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.

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.

Sorry, it took me ages again, but here it is, the image for Wednesday. I found this on the outside wall of a not-so-posh Indian restaurant in Vienna.

As to the Song of the Day, I can offer you “In India” from Carla Bley’s 1974 second collaboration with Paul Haines, “Tropic Appetites”. Seemingly I am fortunate to own the CD, because at the Amazon marketplace it is sold at $183 new and from $126 used. Amazon has it as MP3 downloads as well though, for just the usual price. Economy never stops to amaze me

Hear it on YouTube.

That’s the last update for today, two images that were actually taken this morning.

It’s some details, the backlight of a car and some waste, standing in front of a house entrance, waiting to be taken away. It’s the same kind of boxes that we had a long, long time ago in “47 – Time of Waste“. Please see there for the story of why we use those funny boxes

The Song of the Day is “Take The Box” from Amy Winehouse’s 2007 album “Frank”. That girl may have a drug problem, but, oh boy, she sure can sing! Hear it on YouTube.

I’m back in Vienna. Remember when I said it’s only six days and then the days will get longer again? Oh my, time flies, from tomorrow they will.

Image #1 is a morning image. I was late and very much in a hurry. Hmm … how are these called? It’s not exactly graffiti, it’s more like someone’s tag, a signature. I guess “an annoyance” would Ted say But still: how do you call something like that in English?

Anyway. I focused on that orange something, waited a second or two until the man was just in the right position, and then I took the image. I don’t even have an idea what it is about. It’s just an arrangement that appeals to me – something that I do time and again. Must mean something, huh?

The Image of the day is one of those cases when I like to use Nikon Capture NX 2. I liked the colors and tones of the JPEG from the camera, but I wanted to crop the image slightly. In such cases I don’t crop the JPEG and save as JPEG again, no, I always use the RAW file. The problem is, that I currently use ProPhoto RGB as my working color space, thus the camera profiles in Adobe Camera RAW do not match as they are supposed to do. Capture NX 2, on the other hand, perfectly reproduces the look of in-camera JPEGs.

The Song of the Day is “Feeling Blue” from Eric Burdon’s 2006 album “Soul of a Man”. Hear it on YouTube.

You know this habit of mine, taking a song title, making it the title of the Image of the Day, making the song Song of the Day. Well, today is different and this is, because I got stuck in the middle.

I have a file with all my song titles. First I search this file for keywords that I feel match my image. When I have found something, I look if I can find a video, preferably on YouTube. I also check in my Index of the Songs of the Day if I have already used the song. If so, I may use it again or look further.

Today I had a very short time of about 40 minutes for photography. But still, I got into the mood quickly, and taking photos was an intense experience, almost meditative, out in nature, first on a small country road, then in a forest by the river. It was an experience of silence and joy.

Well, “silence” was one of the words that I looked for in my list of song titles, and when I found Shara Nelson’s album “What Silence Knows”, I immediately loved the idea. The problem is, that the title track was not available on YouTube. In fact, the only song from that album that’s on YouTube, is “One Goodbye In Ten”, and when I heard that, I knew I wanted it to be Song of the Day. It’s such an incredibly beautiful song, and if you don’t know the album, I can only recommend it heartily. Here’s the video.

Just like most Sundays, this was a slow day. I left home shortly before 2pm, at a time when you already have to worry about the sun.

My first way was towards the center of Villach, searching for some rectangular, modern architecture, something big and grid-like, something that I could use as a target for calibration images for PTLens, but I’m afraid that is not as easy as I had thought.

What I need is a pretty big building, one that fills the frame when photographed at 17mm from at least 20 feet away. I need it to have regular vertical and horizontal features, and they must be narrowly spaced, such that the image contains enough of them, even at 50mm.

I found nothing. When I gave up, I took this image of the bored cat (“fad” means “boring” in Austrian dialect), drove a little around in the countryside, made some uninspired images, and finally concluded the day with the other image, the temporary container, that is our local McDonalds while they rebuild the restaurant, catching the last rays of sunlight. Why this choice when the McDonalds image is clearly the better image? Well, I just happen to like cats more than burgers, that’s the reason

The Song of the Day is “Honky Cat” from Elton John’s 1972 album “Honky Chateau”. See him live in Ephesus in 2001.

It is 6pm, and it has been deep night since more than an hour ago. Light is a precious thing these days. For longer than a month it will get worse before it gets better again.

Usable images were a little sparse today. This one is from my way to the train, just before I entered the Underground. I caught some last, intense light on the top of Vienna’s Justitzpalast, the Palace of Justice.

The Song of the Day is “Precious Things” from Tori Amos’ 1992 album “Little Earthquakes”. See her perform live on YouTube.

After the rather lengthy third part of the review of my new Tamron SP AF 17-50mm 2.8 XR Di II VC LD Asp IF lens, let me finish the day with a much shorter post.

I made this image in the morning on my way to work. It was mostly dry, with only a tiny hint of the slightest drizzle. The image shows a little more noise than I’d like to see, because I had forgotten to reset the -0.7EV that I had dialed in yesterday evening. It’s not too bad though, even though I have raised noise in the dark fence by applying a little Topaz Detail to it in Screen mode. I am glad anyway, that I have made the image, because in the afternoon the slight drizzle has changed to solid rain.

By the way, concerning this lens, I am pretty through with those aspects that interested me most. If there is anything more that you want to know, simply leave me a comment, I’ll try to look into your questions.

The Song of the Day is “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me” from the 1962 Quincy Jones production “Nana Mouskouri in New York”. This is a stellar album and it came as an absolute surprise to me. Hear her on YouTube.

This is a wayside shrine in a rural livin quarter on the outskirts of Villach. This one is for Bill. I boldly claimed that our trees here in Carinthia still have leaves in their most glorious colors, but it is wearing thin. Nevertheless, I searched and found some for you

Finding a Song of the Day is not so easy. It must match in title or some line in the lyrics, I must own it, I want it to be available on YouTube, and I want to link to the lyrics. The latter is normally the least problem.

The Song of the Day is “‘Tis Autumn” from the stellar 1976 album “Fitzgerald & Pass…Again”, but although the lyrics are seemingly on every lyrics site on the planet, it’s always the text of “Autumn in New York”, regardless of where you go. Sometimes I really wonder

Hear it on YouTube.