Golden Prague

This should be the last picture of Prague castle I'm uploading (I think!). Incidentally, I'm at the end of my Prague series. There might be one or two stragglers in the future as I browse through my archive; maybe some more people shots. But for now, I don't think there'd be any.

The location for this picture was purely coincidental on my part. I just happened to be exploring Prague at night with my friend and we were greeted with this view when we came out of one of the metro stations.

Either way, Prague castle, with its hilltop location, really presents a lot of opportunity for classic landscape shots.

"Golden Prague"

The image above is a high dynamic range (HDR) composite made from combining five exposures, one stop apart from -2 to +2 (if memory servers me right, that is). I'm glad it turned out as well as it did, bad as I am at HDR.

For Nikon shooters: D-Town TV

Just thought I'd help spread the word a bit. For all you Nikon DSLR users out there, D-Town TV is a FREE weekly webshow full of tips and tricks for those new to the Nikon DSLR system. Heck, I'm already on my second Nikon body and I've been shooting Nikon for over one and a half years now and I still manage to learn something new once in a while.

The show is mostly run by Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski, pretty accomplished photographers themselves, with occassional cameos by other top photographers such as Joe McNally and Moose Peterson.

Most of the tips are for those obscure things in the manual that you skipped over but turn out to be some of those great features that could save you a lot of trouble had you bothered to go through the manual. But the tips aren't limited to just the bodies. There are also tips on flash photography, plenty on Capture NX2, and there are also some accessory recommendations such as for camera straps and battery grips.

So if you're a Nikon DSLR user or even if you're just trying to decide whether or not you want to go for a Nikon DSLR, go ahead and give it a try: http://www.dtowntv.com/

Street music

One of the charming factors about old European cities that manage to retain their historical features is that they tend to have a lot of culture and art in them. The picture of the musician quartet above, for instance, was shot just outside the entrance to Prague castle. Only a few feet away from them, there was another lone violinist trying to make a living out of playing for the crowds as well.

Then again, part of the reason could also be due to the throngs of tourists that frequent these places, making such activities a feasible way of life.

From the Petrin observation tower

A couple posts ago, I posted up a picture showing the view on the way up Petrin hill. Well, now for a view from the hilltop itself. Once at the top, there is an observation tower which, if memory serves me right, is a 300-step climb. Not too bad actually. From the top of the tower, you can see an amazing view of Prague. Quite a sight, spoiled only by the fact that when we went there, it had just finished raining so the colors were just plain terrible. I had to boost the colors in the shot below a tad bit in Photoshop.

I also had myself set up for a panoramic stitch up on the tower, but this is not it. I'm not even going to try for a stitch on my current laptop. That'll have to wait until my studies are over and I go back to Brunei in.. oh about 3 or 4 months' time. Then I'll have access to my desktop PC which is significantly more powerful than this laptop I got for my studies.

So without further ado..

On the way down, I also managed to snap this pic. This is already almost halfway down , by the way.

In a park somewhere in Prague

In our second day in Prague, my friend and I were traveling on foot, going from one tourist spot to another when we came across this small public park walled off from the bustling roads.

We didn't make an immediate detour, but rather chose to go back there the following day. It was a quaint little place, quite isolated from the busy streets and even the noise seemed far away despite the roads being just on the other side of the wall.

It was a pity that when we went there, it was still early spring, so there wasn't much to show as far as spring flowers went.