About

Mikael Rantalainen in Koli, Lieksa, August 2011I was born in 1970 in Lahti, Finland. I lived in Lahti until 1990 when I moved to Helsinki to study. I have studied communications, both as technical science in the technical university and as social science in the university.

I started photography over 20 years ago, during high school. Landscape photography has always been my main interest. Event photography is my second interest area. One of the special interests, that I have had during last years, is photographing various ice formations and icicles during winter and spring time (see e.g. Winter Lanscapes from Helsinki 2012 or Enhancting Ice gallery).

On this website I’m displaying photos that I have taken since the beginning of 2002. At that time I bought my first digital camera and switched (very soon exclusively) to digital photography.

I’m currently using full frame Canon Digital SLR cameras with various Canon lenses. My favorite lenses for landscapes are TS-E 17 mm f/4 L, TS-E 24 mm f/3.5L II and EF 24-70 mm f/2.8 L. For the event photography my favorite lens is EF 70-200 f/2.8 L IS II USM. In landscape photography, I use also actively my Gitzo tripod and various filters.

I established a company to sell my pictures in 2005. If you see something that you like in these pages, please contact me! Also if you want to hire me to photograph some event, please ask for quote.

I’m member of Kameraseura (Helsinki Camera Club) and Finnish Nature Photographers’ Association. Finnish Nature Photographers’ Association arranges annually The Nature Photograph of the Year competition (in Finnish), in 2006 I received honorable mention in landscape category with this photo. I have also had several exhibitions.