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.
Well, after the July update I still couldn't see the Dehaze slider in Lightroom 6.1.1. I found it frustrating that the Lightroom programmers implemented the function in Lightroom, but they wouldn't let me use it. I found a workaround some months ago that allowed me to use the feature by saving it (or rather programming it) as a preset (more like 10!) in the left hand column under the picture map. I was still not happy. Especially when I read that in Lightroom 6.1.1 the slider was correctly put in it's position. I was furious, was my Lightroom installation bad? Did I broke anything with my presets or programming the Dehaze filter to work with that workaround? No, wrong, wrong and again wrong! My version did not allow for the slider to appear. Nope! Not on this version!
Lightroom CC 2015.1.1 and 6.1.1 are now available as a
final release on Adobe.com and through the Creative Cloud application.
The goal of this release is to provide additional camera raw support,
lens profile support and address bugs that were introduced in previous
releases of Lightroom.
Recently, perhaps rather delayed, I wanted to give a try to long exposure photography, having a ND1000 (or ND 3.0) filter in my bag for some time now and not having used it as many times as I wanted. So, I cleaned the dust over it and headed towards Sounio and St. Nikolaos in Saronida, Attiki with a friend of mine. It was poring and the weather was depressing, but we hoped that we would have our chance when the sun would descend. Since we had a long time ahead, we agreed to head over to Sounio and try some long exposure shots with the heavy clouds passing over the Temple Of Poseidon across the bay.
I have been a witness to many quarrels regarding the amount of photo manipulation from time to time. There are times that I agree with the opinion that too much post processing alters the meaning of the word "photograph" making it mostly a "creative result" and there are other times when I couldn't agree more with an agressive plan of post processing to convey the meaning of the subject.
Going back to 2009 I have some photos to remember my visit to the local Kalamta airport for the celebration of Archangels Michael and Gabriel, protectors of our Air Force. It was a 3-day open visit to the local airport and I went there to visit a friend of mine who was attending the events and welcoming the visitors to the exhibition.
The next monastery was the largest and richest on Holy Mount Athos. I don't know if the word "rich" or "money" is compatible with religion, but this is what we were told about the monastery. Please note that the monastery has a guard post on the road from Karyes, where the guard checks the visitor names against his list and their permits or "diamonitiria". I don't know why, but it seems that in this monastery there are a lot of Cypriot visitors. The monastery was very big with huge buildings and a lot of monks, but it was also very tidy and clean (like every monastery we went, the surrounding paths and rivers are a different story). We were put in a room with three other guys from Cyprus, nice guys, we had a lot of fun for one day with them and we laughed a lot.
A couple of months ago I returned from a trip to Meteora and Holy Mount Athos and it was only a few weeks ago when I finished processing my shots. I came home with over 2.500 photos shot in 9 days, and I estimated I was shooting one shot every 3.5 minutes excluding the time I went to sleep! It's a large amount of data and some of the photos are not good, some of them are going to be merged together for panoramas or exposure blending. Basically I was walking with the camera in my hands and my lens on my backpack almost all the time, except when I was getting really tired and giving up for the day (and even then, I occasionally regretted not going out to shoot some more).
It was high noon when we decided to go for a photo trip with a friend of mine around the region. Clouds were present and we feared for rainfall, but there was something pushing us to make that trip anyway. Finally we decided to go a little further this time and we drove about an hour north to Arcadia region having occasionally drops of rain in the way and hoping that the weather would allow us to see and photograph the beautiful surroundings near Lucius river. At first, we arrived at the place where Ancient Gortys was located with some ruins of exposed ancient structures lying among green wet grass. It had just rained and the rocks were all shining around, but we knew that we had to walk by the river to truly admire it's beauty.
CompactFlash® Memory Card check for use with Nikon D4S and D4
With regard to the issue with which multiple granular dust spots are
reflected in images captured with the D600 digital SLR camera, Nikon
sincerely apologizes for any concern and inconvenience suffered by D600
users, retailers, and all concerned.
There are a
lot of people a photographer should thank for inspiration, but usually he doesn’t. There are a lot of photographers whose work
is admired and sometimes copied and are never mentioned to one’s photography
works. It is inevitable for a
photographer to like, admire, get frustrated, get disappointed, curse (I do
that a lot!) when something in the frame is not as it should be and tries to
find a way around it. Well, this time I
have to thank all those who influenced me, who confronted me in photographic
arguments, who have corrected me in ways I could not have imagined at that
time, and to those who just deleted me from their lives because we were
incapable of discussing a constructive critique.
The search
for the best RAW conversion program for the years 2006 to 2008 was a primary
target and I tried to get the best amount of details without introducing too
much noise into the photos. That period,
I came to a point that I had to make a decision regarding which path to take
and devote my efforts to it. I could either
chose the path to learning how to frame effectively or the path to how to best
extract the details out of a photo (keep in mind that I had an entry-level DSLR camera
with poor lens at my disposal and a 6-megapixel sensor). I could
not follow both paths at the same time, since I could not be taught effectively from two
masters the tricks (like the dogs also can't). So,
I decided to focus my efforts on extracting the best amount of details, giving
value to my poor equipment by making it work more effectively.
By 2006, having my first DSLR for almost a year I started making the most out of my photos by using RAW files as base. 6-megapixel JPG files were already taking my photos far more than I could take them some time ago. New experiences demanded the urge to learn new ways of processing the results and my camera was already taking advantage of the new (for me) RAW format that proved to be an exciting area of study for the years to come (and there are still many secrets to be unlocked).
Cape
Tenaro, is situated at the end of the Mani, Greece. Cape Matapan is the
southernmost point of mainland Greece. It separates the Messenian Gulf in the
west from the Laconian Gulf in the east.
Mount Athos is a mountain and peninsula in Macedonia, Greece. A World Heritage Site and self-governed state in the Hellenic Republic, Athos is home to 20 stavropegial Eastern Orthodox monasteries under the direct jurisdiction of the patriarch of Constantinople. Today Greeks commonly refer to Mount Athos as the Holy Mountain (Agion Oros). In Classical times, while the mountain was called Athos, the peninsula was called Akti.
It’s been a
while since our last communication. I
know, "busy-busy-busy" is not much of an excuse.
Some personal news: I had a hernia operation, 7.500 photos to post process,
equipment upgrade plan is still in progress and various small issues that rise
every now and then, but despite all that I want to share with you a previous photo session with Lambrini.