Over hill and dale

Posted on Juni 28th, 2015

The way is steep and arduous.
Short after the start, was the trail already steep and stony and it was getting worse. The mountains are always far away, regardless how long I was already walking. The weather was not good for nightly shots, because of all the clouds. But at this point I was happy the air was cold and windy.
Far away in the background, you can see the needle of the Ago di Sciora. In th foreground you see the mark for the hiking trail, yes I’m on the trail now. It was more climbing between large stones than hiking. But now back at home, like always, I want to go for the next trip

Val Bondasca

Posted on Juni 26th, 2015

A long way to go until I reached the destination.
As we started to drive to one of the farest point we can reach from here in the flatlands, was it still raining. It was faster to drive over Italy to reach this valley in the south of Switzerland.
After I saw this view, I thought how is it even possible to reach the hut of Sciora. This mountains are so high, the valley is so narrow and the walls are so steep.
Take a closer look, then you can see, at the far end of the valley, a gray band, like an autobahn. This is a massiv rockfall of a few million cubic meter of stones, fallen down from the Piz Cengalo. And if you look more closer, then you see some green behind the rockfall. And at the point, where the green is finishing, directly at the left border of the valley, there, in the steep wall, is the hut of Sciora, where we spent the night.
At this point I thought, hell why are we doing this…

Clouds in the sky

Posted on Juni 23rd, 2015

The sun was hiding and the clouds were coming.
It was the perfect moment for a starscape image with the Milkyway, if the clouds would disappear. But unfortunately the sky was more and more covered with clouds.
And so I had only an image of the lake before the night was coming and after 3 hours of driving around, I was back home without any nightly shots. Next time I will capture more stars, I promise you

Rhinefall

Posted on Juni 18th, 2015

The Water ist falling thunderously down over the cliff.
One of the must have points in Switzerland is the Rhinefall near Schaffhausen. Although I’m living only 15 minutes away, I was never visiting it for a photo shooting. But at this evening was the weather not bad and I thought why not visiting water instead of mountains.
And so it comes that I spend an evening at the Rhinefall. All the tourists take pictures with their mobiles and point’n’shoot cameras. And because the water is floating so fast and it splashes and so the image is very wild.
But there is an easy way to calm down the Rhine, take a long time exposure, longer than 1 second. If it’s not possible, because it is to bright, take sunglasses for you camera, an ND filter. E voilà the image is now very smooth.

The delayed sunrise

Posted on Juni 14th, 2015

To the end of my Gantrisch excursion, the sunrise.
With a bit of delay, because of the big, fat cloud at the horizon, I could see the sun rising in the sky. Although I missed the red light, was the waiting time not for nothing, in my opinion.
You can see the Emmental and while I am allready enjoy the warming sunlight, the valleys were still lying in the shadow of the big, fat cloud. But I think at this time on a sunday morning, the most people are anyway still lying in their beds.
And after I was back at home and the other peoples are crawling out of their beds, I took a nap under my blanket.

Gantrisch

Posted on Juni 12th, 2015

Watch this panorama in full resolution of over 5000 pixel width.
On the left side you see the town of Thun with the lake of Thun and the light pollution in the clouds. Behind it, if you zoom in, you can see three peaks, the Eiger, Moench and Jungfrau. The large mountains of the midground is the Gantrisch region with the Gantrisch in the center which gives this region the name. The light on the right side came from the Fribourg region and the moon which is coverd by clouds.
Because it’s more easy now, to take starscapes with modern cameras, I need more challenge. And so I took this horizontal HDR panorama of 3×3 images. I made 3 times a bracket serie of 3 images.

Late night show

Posted on Juni 10th, 2015

If the day goes to the end, you can either watch tv or you go out and watch nature.
In my last post I gave you the advice to go early enough to see the sunrise. But why go not a bit earlier and you can see all the beautiful stars too?
So I did it and I was early enough on the peak and I could take some nice starscapes of the alpine skyline. And like always again, I am surprised how much light, my dream team, the Sony A7s with the Samyang 24mm f/1.4 , can take. It’s really amazing what I get. This is a manually made HDR image out of 3 images with 2EV steps. And it’s so easy to take the image, set the bracket series and push the button.
One tip, if you are also a Sony shooter: bracket series are a bit foolish on the sony cams. You can not take a bracket serie with 2 second timer delay, you have allway press the shutter until the third image is running. But if you use an external shutter release with a cable, then you can use the bulb pusher and you will not shake your image.

Early morning

Posted on Juni 7th, 2015

It’s much more interesting, if the the sunlight comes vertically.
If you want to shoot alpine images, the best time is early in the morning. You will see a lot more details and structures with the shadows from a deep standing sun. The ground looks a lot more structured and you can see all the waves on the meadows.
Another option is to go in the evening, before the sun touches the horizon. It depends on the the direction and this side of the mountains is better for morning shots and the other site is maybe better for evening shots. Check this on a map, before you plan your photo tour. The good thing on the morning is also, there are nearly no peoples on the images, because all the lazy tourists are still sleeping in their comfortable hotel rooms.

The work of man

Posted on Juni 3rd, 2015

After the man at work, today the work of the man.
Last time you saw Tom Fear at work, but what was worth it, to take a photograph? The view over the whole Emmental from the top of the Gurnigelpass. As you can see, if you take a closer look, the lights in the villages are still burning. It was early in the morning as the first light was visible on the eastern horizon. Meanwhile I still could see stars at the opposite sky.
Keep always in you mind, if you want to take starscape images, two hours before the sun rises at the horizon, the sky gets bright and the stars disappears, so you should be at your photo spot at least two hours before sunrise.

Man at work

Posted on Juni 1st, 2015

The weather was only for a few hours good to go and I used it.
It was cloudy on friday and it was cloudy on saturday too, but I heard the clouds should disappear in the middle of the night and come back during the sunday morning. What should I do under this conditions? Right, set the alarm in the middle of the night. Hop into the car, drive up to the mountains. Put on the hiking shoes on and walk up to the hill.
The condition was not optimal and I couldn’t see the ‘Alpenglühn’ but good enough for some nice images. First I could shoot some starscapes and then cames the dawn, followed by the blue hour. Only a nice red sky was missing, because there was a thick, fat cloud at the horizon directly in front of the rising sun.
But take this image in advance of a few interesting images in the next days.