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

2605 - bride

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f2.8 | ISO1600 | 1/30 | lightroom 4

in europe there are a couple of regular customs that appear odd and curious to me. the rituals of stag and hen night may create funny stories in some cases but i can't see any sense in the foolery of selling useless items to pedestrians. however yesterday i was one of the pedestrians whom was being offered a bunch of clutter and ...

funnily yesterday's offers contained above all very useful articles for a party night - shorts. in fact shorts of different sorts! after a short conversation with the leader of the party gang - a hen night party - we bought a silver crown for tina and three shorts, jeagermeister, feigling and another one. in this way we got deeply into conversation with the bride who is a really very cute person. buck the trend and make the best of your upcoming marriage!

fortunately she had nothing against me snapshotting her, so i was allowed to keep this authentic pic.

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

2005 - delicious small fruit

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 28mm | f4.0 | ISO100 | 1/25 | lightroom 4

as i wrote in a former posting at the weekend breakfast amounts to a huge ritual in our household. since two weeks domestic strawberries are available again at last. we had missed these delicious small fruits coming fresh off the regional production!

our thanks have to be conveyed also to the polish temporary workers who are appointed in questionable wage conditions only for the high season. to be honest: i would accept the circumstance that a lug costs twice as much if either the employers would raise the wage of the polish harvest hands or more local workers would be hired.

cu, trshptr

1905 - the arab

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 18mm | f5.6 | ISO400 | 1/160 | lightroom 4

some things can't be rolled back.

today we met a very interesting and kind man at the middle ages market near ueberlingen and unfortunately i hadn't asked which country his homeland is. he looked like an arab, maybe he is from morocco or egypt. we are never going to know.

ok, no reason to be at odds, the most important questions were discussed. the seller - he offered different spices from around the world - told us a lot about his different products, spices from india, morocco, tunesia, france and so on, spices like masala, peppers, harissa, cardamom and different other oriental powders. due to his great consultation we finally bought two little bags of different salts.

really an amicable meeting with you, kind arab.

1805 - illuminated

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 55mm | f5.6 | ISO800 | 1/50 | lightroom 4

for our today's excursion we visited the monkey hill in salem. round about 200 barbary apes live in a mostly species-appropriate husbandry on an area of approximately 12 hectare in the forest in the middle of nowhere.

it was very interesting to observe the social structure of their hierarchy. the 200 monkeys are separated into three groups of 50 to 80 animals. each group has one male and one female chief. furthermore the whole population has a overall chief of each gender. at monkey hill the most important rule is to avoid any contact with the current babies. every monkey would protect these little newborns against any - in his opinion - negative influences. to sum up i can say that in many aspects barbary apes are very similar to human beings.

however evident similarities between yesterday's and today's subject are quite accidentally. ;-)

cu, trshptr