3112 - the big burning

ladder to the moon - sony nex 7 with sel 35 f1.8 | f5.6 | ISO200 | 6s

usually i don't work according to the principle of trial and error. however if you want to take a photograph of fireworks, your preparation time is zero and your equipment isn't appropriate, you have to trust your luck and coincidence.

a toast to 2013 - sony nex 7 with sel 35 f1.8 | f5.6 | ISO200 | 6s

actually i did not have a good basis to shoot a successful image of any of this wonderful money destruction rockets today. besides my nex7 with the sel 35 i had nothing with me to work with, no tripod, no remote release and so on. never mind, let's have a try. steady shot off, search for any bolster, manual settings. go!

the lake is burning - sony nex 7 with sel 35 f1.8 | f5.6 | ISO200 | 30s

the location couldn't have been better. the view from the local "summit" gehrenberg over the lake is tremendous. and despite the fog and the incineration gases the shapes of the lake itself and the alps were vaguely perceptible.

3012 - shapes

sony nex 7 with sel 35 f1.8 | f4.0 | ISO100 | 1/800

some kinds of images work especially because of their simplicity. despite the lack of peculiarities geometric shapes, colours and textures make for an interesting, stating photograph.

sony nex 7 with sel 35 f1.8 | f4.0 | ISO100 | 1/500

some other kinds of composition base on the opposite concept - many details, differently structured parts of the frame and harsh contrasts. you may decide what your favourite is, but i don't want to commit myself to one line, at least not for the moment.

2712 - cross braces

sony nex 7 with fujian 35 f1.7 | f1.8 | ISO100 | 1/200

usually i use grey days as an opportunity to do indoor or low lights shoots. pattern and their accentuation by working out the structures with a black and white conversion are an alternative, of course.

sony nex 7 with fujian 35 f1.7 | f1.8 | ISO100 | 1/500

i observed these two birds a few minutes before they sat together down on the power line. at this very moment i wished to be able to take off like they do and also did a few seconds later.

tomorrow or the day after the new sony sel 35 f1.8 will arrive at my home. i'm looking forward to attaching this new gadget to my nex7.

2612 - at the centre

sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | f2.8 | ISO1600 | 1/13

in winter the ordinary street lamps receive temporary support by the incandescent christmas decoration. this makes for a cosy atmosphere, for example in the narrow alleys of historic towns like markdorf. if the moon additionally appears by back-lighting the clouds, your christmas feelings get into top gear again, despite being already on the home stretch.

2012 - alpenglow

sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | f2.8 | ISO500 | 1/60

in the language of the currently extremely bashed instagram today's image could be definitely tagged with the string #nofilterneeded. today in the morning when i walked from the parking to the company area, on the horizon the alps were shaded in a strong, intense orange and the dark clouds above beautifully illuminated in purple and magenta.

anytime i'm going to watch this spectacle from a summit in the middle of the mountains.

1212 - small-town atmosphere

sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | f8.0 | ISO100 | 1/6

it's so great to have such a highly compact and portable equipment with you every day. the nex7 together with a second lens and my gorilla pod fit into my daily shoulder bag without any problems.

because of that i'm able to react to almost every given scenery at almost all times. so even longer exposures of (small-) townscapes with moving elements do not cause any difficulties for me.

3011 - embedded

setup: sony nex 7 with walimex pro 8 f2.8 fisheye | 8mm | f4.0 | ISO400 | 30s | cornerfix & lightroom 4.2

although the linden tree in the centre of our courtyard might not be as old as the whole farm itself, it has definitely experienced a lot of the things the buildings had to take.

the huge tree sits enthroned in the middle of the yard and the buildings, gives shades in the summer heat, limns the shadows of itself on the ground in the night, is the home for many birds as well as for two or three squirrels and makes a top-class scratching post for all the kitties on the premises.

in the meantime it is really dear to my heart and just as deeply embedded in my mind as in the soil.

cu, trshptr

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

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

0610 - the admiration

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

often in life the right moment is very if not most important.

unfortunately we hadn't purchased tickets for the basketball match between alba berlin and dallas mavericks in advance. therefore we had to see to buy two tickets for the second of four matches of the nba's european promotion tour directly in front of the arena on the black market. we even saw a few ticket seller, probably all private sellers and not managed by an organised ticket mafia. but either the seats weren't contiguous or the prices simply maddening. in other words today we didn't come upon the right moment to have the necessary luck you need to have to get tickets for such an outstanding event last-minute. as a consequence we had to admire the wonderful arena from the outside.

the importance of coming upon the right moment in such situations of life is quite similar to photography. at least for today's pic i chose the right moment - the sun had already set down behind the newly built parking ramp and funnily my mate martin was standing completely isolated from the rest of the people what in my opinion expresses our situation in a great way.

cu, trshptr