No moon, no snow

Posted on Dezember 30th, 2014

It was a short trip to the Seealpsee in Appenzell. It was for a test shooting with my Sony A7s.
The reason for this place was the darkness. Between the narrow and steep mountains it was no light left from the cities. It was unbelievable dark, I could only see the horizon and the red light on the Säntis. Under this conditions it was not possible to get a useable photo with my Canon 6D, even when I was shooting up to 8 minutes, was the image too dark.
But look at this, one single shot, no stacking, no long exposure only a 10 seconds exposure. Okay it is a bit noise in it, because of the used 12800 ISO, but it is still a pretty nightshot under the hardest conditions I know. I’m really excited about this camera, it will make the night shooting so much easier for me.

A bloody sky

Posted on Dezember 27th, 2014

I was on my way to the town, as I saw this! What an impressive sky and because of the Föhn I could also see the far alps.
The Föhn is a strong warm wind coming down from the Sahara and brings dry and warm air over the alps. Usually you can see the alps when this wind is blowing. In the Föhn-valleys it’s more a storm, but as a good effect you can see the far away mountains and together with this stunning sunset, what a beautiful end of the day.

Where is the snow?

Posted on Dezember 24th, 2014

This year is it more worse than the last one. No snow in the mountains.
Therefore I was driving up to the mounains and asking mother nature, ey, yo – where is the snow? I was also performing my famous snow dance in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. Now we will see, whether my performance has appeard. If the snow is falling in the next few day, think about me and my dance.
This image was taken with my brandnew Sony A7s with a 24mm f/1.4 Samyang lens. Shot with 6400 ISO, only 13 seconds apperture at f/2. It is really amazing how good this setup works at night.

The Shire

Posted on Dezember 22nd, 2014

One night, I was hiking deep into the wild mountains, I found the place where the Hobbits are living.
Just before I took the image I saw Bilbo walking up to his house, you can see the lights shining through the windows behind the trees. Only a bit earlier and I cached him, but so I could take an awesome image of the setting moon. Two minutes later was the moon hide away. It’s amazing how bright the moon is, if you shoot images with 3200 ISO. If you can shoot with more ISO you will probably see through the stones

Morschach

Posted on Dezember 20th, 2014

Starting early enough to catch the sunset at the Vierwaldstaettersee and we reached the place right in time.
The best season to shoot the sunset at this point will be around the 21. of March or the 21. of September. Then you can see the sun mirroring along the lake. So I marked the day in my calendar for the next year.
But however, the blue hour was impressive too with the red clouds above the beautiful mountains and the purple colors on the water. It was really an amazing evening at the lake and I will go there for more shootings. Next time I go probably up to the top of the mountain behind me, the Fronalpstock.

After a dark night

Posted on Dezember 16th, 2014

This is the proof, that spending a whole, cold night in the mountains, will be rewarded. I mean, look at this … how amazing are these colors?
It was on the Melchsee-Frutt and it was summer so I left my long johns at home, what a mistake. I had to run up and down a hill to warm up. But how good was it to stay until the sun was rising up. Mostly the clouds are getting only orange, like the clouds at the horizon. But if the clouds are in the right height and the light can pass the horizon, then you can see such really red clouds in the sky. And the best of it, mirrored in the lake.
This is, what i call, a successful photo night

On the way up

Posted on Dezember 14th, 2014

I packed my rucksack, grabed my camera and was on my way up to the mountain, called Kitzbuehlerhorn. It was a steep way up and the sightseen was amazing.
It was clear and the humidity was not so high, therefore I had a good panoramic sight. I was fighting upwards and from time to time I was shooting a photo. After a while the peak looks very near and I was pleased to enjoy the panorama on the deserted peak. I walked around the last corner and … What is this???
There was a funicular at the other side and that’s not all, there was a road too. Not a dirty off-road, no a tarred street for cars. And there was also a restaurant and a whole bunch of tourists walking around with flip-flops and other not mountain proof clothes.
What a shock, no silent peak experience, I shot some images and walked the way back down.

Dawn in Austria

Posted on Dezember 11th, 2014

The most time in this week, where I spent in Austria, it rained like hell. But then from time to time, the clouds have broken up and a wonderful lightning could be seen.
But beside of the small gleam of hope, it was a boring week. The most time I was reading books on the bed in a small hotel room. As you can see, the next village was far away from this alp. The best thing was the food, it was always excellent, unlike the weather. But then, the weather was getting better, because it was our last day and we left the next morning, hooray…

The shipwreck

Posted on Dezember 10th, 2014

Last year I stayed a week on the canary island Lanzarote. And I spent one night on the road to take some pictures. I was already on my way back to the hotel, as I stopped at this shipwreck.
I saw this ship some days earlier and remembered me to take a shot at the dawn. It was a bit tricky to get a good angle. Because left and right where some industry complexes. But I was early enough at the shore to catch some purple in the sky, three shots later was the sky only blue. So I’m happy to have this image, because the sky was to cloudy for starscapes and this kind of image would not be possible in Switzerland, for the reason we’ve got no sea.

No stars in sight

Posted on Dezember 9th, 2014

It was another try to get some starscape shots with an interesting foreground. The weather forecast says yes, the nature says nope.
Therefore I was walking the whole way up and down without any nightshots. During the night the clouds were always there and I couldn’t sleep very well, but I was sleeping when the sunrise happend. And this was very sad, because clouds at night are not good but some clouds in the sky when the red sunlight is shining, is amazing.
Unfortunately I build up the tent a bit behind the pass and so I could see, what a stunning sunrise was going on behind the mountains, while I was packing my things together. So what I learned is, set always the alarm clock, even if you think you can anyway not sleep.