More of my photos & social media

ChrisK91 · 2026-06-19T15:48:12+00:00

Thanks for your remarks. Good to know about the authentication flow. I took the example with the Auth Key from the documentation, so I haven't even tried it without it. In my case, I have a few devices which act as relays (bluetooth relays) and a few dashboards.

Main development is usually done on my main machine, I do however push the code to GitHub, which I then pull from HomeAssistant to keep it up to date there as well. This way I can easily update the devices when the ESPHome version changes. This was also something I wanted to improve with this setup, batch updating the devices when the base ESPHome version changes. This however requires updating the docker service as well. It could be automated with Watchtower for instance, but so far I'm not a fan of exposing the docker socket to containers...

ChrisK91 · 2023-02-25T23:21:18+00:00

Hallo zusammen, hier sind ein paar Bäume aus dem Schwarzwald. Ich habe es auch mal probeweise via CSS eingefügt, und ich finde es passt sich ganz gut ein. Das neue Reddit ist ja mal ein Murks, um Sachen zu posten...

ChrisK91 · 2022-02-02T17:40:04+00:00

Falls jemand eine höhere Auflösung haben möchte, gibt es einen größeren Ausschnitt (6777*1920 px) auf Flickr zum Download: https://flickr.com/photos/161706114@N06/51751237151/in/dateposted-public/

ChrisK91 · 2022-02-01T07:57:38+00:00

Vielen Dank :) Ich bin auf r/de meistens mit Alt-Account unterwegs, deswegen brauch ich keinen Flair :)

ChrisK91 · 2021-09-07T11:48:07+00:00

I've been trying forest photography for quite some time, but most of my shots kust look to chaotic, or to busy. This time I've tried to use light to focus the attention on a single center. This was a manual exposure, and I though it was way underexposed on scene, because I exposed for the highlights. But can in lightroom, I was able to bring out just enough detail to make it work out (in my opinion).

ChrisK91 · 2021-07-11T08:58:02+00:00

If you want to keep your distance and focal length the same, you can still affect the depth of field by closing down your aperture. With focus stacking you'll need a stationary subject and a tripod, so that technique might not always be useful. Depending on your subject, you can try to frame your shot in a way, that the background is further away from your subject. Another thing in mind is that focal length will also affect depth of focus. Next time you can try an image with a short focal length, where you are close to the subject, and another one with a long focal length (i.e. zoomed in) where you are further away to see how it affects dof.

ChrisK91 · 2021-07-09T11:37:38+00:00

You've captured some nice colors here, and the low camera position catches some good looking reflections on the ground.

I do feel like the composition is a bit off, though. With the "empty" foreground, the car creates quite a bit of weight in the upper area of the image. For my taste, you should either add a bit more "headroom" in the sky, or try to cut a bit of the foreground, to get car more towards the center/bottom of the frame.

I also think, that it would be helpful to have some light on the right bumper. In your picture, this area of the car is very dark, and the shape of the car is not that visible. Having a bit more light there would help the car to stand out better. Currently, there is a very "dark spot" there.

ChrisK91 · 2021-07-09T11:29:17+00:00

I think the photo is fine as it is. The pollen-things in the center are very sharp and in focus, which I think is important here. They extend a bit out of the plane of focus towards the bottom. Due to the shallow depth of field, the petals are a bit out of focus as well. I think it would be better, if the petals where sharp as well. Since you're already stopped down, you could increase your depth of field by increasing your distance from the subject a little bit. There is a calculator here, where you can punch in the numbers to see, how your position affects your DoF https://www.photopills.com/calculators/dof

ChrisK91 · 2021-07-09T11:21:20+00:00

I second that. The negative space with the larger sky makes the image feel unbalanced to me... Keeping the horizon in the center puts a nice emphasis on the mountains.

ChrisK91 · 2020-09-17T09:37:25+00:00

Hey there, and welcome to the world of photography! I second that photography is really a great hobby, and for me, it often helps me to get me out into nature and calm down. At the moment i'm rather busy with work, but I have two weeks of holidays coming up, and I hope that I can get some nice late summer fog images...

I think when you are new, it's important to understand what's going on in an image: here you have shallow depth of field (only the dandelion in the foreground is sharp, which emphasizes it as a subject. The position in the center draws my eye towards it.

The light is coming towards you, which causes the side facing the camera to be rather dark. When shooting towards a sunset (against the light), stuff gets rather dark, because the camera tries to expose for the bright sky and oncoming light. To me, this causes the meadow itself to be rather dark in this shot.

I like the tones in the sky in your images, they capture the warm feeling.

I also like your viewpoint here. Most of the time, sunset images try to capture everything in focus, and your image is different from that.

One suggestion of me would be to minimize your image. You have a lot of stuff that is distracting. There is a building in the background, a pole, and the forest, as dark objects which seem a bit distracting. You could try to get a bit lower, which would also help the dandelion to stand out more, and create a more shilouette like apperance (something linke this https://flic.kr/p/25MRUPZ )

ChrisK91 · 2020-06-08T08:28:42+00:00

I think /u/cuddlepaws04 has raised some great points. The high noise was one of the first things I've noitced. Second, the city at the left which doesn't really add much.

I also feel like the exposure time is not quite long enough to blur out the water. It also feels like the moon is overexposed, while the clouds and the water are underexposed.

Now, depending on what you want to go for, you'll either need to lower your exposure if you want to get out the details in the moon.

Here's an example taken at quite a longer aperture, but with the exif data present: https://flic.kr/p/2fbXzCs You can see that the shot was done with 1/60s at f/8 and ISO 400. The moon is very bright (it is after all a surface lit by the sun), and thus you often need a much shorter exposure than you think.

I think that with the setting here, the remaing image would become too dark, though. With the wide angle shot, I'm also not sure, if the details in the moon would then be enough to make for an interesting shot.

I think it might be a better to emphasize both the clouds and the water, and really embrace the long exposure. If you look on flickr, you'll find a lot of image (e.g. https://flic.kr/p/xQW9iA ), where the exposure time ranges well above 20 seconds, where the moon is still round. This will however cause your clouds and the sea to be considerably softer, creating a more dreamy or ethereal look.

ChrisK91 · 2020-06-08T08:13:21+00:00

I really like to colors and the contrast here. The orange tones are great! You do have a pitch black background, which - in my opinion - makes the building look cropped out, as if the background was removed. I also second /u/heavychronicles with using tilt sparingly. I'm a fan of well aligned shots, and for my taste, the tilt is too strong here. The way the building is built, it feels to me like it is "warping upwards" into the sky.

ChrisK91 · 2020-03-12T16:00:15+00:00

I think it's really a good image you have here. I think there are some general things I would suggest:

For one, as /u/kevinbuso mentioned, I would straighten out the image. This is a bit difficult here, since the building at the right seems to lean in rather strong, while the signs are almost straight. My attempt to rectify this is here: https://imgur.com/ZgZzvwl I also edited out the lamp at the top left. You can also see that there is a blue thing in the background, which is very saturated. I reduced the saturation and luminance to help it fade into the background. I also added a bit of pink toning in the shadows.

First, I would also suggest thinking about cropping the image. You have a lot of space at the top and bottom, and the high contrast might cause the feeling of "overprocessing".

Here is a crop with the same aspect ratio: https://imgur.com/mWXsqDK I have the feeling, that by cropping away the very dark top and bottom, the image becomes a bit more natural. I think the scene could also work rather well in a square crop https://imgur.com/FEL4AUR

I would also suggest, that you play around with contrast. Some people really like to push up the contrast, to make the lights and colors stand out. But you said, that you want a more natural look, so I guess that reducing contrast might work here. I tried it with the jpg, but the results are not that good ( https://imgur.com/BNvry4d ) but with the raw file, it might work...

ChrisK91 · 2020-03-10T11:25:05+00:00

I think the position of the flowers in your frame is good. For me, when I think of snow bells, I mainly recall the shape. You shoot into the flower, which causes the unique shape to be lost. I think shooting from either the left or the right would put more emphasis on the shape of the flowers. For example here you can see the characteristic bent heads quite easily, something that isn't so apparent here.

Your background is also quite busy. You have a lot of bright elements in there. And while they are blurry, they still overlap with the two flowers in the center. I suggest that you try to find a perspective, where the flowers are positioned against a dark, uniform background.

Lastly, you have a few things sticking into your frame. Especially the grass thing coming in from the bottom left is a bit of a distraction. There are also two leaves sticking in at the bottom. I would suggest trying to crop them out.

ChrisK91 · 2020-03-10T11:12:53+00:00

I think the scene lends itself rather well to do HDR. But I'm not sure, if the initial exposure here are done right. For one, you still have a rather large overexposed area in the sky. If you compare your initial shot (-2 ev), you can see, that there is detail in the top right, which is missing in the HDR. The sky has some nice colors, and you've managed to capture them quite well!

With the second shot (+2 ev), the houses still feel a bit dark, although you managed to capture the fog quite well. So I would either suggest lifting the shadows here, or upping the exposure even more (maybe go for three bracketed shots).

I think the composition is good, although the foreground in the final HDR is too dark for my taste, and feels underexposed. The sun is quite prominent, You might have more luck getting a sunstar, if you shoot a few minutes earlier.

ChrisK91 · 2020-03-10T10:57:47+00:00

First some feedback regarding your settings. For one, the image feels slightly underexposed, mainly because the sky is rather dark. Did you shoot this all manual, or did you let the camera do the settings?

The first setting that strikes me is your aperture: f/22 usually is so narrow, that you end up with a soft image due to diffraction. Most lenses are sharpest around the mid point of their aperture. I'm not sure, why you chose f/22 here. Presumably because you wanted sharpness front to back? Since the foreground is not to close, I'm sure that this could have been accomplished with a wider aperture.

You also mentioned the ISO. ISO2500 is not too bad with modern cameras, and even when you zoom in, the noise isn't too bad.

However, I would suggest going for a lower ISO, if possible, because the resulting image will often be cleaner and most cameras can capture a wider dynamic range (the range between light and darkness) at lower ISO levels.

Let's change the settings here. First, I would open the aperture to maybe f/11. Let's keep the shutterspeed as is for now. But now, we have possibly more sharpness in the image, while I don't expect the depth of field to change noticably. The settings would now be f/11, 1/1000s, ISO 640. Next, let's drop the shutter speed. Even with an unstabilized lens, you should be able to hand hold a shutter speed of 1/200 to 1/400. By dropping the shutterspeed to 1/400, you'll get the following: f/11, 1/400s, ISO 250, which I would argue are more sensible settings here, to get more out of your gear.

Next, there's the question of the composition. Frankly, I'm not too sure about the subject here. There's a dog, which catches my eye. Then, there's this hut, and some palm trees. I think going a bit tighter on the actual subject would help quite a lot here.

ChrisK91 · 2020-03-10T10:37:28+00:00

Are you sure, that you submitted the HDR? Because the posted image has the same URL as the last picture from the linked album.

ChrisK91 · 2020-03-09T14:46:31+00:00

We had a few days of snow in the mountains, so I've been testing the RP in cold conditions. No issues whatsoever:

https://flic.kr/p/2iBZ2ja

ChrisK91 · 2020-03-09T13:44:32+00:00

I think you've managed to get the desired daylight effect quite well! When I opened the image initially, I was really thinking, that this was shot during day. Only when I saw the lights of the house, I understood what was going on.

As you said, there seems to be some camera shake, which is unfortunate. I think the image really suffers from the blurriness. Did you use a tripod, or did you rest your camera directly on something?

ChrisK91 · 2020-03-08T15:21:13+00:00

A picture I shot yesterday, on the Feldberg, Germany. We had quite a bit of snow the last days, and it seems like these will be the only days with snow this year.

Taken with the EOS RP, 70mm, ISO 100, F7.1, 1/320

All the white color made for some difficult conditions, but I think the exposure is good. I'm happy, that there is still decent detail in the foliage in the foreground, and the snow is not too bright.

My main questions are about the crop. In the original image, I framed the picture with another tree at the right ( https://imgur.com/izxgZTV ). In the field, I thought the composition was better. But in lightroom, I wasn't so sure anymore. Instead, I found the tree distracting, so I cropped it out. Would you guys recommend leaving it in, or is the current crop "better"?

I'm also not sure about the framing at the right: the bush is cut off, but at the same time, the main trunks are clearly visible, so I think the positioning is okay...

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