Kruger National Park 13-08-2023 (sunset)

 Sunset on day seven: 

Kruger National Park 11-08-2023 (sunset)

 Sunset on day five:

Kruger National Park 10-08-2023 (sunset)

 Sunset on day four:

Kruger National Park 08-08-2023 (sunrise)

 ...and so day two of our Kruger National Park adventure got under way in spectacular fashion.

Kruger National Park 07-08-2023 (sunset)

 Who can resist an African sunset? Not this guy! I moved around a bit and took several.

Sunsets with a telephoto lens are fantastic for zooming in and picking out details in a landscape as well as filling the sensor with those great sunset colours.

Sunset over the Öresund

Sunset Friday 27-01-2023.

Nikon D750 with 50mm f1.8G attached. All hand held, f8.0, highlight-weighted metering, auto iso, edited in RawTherapee on Ubuntu Linux.

Sunset on the Öresund

Sunset photos taken (handheld) looking over the Öresund between Sweden and Denmark with my favourite carry around camera the wonderful Olympus E-M5 Mark II and the spectacular Olympus 17mm f/1.8 M.Zuiko lens.

Old Fisherman's Cottages in Borstahusen Southern Sweden.

Taken with my trusty Olympus E-M5 Mark II and the wonderful Olympus 17mm f/1.8 M.Zuiko lens, all hand held.

 

   

 

Sunset in Landskrona

I went for a walk down to the beach-front to get some pics of the sunset. I took along my wonderfully small and light Olympus OM-D E-M5mk2 with the super sharp 17mm f1.8 lens. Today I ran them through DXO Photolab 4.

Very Green Swedish Forest

 While driving home earlier today we happened to drive through a section of beautiful natural Swedish forest that was just a really gorgeous hue of green. Stopped by the side of the road, grabbed my OM-D E-M5mk2 with the 12-40mm f2.8 PRO lens attached and shot a few hand held photos.

Sunrise Over the Baltic

 My wife and I were on a short trip to Kivik on the East coast of southern Sweden this week and yesterday morning we got up early to catch the sunrise and it was worth every moment of sleep missed!

I took along my favourite travel camera, the tiny Olympus E-M5 mk2 and the excellent Olympus 12-40 f2.8 PRO lens. As you can see in the pics below this Olympus combo is more than capable of producing excellent quality photographs to satisfy the travel photographer on the go. All these photos were taken at f8 and hand held. I ran the raw images through the fantastic DXO PhotoLab 4 processing program.

Winter View Over the Öresund

Winter View Over the Öresund. 

Snow, frozen sea and grey looming clouds complete the view over the Öresund to Denmark on the opposite side.

Nikon D750, NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G. Handheld.
 

Minimilist Sunset

Taken with my trusty 50mm f1.8. Spectacular lens that costs very little, best value for money when doing a cost vs image quality assessment.

Sunset over the Öresund

I took this photograph from the crest of a hill overlooking the Öresund between Sweden and Denmark with the island of Ven between the two on the left side of the photograph. Below is a picture taken with my cell phone camera of the camera on a tripod and my bicycle waiting patiently for me to get finished and take it back home.

I think in FOV therefore I'm a photographer!

It's a funny thing being a photographer because I find that everywhere I go I see photographs I want to take. The worst part of it is that I tend to see everything in a "normal" FOV (field of view) which is not so unusual because my eyes just naturally see a, um, normal FOV. I say the worst thing, but of course that is actually a good thing because I can pick up my camera and get a bunch of pics really quickly without having to think a whole lot about it as it just comes naturally. The bad part is that when I don't have a camera with me I still find myself seeing the shots, and not being able to take them which leads to regret about not carrying my camera with me more and then I get home p-eed off with myself because I missed that shot of the double rainbow over the sundrenched city with dark stormclouds in the background that I will never ever see again!

Good Bye Summer!

With the advent of autumn the "lazy hazy crazy days of summer" are finally gone until next year. I will miss the long warm Scandinavian evenings of cycling along the coast and sipping beer on the patio while sunset lingers on seemingly forever.

Now roll on the magical snow filled "winter wonderland" instead!

Life is good!

Waterfront at Lake Esrum in Denmark

I still haven't got used to the extremely long summer evenings in Scandinavia, despite having been here for over a year now. This is my second summer in these northern countries and the beautiful lingering light still appears miraculous to me after a lifetime of the abrupt sunsets that characterise the evenings in Southern Africa. This particular photograph of the waterfront at Lake Esrum was taken at 20.03pm, and there was still another hour of useable light for a fruitful and fulfilling photowalk that splendid Danish summer "magic hour".

Livet är mycket bra!

Jetty on Lake Esrum in Denmark

I have photographed this jetty before, but never in a beautiful pastel painterly sunset like this!

Fredensborg is one of my favourite places in Scandinavia, and Lake Esrum is down past the palace a couple of kilometers or so from the town center. It is a beautiful walk through a forested area interspersed with parkland from the palace and then the beautiful lake is the cherry on the top.

Life is good!
:-)

Lake Esrum Sunset

I don't often venture into the world of HDR, but when I am faced with a huge lighting challenge like the one in the scene above there really is no other way to get the full dynamic range on offer. If I exposed for the setting sun the boat in the foreground was diminished to murky blacks and greys, and if I exposed for the foreground the sunset became a wash of blown out highlights. Cue bracketing function on camera, roll on Photomatix (I never upgraded from version 3!) tweak in PSP X5, and voila! A simple exposure blend is enough for me, I try to keep these looking as natural as possible given the circumstances because overworked HDR is an abomination to behold... at least to me.

Victoria Falls - from a long obsolete camera!

An oldie from 2009 taken on a Canon 350D that I got super cheap because they were end of line and had been replaced by the 400D back in 2006! I took it with me on a trip to Zambia and got some great photographs from the old 8 megapixel obsolete relic. ;-)

This pic is of the Victoria Falls taken from the Zambian side looking towards the setting sun. It was the rainy season and the Zambezi was in flood making for a very spectacular flow of water over the falls and the "smoke" plume (water mist/spray) that can be seen from many kilometers away. The locals call these falls Mosi-oa-Tunya "the Smoke that Thunders". David Livingstone renamed it after Queen Victoria when he finally got there.

I still have the 350D but these days it mostly just sits in a drawer in my office. I have been trying to decide what to do with it as it is a pity to have such a wonderful camera just gathering dust. What would you do with it? Any great ideas how I can put it back into use? Be creative!