1810 - anticyclic acting

setup: sony nex 7 with walimex pro 8 f2.8 fisheye | 8mm | f8.0 | ISO100 | 3.2s | cornerfix & lightroom 4.2

anticyclic acting is a way to escape from the daily routine.

after i hadn't managed to be the first on the roads yesterday, my today's alarm rang already at half past six in the morning. with an eye to the great weather forecast for today and hopefully a great sunrise at the lakeside i ate my breakfast in less than 15 minutes and left home still in complete darkness. equipped with my ultra bright led headlamp and red blinking lights on the back pack i started my journey into the dark.

having the knowledge of being the sole human in a dark forest and withal riding a bicycle with a visibility range of not more than 20 metres is a very special experience. i spotted the sparkling, sometimes white, sometimes yellow incandescent eyes of the forest animals a few times through the undergrowth of the woods. at last i felt like a real man again.

getting up early paid off today.

cu, trshptr

1710 - early bird

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f5.6 | ISO200 | 1/80 | lightroom 4.2

the days of enjoyable temperatures in the morning are mostly gone now. all the better that the forecasts for the weekend predict late summer conditions. so i could be really happy about that but unfortunately i will spend these days in barcelona and not at home. hopefully we will get a piece of the cake there, too.

today i used the announcing prime weather to go to work by bike again. i actually thought that i'd be one of the first who is on the go in the fields in the morning but i was surprised by the fruit farmers again: in simply every plantation the farmers and their temporary workers were already occupied with the harvest of the big, red and ripe apples.

i really appreciate the possibility to buy fresh and organic food at the local dealers. support your local dealer is a good credo.

cu, trshptr

0410 - vastness

setup: sony nex 7 with walimex pro 8 f2.8 fisheye | 8mm | f11.0 | ISO200 | 1/20 | cornerfix & lightroom 4.2

i still have to become attuned to the vastness of the angle of view of my new fisheye lens. today in the morning on my way to work by bike i spotted a really natural scenery in the fields of markdorf that of course had to be captured. it's no hdr image, only slightly adjustments in lightroom.

at the weekend the fisheye lens will accompany me to berlin and the complete next week i'll be engaged on business in hamburg. at the latest in the middle of next week i'm going to write my detailed thoughts about the walimex pro fisheye lens and how it matches the nex 7. 

cu, trshptr

0210 - stacked & bread rain

setup: sony nex 7 with walimex pro 8 f2.8 fisheye | 8mm | f2.8 | ISO400 | 1/25 | cornerfix & lightroom 4.1

fortunately the announced walimex pro fisheye lens has arrived already today in the afternoon. for the evening i'd planned to shoot a special scenery in bodman-ludwigshafen at the western end of lake constance. a friend of mine had told me of the presence of an example of a very special kind of "lake art" - every now and then a stone artist places stone towers at the lakeside that seen as a stress engineer could really never bear.

for the viewer they exude calm and balance, really adorable.

setup: sony nex 7 with walimex pro 8 f2.8 fisheye | 8mm | f4.0 | ISO400 | 1/100 | cornerfix & lightroom 4.1

heading for the place where the work is located we met a nice guy who was feeding the ducks and seagulls. although he seemed to be a bit strange he's surely a very nice and sensitive guy who cares about the nature and its animals.

i'll write more about the walimex pro fisheye lens during the next days. in advance only a very short information: it touches simply wonderfully and seems to be built of very high quality.

furthermore my two today's samples show how differently a fisheye lens can be used. both the emphasis of the distorted fisheye character as well as the use as an almost normal ultra wide angle lens are imaginable.

cu, trshptr

2609 - modern porto antico di genova

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f4.0 | ISO400 | 1/160 | lightroom 4.1

genoa is the biggest city in the region of liguria - thereby a must-visit - and one that is exceedingly proud of its harbour. as you can see in today's pic genoa is because of its location at the bottom of the apennine mountains almost exclusively facing its historical porto antico di genova and the mediterranean sea.

besides its historical importance the harbour of genoa is one of the biggest concerning its container handling in the whole mediterranean ocean. apparently their expansion isn't completed yet - today we saw different places inside the container harbour where new spaces for probably more containers are built by reclaiming land. the harbour gained its importance especially because of the wide northern hinterland of liguria that involves the industry areas from milan and turin and even comes down to the switzerland.

despite the very industrial character of the harbour (and the whole city, too) a bit of chic and vain has found its way into the old capital of liguria. the modern influence in the yacht harbour really fits to the antico porto di genova and the beautiful townscape of this costal city.

cu, trshptr

2509 - shutter island

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/640 | lightroom 4.1

sometimes in life you determine similarities between real life and stories that only exist in your mind. these can be stories from books, movies or also your own, personal dreams. today we've acted in a movie, of course a very great one.

besides the central, main cinque terre there are also villages and places in the region of liguria that are worth the journey and visit. today we had a look at porto venere, a very beautiful little town directly next to la spezia. additionally we had a long walk on the offshore isola palmaria, one of three islands next to porto venere, that seem to be reincarnations of the shutter island, a prison island (and identically named terrific film with leo do caprio) from hollywood.

there were different hints why shutter island is a suitable comparison to the isola palmaria: we heard some very loud gunshots today, walked along a few old massive bunker, saw many very old power lines, that have their origin in different fenced off areas, the abandoned island is characterised by high coast and of course there is a lighthouse. in the night it could have been really frightening staying on this island, but fortunately we visited the wonderful island at daytime.

funnily we were heaving a sigh of relief when we finally spotted the church san pietro of porto venere on the opposite mainland where the taxi boat dropped us off another hour later.

cu, trshptr

2009 - in the red focus

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

1909 - making a dive

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f2.8 | ISO100 | 1/800 | lightroom 4.1

sometimes it occurs to me that living at the edge of germany may be a privilege, too. only three and a half hours of relaxed car drive to reach a vacation destination in the middle of south tirol almost 2000 metres above sea level is pure luxury. that's why we already arrived at half past two o'clock in sulden at the bottom of the huge ortler.

the weather was perfect - for a travel day in the car. rain, rain, rain, mist and fog. but - as you might know if you are a permanent follower of the blog - i really like moody weather conditions like that. so we took our backpacks and rain covers and strolled through the wet and dripping high valley. after a short walk we got to a wonderful coloured pond with also wonderful coloured and drawn ducks inside that made a dive for the rests of our pretzels.

a few hours and sauna visits later tina and i made a dive for a delicious dinner at our guesthouse. quite interesting how similar all the beings still are...

cu, trshptr

0809 - summer relapse

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f3.2 | ISO100 | 1/4000 | lightroom 4.1

earlier than expected the summer is back for a late summer interlude. yes, this weekend was supposed to be an active outdoor weekend but we couldn't calculate on such prime weather conditions. even better that we've had almost 30 degrees and bright sky today again.

whereas tomorrow the upper sections of our bodies will be strained by an outdoor climbing session in the danube valley today extensive hiking was due. we visited the marienschlucht, a ravine on the steep bank of the western end of lake constance. we walked almost 20 kilometres, half of it along the waterfront and the other half through the fabulous woods of constance.

of course our feet were glowing when we finally arrived bodman after our hike again. so why shouldn't we use the late afternoon for no resting and cooling down in the fresh water?

cu, trshptr

0409 - leant at dusk

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f2.8 | ISO640 | -0.7ev | 1/60 | lightroom 4.1

german woods are terrific. if you go into them at dusk, the mystic mood is easily sensible. thousands of leafs let incide only a few light beams onto the ground. the soil smells fruity and wet and the trunks appear vivid. small creeks find their ways through the fallen over trees and feed in that way the whole environment.

really a suitable place to spend the dusk.

cu, trshptr