic, and has this soft touch to it, which I absolutely love.

Their service is very quick and responsive. Although the albums are printed in Europe, shipping is free, and you receive them usually within a week from order. The one time I had to interact with the customer service, they were very polite and efficient.

The editor is off-line, which I love. It works with all their products, not just photobooks. Template selection is somewhat rudimentary, but I usually work from scratch now anyway.

All in all, not much to complain about with SAAL, and I’ve been printing with them ever since I tried. Their pricing, especially for the Professional line is a bit on the expensive side, but they almost constantly run a fixed discount which makes it more palatable. If I had to choose now, I would say that their regular line is a better bang for your buck, unless you want that wow factor of the acrylic cover for some special occasion.

Bottom Line

Excellent option with a variety of choices, including luxury options like the professional line with the acrylic cover. Very good print quality, quick and reliable service. Easy to use off-line editor, though if you are looking for a big selection of templates, SAAL is probably not the best choice. Full price is a bit expensive, but they have almost constant discount. Standard albums are a great bang for the buck in most cases. Love the soft-touch matte cover.

Printique

Printique is a subsidiary of Adorama, which is one of the biggest photo gear stores in US. They offer a variety of printing services, and generally are excellent. I’ve been using them for printing my standard and metal prints for a while for their excellent quality and color reproduction.

The Good The Bad

Very good print quality On-line editor

Excellent construction Full price can be rather high depending on the

Quick service options

Excellent selection of covers and paper Template selection is not as good as Mixbook

Offers sample kit before buying

Overall, there isn’t much to write about Printique’s photobooks. My review would be very similar to SAAL Digital, with the exception that I have not tried any of their more premium cover options and they don’t have the acrylic cover as an option.

They do have a bigger selection of paper and covers, but less options for sizes. You can get a sample kit to see the types of the covers and papers before you order. Price-wise they are slightly more expensive, and don’t have as may discount options available. That being said, the price is not outrageous for the quality you get.

Print quality is excellent. The print is very color accurate, and they offer color correction as an option too. I generally print, using their lustre paper as I feel it gives the best balance in terms of the way the prints look.

One downside is that their editor is on-line with all that is implied by this, though I find it fairly quick and responsive.

Really, the biggest reason why I prefer SAAL to them is the soft-touch matte cover.

Bottom Line

Excellent option with a variety of choices, including luxury options. Superb print quality. Reliable and quick service. Pricing is somewhat high, but commensurate with the quality. Large selection of papers. Unfortunately, no soft-touch matte cover option.

Zno

Zno was another company that offered me a coupon to try their product. They are a smaller company with a more luxurious feel. I ended up making a book with them.

The Good The Bad

Very good print quality On-line editor

Excellent construction Full price is very expensive

Has a sample pack to look at the options Not much in terms of templates

Zno is one of those companies I heard about on the same Youtube channel as SAAL Digital. They are a smaller company, working with photographers, and their products are intended to be high end.

I got a 50% off promotion from them and ended up printing a Fine Art Album with a canvas padded cover. In retrospect, this cover choice probably was not the best, as padding seems a bit much, and the canvas is not particularly tolerant of my rough treatment.

Before ordering, I got a small album showing the different paper and print types. I loved the “Art Print” paper type. It is a completely matte paper, and the print quality looked superb. In my actual album, the prints looked very good, but not as good as the sample. I am not completely sure why.

Abum construction was top notch with the pages thick and very stiff. The pages have this black insert between the two sides, which make the album look very unique from the side.

Templates are basically non-existent, but the on-line (again) editor is pretty straightforward and responsive, making designing the album easy. Zno have a good selection of covers and paper types available. They offer a fairly unique canvas print cover, which I chose.

The biggest downside to Zno is price. Even with 50% off, the album ended up being very pricey. In the end, for me, the quality doesn’t justify the very high price, as I prefer other options, but your mileage might vary.

Bottom Line

High end, luxurious feel. Unique cover option. High quality print and construction. Pricey.

More than Meets the Eye. Photographing Close to Home.

Did you ever say or hear people say, “Oh, it is boring where I live. Nothing to photograph”?

When I moved to Massachusetts from Nebraska and started posting on the different New England photography Facebook pages, a heard a version of this statement a couple of times. Someone asked me once, “These are in Massachusetts? Really?” For someone coming from Nebraska this was an amazing statement. After all, Massachusetts, and more generally New England is like a candy store for a photographer. We got it all — ocean, mountains, waterfalls, wetlands, and what not. People from all over the US and the world flock here for Fall colors. So, how come some people feel there isn’t much interesting to photograph here?

I guess, the answer to this is that we just get used to it. We don’t pay enough attention to the small details. I have to admit that sometimes I too feel that, “oh, well, it’s just another waterfall.” After all, I have plenty of those in my portfolio.

Over the weekend I ran my first workshop at Enders Falls in Connecticut. We had a great time, and, hopefully, captured some worthwhile scenes. Workshop participants drove for a couple of hours just to get there. As they say, '“showing up is 90% of winning.” And that is especially true of photography. If you don’t get up early and go to those places, you won’t capture the special moments. One frustrating part is that even if you do, you might not get anything :-)

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Fairy Tale Stream

But do you need sprawling vistas or majestic waterfalls to capture beautiful images? Those don’t hurt, of course, but sometimes, just paying attention and coming to a location close to home time after time can be great too.

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Reflections

You probably noticed that I have multiple images of the Old Stone Church in West Boylston and Rauscher Farm in Clinton in my galleries. The reason for this is that I live less than fifteen minutes away from those locations. I can easily come back time after time to take advantage of great light, weather etc. I already know what point I need to go to to capture these places, so, all it takes is to look out the window and grab your camera bag. These days, you don’t even need that as you most likely have a decent camera in your phone.

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Stranger in the strange Land

This is a great advantage over some beautiful location half a world away. When I went to England last year, I only had five days there, which I also had to balance with my day job. in order to take full advantage of the trip, I spent days preparing. I got in touch with a local photographer for recommendations, read all I could find on the internet about the different locations, and built multiple contingencies as to where to go depending on the weather, time etc. I still had to return to a certain location three times because I was unlucky the first two times. However, I was somewhat lucky with the weather and I managed to cram into those five days significantly more than I should have. To the point where I almost collapsed on the last day going to the airport.

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In the Mist

When you go to locations close to home, you don’t have to do this. sure, you still need to do your homework. However, if one day doesn’t work, come back another day. You can build a list of locations with comments like, “this will look great in fog”, or “this is great for a nice sunset”, etc. Then, when the time comes, grab your camera and head out. And if it doesn’t work out, come back again another time, noting what didn’t work the last time, and whether you can adjust to get a better result.

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Of Trees and Mist and Birds

I am not sure if it is just the Spring finally coming, or the fact that I switched my kit, but I have been more motivated to get out more over the last month or two. On my daily commute there are a few locations that I marked for my list of possible locations to photograph. Last week, I got up an hour earlier. It was misty outside, and I headed to one of those locations in Lancaster. I went to that location in the past, but was never satisfied with most of the images i captured there. Well, this time I hit a jackpot, and captured a series of images that look like they came from a fairytale.

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Three Sisters

Another location near home is Bolton Spring Farm. I passed it a few times, though it is a little out of my way. It has a beautiful apple orchard. Yesterday, after the workshop I drove by to see if the trees are blossoming. And, boy, do they. I expected the orchard to look good at sunrise. So, I got up today at 5am and headed out. It took the sun a while to get over the trees, and I had plenty of time to walk around and to choose my spots. Once the sun rose enough, it bathed the blossoming trees in an absolutely stunning golden light.

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Blossoms and Light (Blossoming Apple Trees in Bolton, Massachusetts)

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Breakthrough

After taking many images, I headed home for a much deserved coffee and some sleep. It is Sunday, after all!

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Welcoming the Light

I guess, my message to you is to get out and find those little gems in your neighborhood. Then, go back to those places often when the weather, the light, and time of year are right to do the places justice in your photos. I hope you enjoy these photos.

Have a great week!

Does Equipment Matter? Why I Was Still Shooting 12-Years-Old Sony A-Mount Camera in 2023, and Why I Finally Switched?

A statement you often hear at Art Fairs when people come into your booth is “You must have a great camera to take these.” If you were to happen to read some photographer forums, this statement drives many photographers mad. They feel it diminishes their craft. After all, few people would state that a painting is a result of what paints the artist used. This is true as far as it goes, but the statement rarely bothered me. I used it to say that I am shooting with a very old Sony camera, and that a few shots in the booth were taken, gasp, with a smartphone.

The smartphone question is another topic of discussions between photographers. Many seem to think that unless you are using a professional camera, you are not a real photographer. However, were you to prompt most of these people, you would find out that they agree that a good professional photographer can produce great images, using a smartphone.

Interestingly, the photographer community seems to be divided into two camps, if you judge by online discussions. One camp is gear heads who like posting images of their new equipment, treat it as long lost family, follow and argue about every camera advancement among the different brands. The other camp are generally art purists who scoff at the equipment discussions and feel that “real photographers” don’t need autofocus, or frames per second or whatever new spec just came out, and that gear overall doesn’t matter. A lot of the same people also feel somewhat hostile towards editing their images (though this is probably a third camp). In practice, most people fall somewhere in between, but they tend to be far less vocal in on-line discussions :-).

So, what is the truth? Does gear matter? Or more accurately, can better equipment make you a better photographer? Well, as in many of my answers, it is a bit more nuanced. If I had to give a one word answer, then “yes”. If I had to give a two words answer, then “yes, but…” I generally, think that gear matters far less than some people think, and considerably more, especially in certain use cases, then some people care to admit.

I think my story is kind of illustrative of this explanation. Up until recently I was shooting with an old A-mount Sony aps-c camera (Alpha A77). If you don’t know what any of this means, don’t worry. It is not particularly important. It just means that the camera, by today’s standards, would be considered a dinosaur, and you can buy a used one on eBay for about 300$. When it finally broke a couple of months ago, it was not worth repairing, and I finally jumped ship into a new system (Sony A7 IV for anybody who cares).

If you have seen my work, and visited my booth, you probably know that it could still produce spectacular images despite its age and limitations. And that’s the key here. You can work with almost any equipment (including smartphone) if you know its limitations and know how to work within them. For example, my camera was pretty bad in low-light situations (at least by today’s standards). If you know that, you know how to work around those limitations until you can’t.

In practice, most of camera bodies made in the last 10-15 years can produce spectacular results. Same goes for lenses. Before that, the issue is more complicated, but I am not going to go into that. By the way, lenses make far more difference to your images than the camera body. So, if you are planning on upgrading your equipment, leave enough money for good quality lenses (though again, what constitutes good enough today may surprise you).

Lenses were the biggest reason why I haven’t switched earlier. Although I knew how to work around my camera’s limitations, sometimes it was annoying. However, switching to comparable quality lenses would have meant a lot of money. So, I dealt with the annoyance.

Here is the point where gear does matter. If your gear limits you or annoys you, you are less likely to use it. Much of the issue where gear matters is in quality-of-life situations. If you know that your gear will not fail you or that it has the features you need, it makes your life easier as a photographer to focus on your craft and creating great images.

There are two more issues for which gear matters. First one is weight and focal length coverage. For example, after upgrading recently, I have far more focal length coverage (meaning I can shoot comfortably in more situations) and the equipment weighs about 2-3 pounds less, which makes it a bit easier for me to carry on hikes. All this, without losing any quality (actually improving in some cases).

The second issue concerns more specialized features for specific uses. For example, if you are a wild life photographer and your camera doesn’t have good autofocus, it is still possible to take good images, but it is difficult and frustrating. If your camera is not great in low light, and you don’t have wide enough, and fast enough lenses, you probably not going to take Milky Way images.

Generally, I am not specializing in either of these, but this weekend I went to Cape Cod for a couple of days with my new kit, and I did both. So, gear mattered! More to the point, it was a joy to use, and as such, I was more likely to get out of bed and go shoot the Milky Way and then a sunrise. I will try to post a few images from this trip next week.

To summarize, gear matters when it makes your life easier and when it limits your craft. However, learning the craft and getting out to work on your photography matters more, especially if you are only starting out.

Have a great week!

New Images, Scouting New Location, and Update to the May 6th Workshop

New Work Uploaded

I hope you all are having a great weekend. It’s been a while since I uploaded new work to the website. To be completely frank, I was in a bit of a creative rut during the winter. I was having issues with my old camera (more on that in a couple of weeks), and I really didn’t go out as much as I should have during winter.

Now, I am finally getting out and also editing the images I already took. It is really extremely embarassing just how far behind I am with editing. I would probably do better focusing on a set of images and finishing them, but I tend to jump between the different sets based on my mood that day.

Winter Scene at the Old Stone Church in West Boylston

Anyway, I did upload a couple of winter images from the Old Stone Church in West Boylston. These, unfortunately, were the last images my old trusty Sony A77 took, forcing me to finally switch the system. I am planning to write a post in a couple of weeks regarding equipment in general and how it can affect your photography, but this is a topic for another time.

The next few images were from my daytrips to the Berkshires last fall. I still have a batch of images from those trips, but these images are probably my favorites (especially the panoramic one). I stumbled on these barns when I was driving to the Berkshires Arts Festival in Great Barrington last year. Unfortunately, with the festival I had no time to stop and take proper images. I came back during fall and went to find the barns again.

Morning in the Berkshires

It is a panorama stitched together from five images, and I just absolutely love it. the combination of light and fall foliage, just make it so magical. I’ve added this image to a select set of images that I offer as Gallery Prints (you can read my review of this product here).

In addition to the panoramic image, I took a few others and also played with black and white editing. There is something about these old barns that just lends itself to black and white.

Fall Morning Color Version

Fall Morning Sepia

Fall Morning Black and White

Fall Morning Infrared Emulation

I’ve also uploaded another version of the Bash Bish Falls and a few more images from Cumberland Falls State Park in Kentucky. You can find these images in the corresponding galleries.

Scouting Enders Falls and a New Workshop

Last week I finally got out with my new camera and went scouting Enders Falls near Granby in Connecticut. The falls are a part of the Enders State forest. You can read about the location here.

The falls were recommended to me by a fellow photographer Dave Long (make sure to check out his work) as a good potential location for a workshop. I’ve never been there and was not sure what to expect. Let me put it this way, the location is just beautiful with multiple cascades and the stream winding through the woods. It is an easy walk for those that just want to go an enjoy the location.

Of Light and Water

I came relatively late and didn’t expect much in terms of light, intending to just scout out the location and come back. However, I ended up spending something like 4-5 hours there photographing. The trees are still relatively bare and I wonder how the location will look with more leaves, as well as in the fall. I definitely intend to find out.

Enders Falls

The light and the shadows together with the different cascade created this magical atmosphere that I tried to capture with my edits.

Through the Woods

Cascades in Enders Forest

Waterfall Chasing 2 (Enders Falls) -- May 18th 2024 (May 19th rain day)

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In short, if you haven’t figured it out yet, I had a great time, and captured some great images. I think the location is also perfect for a workshop with people who would like to learn how to capture waterfalls (or just enjoy the location). All the images are available in the Connecticut gallery. I am also planning to add a few of these images to the Gallery Print offering.

I’ve decided to relocate one of my workshops (on May 6th) to this location instead of Doane’s falls. I think it offers a greater variety of subjects and compositions. By that time, there should be more greenery and I can’t wait to see how the location changes because of that. I am sure we will have a great time!

Have a great rest of your weekend and the new week!

Gallery Prints — A Review

Introduction

Metal and canvas prints have been the staple of what I offer for a while. I work with two different vendors and am happy with the quality they offer. A few weeks ago I was offered a 75$ coupon by Saal Digital to review any of their Wall Art products. I’ve been printing some of my photo albums with Saal and am very happy with the quality they offer. Although they are a European company, they offer free shipping to US, and generally have very quick turn-around (even faster than some of my local vendors).

I decided to try a couple of their products and compare them to metal prints I print with Printique. I ordered a panoramic metal print, as well as a glossy and a matte Gallery Print.

Gallery Prints from Saal are a combination of an acrylic print with metal backing.

To make the long story short, I was so impressed with the quality of these prints, that I am now offering a limited number of my images as Gallery Prints. In my view, these offer amazing quality at a reasonable price, with the only downside of mediocre packaging. In fact, I’ve sold two of these amazing prints during the Paradise City Marlborough Art Fair last weekend (which is an excellent event with some amazing artists which I would be happy to return to).

Shipping and Packaging

Once I put the order in, it took about a week (or maybe slightly more) for the products to arrive, which is extremely fast, considering they were shipped from Europe and had to go through customs.

The only way I can describe the packaging is as “ok”, but not great. Gallery prints came with a protective film to prevent scratching, while the metal print didn’t have that. Neither had any sort of protective bag, and were packaged in a relatively flimsy cardboard package, which I struggle to call a box (more like a big envelope). They did have a soft liner to protect the print face, and a rather interesting backing with a cut-out to go around the hanging subframe. There were no additional spacers to protect the print, and no “fragile stickers” on the package.

If I compare this package to the one used by Printique for their metal prints, there is really no comparison. Printique’s is better, albeit bulkier, by leaps and bounds. As a result, I would be perfectly happy with the Printique packaging, but somewhat apprehensive about Saal’s. In fact, the consequence of this mediocre packaging was that my metal print arrived with the package torn, and the print bent at the corner. Saal were very quick to respond to my complain and to rectify the issue, but it is an additional hassle, which could have been avoided with proper packaging.

Comparing packaging from Saal and Printique

Construction and Hanging Hardware

All the prints from Saal are solidly constructed. Metal prints are fairly light and are constructed as a type of composite sandwich structure (I am not sure what the material of the inner layer is). They are very stiff and feel durable, which emphasizes even more just how much abuse my print had to undergo in order to come bent. I would say, that the metal prints are slightly heavier than the ones I print with Printique, though this might be due to the hanging subframe (more on that in a moment).

The Gallery Prints are heavier due to a slab of acrylic attached to the aluminum layer. they come with protective film to prevent scratches to the acrylic. They feel solid and well constructed.

My only complain here is that I would have preferred slightly rounded edges on both metal (similar to the Printique prints) and especially on the Gallery Prints, as the acrylic edge is pretty sharp and needs to be handled with care. This sharper edge was my main concern with the professional line albums from Saal as well. Granted, in this case, once the print is on the wall, there is no need to worry about that edge.

In terms of hanging hardware, I ordered the prints with aluminum subframe. It feels solid and should be easy to hang (though the print doesn’t come with any sort of dedicated hanger as opposed to my usual metal prints from Printique). In this sense Saal prints are similar to my normal metal prints, though their subframe feels somewhat more hefty despite being shallower and smaller. This is most likely due to the way it’s constructed from relatively thick aluminum rails. I had no trouble attaching d-rings to the subframe through the screw holes. So, if this is something you prefer, you can do that too.

All in all, the prints are solidly built, feel premium and come with hanging hardware, which is easy to use

Print Quality

Considering my experience with Saal through their photo albums I was not surprised at the excellent print quality of their wall art. One surprising aspect was just how matte the metal print was. I am used to metal prints being highly contrasty and was not expecting that. This is something to keep in mind when choosing the image you want to print, as this will make a huge difference. I personally prefer the more glossy finish of the Printique prints for a metal print (I used other surfaces for matte finish), but it is still excellent and would look great with an appropriately chosen image.

Gallery Prints come in glossy and matte finishes. For comparison, the Printique metal prints fall somewhere in between the two, although not much glossier than the glossy Gallery Print. Both finishes look amazing. The glossy finish, similarly to my normal metal prints emphasizes the contrast in the image with some added depth from the acrylic. I have to say that I prefer the matte finish. I am not sure what it is exactly about that finish, but the depth created by it is just amazing. Don’t get me wrong, though, both are really, really good, an it is only a matter of personal taste.

Comparison of the matte and glossy finish of Gallery Prints

The quality of the prints was so good, that I decided to offer a selection of my images (that I carefully selected for this), which would, in my view, look amazing in this finish. During the Paradise City Marlborough Art Fair last weekend, a couple purchased a 24”X36” Gallery Print of my “In the Morning Mist at Burford Water Meadows”. The print arrived on Friday and I was anxious to see how it turned out. It didn’t disappoint and looked simply stunning. I hope my customers are just as happy with it as I am.

As an aside, Paradise City Arts Festivals are great events with some amazing artists showcasing their work. I am hoping to be back at their events and highly recommend people to visit even if just to take in the various artworks.

Pricing and Final Thoughts

The pricing aspect of printing services is always tricky. There are plenty of inexpensive printers out there. However, for me, in many cases the quality is not good enough. Especially, for artwork that I offer to my customers. On the other hand, there are several printing services that offer amazing quality products, which I would not hesitate to put on my wall, but they are so expensive that they don’t leave any room for me as an artist to make a reasonable profit.

Consequently, I am very careful choosing the vendors I work with to provide what I consider optimal combination of quality and reasonable price. In this respect, I think the service offered by Saal falls into that category. While at full price, their wall art can be a bit pricey, they generally have running discounts, and you can almost always fins a good offer.

To sum up this review. Saal offers high quality wall art. I was especially impressed with the Gallery Prints, which offer a unique, high quality product at a reasonable price. Saal Digital offers good, quick service with prompt customer service if needed, and fast shipping despite their European location. The only downside, that I wish Saal would work on, is the rather mediocre packaging.