New 360 Tours Site

My new site about 360 degree Virtual Tours creation is ready! Now accepting jobs for Greece only. Book your appointment to discuss your business needs.  For your Google Business Page or for your business estate homepage.

360 photos? Hell YEAH!! (but sadly still not for everybody)

 Much has been said the passing months about 360 degrees photos and virtual tours, or better known as "Google Street View Tours".    The pandemic has made it clear that we can no longer visit our favorite places as much as we would want and this resulted in a significant boost towards the virtualization of places and businesses around the world, for the time when we can visit them again.  A while ago, 360 degree hardware equipment (and business opportunity) was fairly new and just for photographers with big pockets and much spare time for the learning curve.  360 degrees photo hosts were very few and expensive and in order to accomplish an adequate level of quality someone had to pass several expensive "masterclasses".  Businesses were almost unaware of the new technology abilities, the integration of such photos in their sites was a pain and the overall cost was relatively high.

Central Messenia Region (mavic mini)

Remember when I told you about forgetting the White Balance between locations?  Well, here we have some images with the White Balance preset to a manual setting far irrelevant to the correct setting.  In addition, you will see the effect of a polarized filter and how it makes the colors pop and the contrast to give the 3D look we all admire in similar images.

Kalamata Drone (mavic mini)

Wow, I mean WOW!! When I bought this little mavic mini drone I wasn't so sure about what quality I should expect.  You see it was "only" 2.7K, it flies about 2 KM away and with no sensors, or waterproofing I guess I was a little bit scared.  I always want to be on the safe side, I want my hardware to be waterproof, crash-proof and last forever, but we all know that dreams don't always come true (but they can sure come very close).

Spark drone. Impressions and handling

This summer I had the opportunity to fly a Spark drone for a while and I want to share my experience in this post.  First, not all the footage is shot by me, but with the permission of the owner, I made a short video posted on youtube in order to show the versatility, video quality and light handling of this small semi-pro drone.

Seedr.cc

I first came across this amazing torrent down-loader accidentally. It is quite funny that I was looking for seeds (the one used in farming) and happened to come across this “seed”.
I would call this seed since it is an amazing way to "farm".  All you need is to put the seed (copy-paste the magnet link) and this grows into a big and beautiful tree (the downloaded content). I was fed up with all sorts of downloading trouble I was facing as many sites other than seedr offered this service, but data was limited and I could not download the content.  In addition, torrent files take too much time to download the content with less number of seeds and this happened to be an amazing life saver to me.

The Missing Files: Last winter's snow (12-2016)

I thought I had saved those photos online and had prepared them for a previous blog post, but somehow they got lost into the stack and were never published.  Today I was reminded of this trip, in which I had gone to the snowy Parnitha last year and I searched for the post online, which of course was nowhere to be found.  I headed home wondering why I hadn't post this trip, which was memorable and filled me with energy when I most needed it and found the trip's photos.  But let's take it from the start.

Summer 2017 Projects - Messinia

My final vacation time for this summer was spent in Kalamata in Messinia prefecture, mostly relaxing and sea bathing, but there was enough time to visit Peroulia beach and Koroni with its famous castle and food.  I also spent some hours alone under the dark sky next to Kapetanakis Castle in Charavgi village, photographing the Milky Way (or trying to do it properly this time anyway), using Magic Lantern's Full-Resolution Silent pictures function with the integrated intervallometer, powerbank-to-battery convertor and very high ISO rating for a future timelapse sequence.  Finally, I shot some editorial photos for the now functional bridge in my home village in order to create my final post on this subject.

Summer 2017 Projects - August - Lesvos

The main summer vacation time this year was spent in Lesvos, which is my birthplace and I have rarely visited so far.  Lesvos is widely known as one of the first islands related to the immigration crisis (the second type of crisis flourishing in Greece) and because of the recent earthquake a few months ago.  However, there is much more to discover and the island has a large history dating back to the Prehistoric years.

Summer 2017 Projects - July - Syros

This year lead me to places I had previously gone before, but never had the chance to explore in depth because of time restrains.  Greece has many beautiful places to visit and sometimes, even the town you spend most of your life has hidden gems, the ones you have to know where to look for.  If you spend some time online researching ahead, there is much information for you and planning gets easier and more efficient.  You can also save money planning ahead and visit more places than you would, than if you didn't plan at all. So, this summer lead me to beautiful Syros island, where I had previously seen just the front side of Ermoupolis from the ship deck while going to Santorini some years ago.  We had 5 days to explore the island of Syros and of course they were not nearly enough.

EKEN H8R, A Small Miracle

This summer I had the opportunity to extensively use my new little gadget, a small "action" camera which goes everywhere!  With the waterproof housing on, I took it underwater with me and shot beautiful pictures and videos of the bottom of the sea.  I must say i was impressed of the new world I have discovered and I look forward to shooting more underwater footage.

Canon 6D Timelapse overnight with a Powerbank and no shutter count!

Have you seen the beautiful Time-Lapse videos, some on 4K that are all around the internet?  Some have increased dynamic range which gives a spectacular effect and changes the way we see the world (in fast movement).  Seeing the time passing by so quickly fitting 2 or more hours in a one minute clip is something that drew my attention, but I was always scared of the large shutter count it would need before the video length was enough to watch.

Adobe Photoshop CC 2017...

Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 was released a few days ago and there are some great improvements in the bundle.  Some of the features though, are not so great and you will need to redefine your workflow.  Adobe claims that it is for the best as they focus on productivity.

Here are some of the improvements that will make the difference compared to the old Photoshop versions.

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV Review

Many Canon 5D Mark IV reviews have started to show up on photographic sites around the world, but the site I trust for so many years to get the best idea of upcoming hardware is DPReview.  They recently published a review about the anticipated 5D Mark 3 upgrade with samples and their unique quality comparison system.

Projects and Events, A Summer 2016 Evaluation

I guess summer is officially over now and looking back, I can remember some beautiful time spent on vacation.  Many photos were shot in beautiful places and endless beaches I had never been before were discovered in my region.  I only regret to have spent so little time organizing small trips, mostly because I spent much time staying in one place and following a "fixed" daily summer routine. Given the money and circumstances I would now prefer having spent some more time away from my region than waking in the morning for early sunbaths, then back for lunch and finally out for strolls with my friends or family.

GoPro’s HERO5 has a touch screen, built in waterproofing and voice control

GoPro just announced their new line of cameras (along with the Karma drone) and frankly I am not that excited. The new line from GoPro is called Hero5 (no big surprises there) and it features only two cameras: a more advanced GoPro Hero5 Black and a smaller GoPro Hero5 session. That, I think, is a good sign that GoPro are getting some of their focus back and not spreading too thin on their camera range.

SanDisk just unveiled a massive 1 Terabyte SD memory card

So how many photos do you think you can cram in a 1 Terabyte memory card (spoiler: it’s this times 2)?  This question just move from a theoretical question into a practical question as SanDisk just showed off their first prototype of a 1 Terabyte SDXC card.

Adobe Lightroom CC 2015.7 and Lightroom 6.7 available now

Adobe has launched Lightroom CC 2015.7 and Lightroom 6.7, saying the new versions bring bug fixes including compatibility solutions for newly released macOS Sierra, as well as additional lens profile and Raw support. MacOS users are encouraged to update to the latest version of Lightroom before updating to version 10.12 Sierra.

Site improvements...

Site improvements have been carried out this weekend including Facebook integration with comments per post, likes and sharing.  This took me a long time since I had never done it before and I had noone but me to take care if it.  I also included Google advertisements, a necessary evil to keep this blog alive.  If you see an advertisement you think should not be here (e.g. porn or dating sites) please contact me via the contact form to fix it, since I am new to this!

Thanks

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV Review

The Canon EOS 5D series is arguably one of the most recognizable camera lines of the digital age and the Mark IV is designed to appeal to the same wide range of enthusiasts and professionals. Nearly identical-looking to its predecessor, it receives substantial upgrades under the hood, including: a higher-resolution sensor with Dual Pixel autofocus, 4K video capture, an upgraded AF system, a touchscreen, improved weather-sealing, built-in Wi-Fi/NFC, an interval timer and GPS. All this adds up to a camera that fits into Canon's product line nicely as the all-around full-frame option.

24th International Meeting of Rhythmic Gymnastics in Kalamata

A challenging environment with flickering lights and inconsistent white balance all the time.  I found myself on this International Meeting of Rhythmic Gymnastics about a month ago and immediately I found myself in front of quick action, low light and weird white balance making this photo shooting a real challenge.  

EKEN H8R Action Camera Short Review

Today I received my EKEN H8R camera and quickly put it to test.  I had no empty class 10 micro SD card, so I used my smartphone's class 10 card which was probably too fragmented.  I made some initial tests taking a few videos and upgraded the firmware to "allow" 4K@30fps (yes it came with no true 30fps as advertised).  But let's start at the beginning, shall we?

4K@30fps waterproof action camera suggestion

Usually, I don't recommend cameras for video, as a photographer's job is static and has little to do with action, but there are a few times when an independent product review just sells the product without the technicalities and specification comparison.

Nikon D810A and D810 Firmware upgrades

Nikon issued an update for models D810A and D810 which seems to resolve the issue that may cause the cameras to stop responding if attached to a WR-R10 wireless remote control running firmware 3.00.  

Sony a6300 Review

Here's Sony's newest mirrorless camera.  I have to admit that Sony sensors are getting better and from what I've seen this is going to be a great future for photography.  If the problems with sensor temperatures when shooting video are solved, we will soon see real portable 4K cameras (and light ones, too!).  No need to say more, head on to DPReview to read their very good review.

Real world samples of Nikon D5

Real world samples of Nikon D5 from DPReview.com

Have a look.

Pikilo Mountain - A firy view of Athens

After my last blog post, I felt the urge to grab any opportunity for a small photography trip nearby, either alone or with company.  I had accidentally been  at Pikilo Mountain in Attiki prefecture and now I felt it was a great opportunity to further explore it.  Well to be exact, I didn't get there entirely by accident, but because I just wanted to get to the top of that small mountain and had a couple of hours to spend. 

Spring is here! SO WHAT?

Well, Spring is about to reach its peak these days, but frankly I have not understood any change in weather or light color until now.  African dust is everywhere giving a yellow color cast and foggy distant details and the world looks like I am living in a dirty glass jar.  Where are the blue skies and the green fields with their vivid colors?  I don't know!

THL 5000 and GPS (and Chinese phone GPS sensors)

Many Chinese phone owners  (like myself) know by now what a nightmare it is to use their smartphone's GPS sensor  outside China's sky, especially those smartphones with MTK* chipsets (MTK6592 to name one) that have poor  satellite reception.  This is mainly for two reasons: the bad design of their GPS antenna and the GPS chip itself.  There were some rumors that one can actually repair the GPS antenna, but the rumors never turned to reality for my own smartphone until today.  I will show you how I improved my GPS performance or at least what seems to work for now until I try it  in real life GPS navigation.

Nikon D8?0 and Canon 5DS? (Question marks are there for a reason!)

Well, it's been a while since Nikon's 35+ megapixel cameras were released (with their oil problems etc) and the response from Canon's 50+ megapixel monsters, but having a previous experience with the problems that can occur when handling light with such beasts, I cannot keep myself silent and happy with these technological achievements.  First of all, lets keep things simple by trying to figure out the problems of previous models of both brands in order to try and find some kind of solution to the most serious ones.