1414 - Tempos Modernos

Nikon 50/1.2 2 Responses »
Aug 292010

Instead of a proper Saturday image, here’s one more from my walk through Villach on Friday. Saturday we had rain most of the day and I spare you that.

I’ve already given you a view of this church the day I came back from Liguria, and here is another one, with the spire peeking out between Villach’s Congress Center and the new Holiday Inn hotel.

And while we are contemplating this clash of modern and old architecture, let me ask you a question. Do you own an e-book reader? And if so, is it a Kindle or something else?

I ask, because I felt the strong impulse today to buy a new Amazon Kindle. At the moment I read Vikram Chandra’s monumental Mumbai epos “Sacred Games”, an outstanding novel that is full of Indian slang and that assumes quite some understanding of Indo-Pakistani history on the side of the reader. As someone who has largely ignored India and its history in the past (don’t know why, it’s just how it is), I found it incredibly helpful to look things up in Wikipedia, but of course I don’t sit in front of a computer all the time, and certainly not when I read books.

Well, Amazon’s new Kindle 3G could be the solution to that. It has WiFi and 3G connectivity, some kind of easy link to Wikipedia (select a word and press a button, or something like that), and it even has a full-fledged browser. Sure, it’s not as good for browsing the colorful, glossy web as an Apple iPad, but its screen is much better suited to reading everywhere, even in sunlight, and its battery life is much, much longer.

On one side there is my disgust for Digital Restriction Management, but on the other side I really like the idea of the Kindle. It may have the potential to be much more than just a device for reading books. Reading a book like “Sacred Games” on this device may open up a new level of understanding, just because cross-referencing and looking up of background information is so much more convenient than with a physical book and separate computers, I am sure I would do it much more often, at least if it worked well enough. So, then: does it? Is it really convenient to look something up? Do you use that feature? What’s your overall impression?

So far I have not ordered and my initial enthusiasm has cooled off a little, because a quick lookup of the last about 30 books I’ve read showed most of them not available in Kindle format so far. I have read William Gibson’s “Neuromancer” trilogy, and of the three books only the first two are available. A bit anti-climactic is you ask me :)

I’ve read all books in Orson Scott Card’s “Ender” universe and his “Homecoming Saga”. None of these 17 or 18 books are available. Steinbeck of course seems available and complete, but there is no Tom Sharpe and no David Lodge. OK, they’re british :)

There are some books by A. S. Byatt, but “Possession” is missing. They have Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight Children” (that I’m going to read soon), but not the “Satanic Verses”. Heinlein’s “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress”? Nope. Almost nothing by Ursula K. LeGuin. Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee? Almost nothing.

Overall it seems to me, that we’re not yet there. As much as I’d like the comfort of using such a crossover device, at the moment it would not be of much use to me. But then, maybe what I want is simply an iPad or something like that, some small computer that can be dragged around along with a physical book. Actually I have no idea, do you???

The Song of the Day is “Tempos Modernos” from Marisa Monte’s album “Barulhinho Bom”. I have the album under the title “A Great Noise”, and the cover of my version is slightly censored :)

Hear the song on YouTube.

Posted by andreas at 10:33 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

1392 - Canzone Della Strada

Tamron 17-50/2.8 VC No Responses »
Aug 082010

This is the image for Friday, obviously not made on Friday. It’s Rapallo in Liguria, Italy again. I like Rapallo, because it is big enough to have a population not working in the tourism industries.

We are in the process of searching for a a more permanent abode in Villach, and I arrived one day earlier, because we had a meeting with a very competent woman from the construction company. We are looking for an apartment, but of course nothing fits just right. Thus we spent three hours in front of AutoCAD, and now we are quite confident.

The Song of the Day is “Canzone Della Strada” from the 2004 Quadro Nuevo album of the same name. YouTube has it, I suggest you give it a try. Quadro Nuevo are an Austrian band, but this feels real Italian. More than real I might say :)

Posted by andreas at 8:39 pm Tagged with: , , , , , ,

1382 - Mary's Of The Sea

Tamron 17-50/2.8 VC 2 Responses »
Jul 282010

I was not in a photographing mood. I did take photographs today, a lot even, but almost all of them were textures. Walls, stone, cracking paint and the like. When I made yesterday’s “1381 – I See A Darkness“, I blended in a texture of cracks in a big block of wood, and while I browsed my collection for textures, I realized that they were not only poorly tagged in the database, but also that I don’t have as many as I thought. This averted my view today and made me mostly look at old walls :)

OK, that’s today’s excuse for why you get another picture from Italy :D

Here is Camogli again, same place as yesterday’s darkness, same time, only here I use the 17-50 and look towards “Santa Maria Assunta”, St Mary’s, the church directly at the beach.

The Song of the Day is “Marys Of The Sea” from Tori Amos’ 2005 album “The Beekeeper”. Only live versions float the net, so here is one on YouTube.

Posted by andreas at 7:42 am Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

1369 - Let's Get High

Nikon 70-300 VR 4 Responses »
Jul 142010

No, this image was not taken with my Tamron 17-50/2.8, but I have made this post part of my review series, because I think you should know, that I have sent it in to Tamron one more time.

You remember the last time, when my bag had fallen from negligible height and the lens barrel broke? Tamron has repaired the lens, the autofocus error is gone, but instead a new problem had appeared:

Often when I turned the camera on, the first image was severely overexposed. Well, this became very frequent in the last few weeks, to an extent where I could be almost certain that the first image or even the first few images would be unusable.

Further study has revealed, that the lens fails to stop down during exposure. You know, while metering and while you look through the viewfinder, the lens is always wide open, in case of the Tamron this means f2.8. Only for the actual exposure the lens stops down to the aperture selected. Or it does not, just like mine. When that happens, the camera exposes for, say, f8, but the lens faultily stays open at f2.8. The result is an overexposure by three full stops.

Now, when I look back, this lens, while it works, is extraordinarily versatile, and the image quality is pretty good as well. On the other hand, I had this autofocus problem (that seems to have been corrected with a firmware update when I sent the lens in the last time) and now I have this problem, that makes the lens completely unusable for street photography.

Would I buy it again? Maybe. Not all of them can be that flimsy, and optically it has brought me through the dark winter like no lens before. Nikon simply has no alternative. I guess it all depends on how well the upcoming Sigma 17-50/2.8 OS will perform. It has just become available for Canon and may come out for Nikon within the next month. Less and less can I imagine to be able to resist :)

Being without the Tamron, I had to switch to another lens, and in this case it was the Nikon 70-300 VR. For a few days I had seen this image, but the Tamron was not the right lens. This cried for a serious telephoto lens. Yesterday I finally took the image. This is one of two exposures. It’s a tad awkward standing in the middle of a crossing :)

The Song of the Day is “Let’s Get High” from Lenny Kravitz’ 2001 album “Lenny”. Very recommendable. Hear it on YouTube.

Posted by andreas at 11:17 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

1367 - Everything Goes To Hell

Tamron 17-50/2.8 VC 2 Responses »
Jul 112010

It’s Sunday night, I am still on the train to Vienna and here is another image from Italy, again from Sunday, June 20.

I have no idea if I can finish my book within a week, but when Juha can make two, hell, I should be able to produce at least one ;)

For whatever reason, the Song of the Day is “Everything Goes To Hell” from Tom Waits’ 2004 album “Blood Money”. Hear it on YouTube.

Posted by andreas at 11:06 pm Tagged with: , , , ,

1360 - Time Passes

Tamron 17-50/2.8 VC No Responses »
Jul 072010

Time passes. Let’s see: I started my SoFoBoMo 2010 month on June 19, the day we arrived in Italy. A poor choice, I have only one or two usable images from that day, but that’s how it is. I have to finish on July 20, that’s a Tuesday, and for all practical reasons this means the Sunday before. It’s not real tight, but I don’t have so many images processed yet, I have not even a full list of candidates. I can’t let it trickle an image a day, I really have to speed up. We’ll see.

This is the post for Sunday, July 4, the image is again from June 20. The place is again Lavagna. Currently I don’t put much energy into photography. I have images for Monday and Tuesday (back in Vienna), but only a few, and if by chance I fail to produce an image a day in the next two weeks, I won’t complain. There should be enough material from Italy, that I have to process anyway.

The Song of the Day is “Time Passes” from Paul Weller’s 1995 album “Stanley Road”. See him perform live on YouTube.

Posted by andreas at 6:47 am Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

1356 – Green River

Tamron 17-50/2.8 VC No Responses »
Jul 022010

It’s Friday, the second of July, shortly before midnight. This is my fifth post today, I am catching up, being already at Wednesday, a day when I shot … nothing :)

This is another image from Sunday, June 20, taken in Castagnelo. Here is the map, zoom all the way in and you can even see the church. Isn’t Google Maps amazing?

The Song of the Day is “Green River” from the 1969 Creedence Clearwater Revival album of the same name. Hear it on YouTube.

Posted by andreas at 11:32 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

1353 - Here, There And Everywhere

Tamron 17-50/2.8 VC 2 Responses »
Jul 022010

I don’t know if I have enough material for the SoFoBoMo 2010 book that Ted Byrne asked me to make. Sure, I have a lot of images, and when, back home, I go through Villach, as I did last Sunday, when that image was taken, I see those juxtapositions of old and new, those layers, those sediments, here as well. They are everywhere, and maybe in Italy they are a little more obvious than elsewhere. But then, it won’t do to begin mixing things up. It’s either all Italy for the book, or there will be no book at all.

I knew I would be struggling, and I do. But at least I may catch up with my blog posts a little faster now :)

The Song of the Day is “Here, There And Everywhere” from the Beatles album “Revolver”. On Amazon it’s still only available as CD, thus I link to plastic. YouTube has it as well.

Posted by andreas at 6:34 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,

1352 - I'm Going Back Home

Nikon 70-300 VR, Tamron 17-50/2.8 VC 2 Responses »
Jul 022010

Saturday we left. I did not take any images. The car was full, my camera bag safely stowed in the back, and the return home were six hours on the highway, thus I wouldn’t have been able to take images anyway.

All images presented here were taken on Sunday afternoon, shortly before we had dinner, not in the restaurant depicted, there we had been the day before.

Anna Maria, a friend of Michael’s from Milano, had asked him why we had exactly picked Sestri Levante for our vacation. Well, you have to pick some place, do you? Now, looking back, I can say that the choice was excellent, and I can say it with much confidence.

It is our way of traveling, to visit sights, and Sestri Levante being in the middle of the Riviera Levante, the part of the Riviera east of Genova, was an ideal place. It has a highway exit and a train station (Michael arrived from Milano by train), but contrary to many other towns and villages on the Riviera, neither highway nor railway are obtrusive.

While Camogli was much more beautiful, it was much easier to get out of Sestri, and that’s not a bad thing when you do it daily. The beach was directly in front of the hotel, thus I could swim in the morning and before dinner, so, all in all I’d say Sestri Levante was a fine place for people with our interests.

The Song of the Day is “I’m Going Back Home” by Nina Simone. I have it on a four CD collection “Four Women: The Complete Nina Simone On Philips”. Hear it on YouTube.

Posted by andreas at 1:37 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,

1340 - Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras

Sigma 8-16 4 Responses »
Jun 152010

Some lone image of yesterday, when I was on my way to the lake. This is not far from where I lived for many years, thus I have taken images of this church more than once. I think this is the first on the blog though.

I was not sure if I should make this part of the lens review thread, but then, what I’m writing here is one solution to a typical wide-angle problem, and to a problem, that is only multiplied, when you use something as wide as the new Sigma 8-16mm F4.5-5.6 DC HSM Ultra-Wide Zoom Lens for Nikon.

Basically that’s a fake. Even with the new Sigma 8-16 on its widest, I never could have taken this image, and if I had, it would have looked different, less natural.

There is a big sign directly at the stairs, totally ruining the view, thus I tried to take the image from between sign and stairs, basically leaning against the sign. This forced me to point the camera upwards, causing enormous distortions.

Later, in Photoshop, I used the PTLens plugin, not only to remove the linear distortions that this lens has at 8 mm, but also to correct the perspective and to slightly rotate the image. Doing so horizontally expanded the image at the top and compressed it at the bottom. I would have had to crop substantially from the sides, and the result would have looked very unnatural. Thus I decided to fake it.

The only thing that we really have an idea of how it should look like, is the tower of the church. The stairs, well, here was my lever. I selected the lower part of the image, copied it to its own layer, chose “Edit / Transform / Free Transform” and began to pull the compressed lower part to the left and to the right, careful to only pull at the lower segments of the raster, thus leaving the transition zone intact.

In the result, the stairs are similar to the original, but the church looks relatively undistorted and natural. Thus we still get the feeling of an ascent that goes steeply upward, while the church looks bigger. I think I still get away with it, and the reason is exactly, that only the background needs a correct geometry. The foreground is pliable.

The Song of the Day is “Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras” from the “German Requiem” by Johannes Brahms. My most favorite recording is that of John Eliot Gardiner, with Philippe Herreweghe not far behind.

Posted by andreas at 8:41 am Tagged with: , , , , , , ,
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