aXelpiX.de

Orkney & Skye

Axel — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:18:19 +0000

It’s been a while since I last wrote some lines here in my blog. Meanwhile we spent our four weeks of summer vacation up in northern Scotland. We visited the Islands of Orkney and the Northwest of Scotland. Especially the Isle of Skye gave us lots of wonderfull impressions on some walks along the Trotternish ridge.

As always, there’s a new section in the Gallery where you can find all the photos. You’re welcome to view and comment the pictures.

I uploaded the GPS tracks of the two trails on Skye to GPSies.com:

The Tractor

Axel — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:42:22 +0000

It’s been a while since we paddled the river Mulde between Leisnig and Grimma. It’s amazing what quiet and peacefull places you can see from the water.

angels, all around us…

Axel — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:17:08 +0000

angels, all around us :: angels, powerfull :: angels, to protect us

Back to Brittany

Axel — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:48:23 +0000

…or back to the Dimage A2?

This is a picture from my 2006 Brittany series. The boats where lying beautifull in the evening sun at low tide, right behind our appartment.

Ever since I was using the Nikon D80, I started using the RAW format. Finally with the appearance of Lightroom, I’m shooting RAW exclusively. Today I found some of these MRW files that I took with the Minolta Dimage A2. I wasn’t quite able to do something with them by that time. But now I was interested in the potential that’s in there. I’m quite impressed about the color correction of the APO lens. Also the 12bit color depth contains a lot of reserve for highlights and shades. Even noise is well controllable, at least with ISO 100. A different thing is resolution. I never really understood the discussions about the lens beeing not able to serve the new 8 MPixel chip; now I can see it.

After all, I do not regret to have switched to the D80. But it’s good to know that there would have been some potential with the Dimage A2 too.

Firefox 3 now with color management

Axel — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:33:53 +0000

For a better photo browsing experience, I recomend everybody using the new Firefox 3 to enable color management. And here’s how to do it:

- type ‘about:config’ into the adress bar
- filter for gfx.color
- change ‘gfx.color_management.enabled’ to true (just double click on the entry)
- restart Firefox

Enjoy viewing pictures now with there real colors. Don’t forget to calibrate your monitor!

The old Steamer

Axel — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:01:53 +0000

There’s a landscape north of Dresden, where coal mining is the formative element. At the Findlingspark Nochten they’re trying to rebuilt some natural environment. But the eyecatcher for the photographer is still the big coal power plant nearby.
I did not use any filter for this exposure. The fancy polarizer effect is completely built up in Lightroom.

Natural Weekend

Axel — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:32:54 +0000

…some natural shots from a nice weekend walk. Used my favourite lens, the Sigma 2.8/105mm.
[singlepic id="741" w="240" h="510" mode="" float="right" ]
[singlepic id="743" w="240" h="500" mode="" float="right" ]

Whitsun at Carols Rock

Axel — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:31:02 +0000

[singlepic id="740" w="240" h="240" mode="" float="right" ]It’s been Whitsun holiday last weekend. We hiked the Monkeys Rocks (Affensteine) up to Carols Rock (Carolafelsen). As usual on days like this there was quite a rush in the rocks. But fortunately there are enough hidden paths where you can find your rest. Summer’s coming visibly now. Everything is gettin verry colorfull. And while the kids are climbing the rocks, I’ve got plenty of time to take some shots.

Goodby ND3.0

Axel — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:20:09 +0000

Yes, I’ve broken my beloved 1000x neutral filter for ultra long time exposures. Right in the middle of the Markus square in Venice I dropped it down to the 1000 years old marble ground.

All hints to a dealer of theses ND3 filters with 72mm diameter and slim shape are welcome.

Edit: got a new one, B+W this time. Maybe soon there will be a “Welcome ND3.0″.

We’ve been to Venice on Easter

Axel — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:57:12 +0000

We’re not sure if this city will be lost in the eternal high waters or if the lagoon gets finally silt up and Venice will stand in the mud up to it’s neck; but this is sure: Venice will sink. Anyway, the time is long gone when Venice was a beautiful place. The houses are all wet and uninhabitable. There are no locals anymore, just tourists and tourist cheaters. The channels all stink. And generally on Easter everything gets worse than in high season…
So far the common prejudice of all this helpfull souls that wanted to prevent us from spending an entire week in the middle of Venice.

…to be continued. Sorry, just did the german version, yet.

Fotogalerie – Venezia 2008