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.

Grain and poppies

Posted on Mai 29th, 2015

The beautys of the spring are blooming again.
After all the muddy brown fields are covered with growing grain, you can find them too. If you are looking good enough then you see all over the places the red spots between all the green grain blades, the poppy blossoms.
I like the extrem contrast of the green and beige grain and the extrem red shiny poppies. Sometimes I belief the camera was not able to catch the red tones correctly and it burned out.
Therefore I wish you all a wonderfull weekend, go out into the nature and watch for the red shiny poppies.

Achoo!

Posted on Mai 27th, 2015

When the spring days are getting longer and the air is warm and full filled of…
It could be so wonderfull to stay outside and enjoy the nature. Enjoying the sun and her warm rays on your skin and take a deep breath of the fresh spring air with all the fragrances of the blooming flowers. And: Achoo! Achoo! Achoo! It shakes you again and again like you are using a jackhammer.
Then you know, you sucked in, beside all the amazing spring fragrances, the pollen of the grass. Did you know, that all the yellow dust you can find on your car and elsewhere, are not so evil. The really hard stuff are the very fine pollen of the grass blades and they are a lot smaller, so you normaly don’t see it.
But one day, I was on the morning walk with Bubu, the dogs tail shaked some heavy loaded grass blades and I saw small clouds in the air. Ah there comes this ugly stuff from and a second later I thought, how can I get an image of this pollen? It was not that easy but I managed it. And after several tries, I pressed the shutter at the right moment.

An alpine view

Posted on Mai 25th, 2015

Watch it all, from the Mythen across the Rigi and the lakes, to the central swiss alps.
While the sun is already gone down behind the horizon you can sill see her red light. And it’s already dark enough to see all the lights of the villages down in the valley.
Because this is the ending of the blue hour you can also see the first stars and you can see the two planets, Venus and Jupiter.
This is an HDR panorama image, which means I took five times a bracket  series to get all the dynamic I could also see by my eyes. My advice, if you ever go up to a sight seeing place like the Rotenfluh here, take your time and stay until it’s dark. Because after this pano I shoot also a night time pano with a lot more visible stars. The disadvantage is, after you took all the awesome photos and you are prepared to go down to the valley, you will notice that you missed the last funicular by far.

Photobomb!

Posted on Mai 22nd, 2015

Do you know that one funny guy who always want to be on a picture?
You maybe know that, you want to take an image of an awesome landscape and ‘whooosh’, there he is. You made an image of the dude you never wanted for. Photobombers are a major problem in the photography business. More often you have destroyed images of the photo bomber community guys.
And what I never thought, that my faithful companion Bubu is one of them! I was so shocked…
And I screamed: “Ey Bubu! Go away!” and he answerd: “Nana nanana…” ARGHH!!!

An ordinary gear test

Posted on Mai 19th, 2015

Bought a new camera and went for a quick test to the nearby pond.
It was one of that day, the new camera was lying on the table and it itched me in my index finger to press the shutter. So I went for a short camera comparison to a near pond and pressed a little bored a few times the shutter.
At home I had the same shot about 100 times on my disk, because I setup all three cams with the same focal length and controlled that I had the same image part on the sensor. Then I took each time a bracked serie with all three cameras. The images where more or less the same, this one is from my Canon 6D.
It makes no sense to show images of all three cameras they look similar, so maybe someone is interested in this test image…