Annecy, morning walk along the lake

Annecy lake

While making this image i was thinking about how i could have spend so many years without coming there. It's probably one of my favourite place in the world, perharps because i was borned in one of the building you can see in the background.

For readers interested in technical infos, i used 2 filters in this image : A 0.6 soft GND to balance sky and foreground and a Hoya ND 400 for the long exposure in full day light. The long exposure was desired there for its own and known effect but also to "erase" all the people who were there enjoying this quiet and beautiful autumn morning.

Note: I also wrote a longer but french post about the use of long exposure to hide some unwanted moving elements in a photo.

PS : My new office is ready :)

A view of Toulon and some personal news

Morning light on Toulon

This image is a little more than one year old and she waited until today to be processed. That's not my usual workflow but sometimes i like to keep the raw images untouched, look at them from time to time and one day process them.

Now an important thing : In 2 weeks we are going to leave Provence and go to live in the Alps. I won't explain all the reasons here but that's an old project and we are very happy (and busy) with that.
So this post is probably the last one here before a while. Until July 24 i'll keep my current DSL connection here but i'm not sure to find some time for another post. We will arrive in the new house on July 25 but nobody really knows when my new connection will be up. I can hope it won't take more than 10 days ...

Place Massillon in Hyères - Provence

Place Massillon in Hyères - Provence

This evening, after a full day of computer work in the heat of a Provence summer, i needed a little of fresh air. Usually i feel better in the wilderness of our forest but i was thinking about this image for a long time so i decided to drive to Hyères.
Don't ask me why. I'm really not a city guy. I leave there for about 15 years and i've done just a very few images of the cities and villages around. Now that i'm about to leave Provence i start ...

So, i drove to Hyères, i went to this place because it's quaint and beautiful and because i was sure that dusk would be the best time. In the morning there is no shadow on the ground but the sun is just in front of you. In the afternoon, the shadow is shorter but really darker ...

Arrived there i wondered a little bit about how to deal with the contrast. I finally decided tu use a 2 stop soft GND plus my Hoya ND 400 filter to blur the peoples. The GND worked perfectly to balance light and shadows and the long exposure (80s) produced the wanted effect : quiet persons are not recognizable and peoples crossing rapidly the place are not on the photo :)

Corsica - Corte by a winter morning

Corsica - Corte by a winter morning

Done by tone mapping with Photomatix,an HDR image produced from 3 exposures.

This kind of photo can of course be done without any HDR process but i love the tone mapping effect with this kind of mood. And applying tone mapping to a real HDR image gives a better file quality than on a single exposure. So ...

Corsica, another panoramic view of Corte

Corte, the citadel and the city

Another very high definition image done by stitching 6 vertical images with PTGui.

Corte, the citadel hit by the light

Corte, the citadel hit by the light

We are now back in Provence for about one week. I've started to setup a new galery on my french website with some images from Corsica. You can have a look here.

Corsica - Corte HDR panorama in the morning clouds

Corsica - Corte in the morning clouds

Some words about the making of :

This is an HDR panorama made from 6 frames with three exposures for each frames so 18 images done with a long lens where used to produce this one. The result is an about 24 megapixels file.

As most often when shooting for HDR with a long lens i used a remotre controler plus mirror lockup instead of the intervalometer function of my camera, it avoids vibrations.

The nef files where first converted to 48 bits tif files with Silkypix. The only adjustments done here where just white balance and sharpening. For color and tones i prefer to work on the entire image.

The tif files where then stitched into a real HDR file with PTGui pro.

The HDR file was tonemapped in Photomatix, i find it easier than tonemapping in PTGui.

The tonemapped resulting tif file was lastely processed with SilkyPix for tones and colors adjustments.

Note : my general tips for HDR landscapes are here.

Corte, the citadel, the mountains and the clouds

Corte, the citadel, the mountains and the clouds

On wednesday, i drove before dawn to Corte expecting a good weather but the first morning hours were very cloudy with a few drops of rain.
I ran around the city with my van, searching for nice point of views, caught some images in the overcast mood and some hours later when i was about to come back, the sun suddenly came and let me make some other images in a more clear atmosphere.

Corte - Corsica

Bell tower and roofs of Corte

Corte is the main city in the mountains of Corsica.
We spent an afternoon there last week to visit the Museum of Corsica.

The image was done from the citadel which is the highest point of the city.

One new beach view in Toulon

Le Mourillon - Toulon

A file from one month ago, processed today. Done with a Nikon D200 and a Hitech soft GND filter.

My other views of Toulon are here.

Clouds over Toulon - without HDR but with a GND filter

Clouds in the sky over Toulon in Provence

Posted for comparison with the one shown in this previous post.

Clouds over Toulon - HDR seascape or HDR skyscape

Some clouds over Toulon - Provence

That's always the same story : Today was supposed to be a sunny day and i expected a beautiful pink daw on the buildings you can devine on the right of this image. So i jumped out of my bed at 5 am, prepared a big little coffee and drove to Toulon where i arrived at dawn. Light was really not as expected :) I decided to wait some hours walking on the beaches and at around 9 am (i guess) the sun said a little hello threw the clouds in my back. As this kind of sky can always be interesting for HDR works i rapidly shot 3 exposures and after that one more with a soft GND filter.

The one you can see above is the result of my HDR work and i have to say that it was a real pleasure to process. I'll show you the flitred one in the following days.

Blue hour on the Mediterranean sea

Blue hour over the Mediterranean sea - Toulon

Toulon is the most important town of my region. It's a military place from centuries and the pier is always full of war ships. We don't go there very often but this week end some friends came to visit us from Corsica. On sunday evening they came back to their home in their island of beauty and so we had to bring them to Toulon so that they could take the boat. We arrived a little too soon and walked along the sea while waiting for boat time. That's during this little promenade that i had the idea of this image.
So today i left the office at the end of the afternoon and drove to Toulon with my camera. This shot was done around 7 pm and the exposure was around 200 seconds. Colors are natural and totaly unprocessed.