Where we came from

Posted on November 4th, 2015

The lake behind us and where we came from.
As you know, we were walking about an hour until we found the pond behind me. And as you can see, the way was not so far, if we read the map and walked along the hiking path, before we decided to walk in a straight line “directly” to the pond.
But it was anyway a nice evening and night and it gives me a good story to tell.
On this image you can see the top of the Grimselpass with the lake called Deadlake, maybe it’s a deadly one, who knows This is an HDR pano made of 16 images two times four images and with two different exposure times each.

Looking for the lake

Posted on November 2nd, 2015

It once upon a time in the summer…
When I called my friend Koni, whether he want to come to the mountains for a short trip at friday night. I mean other guys are going out for a beer, meeting friends in the bars, but we decided to drive up to the alps for a nice photo night.
We meet us half way at a shopping mall, so we can share one car and while we parked one car, it rains like hell. Okay that starts already well… But we are tough men and so we drove ahead up to the grimsel pass. It was the idea of Koni to go there, because he knows that secret spot with a small alpine like, where the mountains are mirrored in.
Because of the rain and the traffic, we reached our destination, as usual, too late and it was already dark. But we are real men and as mountaineers as we are, we walked from the parking lot straight ahead through the meadow and over some hills to this secret lake. Koni knows where to go, he was already there and has a lot of experience in the mountains. And so I walked after him and we talked about the nice images we will do in a few minutes.
After half an hour or so, he was no more so sure, where this lake was and in his mind, it was much nearer as we walked already. After another ten minutes I took out my smartphone and asked the GPS-map where we are and where the pond is. And what a surprise, the pond was not far away from car but we where not close by. Okay, with the help of the map we walked offroad across the meadow back to the place where it should be.
Now, we were really late and it was close to midnight now, but the good thing was, the sky was as good as clear now. And after few minutes I could recognize a small red dot in front of me and a bit later some white beams of headlamps. Hmm, there were already some photographers at work at his secret place in the middle of nowhere, near the parking lot.

In middle of the night

Posted on Oktober 29th, 2015

All the sunlight is gone and all the starlight was visible.
Okay, I promise you, this is the last image of this lake. Not all clouds were gone but I could see the milkyway above the glacier.
For this image I tried something special. I made this image with the Sony A7s, my low light king. But I used a technique which I developed for my Canon 6D. I used an additional a star guiding tool, the nano.tracker, for the possibility to become an exposure time of 120 seconds without any startrails. This was my best technique to get images without so much noise. Because of the long exposure time, I could screw down my ISOs.
And what now happend is interessting, although the A7s is so good with high ISOs, it is very bad for long exposures. If you look closely, you will see all the red, blue and green dots of the hot pixels. With the Canon I was getting also some hot pixels, maybe five or ten, but this, there must be about one hundert of them.
The conclusion of this, every camera body has it’s pros and cons.

The night is arriving

Posted on Oktober 26th, 2015

Look at the sky, the first stars are visible now.
After my last picture only a few minutes later we can see the stars in the sky.  And the wind must be blowing very hard in the upper atmosphere, as you can see at the clouds.
And because this was a moonless night, with a bit of luck we can see something different in the sky a bit later, when the daylight is completely gone. I would say, we will see more stars, unbelievable more stars, if the clouds are blown away.

At the glaciers

Posted on Oktober 23rd, 2015

After a few curves, I reached the top of the Sustenpass.
The sun was already gone now and I was preparing me for the night shooting. The angle was not optimal, but to my right side was only a large stone field and I was not in the mood to climb another hour over all the cairns. So I stayed here, where I could see, the glaciers, the lake and the snowy mountains.
And it should not take long and the stars where visible in the sky. I could image how beautiful this must look, with all the sparkling stars in the sky. The only thing I had to do, is a bit waiting until the last light of the sun was disapeard.

Red damp

Posted on Oktober 20th, 2015

Always a bit late can give you an unexpected view.
It was a heavy traffic jam at the beginning of this trip and so I was again a bit late. Too late to be on the top for the sunset, but early enough in the mountains to get this colorful shot.
The plan was to be on the top off the Sustenpass before the sun sets and take some sunset images of the small lake there. Because of the delay, I had the chance to take this image a few minutes before the destination. Better to stop on the way and take a sunset image, than beeing at the desired point without light.
After I took some images here, I drove ahead to the top with the glacier and the lakes.

Tellsplatte

Posted on Oktober 16th, 2015

On the road again, up into the swiss alps.
After a few weeks the weather was still stable and I had to go back to the mountains for another exciting night. At the half way, I stopped at this beautiful point on the Vierwaldstaettersee called Tellsplatte. Who knows which story is behind this point about a character of an old german story teller.
But anyway, the light was very nice, while the sun was setting and the first reddish light was in the air. After a few minutes I was already back in my car and on the road towards deeper into the high swiss alps.

A last glance

Posted on Oktober 14th, 2015

The weekend shorttrip has ended, time to go back to the mountains.
Before I take you with me to my next trip in the mountains, a last glance over the light polluted flatlands with the milkyway over the horizon.
Meanwhile the autumn has arrived here in Switzerland and so I wallow in the memories and photos of the past extraordinary summer. But let us see, what next is coming…

A long way back

Posted on Oktober 12th, 2015

When you realize, that the way was longer than expected.
From the other side, it looks like a hop, but if you are on the way and you are walking, then you are walking until you reached your destination. Then you turn around and you see, how far you have to walk until you are back at your starting point.The highest hill at the horizon, was the point where I shot the last image. And a bit below you see the hotel, were I stayed over night and were I started today. It was thought as a short walk with Bubu and has ended with a four hours marsh. But I reached my destination on the other end of the hills.

The panoramic view from Roeti

Posted on Oktober 9th, 2015

The view from the lookout point near Solothurn, called Weissenstein.
It was a hot summer day, when I was walking with Bubu the dog, from the hotel to the highest point on this recreation area. This view to the east shows the tail of the swiss jura mountains.
You should see at least four cantons, Solothurn, Berne, Basel and Jura. And if you want to know, how high the temperatures were, watch my last image and ask Bubu
It was a little afternoon walk, with Bubu and not a high mountain tour, except the running sweat was the same…