TheNextCrossing

Beautiful Hvar, Croatia

We were on the highest peak of the island of Hvar and the views were just astonishing!

We were on the highest peak of the island of Hvar and the views were just astonishing!
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Dec, 2015

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Awards

Contest Finalist in Wide Angle In Nature Photo Contest

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Behind The Lens

Location

We were on the island of Hvar, in Croatia, one of our most favourite destinations ever, and we went for an island tour that took us, amongst other places, to the highest peak of the island. After a short, but steep hike, we came to the top and were literally blown away by the sheer majesty of the nature before us :)

Time

This photo, i.e. a series of photos, was taken almost exactly at noon, which generally is not the best time for landscape photography. There was no direct sunlight though (see below) and the HDR bracketing helped a little, but it was not a deal breaker...

Lighting

The diffusion provided by the cover of clouds over the island (and if you look at the horizon, you may see that other islands are also covered by clouds, while the see between them is not) granted the entire landscape this gentle lighting, without any harsh shadows or highlights and the cool blueish hue really fits the mood of the image. The contrast offered by the sunlight reflection in the water provided a nice punch to balance the image...

Equipment

I used an Olympus E-M1 and the Olympus 12mm/f2.0 lens. The entire series was shot handheld, the Olympus IBIS happing a great deal there - I could not imagine doing the same with my previous Canon gear...

Inspiration

Well, honestly, there is not much to say about this - the moment we climbed to the top of the peak and walked over a small ridge, we were smitten by the view that welcomed us - I am a big fan of panoramas and this one was simply begging to be taken :)

Editing

This is an HDR panorama, so a reasonable amount of post-processing was required - I actually did all the stitching and tone mapping within Lightroom. Although the images were not taken on a tripod, the alignment was not an issue at all.

In my camera bag

I embraced miniaturisation and went smaller and smaller as the years went by, so my extensive 645 Mamiya kit was replaced by Canon 5D and L lenses in their various iterations, only for them to be absolutely successfully supplanted by a m43 kit, which, I must say, reignited my love for photography big time. So, my kit now comprises of Olympus E-M1 and a number of Olympus lenses - 7-14 F2.8, 40-150 F2.8, 12-100 F4, 60 F2.8 macro, and pretty much all their fast primes... getting ready to purchase E-M1 Mark II and 300 F4 as well... I also carry a Sirui aluminium tripod (an amazing, unbeatable value for money), timelapse controller (Radian), spare body (Olympus E-PL7)... I also have a Panasonic GH4, for video work, but it does not see much photography action - I somehow just feel more "at home" with the Olympus equipment for my photo work...

Feedback

Although I do cary a tripod almost all the time, I have come to rely quite a lot on the IBIS, and the Olympus is at the forefront of that technology at the moment, allowing you to shoot handheld at ridiculously slow shutter speeds. Moreover, in order to level the camera during panoramic shots, just turn on a grid display for following the horizon and use the built in digital level - it is still not as good as a proper tripod, panoramic base and a cable release combination, but the results you can get are very often indistinguishable in practice :) Also, although the lighting and weather conditions sometimes (or often) might seem unfavourable at first, don't give up - take a series of bracketed exposures and you never know what you may end up with :)

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TheNextCrossing

TheNextCrossing

Beautiful Hvar, Croatia

We were on the highest peak of the island of Hvar and the views were just astonishing!

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow TheNextCrossing

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