UKC

http://www.adme.ru/tvorchestvo-fotografy/hochu-v-rumyniyu-807210/

All from Romania I think.

In reply to Malcolm Tucker's Sweary Aunt:

Good shout. Thanks for sharing.

In reply to Malcolm Tucker's Sweary Aunt:

HDRtastic!

not sure if these have had the UKC critique yet..
http://www.theguardian.com/travel/gallery/2014/oct/30/uk-mountain-photo-of-...

In reply to Malcolm Tucker's Sweary Aunt:

Nice shots but the retouching has been a bit heavy-handed! Some of them made me feel a little queasy in the same way you would after eating an entire blueberry cheesecake.

In reply to malk:

Some lovely shots in the OP, but agreed many of them are ruined by too much HDR, when the composition could speak for itself.


Really disappointed with most of those. The composition of the winning photo is way off.

In reply to Malcolm Tucker's Sweary Aunt:
I'm just learning so probably a stupid question ... are the sun bursts created in camera, with a special filter possibly, or post processing?

In reply to Trevers:


And the stars look like they have been added later on top of the clouds with a felt tip pen. Bizarre.

I love the raven though!

In reply to Malcolm Tucker's Sweary Aunt:
More pics..
"Stunning photos" and the russian web address made me think of this chap:
https://500px.com/ivankislov

(I stumbled across him a few days ago when I followed a link from FB to this, about some of his pics of ridiculously photogenic foxes: http://www.boredpanda.com/wild-fox-photography-ivan-kislov/ )

In reply to Malcolm Tucker's Sweary Aunt: This is terrible stuff, isn't it. Has some kind of disease akin to dry tooling infected digital photography?

In reply to Climbing Pieman:

The sun bursts are natural. A decent quality lens will split them into star points. The number of points you get depends on the lens (generally the better the lens the more points). Shooting straight into the sun often washes out the sky. Hence the HDR comments above...

In reply to Robert Durran:



I liked that one too. But then again I love ravens anyway, they're pretty awesome creatures

In reply to James Rushforth:
Thanks. Lots to learn!

In reply to Malcolm Tucker's Sweary Aunt:

Love the sunflower one, made me remember the massive fields of sunflowers i saw in Egypt 25 years ago and took loads and loads of pictures of.
To then have the film ruined when send in for developing

In reply to Robert Durran:



Agree, it's the raven in flight that wins it for me too. The background is at least sharp and correctly exposed.

In reply to Mikkel:


At least that wasn't your fault....... unlike the processing of some of these (not your's, the photographer's!)

In reply to Malcolm Tucker's Sweary Aunt:

The office Romanian has confirmed them as being Romania!

In reply to Toccata:


The Carpathians look nice. A sort of psychedelic Cairngorms.

In reply to Climbing Pieman:

To elaborate on James' answer, if you stop a lens down a lot and point it at a bright source of light, you'll get that effect. The number of points depends on the number of blades in the aperture of the lens.

You can also use a star filter to achieve a similar effect, and I'd assume it can be done in post as well.

In reply to tehmarks:
Many thanks, appreciated.

I like the sunburst effect personally (not necessarily the HDR here though) but I've read some photographers hate it. Maybe I need to consider a really good quality lens and stopping down to, say f16, and see what I can achieve. As a newbie, I'm cautious as I did read somewhere that digital sensors did not like being pointed direct at really bright sun too frequently. A star filter might be the better way to experiment.

In reply to Malcolm Tucker's Sweary Aunt:

Romania is beautiful, but the most beautiful thing about Romania is their people. They are so nice and warm! I have already been there twice, but will probably be back more than once anyway.

Peles castle (4th picture) is close to Brasov with its own Tampa hill. That city looks amazing at the evening and the city from Tampa hill (which would be a Munro in Scotland) is wonderful as well.

In reply to Robert Durran:

+1

And the Transfãgãrãșan looks pretty decent too!

In reply to Climbing Pieman:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tehmarks/14566060119/

As an example (of sunbursts, not of good photography), I took that at f16 with Nikon's 18-55mm kit zoom. It's not really about the lens so much as it is about the person holding the camera.

A couple more examples from my first week of photography ever:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tehmarks/11685773855/ - Nikon 35mm 1.8 at f16
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tehmarks/11686133984/ - Nikon 18-55mm at f16

In reply to tehmarks:

I like, cheers. The above comment makes me smile as so true. Similar to the first time I asked a friend for critical comment on some test shots - he came back and said it does not matter what he thinks, it's whether I like the shot. That's my approach now, and I like the burst effect! Away to practice.