Escape the fog

Posted on November 30th, 2014

Time to get winter images. While here in the lower parts of Switzerland the gray autumn is covering the landscape with fog, the mountains are now covered with snow and often the sun is shining over the fog cover.
Now I should take more time to escape the foggy area and climb up to a mountain to see the sun again. And it’s cool to take sunset images because the sun is going down early now. But on the other hand, you have to wait very long for the sunrise if you stay on the mountain during a long, cold, winter night. Mostly it is difficult to go down, because the funiculars are not working at all or only until the sun reaches the horizon. And if you think, no problems, there are slopes and you can skiing down – nope! It is forbidden to skiing on the slopes during night time.
And probably that’s better so, because there are snowcats at work and sometime they are using steel cables on steep parts. If you crash into a snowcat or such a cable, well that will hurt.

Alpine roses

Posted on November 27th, 2014

I found these beautiful flowers at my afternoon hike with Bubu. But I thought to me, what a bad light I have at the early summer afternoon.
And so I came back right in time for the alpine glow to shoot the flowers in a stunning illumination. During the sunset is the light so much better than with daylight and hard shadows under a burning sun. But it is also time critical, there are only a few minutes when you see the red light at the mountains until the whole entchantmet is gone, so be there early enough.
If it’s possible to shoot during sunset or sunrise, go for it, even if it’s hard to stand up early in the morning. And belief me, I hates to stand up early…

Geiranger

Posted on November 25th, 2014

At the very end of the long fjord, there is a small village called Geiranger, which gives the whole fjord his name.
Every day comes a really big sea ship until the end of the fjord. And unlike me, you should know when the ship is coming. Then you you can take a very impressive image of a big ship in the narrow fjord. I saw some pictures and you can believe me, it is very impressiv. I mean this landscape is anyway impressive with all the wonderful mountains and the sea in the middle. But my advice is, take the image with the cream of the crop.

Purple flowers in Norway

Posted on November 23rd, 2014

Because the weather was not that perfect during our journey through norway, we could see some very dramatic skies.
The sun was nearly covered with clouds, but there were some spots coming through the clouds and highlighted the mountains. So I decided to walk into a field of flowers to get more color into this image. I choosed f/11 which was too wide open for the perfect depth of field. An aperture of f/16 or  f/22 would have been better.
Anyway I like this image for the colors, the dramatic sky and the glaciers in the background.

Bad weather at night

Posted on November 22nd, 2014

The plan was, walking up to the Spitzmeilen hut and making fantastic night shots. The reality was, we were walking upwards through thick fog. The hike was harder and longer as expected and the weather was not like forcasted.
Well it was not as I wished and the clouds stayed the whole night long without the possibility to see not only one star. But after the night was to forget, the sunrise was really stunning. The clouds are blowing away right until the horizon was become yellow. And so I could see a beautiful sky in wonderful snowy landscape.
And for the rest of the day and the next night, were I was no more in the mountains, the sky was totally clear and nicely blue…

Pragelpass

Posted on November 21st, 2014

It was in the late 2012 as I started a test series with some lenses and bodies. For that we drove to the Kanton Glarus, into the Kloental.
Until then I used a Canon 60D and for this night I borrowed a Canon 5D and some lenses for a test run. And what should I say, after this weekend I ordered a 5DmkII and a Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 lens. It was one of the first shot with this combo and it was really hard to find the focal point.
The night was clear and crisp without clouds and a bright fullmoon, so it  looks a bit like a daily shot. This image was stacked with Fitswork out of 4 shots for less noise.

Fall 2014 – job done

Posted on November 20th, 2014

It was a hard piece of work, but now everything is done and all leaves are dropped. Except some sqatter are still hanging around.
Therefore everything is ready for the winter and the snow can come now. It was not easy to suck all the chlorophyll back to the main storage. And to coordinat all the undocking maneuvers was this year real stressy. After I thought this summer was way too cold and all my fruits were anyway crippled because of the missing light, and I have to prepare for a long winter with too little saved energy.
But then the autumn was way better and I stopped the pre programmed undocking process and worked hard to suck as much sunlight as possible. But at the end, everything was finished early enough for this winter. So folks, I’m going to sleep, see ya next spring!
– Your Tree

Liquid sky

Posted on November 19th, 2014

It was an interesting sunset today. Nearly the whole sky was covered with clouds, but not the ugly November clouds, no the sky was well structured.
The sun was shining through the clouds, at some places more than at others and this gives this stunning structures. I took this image with a 3 images bracket series and made an HDR. But this time I didn’t use my heavy Canon 6D, I used a lightweight Sony RX-100 III.
And I’m really excited about the good quality of this camera. I think the noise is a bit stronger than on the full format sensor from Canon, but this camera is a point’n’shoot size gear. I will do more tests in the next days so I can say where the Sony has to be sort in.

Let’s get pink

Posted on November 16th, 2014

The reward after a steep climb and short night was the view to the red painted mountains by the very first sunrays of the day.
I was reaching the peak after the sun was setting behind the horizon. I took some shots built up my tent and took a short nap. Because of the clouds I couldn’t take starscapes. But later this night the clouds were gone and I could take some amazing shots, but more on this another time. After another short nap and this time I was up early enough, I could see the sunrise.
And it was amazing to see the very first rays with the red light and the long shadows over the valleys. Between some shots, I always saw another interesting light scene, I was packing together. And then, sometime while I was running around, I must lost my tent pegs. I was searching like crazy, but in the high grass I didn’t found it anymore. Darn, after this sunrise such a mistake, I picked up my backpack and was walking frustrated back home. But what a surprise! Then I saw the tent pegs lying in the grass, the day was saved!

The old church of Venasque

Posted on November 13th, 2014

At my last stay in France, I was in a region called Provence. It looks a bit like the Tuscany in Italy, except they are talking french, it’s anyway near the italian border.
However, I visited some nice old villages among others the village of Venasque. A small place on the top of a hill with narrow alleys and an old church, which was built in the 17. century and called like the famous dome in Paris, Notre Dame.
I used my Feisol tripod on the maximum height of about 2 meters and took a bracket series for an HDR image. The tripod is no more as stable on this height and it bounces a bit, therefore I used the 10s timer to wait until the camera was stable again. The usage of the camera at this height, gives me the possibility to level the camera horizontal to avoid angular lines, more or less.