0811 - sweep of the horizon

setup: sony nex 7 with walimex pro 8 f2.8 fisheye | 8mm | f2.8 | ISO1600 | 1/15 | cornerfix & lightroom 4.2

next birhday, next journey - today we drove to the carl-zeiss city jena to visit the planetarium with tina's father, who turned 47 this week. it was only the second or third time overall that i went to a planetarium. the appertaining facilities in jena and also the whole technical audio and video equipment was modernised during the last months and the outside of the astrodome is currently rebuilt to the historical, original condition by being painted in the same colours and decorated with the same pictures.

unfortunately today's image had to be underexposed by almost two stops because there was simply not more light emitted by the projector and i did not want to raise the iso value over 1600 to keep as much details as possible in the raw file and the shutter speed was with 1/15 already at the upper limit, too. consequently exposing any longer was also no option because the whole sky was spinning. so i had to push the highlights and whites during post processing, but by now i really don't know if the results wouldn't have been a bit better if i'd used 6400 and as a result exposed almost correctly.

whatever, despite my bleating the overall result is still pleasing. and of course the visit and the whole day were nice, too.

cu, trshptr

2910 - relationship

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/250 | lightroom 4.2

have i ever told you that i really go for trees? i think so.

trees and humans share many things - both grow up in a couple of years, appear luscious in youth but develop their whole beauty not before middle age. there are different shapes, colours, sizes and origins of both of them. and both the trees and the humans wish for the sun and the warmth and suffer from darkness and cold.

only the mix of all of them (and us) makes for the pure beauty of our world. and i love how trees like the big one of my today's photograph set us humans in relations to unshakeable things on this planet.

cu, trshptr

2810 - first flakes

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

2010 - mist man

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f4.0 | ISO100 | 1/320 | silver efex pro for lightroom

the main reason for my current trip to spain is the participation in the international march of the iml here in barcelona. 

on two days, saturday and sunday, the walkers have to manage routes of different lengths and difficulties. my mate martin and i decided to choose the longest one (30 km) for today and 20 kilometres for tomorrow. today's walk should lead us to the great forests in the north of barcelona, whereas the route on sunday will guide us through the whole city with all its splendid sights. so the necessary variety during the walks of four to six hours is definitely given. 

the weather forecasts predicted very cloudy and misty conditions what is basically not bad for a march. unfortunately there should be also a lot of rain. a spain walker told us that the current conditions with visibility ranges below 30 metres are very unusual for the region around barcelona. also because of that the humidity is currently far above the normal level i know from the iberian countries. 

luckily there was no noticeable rain today. well, the heavy fog was omnipresent but even conducive for a great atmosphere while walking through the catalan woods. the predicted heavy rain showers will allegedly occur tomorrow, the related thunderstorms will already start in a few hours. a red weather warning was issued. hopefully it will be not that bad.

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

1510 - shadow play

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.8 | ISO1600 | 1/15 | lightroom 4.2

till today i extremely rarely came home very late in the evening and work wasn't over yet. from now on this case will arise more often.


nevertheless now, that i'm writing the daily post, i'm completely satisfied and relaxed although i've organised and worked up to now. i don't think that this is down to the picture above that i've captured on my way home after work today: the interesting monochromatic shadow-light-structure of the green illuminated entrance of a office building in markdorf in connection with the equally coloured tree pleases me although there is no message within this pic. sometimes simplicity counts.

i think my today's positivity is still down to the fact that i'm home again. i'm very happy about that.

cu, trshptr

1010 - italian war cemetery

setup: sony nex 7 with walimex pro 8 f2.8 fisheye | 8mm | f2.8 | ISO200 | 1/25 | cornerfix & lightroom 4.2

so i've used the walimex pro 8 f2.8 fisheye lens for more than a week and almost every day now. it's time to summarise my thoughts about this lens, its technical capabilities, the peculiarities using a fisheye and how it matches the nex 7. please don't expect a standardised review or test scheme, it's more a personal opinion.

before i start the technical part of today's posting i want to venerate the subject of my daily image - the wonderful, great, sad, honourable, ... and moody cemetery of hamburg oejendorf that alone would be worth a whole project or at least a dozens of postings. it is almost as big as a quarter of the town meersburg. in the pic above you can see a part of it, the italian war cemetery. more than 5800 victims of the nazi regime were interred here. it's simply indescribable what you feel there if you get yourself into the scene.

how shall i lead over to such an unimportant topic like technical issues now? well, i've really no idea. let's hope all together that such a terror regime will never come to power again.

what is in the parcel? besides some instructions a leather pouch for the lens is included and of course the two necessary caps that are unfortunately only of medium quality are also inside the package. but let's come to the central matter - the lens itself. considering the price of round about 300 euro it feels simply wonderfully. it's far and away the best built lens i own. the comparison to my former leader, the sony sel 50 f1.8, ends up with a clear win for the walimex: it is heavy to the touch, completely built of metal and stocked with a nice grip. it's designed as a manual lens so that the quality of the dials is very important. and the koreans haven't disappointed us - both the aperture ring as well as the focus ring operate smooth and backlash-free. the aperture ring engages in half stops from f2.8 to f22 and the focus ring can be adjusted from a focal distance of round about 0.3m to 2m to infinity. i don't want to go into more detail regarding the specs, the main key features are named.

the results are pleasing: practically you can adjust the aperture to anything between f2.8 and f4.0 and the focus to infinity and shoot. the lens is mainly sharp at f2.8 and really sharp from f4.0 on. above f5.6 it's razor sharp and the images are suitable for big prints. if required you can view a full resolution example of the architecture of the arena of hanover at f8.0 here. samples with different other apertures are investigatable here in the blog and on flickr. a few other peculiarities are noticeable: because of the very short focal length of only 8mm you should be able to work with shutter speeds up to 1/6 with acceptable failures if your objects aren't moving. if you shoot directly into lights (or the sun what i haven't tested) big flares become visible. anyhow with fluorescent tubes this phenomena wasn't detectable. colour rendering, chromatic aberrations, contrasts - everything fine and in my opinion nothing special to report. from the technical view this lens is an absolute performer. keeping it is a no-brainer.

but there is also an other important aspect besides the technical issues and that is the very special style of composition. forget everything you have learnt about image structuring, composition and the basic rules about photography: almost everything isn't valid anymore with this little fisheye. i want to try to give you a few advices how you can compose an interesting image with a fisheye lens.

outdoors: at first i want to set photographs with a foreground apart from the ones without an interesting main object in the foreground. if you have no interesting main object in the foreground you definitely need to have an interesting area between the fore- and the background. the fisheye characteristic accentuates everything in this part of the image, if there isn't anything to accentuate please don't use a fisheye. according to the angle of view the background on the complete horizon in front of you will be visible in your capture. basically you can say that far areas aren't good objects for fisheye photography. of course exceptions prove the role.

if you have a main object that shall be accentuated place it directly in the middle of the frame. straight horizontal and vertical lines should pass through the centre of the image otherwise they will be distorted. whereas this fact could be wanted, too. next you have to decrease the distance between your main object and you as much as possible. go into the scenery as far as possible, this will definitely improve your results. of course with a fisheye lens sometimes it could be also useful to break all the rules to obtain pleasing results.

indoors: in confined spaced it's much easier to compose interesting images. much easier! the lines aren't running off and walls build and fill the edges of your composition.

as an extra step during the postprocessing you have to use cornerfix to remove the purple corners and the vignette from the to dng-files converted raws. with a proper lens profile this works very well. if there are any unanswered questions left, feel free to comment this posting.

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

1709 - zest for life

setup: sony nex 7 with fujian 35 f1.7 | 35mm | f1.8 | ISO100 | 1/160 | lightroom 4.1

attention: next up is strict personal content, maybe you'll be bored to death.

i'm 28 and childless. the thing is not that i don't like kids. quite the contrary i really enjoy the presence of babies and children. at the present i'm simply not yet prepared to give the majority of my personal freedom up. indeed likely a time will come when i'm differently minded. so basically it cannot be ruled out that tina and i will be parents somewhen.

till then i delight in my mates' kids. although mika is definitely not the easiest baby around the world he's simply cuddly and absolutely lovable.

*boringandstrictpersonalcontentoff*

cu, trshptr

btw: i especially like the technical imperfection of today's pic. the blur expresses the joy, the movement of the captured scene and his zest for life perfectly.

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