Welcome to FipS Photograpy!, the place where I present some of the photos that I've been taking. It's such great fun to take pictures so I carry my camera almost everywhere to be ready to capture all the unique moments around me. Processing and publishing of these pictures is the other side of the coin. One could spend hours working on them, which however isn't always possible so it typically takes some time before the latest photos appear here.

PHOTO SERIES - I consider this to be the main section and also my favourite one. A bunch of related photos are shown together in a context. These pictures are usually taken during trips or similar occasions. I spend a great deal of time polishing every new series.

SINGLE SHOTS - This section gives me the freedom to post any single picture I like without the effort of putting it into a context, with more emphasize on its artistic value. Here's a great opportunity for experimenting in the future.

PANORAMAS

MACROS

TIMELAPSE

PHOTOS.4FIPS.COM (New!) - The right place to see my latest photos. Actually, I don't have any future plans with the gallery here so I'm going to move some of the pictures to the new location.

Nikon D80 - A great digital camera perfectly fitting my everyday needs. I've been using it for a few years now and have found only a few small issues, which can't prevent one from taking perfect pictures! The main issue with the camera is its tendency to slightly overexpose high contrast scenes whenever the matrix metering is used. Usually -0.7EV compensation helps but it's not always consistent. There's also a weird exposure metering dependency on the selected focusing point, which in my opinion makes image recomposition somehow problematic (Unfortunately this feature can't be fully turned off! so I had to get used to changing the focusing point all the time). The other issues are rather wishes: Higher ISO performance, Auto ISO not limited to 1600 ISO, More Function buttons (or at least more flexible the existing one).

AF-S DX Nikkor 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR (5.3x) - This lens offers 24-128 mm FF equivalent, which is pretty unique in the world of standard DX zooms. The wide 16/24 mm end was one of the reasons to buy it (I had even preferred it to Nikkor 18-200 VR, which was selling for a similar amount of money at the time). It's very sharp with quite low distortion and well controlled vignettation. In general I'm more than happy with it's optical quality. The build quality is very decent, the long-term durability is questionable though. I can imagine two improvements that would make this lens even more attractive to me: 1) The maximum aperture could be larger to provide shallower depth of field (let's say at least f/4 would be nice for this type of lens). 2) The tele end could be 135/203 mm rather than 85/128 mm, which would make it an ultimate all-round lens (However, I wouldn't by no means compromise the optical quality!). Anyway, it's the only lens you need when travelling on a sunny day or shooting static scenes in low-light.

AF Nikkor 35mm f/2D - This lens offers 53 mm FF equivalent, which makes it perfect standard lens with a wide range of use from portraits, groups of people to landscapes. It's very sharp, there's almost no distortion or vignettation. It's even quite sharp at f/2, which is great when a shallow depth of field is needed or for low-light party shooting. It focuses very close (25 cm), which is useful for close-ups and portraits. It's just a great compact lens that I would miss a lot.

Nikkor AF 85mm f/1.8D - I bought this one mainly to supplement my Nikkor 35. It offers 127 mm FF equivalent, which makes it perfect portrait lens and the lens of choice when it comes to a shallow depth of field. It's perfectly sharp event wide open and its overall performance is just stunning. It's great for wedding shooting and for similar occasions when one needs to keep a distance from the subject.

AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED (7.5x) - I got this lens together with my Nikon D80 as a kit lens. It's a decent performer especially due to its convenient range (27-203 mm FF equivalent) and good sharpness. The other parameters are rather normal. What is missing is VR, which limits the use of the tele end quite a lot. There are also two design drawbacks: The plastic mount and a slight tendency to zoom creeping. I had a good opportunity to sell the lens so I decided to swap it for the Nikkor 16-85 VR.

Canon Digital Ixus 400 - My first digital camera that I've been using for many years now and have learned a lot about photography using it. It's a stylish compact gem with excellent image quality (the only camera I know with ISO50!). Of course my Nikon D80 technically beats this little fellow, however there's still plenty of use for my Ixus. For example most of the Panoramas have been taken with this camera. Moreover, I've got certain plans to turn it into a high quality automated image capturer :)