First day out of the cage, and the day showed no mercy. Yes, it was sunny in between, that was while I sat at work in front of the computer

Anyway. This image is of one short moment in the morning, when I saw the reflection of a milky sun in a window. I tried my best, even shot a bracketed sequence, combined the exposures in Photomatix Pro, but really, I would have despaired without Photoshop. Two hours and many layers later I am not pleased with the image, but not disgusted either. I guess it’s OK, but then …

I’d probably have liked a dog in the foreground to the right, on a major diagonal, opposed to the light patch of the reflection, although, even if I had had a dog in the frame, it would have probably been the wrong pose and certainly a problem with the bracketed exposures. Well, this is an image where I woudl even copy a dog in, but alas, my dog library is rather scarcely populated

The Song of the Day is “Shine On” from James Blunt’s 2007 album “All The Lost Souls”. See a live version on YouTube.

Or maybe not, it’s just that I took a series of images of locks, with this one the best of the bunch

The Song of the Day is “I’m Gonna Lock My Heart” by Billie Holiday, and this presents me with a dilemma. Let me explain:

I normally link to CDs at Amazon. I don’t know, I am that way, I have always bought my music, and I liked to buy it in a way that gave me something to put on a shelf. No more so. I wrote about it recently, I have begun to buy digital downloads.

I have this song in a collection of ten CDs that are not available any more. I got them for 10€ sometime last year. On Amazon I found it in a single CD that’s only available via their marketplace, and in a collection of nine albums, “Good Morning Blues, The Complete Columbia Recordings 1933-1950″, that are currently only available as digital downloads and, as so often with digital downloads, you cannot buy them from Europe via this link. It’s not that I normally bought CDs from Amazon.com that often, I normally used their UK or German branch, but at least theoretically I could and sometimes I have.

Of course what I really recommend are the downloads. Go figure: 230 songs for $15.98, and you don’t even have to rip them! It’s a steal.

But then: in an age of digital downloads, this artificial market fragmentation created by a copyright system long gone crazy, a copyright system that is completely inadequate for world-wide digital distribution, in such an age I find it increasingly hard to link to something that all of you could possibly buy.

Well, it’s not all that bad, actually you get the same collection at Amazon.de as well, it’s even the same price (numerically, 15.98€, the straight conversion not considering taxes would be 11.71€, but we Europeans always like to pay some more ), but still, this is not always so and it’s still not the same link. It’s not even possible to take the Amazon.com link and exchange “.com” with “.de”. Amazon.de has it, but under a different link. Oh my!

Enough of the rant. What about you? Do you still buy plastic? Do you buy downloads? Or do you just download?

Oh, by the way, hear it on YouTube.

Giving titles. Even (or because of) my habit of using song titles, it can be really hard.

Sometimes it takes me as long as working on the image. Here I had three of them to choose, none of them a clear winner.

In the end I decided for the one that gave me a Song of the Day. Actually I would have rather taken this one: a damaged bicycle with an infinitely twisted wheel, but really, among 34000 songs, there is exactly not a single one called “Infinity”.

Or the other one. I would have expected “Obscure” (at least that’s what I read: “Obskur”) to be a word that occurs at least once in 34000 song titles. Nothing.

Of course “Blue” was the cheap way out. 1557 songs, most of them Blues

The Song of the Day is “Perfect Blue Buildings” from the 1993 Counting Crows album “August and Everything After”. Hear it on YouTube.

Here’s one more of yesterday’s images. I was too lazy to go out today. Sorry

This is an abandoned house not far from Klagenfurt, located in a wonderful spot, obviously belonging to an estate not far away, a solitary house, abandoned and closed, with an “Entrance forbidden” sign on the door, of use for no one.

The Song of the Day is the Beatles song “For No One“, sung by Anne Sofie von Otter on her collabration with Elvis Costello, the 2001 release “For the Stars”. Hear it on YouTube.

Funny that I’ve never used that song. This is an HDR made yesterday morning. In reality it’s no way “out of town”, it’s only the yard of one of those old tenement ensembles that make up so much of Vienna. Still, it looks almost rural to me or at least small-town.

The Song of the Day is Cole Porter’s “Get Out Of Town“, sung by the great Holly Cole on her 1996 live album “It Happened One Night”. Typical me: I’ve waited for so many years to see her live, in two weeks she plays in Vienna, now guess who has no tickets???

See a live performance on YouTube.

Today Michael and I have again worked in his apartment. This consumed most of the day, which was quite unfortunate, because it was sunny and beautiful, almost like Spring beginning. On the other hand we progressed nicely, so I really shouldn’t complain

I’ve taken the two daylight images in the morning. The obelisk is a monument for Dr. Karl Lueger, Mayor of Vienna around 1900 and anti-Semite extraordinaire. But that’s the way it is in Austria. I suppose the only reason why we don’t idolize Hitler is, that it would be bad for our image. But of course I may be wrong.

The other image is of a “Würstelstand”, one typically Viennese institution where you can eat hot sausages, Leberkäse and, as a concession to our internationality, Hot Dogs. They are hard pressed by McDonalds and all those Turkish Döner kebab stands, but so far they have survived. It’s probably not the most healthy diet, but the same could be said of McDonalds

The Image of the Day was taken at night when I went home. The church is the same that you see in the background of the image with the obelisk.

The Song of the Day is “Church On Sunday” from Green Day’s 2000 album “Warning”. Hear it on YouTube.

This one would probably have worked in color as well, but then probably not. I didn’t try it for real

The Song of the Day is “Up Where We Belong” by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes, the big hit from the soundtrack of “An Officer And A Gentleman”. I have it on a collection of love songs that’s unavailable internationally, although availability of the original soundtrack album is not so great either

Hear it on YouTube.

Another weekend is over, I’m on the train back to Vienna. Like on most Sundays I slept long, relaxed, and when I got out, it was already 4pm. I drove to a supermarket on the other side of Villach, located in a winter sports area, where shops are open even on Sunday afternoons, and when I returned and took a small detour through this village, the sun was almost gone.

This is again an HDR image, tonemapped with Photomatix Pro and then finished in Photoshop. This is actually the second version. The first was tonally OK, but much too garish. This is much more believable, I guess.

The Song of the Day is “Sunlight” from Pat Metheny’s 1992 album “Secret Story”. Hear it on YouTube.

Yesterday was actually a beautiful day, but I felt uninspired and tired. We drove around a little, I made some pictures, but nothing that I’d normally post.

So what? Instead of taking one from the archives, I decided to post one of these “been there, this is how it looks” images. Castle Rain near Klagenfurt in winter. That’s how it looks. Maybe it looks even exotic to some of you

The Song of the Day is “Instead” from the 2009 Madeleine Peyroux album “Bare Bones”. Here’s a live performance.

Photozone.de has finally published a lab review of the Tamron 17-50/2.8 VC. It’s for the Canon version, but that should not make much of a difference. The review sparked off a thread in the Nikon forum of Photo.net, where the review was regarded as almost devastating. The original poster concluded with “If you value your photography, stay away from this lens!”

Well, regarding distortions at 17mm, yes, it distorts badly, and apart from the brick wall, this original shot, provided for you in all glory of its full size, is as bad as it may get. For the Image of the Day I have applied PTLens, but that could only remove part of the barrel distortion. I’ve removed some more with Photoshop’s Lens Distortion filter, cropped, and you see that what I’ve got is pretty perfectly rectangular. Just frame a little less accurate, leave room for correction. That’s for distortions.

The other thing is, that down in the Photo.net thread Eric Arnold tried to compromise:

essentially,it comes down to this: if you need corner sharpness but constant aperture isnt important, i.e. for landscapes, get the 16-85 VR.

if you need a fast constant aperture and want stabilization at the expense of losing some corner sharpness, get the 17-50 VC.

I think my answer is relevant, and I don’t want it to be buried in an off-site thread, so please allow me to quote it as well:

I think this is wrong. The reason to get the 16-85 VR can only be the extended range.

Yes, it is sharper in the corners at f3.5 than the Tamron at f2.8, so what? Would you take landscape images at f2.8 or f3.5? Most of the time I wouldn’t. And even if:

I’ve just tried the Tamron at f3.5, tried it with book shelfs (detail!), tried it with flash (it’s still night here), and I can see a subtle sharpness falloff, only in the extreme corners, and I can only see it because I look for it. Even at f3.5, you would have a hard time seeing it, and for the 16-85 VR this is still wide open.

No, I suppose with the 16-85 you would shoot normally at at least f5.6, and by that the Tamron is stellar across the range. We’re speaking of 50/1.8 sharpness here. And that’s only at 17mm. Think of 24mm: the 16-85 just begins at f4, from 35mm at f4.5, and by 50mm it is at f5. At none of these focal lengths and at starting aperture it is a match for the Tamron.

Now take it the other way: Imagine a situation where you do want to take a scenic image at f2.8, for instance because it is night. Let it be architecture, for instance in a city, or let it be within a cathedral. It’s quite a typical situation, and it’s quite typical for situations where you either have no tripod or may not be allowed to use it.

In such situations the shot is frequently repeatable, thus I may go down from my normal 1/15s (auto ISO lower speed limit) to 1/8s or even 1/4s. With VR I have a sharp image, it may take me two or three attempts though, especially standing without support and shooting portrait format. Even in low light I may get away with ISO 200.

With the 17-55/2.8 at twice the price I may be lucky to get the shot at 1/15s, but I suppose 1/30s will be more likely, especially in portrait format. We’re talking two to three stops, i.e. ISO 800-1600 here. Do you believe that the added corner sharpness of the 17-55/2.8 will still be there at these ISOs? And if were not talking extreme corners but center or off-center, for instance a typical “rule of thirds” composition? The Tamron will be much better than in the extreme corners. The Nikon may or may not still have a slight edge on the charts, but you would have a hard time seeing it, and, remember, that would be at the same ISO. But what with our fictual but not so unrealistic situation in the church or at night in the city? With an advantage of ISO 200 vs ISO 800-1600 across the frame and the main subject where main subjects typically are, don’t you believe that any theoretical sharpness advantage of the Nikon, even if it were there at that point in the frame, would be hopelessly buried in noise?

Now say you accept some added noise because you need depth of field. You go to f5.6. That’s two stops, we are at ISO 800 with the Tamron. We may need two or three attempts to hold the shot at 1/4s, but we would need the same with the Nikon at 1/15s or even 1/30s. Both lenses operate at maximum sharpness now. Under ideal light and in the lab, you may still be able to measure a slight sharpness advantage in the extreme corners for the Nikon. Our subject is not in the extreme corners though, and the light is low as it is. Where is the Nikon now? ISO 3200-6400, right? Forget about any theoretical advantage it may have. At that light it is severely hampered by sensor noise. ISO 800 vs ISO 3200-6400? This is an almost too easy win for the Tamron.

I may sound like being biased, I may even sound like being affiliated with Tamron, but that’s not the case. I just own this lens and have used it for three months in the darkest time of the year. Really, I wouldn’t so easily dismiss this lens

Here we are. The Image of the Day was taken at 1/15s and f2.8. The extreme corners of the original shot are about 10cm in front of the focal plane. They are mushy because they are clearly out of focus. If they were in focus, they might be still mushy but less mushy. That’s how bad it can get. Could be worse, huh?

And, given the example in the quote, had I taken my time, I could have gone down to 1/4s and ISO 200. With non-stabilized lenses you’d still hover at ISO 800 or maybe at ISO 1600, look at the noise and console yourself with the fact that it’s not the lens, it’s only the light that’s so bad

Oh yes, “Rahmen” means “frame” or “frames” in German. Thus the Song of the Day is “Framed” from The Sensational Alex Harvey Band’s 1972 album “Framed”. See them in a fine live performance on YouTube.