Year of the Dragon

Posted on January 22, 2012 by dotweb

Happy New Year. It lovely that the Chinese gives us an extra day(s) to celebrate NewYear. This year we were not able to fit in a visit to China – but we got a taste of it in the center of Helsinki today. Helsinki has been celebrating the Chinese New Year six years in a row now, and it is starting to become a really nice tradition here in the coldest part of the year, where not much happens outdoors. here are a collection of images from the celebration.

Wish all of you – who are celebrating to day – A happy New Year.

Br

Steen

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The green woodpecker ….

Posted on January 9, 2012 by dotweb

The green woodpecker – a bird that seems to cross my camera lens from time to time where it “should not” do so :) Have meet quite a few Birdwatchers lately who claim that you can not see the Green woodpecker on Seurasaari. So I promised to post an example here. I found 8 folders in my archives that had images of the Green Woodpecker, from with in the last 2 years.

Well here is the photo proof :) and if I am not wrong – it is a Green Woodpecker.

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Happy New Year

Posted on January 1, 2012 by dotweb

Hi all, and a happy New Year to all of you. Relaxing day out, with pleasant weather, and took the time to just go to the nearest “birding place” to see if I would have any luck here in the new year. Here are a couple of Owl shots.As you can see, it was a nice clear blue sky today, and a perfect day to go out. Nothing new has happened here, and we had a nice relaxing New Year celebration.

To all you visitors, thanks for looking, and thanks for all the mails.

Wish you all the best in the New Year!

BR

Steen

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Some impressions from Iitala, Helsinki

Posted on December 29, 2011 by dotweb

It took me some time to realize that Iitala wasn’t just some thing your could accidental break in the kitchen, it is also a “neighborhood” in Helsinki. I was there on a shopping trip yesterday to look at some ceramics -
here are some impressions from the trip …. First one – ceramics from Iitala, and the image below was shot just outside their show room.

Both images shot with Olympus PEN EPL-1 and a 40-150mm lens. I am getting more and more fond of carrying this little camera around where ever I go. I have not yet invested in a viewfinder for the system and I am still a bit unsure if I really need it. In the beginning it was difficult not to have it, but after some weeks use, it really doesnt matter any more. holding up the camera 50cm in front of you – gives a new perspective framing the picture. One more thing – You become a tourist :o) One get away with a lot of things when not using a big fat white colored lens on a heavy camera body. By the way, Iitala was a really nice surprise, and a place I certainly will come back to more often.

We are at the end of the year, and I am sitting here looking at the images – or some of them – that I have shoot during the year. On the technical side a lot of things have happened. The change of system from Olympus E to Canon, a change that is all founded in a feeling, lust for change, new possibilities – optically. So far the change has worked out ok, even I do miss the build quality of the Olympus E system.  67.000 images this year – well, I did press the shutter 67.000 times this year :o) 10.000 images are saved in the archive. 6000 from Helsinki (including studio), 2000 from China and the rest from the EU area.

Now – enjoy the last workday this year (for most of us)

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The storm

Posted on December 29, 2011 by dotweb

Here are some footage from the storm during Christmas. Shaky :) I had a hard time standing up holding both camera and tripod. UPDATE: Got some feedback from a man in Canada, who was sure that the “shake pattern” in the footage are effected by the IS, that was turned on, when the Camera was mounted on a tripod … so please give me an other storm so I can try out this new theory…..

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Storm

Posted on December 26, 2011 by dotweb

It is windy, and I have more spring feeling than winter feeling, since its +8C. I took a trip down to Liuskasaari in Helsinki harbor area to see if I could get some images of the storm, or the effect of it. I was not the only one who had got that idea, there were hundreds of people out to look at the waves, veil getting an overdose of fresh air. In the wintertime there is a bridge over to the island, so it is easy to get there … when the weather is better than it was today. The wind was so strong that part of the bridge was flooded with water, so rubber boots would have been the correct footwear.

It was a very fun experience holding on the the tripod preventing it to fall over. I tried out some hand held shots, but it was very difficult just standing still in the wind. The waves was not as high as I had hoped for, but since this is in the archipelago the waves will never be much higher than they were today …. (at least that is my experience – some one might comments on this) The last images are from the same trip.

Thanks for looking, and enjoy the Christmas time.

And the same image one more time, but with an other Post-processing

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Merry Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2011 by dotweb

And now its time for sending out a Merry Christmas to all you readers :) Thanks for visiting my homepage, sending mails, and showing interest. Hope to see you all also in the new year. The Picture is from last year – since we still haven’t seen any show here in Helsinki so far this winter (have I mentioned that before??) and it looks like it is not going to show this year …. just a wild guess.  Enjoy the Christmas time, and use some one your days off work, to go out and get some fresh air.

Merry Christmas :o)

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Gray day

Posted on December 17, 2011 by dotweb

And we say thank you to the weather gods who did such a good job today – talk about unqualified workforce …. We had planned to go out to take pictures today, and so we did! Not where we had planned doing it, but we did it. Overdose of fresh air.  Could get a shutterspeed around 100 at ISO 3200 really nice :) I post the images just to prove that I have been outside, and that there is no snow in this part of Finland – yet. I was hoping for some nice splashes from the waves, but the weather gods was compensating the lack of wind by adding some rain, just to be sure that it was unpleasant.

The images are taken on the island Liuskasaari in Helsinki harbor area. The island is home to Helsinki Yacht Club who has been located here for over 100 years.

The next week will be stock shooting again, are starting to get a bit behind with uploading, and there are a lot of new ideas that needs to be tried out. More about that during next week. Now take a look at these bad weather images … and have a nice weekend.

A little note about PP. They are processed from JPEG in Lightroom. All shot with EF100-400mm 4 L and ISO 1600 to ISO 3200.

On some of the images I have used a little bit noise reduction. No sharpening.

Hope you enjoyed looking, and that it might kick you out of the door, so you can go and have a look for your self.

Have a nice Weekend

 

//Steen

 

 

 

 

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Cats

Posted on December 11, 2011 by dotweb

Its Sunday, and here are the “Sunday Cats” Images taken today, and there are no special comments to the images, just for you to enjoy …. hope you like them.

Seems like I have to do an update on this post :o) Guess I have had 20 comments on the images the past two days telling me they are too soft, no contrast, and colours doll.  They are shot through a thick dirty glass wall, with high ISO, and they are not really post processed at all. I will make some PP versions of the images :o) so that they look clean and nice.

 

Hope they will do untill then. As for high ISO shooting, it seems like there is a huge diferense in contrast between the EF70-200mm 2.8 and EF100-400mm when shooting above ISO 1600. I have not noticed this before, so it will need some more testing. Actually a crop from the 70-200 looks better than a full size from 100-400mm – when shoot about ISO 1600 that is.

Have a nice Sunday :o)

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If you search you will find ….

Posted on December 6, 2011 by dotweb

First of all, today is Finnish Independence day, so congratulations to all the Finns :o) Now the celebration gave me a chance for a day off, and I went to the forest to try and get a picture of this bird. I have often seen them, but almost never had a good chance getting a good picture. This one on the picture, was taken about 2 years ago, and he gave me good time to get the shot right, except, that I did not have a real telelens with me that day, so I did not get as close as I wanted to. The first snow had come during the night, so if I didn’t see any owls I could always excuse my self, and say that I was out to take pictures of the first snow :o) nice with a safety plan here. After 6 hours, I had seen one owl flying away, and that was about it.

After dragging 7 kg of photo gear around for 6 hours, I ended up taking this photo with my iPhone ….. now that is what I call a down turn. It is almost irritating how good pictures can turn out from that mobile phone … (click on it to see it in a bigger size)

The picture proves it is winter, and that we finally have snow.

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