Looks wonderful! I personally love the cold and snow. Thanks for sharing.

very nice!

Amazing pics thanks for sharing!

Nice photos. Looks like fun.

Finland, what a miserable place. I'd rather go to Austria or Switzerland and enjoy some Glühwein by the fireplace.

I remember when I first got in the internet late 1990s, Finns were everywhere (at least on Euro servers/forums). They seem to have taken to the internet faster and earlier than any other European nation.

We drove to southern Germany last summer to check out the Eagle's Nest. On our way down we took the first bus we could find and guess what? Finns! Then we drove to Prague for a few days of R'n'R and found a highly regarded local bar and went to sample some of the local beers. We were escorted to this long a** table that already had a few customers. Guess what? Finns! 😵

Almoststew1990 wrote:

[...]

We went to a naval seaplane hanger museum thing. It houses the oldest floating subarmine, floating from the 1930s to 2011.

Wow! I was just outside in June, getting drunk and skinny dipping with friends (the Baltic is still VERY cold in June...). Looks like I should have gone in to visit 😮

Finally a nice beer...

In Finland you might have a point - poron kusi indeed - but in Estonia there is more than enough good stuff, particularly Põhjala Brewery has some really good stuff.

Shame you missed New Year in Finland, that's quite a party 😀

Very nice photos (very techincal) and very nice post-processing!

What lens was used? Seems like a fast one 😀

spiroyster wrote:

Very nice photos (very techincal) and very nice post-processing!

What lens was used? Seems like a fast one 😀

I didn't do any post processing at all! I never do. I'm no professional photographer or anything, but I don't really like PP, it usually looks over done. Also I don't know how to do it 🤣 If you're talking about the close ups of the city model, that's real blur from the aparture of the lense.

It is a basic 18-55mm lense I got with my 1100D. The night photos and the naval place were with this camera, the rest are on my phone (Sony ZX1 compact or something).

The only time it wasn't in auto mode was when I was doing long exposures. The naval base was pretty dark due to its purple lighting, which is why there is a lot of noise in those photos as it was using a 3200 iso. I know how to control the aparture and shutter speed but I'm not sure how to force it to not use 3200.

Almoststew1990 wrote:

I didn't do any post processing at all! I never do. I'm no professional photographer or anything, but I don't really like PP, it usually looks over done. Also I don't know how to do it 🤣

Ah ok, no need to worry then, your camera has done shite loads of post-processing for you 😉
White balancing, noise reduction, sharpness, chromatic aberration reduction and the blackness has been emphasised.

Almoststew1990 wrote:

If you're talking about the close ups of the city model, that's real blur from the aparture of the lense.

Yes looks good, surprised you get that much bokeh with that lens. If you had this in portrait/macro mode, your camera might be doing zoom bracketing or image destabalisation to increase the bokeh. Traditionally you needed a real fast f-stop lens (expensive) or decent macro lens (also expensive) to get that shallow a depth of field.

Almoststew1990 wrote:

The naval base was pretty dark due to its purple lighting, which is why there is a lot of noise in those photos as it was using a 3200 iso. I know how to control the aparture and shutter speed but I'm not sure how to force it to not use 3200.

Yeah 3200 ISO even on Full frame would produce (imo) horrible noise in low-light which would need processing. If you reduce the the ISO, you need to decrease the shutter speed (longer exposure times), so you will get losts of bluring with moving objects... to me, your low-light photos look really good, so if they at 3200 ISO.. meh... keep it... movement.. the arch nemesis of night photography seems to have little to no impact on most of those low-light photos. Very impressed with those night shots. 😀

Looks fecking cold there though 😉

It's quite amazing how far photograhy tech has come in the last 10 years. Getting that quality from your phone... I spent about a grand 5 years ago getting a nokton (f0.95 😎 ) ... hmmm maybe time to ditch my setup and spend it all on a phone 😵

spiroyster wrote:

ok, no need to worry then, your camera has done shite loads of post-processing for you 😉 White balancing, noise reduction, sharpness, chromatic aberration reduction and the blackness has been emphasised.

Damn, really?! Do you mean my phone has? I'm fine with that, it's default is "superior auto" and detects what the environment is blah blah and it's fine for random photos...

...Or do you mean the Canon shots? I'll be sad if my proper camera is messing around with the shots 🙁

spiroyster wrote:

.Yes looks good, surprised you get that much bokeh with that lens. If you had this in portrait/macro mode, your camera might be doing zoom bracketing or image destabalisation to increase the bokeh. Traditionally you needed a real fast f-stop lens (expensive) or decent macro lens (also expensive) to get that shallow a depth of field.

It was just in auto without flash. I was surprised too as even this room wasn't well lit, and given I had no tripod I assumed it would go for a quick shutter speed, therefore requiring the aparture would be have to be quite open to compensate for a quick shutter speed in order to get enough light in. i.e resulting in less blur (I think that's right? low f-stop (i.e. large hole to let light in) results in a larger area in focus / less blur?? I'm quite new to the whole fstop - ISO - shutter speed triangle relationship thing)

spiroyster wrote:

Yeah 3200 ISO even on Full frame would produce (imo) horrible noise in low-light which would need processing. If you reduce the the ISO, you need to decrease the shutter speed (longer exposure times), so you will get losts of bluring with moving objects... to me, your low-light photos look really good, so if they at 3200 ISO.. meh... keep it... movement.. the arch nemesis of night photography seems to have little to no impact on most of those low-light photos. Very impressed with those night shots. 😀

To be fair I rested the camera on a wall when taking the graveyard shots, and tried to lean on something to keep myself stable when taking the low-ish light naval museum shots as I've taken enough blurry low light photos in my time 😁

spiroyster wrote:

It's quite amazing how far photograhy tech has come in the last 10 years. Getting that quality from your phone... I spent about a grand 5 years ago getting a nokton (f0.95 😎 ) ... hmmm maybe time to ditch my setup and spend it all on a phone 😵

I remember taking photos with my first colour phone (probably in 256 or 16 bit colour!) and being amazed! Although I was about 13 years old at the time! Surely pure lense quality (and size) trumps all the software wizardry cameras can do at some point though!

Almoststew1990 wrote:

Damn, really?! Do you mean my phone has? I'm fine with that, it's default is "superior auto" and detects what the environment is blah blah and it's fine for random photos...

Yep afraid so... what that Auto setting is doing is setting up the optimal settings for your shot to be taken, and for the PP done afterwards. The PP it does isn't always the same and can vary by what Auto thinks is optimal for the current situation of the shot. Granted, there's probably not masses of PP options to do (not like what Lightroom or UFRaw can do), just what it needs to give you a good piccy at the end.

Almoststew1990 wrote:

...Or do you mean the Canon shots? I'll be sad if my proper camera is messing around with the shots 🙁

Dunno about modern Canon, last EOS I used was a 40D 🤣... but looking at the specs, I suspect so. If you don't shoot RAW, then there has to be processing going on. The JPG's it takes will be processed internally by the Camera, stuff like WB and filtering will be done when you take the shot.. then the SD/CF card holds the processed JPG rather than the RAW. I've always shot RAW personally, but then again I like tinkering... but yes a little can improve immensly, but its a fine line and too much ruin it. Sometimes after tinkering for a measurable period of time, I reset and find doing minimal is actually what I was trying to achieve.

Almoststew1990 wrote:

I think that's right? low f-stop (i.e. large hole to let light in) results in a larger area in focus / less blur??

Other way around, shallower depth of field, more blur! Which is why faster lenses are associated with shallower depths of field. Larger aperture allows more light in so the shutter speed can be faster, however the incoming rays are not coherent enough outside the focal plane. Look up "pin hole camera" which is a very small aperture. The f-stop is the ratio of the aperture to the focal length of the lens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number

Of course this goes the other way, there is something called the f64 club 😀

spiroyster wrote:

To be fair I rested the camera on a wall when taking the graveyard shots, and tried to lean on something to keep myself stable when taking the low-ish light naval museum shots as I've take enough blurry low light photos in my time 😁

Haven't we all 🤣.. thank f*ck its digital otherwise I would have spent a fortune on film.