0106 - something different

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO1600 | 1/25 | lightroom 4.1

finally we have visitors from central germany: our (best) friends jeen and diet(mar) from frankfurt are currently at our place for a flying visit - unfortunately on sunday they will leave us again for the continuation of their short journey to munich where they will call the concert of paul kalkbrenner, a reasonably famous german dj. for their visit we had to buy in, tidy up, clean house and so on - of course we wanted to receive our guests with open arms and well prepared.

back on topic of yesterday: see that i don't want to allow that the view of bermatingen develops as a completely boring but idyllic world i think that a contrary sight of approximately the same scene of yesterday's image might remedy. let me get this straight - bermatingen is not much different to the rest of germany. pleasure and harm, white and black, lights and shadows, all that is to be expected.

cu, trshptr

3105 - private peek

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f8.0 | ISO200 | 1/100 | lightroom 4.1

in regions with an appropriate social base money is not to be sniffed at. especially the area north of the alps and the lake constance profits clearly by its inherent natural beauty. the amount of money that is received in this way flows mainly back directly into the communes.

you can see this circumstance in any issue of daily life. one noticeable topic is the structural condition of the (most of the old) buildings in the historic townscapes. if you use f.e. the view of the cities in the east of germany as reference for comparison you will find a lot more derelict houses than here in suedbaden. so far, so good.  this comes as no surprise.

but what does that really mean? it seems to be a kind of vicious circle for the affected regions regarding different aspects: either tourists or qualified employees are attracted, therefor their money flows into other regions. so the communes have no funds to modernise their infrastructure, their townscape and so on. which means that everything remains as it is. unfortunately i know this phenomena from different regions of germany, among others my homeland.

the region of the linzgau was never affected by this vicious circle. the historic townscapes are in most cases proper, neat and tidy, even more than 300 years old houses like ours are in a good condition. way back when the municipal administration of our commune bermatingen had understood that buildings like the eichenhof have a great appeal with the tourists and therefor their money.

of course i rejoice at our home, it is individual, full of character and it's a pleasure to live here. i hope you enjoy the private peek, too.

cu, trshptr

2905 - morning bloom

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f2.8 | ISO100 | 1/1600 | lightroom 4

although i'm a huge fan of the dark side of life - autumn, fog and mist, darkness, rain, all things that i go for - currently i'm unable to struggle against the ongoing summer. in the morning everything is still a bit wet of the dew but in the end of may the sun has already risen and the temperature has reached almost 20 degrees when i'm on my way to work by bike.

a wonderful enchanted mansion is located along the way to immenstaad. even if flowers and blossoms are not my favourite scene, i was fooled into interrupting my drive because of the great mix of the corn poppies in the middle of the dreamy cottage garden in front of purple foxgloves and the rising sun in the background.

when i reached work i had donned a protective cloak against stress, mischief and hustle and bustle. days should always start like that.

cu, trshptr

2805 - air corridor

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f8.0 | ISO100 | 1/500 | lightroom 4

these days i make heavy weather of narrowing down the choice of pics for my daily posting, there are simply too many options. it's not that they all were of best quality, but they are on a similar (medium and aspirant) level and all of them tell a certain little story.

subsequent to a challenging 90km bicycle tour with andi, a friend and workmate of mine, i have chilled for round about an hour in our courtyard when tina called me for a dinner delivery service - she is on duty at the moment. so i bought us some kebab at the turk in markdorf and drove to the hospital by car. i always feel like a very important person when i see tina at her work because in that case i'm exceptionally allowed to park at the farmyard of the hospital on the parking space of the call-out service.

at the hospital we usually eat our meals at the helicopter landing site behind the main building. for that reason we had to walk along the dark and obscure corridors. the last corridor ended in the open country - the helipad area. from there we obtained the best view over the (foggy) lake. the contrast between the dark floors and workrooms of the hospital and the bright landscape was a bit surreal. and when there is nothing to do for tina, no emergencies or something like that are occurring, there are really worse places to spend your working hours.

cu, trshptr

2705 - one, two, three, whee!

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | manual focus | f4.0 | ISO400 | 1/2500 | lightroom 4

a long party night is followed by the hangover. although this morning tina was committed to drive she had slightly headache and fatigue after getting out of bed whereas i didn't have any problems despite the six beers of yesterday evening.

except our meeting with friends in ravensburg on saturday evening the whitsun weekend was characterised by the greyhound racing event that took place near our home on saturday and sunday. yesterday a breed contest was conducted by the greyhound racing club bermatingen and today national and solo races have attracted the spectators.

i have never visited such an event before. accordingly i was deeply impressed by the speed and the power of the greyhounds and the atmosphere on the ground. two notably interesting facts: firstly there were almost no brawls between the animals although at least 50 to 100 top motivated dogs were on hand and ready to start. second off the fastest runners need only a little bit more than 30s for 430m which means an average speed of 50km/h. wow!

two more interesting pics of these athletes can be found on my flickr stream!

cu, trshptr

2505 - confusion

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO200 | 1/4000 | lightroom 4

in terms of any issue yesterday was a very beautiful day. although i had to work until the late afternoon what in my case is unusual for a friday the tide turned at the latest after having a picnic together with tina on the stairs in the middle of friedrichshafen. couscous salad, baguette, burgers, herbal curd and a few beers - this made my day. along with it we had prime weather, at 8pm the thermometer showed still 22 degrees.

yesterday even the crowd of tourists kept within reasonable limits. exceptionally the locals were in control of the situation at the boardwalk. this state maybe concerns with the forthcoming long weekend, it was so to say the silence before the storm. as i said before i simply love the spring with its awful lot of feast days.

one or two tourists showed up yet again. one of them was especially confused, he stood next to us and gazed into space. instead of helping him i took my nex and captured the scene. evil local!

cu, trshptr

2405 - faked fisheye

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO1600 | 1/40 | lightroom 4

with today's photo i kill two birds with one stone: you get a glimpse of my lovely bathroom and also without a vivid fantasy you are able to get an idea of my simple hairstyle. i took the picture immediately after leaving the bathtub.

while you are passing judgement on the technical implementation of the shot (f.e. regarding focus) and on the seeming length of my nose, please have consideration for the crowning of the shower head... ;-)

cu, trshptr

2305 - castle of dreams

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f8.0 | ISO100 | 1/80 | lightroom 4

after three years of permanent, weekly travels because of my job i really don't want to be lonely anymore. for this reasons night duty days of tina sometimes put me into a slightly depressive mood. there it was a heaven-sent opportunity that my evening mountain bike tour led me into the well-lit forest where i finally was acting on my feelings. and fortunately on my way to nowhere i almost accidentally came by the castle of salem.

we live at the lake constance for three years now but during this time we have never been at the castle, even less its inner yard or garden. i did not know how great the whole grounds actually are. moreover today evening an enchanted atmosphere was dominating. the pic above expresses this hogwart like mood very well - no, i'm not a harry potter fan, i had to google the name of his school - although i applied only a little bit of post processing to the raw file, excluded the black and white conversion. i will definitely come back to this magnificent area to accurately inspect the total and its details and to tell you more about its history.

previously two more nice pics of today evening can be found on my flickr stream.

cu, trshptr

2205 - pour oil into the fire

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f4.0 | ISO100 | 1/400 | high contrast monochrome jpg ooc

my first day with the new equipment.

as expected i'm blown away. the nex 7 is simply incredible. there are so many customisable features that at the moment - after hours of usage - i still haven't completely realised which button triggers which special function.

regarding image quality there is no need of a discussion. 10mp of my borrowed eos vs. 24mp of the nex: forget everything you would expect of a compact camera about details and replace this with more than the twice - nex 7, here we go!

today i have already tested the sigma 30 f2.8 as well as the sony sel 50 f1.8, which is currently mounted to my new device while i'm sitting here next to two chattering ladies in a cozy restaurant in friedrichshafen and writing the draft of my posting on my cell phone. although i have a bunch of nice portraits of the two girls shot with the 50mm wide open resting on my sd card, today's pic is of a rough nature.

the fire bowl of our neighbours filled with a puddle of water, embellished with a little shovel, a little bit garden waste and a reflecting oil film that shows the detailed heavy clouds in the sky - believe me, the scenery wasn't made by me - and my new nex in combination with the sigma in ooc high contrast monochrome mode deserves my recognition.

so there is really no reason to proverbially proud oil into the fire.

cu, trshptr

2105 - hot potato

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 30mm | f4.0 | ISO1600 | 1/20 | lightroom 4

the time has come, the borrowed eos 400d makes way for my new nex 7. don't be afraid - otherwise everything will remain unchanged.

i'm geared up to start respectively to resume my work. as a start my new sony nex 7 will be matched with the sigma 30 f2.8, the manual (toy lens) fujian 35 f1.7 - i'm aware of the peculiarities of this cheap cctv lens - or the sony 50 f1.8. additionally in the near future i'll be on the look-out for a wide-angel lens. i read some rumours about a native e-mount 10-18 f4.0 wide-angel zoom which would fit in with my kit very well. and last but not least i think about the purchase of the sony sel 55-210 f4.5-6.3 but before i get myself a telephoto lens i'll wait for the occurrence where i absolutely need such a thing.

what more need to be said? among other things i'm going to use two 16gb sdhc memory cards, a crumpler camera bag, a second battery and a gorillapod. in some cases - if i'm satisfied with the camera's results - i'll also publish "out of camera" (ooc) jpegs because i want to show the entire capabilities of the nex 7. for that reason i'm going to use the special modes like dynamic range optimisation (dro) and high dynamic range (hdr), too. tips and criticism or simple statements are very welcome!

cu, trshptr