Views from the church hill.

The church hill – actually I have no idea of its real name, if any exists, – is an excellent spot for the panoramic photography. The first series was taken a year ago.

Settings:

1. Aperture f11, shutter speed 1/2s. CPL+gradient grey filters.

2. Aperture f9, shutter speed 1/2s, CPL+gradient blue filters.

3. Same as in the 1^st.

6 minutes passed between the 1st and 3rd. 

4. Same as in the 1^st. That’s a recent image. Back-stitched from RGB in a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to get rid of noise. It’s incorrigible.  

As for the gradient blue version, in my opinion, in weather conditions like those and at this time this filter’s usage would be of no avail. Moreover, shots like those are hard to further process in the Corel and similar software.

5. Aperture f9, shutter speed 0,77s, CPL + something else, rather of all, gradient grey. The position was below, where the road crosses a stream, the tributary of the lake you see here. It belongs to the older series. 

Earlier versions published at flickr and tumblr will soon be deleted. 

Pink hill.

Alas, I keep on failing to catch a good moment to take a shot at this place. Last year results were not impressing, this year weather proved still worse. What can be done here? The cloudy weather like that – not too much dense – is more favourable enough, the picture can easily and unhesitatingly be made sepia or umber-like, but that is not the case for a clear sky and hard frost with their refraction incorrigible by any polarization filters. Filters were the same in either case – CPL+gradient grey. 

Update. Forgot to add this one:

Slizikha village in the Tikhvinka valley.

Both panoramas are identical (f11, 1/50s), the only difference is that in the first case I used CPL+gradient grey, in the second – CPL+skylight. Nothing special in them, taken while testing a new byke. 

Last rays caught up.

Aperture f13, shutter speed 1/4s, gradient grey + skylight filters. In weather conditions like those skylight filters facilitate "fieldwork".  

One spot series.

The winter series of panoramic images taken from the local observation spot opening up an extensive – some 1,2 km – view south-east of the town. In summer it doesn’t provide so large vistas since foliage density eventually becomes impenetrable. 

Aperture f11, shutter speed 1/4s, filter CPL +, probably, gradient grey. 

Same a minute later, f13, shutter speed 1/3s, a bit different editing: 

f13, 0,77s, filters as before, though unsure of the gradient grey, might be CPL only:

f11, 1/4s, filters CPL+skylight L1A, the white balance should be admitted to be objectionable, however clear sky like that always creates obstacles, so this factor may be taken as an excuse:

f11, 1/10s, filters CPL+skylight L1A, the same issues persist here:

Impenetrable. Luckily, in conditions like those we have no doubts about white balance:

Don't think that's an orange graduate, actually just a reflection of sunrays and, I suspect, distant greenhouse lights. Filters were CPL+grad. grey,  aperture f10, shutter speed 1/5s: 

A gate-like view, f11, 1/4s, filters I don't remember, rather of all, CPL+skylight. The grad. grey would have produced a deep cold blue, a violet shade like that befits various skylights. 

Forgot to geotag some winter shots from the same place, those will be added later. Summer series will also follow. 

Sunset over a gloomy landscape.

Actually, it’s an old example of a genre that I call “Infernal esthetics” – just my personal definition, I have no idea whether it’s current anywhere or not. Here we see the entire set of preconditions to fit the infernal esthetics concept’s frames: the cement factory (“Eurocement”), railway, cemetery between the author’s position and the factory, technological road and dull landscape. The series was taken in 2015, now I have edited it anew. The set looks like a desperate attempt to vivify a gloomy picture. Unfortunately, I neither used filters nor saved data in .nef, those are pure jpegs.

Geometry. 

Sosnovka village and "Eurocement":

Pastel-like colours. Facing towards “Eurocement”: 

The same view from a railway:

Olyeshi village.

The previous year I had the only chance to visit this place as road conditions proved beyond any psychiatric norm limits. Also, weather was unstable – the extensive clouds moving very slowly created unpleasant obstacles. The result you will see now. Nonetheless the series has its right to exist and may be displayed without any risk of entailing any shame unlike the previous one. Everything was taken in the manual mode with a couple of filters. I can’t remember the details, those were either CPL+gradient grey or CPL+skylight (L1A or L1Bc) – my typical combinations for landscape purposes. 

First sunrays making their way through northern clouds:

A view from the village hall emergency exit:

A former shop and residential housing: 

The village hall again, some efforts were needed to vivify the picture: 

"Office": 

Cowshed: 

This shot was named "Memories", since there is no remotest hope for revival any time ever: 

Belated spring, worse, I arrived too early: 

The same view after the sky cleared up, direction – westward:

Sun is higher:

Eastward view from the bridge: 

To resume in summer. 

Olyeshi village.

My oldest series from Olyeshi. The entire series should be admitted to have been taken in the landscape and sometimes even auto mode, so it’s no wonder that the images quality is relatively low. Occasionally I managed to benefit from lighting conditions, nonetheless nothing can replace manual mode and editing. Later series taken in May 2017 was aimed at correcting the abovementioned errors. Hopefully road conditions this year would be more favourable to reach the destination again,  and weather would provide me with more opportunities to have a new try. 

Entering the village:

The bridge across Kolp river, southward view:

Idiots and roads:

Borisovo-Sudskoye.

Borisovo-Sudskoye, august 2017. The weather didn’t favour us, so I can present what I have only. Later this year, if an occasion turns up, another attempt will be made to take evening and morning shots from the preplanned observation spots.