0805 - the early bird gets the worm

May 08, 2012 in 18-55, 400d, animal, bird, blackbird, bokeh, branch, brown, canon, courtyard, eos, germany, green, home, leaf, light, merl, nature, spring, tree

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 55mm | f5.6 | ISO400 | 1/50 | lightroom 4

while i was processing the planned image of today's posting sitting on a deck chair in the yard my remaining kitty nila spotted an eurasian blackbird. whereas i hadn't been completely satisfied with the light conditions of this shot, i came naturally to desist from the pic - you will see a better version in the near future.

so nila and i observed the in my view cute, in her view delicious little bird that had caught a fat worm for his infants. by the way i shot some pictures of the blackbird, only the maximum focal distance of my kit lens hampered a better result. the blackbird was remaining calmly while i approximated because he was constantly assessing the situation.

moreover he was in a favourable position and he had already caught his worm.

cu, trshptr

btw: the picture above is far away from being a masterpiece, but it is not so bad after all and above all today it was important for me to share nila's and my experience with you. and: yesterday the third lens for my nex arrived - the sigma 30 f2.8. tiny little black piece of japanese engineering.

0205 - in the spotlight

May 02, 2012 in 18-55, 400d, abandoned, canon, eos, germany, hospital, introduction, job, light, light beam, maintenance, mood, night, operating room, shadow, still life, surgery

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 27mm | f4.0 | ISO1600 | 1/50 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

... for tina is today, that her night duty proceeds as relaxed as it had begun. i just surprised her with a thermos bottle filled with hot mcdonalds cappuccino.

afterwards she showed me the stark mood of an abandoned hospital at night.

marginal note:
during the last days i have bothered about my blog and its keynote. in my opinion there are enough 365 days projects that have no quality. it's all right as long as a pic is published every day. the quality of these blogs' images suffers for example from the lack of adequate scenes. that is not what i want. that's why i have declared some rules for me and my project:

- the photo is the central element on the blog.

- the most important thing is not the equipment (although i'm looking forward to my birthday and hopefully a nice present), the important thing is you by yourself. the idea, the composition, the implementation, the processing, nothing else matters. nevertheless i'm going to milk the capabilities of the nex as good as possible.

- like the blog name explains i'll publish (minimum) one photo a day, but the blog isn't a dedicated 365 days / one year project, it's simply a day by day photography website. why shall i commit myself to only one year? is the aim of shooting a pic a day so nerving that you long for the end of the project already at the beginning of it?

- if there is nothing to tell on a given day, no posting will be published. instead of wasting my and your time with struggling about the bad quality of an enforced shot on an uninspired day i'll have a good time fiddling with my bunch of other hobbies. stress and restrictions are ever-present in the daily life, i don't want to get worked up over by this project someday.

- but: my cam will accompany me every day and night to every location. i'm very disciplined, you can expect that certainly more than 300 pics will be shot and published during the next year.

for this reasons i hereby declare my project as already on-going. only the tools will change in a few days, but that's why i don't expect real improvements in the overall picture quality by itself. at first i have to hone my skills.

cu, trshptr

2904 - green lungs

April 29, 2012 in 18-55, 400d, abandoned, calm, canon, colour, countryside, eos, forest, germany, green, light, markdorf, mood, nature, spring, tree, walk

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 18mm | f9.0 | ISO800 | 1/125 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

again at last the first night in my own bed after the return of two weeks of travel. once i had ended the first session of post-processing of the accrued pictures at 0130am and my subsequent sleep at 0900am i considered the next big bunch of pics that i had shot in sardinia. unfortunately i'm still not half-done. cheer up, the way is the goal. learning by doing, that's what it is all about.

at 0300pm tina took me out to an excursion to a keep-fit-trail in the middle of the forest of the hill gehrenberg. we really had a lot of fun while we were running through the course. 13 sporty stages had to be done.

the 14th one was called breath. always keep breathing.

cu, trshptr

2804 - enlightenment

April 29, 2012 in 18-55, 400d, action, b+w, canon, contrast, eos, italy, light, light beam, mood, movement, people, sardinia, scenery, shadow, street, suburb, sunset, urban

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 55mm | f5.6 | ISO200 | 1/500 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

first of all i like to excuse for my very short statements belonging to the last week's postings but i think that the pictures tell their stories by themselves. furthermore i concentrated on the photography itself, its choice and post-processing. if there are any questions concerning more details of the story - be my guest and write a comment.

summarising i have to pinpoint that not all questions could be anwered till the end of the trip. why are the temperature sensitivities of natives and tourists that different? a local women wearing a down jacket is reading the newspaper in the sun at almost 30 degrees while hot pant wearing, central european ladies are cooling down in the shadowed gelateria lane.

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 37mm | f5.0 | ISO200 | 1/100 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

and why is there always a libertine, doubter or sun worshipper?

in this manner both stand in the sun, the spotlight or the centre of interest. it is easily visible that either of them feels more comfortable than the other.

2704 - togetherness

April 29, 2012 in 18-55, 400d, action, bicycle, calm, canon, eos, italy, light, mood, people, red, sardinia, scenery, shadow, street, urban

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 55mm | f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/160 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

prejudices and pigeonholing. things that i try to avoid. but sometimes a chliché is perpetuated by the person concerned. study the photography and you will understand what i mean.

2604 - play with us

April 29, 2012 in 18-55, 400d, action, animal, brown, canon, dog, eos, eyes, face, italy, light, movement, people, personal, portrait, sardinia, shadow, sunset

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 55mm | f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/400 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

besides salamanders you can find dogs everywhere in sardinia. many landowners use them to protect their property against unwelcome visitors or boars. in the scene of the picture tina was being investigated by five (!) cute dogs simultaneously. only at the first appearance she seems to be a little bit peeved.

2204 - taking small steps

April 28, 2012 in 18-55, 400d, architecture, brown, building, canon, colour, eos, italy, light, monument, mood, sardinia, shadow, stairs, street, street art, suburb, urban, yellow

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 28mm | f5.0 | ISO100 | 1/400 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

during the last week's road trip we rested as often as possible at interesting locations on our 1000km route. the town oristano was one of it. we have had a walk after lunch in the historical district when i discovered the greek-like scenery shown in the photography above.

1504 - the wheel

April 15, 2012 in 18-55, 400d, abandoned, architecture, b+w, basement, bicycle, blue, building, cellar, eos, germany, home, light, light beam, long-time exposure, monument, mood, partial coloured, shadow

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 18mm | f8.0 | ISO800 | 8s | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

the day after. slightly headache, thirst and haven't slept very well. what's the point - you must finish what you start. therefor we had a huge breakfast with toasted ciabatta, cold cuts and what else belongs to it. in addition to that strengthening i had to get a breath of fresh air.

after my weekly football match on sunday noon i carried out some tiny little tasks like to put some things away into the cellar. there i hit on the idea to make the basement of our marvellous house the subject of today's posting. like i said before our house is more than 300 years old. also its basement is a feast for the eyes. it was used as a wine cellar for many a long year. today every now and then we hold a cellar party for our friends. the illumination with candles is stunning. during the residual time the basement lies almost empty.

today i caught sight of a very moody scene of wheels. the sparsely light was inciding through an old wooden wheel. our new neighbors must have parked an ancient blue bicycle in the middle of the place where the light beam was impinging on the floor today. and the profile of the room is a semicircle itself.

great atmosphere in an almost complete circular surrounding.

cu, trshptr

1404 - transparency

April 15, 2012 in 18-55, 400d, b+w, canon, concert, contrast, eos, eyes, face, germany, grain, light, live, mood, music, night, people, ravensburg, reflection, street

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 27mm | f4.0 | ISO1600 | 1/6 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

i like things being transparent. you know you get yourself into familar surroundings. if you are able to bother yourself about the worst case in this context you will not being caught unawares by anything or anybody. for that reason it is always helpful to know all boundary conditions, so you can estimate the problem's variability. ok, maybe too abstracted.

yesternight was transparent for various reasons: we felt very comfortable in the surroundings of our friends. we know the event, the long live music night is conducted every year. the locations are also well-known. all that led on to a great evening with nice music, some beers and cheerful talks.

one of the twenty stages was proverbially transparent, too.

cu, trshptr

btw: i don't want to discuss the low light performance of my borrowed eos 400d again, but it hitted the wall concerning iso and aperture so that i had to shoot with inappropriate shutter speeds the whole evening. that's why only one of ten pics turned out well. let´s forget it, only some days to go.

1304 - upright

April 14, 2012 in 18-55, 400d, architecture, brown, building, canon, colour, contrast, eos, germany, light, light track, long-time exposure, markdorf, night, pattern, red, street, tripod, urban

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 22mm | f4.5 | ISO400 | 25s | manual mode | manual focus | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

while i was cruising around by bike this evening i saw different places and objects that were worthy of detailed examination. in so doing my short ride was extended to a two hour trip. as a result i have really struggled with choosing a candidate for today's posting. finally i decided to apply the upright photography that you can review above to animate my blog today. some other samples are listed at my tumblr webpage dated today.

the pic of the building site was shot in markdorf again. the light conditions were really very, very bad, the usage of the automatic focus wasn't possible. so i had my first attempts with complete manual shooting: both focus and exposure were manually controlled by me. to accomplish a suitable exposure i had to raise iso speed to 400 and aperture to the almost fastest configuration at this focal length - although i exposed for a long time... i think you can reconstruct how dark it was there.

why this composition? for a variety of reasons... the pillars seemed to have an infinite depth, the lights were playfully reflected by them. the streamers that were hanging from the ceiling breezed in the wind. the silence was impressive. only every now and then a car went past. fortunately i caught one by shooting the pic above.

btw: i have raised the local contrast of the pic while postprocessing to create a hdr-like effect. accenting the size of the builing site i renounced to remove distortion caused by wide-angel.

all being well my project will finally start next week. officially.

cu, trshptr