0511 - guitar hero

November 05, 2012 in 50, b+w, bokeh, face, germany, greiz, guitar, hand, high iso, light, mood, music, musician, nex 7, night, personal, portrait, sel, shadow, sony

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO1600 | 1/8 | lightroom 4.2

there are different possibilities to produce well exposed low light shots. one of them is to hold the camera steady and use the capabilities of the built-in stabiliser. if your skills are well developed, the subject isn't moving and you are fortunate you can get decent results. this method shouldn't be used when you desperately have to get a good result in a temporary and short candid scenery but it is the first choice if you need best quality, rejects are not a problem and time isn't limited. for the picture above i applied only a bit of noise reduction during post-processing. the sample is one of round about 30 attempts to shoot marv while he was playing a slow, relaxed song on his guitar.

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO12800 | 1/160 | silver efex pro for lightroom

contrary to the first one the black and white sample was shot with very, very high iso settings. i'd never touched such high iso ranges before, but now i've to say that it is really an option for me if the subject is suitable. the image above was post-processed in silver efex pro completely without any noise reduction and additional grain. due to the iso of 12800 i was able to shoot marv while he was rocking the guitar in the almost complete darkness. i think that it looks really great.

cu, trshptr

0411 - handwork

November 05, 2012 in 30, action, b+w, bokeh, crottendorf, erzgebirge, family, fichtelgebirge, fun, germany, grain, handicraft, incense cone, nex 7, people, personal, sigma, sony, texture, trip

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f2.8 | ISO500 | 1/60 | silver efex pro for lightroom

as a present for tina's grandpa who had his 73rd birthday this thursday almost the whole family drove to crottendorf in the erzgebirge and visited the museum for the world-famous incense cones from this little village directly next to the border to the czechoslovakia. funnily all the visitors there get the opportunity to built their own, handmade old-style incense cones with odours of any kind.

our grandpa who has been a boxer and a welder in former times - in other words he has hands like a bear - had less problems with forming this little cones than i'd thought.

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f2.8 | ISO1600 | 1/30 | lightroom 4.2

100 tons of these little cones are produced and shipped all over the world by the company each year. so round about 100 millions of cones leave the factory each twelve months. one behind the other the army of odour cones circuits the earth two and a half times at the equator. impressive, although these cones aren't handmade anymore, of course!

cu, trshptr

2810 - first flakes

October 28, 2012 in 50, animal, bermatingen, bokeh, dog, forest, germany, leaf, nature, nex 7, people, personal, portrait, sel, snow, sony, tree, walk, winter, wood

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO125 | 1/80 | lightroom 4.2

besides reading lecture notes and solving different messy problems i haven't done much more this weekend. so the sunday afternoon walk was my solely aim for today.

funnily the first proper snow fell last night and didn't thaw, so the walk was supposed to be a specific pleasure for kingston, the dog. he really likes mud and water, but he definitely loves snow.

although my today's photograph doesn't picture an animal-human-couple of strangers but my wonderful girl and kingston, the great dog of our neighbours, i want to dedicate the daily posting to a project to which this image would actually match quite good.

a special category of pablo heimplatz' blog that is called at eye level covers the topic of the special relationship between dog and owner. i'm really into his project and absolutely recommend following him.

cu, trshptr

2710 - plumed visit

October 27, 2012 in 50, animal, bird, bokeh, corn, countryside, courtyard, eating, food, germany, home, nature, nex 7, nuthatch, portrait, sel, sony, window, winter

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO200 | 1/160 | lightroom 4.2

tina and i take care of animals in the same way like we respect humans.

this fact finds expression for example in our direct environment: besides our own cat we sometimes look after the kitties and dogs that live in our yard, too. additionally to that tina donates a little sum to an animal welfare organisation.

i for one try to help all the beings in my direct surrounding. for that reason i started to feed the birds in our yard since a few days again. corresponding the first spit of snow fell today and the first soil frost is said to appear in the coming night. i'm pretty sure that the eurasian nuthatch of my today's pic is very pleased with the delicious seeds that we usually serve.

on bad weather days like today the observation of approach and departure of the beautiful european birds is more amusing than watching a movie in the home cinema and a welcome variation to my learning periods.

cu, trshptr

2610 - urban food chain

October 26, 2012 in 8, animal, berlin, bokeh, cat, deeper meaning, fisheye, fun, germany, high key, house, mouse, nex 7, sony, street, street art, suburb, texture, urban, walimex samyang rokinon

setup: sony nex 7 with walimex pro 8 f2.8 fisheye | 8mm | f2.8 | ISO320 | 1/60 | lightroom 4.2

the predator.

setup: sony nex 7 with walimex pro 8 f2.8 fisheye | 8mm | f2.8 | ISO250 | 1/60 | lightroom 4.2

the home of the hunted.

cu, trshptr

2410 - thankyou

October 24, 2012 in 8, barcelona, blur, bokeh, colour, flare, gold, light, macro, medal, nex 7, purple, retrofocus, sony, spain, still life, texture, vintage, walimex samyang rokinon, walk

setup: sony nex 7 with walimex pro 8 f2.8 fisheye | handheld retrofocus | 8mm | f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/80 | lightroom 4.2

the journey is over, i'm home from spain again. the caminada internacional de barcelona 2012 - the international walk of barcelona - was definitely worth the flights, nights' stay and days off.

the iml walking association did a great job in organising the whole event. everything, simply everything worked very well, there was nothing to worry about. for that reason at this place i want to bring my tribute of praise and a short thank-you note in behalf of all walkers to the whole iml team. thank you all!

you may not believe that the charge of 8 euros included not only the catering, the whole organisation with cordon, signposts, final party, all the documents for the finishers and much more but also a gold medal if you walked and finished on both days. due to this piece of metal i'll always keep this trip in my mind... of course i think highly of all the volunteers and sponsors, too. without their efforts these events couldn't take place again and again.

today's image was shot with the walimex ultra-wide-angle fisheye lens in handheld retrofocus position. the shown image section covers a crop of only 6 millimetres. it's interesting what you can do with a fisheye lens, isn't it?

the purple flare results from the lateral, incidental light that produces a non-post-processing vintage look. in this case this effect is desired but you can easily avoid this magenta shift by preventing lateral incidence of light with a tube or the like, too.

cu, trshptr

2310 - behind the curtain

October 23, 2012 in 50, abandoned, architecture, bar, barcelona, bokeh, colour, flower, multilayer, nex 7, plant, red, restaurant, sel, sony, spain, square, townscape, trip, urban

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO100 | 1/500 | lightroom 4.2

for any reason i didn't take to barcelona like i'd thought in advance. too many areas were overcrowded from tourists - ok, i'd expected that. too many restaurants, bars and discos offer medium quality for a lot of money - i'd expected that, too. and too many pushy locals have bothered us in simply any situation - also that was to be expected.

the biggest problem was that under the influence of the these facts the wonderful city itself was often invisible or at least behind an ugly curtain. only in the early morning the pure and beautiful barcelona had the possibility to show up.

cu, trshptr

1410 - home again

October 14, 2012 in 50, b+w, bathroom, blur, bokeh, eyes, germany, grain, grey, hair, home, light, mirror, nex 7, night, personal, portrait, sel, self portrait, sony

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO1600 | 1/40 | silver efex for lightroom

being separated from tina for more than a week let me feel sick.

coming home after ten days feels a bit like getting to know her and the whole surrounding completely new. a sense of delight mixes with a feeling of relief. hopefully this will stay forever.

cu, trshptr

0910 - u3

October 09, 2012 in 50, bokeh, brown, crane, elbe, elevated, germany, hamburg, harbour, metro, nex 7, public transport, rail, railstation, river, sel, sight, sony, townscape, urban

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO100 | 1/4000 | lightroom 4.2

the metro line u3 is the jewel among hamburg's public transportation system. it is designed as an orbital line that is operating in the centre of hamburg and goes around both the inner and outer alster lake. the main peculiarity of the u3 line is that it runs mainly on the surface on dams so that you are able to enjoy the wonderful routing alongside the elbe river.

today's picture shows the beginning of the part of the route that runs directly parallel to the elbe and leads exactly towards the impressive container port that is the second biggest in europe after rotterdam. you can divine the huge harbour installations on the horizon. every tourist should visit the harbour and usually they also do so.

the interesting circular building in front of the bend hosts the portuguese restaurant galego. besides horrible service bad value for money wait for you. please avoid this place although its location would be worth the visit and stop by at another place.

cu, trshptr

2009 - in the red focus

September 20, 2012 in 30, bokeh, colour, glass, guest contribution, italy, landscape, mountains, nex 7, ortler, personal, portrait, red, reflection, self portrait, sigma, sony, spyglass, sulden, trip

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/250 | lightroom 4.1

vacation time is family time. so today i want to break my habits and let a guest writer, my most beloved and so far only one, refer about today's occurrences:

"hi, i'm tina and today it's a honour for me to write the daily posting of my husband's blog :)

i write this posting because today i saw my first two marmots!

although it was really not the first time that we were hiking in the mountains, till today i've often heard them piping but never seen one of them. so i was very lucky to finally spot one of them for real! fortunately we've had my grandpa's spyglass with us, so we could observe them while they were observing us, haha! :)"

the pic came up when i observed tina while she searching for anything interesting in the mountains. the red coloured reflections of me and the landscape in my back, the recurring colour red itself and the wonderful mountainscape in tina's back really please me.

our today's walk in prime weather:

cu, trshptr