Thursday, January 31, 2008

Escape

If all doors start evacuating at the same time, you probably end up with some people being pushed off or squashed at the lower parts of this fire escape. ^_^;;

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Flitehouse

One of these a-typical houses you can finds in the London suburbs on one of those dreary days you will encounter on a London winter afternoon.

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Geotagged photos

I used to wear my Garmin GPSmap 60C GPS receiver on my coat and tracked my movements and downloaded the GPS track unto my computer where a freeware program could match the EXIF timestamp of the photo with a location in the track. Nowadays I use a tool in Picasa2 and drag the photos over the Google Earth map. A great addition to this would be to allow Google Earth to export a series of photos as a Travelogue in HTML to be used on Blogger / Blogspot so that instead of a number of sequential posts, you add points to a map view and by clicking through you get to the photo and description.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Chicago suburb

View of a typical American street in Chicago

View down a residential street in Lincoln Park, one of the suburbs of Chicago. Photo taken from the top of a car park.

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Lincoln Park, Chicago

Typical watertower on top of building in Chicago

Water tower silhouetted against the sky.These water towers always remind me of the War of the Worlds radio broadcast from 1938 by Orson Welles. In the aftermath some people mistook a farmer's water tower for an alien spaceship and shot at it. ^_^;;

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Which is the better lens?


24-60mm f2.8


24-70mm f2.8

I'm looking into buying a better lens for my 35mm camera and I have stumbled upon these two lenses. Judging by the performance data supplied by the manufacturer, which is the better lens? Explanation of the diagrams you can find here; I cannot make much sense of them myself. Please leave your choice and explanation in the comments section.

At the moment I have the lens with the characteristics below; would any of the lenses above be better? I'm not too happy with my current lens now as it has problems with vignetting and distorts otherwise.


The 'L'

The 'L' train on Wabash Ave

The 'L' over Wabash Ave. I have been going through Wikipedia to come up with some more info, but it doesn't answer my most important question regarding Wabash: How do you pronounce the name Wabash? What are the origins of the name? My guess is that it is pronounced as 'Wah-bahsh' but feel free to correct me. ^_^;;

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Friday, January 25, 2008

Diversey and Clark

Crossing between Broadway, Clark and Diversey in Licoln Park, Chicago

Cityscape seen from the crossing between Broadway, Diversey and Clark in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Looking down Diversey towards the lake.

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Forest bench

romantic snow covered bench in forest

You can't walk by this bench in summer and it is used by cyclists taking a break; all snow covered nobody had been paying attention to it all day.

Camera: Pentax *ist DS, lens: Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC MACRO

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Kamikochi, the peaks

Stunning view of the mountains in the Japanese Alps in Kamikochi

From the window of our room at the Tokusawa Lodge in Kamikochi, Japan.

Camera: Pentax *ist DS, lens: Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC MACRO

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Wabash Ave

Subway tracks running overhead on Wabash Ave in Chicago

'L' tracks running overhead on Wabash Avenue. The photo was taken close to the remarkable Central Photo store where they unfortunately didn't have the fisheye lens I wanted in stock. :-(

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Monday, January 21, 2008

Chicago River

Sunset view over the Chicago river

The sun setting over the Chicago River just off Michigan Avenue.

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Celsius vs. Fahrenheit

Back from Chicago, I kept wondering why the Imperial units and Fahrenheit are still used in the USA given the fact that they were imposed by the British and America fought 8 long years during the American Revolutionary War to get rid of British colonial rule. After defeating the oppressor, you usually get also rid of their symbols.

How Fahrenheit came to define the points on his scale always puzzled me. Whereas Celsius defined the temperature of freezing pure water 0°C and the temperature of pure boiling water 100°C and split everything in between in equal steps; Fahrenheit took the temperature of freezing water with a dose of, hopefully, only NaCl (sea salt) and called that 0°F. He then took as second point on his scale the temperature of freezing pure water and called that 32°F. Finally, he took his own body temperature and called that 96°F. 32? 96? Rather arbitrary values. You just feel that he struggled to arrive at a credible answer and that he just came up with those points retroactively to make it work.  ;-)

Fire escape

Typical American fire escape on building

This is one of those shots that turned out better than expected. When I took it, I had no expectations of it and, in fact, I decided against taking a second shot while I knew that the circumstances were difficult and that the photo I just took was probably not very sharp. I decided against that shot as I expected it to be a waste of a shot and I started running out of film and sunlight and wanted to spend more shots on the overground subway stations on Wabash Avenue. Now I regret not spending one more shot on this fire escape to make sure it was really sharp ^_^;;

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Chicago looming

The cityscape of Chicago looking in the background

Taken from the top floor from the car park next to the hotel. The weather was clear but the pollution above the city obscured the high-rises in the distance. On the left, the John Hancock Center.

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Friday, January 18, 2008

Berkel

One of the bridges over the River Berkel.

Camera: Pentax *ist DS, lens: Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC MACRO

Thursday, January 17, 2008

View over the River IJssel (2)

Very much the same capture as this photo but a very different dramatic quality.

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Dutch landscape

Still milking that amazing day in Holland until the negatives from my Chicago trip come back :-)  Several people have asked me what the use was of pruning pollard willows. As you can see especially here, the result of the pruning is to encourage the growth of lateral branches which can be used to make baskets or fences.

Camera: Pentax *ist DS, lens: Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 EX APO

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

The Butterfly Effect

The train bridge in Zutphen, quickly rebuilt after WWII after the Allied Forces bombarded it to disrupt train traffic in occupied Holland, is so low that it has to open almost twice every hour to let ships pass the moment the water level of the River IJssel rises a little as it does every spring and autumn. As a result, the train traffic schedule in almost all of Holland was influenced by this bridge until they changed the schedule recently to chance all long distance trains into a series of short distance trains. If the bridge in Zutphen was open a couple of seconds too long, it meant a 10 minutes delay in Leeuwarden or Rosendaal.

After the reorganisation of the train schedule, the trains have less delays, but you'll be later at your destination as a result and you've spent a lot more time on a windy platform as a bonus. How about that for customer oriented thinking ^_^;;

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Monday, January 14, 2008

Windmills

View of the windmills from the floodplain in Zutphen.

Renovated historical windmill, a couple of kilometres from the windmills above. When the first windmills were built in the 1600's, would they also have been thought of as eyesores?

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Snow covered forest road in Holland

Flat, flat, flat. Even in the forest there is hardly a hill or a slope to be discovered. I once made a GPS contour map for Holland for my Garmin based on the free NASA SRTM V2 height data. For the first attempt I tried with 5 meters difference between the minor contour lines and hardly anything showed up on the map. ^_^;;

Camera: Pentax *ist DS, lens: Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC MACRO

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Reflection

Gulls sitting on the ice in the canal in Zutphen.

I'm still very busy in Chicago and haven't had a chance to take a single photo yet. Hopefully I have the opportunity to shoot some tomorrow.

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Pollard-Willows

Pollard-willows had but disappeared from the Dutch landscape when a couple of enthusiasts started maintaining the old trees and encouraging new trees to be pruned back to preserve the old Dutch landscape.

Camera: Pentax *ist DS, lens: Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC MACRO

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Medieval Zutphen

View of the Drogenap tower (from 1444) which functioned as a town gate during that time (the Middle Ages) and the town wall (also from around that time).

The original name of the Drogenap tower is Salt Gate but it was put out of commission as a town's gate quickly and it was renamed after the town musician Tonis Drogenap ever since.

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Poplar trees in a field

Still the same wonderful day with the amazing ripe covered fields and trees. In the photo above I used a red filter to really, dramatically darken the sky and enhance the contrast almost to the extreme. Although I really appreciated the results with the yellow filter, I think the red filter is a bit too extreme. What do you reckon?

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Monday, January 07, 2008

Detail of windmill in Ootmarsum

Detail of the Van Oude Hengel windmill in the centre of Ootmarsum, a picturesque town in the very east of Holland. The dedication says: 'Bij storm en wind is God mijn Vrind.'

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Reesink factory in Zutphen

In 1786 Hendrik Reesink started a supply business for smithies in Zutphen which grew to be a company with 350 employees and a considerable turnover.
Taken from the Tichelbeekse Waarden floodplain on the other side of the river IJssel.

I'll be Chicago until the 13th, I hope to be able to continue posting daily.

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Infrared?

It looks like an infrared photo of a tree but it is not. It was taken the same day, time and location as this photo, but this time I used my black and white film camera and a yellow filter to deepen the contrast between the ripe covered branches and the blue sky.

I find the result very pleasing and I am happy I brought along my black and white camera.

Camera: Pentax MZ-3, lens: Sigma 28-300mm - 1:3.5-6.3

Friday, January 04, 2008

Zutphen panorama

This is a photo where I'll have to ask you to click through on the image and go to the Full size as all of the details are unfortunately lost in the thumbnail above.

Camera: Pentax *ist DS, lens: Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC MACRO

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Windmill in winter landscape

The Warkense Mill between Almen and Zutphen in rural Gelderland, Holland.

Camera: Pentax *ist DS, lens: Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC MACRO

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Riverscape

The sun rising over the River IJssel. That day I really found out that photography is still very popular. I have never seen so many people around taking photos and I have been to Japan many times. True, it was one of those "If you don't take a photo now, you might as well throw away your camera!" days. :-)

Camera: Pentax *ist DS, lens: Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC MACRO

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Old Dutch landscape painting

Walking towards the River Berkel close to Almen, this farm was bathed in the softest light I have encountered.

Ah, before I forget, best wishes for the New Year. Let's hope we get that one great photo this year :-)

Camera: Pentax *ist DS, lens: Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC MACRO