Different Cameras & Lenses, Same Point of View

This should be an interesting post to some of you, see that swing in the picture? I take pictures of my daughters ever year in the summer on this exact swing, where they spend the summer vacation time by the seaside. I wanted to make a comparison between the different pictures taken from the spot, with different cameras and lenses, over the years.

What camera/lens combination would you say was used to capture the above picture?


Just a quick note before we get on with the pictures, I didn't pick all the pictures I took of my daughters riding this swing, but I only picked the ones taken in daylight (to show the background) and with the same relative subject size. I have other pictures taken at night, lit up with flash, close-ups, etc...

Let's start with this, and look for clues. Wide angle, infinite depth of field, completely blown-out highlights, bad focus, and a bad composition. This indicates a tiny sensor, slow focus, and an inexperienced photographer, the camera was my old 5 MP Sony Ericsson C905 feature phone, back then, it had good performance compared to regular point and shoots of the period.

Next one, less background with a hint of background blur, that's my Canon G11 at full zoom (100mm equivalent if I remember correctly).

Next, a sudden leap in background blur, and a different model altogether (that's my younger daughter by the way). That's the 5D Mark III and 50 f/1.4 wide open, and apart from the weird lighting pattern on my daughter's face, I like how the background turned out. Dang, I miss full frame already, I wish a miracle would happen and camera manufacturers could make MFT-sized full frame bodies and lenses.

Regular readers already know I had a couple of APS-C camera before the 5D, however, I didn't find any pictures with the same subject size taken with the 550D or the 60D.

Woah, look at this background, a fast telephoto lens, my favorite method for shooting portraits, the background compression and blurry backgrounds caused by the long focal length and fast aperture makes a good portrait in my opinion, that's the 5D3 and the infamous 200L f/2.8 wide-open, don't you just love how the lens renders the scene?

Final picture, any guesses? Yes, that's the OMD and the Olympus 45 f/1.8 wide-open, it might not look as punchy as the one above, but actually the desaturated colors are intentional, I reduced both the contrast and the saturation a bit to get this old-feeling look. I'd say the OMD passed the shallow DOF test, won't you say? If I could just get my hands on that 75 f/1.8!

What do you think? Which one do you prefer? I know I'd pick the 200L any day.

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A Meaningless Experiment

I was setting up a few lights at home to shoot pictures of my daughters, and I took the picture you see above while testing the hair light, you can see it is quite hot (I ended up reducing it by one stop), and what you can't see, is that it is causing lens flare, because it was not gridded.

While importing the pictures to lightroom, I decided to see if I could get any shadow detail out of the file, so I pushed the exposure by 4 stops, and pulled the highlights down, and I got the picture you see below.

Impressive? I thought so, but of course the colors look weird (the background is supposed to be gray, not blue-ish), and I lost some highlight details, but nonetheless I was impressed by what I could get out of the OMD's small sensor, despite the 4-stop under-exposure, and the complete lack of any light except for the hair light.

And before I get attacked by anyone, I do not suggest that you should mess up your lighting and try and fix it in post, it will never come close to a well lit picture, I just did it for fun.

And for more fun, I decided to turn the picture to B&W to get rid of the strange color cast, and apply some strong noise reduction. Below is the B&W version and a 100% crop.

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Hand-Holding vs Tripod

The Setup

As a follow-up to my previous tripod post, I wanted take a look for myself at practical uses of a tripod versus regular hand holding, especially with the modern image stabilization systems available today.

The trigger for this post was a comment I read on one of the photography forums, the poster said that he would never consider shooting without a tripod, even in full daylight. This got me thinking, does a tripod really make a noticeable difference even when shooting at very high shutter speeds? I set off to find out.

But what do people usually use tripods for? I can think for a few, but I bet there are much more than what I know, I would like to hear from you in the comments if you know of more:

• Slow shutter speeds (landscapes, night shooting, long exposures, etc...).
• High magnification work, like macro and close-up shooting, any vibration will be greatly magnified.
• Telephoto work, similar to the above, with long focal lengths, shake and vibrations are magnified, usually used with a gimbal head, to give a degree of stability, but enable free and smooth motion.
• Fix camera position, when you want to tinker around with your subject or composition (product photography, portraits, etc...) and want the camera to stay still.
• Fix camera point of view, when taking multiple exposures of the same scene (HDR), or taking wide panorama shots, etc...
• Top view, some tripods provide a tilting center column,so you could get a top view camera position.
• Low angle shooting, some tripods can get very close to the ground for very low angle shooting, or you could use small tabletop tripods.
• High camera position, used for portraits.
• Video work, obviously, good video requires a stable camera and smooth motion, which can be achieved with a fluid video head.
• All sorts of other things, I use mine to carry flashes, hold reflectors, etc...

Left: tripod carrying flash. Middle: gorillapod holding reflector in place (reflector fixed from the top).

TEST METHODOLOGY

I decided to make it very simple, I white dotted piece of paper, then I drew some slanted crossing lines as you see below, then I used sticky pieces of paper to know which picture was taken with a tripod or handheld, IS on or off, and whether it was indoor or outdoor in sunlight.

As you already see, this is not really scientific, but it will give me the answers I want. On the computer, I checked all pictures at 100% and 200% to see any motion blur. Apart from the crossing lines, there are very tiny dots on the paper that can only be seen by pixel peeping.

My Scientific Test Chart

Since I was already doing this anyway, I decided to answer Mic's request about the effect of leaving image stabilization on while the camera is on a tripod, and despite having experience regarding this issue before, I tested it as well.

I wanted to compare different cameras with different image stabilization systems to get a little bit more information, so here's what I used:

• Olympus OM-D EM-5 with 12-50 kit lens (for 100mm & macro tests) and the 40-150R (for telephoto tests), the OM-D has IBIS (In Body Image Stabilization).
• Canon 60D with 55-250 IS (for telephoto tests), IS here comes from the lens.
• Sony RX100 (for 100mm tests), not sure if the IS is in the lens or the body, but I believe it is the former.

Now let me tell you what tests I performed, and what results I got. For all my testing, I shot at f/8 to get the sharpest results, and avoid any DOF issues.

TEST 1: INDOOR SHOOTING - IMAGE STABILIZATION TEST

For this test, I shot the test target handheld, both with IS on and off, and both at 100mm and 300mm equivalent focal lengths, we're talking 1/30 sec shutter speeds, I took a three shot burst with each combination (which is what I do in normal shooting), here's what I found:

• Sony @ 100mm - IS ON: 2 out of 3 shots came out sharp.
• Sony @ 100mm - IS OFF: 1 out of 3 shots came out sharp.


• OMD @ 100mm - IS ON: 3 out of 3 shots came out sharp.
• OMD @ 100mm - IS OFF: 0 out of 3 shots came out sharp.


• OMD @ 300mm - IS ON: 1 out of 3 shots came out sharp.
• OMD @ 300mm - IS OFF: 0 out of 3 shots came out sharp.


• 60D @ 300mm - IS ON: 1 out of 3 shots came out sharp.
• 60D @ 300mm - IS OFF: 0 out of 3 shots came out sharp.

But are the good shots come out as sharp as possible? Or are they just good compared to the blurry ones? Next I used the tripod for reference.

TEST 2: INDOOR SHOOTING - TRIPOD TEST

Same scenario as before, but with the camera mounted to the tripod instead, I tested with both IS on and off, the shutter speed was 1/30 sec:

• Sony @ 100mm - IS ON or OFF: little sharper than the handheld shot, IS didn't matter.


• OMD @ 100mm - IS ON: similar to the handheld shot.
• OMD @ 100mm - IS OFF: best result, better than the one with IS on.


• OMD @ 300mm - IS ON or OFF: much better than the handheld shots, but remember the success rate wasn't that good (1 out of 3) in the first place, IS didn't matter.

With such slow shutter speeds, the tripod makes a considerable difference, however, whether IS was turned on or off, didn't make an apparent difference except in one case.

From experience, I had very bad results shooting the moon with the 60D & 55-250 on a tripod when I forgot the IS on, and when I turned it off, images turned sharp, so there must be a truth to this issue, it might not be 100% repeatable with all subjects, lenses, exposure times, etc... But it is there, and whenever I exert the effort to use a tripod, I would better turn IS off as well.

For the record, I tested all the camera combinations mentioned above with long (one second) exposures on the tripod with both IS on and off, but didn't find a difference.

TEST 3: MACRO SHOOTING

For this test I used the macro mode of the 12-50 kit lens, which reaches 0.7x magnification @ 84mm, I wanted to see what I can do handheld at slow shutter speeds (1/30 sec). This time I fired a long series of shots, not just three shots, results go like this:

• Handheld - IS OFF: not a single shot came out sharp.
• Handheld - IS ON: 50% of the shots came out sharp, this was a surprise for me, I got much better results in the exact same room with the exact same lighting with my 5D3 and 100L Macro IS (f/8, ISO 1600 and 1/6th), as you can see here.
• Tripod - IS OFF: best results as expected.

TEST 4: OUTDOOR SHOOTING - TRIPOD TEST

Now we come to the most important question, does it make a difference shooting at high shutter speeds (read: daylight) handheld versus a tripod?

I tested the OMD and the 60D at 300mm, and skipped the shorter focal lengths since these results would cover them anyway. The OMD metered for 1/1000 sec, and the 60D metered for 1/2000 sec, so the 60D had the advantage of a higher shutter speed. Here are the results:

• OMD - Handheld - IS OFF or ON: all shots came out sharp.
• 60D - Handheld - IS ON: all shots came out sharp.
• 60D - Handheld - IS OFF: 2 out of 3 shots came out sharp.
• Tripod - Both Cameras - IS OFF: same results as the other sharp ones, and not any better, busted.

Are they always necessary?

CONCLUSION

So what to conclude from this? You can already make your own conclusions, and you might even have different opinions about the whole matter (I would like to hear them), but here's what I learned for myself, tripods have many more uses than just trying to get the sharpest shot possible, however when seeking the sharpest possible shot (especially when printed big):

• Always use a tripod at slow shutter speeds when possible, even if the shutter speed is faster than the 1/focal length rule, and turn IS off instead of risking the 1% chance that something will go wonky and create some motion blur.
• Always use a tripod when shooting macro for the best results.
• Don't bother with a tripod in daylight and fast shutter speeds.

I guess that's it, do you have any other useful insights?

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Upcoming Posts

Here are some of the posts I will be working on this week and the next.

• MACRO LENS: I will be joining a group in trying to get photos of the El Segundo Blue Butterfly tomorrow.  I've tried shooting the elusive Blue Butterfly before but only with the Lumix LX-5.  For this occasion, I decided to rent a macro lens, Nikon's longest one (because the butterfly is easily spooked) -- the Nikkor 200 f/4 Micro AF-D.
• ULTRAWIDE COMPARISON: Tokina 11-16 vs. Sigma 10-20 f/3.5.  I've had the Tokina for a while but wanted a longer focal length for versatility.  How well does the Sigma 10-20 f/3.5 compare to the Tokina?
• SIGMA USB DOCK.  Finally arrived.  I will be testing it with the Sigma 35 1.4 to see if the USB dock and customization software can result in a real world improvement of the Sigma 35 1.4's autofocus accuracy.
• NIKON D600 - long term review.  I wanted to post my thoughts on it after having used it for a while now (since launch day).
• ACCESSORIES - a compact bag that can carry two cameras.

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Thank you for your support!

I just wanted to say thank you for supporting our blog through your readership and for clicking on our affiliate links!  100% of proceeds from this blog are donated to charity.  For June, the affiliate fees amounted to $36.96:

That does not sound like a lot, but actually it goes a very long way, thanks to organizations such as Food for the Poor, Inc. Food for the Poor buys food in bulk for poor families, so that even as little as $3 can feed 50 children.  And this month, they have a grant that will match donations dollar for dollar.  So, I added my own funds to increase our donation to $75, which through the grant buys $150 worth of food, which in turn feeds 2,500 children!

If you can add a little money to help out that would be great!   Food for the Poor is highly efficient (95.8% of donated funds are directly used for programs, with only 3.3% for fundraising and 0.9% for administration costs).  They also have other programs, such as those that support micro-enterprises, education, medicine, and other needs.  Have a blessed week and thanks again!

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Why I like ultra wide lenses

I got my first ultra wide lens (the Sigma 10-20 f/4-5.6) just over a year ago, and I had gotten it to use it only as a scene-setter and nothing more.  I had the idea to take a few establishing shots to show the location and then I could put it away.  However, I have since found that shooting with ultra wide lenses is fun and challenging.

In the shot above, the shark looks like it is lunging at you, and that effect is intentional.  The shot was taken with a Sigma 10-20 3.5 at 10mm (i.e. 15mm equivalent).  The ultra wide angle exaggerates perspective, making far things look farther, and close things look disproportionately closer.  That is what gives the shark the appearance of moving toward the lens.  If I had used a longer focal length and the shark occupied the same portion of the frame, the effect would have been different.  The challenge with getting this kind of shot is that the impression of being close is actually not an illusion per se -- you DO have to be very close, which is sometimes not safe for certain subjects :).

Another reason I like ultrawides is that they can offer a close-up view of the subject while still providing a lot of context, as in the shot of the fish above.  The fish is large enough in the frame that we can see its details.  At the same time, we can still see much of the background.  Again, if I had used a longer focal length and the fish occupied the same part of the frame, I would only get a view of the rocks immediately behind it, never mind the other fish and the water surface.

The effect of combining a close up view of a subject with a wide view of the background can be used in other ways.

In this shot, there is a detailed view of one nautilus, and at the same time there are other nautili in the background, as though showing other views of the same subject, and at the same time showing the subject and its genus.

Another way I like to use this effect is to juxtapose two related subjects.

In the shot above, the close-up shot is a stuffed turtle hugging a smaller stuffed turtle.  In the background is my wife talking to my kids.  The foreground subject is the ostensible subject but is a visual metaphor for my wife taking care of my kids (too bad her pose doesn't look so tender :) ).

Speaking of people, I do use ultra wides occasionally for a single person in the same way as the shots above.

Sigma 10-20 f/4-5.6

I also like using a wide angle for informal group portraits to create a little bit of variation in distance to the camera for visual interest.

18mm (27mm equivalent)

However, for group shots, I usually won't go wider than 16mm (24mm equivalent), because when the focal length is too short, the subjects would have to be equidistant to the camera or else some people will look a lot closer and more prominent than the others:

Anyway, the shots here are just a few examples to illustrate some ways I prefer to use (or not use) an ultra wide. Note that unless otherwise indicated, the shots above were taken at a very wide 10mm (15mm equivalent), but none of them look strange or comical like stereotypical ultra wide angle shots (except for the ultra wide group shot). These shots show some of the reasons I believe an ultra wide has the potential for a more general application, not just for unusual, stretched-looking images.

I also want to point out how a lot of elements have to come together for an ultra wide shot to work.  That challenge is part of the reason I like ultra wides.  I do get far more keepers with telephoto or standard zooms, but when an ultra wide shot comes together, I find it very rewarding.

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Going Crazy With Tripods

My Tabletop Tripod Trio

I love tripods, I go all soft and wobbly when I see attractive looking ones, so here is my story with tripods, including the bit I hinted about in my travel to Poland post.

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SLIK MINI PRO III TABLE-TOP TRIPOD

The first tripod I ever bought was my favorite Slik Mini Pro tripod shown below, it has a very nice ball head, it is very well made and sturdy, and can carry a much larger load than it looks capable of, this is my most used tripod, I use it for macros, for carrying flashes, and for low angle shots (both stills and video). It is very compact to take everywhere and fit any bag (It was the only accessory I took with me to Europe), and it also comes with a nice carrying pouch.

The little monster

Carrying the 60D + 85 1.8, it used to carry my 5D3 with the 100 Macro as well

And the carrying pouch

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JOBY GORILLAPOD SLR ZOOM

I bought this one on an impulse while I still had the 5D3, I always wanted to try this tripod, I bought it for several reasons:

• To put the camera very low to the ground.
• To attach a wireless flash in unique positions (tree branch, pole, etc...).
• Same for my Zoom H1 mic, I use it in different positions.

But I never intended to hang my 5D3 from a tree branch or a fence, that would scare me to death, however, I can trust it now with the much lighter Sony RX100 or even the OMD. Initially I bought it without the ball head, but later I regretted it because it severely limited the angles and positions I can get, so I bought the ball head, and I am happier now. One thing to note, despite this being touted as an SLR tripod, it could not hold my 5D3 and a 100 Macro lens in normal tripod positions, either flat on the ground or hanging from something.

The ball head is very smooth, it has a quick release plate with a bubble level, but the most annoying thing about either the ball head or the tripod itself, is the screw used to fix it to your camera, you'll need to use a coin to screw it. You can check my Macro Fun @ Home post to see how I used the tripod with the OMD for macro shooting.

Shooting macro with the GorillaPod

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YASHICA ST-7

This one I received as a gift with an old Yashica Electro GTN rangefinder film camera, I haven't used it yet in real world, only for fun, because it has short legs and it offers no advantages over my other tabletop tripods, except for the very compact size, and the nice carrying strap. I will post about it whenever I use it in a real world scenario.

Very compact, Yashica on the bottom, Slik on the top

Maximum height

Yashica Oldies

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MANFROTTO 294A3 KIT

This is the first normal sized tripod I bought, prior to it, I used my father's video tripod from the 80's, it was a solid tripod, but it was very heavy, used twisty knobs to release the tripod legs, and it had a non-removable two axis head (the one with two arms, one for pan, the other for tilt).

We don't have good tripod brands sold in Egypt, every once in a while, some local dealer imports a few tripods and sells them. I used this chance and got myself the nice Manfrotto 294 Aluminum tripod kit, which consisted 3 section aluminum legs with quick release, and the 496RC2 ball head with a quick release plate.

The tripod is actually very nice, it can carry up to 5 kg of weight, it reaches a respectable height, it has a ball head with variable friction, a quick release plate, quick release 3-section legs with 2 opening positions, it has two velvet-feeling handles on two of the legs (for when it's cold to touch the metal legs), it is quite compact and light (2.25 kg), and the center column can be reversed for low angle shooting.

All in all, it is an excellent tripod, and I didn't look further, maybe once in a while I would read about a carbon fiber tripod or see a video about a pistol grip and consider that, but then decide against it since it will be a headache to import a tripod to Egypt (remember, these tripods are not sold in Egypt). All I did was buy a cheap tripod bag to make carrying it easier, but I didn't like the bag because it was way too large, and the smaller one would not fit the tripod through the zipper.

A handsome looking tripod, room light, 60D + 85 1.8 wide-open

Reversible column, excuse the picture quality, shot with my old Galaxy S2 in low light

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MANFROTTO 190CX PRO3 CARBON FIBER

When I went to Poland earlier, I visited the FotoPlus shop in Krakow, it is known for having good prices. I checked the tripod section, and found a carbon fiber one that was very light and impressed me, after I went back to the hotel, I researched the Manfrotto tripods, and I found that the 190 and 055 series, were the best, they are almost identical features wise, except that the 055 series is much larger, heavier, can carry larger weight (8 kg vs 5 kg for the 190) and can go taller, otherwise the 190 series is just as good.

So I went to facebook, and posted my 294A3 tripod for sale (we have very active used photography equipment sale groups in Egypt), and I immediately got a few interests, so I considered it sold and went next day to buy the 190CXPRO3, when it came to the head, ultimately I wanted to get a fluid video head, but I knew they were expensive and large, dismissed, next I wanted a pistol ball head, and I found a good one, but turns out it is too big and large, beats the purpose of having a light carbon fiber tripod in the first place, so I went with the same 496RC2 ball head I had before, it is just the right size and weight, and it can carry up to 5 kg of weight, I needed no more. Additionally, I bought a much nicer Manfrotto tripod bag, it fit the tripod perfectly.

The advantages of my new tripod over the old one can be summarized like this:

• Much lighter and easier to carry, especially with the new bag.
• 4 positions for the legs, up to 89 degrees, almost perpendicular, which enables the tripod to go flat on the ground.
• Center column can turn 90 degrees to get parallel to the ground, useful for shooting top view.
• Bubble level.

I am pretty pleased with my newest purchase, and I believe it will last me a very long time indeed, my old tripod have been sold to a new happy owner, now I leave you with some pictures.

Manfrotto 190CX Pro3

Carbon Fiber

Flexible leg positions

Tiltable center column

Manfrotto 496RC2 Ball Head

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Fireworks with a Theme

I like fireworks photos but in my view, what makes a fireworks photo memorable is not the fireworks themselves but capturing the fireworks with an interesting foreground that provides context.  During last week's Independence Day celebration, I wanted to get a shot of fireworks over the building above, called the Theme Building, one of the most famous buildings in Los Angeles.  The challenge is that the building is part of Los Angeles International Airport, and of course, fireworks are prohibited at the airport.  Fortunately, with a little planning I was able to get a shot of fireworks over the Theme Building.

The only major fireworks display anywhere near the airport is at a park about a mile and a half away from the airport (approximately 2.4 kilometers).  If I had taken a shot from the same vantage as the shot above, the fireworks would have looked tiny in the background.  

To make the fireworks appear as if they were over the building, I had to change the perspective by moving farther away.  The farther away I am, the smaller the foreground object will be, compared to the background (until the size of the foreground object reaches the actual size ratio).  Given the large distance between the Theme Building and the fireworks, I had to move very far away.  Using a map, I traced the line from the fireworks to the Theme Building, and I followed that line to a point that was about a mile from the airport, which would put the fireworks immediately behind the Theme Building.

I've never taken a fireworks photo from that spot before, so I just had to cross my fingers.  I brought with me my Tamron 70-300 VC.  I paired it with the Nikon D7000 to get a longer effective focal length of 105mm to 450mm.  Although the Nikon D600 can also be cropped to DX, the D7000 has 16mp versus the 10mp of the DX-cropped D600.  For my tripod, I used the carbon fiber tripod I got from Costco.

When I got to the spot, I saw that the D7000 and Tamron 70-300 VC combination was long enough to take a photo of the Theme Building even from that distance.  Now the only question was how the fireworks would look from that spot.

Unfortunately there were very thick and low clouds that night.  I guessed that the fireworks would not be visible.  When the time came for the scheduled fireworks, I looked at the Theme Building, hoping to see fireworks but not expecting anything.  A few minutes passed with no sign of fireworks.  With a sigh, I turned the camera around to the surrounding neighborhoods to take a shot of some of the fireworks.  A few minutes later, I looked back at the Theme Building and there they were -- the fireworks 2.5 miles away, visible over the Theme Building, just as I had hoped.

Here is one of the shots I got (you can see the clouds were so low that they blocked part of the fireworks).

210mm cropped to about 300mm (450mm equivalent).

The terminal blocks the lower part of the Theme Building, but fortunately its distinctive profile is visible and immediately recognizable.  Next year, I'd like to try to get a shot from a higher spot so that more of the Theme Building can be visible, and hopefully, the skies will be clearer.

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The OM-D Visits Europe - Part 2 (Poland)

Taking a stroll in Mielec, Olympus 45mm 1.8 @ f/2.8

This is part two of my visit to Europe, in part one, I told you the story about my visit to Stockholm, I encourage you to read it if you like travel photography and stories. In this post I will show you lots of pictures from my visit to Poland.

THE FLIGHT

As I described in part one, I went to Europe on a business trip, I spent the first two days in Stockholm, then took a plane to Krakow on the third day. We used Norwegian airlines, and the flight was a bad experience, the plane smelled really bad, I had an aisle seat, and both the passengers to my left (an old Polish couple) kept getting on and off their seats, three times in total, add to that the high level of noise caused by everyone talking loudly at the same time, and the strong smell of wine the couple to my left were drinking, and you can imagine how I was feeling, sick. BTW: as a Muslim, I don't drink alcohol, and it's not sold in 95% of the restaurants and shops in Egypt, so I am not used to seeing or smelling it.

Mielec, an industrial town in Poland, with most of the population having jobs in factories

Anyway, I could have just described the flight as a local bus taking a few locals to their home town, that's how it felt to me. We arrived around noon, a car was waiting for us to take us to the town we'll be staying at for a couple of days, it's a small industrial town called "Mielec" (which is pronounced as "Mielets"), two and a half hours away from Krakow's airport. The car that took us was a turbo-diesel Skoda Superb, during my stay in Stockholm, I noticed that a very large percentage of the cars were diesel powered, but I didn't expect the same in Poland, my second observation was that it had a ridoncoulously (have you watched the movie "Bolt"?) large boot, it easily fit all three of our large travel bags, and four small handbags with ease, wow.

Third observation was the manual transmission, this is not a cheap car, and it looks no older than one or two years old, and it has all sorts of options installed, so why the manual transmission? In Egypt, the only new cars sold with manual transmission are the very basic models of certain brands, so that they can be affordable, and there are a lot of new cars that don't have the option of manual transmission at all, anyway, our driver didn't speak English so I wasn't able to ask him. Fourth observation was the main highway we drove on, it was very modern and clean, I didn't expect that, the speed limit was 140 km/h. Sometimes, I noticed brick or plastic side-walls installed to the sides of the road, I wondered why, and I got the answers later.

Scenery during the car trip was fascinating, huge plains of green everywhere, nice looking houses with slanted roofs that I only see in movies, and every house had a large green garden surrounding the place, they looked very cozy and full of family warmth. I wanted to have a place like this. In Cairo, all of the buildings are just blocky looking, and very close to each other, but I believe most major cities are like this, and it gets more relaxed on the countryside.

All the time during our car trip, I saw houses like this

DAY ONE & HOTEL ATENA

We reached the hotel around 3 pm, and to my pleasure, the hotel looked just like those houses that fascinated me, it was a two story house, with the reception and the restaurant on the lower floor, and the rooms on the top floor. It looked very cozy and warm, totally opposite to what I felt in Stockholm, the hotel there (and the whole town as well) was very modern, but had a no-nonsense feeling to it, everything was practical, but cold feeling.

The hotel was just a two star hotel, my room didn't have state of the art facilities, TV, air conditioner, bath, alarm clock, smart key, etc..., nor was it as large as the one in Stockholm, but I felt much happier there, and I actually didn't mind spending time in my room, and for the first time in my life I found a hotel that used light fixtures in the ceiling, what a relief, at least there is some hotel owner in this world that understands that people need good lighting in their rooms, what is it with all the other hotels just featuring a couple of small lights on the walls and one on the side of the bed?

Below are some shots of the hotel and its surroundings.

My room, captured with the Galaxy S4, it's a bit dark because I didn't want to blow the highlights in the window

Hotel surroundings

Breakfast on day 2

Immediately after check-in, me and my colleague unpacked our bags, took a bath, had our lunch at the hotel. Then we took a quick nap before heading outside to discover the town. Sunset was not as late as in Stockholm, but it was still quite late at around 9 pm, our stroll was late, and the sun was getting down fast.

Mielec turned out to be a very quite and lovely town, as I said before, it is an industrial town, and most of the people living there had some job or another related to the factories around town. During our walk we saw a few cars, motor bikes and a few cyclists, the surroundings were very quiet, there were green plains surrounding us everywhere, and those lovely looking houses, indeed it was a very enjoyable stroll, calm and serene.

We were hungry, and we weren't sure the hotel restaurant would be still open when we returned, we looked for some place to eat, but we saw no people around to ask, so we tried looking for a restaurant and didn't succeed. Later on we found a large market, and we went in to buy something to eat, but we didn't have any money, only credit card. We were told that everywhere in Europe accepted credit cards, so before picking anything up, we asked the lady at the cashier if they accepted credit, but we found out they don't speak English, bummer, that was our first interaction with a Polish citizen apart from the driver and the hotel staff who spoke acceptable English, so we show her the credit card and she shakes her head "no", double bummer. Then before leaving, we asked her about a nearby restaurant. Now, you must be wondering how, didn't I just say she didn't speak English? Well, you see, sometimes I see people in real life and on TV who don't speak a common language, and each one of them insists on continuing to speak despite the zero probability that the other party will understand. I didn't think that would happen to me, but it did, I kept talking in English insisting on my question about the restaurant, and the girl kept replying in Polish and saying stuff I didn't understand! If I was an outside observer, I would laugh at my stupidity, but anyway, I remembered I saw the word "Restauracia" on the outside of the hotel's restaurant, so I asked her saying that word and moving my hands as an exclamation, she shook her head "no".

Our savior, the petrol station's mini-market

Outside we go and continue our quest for food, we reached the petrol station you see above, it had a mini-market selling drinks and stuff, we asked if they accepted credit, and once again the girl didn't understand English, but I noticed the credit machine. We bought some soft drinks, water and chocolate, and went back to the hotel. When we got back, we discovered that the restaurant is open till 11 pm, so we ordered a couple of pizzas, and had our dinner "outdoors" on the table in front of the restaurant.

Outdoor section of the restaurant, a very serene place at night

Below are some of my favorite pictures I took during the stroll:

A Bicycle

A Motorbike

And, a car

DAY TWO

The next day, one of our hosts picked us to the factory with his car, a recent model manual transmission Nissan Qashqai, that's two cars now. We attended a few meetings, then we headed for lunch at 12 pm, just like in Sweden, we went to an Italian restaurant, but not knowing what exactly to order from the menu, and that there is no halal meat or chicken, we went for the safe choice and ordered a pizza, turns out the small pizza size is as small as a round dining table, me and my friend shared one and we took the other one as a takeaway.

When we finished the working hours, me and my colleague decided to return to the hotel on foot, it was just a 15 minute walk. The factory is located in a large industrial zone, they told us this place was used to manufacture fighter planes for the Soviet Union during the world war, anyway, we lost our way inside and seemed to enter a restricted area, a guard came running towards us and shouting in Polish, of course we understood nothing, and cue the TV show, again I kept trying to explain the situation and ask him about the exit in English, and he kept on blabbering in Polish, and at the end he just pointed us to go back where we came from, and we found our way back.

The Industrial Zone, or "Zone Industrille" as Need For Speed: Porsche Unleashed would have called it

That day we had dinner with our hosts at 7 pm, they picked a very nice restaurant for the dinner, and everyone had a nice meal. Below are a couple of pictures from that restaurant.

Restaurant's Entrance

Pond Decoration

What's "sheep's cheese" anyway? And with apple?

THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT POLAND

Now I would like to tell you a few things I learned from our hosts about Poland that I didn't know before:

• EU: I didn't know Poland was part of the EU, turns out they joined the EU in 2004, and as I was told, the EU provided Poland with funds to develop the country's infrastructure, that's why I was impressed with the highway we traveled on.
• Road Side-Walls: remember these side-walls I talked about at the beginning? Turns out they are built there to prevent road noise from reaching the road sides according to the highway building code. I also learned that people didn't appreciate it that much, especially that it increased highway building costs, and blocked an otherwise very nice view.
• Manual Transmission: turns out manual transmission is favored by the Polish people, old habits from the olden days, they told me they didn't trust automatic transmissions and preferred to have complete control of the cars, and if you had an automatic transmission car, you will have a hard time selling it.
• Sparkled Water: I forgot to tell you about this in part one, but for some reason, people drink this thing in place of normal water, I had this bottle in my hotel room in Stockholm, and I have to say, it tastes bloody awful. In Poland, I made a mistake and bought this water instead of normal water, yuck, why does it exist?

POLISH LANGUAGE

Polish Language: I was very intrigued with the Polish language, it mostly used the English alphabet, but it had some puzzling letter combinations that twisted my mind, how would you pronounce something like this:

• Jak się masz?
• Co słychać?
• Dobry wieczór
• Cześć
• Do zobaczenia

It was curious for me to have something written in letters that you know, but you can't pronounce the words at all, so I turned to our Polish hosts for help, and help they provided. They taught me the basics of reading Polish (I didn't want to learn words, I just wanted to be able to read it correctly), and I had lots of fun trying to read anything written around us in Polish, and they would help me read it correctly.

At the end, I found it an interesting language that I would like to learn one day, oh , and I was able to read 80% of the stuff i see correctly in less than 48 hours of tutoring.

P.S. Are you still wondering how the above words are pronounced? I found this link that provides just the required sources to enable you to read correctly, go have fun.

P.P.S. "cz" is pronounced "ch", "sz" is pronounced "sh" and "rz" is pronounced "j", oh, and the "w" is pronounced a "v".


KRAKOW

We left Mielec at 2 pm next day, and we arrived at Krakow almost two hours later, we stayed at an hotel called "Wielopole" in the middle of Krakow. Now Krakow is a touristic city, its main attraction is a place called Main Market Square, it's a huge open area containing lots of old buildings, churches, a flee market, a zillion restaurants and all sorts of shops, all in one very large place. Also very near is a huge shopping mall that's typical everywhere in the world, all the famous international brands are there, and a nice food court as well.

Main Market Square, see all those yellow tents in the distance? These are restaurants surrounding the whole square

We arrived in Krakow on Friday, so it was a weekend, and that night when we went there, it was crazily crowded with very loud people having all sorts of fun, it was just crazy, nothing like I have seen before, there were light shows, music shows, crowded bars and restaurants, everything a party person would love, but I am not such a person. We had a quick tour because it was dark, then we had dinner in one of the surrounding restaurants, and went back to sleep.


Next day, we had a free day, but it was a weekend and I wanted to visit a camera store that closed early, so we went looking for that first, I knew this shop from dpreview forums, and when I visited their website, I found good prices. I know I shouldn't go to these places to avoid triggering my gear acquisition lust, but I already knew what I wanted, I wasn't seduced by any of the shiny lenses or camera bodies there, but I was interested in a carbon fiber tripod, so I went there and had a look at the tripods they had, and picked out one I liked, I got the model number and promised to come next day and take it after reviewing the interwebz. But I will leave that to another post.

I could summarize my stay in Krakow in one paragraph, I was intimated by all the old buildings and churches everywhere in Krakow, some looked just old, and others looked scary and reminded me of old Roman castles (Dracula?), you wouldn't want to spend your night in one of those buildings alone, you'd die of fear right then. I visited the market square and got bored very quickly, especially that it was crowded and I hate crowded places, then I went to the shopping mall four times and made all my shopping there, full stop.

You wouldn't want to wake up and find yourself here

Or here

Or here

SHOW ME THE PHOTOS

Because we had a lot of free time in Krakow, I was able to dedicate some time to take street photos, but I didn't want to capture the crowds, the photos would just be meaningless, below are some select photos.

Main Market Square Streets

In Color

Lots of different looking trains, this is an old looking one

Another old one

A modern train

Intersection

This door attracted me, it looked like something Neil VN would use

I instructed my friend to walk past the door, and captured this image

And before I end this post, I would like to tell you something about the hotel in Krakow, it was more modern than the one in Mielec, but it was not as home-y, and the rooms were very very small and tight, and when I opened the window I found this view:

Window View, at least it has some colors for the image

Zoomed window view

And finally, a snap taken with my Galaxy S4 that I like very much, that phone is great.

Garden Chair, Samsung Galaxy S4

I hope you've enjoyed this series, in the coming posts, I will talk about my tripod, and next I will pick a couple of photos from this series and show you how I processed them in Adobe Lightroom.


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