http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:pestilence&section=today deviantART RSS for by:pestilence en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:51:38 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/27519053/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/27519053/ Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:29:44 PDT Since I was a young boy I always remembered myself on a motorcycle, back then it was behind my father (a motorcycle rider as well) riding into the dreams, and nearly all over Greece, when I became 19 I had already travelled to most parts of Southern Greece, Islands, Mainland all over Greece with my father and his motorcycles.
I soon had my passion, I knew someday I would have my motorcycle; I had to have my motorcycle and nothing would change this!
Years passed, I finished school and became a University student, I had also my first job and everyday life was so busy and hard for me I had nearly no free time to anything, or when I had some free time I wanted to rest and relax from my everyday pressure.
A few years later (1999) and I receive my driving (well actually it should be called riding) license, and I also had the honor to choose a new bike! Yes that would be my father’s gift! I soon decided and I was on 2 wheels, striving to find myself running along the roads of Athens, I had a small bike so long trips where out of the question!
Years passed and many different motorcycles passed my life, I had the opportunity to ride different styles and taste the differences between each other. I soon ended falling in love with street bikes and since 2005 I am deeply in love with my Honda CBR 1000RR, a motorcycle that offered me so many happy moments, traveling and cornering, short and long adventures!
The addition of photography into my hobbies / passions created the need to find ways to reach more abandoned places in Greece, that meant 2 available choices, either get a driver’s license (car) or get a second bike which has the capability to reach the more abandoned places (I am not even considering miss-treating a lady not build to be treated like that –that’s the CBR -) it didn’t take too long to reach a decision, a second bike would be added into my parking lot!
The search was not that intense, it only took me around 1 week to reach my choice! BMW 1150GS 2002 model is going to be the second addition to my motorcycle list!
I already have planned my winter trips totaling something over 6000km’s around Greece, routes have been planned, information is being collected and additionally I am looking over Italy, Alps, Germany and Holland as the big trip taking place somewhere around June next year (hoping everything is going to be fine!).
I also had a pleasant surprise from an old friend when I heard that he will join the photographic adventures! I didn’t have any news from him for a long time, until recently when I received a phone call from him; it made me rather happy to hear that apart from motorcycles he was also into photography the last few years, so now there is another fellow 2 wheel companion to join the routes!
[link]

Some recent favorites:

http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/26976719/ Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:33:37 PDT
I've got a feeling
with the wrong people
and I can't control my thoughts

I wish that I could sleep
and just get this over with
...this is only high school bullshit...

I just want to feel

I was warned
absolutley numb
no good around people
everyone knows and watches me

how did I get here tonight?
what am I doing here?
how did I reach this state?
how did I lose my sight?

I'm lost... I'm freaking
and everybody knows... everyone's watching

...so here's all my hopes and aspirations
nothing but puke
god, it's so lonely...

I just want to feel

[link]

Some recent favorites:

http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/26224528/ Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:53:12 PDT I hope the summer is “rolling” nicely for everyone, I am still waiting for my holidays (around 2 weeks far away) to relax for the madness of the big city and the loads of work I find everyday in my office.
But enough with desks work and big cities, we are here to discuss art, photography and all those nifty little things that make our everyday life more enjoyable!
So first of all let me share my joy with you! It’s been nearly 2 months since I stopped smoking and I already feel like I never felt before! I used to be a heavy smoker for more than 15 years and I made the decision to quit smoking 7 weeks ago, it was not that hard (although I had times that it was hard) it was more a mind decision! If you are thinking of making such a move just go on don’t be afraid of anything! And more importantly don’t even think you will be missing something!
I would like also to exploit the opportunity of this journal and inform you regarding Hitech filters (since a lot of people are asking my opinion on them lately); Hitech filters are superb in terms of quality! I use the 100mm x 150mm system (which is the biggest) of theirs and they are truly wonderful, I have not had a single problem with casts or whatsoever with them and I believe in their quality they are similar to the Lee ones.
Support of the company is fantastic! Whatever I have asked them I never had any problems! When I initially received my filters there was a small scratch on the 2stop GND, rather small and probably not affecting picture quality, but I felt I had to mention it to them, I received an immediate answer from them stating that they would send me a replacement, and so they did!
Few weeks later I found out that the 3 stop GND filter was just a tad bigger from the filter holder which resulted minor scratching on the sidewalls of the filter when inserting or removing it. The scratching again had no effect on the filter since it was on the area of the filter which is hidden inside the filter holder, I again contacted them, and they again send me a replacement! Wonderful people they never asked me questions, they never requested a return of the products, they just did whatever they could to resolve my problems. But you say are you satisfied with the filters? Then why the problems? Well I believe the minor scratch could be possibly due to the transportation of it, or maybe a small defect when they produced the filter, the good ones had no single problems! What about the 3stop? Scratching on the filter system? Well the filter as a filter was perfect, but it seems just a few mm’s bigger on the sides, I had not problem since the company replaced it immediately, and now I also have a spare 3stop GND which I can use on more severe conditions (and not worrying that much that it will be scratched). The only thing I would change on the Hitech filters is the packing of them, they are packaged on a plastic wrap which is scratch resistant though but it feels a bit cheap, a more hard cased housing would be probably be better, but that’s again something easily fixed with a 3rd party filter housing (which can be found rather cheap around the Internet).
Finally I was looking for a replacement of my Computrekker backpack, I love this backpack since it allows me to carry nearly all my equipment (along with my tripod attached externally to it) but it felt heavy and not that operational when shooting close to my home or whenever I wanted movement freedom or quick access to my equipment. I started looking for an additional bag I could carry with me which would allow me to carry my camera, my filters, my filter adaptor, the polarizer case (for swapping between the GND holder and the polarizer) and most important that I would be able to have quick access to filters or other stuff you make excessive use on field.
After searching I found the Lowepro Inverse 200AW belt pack, and I must say I am really happy with the decision to buy this! Firstly I was not looking for a replacement of the Computrekker but rather an addition to it, something I could carry along (whenever I was travelling for a few days away) and that I could use it with ease!
The Inverse is a wonderful; it feels small but yet again holds nearly all the necessary equipment for the field! It can be used either as a waist or as a shoulder bag! Or both (when carrying lots of stuff) and has an AW cover which protects the equipment in the case of rain!
I was able to fit inside it:
1) Canon 5D with the 17-40L attached (lens hood reversed)
2) My GND filters (100mm x 150mm, hard stop, 1,2,3 stops)
3) 3 additional batteries
4) Hitech 100mm filter holder + adaptor ring
5) Extra CF card
6) Cable release
7) Marumi glass filter + filter case
8) Microfiber lens cleaning cloth (for quick cleaning when necessary) + 1 small bottle of lens cleaning liquid.
9) Blower (I use it when shooting in windy and dusty environ... ]]> =pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/25137590/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/25137590/ Fri, 05 Jun 2009 05:28:21 PDT Nearly everything works on it, Graphics adapter (nVidia GeForce 9500M GS, with QE enabled), audio is ok, wired networking is ok (with small hacks) and the only part I had some problems was my wireless card. I decided to hack even more in it, so I ordered from ebay a mini pci-e wifi replacement (Dell 1490) which is fully compatible with MacOS and I am waiting next week for it to arrive in my hands.
I didn’t test my Bluetooth connection (rarely use it), my webcam (never actually used it as well), and my card reader (does not support CF cards, so I never use it as well) although I am sure the last will most certainly not work, since most onboard card readers are not functioning.
The experience is wonderful, and everything seems to be running smoothly and nicely, I have given photoshop a try, and I also downloaded aperture to run a test on it (I am totally ignorant with aperture since I have never used it before!).
The hackintosh project is steadily growing and more people are getting involved, hardware is a small issue with the community, since it’s on a very early stage! Not much out there, but most laptops are good to go since the decision of Apple to move to Intel based hardware.
I made a nice test, and worked on a few images inside osx and photoshop, I was really impressed with the way osx handles everything! If you have Linux background experience it’s rather easy to find your way around the osx, and even easier to make you necessary hacks to get your hardware up and running.
My next step once my wifi card arrives will be trying a retail installation! A bit more advanced as a task, but worth trying (allows you to have vanilla updated straight from Apple).
I hard stressed the system to see if there would be any kind of bugs or problems, and I must say I had zero! No problems whatsoever, under heavy photoshop work (TIFF files open for editing) and quicktime playing a few avi files (Lost ) just to see how everything would respond, and indeed it worked flawlessly!
Furthermore there is a photography contest ongoing localy in Greece, and we have a few participants (me included) from DA! KirlianCamera, and Justeline are also taking part at it (actually they were the ones that first mentioned and I found out!) so If you are bored, or if you like any work from us, just shoot a few stars toward our direction (although I am left really behind! LOL)
My entry is:
[link]
KirlianCamera entry is:
[link]
And Justelines entry is:
[link]

And now some recent favorites:


http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/24935782/ Mon, 25 May 2009 03:49:41 PDT
Are all TN panels lousy? And why?
Not all TN panels are lousy, color wise TN has made great steps the last few years and there are quite a lot TN panels out there that perform really well color wise. The problem with TN panels is mostly the viewing angle. The technology used inside them does not allow multiple viewing angles (compared to PVA panels for example), this means that there is significant color and contrast shift when viewing from a different angle. Additionally 6bit technology is inferior compared to 8bit panel. Note though that there are 8bit TN panels available on the market!

If my monitor gamut is smaller than sRGB what can I do?
Well the first thing is hardware calibrate your monitor, so that you make sure there are no strong casts that affect your color managed workflow. After calibrating you can still work on it, but your color critical work will be compromised by the monitor inferior quality. This is mostly for laptop displays, since TN panels found on LCD screens usually match the Srgb color space. But yet again they need a good hardware calibration for them to be able to closely match the correct colors. Most LCD panels are way off out of the box with only a very small percentage of them being close to good color reproduction.

How can I evaluate a monitor?
Well if you are planning on buying a monitor you should be searching for gamut, and calibration validation. There are plenty of sites offering such information. Generally most monitor oriented review sites (avoid the plain all hardware sites). A good review should be able to provide a gamut plot of the color space of the monitor and additionally some validation reports before and after the calibration.
Validation reports represent the color accuracy before and after calibration and it’s measured in deltaE. There is no need to get in space science, just remember that deltaE should be under 1 for excellent color rendering, around 2 for good color rendering and if it matches or is greater than 3 then things are quite different on your monitor.
Most LCD panels after calibration can reach around 1.8 deltaE which means that color reproduction is very good, PVA panels (and some TN panels as well!) can reach around 0.6 ~ 0.8 which means they have excellent color reproduction!
You can evaluate your monitor calibration if you download a evaluation of basiCColor software, it has a evaluation section where you monitor is metered and evaluated.
Evaluation is not total, and it’s performed for every single color, so you can have a pretty much detailed information of the results of each color among midpoints, grays, blacks and whites!

Can you recommend any sites?
There are a few:
[link]
[link]
Face to face offers you direct comparison with plenty of details! It provides also gamut plots and monitor evaluation results before and after calibration.
So you mean I have to spend a lot to get colors nicely rendered?
No! I believe you don’t, most people upload their final work in sRGB color space, even TN panels can quite nicely achieve this. Viewing angles as mentioned before are crucial to the correct color accuracy but still it doesn’t mean that if you can’t spend 2000 euros on a good monitor that you are doomed.
On the other hand if you are a color freak, then a 2000 euro monitor is the only way.

Wide gamut monitors, what are they?
Wide gamut monitors are the latest “trend” of displays. They are called so because they do actually cover a greater gamut color space than sRGB. This allows you to work with colors even better since you are not restricted to a small color space. But it has its own problems, a wide gamut display means that you are able to reproduce more colors than an average monitor can, this leads to loss of color reproduction when transforming for a color space or a monitor that does not support it. This is also the reason that many times you can see oversaturated or hue shift colors in final images of people working with such monitors.

If I hardware calibrate does it mean that what I see is what I get?
No! Calibration is the process of correcting your monitor’s colors, and then during development of a picture you are just sure that the blue you are seeing on screen is blue. What you see is what you get will happen only when you soft proof for the output device.
Soft proof is achieved through your image editor and with the use of the correct ICC profiles.
Why this happens? It happens because every... ]]> =pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/24780947/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/24780947/ Mon, 18 May 2009 02:52:10 PDT I needed a monitor calibrator just to make sure that I was within specs with my colors, and surely because I wanted a more controller printing workflow for my pictures. After a few months of waiting I managed to acquire a spyder3 elite package, which made me happy. But little did I know what I would be expecting in the future.
After calibrating my monitor, I happily enabled color management in my firefox browser (since there was no reason to have color management inside the browser without a properly calibrated monitor) and then it all started!
My first reaction was shock! I could see pictures oversaturated with evident color shifts in particular colors (blue turning to purple) in many pictures. Initially I was worried that my calibration was not correct that something was wrong with my computer or O/S, I started searching around the net for possible answers to my questions and I managed to come across a few sites with very informative content.
So let's start with basic color theory, what is color management? And what exactly does monitor profiling and color managed workflow achieve?
My intention in this series of articles is not to describe the whole color theory, this can be easily searched among the huge information found in the Internet, I will be targeting mostly to the basics of color management in the world of computers.
Image #1




Let's imagine a Huge triangle, a triangle full of colors (check image #1), this triangle represents the color space we humans visualize (although it can't be exactly interpreted on a monitor we can still achieve a pretty nice render of them) and if you look closely you will notice the 3 corners known as RGB (Red, Green, Blue) the 3 basics colors. Now consider inside this triangle different color spaces (image #1) this color spaces you see are the familiar terms you always hear AdobeRGB, sRGB, ProPhotoRGB.
As you can see in the second image this color spaces differ from each other, since each is meant to be able to hold bigger color data from the other! From the above picture the sRGB (well known to most of us who do color management work) is the smallest (and yet the most widespread color space) and we could also say the Internet standard for photography (although this tends to change the last few years).
Now let's look to a third image, this image represents a new triangle this is the profile of a monitor (and more specifically of a laptop monitor, Acer Aspire 7720G) as you can see in the image the color profile is rather compacted in terms of color abilities in comparison with the sRGB. And if you look closer you will see that one end of it overwhelms the space of sRGB. Does all of this sound Chinese? Well it is kind of space science but we can interpret it more easily if we understand what exactly is happening.
Image #2




Let's assume that you available color space (as rendered on the screen) is this Acer Aspire gamut (this is a calibrated profile) and consider we are working inside Adobe Photoshop and more specifically we have set our working color space to sRGB (I know we use AdobeRGB mostly, but for the example I say sRGB), as you can see from the image #2 your available color space us defined by the boundaries of the lines shaping the sRGB gamut. So now the question arises, what is exactly happening? As you can see color spaces are different, and monitor profiles are even more different, what does a monitor profile actually do?
Well a monitor profile instructs the software you use to render the colors of a specific color space according to you monitor! So a blue (RGB -> 0,0,255) inside sRGB gets correctly translated to you monitor, and that's the whole purpose of monitor calibration, it's a process for checking and measuring our monitor and graphics card, and mapping it as closely as we can to the correct color space.
Since monitors have then bad habit of interpreting colors differently depending the viewing conditions, monitor quality and the monitor intentions.
For example those nice glossy laptop displays (which are actually nearly crap in terms of color abilities, as you can clearly see in the gamut plot) have the tendency... ]]> =pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/24735049/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/24735049/ Thu, 14 May 2009 05:44:07 PDT As most of you know I experienced problems inside my firefox in Windows vista with color management enabled (and my monitor calibrated) I was very troubled by the way I saw images inside firefox and I could not understand what was wrong. After putting everything down, reading a few articles, here are the facts for color managed browsers inside Windows Vista (tested on x64 platform Ultimate edition, anyone else willing to participate?). I mostly encountered problems with deeply saturated blues turning into purple, something that was not evident inside non color managed applications. After my search I realized my screen does not handle that wide of a space inside blues, and you can actually test you monitor by checking the following picture (I hope Michael does not get offended I test used his picture):
[link]
The first test involves checking your monitor gamut - if you already don’t know it - (inside a color managed browser, with a calibrated screen) does the image sky appear blue or purple in your browser? (I am not sure here if the purple issue is due to wide gamut, or due to developing the image for non color managed applications).
Secondly download the image somewhere in your computer, and open it inside photoshop, photoshop will ask you to append a color profile (since it’s untagged and you have configured photoshop to ask for a profile in such occasions) assign sRGB color profile to it, does it still look purple? Now soft proof it with View --> Proof colors and select monitor RGB or windows RGB as the proofing device, this instructs photoshop to preview the image as it would appear in non-color managed applications, if the images are the same (and you are sure you have color management properly configured in your system) then probably I am on a narrow gamut LCD display (most likely, since this is only a laptop display) and you have a wide gamut display. If it doesn’t look the same (before and after) we are getting on the second part, rather interesting regarding browsers and color management (for Windows the least). Safari renders this picture as I see it soft proofed, this means that safari ignores the monitor profile when viewing untagged images and renders them inside the sRGB color profile (not the monitor profile), tagged images look the same as if they would with firefox and photoshop!
Firefox on the other hand renders ALL the images color managed, which means that even untagged images are rendered as sRGB BUT color managed (hence the color cast on the firefox version of the picture, since it translates the dummy and dull sRGB color space to your monitors profile)! This explains the reason I see images in firefox oversaturated sometimes when in safari I see them normaly! But still THERE is a bug inside firefox, according to its documentation the flag:
gfx.color_management.mode
With the assigned switch 2 does “Color management applied only to tagged images. Default.” Which is not true in my case, since the above picture is untagged (and thus should be rendered without any color management) but still its rendered with the monitor profile.
The main problem off course is not this, the problem that arises is that what exactly are photographers “adopting”? developing images for soft proofed devices (such as the dummy color space of non color managed applications)? Or developing images for calibrated monitors and ignoring the rest of the world? This is the same as the above case, in my monitor the images looks oversaturated while on color managed applications, while on a dummy application it look just as it should! The next question that arises is what are the 2 color managed browsers going to follow? Safari’s behavior seems better than the one of firefox (unless the color_management flag is honored by the browser) rendering only tagged images and ignoring the rest of the images, or should they render any kind of images with color profiles?
It was a hell of an adventure, but a happy one, made me understand more over color management and color profiling / calibrating! I hope I managed to give you an idea (in case you didn't have at the moment), I am sorry if I tired you all with the color management issues!

Now some recent favorites as well:

http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/24714960/ Tue, 12 May 2009 14:20:41 PDT does not work! no matter what I tried colors in firefox get lost in the way without obvious reasons!
So for color managed browsing I am sticking to safari.
P.S I tried also the latest beta of firefox but the problem remains...


OLD POST

So after a long time and moderate waiting I managed to acquire my monitor calibrator (spyder3 elite) only for my next set of problems to begin! LOL
I calibrated my monitor a few hundred times only to realize how sloppy and bad this monitor is (Acer aspire 7720G laptop) turning most of my colors way off, saturated blues turn to purple, color management aware applications feel like a disaster to me eyes (with pictures with high saturation) but then another problem arises, how many people do actually manipulate their images for a good profiled monitor without soft proofing the non color managed applications? I managed to spot a few hundred pictures that are manipulated for non color managed applications! This makes me think, now that more color aware applications are being introduced (web browsers, image viewers) which is the correct path? Manipulate and develop for a color managed application? Or manipulate and develop for a non color managed application (such as IE which required boosting of saturation and different development workflows).
I would like to hear your thoughts on color management and even your workflows; do you actually develop your pictures for your monitor calibration? Or do you use the soft proof mechanism as a guide? Manipulating for my monitor produces good looking images (apart from the blues to purple issues), printed exactly how I see them, but also introduces a more dull looking non color managed variation.
Bellow you can see the problem with a screenshot I submited in my scraps, please use a non color managed browser to see the difference (Firefox appears to have even more saturation on this screenshot that what I captured):


Now some recent favorites as well:


http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/24232259/ Tue, 14 Apr 2009 03:52:26 PDT So while I was checking my gallery, I saw the before the storm shot of mine:

Taken some time back in Kammena Vourla, although not processed in terms of cloning or adding something to it, it was heavily processed in terms of colors, saturation and contrast, this is a shot I DON’T like anymore, it feels cheap, its low in quality and badly processed. Yet people do fav this more than other shots, (and this does not refer only to my gallery) there are other galleries and pictures out there that deserve much more than some pictures that receive so much comments and favs and I do strongly feel the same for my picture as well. For instance this particular shot (by my friend ) :

is more impressive and by far more natural looking (in terms of photography) than my shot but yet again only around 473 people out of the 2484!!! did actually fav it (not that the fav thing is that important)
And another, this is a lovely shot of :

On the other side (I am not going to list pictures) I see total crap receiving a few thousand favs. What I want to say is that people should judge better their work; they should take the time, and look at the past, compare what they see and think what they would like to see. Is it getting better? Yes? Then you are moving forward, is it not? Then you are not doing much, you need to re-schedule your photographic habits.
The most funny thing is when a more experienced photographer spots the crap, and mentions it to the author, a fight starts and people just continue bashing around; lads criticism is an integral part of art, if you don’t like it just keep the shots for your own needs, the rest of the people bashing around the ones that criticize just stop and think, read, think again and realize if you are reading crap or something that is understandable.
I am starting moving off from DA, just keeping people I do really appreciate as artists because I see more sites with more quality work and more truth talking artists in them which in my humble opinion deserve my money better (yes I am bashing more over this since we are actually paying here). The most important part is that people in other sites do actually take time and look at your work and they DO actually share their critiques among them.
Before I hear offending comments, I need to mention again that I consider myself a total amateur photographer, far away from the professional level, I do see (since I do self-criticism) difference though from what I did consider a good shot 3 years ago and what I consider a good shot 3 years later and this is much deserved to people (yes some DA people included) who did actually have the balls to talk or even encourage the progress, people who did actually spend time to write a few technical stuff or share techniques with the rest of the community, rather than write long dreaded goodbye letters, love poems, or anything totally irrelevant with photography just to attract people.
I will keep all my shots in my gallery, just to remind myself that you... ]]> =pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/24033915/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/24033915/ Fri, 03 Apr 2009 01:46:09 PDT One advantage (among others) of shooting RAW in your camera is that you can adjust WB without affecting the image quality later on. This is crucial and especially wanted since most cameras do not handle WB correctly especially under harsh light conditions. You probably have heard of grey cards or setting WB in your camera before you shoot, but what is the preferred method? Setting a custom WB in your camera requires that the light conditions will be the same at the whole shooting process, a slight change of it and your WB is off again, and that’s the reason most photographers prefer adjusting WB in their editors later on.
You can achieve this by shooting a neutral grey card and then selecting through your editor the WB from it and applying it to the pictures of the session. I recently acquired a WB grey card through Whibal which is small, plastic well build and can resist damage (water, scratches etc) when shooting in field. Although it’s a bit expensive I believe it is worth for the reasons mentioned above (well metered before sold, weather and rough handling resistant) and it’s also small enough for you to be able to carry it around.
The procedure used for adjusting the WB is simple, shoot as you normally would and then take a shot of the WB card against the light of your preferred subject, note though that if the light changes while shooting you need to redo the process for the new light conditions. When you load your files in your favorite RAW editor, just choose WB from the grey card (choose the WB tool of your editor and click on the grey card) and there you are! You have a correct WB! Some will prefer to slightly adjust the WB to make the image a bit warmer or cooler but nevertheless you have a very good starting point.
Bellow you can see the advantages of having a grey card with you, you can clearly see the different in the colors between the 2 shots!

The one at the left is before WB adjustment and on the right after the WB adjustment. This was not the perfect shot for WB adjustment (due to rain and winds blowing) but still you can see the difference.
If you don’t have the budget to afford a grey card, you can still produce a fair WB reference by using a NON reflective grey or white object (no, printer papers are a bad choice) usually this can be a wool dressing jacket (in case you are wearing one) or buy a neutral grey object from a local store, they are not as accurate as grey cards which are specifically manufactured for photography (where manufacturers try to produce a truly neutral card) but they still can perform really well in field.

Now some recent favorites as well:

http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/24017732/ Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:31:33 PDT I am trying to cope up with work, days are bigger and sun is shining just reminds me off everything else other than office and work! The joyful part is that summer is near the door and only a few months left for those nice cool relaxing weekends to come!
Photography wise I have little time at the moment, and usually when time is there the weather is absent! I am crossing my fingers that Easter will produce some nice photographic wise weather and I get the chance to hit the fields.
I just ordered a rain sleeve cover from optex (they cost only a few dollars) for my 5d and I am really happy with it, last shooting session included some heavy rain and I was just so frustrated I had to keep my eye on the camera not to have any accidents. I believe with the rain sleeve everything is going to be better in terms of weather and protection.
I am trying to plan a nice quick trip to a few locations near Athens, but unfortunately at the moment my time is really limited, and my budget is also on that side, the places have been marked and I just need to find the right timing!
I was walking down the streets in the center of Athens the other day, mostly to get my 17-40L a protection filter, when I reached a store and they made me a nice offer for the filter and the 50mm f/1.8 the so called plastic fantastic. I never dropped the chance, the 50mm is a really decent lens for the price of it (86 euros it was)! My first test (friend shots walking around in Athens) proved what others are saying, a lovely sharp lens (for its money), bokeh is not that thrilling but it’s not that bad as well, under low light it worked as a charm, focus was a bit slow, but hey…86 euros? That costs less that a decent polarizer for the 17-40!
I had also a nice set of black background ordered just to get my hands on a few portrait shots and fool around with in house lightning (I won’t say studio lights, since I don’t have a studio, nor do I have any lights) when I can’t be in the country.
I am after a B+W 110ND filter, found a few real bargains in the German ebay! Nearly half the price from what they were asking in the local market!
Finally I would like to thank all of you that comment or fav my work, I still try to keep up thanking everyone and checking galleries of others, I can’t sweep them all though, so if I haven’t thanked you or checked your gallery please bare with me I will try to do so if time permits!
Now some recent favorites as well:

http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/23282616/ Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:23:13 PST I was troubled by this since I have never ever done something like that and I did not know how I could achieve something like this, my gear is also pretty limited, D50 + Nikkor 18-55mm and a Sigma 70-300mm (that’s backup equipment now) and Canon 5D + Canon 17-40L.

I could not use a flash (although I was not denied, but I felt bad having a flash fire every now and then in the club and disturbing people who wanted to enjoy the show) and I was very skeptical of how the D50 would perform. My initial though was to lent a Canon 50mm lens but this did not happen so I was restricted back to the 5D and the 17-40L having in mind that I nearly had no experience shooting with the 5D (only a few test shots) and shooting with a wide angle lens which is not fast.
I carried all my equipment in the club, made a few tests shots with the D50 and disqualified it as the shooting camera since even on ISO1600 nothing was visible and usable. So I was only left with the 5D and the 17-40L, weird setup wide angle lens inside a night club!(yes I know 50mm and 85mm but no money no honey for the moment darling, and I ain’t paying equipment for a shooting done just for fun), the guys did make me feel bit more comfortable as the previous shootings where all done on a compact camera (no need to say looked awful).
So I did setup the 5D with the 17-40L ISO1600 and started shooting, had a 4GB CF card inside and changed to spot metering, Manual settings (1/40 shutter speed and f/4) and RAW as my shooting format just to be sure. RAW with 4GB memory card does give me space for more over 200 shots and that was pleasing since I knew there would be many that would end up inside the recycle bin. I started shooting, and varied my ISO settings from 1600 up to 3200, mostly on 40mm but played a few times also with the wider angle either 17mm and 20mm. Focusing was a tough game in the light conditions and the constant movement of the people on stage did make things even worse. The night finished and I was just so curious to see what I had managed to do, it was my first time (and what a time). I must admit this kind of shooting was of the hardest I ever tried, no time to think much, constant looking over at the stage and around the place for possible different angles, trying to be as stealth as you can be and not to annoy the rest of the people. I was really lucky that this was performed on a audience sitting on tables. That allowed me more free movement with less anxiety about the equipment safety.
One small tip I managed to discover while shooting is that you can have a bit fun with your exposure meter, I was ready to shoot and I was constantly looking at the exposure meter bar, the indicator was constantly moving up and down (that’s normal due to the very extreme and different light conditions) finally I managed to “tune” with it and when It was pointing a near to normal exposure I would release the shutter button.
So I came back at home, and uploaded the pictures to my laptop (damn I miss small files) and started looking through them. My first impression, WOW! ISO1600 and ISO3200 with noise reduction are so usable (yeah…don’t think anything about large prints though) but you get really decent high quality images I tested them up to 1280 (widest edge) and I was stunned. I have included 2 shots in the scraps, ISO1600 and ISO3200 just to see how it looks.
ISO 3200

ISO 1600


]]> =pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/22878055/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/22878055/ Thu, 29 Jan 2009 02:03:37 PST
Mind is a weird human part, and soon enough while waiting for the new lens, some weird thoughts started flooding my brain…So after a few days, instead of the lens, I got myself with a mint conditioned used Canon 5D! It was not that hard of a choice, I don’t own any expensive lenses (Nikkor 18-55mm, Sigma 70-300mm) and I had my chance on getting a FF body, a new FF body is way out from my budget limit and considering the fact that I don’t have any kind of FF working lenses I preferred the used choice.
1 week after the end of the auction I had the 5D in my hands, though I had no lenses to use it with, I just started working my way around and learning the 5D to get used to. And finally a few days back I was given the chance to make a few test shots with a lens (primarily to test the cameras condition) in a local photographic equipment store.
My first impression was wow and again wow! Looking through the viewfinder is like discovering a new world! It’s big and bright nothing compared to my old Nikon D50 small and dark one!
Focusing may not be the fastest I’ve seen, but it surely isn’t nothing compared to the D50, and finally I love the handling, its bigger than the D50 and allows a nice firm grip in my big hand, I had problems with the D50 since it was a small body and I had to carefully grip it not to have any accidents!
Some people hate the “Spartan” menu of the Canon, and especially of the 5D considering its price and location on the SLR chart, not my case though! I loved the Spartan, light menu, few options, and not time wasting, after all you buy this beast for photography and not for fancy menus, I would like a few more option though, especially I think that Canon could add a tweak to allow multiple custom settings for different occasions.
My test was performed on an old CF 512Mb card so I can’t comment much about the writing speed, my first test with the card above felt a bit slow, but then again I have not much to compare on, my D50 was 6mp compared to the 12 of the Canon 5D.
What I disliked on the 5D is the viewfinder tendency for dust; it’s like a dust magnet! I look, and then look again and I see more dust, a small blow after snapping down the focus screen chamber did fix a bit the problem, the censor was super clean and didn’t require any cleaning.
Locking up the mirror for cleaning reveals a huge sensor compared to my old D50 (huh? What did you expect??), I advise doing this with something attached to your face so that you can protect it from your drooling
The test shots where the last shock, ISO100 performance is out of this world, yes this is a 3 years old camera…but hell mate it rocks the Kasbah! The IQ is nothing to what I have seen up to now! Noiseless, sharp, and most important I feel the exposure metering of the 5D cannot be compared, with my Nikon (can’t comment for the rest Nikon models) the metering was not that precise (and I am not talking about white or black objects…that’s the same for everything) I usually had to underexpose since my D50 had the habit to usually overexpose.
I disliked the lack of a build in flash (means I need more money for accessories) yes build in cannot be compared to external units, but then again I am not that of a flash guy, I just use it a few times when fooling around with friends, so I would like having one lousy build in one instead of having to carry around an external unit.
Lastly I didn’t like the way I had to preview the image (the small Joystick) I would prefer if Canon allowed the use of the click wheel instead, the joystick is small and moves a bit slow, the 2,5 inch screen compared to my old Nikon D50 is way better so I don’t mind that it’s not 3 inches or that it does not carry the 5DII resolution, after all I rarely do look the preview, I mostly check my histogram and use the preview only to get a clue on the composition and the final result.
Overall I believe this was my best choice, 800 ~ 900 Euros for a Full Frame body with a stunning IQ is way to low compared to the prices being asked for entry-level or semi pro SLR’s, yes the 5D is 3 years old but still it holds amazingly well among the competition, it even did compare to the fresh D700 on the Nikon side, and you can have it at nearly half price used, or around the same price with the cropped D300 if you buy it new!
If you are a Landscape or Portrait guy with limited budget then this is a top choice, if... ]]> =pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/22466631/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/22466631/ Sun, 11 Jan 2009 14:02:41 PST
It was a cold and rainy day so I was bored and I fired up Google Earth just to fool around with places around the world, then it came to my attention that a few lovely features existed on it which I didn’t ever bother to use, this was the Sun position indicator which allows you to view the sun position at every given time you need.
So my next adventure was start gathering possible places for photographs, and I might say I was really impressed. I had 1 week off from work but only 2 days of free time, I wanted to go and shoot and also put my new Hitech’s on use and see what I could come up, my only problem is that I don’t have a car driving license so this limits my official ride only to my motorcycle (don’t ask how I carry everything, I am gonna make an another journal for this) this means that I need to find places which are not really far away mainly because of weather issues (I don’t wanna ride in a storm and carry my equipment…this would just double my fears at the time)
So I was trying to figure out what I could shoot within a close area…Fired up Google Earth and started searching, I was amazed, so many little hidden spots and it gets even better checking a few pictures provided inside Google Earth (even those nasty looking point and shoot ones) gave me even more information, the sun positioning allowed me to get a good indication of how lighting conditions would be at the specified place at the specified time (You don’t want to drive to the spot and only discover that a far Huge mountain has “sucked” all of the light now do you?).
Indeed I must admit that this has become a very useful tool to me lately, I additionally merged all this information with a nice google search on weather conditions (primarily cloud condition so I could get a nice reading of the weather at the specified times) and here you are…a totally new world opens to your eyes.
Bored? Open Google Earth and spot the places…you never know…it might only be next to you door and you never knew…

P.S Happy New year to everyone! I hope 2009 will be a great year for everyone!
P.S #1The Hitech test was really joyful, they did provide my images the neutrality that the Cokin’s where lacking, I will be posting soon new images
P.S #2 No more dilemmas about D300 and 5D, I just won a eBay auction for a used (but in very good condition) Canon 5D!! Probably next week it will be in my hands...now I need to start finding money for those lenses!

Finally I would like to share with you the following websites of amazing photography (mostly landscape), there are quite a few to get inspired from! I won’t post all of them, but a small part, more will come soon!

[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]

I started creating a list of people who i believe have quality galleries but they are not that known to the rest of the community.
Please do spend some time on this galleries you will be happily surprised by the quality of the galleries.

So here goes the list:
http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/22043493/ Thu, 18 Dec 2008 04:16:04 PST )

I got the chance to do some filter testing, so on with the filters I tested my new Hitech's compared to Cokin's filters and you can see the results over here:
[link]
Finally no more magenta casts...only pure colors
I will try to add more tests under different circumstances just to see how each filter reacts in every occasion.

My favorite own submissions:





I started creating a list of people who i believe have quality galleries but they are not that known to the rest of the community.
Please do spend some time on this galleries you will be happily surprised by the quality of the galleries.

So here goes the list:
http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/20499535/ Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:44:03 PDT have take their place (P.S The cokin cases where nice...so I switched the Hitech filters in the cokin cases).
My first test shots (no...no...no...I couldn't visit the countryside...only tested from within my apartment towards the sky) did prove that the hitech's
are truly neutral and worth their money (which is quite more cheaper that the Lee ones) woooo finally I could see the dreaded sky without any magenta cast!!!. The quality seems ok, but I need to force a bit to fit inside the cokin P holder, I don't know their scratch resistance, but Judging by the cokin
filters I don't think I will have a problem (In general terms I always was a bit careful with my filters).
Speaking of filters...are you a contest sucker? The hurry up and take a look (if you haven't done so already) at Kirlian's Journal () for the 19 seconds contest. The deadline
has changed to 31st of October and I believe this will give you the chance to "mess" around with your equipment and you favorite spots for some nice long exposure ones. The judges are well known and respected member of the community ( ) which ensures a fair competition!

My favorite own submissions:





I started creating a list of people who i believe have quality galleries but they are not that known to the rest of the community.
Please do spend some time on this galleries you will be happily surprised by the quality of the galleries.

So here goes the list:
http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/20283938/ Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:48:39 PDT I will be going for a wide angle lens and I am stuck between the Tokina 12-24mm and the Sigma 10-20mm both seem quite nice and from what I read around they both perform really nice for their money.
Yet still I haven’t decided which one I should go for…
Another little adventure is looking for Lee filters, so I need to change my cokin ones, the terrible magenta cast that appears (especially when using both P121 and P120 filters… on most pictures drives me nuts…So I have decided to move on to Lee filters, now any advice on any online shop (Europe preferably) with good prices?
For last I have left the ND magazine update (ND Magazine), most of you know ND magazine, but for you that don’t…then you should be already checking the wonderful work of Marcin Stawiarz () and Andy Mumford (). Andy has a new article talking about composition which I am sure will help many people which are trying to find their way inside photography.
Maciej Duczynski (known as in DA) is also interviewed and I believe many landscape photographers who admire Maciej’s work will be thrilled to look into it.

My favorite own submissions:




I started creating a list of people who i believe have quality galleries but they are not that known to the rest of the community.
Please do spend some time on this galleries you will be happily surprised by the quality of the galleries.

So here goes the list:
http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/20159676/ Tue, 26 Aug 2008 01:35:48 PDT
So I managed to relax but I was unlucky with pictures since the sky was boring and most of the pictures felt more like family pictures rather than landscape photography...
I wish everyone (who has returned from holidays) a pleasant winter! Hope everyone is ok!



My favorite own submissions:








I started creating a list of people who i believe have quality galleries bu... ]]> =pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/19819017/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/19819017/ Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:32:27 PDT

I wish everyone a happy summer and relaxing! Everyone needs some days off...emptying his mind from everyday’s obligations and pressure! See you at 26th of August!!!!!

My favorite own submissions:






http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/18885008/ Tue, 17 Jun 2008 02:34:15 PDT Weather was fine, warm, a bit windy (so that I wouldn't melt into my own sweat) and whooooo I had the chance to have a sky with some clouds...just to add to the story!
So off I wen't with my camera and started shooting (though my time was yet once again limited...at least I did have the chance to catch the fading sun! ) I had a nice scenery and I was glad I could yet still shoot (Yeah hehehe I was anxious I would mess up ).
Allthough I did not shoot a zillion of pictures I had the chance to a few! And almost I could say I was thkinking of Andy (Check Andy's page: [link]) when I started shooting over some long exposure ones!
Yet I am still bussy at work, but summer always helps to find a bit of free time and shoot..I also had the chance to spot a new lovely scene! and allthough i didn't have the time to shoot...I believe gods plans include leaving the place as it is for me to shoot it at my next visit!

My favorite own submissions:



... ]]> =pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/17773230/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/17773230/ Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:58:38 PDT Well actually I had my opportunity and made 1 shot session a few days ago But still yet I haven't been able to touch any of the pictures (actually I didn't even have the chance to take a sneak peak...).
Easter is on the way and probably this is going to be a nice chance to relax, and enjoy a bit Nature and my camera
I am currently working on 2 major projects, 1 PHP framework which will allow me to significantly extend my work with various customers, and another specialized Network Framework, the last one is for my regular everyday work (hey...I remember I told you, I am a network engineer...not a photographer ) its a framework which will allow the collection of various statistical data from network elements, and significantly help with QOS needs.
Although both are forming slowly and steady I am getting really tired from those projects, I need to work countless hours in-front of my laptop, trying to sneak peak everything happening around me, photography, technology, sports, bikes...so many categories...so little time!
I hope all of you are ok, I have been looking at many deviations, and I see lots of people improving everytime I look at their work, this is fascinating, so many photographers out there and lots of talent!
If you are interested in development, you can always drop at [link] since I will be soon enough be posting regarding the framework development (soon to be released in its Alpha version).
Soon...really soon...back to clicking and ticking...watching the sky...listening to music and loving nature through a lens...

My favorite own submissions:



http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/17158727/ Mon, 03 Mar 2008 03:05:46 PST I hope everyone is ok! And I hope your photographic adventures keep on coming! Unfortunately for me all this time has been really bussy with nearly (well not nearly...) no time for any photographic activities. BUT (hehe a nice BUT) I will be getting more loose on work next weeks! so propably (I ain't saying for sure....crossing my fingers) I will have the chance to shoot especially now that the weather is getting better (and I will be more easily moving around with my motorcycle).
I really hope everyone is ok! And i really miss my free time and looking at all your inspiring and thrilling works! Don't worry though, I oftenly visit deviantart and i check your submissions (well I can't check all your submissions in 1 day) to see how you are doing!

P.S If any Greeks are interested on a nice group shooting...just make a suggestion

My favorite own submissions:




http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/16338108/ Thu, 10 Jan 2008 01:07:58 PST So I would like to wish to ALL of you a happy new year (allthough a bit late) and hope for the best for everyone! 2007 was a very creative and inspiring year for me
and I would like to additionally thank all the people who did support me and inspire me (I don't need to mention all of you...you are allot and propably tou allready know) and to all those lovely people I had the chance to "meet" -duh...virtually-

P.S Niko...you still owe me a couple of hours over a beer or 2


My favorite own submissions:





http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/15487945/ Tue, 13 Nov 2007 02:45:13 PST and I am alive! Well I was (and still I am) having a hard time with work and other activities, which keep me away both from DA and photography.
I am kinda sad about this I was hopping I would find time since the autumn / winter (I believe there is no autumn anymore though ) season is so magical for photography...I keep starring everyday the sky and the clouds...the light and Oh My...do I miss the shooting procedure.I
I hope I will get a chance to roll out and shoot some pics soon enough...because I really need it.
I hope all of you are ok, I have not deleted any of your deviation submissions (appearing in my queue) and will try start looking at them (hey its nearly 2000 in there! :S).
I hope everyone I know (and everyone I don't LOL) is ok! and I hope I will be back really soon!
My favorite own submissions:




http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/14864992/ Mon, 01 Oct 2007 02:25:47 PDT It’s been a while since my last submission and generally my activity. I am bussy like hell this last few weeks working on a few projects and my free time has dropped to none.
I would like to thank all the people for the support and the features and apologize I didn’t have the time to thank me personally!
I believe I will be back again in DA activity in a couple of weeks, until then enjoy! And never stop shooting!

My favorite own submissions:







I started creating a list of people who i... ]]> =pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/14511053/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/14511053/ Thu, 06 Sep 2007 00:56:47 PDT and here we go!
1) I am a Network Engineer / Computer programmer thats what I do for living.
2) I am Half Dutch (mother) and Half Greek (father).
3) Love bikes, I ride bikes since 19 years old, I am 29 and I don't have a car driving license (only motorcycle).
4) My current bike is a Honda CBR 1000RR 2005 model. My next bike will propably be a Suzuki GSXR 750
5) My dream is to have a chance to travel in exotic places and shoot the wild nature.
6) I got involved with photography in 2006, my first "encounter" with SLR cameras was when I was serving my military duty in 2003.
7) My favorite drink is whiskey with ice during the winter, and Vodka lemon in summer.
8) My favorite "natural" place to be close in Athens is Penteli mountain, I've spend some magical moments on that mountain.

The 8 people I would like to tag are:



The rules are:

1) Post these rules.
2) Each person tagged must post 8 random (hopefully interesting) facts about themselves.
3) Tags should write a journal of these facts.
4) At the end of the post 8 more bloggers are tagged and named.
5) Go to their page and leave a comment telling them that they're tagged.

My favorite own submissions:


=pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/14248693/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/14248693/ Mon, 20 Aug 2007 00:35:15 PDT So my folders are more packed up with friends shot rather than Landscape or scenery pictures.
I hope everyone is ok! and that everyone had a great time!
Time to get things going and slowly prepare for the winter I will be uploading some stuff propably later on today or tomorrow!


My favorite own submissions:







I started creating a list of people who i believe have quality galleries but they are not that known to the rest of the community.
Please do spend some time on this galleries you will be happily surprised by the quality of the galleries.

So here goes the list:
http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/13981432/ Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:14:01 PDT again.
I feel relieved since I had a hard year, to much work, to many things inside my head…time to leave them aside for 2 weeks and relax for a while.
I believe this year I will be luckier and have more opportunities to capture the Cretan lovely country side, it is truly a beautiful place to be, either summer or winter!
Take a deep breath…look around…frame, close your eyes…imagine…shoot….
Happy summer everyone!


My favorite own submissions:







I started creating a list of people who i believe have quality galleries but they are not that known to the rest of the community.
Please do spend some time on this galleries you will be happily surprised by the quality of the galleries.

So here goes the list:
http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/13494636/ Tue, 26 Jun 2007 05:50:47 PDT

My favorite own submissions:







I started creating a list of people who i believe have quality galleries but they are not that known to the rest of the community.
Please do spend some time on this galleries you will be happily surprised by the quality of the galleries.

So here goes the list:
http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/13401772/ Wed, 20 Jun 2007 03:15:32 PDT I hope I will be able to transfer this magical feeling to all of you through this series of pictures.
P.S (edit 20/06/2007) What's going on with those bugs? friend lists get messed up, deviations not appearing in the front page...man someoone has to take a look at those issues...they have been lurking DA way to long...

My favorite own submissions:







I started creating a list of people who i believe have quality galleries but they are not that known to the rest of the community.
Please do spend some time on this galleries you will be happily surprised by the quality of the galleries.

So here goes the list:
http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/13297649/ Mon, 11 Jun 2007 01:04:19 PDT Appart from that I have been unable to shoot a single picture for a long time! This weekend though it seems it's going to be my lucky one (I hope so...cross my fingers) as I have work to do out of Athens and it's great opportunity to capture some pictures of the Greek countryside at this time of the year.
Hope you are all doing well! Allthough my deviation submissions are low this days I still try to watch every deviation of my watchlist, and I must say I have been impressed by many of them.

My favorite own submissions:






I started creating a list of people who i believe have quality galleries but they are not that known to the rest of the community.
Please do spend some time on this galleries you will be happily surprised by the quality of the galleries.

So here goes the list:
=pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/12331654/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/12331654/ Mon, 26 Mar 2007 04:26:00 PDT As some of you know my job is not photography but Network Engineering and Programming (with web DB development orientation mostly).
I have been involved in a few major projects but this time I got a huge one in my hands, so after a few months of working I am reaching the end of it and soon I will have to launch it.
So my free time this days is nearly 0. I hope i will get some free time during easter (and since April 1st is my birthday I hope I will be an owner of a 12-24 lense! ) to do some shooting.
Until I get some free time I will be visiting my page and viewing as much deviations of yours I can.
Thanks to all of you who support me!

My favorite own submissions:






I started creating a list of people who i believe have quality galleries but they are not that known to the rest of the community.
Please do spend some time on this galleries you will be happily surprised by the quality of the galleries.

So here goes the list:
http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/11969653/ Mon, 26 Feb 2007 03:49:01 PST The last few weekends I have been unlucky in matter of photography since the weather does not allow me to do much (and considering the fact that I own a motorcycle and not a car),
so i had the chance to mess around with a few old pictures I had never touched again.
I am also searching for more information regarding lenses and specifically the Tokina 12-24 and the Sigma 10-20, I am considering buying 1 of those 2 in the next few months, I was
ready for the Tokina but I am also hearing good words for the sigma, which is in the same price range. Reviews around the Net are kinda different, there are some who support the Tokina 12-24 and believe
that it has better results than the sigma 10-20 and a few other that believe the opposite...and oh boy am I confused now (allthough I think i am moving more to the sigma since it has a +2mm on the wide angle).

My favorite own submissions:






I started creating a list of people who i believe have quality galleries but they are not that known to the rest of the community.
Please do spend some time on this galleries you will be happily surprised by the quality of the galleries.

So here goes the list:
=pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/11704753/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/11704753/ Tue, 06 Feb 2007 00:18:09 PST Appart from photography my other passion is motorcycles and racing, and everytime I have the opportunity I visit my track having fun with her.
You can find my other activity pictures over here:
BikePics

I wan't to thank again all the people for their support and especially the following:

I want to thank all of the people for their support, it means the world to me as an amateur photographer.
Allot of people ask me why i have so few pageviews since i am a member from 2002, well the reason is that photography started for me since August 2006, thats the start line of my photographic adventures (i got then my Nikon D50 as a present).
I got recently featured by 3 people and I am really honored, I thank all of them and hope that I will continue to please their eyes with my photography.

For feauturing me on his latest journal, his work is really inspiring and I am honored by the feature.
Also I want to thank:

for featuring me, this was a major honor for me since i am a keen admirer of his work.

for featuring me as well and finaly (but not last)


I started creating a list of people who i believe have quality galleries but they are not that known to the rest of the community.
Please do spend some time on this galleries you will be happily surprised by the quality of the galleries.

So here goes the list:
http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/11517984/ Sun, 21 Jan 2007 13:03:53 PST Allot of people ask me why i have some few pageviews since i am a member from 2002, well the reason is that photography started for me since August 2006, thats the start line of my photographic adventures (i got then my Nikon D50 as a present).
I got recently features by 3 people and I am really honored, i thank all of them and hope that i will continue to please their eyes with my photography.
First of all I want to thank:

for featuring me, this was a major honor for me since i am a keen admirer of his work.

for featuring me as well and finaly (but not last)


I started creating a list of people who i believe have quality galleries but they are not that known to the rest of the community.
Please do spend some time on this galleries you will be happily surprised by the quality of this galleries.

So here goes the list:


The list will continute to grow over time.

Clubs:
http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/11381842/ Wed, 10 Jan 2007 00:45:05 PST Please do spend some time on this galleries you will be happily surprised by the quality of this galleries.

So here goes the list:


The list will continute to grow over time.

Clubs:


]]> =pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/11201080/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/11201080/ Tue, 26 Dec 2006 13:34:01 PST Since the weather is f****d up and its raining all day (meaning no pictures) i got my hands on Terragen, i just fell in love with it, i knew its existence long time ago but for some weird reason i did prefer playing around with Bryce or Vue D'esprit, well all that is history, Terragen is quick, sharp, smart and easy really easy to work with...especially if you are familiar with the concept behind photography everything comes along...
So since its raining...time for some Digital creations...

]]> =pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/10886874/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/10886874/ Wed, 29 Nov 2006 05:11:17 PST Thanks to all the people who inspire me...i just feel like grabbing my bike, my camera and start traveling around...

]]> =pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/9660165/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/9660165/ Wed, 09 Aug 2006 07:11:34 PDT
Well another summer finds me a Deviantart member, a new Version has just been created and on we go with the community.
I recently got a new Nikon D50 which i am over enoying (check submissions) nearly everytime i get a chance i just shoot (i start thinking that people may start looking at me with a wierd look ).
2 days left for holidays (finaly) after a hard year of work its time for 2 weeks of relaxing , well if i don't have anything new untill 11/8 i will be seeing you all at 28/8 ]]> =pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/6307722/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/6307722/ Tue, 23 Aug 2005 15:02:39 PDT My other hobby motorcycles is taking my time as well on the pleasent side, i ride nearly every weekend so it leaves me even more less free time...
Funny part...is that i writte again into my Journal...and its a hot summer again... ]]> =pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/961558/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/961558/ Sat, 19 Jul 2003 04:48:33 PDT =pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/939400/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/939400/ Sun, 13 Jul 2003 06:56:25 PDT Allthough my email account is full of spam shit (someoone needs to shoot this people in the head...).
Will start working again on projects... ]]> =pestilence http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/89637/ http://pestilence.deviantart.com/journal/89637/ Tue, 19 Mar 2002 00:46:53 PST After i join the army i wont be able to use a computer for quite a time...not to mention that i will be mishing my beloved gf and my motorcycle...i hope i just will have an easy time inside there and 14 months will go through quite quickly...



Tears are such a waste of good suffering... ]]> =pestilence