Jul 2008
the eagle has landed
30/07/2008 15:55 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-20D - 28-70mm - iso400 - f8 - 1/2000
Not exactly an eagle, but a proper bird, I guess. These doves are special forces: instructed by an animal trainer, they are waiting in the wings for their appearance in a Bollywood movie. Shot during a training session in Rajasthan.
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the colors of rajasthan
29/07/2008 13:29 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-20D - 28-70mm - iso400 - f11 - 1/750
Canon EOS-20D - 28-70mm - iso200 - f4 - 1/500
Canon EOS-20D - 28-70mm - iso400 - f11 - 1/500
In late 2007 we went to a small town in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a salt desert in Rajasthan, for the shooting of a Bollywood movie. It was a great experience, to be in this world of colors and textures, would have loved to stay there for a couple of days longer to have more time for photography. It seemed as if I had been the first european guy there, at least it felt like that to me. It was sometimes quite tricky to take pictures without someone in front of the camera, a few guys were quite keen to be on every photograph. So they constantly moved into frame with a smile...
It is a different and beautiful world out there, if you have the chance, go off the usual tourist track and explore the real beauty of India.
synchronicity
26/07/2008 13:45 Filed in: photos
last exit for the lost
26/07/2008 13:45 Filed in: photos
where the night has
become elizium
for the sleepless souls
and our days to come
may be i'll just pass away
or may be i'll stay
but i feel alive with you
and i feel some kind of heaven
hear me
give me some kind of heaven
At The Gates Of Silent
Memory
Fields of the Nephilim
parallelism
26/07/2008 00:35 Filed in: photos | techniques
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 70-200mm 1:2.8L IS USM - iso400 - f3.5 - 1/1600
This photo of a series had to be taken silently without the attention of the subject, otherwise the opportunity for this shot would have been destroyed. So the camera (EOS-1Ds Mark III) with the EF 70-200mm attached rested on my knees, while I was sitting. Zoomed to almost 200mm, live view enabled me to focus manually to precisly focus the shoe, the aperture wide open limited depth of field. Using autofocus would have had a great chance of missing the exact focus. It takes some practice to shoot hand-held with live view at 10x magnification for focussing, especially on a shaky boat.
The 100% crop below shows the actual captured detail.
100% crop - actual pixels
holy cow
25/07/2008 15:18 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 24-105mm 1:4L IS USM - iso200 - f8.0 - 1/80
Yes these guys are all over the place in India, in the cities, on the streets. And they have the right of way. Imagine that in New York, London or Berlin...
But then... I´d love to have some elephants around in Munich... I know they can become dangerous, but I definitely would prefer them to all the dogs in the parks...
live the dream
24/07/2008 02:36 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - ZEISS ZF 35/2,8 DISTAGON -
iso100 - f4 - 1/40
Canon EOS-650 - Kodak Ektachrome 100
What is a classic sports car all about? What makes it so desirable that you switch off your rationality and don´t even think about it´s uselessness for daily transport? Emotions - there are cars that deliver pure emotions. When you approach, you get weak knees in anxious expectation of sliding into the drivers seat. The cockpit fits you like a tailor-made suit, you sit just a few inches above the asphalt, that soon will fly beneath. The design is futuristic and almost timeless, not the average modern day car, but a masterpiece of one of the few world class designers.
John Z. DeLorean`s DMC-12 is one of those cars. Designed by Giorgio Giugiaro and developed with the support of Colin Chapman`s Lotus, the car became a stainless steel gullwing beauty - dream of an extraordinary man.
By the way... the first photo shows the smooth rendering of the Contax ZEISS AE 35/2.8 truly a great lens delivering a destinctive and admirable look. I highly recommend the ZEISS ZF lens line for shooting with a high resolution camera, that needs only the best lenses to deliver the maximum quality.
at world`s end
20/07/2008 14:08 Filed in: photos
lost in the clouds
16/07/2008 05:32 Filed in: photos
Wasserfuchli
14/07/2008 15:23 Filed in: photos
mumbai harbor
12/07/2008 09:09 Filed in: photos
sleeping beauty
11/07/2008 14:30 Filed in: photos
dark forest
10/07/2008 15:20 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-650 - Kodak Ektachrome 100
Another slide-scan of photographs, which I took during my first stay in New Zealand in 2003. Cold morning mist covers the snowy top of the mountains while the forest still sleeps in darkness. It is the most amazing and beautiful country I have seen and I would love to stay there, if it wasn´t at worlds end...
marine drive in mumbai
10/07/2008 00:30 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 24-105mm 1:4L IS USM - iso1600 - f5.0 - 1/8000
Shot from a fast moving car, exactly exposed to my taste, the sky and the sun burning away while the silhouetted people in the foreground still show detail and the skyline of Mumbai Harbor fades in the haze. No additional post-processing was necessary, apart from the standard sharpening. A situation like this ended up with a wrong exposure, if you are on evaluative metering, with all cameras I previously owned. Looks like the latest breed of Canon gets it right here. Having detail in the sky and in the foreground would require a hdr capturing of the scene, as the dynamic range is far to wide for a standard low dynamic range digital capture. As hdr (high dynamic range) capture with a slr camera means exposure bracketing (in this case at least 3 shots, 0ev, -2ev, +2ev), how do you accomplish that, when you are shooting handheld from a moving car... Real hdr capture in a single exposure is one of my favorite points on the wish list for future camera developments, but it is likely to take a few years, before we see that.
But here the image shines because of the burned sky and sun, so additional detail wouldn´t make it any better.
contact page
09/07/2008 11:58 Filed in: personal
I added a contact page, so
it is easy to mail me. If you have any comments or
questions, don´t hesitate to use it. If you
subscribe to the rss feed, you
get a note about all new posts on this blog. And
if you like the blog, feel free to link to it on
your site.
saree
09/07/2008 09:53 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 70-200mm 1:2.8L IS USM -
iso400 - f6.3 - 1/500
Indian saree flying in the wind through a hole of a ferry boat`s cabin wall. I like the beautiful and rich colors of indian clothes, they often stand out from their surroundings and compliment darker skin tones. Back here in Germany, people love to darken their skin in summer or by going to solaria, while in India everyone seems to long for fair skin, the TV channels are full with advertising of skin whiteners. Maybe one always wants, what is on the other side...
the 2000 dollar car
08/07/2008 05:34 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 24-105mm 1:4L IS USM - iso3200 - f5.6 - 1/30
This picture shows the target group for the 2000 dollar car: an indian family, riding altogether on a motorbike. The 2000 dollar car would only be slightly more expensive than a decent new bike and most likely provide more safety to these families for their travels. I shot this one from a car window, while we were overtaking, iso 3200 made it possible, as the sun already had gone down and darkness was closing in.
monkeys on elephanta island
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 24-105mm 1:4L IS USM - iso200 - f6.3 - 1/160
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 24-105mm 1:4L IS USM -
iso200 - f5.6 - 1/100
Caught some of the monkeys on Elephanta Island in Mumbai harbor with the 24-105mm, a great walk-around-lens for all occasions, where you just want to carry a single lens with your camera. But the EF 70-200mm 1:2.8L IS USM feeds the demanding 21MP of the 1Ds with better quality in terms of detail, sharpness and the bokeh is also much more pleasing and “alive”.
To explore the real capabilities of the 1Ds mk III there are a few special lenses beyond the best Canon L glasses: the ZEISS ZF lens line, some medium format lenses or the legendary LEICA 90mm f/2 APO-Summicron-R ASPH, which all can be used manually with adapters on an EOS body. For my professional work, where I demand high resolution, I use a Contax ZEISS AE 35/2,8 DISTAGON. Manual focus is anyway the way to go with live view from a tripod for perfect focus and manual stop down is a burden to take for that extra quality.
Go and get a review of the ZEISS ZF lenses from Diglloyd, worth every dollar, as the author provides one of the most comprehensive and detailed reviews to be found on the net.
If you are a Nikon shooter, the ZEISS ZF line is a no brainer, as you get it with Nikon lens mount originally, so it is manual focus, but no manual stop down. The author of this blog has been called “young enough to wait for a Canon EF mount version of the ZEISS lenses” by a ZEISS executive during a photo trade show in Mumbai, India in early 2008... whatever that means, a few months or a few years?
The LEICA 90/2 APO is very high on the wish list, if just the price of that good-old-german glass was a tad more on the casual side...
ardea cinerea
06/07/2008 12:44 Filed in: photos
albert einstein house
03/07/2008 13:05 Filed in: photos
Whenever you are in Berlin, Germany make a trip to
Albert Einstein`s Summerhouse in Caputh, Potsdam and
get a guided tour. The house itself feels in some
ways more depressing to me than inspiring as a home
for a genius. I guess that is due to the small rooms
covered in dark brown wood. But you will get some
insights of Einstein, his family and how they lived,
when they were at that place near the lake
“Schwielowsee”. The lake area itself is fantastic for
recreation, you don´t believe, that you are only half
an hour away from pulsating Berlin. Here is a link:
Einsteinhaus in Caputh (Potsdam), Germany
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 16-35mm 1:2.8L II USM -
iso800 - f4.0 - 1/25
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 16-35mm 1:2.8L II USM -
iso800 - f8.0 - 1/250
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 16-35mm 1:2.8L II USM - iso100 - f7.1 - 1/125
Einsteinhaus in Caputh (Potsdam), Germany
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 16-35mm 1:2.8L II USM -
iso800 - f4.0 - 1/25
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 16-35mm 1:2.8L II USM -
iso800 - f8.0 - 1/250
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 16-35mm 1:2.8L II USM - iso100 - f7.1 - 1/125
stranded
01/07/2008 15:22 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 70-200mm 1:2.8L IS USM -
iso100 - f4.0 - 1/640
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 70-200mm 1:2.8L IS USM - iso100 - f2.8 - 1/2000
A trip to Elephanta Island (Gharapuri Island) in Mumbai Harbour in March 2008 revealed these stranded boats, waiting for the elements to raise them to the dust, from which they came.
dark wings
01/07/2008 12:07 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 24-105mm 1:4L IS USM - iso200 - f7.1 - 1/800
“people once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead” - proem of “The Crow”
I don´t know if that bird there is even a crow, but it reminds me deeply of that movie, a favorite of mine and makes me wonder, how many great cinematic moments Brandon Lee could have given the audience, if he didn`t die while shooting that film.
So get the soundtrack from the movie, put on your headphones and fly away gothic style with “The Cure: Burn”...
