2386 – Forever Shall We Wait

 Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 75 mm f/1.8  Comments Off
May 052013
 

Last Sunday’s nightly commute to Vienna came with a twist, or maybe I should say with a turn. I had to return midway, and because I still needed to be in in my new apartment in Vienna on Monday at 9:00, I took the car early in the morning. But that was later.

My last chance to leave the train and actually have a connection back to Villach was Knittelfeld, a small town in Styria, about one third of way from Villach. I left there and then had to wait 40 minutes for the train from Vienna to Rome. This is how I discovered this old wooden shelter, that has been gracing the railway station for more then a hundred years. It’s a small wooden building the size of a bus shelter, and if you look at the full size, there is an old photo hanging on the wall, showing how it looked like, when the railway line was still called “Kronprinz Rudolf Bahn”, named after the Archduke Rudolf, son of Emperor Franz Joseph, who died from his own hand in Mayerling.

There is a year in the caption of the image. I read it as 1879, but even at 3:1 magnification in Lightroom I am not completely sure about it. Anyway, for a night image taken at an effective focal length of 150 mm, ISO 1600 and handheld, it is a pretty detailed image :)

The Song of the Day is “Forever Shall We Wait” from the new Leisure Society album “Alone Aboard the Ark”. I could already buy it via Amazon.de, while Amazon.com will start selling it from July 2. Heaven knows why they do that. Maybe it’s to better bitch about music piracy. Oh well! Hear it already on YouTube.

2322 – Gotta Travel On

 Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45 mm f/1.8  Comments Off
Feb 242013
 

Due to the masses of snow I decided to call the taxi a little earlier, just to make sure that I don’t miss the train. It was no problem though, the ride took me exactly as short as always, therefore I had to wait a bit longer at the station.

I had not expected to make any images today, but while I waited, I thought I could as well take out the camera. This ice-crusted train window is what I got.

The Song of the Day is “Gotta Travel On” from Dylan’s “Self Portrait”. Hear it on YouTube.

2313 – Ein Winterabend

 Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f/1.8  Comments Off
Feb 152013
 

OK, I’ve finally looked at it and it is not so bad. Here is yesterday’s image, for today I really have none. The image was just taken from our terrace.

What’s going on? I’m working a lot and working is a lot of fun at the moment. It won’t keep me from photographing, but … well, today it did :)

The Song of the Day is Georg Trakl’s poem “Ein Winterabend” set to music by Anton Webern. It’s part four of the “Four songs for soprano and orchestra, opus 13″. Hear it on YouTube, in the video it starts at 4:55.

2288 – The World Tonight

 Panasonic Leica DG SUMMILUX 25/1.4 ASPH  6 Responses »
Jan 212013
 

Well, actually last night when I arrived in Vienna. We had a little bit of rain last night, but temperatures were hardly above freezing and there are still masses of snow.

Urban snow. It gets muddy in a few hours and everything looks a bit shabby, don’t you think :)

The Song of the Day is “The World Tonight” from Paul McCartney’s 1997 album “Flaming Pie”. Hear it on YouTube.

2282 – Seven Seas

 Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f/1.8  Comments Off
Jan 182013
 

It’s Friday night, I still feel sick. Here is an image for Tuesday, taken Wednesday evening after I left the office.

The pattern of the puddles on the ground reminded me of a map with mysterious continents and seas, therefore the title.

The Song of the Day is “Seven Seas” from the 1985 Echo and the Bunnymen compilation “Songs To Learn And Sing”. It’s my favorite song of the album, hear it on YouTube.

2262 – Waiting In Vain

 Panasonic Leica DG SUMMILUX 25/1.4 ASPH  2 Responses »
Dec 272012
 

Yesterday I’ve spent most of my time driving through various intensities of rain, each of them entirely unpleasant. Here is an image from two weeks ago, a night image that I took, having just arrived in Vienna.

The Song of the Day is “Waiting In Vain” from Annie Lennox’ 1994 album “Medusa”. Hear it on YouTube.

2250 – Wide Boy

 Panasonic Lumix G Vario 7-14mm 4.0 ASPH  7 Responses »
Dec 142012
 

It was pretty easy to guess, right? Well, one more gap in my equipment closed :)

You really can’t say I plunged into that Micro Four Thirds business. I tried it tentatively with the E-P2 and its humble 17/2.8 pancake lens, but as soon as I found I liked the system, I began to buy the cheap but good stuff, the two Panasonic pancakes, the 45/1.8 and the very capable plastic wonder, the Olympus 40-150 f4.0-5.6 R.

At that time I already put the 17/2.8 away, as I knew I would sell it with the E-P2. I had already seen Robin Wong’s review of the OM-D (beginning here) and I was hooked.

The OM-D turned out to be everything I had hoped for, and then some. It was clear that I wouldn’t ever go back to DSLRs, but as always it took me some time to realize it and then to follow the voice of reason.

I finally sold the E-P2 in early August, and in September I began to sell my Nikon Equipment. The proceeds I immediately invested in top Micro Four Thirds glass.

Currently I have the Sigma 8-16 for sale on eBay, and while shallow DOF is pretty much covered with the Panaleica 25/1.4, the 45/1.8 and of course the 75/1.8, while even macro is covered, at the wide and the long end there were significant gaps. The 12/2.0 is a fine, beautifully crafted lens, but from the Sigma 8-16 I am used to having an ultra-crazy-wide lens available, and that was severely missing.

Yesterday I got the Panasonic 7-14/4.0. It is not as wide as the Sigma 8-16 on APS-C (equivalent to 12 mm!), but an equivalent focal range of 14-28 mm is still impossibly wide.

So far I am very satisfied, except for one thing: at 7 mm the autofocus is pretty bad in low light. We’ll see how the lens does after a firmware update tonight. Optically it’s top notch anyway, at least as good as the Sigma and that already means a lot.

The Song of the Day is “Wide Boy” from a great a-capella album that was not available for a long time: The Flying Pickets and their 1982 album “Lost Boys”. Hear it on YouTube.

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