Cais do Ginjal II

0


The Story
June, 2009. It was summer time but it didn't felt like it (check
The Pier photo story for more details)...
One of the perspectives that I was looking for was this one: the deck in the left, the 25 de Abril bridge in the back and Lisboa on the right. In the middle, the pier, like a serpent in the river.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

Shutter Speed: 1/100 second
F/8.0
10 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo was one of my first choices. Later back home I regret that I didn't took the tripod and the 10 stop filter, it was the ideal shot.
So I imported the photo into Lightroom and started playing around with the filters. Honestly, I didn't know how to process this one. My first reaction was: let's convert it to B&W. But I didn't liked the result so I started messing around with the settings to get something out of it.
So, I started by adding a Gradient Filter to the sky to darken it a bit. Then, I increased the Vibrance, the Fill Light, the Contrast and the Exposure. Next step was the White Balance. I wanted to get a more warm feeling, but not too warm because the pier itself was becoming too orange and the river too green. So I reduced the Saturation on the Oranges and on the Greens to compensate the WB adjustment. That was it for Lightroom. Let me stress that I was completely playing around with the settings, not knowing where I was going to. I was just looking for something that would catch my attention.
In CS4 I've done: Auto Tone, Auto Contrast, Auto Color and Auto Levels, then reduced the Vibrance and applied the "Tobacco Grad (125)" action to the sky (you can find this and other actions to simulate the effect of Gradient filters here: http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com). This gave me the full size (10Mp) final image.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size. You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461
I was not quite satisfied with the final result: it was a bit too unreal for what I was looking for. But after some time it started to grab my attention so I decided to publish it.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Cais-do-Ginjal-II-127703569
Read more

Meteora III

0


The Story
January, 2009. My sister was at the time working in Athens and invited us to go there for a week (check the
Meteora II photo story for more details)...
It's a fantastic place. You can see big rocks with monasteries build on top. It was almost all the time very foggy, but every time it cleared a bit, the view was fantastic. I just leave you the photo. I think it speaks for itself.
If you ever go to Greece, do go to Meteora, you won't regret!

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
AF-S NIKKOR 18-70mm 1:3.5-4.5G ED

1/50 second
F/8.0
40 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo rested in my hard drive almost one year until I decided to give it a shot.
It was December, Christmas has passed and the weather was very rainy. On top of that, my wife was pregnant and my photo trips had been reduced to the minimum for us to be together more time. I already had published two photos of Meteora and in both I almost didn't touched them in post processing. This time I decided to give it a different atmosphere. Has I had noticed in other photos (like Bridge To Neverland) when they are shot under foggy conditions, the Contrast is very low. This was one of the first things to address. The second thing were the colors: they were very dull, so I decided to bring them up.
In Lightroom I've increased the Blacks, the Vibrance and the Sharpening, then I increased the Saturation on the Greens, Yellows, Oranges, Reds and Blues. Next I increased the Luminance on the Greens, Yellows, Oranges and Reds, and reduced it on the Blues and Aquas (to darken the sky). Next, another boost to the Contrast, Vignetting was added, increased the Clarity and the Saturation. Then I started playing around with Split Toning, with the objective of warming the colors a little: in the Highlights I increased the Hue to 40 and the Saturation to 20. Finally, I increased 0,75 stops on the Exposure and added a Gradient Filter to darken the sky.
In CS4, I've started by applying the Virtual Photographer plug-in (you can find it here: http://www.optikvervelabs.com) with the setting "Fall Colors" and then applied the "Tobacco Grad (125)" action to the sky (you can find this and other actions to simulate the effect of Gradient filters here: http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com). Then I adjusted the Levels and the Color Balance, increased the Brightness and Contrast and re-touched the Levels again ("Increase Contrast 1" preset).
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.
You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Meteora-III-148221264
Read more

BUS

0


The Story
December, 2008. It was Christmas time and my wife, who likes this season (in contrast with me that couldn't care less), convinced me to go to downtown Lisboa to see the Christmas lights. In this time of the year Lisboa is fully decorated with lights on the streets, some say it's the spirit of the season, other would say that it's another way of drawing consumers away from the shopping centers. Anyway, we went to Lisboa. I took the usual gear: the D80 and the Sigma 10-20.
This Sigma lens allows me to shoot with significant lower shutter speed than any other lens that I own (Tip: the common rule is that you can shoot in the inverse proportion of the focal length. With this 10mm lens it means that you can shoot with 1/10 seconds speed and have a good possibility that the photo wouldn't get blurred).
We parked in the Restauradores square and then went thru' Rossio, Rua Augusta and Comércio square. Near Comércio square you have a smaller square that is where the city hall is: Município square. I took some shots of the city hall and then, when we were heading back to Comércio, I've noticed the BUS letters on the pavement. I was, at the time, exploring the lines in the photos and also the Dutch Tilt perspectives. Without too much preparation, always on the move (my wife was getting kinda bored of my photographic stops all along the way) I tried to get a good perspective on this street.
It was already nighttime and the lightning on this street wasn't that generous, so I raised the ISO to 400 and took advantage of the 10mm to capture the low light street. I only took this photo of this spot.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/13 second
F/4.0
10 mm
400

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo walk gave me some good photos and this particular photo was in the lower half of that list. It had almost every reason to get rejected: it was too dark and it was to noisy from the low light and high ISO. I really don't like photos with low detail, I prefer when I look at a photo a can see all the details on it. But this photo was the best one from the ones that had lines and the BUS word on it (I took some others in Rossio). I decided to give it a shot anyway, if it was a bad call I would loose €1.
Let me explain this €1 stuff... Since I entered the digital photography world that I stopped printing photos. With the exception of some vacations photos that my wife would print, I never had printed some of my photos before. One day, after buying the Nikon D80 (I had a Sony DSC-V3 compact camera before), I decided to print some of the Nikon photos because we were preparing to go on holidays and I didn't wanted to have any bad surprise afterward. So I selected a few photos and had them printed in several formats. One of the formats was Mate 20x30 (cm). I was amazed with the result. From that point on, I decided that I would print on that format all the photos that I would publish. Each print costs about €1 :) This way I could feel the photos in my hands and also would make me (at least most of the times) be more selective of what I publish.
Well, back to post processing, I imported the file into Lightroom and first of all I cropped it to my like. Then I increased the Exposure, the Blacks and the Contrast. The sky was still a bit electric blue so I reduced the Saturation and the Luminance of the Blues to the minimum.
It was still with low contrast so I started to try some presets. I ended up choosing "Matt's Sin City - Light Red" preset (you can get it here: http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/2008/presets-sin-city-look-sort-of/). That was it for Lightroom, so I moved on to CS3 and there I've: converted to Black & White (Red Filter preset) and done some Auto Tone, Auto Contrast and Auto Color.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.
You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/BUS-106221441
Read more

Flatiron, NYC

0


The Story
April, 2008. After more than a year after the original planned date for visiting New York, we finally managed to go there (check the
NYC - Times Square photo story for more details)...
In our second day in New York we still had a lot of places to visit. The Flatiron Building was one of them. This peculiar building is one of the first skyscrapers ever built and it is more than 100 years old. It was finished in 1902 and it is a landmark in New York City. From this perspective, we can see that it is very thin in the front, clothing iron shaped (hence it's name).
I took some photos of it and moved on to the next spot.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
AF-S NIKKOR 18-70mm 1:3.5-4.5G ED

1/250 second
F/3.5
18 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo rested over 20 months in my hard drive, waiting for it's turn. Well, Christmas day, 2009 was the day.
I had imported this photo into my Lightroom catalog a few days after our arrival from NY, back in 2008. I had tried almost all of my presets in this one, but never got quite satisfied with the result. In this day, I decided to let the presets aside and do it manually from scratch.
First I straighten it and applied the proper crop. Then I increased the Sharpening and reduced 1 stop to the Exposure to darken the sky a bit. This left the photo too dark and brought me to the next step: increase the Fill Light. Then I increased the Blacks, the Clarity and the Contrast; reduced the Exposure another stop and increased the Brightness to compensate. To darken the sky even more, I reduced the Luminance of the Blues to the minimum. Now it was ready for the Black & White conversion. I prefer to do this step in CS4, so I imported the photo there.
In CS4, I've done Auto Levels, Auto Contrast and Auto Colors, and converted to Black & White (Infrared preset). I then added some Vignetting, increased the Contrast and the Brightness and had some noise reduction (the clouds part was a bit noisy). And that was it.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.
You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Flatiron-NYC-147974783
Read more

Olympic Sunset

1


The Story
January, 2009. My sister was at the time working in Athens and invited us to go there for a week (check the
Meteora II photo story for more details)...
After spending a couple days sightseeing the historical places in Athens, we decided (as advised by our guide, i.e, my sister) to check the Olympic Complex. The Olympic Complex was built for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games, held in Athens, the birthplace of the Olympic Games.
The weather was kinda cloudy, almost rainy, but we decided to go anyway. After all, there isn't as much places to see in Athens as I thought. We picked the subway and when we got there, the first thing that captured my attention was the metallic structures. The main entrance of the Olympic Complex has a big metal structure with fountains around it. We started our visit there. I picked the camera and tried several perspectives with the fountains and the metal structure.
After a few shots, I noticed that the sun was setting in behind one of the pavilions. The sun, the clouds, the water mirror, the trees and the pavilion combined into this picture. I also find the line formed by the lake shore, combined with the lines of the pavilion, quite interesting.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/125 second
F/5.6
20 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
I liked this photo almost as it came out of the camera.
A few things were to be corrected, though: the colors were a bit dull and the sky was burn (white, without any color information).
I imported it into Lightroom and applied the Highlight Recovery to the maximum. I then, increased the Contrast and the Vibrance, added some Vignetting and reduced the Luminance for the Oranges, Yellows and Reds. In CS4, I've just increased the Contrast a bit more. That was it.
I should have been more careful in the location and prevented the sky from being burned out. Somethings can't really be recovered in post processing and this is one of them (tip: always expose the photo to prevent the highlights burn out. It's easier to recover the shadows than the highlights).
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.
You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Olympic-Sunset-110254658
Read more

Rua Augusta

0


The Story
April, 2009. My wife's parents came to visit us and after lunch we took them for a walk in downtown Lisboa (check
Rossio photo story for more details).
When we got there, I left them doing some sightseeing and got right to business. I mounted the camera on the tripod and started exploring potential angles. I started with the Restauradores square but the angles weren't quite as I wanted. Then I moved to Rossio square and hanged there for a while. My objective was to capture the cloud movement and "erase" the people from the street. So, I took a couple shots (they require some time of preparing) and moved on to another spot: Rua Augusta.
Rua Augusta is the main street of downtown Lisboa. It goes from Rossio to Praça do Comércio, near the Tagus river. It's a pedestrian street that's packed with some of the most fine shops (or at least it used to be) and a lot of restaurants. In the Comércio side of the street, it ends up in a triumphal arch. This spot, near the arch, was the place where I imagined the photo. From a lower perspective, capturing the arch, the clouds passing above it, the fuss in the street. It seamed a good composition. So I done the math (to calculate the exposure) and prepared the shot. I only took one shot here because there was a lot of people there and I was in their way. Anyway, I already had what I wanted.
And that was it for the day. Time now to find my wife and her parents, somewhere in Lisboa downtown.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC
Hitech 85 ND 3.0 filter
Slik Pro 340DX tripod

30/1 second
F/16.0
12 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo was the second one that I published from this day. It got published two days after it was taken. When I reviewed it in the computer I noticed three things: it was with the colors all messed up (as all the others from this day); it was dirty from the light that passed the filter holder (as the others) and it was very dark.
As happened with Rossio photo, I had two alternatives: Black & White or try to fix the colors. I've already turned the other into B&W and this one was too dark for it anyway, so the only option was trying to correct the colors.
So I imported the file into Lightroom and started with an Auto Tone, followed with a White Balance correction to make it warmer. Then I started adjusting the Hue of the Blues and Yellows. I was starting to despair... there was something missing. I started playing around with presets and I ended up using the "COL Nikonians - Mode Illa" (you can find it here: http://www.presetsheaven.com/2008/08/30/deviant-presets-for-lightroom-ii-turns-the-light-on) preset. That kinda put me back on tracks and so I moved on: adjusted the Hue of Oranges and started removing the flare spots in the bottom left of the photo. The latest was the harder step, if I had covered properly the filter holder (instead of using the camera strap for it) nothing of this would have been necessary. Finally I increased the Blue Saturation and decreased the Luminance.
In CS4, I've done: Auto Tone, Auto Contrast, Auto Color and Auto Levels. Then I just added some Vignetting. This gave me the full size (10Mp) final image.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.
You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Rua-Augusta-119153019
Read more

The Pier

0


The Story
June, 2009. It was summer time but it didn't felt like it. The day was very cloudy, almost rainy. A few days before I've been scouting a spot near my home that I thought would give a good photo: the former Lisnave shipyards, in Cacilhas, Almada on the south bank of Tagus river. In the day I went there for the first time, I found a good place to shoot the Lisnave site, from a higher ground, but the day was sunny, so I left it for another proper day. That proper day had arrived: the sky was covered with clouds.
I picked the gear and went to Cacilhas take the shot. After a couple shots there I remembered that I hadn't properly explored the Ginjal pier in Cacilhas. So I parked in the pier and started exploring the site. This pier is next to the ferry that connects to Lisboa and it is about 2500 feet (750m) long. It is filled with abandoned houses and warehouses and some not abandoned ones. I took plenty of shots, trying to get new perspectives, and this one was one of my last photos there. Less than five minutes after this shot, it started to rain a lot so this photo trip was over.
A few perspectives were missing, so I'll return there someday.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/100 second
F/8.0
10 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
Back home, this photo wasn't, surprise, surprise, one of my first choices :) Only almost one week after, I decided to give this photo a chance. My first thought was to find a way to darken the clouds and give it a more dramatic look.
I imported it into Lightroom and adjusted the perspective with a proper Crop. I've added a Graduated Filter to darken the sky and lighten the river. Then, I've increased the Exposure, the Contrast, the Fill Light, the Clarity and the Sharpening. I wasn't fully satisfied so I started playing around with the presets. I ended up choosing the "Civil War 2" preset by Vidular (you can find it here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vidular/2456010834/). After the preset, I've lightened the pier base with a brush so that it would show more detail.
In CS4, I've done: Auto Tone, Auto Contrast, Auto Color and Auto Levels. Then I converted to Black and White (Green Filter preset) and increased the Vignetting to the maximum. Finally, I've warmed the photo a little with the "Warm (26)" action from TLR (you can find this and other actions to simulate the effect of Gradient filters here: http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com).
This gave me the full size (10Mp) final image.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.
You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/The-Pier-128186829
Read more

Rossio

0


The Story
April, 2009. My wife's parents came to visit us and we had lunch at our place. After lunch my wife thought of taking them for a walk in downtown Lisboa.
A few weeks before, I've bought a new filter and I was eager to try it in a urban scenario. This filter was a 10 stop ND (neutral density) filter. With it I could do some long exposures in broad daylight. This kind of exposures would allow me to, for example, capture the clouds movement.
So I packed the material (camera, lenses, filters, filter holder, tripod) and we headed to Lisboa. When we got there, I left them doing some sightseeing and got right to business. I mounted the camera on the tripod and started exploring potential angles. I started with the Restauradores square but the angles weren't quite as I wanted. Then I moved to Rossio square and hanged there for a while. My objective was to capture the cloud movement and "erase" the people from the street.
The 10 stop filter is a bit tricky to use and I can't really say that I've already managed to use it properly. I will share with you some guidelines on how to use this filter:
- You need a tripod. This filter will cut 10 stops of light and what this means is that, if in a regular photo you will shoot at 1/100 seconds shutter speed, with this filter the same shot (without changing any other setting) will require a 10 seconds exposure (give or take).
- You must mount the camera on the tripod without the filter on and first choose the angle. After you choose the angle you must memorize the settings (Aperture, Shutter Speed) and move the camera into Manual mode (I usually shoot in Aperture mode). After the angle is chosen, you also need to change the focus to Manual.
- So, you got the camera on the tripod, without the filter, in Manual Focus mode. Now you must do some math :) I've simplified it: I simply multiply the Shutter Speed that the camera calculated in Aperture Mode for 1000. In doubt, I will chose the higher speed interval (the math may not give you an available speed interval).
- After the settings in Manual mode are set, I gently put the filter on the camera, taking extra care to not touch the zoom ring, nor the focus ring.
- Now all is set. I use the remote control (if you don't have it, just use the timer) to take the photo.
- Another word of advice: with this high exposures during the day, the slightest amount of light that reaches the sensor from anywhere else than the filter itself will ruin the photo. You must take vary care with the viewfinder (cover it with the appropriate cap) and the space around the filter holder (this one I didn't managed to do it very well - my last idea was to use the upper side of a sock - the elastic part - cut off from the rest of it, until I get a fabric ring that will, hopefully, prevent any light from reaching the lens. I hadn't tried it yet).
So, I took a couple shots (they require some time of preparing) and moved on to another spot.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC
Hitech 85 ND 3.0 filter
Slik Pro 340DX tripod

30/1 second
F/22.0
12 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
When I reviewed the few photos taken this day, I came to a conclusion: almost all of them were rubbish. They were too dirty. Even this one, if you look at it, it's badly exposed and has lots of flare from the light that come from the filter holder holes. Also the colors are quite strange, with the Magentas very high. The latest is a characteristic of this filters: don't care too much with the White Balance or the colors when you are taking the shot. They will never be closer to the real ones. So, I had two alternatives: I could try to fix the colors or I would convert the photo to Black & White. Usually the later is the preferred for it's simplicity. In this photo I went that path.
I imported the NEF into Lightroom and started by removing some dust spots (they were more visible because I used a very small aperture) and then increased the Highlight Recovery and the Contrast. Then I applied the "Matt's 300 Look - Strong" preset (you can find it here: http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/2008/monday-presets-the-300-look) and converted the resulting image to Grayscale. Finally I've increased the Contrast a bit more and moved on to CS4.
In CS4, I've done: Auto Tone, Auto Contrast, Auto Color and Auto Levels. Then I converted to Black and White (Red Filter preset) and increased the Contrast again. This gave me the full size (10Mp) final image.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.
You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461
I'm not that happy with result to be honest, but for some reason (probably the impact of it) this photo is very popular among my viewers.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Rossio-118904515
Read more

Estrela

1


The Story
November, 2008. I was home with nothing to do in that Sunday afternoon and wanted to get into the car and go somewhere to take some photos. I went to flickr to search for spots nearby that could be interesting. After some search I remembered the Portuguese parliament area in Lisboa. It was near and I've never been to that area (with my camera, I mean), so it was a good candidate. I searched for interesting spots around this area and noticed that, from there to the Estrela area it was very near. So I had found an itinerary: I would go to the parliament area, then go to Estrela and end the day in Belém.
We drove to Lisboa and parked near the Estrela basilica. First we went to the parliament and I took some photos. After that, we walked back to Estrela and while my wife went to a small fair that was in the Estrela garden that day, I stayed near the basilica trying to get some new angles.
I was, at the time, becoming somewhat interested in finding some spots where I could capture the pavement lines to guide the eyes into the photo. Before I left home, I scanned the area in google earth to see if the tram rails in the area could fit that purpose. In location I've started to get in the middle of the street (between cars, of course :)) trying to use that rails. They weren't in a great place that would allow me to compose the photo as I wanted to. But the lines in the pavement were. Another interest of mine at the time was the
Dutch Tilt style of photos.
So, with both these styles in mind, I took some photos of the area and went to the next stop: Belém.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/25 second
F/8.0
10 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
Went I got home from this small trip, I scanned some photo candidates and selected a few. This was one of my selections, and probably the strongest for the Estrela area. But it was too dark and without color.
So, I imported the NEF into Lightroom and done the following:
- Highlight Recovery
- Added some Fill Light
- Increased Contrast
- Applied the "Matt's 300 Look - Strong" preset (you can find it here: http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/2008/monday-presets-the-300-look)
- Darkened the Oranges, Blues and Greens to the maximum
- Reduced the Vignetting (the 300 preset has very strong Vignetting)
- Increased the Saturation on Yellows, Oranges, Reds, Blues, Greens, Purples and Magentas to the maximum
- Increased the Sharpening, the Exposure, the Contrast and the Vibrance
- Compensated the Blue Chromatic Aberration
- Reduced some Color Noise
It was a very complete processing in Lightroom and the CS3 was ready to get in and do it's part.
In CS3 I've used the Virtual Photographer plug-in (you can find it here: http://www.optikvervelabs.com) with the setting "Fall Colors" and increased the Brightness.
And that was it. I think the result speaks for itself.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Estrela-102476272
Read more

1889

0


The Story
This was my third time in Paris (check
this story to get more details). The Eiffel Tower was my main goal in this photo trip. After the great result in shooting "Cristo Rei" (see the King of Darkness photo story) I was looking forward to get a similar shot with one of the greatest monuments in history.
When we arrived at the Eiffel Tower, I started to try some different angles and I quickly discovered that the tower is too big, even for my 10-20, to fit in one photo. At least the way I had imagined it. I took several photos from below, from the street between the tower and Trocadero, and even from across the bridge over the Seine that connects this two places. It was from this last place that I took this photo. My idea was to capture the lines in the pavement, guiding the eyes to the tower which was backed by a great sky.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/50 second
F/7.1
10 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo was my first choice from the Paris trip. My original intention was to apply the same treatment as in King of Darkness. After a couple tries I concluded that it wasn't the best treatment for this photo (tip: each photo is one of a kind, rarely you can apply the same exact treatment to two different photos).
So I just added some Contrast and Vignetting in Lightroom and moved on to CS3.
In CS3 I used the Virtual Photographer plug-in (you can find it here: http://www.optikvervelabs.com) with the setting "Sepia" but changed the Effect to "Colorize". I liked this effect because it gave an old look to the photo (hence the title: 1889 - the year of the completion of the monument). After the plug-in, I increased the Brightness, Contrast and Vignetting, applied Auto Tone and Auto Contrast, and added some Shadows/Highlights to reduce some of the highlights (I didn't touched the shadows part).
And that was it.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/1889-89435942
Read more

Royal View

0


The Story
March, 2009. My wife was born in Paris but lived the most of her life in Marinha Grande which is a city near Leiria, about 140km north of Lisboa. She only left Marinha Grande when we moved in together and since that time that we frequently go there for her to be with her parents. This day was one of those days. We left home in the morning to be there at lunch time. The trip from Corroios to Marinha Grande is quite quick: it's about 160km, almost all in the highway, so we usually take one hour and a half, two hours top, to get there. We arrived and had some lunch. After that I left them catching up and drove to Leiria to take some photos.
I walked the most of the city center, trying to get some good photos and eventually stopped by the Leiria Castle. This photo was taken from inside of the Leiria's Castle, looking at the city.
As usually, I didn't took my tripod (I rarely take it with me, I haven't got used to carry it all the time yet), so this photo was taken, hand held, in a bracketing sequence, with the intent of trying some HDR processing afterward. In the end, I've preferred to don't go to HDR, but to a Black and White photo.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/125 second
F/9.0
10 mm
400

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo processing was a mess :)
Originally I intended to do some HDR processing with this one. I tried to do it but, as the visibility was very low (it was almost raining and it was very humidity in the air) the result was disastrous.
So I imported the photo into Lightroom and started playing around with the presets. I've applied the "Matt's 300 Look - Strong" preset (you can find it here: http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/2008/monday-presets-the-300-look), followed by the COL Nikonians - Mode Illa (you can find it here: http://www.presetsheaven.com/2008/08/30/deviant-presets-for-lightroom-ii-turns-the-light-on) and finally the COL Polarizer (can't remember where I got it from).
After this, I've increased the Exposure and decreased the Fill Light, darkened the Blue levels, increased the Contrast and the Sharpening and reduced the color noise. That was it for Lightroom.
I then exported it as a PSD file and opened it in CS4. In CS4, I've done: Auto Tone, Auto Contrast and Auto Color and converted to Black and White. Then, I selected the sky only and applied the "Gray Grad (121)" action to the sky (you can find this and other actions to simulate the effect of Gradient filters here: http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com). Finally I increased again the Contrast. This gave me the full size (10Mp) final image.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.
You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Royal-View-117105040
Read more

Museu de Marinha

0


The Story
June, 2009. I was in a two weeks vacation but this time we stayed home. We had been to Athens and Barcelona earlier this year so we thought that these two weeks would be a good time to stay home and catch some beach time. In this day my wife felt like going for a walk in Belém (it's a place in Lisboa that has lots of discoveries related monuments) and then go and eat some "Pasteis de Belém". The "Pasteis de Belém" is a creamy dessert that's typical in Portugal, specially in this zone of Lisboa. There is a big cake shop, that is named after this dessert and was founded in 1837, that sells almost only this (it's their main product). You wouldn't believe this shop: it has capacity for hundreds of people that only go there to eat this dessert. It's always packed. And you can't eat only one, you order them in boxes :) If you ever go to Lisboa you probably will end up there.
So, back to this day in June, as I said, my wife wanted to go for a walk in Belém because of this shop, all the rest was just a pretext :). And that was fine for me. I would take some photos of the area and end the afternoon eating Pasteis.
We drove to Trafaria (a small village in the south bank of Tagus river - we live in the south bank and Lisboa is on the north bank) to pick the boat to Belém. It's a nice ride in the Tagus river and you can appreciate the quiet waters and the view, and you don't need to worry finding a parking spot in Belém ;)
We started our visit with the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos. In the left hand side of the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos you have the Museu de Marinha (Maritime Museum). In front of the main entrance of the museum I idealized this photo: the typical Portuguese Pavement guiding our eyes to the main entrance of the museum. Then the two towers of the museum with a complimentary sky. This had "Black and White" written all over it.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/160 second
F/9.0
10 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
As I had idealized this photo before the click moment, it was a clean post processing.
I imported the photo into Lightroom, aligned it and applied the "Matt's 300 Look - Strong" preset (you can find it here: http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/2008/monday-presets-the-300-look) from Matt Kloskowski. And that was it for Lightroom. I then exported it as a PSD file and opened it in CS4. In CS4, I've done: Auto Tone, Auto Contrast and Auto Color. Converted to Black and White and added a strong vignetting.
This gave me the full size (10Mp) final image.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.
You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Museu-de-Marinha-124763713
Read more

Palácio Nacional de Queluz

0


The Story
July, 2009. It was summer but it felt like it was Autumn. The weather was too bad for the beach so my wife suggested that we went to Palácio Nacional de Queluz (Queluz National Palace). Queluz is a location in the suburbs of Lisboa on the way to Sintra. The Lisboa area (as other parts of Portugal) is filled with palaces and I'd never went to this one so the idea seamed fine. I thought that I probably would get some good photos of the outside of the palace because the inside (I thought) would probably like any other palace that I've visited before. So I packed the gear and we went to Queluz to take a visit.
When we arrived at the palace there was very few visitors and we get in. First we visited the gardens (that were a bit of a disappointment because they were in need of a little care) and the outside of the palace from the gardens. I took some photos and then we went inside. (The gardens are on the back of the palace so to get there you must go through the palace).
Back inside, after a couple "usual" rooms, we get to a room called "Hall of Ambassadors". This room was very different from all the others: the floor was in black and white tiles, like a chess board. That immediately got my attention. I was looking forward to do a B&W photo with a floor like that one. So I rushed in before any humans would "pollute" the room and started taking some photos in different angles.
I became fascinated with this room. Later on I found out that there are comparisons to Versailles Palace. Queluz is nice, but the comparison to Versailles is a bit exaggerated.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/20 second
F/4.0
10 mm
200

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo was one of my top candidates from the ones I took in this great room. I imported it into Lightroom and started playing around with the presets, as usual. The one I liked best was COL Nikonians - Mode Illa (you can find it here: http://www.presetsheaven.com/2008/08/30/deviant-presets-for-lightroom-ii-turns-the-light-on). The idea was to make the photo show the colors I had seen on location. As I was very focused on black and white photos in the past months, I never took too much care with the actual colors when the photos were imported into Lightroom. But in this case I wanted to get the real colors and this preset was the better adjustment I found to this photo.
Note for Nikon users: both Lightroom and CS4 have lots of problems trying to reproduce the real colors from the NEF files (I red somewhere that Nikon didn't provided to Adobe the full algorithm that's used in NEF. That's why Adobe's software can't really reproduce the real colors of NEF files). Later on I discovered a turn around for this issue: instead of importing the NEF files into Lightroom, I convert the NEF files in ViewNX to TIFF and then import the TIFF into Lightroom (or CS4) . Back to post processing...
In this objective of trying to "fix" the photo colors I've adjusted almost everything: Vibrance, Saturation, Clarity, White Balance, Contrast, ... When I got the colors that I liked, I've also added some Fill Light and some brush strokes in the left hand side back corner of the room to remove a disturbing shadow that was in that area and was drawing to much attention there.
Finally, I added a graduated filter to lighten the ceiling and added some Vignetting.
In CS4, I've just done Auto Tone, Auto Contrast and Auto Color. Finally, I've increased the Contrast a bit.
The original idea was to convert it to black and white, but after some experiences, I preferred the colored version.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.
You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Palacio-Nacional-de-Queluz-128370680
Read more

Meteora II

0


The Story
January, 2009. My sister was at the time working in Athens and invited us to go there for a week. It was a great idea: we could spend some time with her and have a guided tour of Athens by someone that was there for some months. One month before we went to Greece, big social disorder erupted in Athens: the anarchist groups of Athens rebelled against the police after some kid being shot and set the city on fire. The epicenter of this "war" was the neighbor were my sister was living in. She wasn't there at the moment (she was traveling in the States) and the situation was so bad that she had to stay in a friends house in the suburbs when she returned from the States. A few days before we went there, we were making the trip plans and she suggested that we could rent a car and go to a place called Meteora (about 360km north of Athens). Her idea was to get away for a couple days from the touristic guide function that she had done dozens of times before (every time some one went there to visit her). She had gone to the Parthenon more times than most Athenians :) I've had never heard of Meteora before but went googling and after a few pictures I was sold.
We had a flight from Lisboa to Madrid and there we would get a new one to Athens. When we landed on Madrid it was snowing. Some guy the seat next to mine (I think he probably was English or American) woke up when we were landing and was very confused (we were landing in southern Europe and it wasn't supposed to be that white) :) The feeling was nice. Everything was white, we took some pictures and rushed to the terminal to get the next flight (our Lisboa flight was already late and the interval between flights was of less than an hour). When we got there it was a mess. To abbreviate this sad story: almost all flights were grounded and the costumer support was packed. We had to stay one full day (and night) in Madrid and picked a new flight to Athens in the next morning. Well, we picked the flight, our bags didn't. We were left without bags for two days after arrival in Athens. Our luck was that we were staying in my sister's house.
All this trouble left my wife very disturbed and the trip to Meteora was in risk. We decided to go there any way :) So we rented a car, booked an hotel, and get to the road.
It was raining almost all the way and when we get to Meteora it was already night. Even so, we took a glimpse of what was waiting for us the next morning: big big rocks in an outstanding scenario.
In the morning we took some breakfast and get back in the car. It's a fantastic place. You can see big rocks with monasteries build on top. It was almost all the time very foggy, but every time it cleared a bit, the view was fantastic. I just leave you the photo. I think it speaks for itself.
If you ever go to Greece, do go to Meteora, you won't regret!

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/200 second
F/8.0
20 mm
200

Original Photo


Post Processing
As usually, this wasn't my first choice (hence the name ;)). But this time, it got published in the same day that the first choice was :)
In Lightroom I've fixed the White Balance to a more warm one, increased the Vibrance, the Sharpening, the Contrast and the Saturation. I've also added a graduated filter to balance the sky, giving more light to the rest of the photo.
In CS4, I've just done Auto Tone, Auto Contrast and Auto Color.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.
You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Meteora-II-110017976
Read more

NYC - Times Square

1


The Story
April, 2008. After more than a year after the original planned date for visiting New York, we finally managed to go there. One year before we had to abort the trip for professional reasons, but this time all was set and we did went there. New York was the first stop of our trip. We stayed there for 4 days and the headed to DC for 3 more days.
Before we go, I've visited the B&H Photo website and made a shopping list. In this list was a lens that I was flirting for some time: the Sigma 10-20. I had seen beautiful photos taken with it and decided that the Sigma would be my next buy. At this time the dollar / euro exchange rate was very good to the euro side so, even being aware of the potential problems I could face with Portuguese customs when landing back in Lisboa, I decided that I would by the lens in the States. Even with the potential tax that I could pay in Lisboa, it was still worthy. So I visited B&H Photo (note for photo freaks: this IS The Photography Shop. It's large as a supermarket, has dozens of employees and a big queue on the door before it opens in the morning. And no, there were no promotions on that day :)), Adorama and a handful of small stores all around Manhattan. For my big disappointment, the Sigma 10-20 for the Nikon mount was sold out everywhere. In the third day of our stay in New York, by accident, I found a small store that had one copy of it. I couldn't believe! It was a bit pricey, comparing to the values I've seen on the net, but I couldn't care less. I was in NY and I needed that lens (I could have bought it before going to the States, but I preferred to save some money and buy it there).
So, with my new toy mounted on the D80, I walked the streets, fascinated with all that could fit inside it :)
The sun was setting and that night we had planned going to Times Square. We headed there and I was distracted looking through the 10-20 all the way when we arrived. I started taking photos in all directions and after a couple minutes I decided to look back. The main screen of the square had been all the time in my back. I can't put to works the feeling I had that moment. This place must be one of the greatest places I've ever been to. New York itself is a old, dirty, ugly city, but it has some places that make the trip worthwhile. This is one of them (another one is the view from the Top Of The Rock or from the Empire State Building at night).
This was the first photo, taken with the 10-20, that I published.
To finish, let me just say that this photo was taken hand held (no tripod whatsoever).

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/25 second
F/4.0
10 mm
400

Original Photo


Post Processing
As you can figure out, there was almost no post processing on this one.
I just imported it into Lightroom and slightly increased the Exposure, Recovery, Clarity and Sharpening.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.
You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/NYC-Times-Square-82858284
Read more

The Eiffel Tower

0


The Story
This was my third time in Paris... After the
leaving Notre Dame we've walked to the Louvre and finally to the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower was my main goal in this photo trip. After the great result in shooting "Cristo Rei" (see the King of Darkness photo story) I was looking forward to get a similar shot with one of the greatest monuments in history.
The distance between the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower is quite a bit but as we wanted to get the most of our short stay in Paris, we decided to leave the public transports and walk across the streets. Maybe I would have some other photo opportunities this way.
When we arrived at the Eiffel Tower, I started to try some different angles and I quickly discovered that the tower is too big, even for my 10-20, to fit in one photo. At least the way I had imagined it. I took several photos from below, from the street between the tower and Trocadero, and even from across the bridge over the Seine that connects this two places. I didn't went to the Champs de Mars because the sun was setting in Trocadero so I would be with the sun in front of the camera (one tip: light is everything, don't try to take photos against the light if the objective is to capture, not the sunset itself, but what's between it and the camera).
With this limitation on mind, I explored the most I could and took about 20 photos of the tower. It was time to return home and rest for the next morning baptism.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/125 second
F/5.0
10 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
As happened with Notre Dame de Paris photo, this one was left in the archive until that standby night almost a year after.
This one was in the queue that night and had exactly the same post processing as the previous. I've only imported it into Lightroom and copied the Notre Dame settings into this one. In CS4, the post processing was also the same.
If interested, please check the Notre Dame de Paris photo story.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/The-Eiffel-Tower-114689127
Read more

The Hero

0


The Story
September of 2009, my wife was pregnant and this was probably our last trip for some months. I took 2 weeks off that month and we decided to go and explore another part of our (small) country. We've only passed through the northern region of Minho once before but we've never stayed there. So we decided to head to Braga, where we booked an hotel for a few days, and from there, explore a little of the neighbor places.
In our second day we headed to a nearby town called Barcelos. This town is quite famous because of it's symbol - the "Galo de Barcelos" (Barcelos' cock) - that sometimes is considered a symbol of Portugal. Honestly, Barcelos wasn't on my original plan, but my wife wanted to see the "Galo" so we went there. When we arrived we started to see a lot of cock's spread across the town in the likes of the Cowparade event (but with cocks :)).
In the previous day in Braga the weather was "bad": blue sky (I can't take outside photos with a blue sky! I need some clouds to give the photos some impact), but in this day some clouds started to appear in the sky.
After wandering around a bit in the streets of Barcelos (and just to make it clear: go to Barcelos! It's a small town but it's very nice), my wife went to a kid's store and I headed to a small square that had a small statue in the middle. The statue was a monument to the volunteer firefighters. I approached the statue and started to try some angles, trying to maximize the 10-20 distortion effect. My idea was to give the impression that the firefighter was a giant, returning from the blaze (look at the background clouds) with a child in his arms. I knew in that moment that this photo, if ever published, would be a B&W photo, in the likes of
Bridge to Neverland or so.
I took a few photos, with different angles, and continued my way.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/160 second
F/9.0
10 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
After returning from our Minho trip, I went to the computer to check all the photos taken. As usual I've selected a few as publishing candidates and this one was included. But it turned out that I had another photo from Barcelos that I liked more, so this one was put aside for a couple days. My thought was that, in this one I would repeat the same 300 preset treatment that I've done over and over again and it was starting to sound cliche. Well, a couple days later I've done it :)
I imported the photo into Lightroom, head straight to my usual custom preset (which, by the way, was the customization that I've made for King of Darkness that got saved as a preset), based on Mike Lao's "300 V1" preset (you can find it here: http://inside-lightroom.com/?page_id=11). I usually start from this custom preset (in some photos) and then make some adjustments (all the photos are different, we can't have a preset "size fits all").
In this photo I then reduced the Vignetting, increased the Fill Light and the Clarity, reduced the Exposure and the Brightness. I also added a graduated filter to the top right corner to lighten it a bit.
And that was it for Lightroom. I then exported it as a PSD file and opened it in CS4. In CS4, I've just adjusted the Levels a bit.
This gave me the full size (10Mp) final image.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.
You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/The-Hero-137217428
Read more
 
Design by BloggerThemes