Daily Inspiration #308 by Lars Altstadt

January 14, 2012 Daily Inspiration 31

Hi Steve,

Since now about 2 years I’m reading your blog nearly daily. Because this belongs to my work. I’m woking in a little photoshop in Germany.

The first moment I got interested in your blog was that I shot with my NEX 5 and some Leica and Voigtlaender lenses and I was interested what this combination is good for and you gave me a lot of help with that. So I become a daily reader! And I still go on with that to now on.

Today I fell in love with my E-P1 an the Pana 20mm f/1.7 and the Olympus 45mm f/1.8. This is my “Vacation-combination” and I love it! For my daily work I just use my D700 with 24-70mm f/2.8 , 85mm f/1.8, Tokina
100mm f/2.8 macro and 135mm f/2.0.

These pictures I send you, were all made in my last year vacation in Italy. It was the first time that I visited the city of Ravenna and San Marino Castle. You have there perfect combination between landscapes an ancient buildings. Ravenna is popular for it’s ancient churches. These are very impressive how you could see there. San Marino is just a little own state with it’s own parliamnet. It is a citystate and it is just build on one Mountain. On this day we were very lucky to have a free sight around, normally there are to many clouds because it is near by the sea.

All the shots were made in RAW and are prepared with Adobe Lightroom and some of my personal filter creations. I hope you will enjoy these pictures. Thanks for all you do to us readers!

Go on you did and do a great job! Yours Lars Altstadt

I have an non commercial blog on: http://photography-youandme.blogspot.com/

Here is the discreption for the 3 pictures:

San Marino: Olympus E-P1, 14-42mm 1/250 sec, f/9.0, 34mm and ISO 100

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Ravenna Church 01: Olympus E-P1, 14-42mm 1/2 sec, f/5.6, 42mm and ISO 500

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Ravenna Church 02: Olympus E-P1, 14mm 1/2 sec, f/5.0, 14mm and ISO 400  

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31 Comments

  3. Dear Steve,

    I thank you very much that you took my photographs. I never thought that you took them. But my brother said I just should try it! And he was right.
    Thanks for your support.

    PS: maybe you can change the description to the right places.

    Lars

  4. I actually quite liked the second shot. It’s definitely my favorite. The first is also excellent, though I would have cropped out the window on the left side. (That huge bright patch detracts a bit from the image’s calming vibe.)

    • Hi Brian,
      thank for your thoughts, I will try it later. That’s the reason I love taking photographs! You have so many possibilities to set a good composition but it is never finished. Every new element changes the whole picture. Thanks for your inspiration.

  6. Enjoyed these shots Lars. Nice pictures and I like the mood in the processing as well – I actually like the second shot quite a bit. 😉

    all the best,

    – b

  7. Nice shots! But in the second picture, the post-processing is not that great I think. Looks to me like you added a graduated neutral density filter in pp and forgot to mask out the top of the castle – it looks way too dark compared to the rest of the building and somehow that’s really distracting.

    • Hi Jay,

      yeah first you’re right! The top of the castle is much darker than the rest, because I used the Lightroom grey graduation on the top, I don’t forgot it – I didn’t do it, but it will look better, try this later! Thanks

  8. Hi Lars,
    Great images. I like them all, 1st in particular. Since you have gone for half second exposures on images 2 & 3, I guess you have used a tripod. So your choice of ISO baffles me. You could have made the exposures a little longer at base ISO. is there a reason for the choice?

    Cheers,
    Mo Han

    • Hi Mo Han,

      I’m so sorry, the description is not right in these places. On this trip in Ravenna I used no tripod, I just used everything I got to put on the camera. So the position of my cam was like my surrounding allowed it, so 1/2 sec was my max. And I just took the lowest aperture to do the indoor shots. Thanks for your comment!

      • Hi Lars,
        For 1/2 sec hand-held, the shots look amazing. I have the EP1 and the image-stabilization really works well, but I am generally worried when the speed is so low. Great pictures. Thanks for sharing.

  10. I think the discreption for nr2 is not correct. As in the daylight, it could not be ISO500, 1/2sec and f5.6.

    • Yeah you are right, the description is wrong, the last must be the first and the rest is going down one! Steve can you change that please?

  12. Very nice pictures. I specially like number 1 and 3.

    But dont like the process in number 2. It suits 1 and 3, but you are loosing the colour of the roofs, that I asume is a dark orange. I would like a more natural, or even a bit of vivid in that last one. I still like the composition of nr 2. It is a great photo.

    In nr 1 and 3 it is perfect.

    • Agree. I would’ve loved to see the foliage in deeper greens in addition to the orange roofs.

    • I thank you for your critics, I learn a lot about different views of pictures and compositions! The roofs were light orange and for me the kick is less color, but this is just taste! I’m a fan of the cinematic colors and I do a lot of experiments to change the mood in “normal” pictures.

      • I agree with the colour register here in number 2. It is almost like a pen and watercolour print, and that is its beauty. No change please! (I tried, and it lost its specialness.)

  13. Wow, these are really stunning! I’m really inspired by your use of light- something I need to work on!

    • I think that region makes it easy to shoot nice pictures, all these nice buildings and churches and the inspiration of these ancient places. Thanks

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