Bavaria (part 2) - This time with some pics (update)

Uploading works again, so I better start posting some pics from our trip to Bavaria. I don't have time right now to provide some backgroundinformation and links to more detailed information about the locations/places, some of the buildings, etc. I'll will try to update this information later this week. I already can tell you that the pictures below were taken at Passau and Burghausen.

More detailed backgroundinformation will follow later. For now please enjoy the pictures.

(Update)
Much later than intended but here is finally some more backgroundinformation about the pics in this post. As I wrote in the introduction of these post the pics were taken at Passau and Burghausen, two medium size cities in East and Southeast Bavaria, Germany. The first three pics were shot from a viewpoint in the hills just outside the old citycentre of Passau. Passau is also known as the City of Three Rivers, because the river Danube (Donau in German) comes together with the river Inn and the river Ilz.

The next 6 ictures were taken at the Stephansdom (St. Stephan's Cathedral) (picture above) at Passau. We went there and listened to a short (half an hour) organ concert which also included the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor from J.S. Bach. The pictures were shot with the Tokina 12-24 F/4 Pro DX, a very nice and good lense and more than half of the price of it's Nikon equivalent. The pictures were shot short before the concert started. The organ you see on the pictures is one of the biggest cathedral organs in the world.

The next 8 pictures were taken at the city of Burghausen were our friend Frank lives. The city is known for it's longest castle of Europe (more than 1000 metres). It can be seen on the first picture. And the city is also known for it's annual International Jazz Festival. Through the years it brought many famous jazzmusicians to Burghausen. In the town they have a "Walk of Fame" with bronze paving stones with the names of the artists that performed at the festival the past 40 years. Names as: Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Michel Petrucciani, Art Blakey, Barney Kessel, Buddy Rich, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, Gerry Mulligan, Lionel Hampton, Oscar Peterson, Stan Getz, Stephane Grappelli to name a few. From the artists I enclosed pictures from their "Walk of Fame" I added a link to their Wikipedia information.

Just a rainbow

Not so much to show this time. Just two lucky shots that I took with the Canon Ixus 850 right outside our frontdoor short after a heavy rainshower. Lucky in a sense that the rainbow appeared just outside in front of our place.

A total view of the rainbow

And a close-up

Boattrip (part 1)

Since our wedding I didn't took much pictures. The week holiday I had from work after the wedding I mostly used to relax and catch up some sleep . My friend Andy from England stayed until the Tuesday after the wedding.

The monday before he left we went on a two hour boattrip on the river Linge at Leerdam the city where I grew up and lived for 17 years and where my parents and sister and her family still live.

As a child and teenager I often went on bicyclerides along the riverdykes that surrounds the river Linge. It's a gorgeous part of the Netherlands. The area is called "De Betuwe" and is famous for it's fruitproduction. Especially in the Springtime when the orchards and fruittrees are blooming it's very gorgeous to take a walk or bicycleride along the riverdykes around the Betuwe. If you're ever near the area around springtime it's highly recommended to take a tour around the area.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't so good, but gloomy skies also can enhance the atmosphere and despite not so good weather I shot some nice pictures, I think and we had an enjoyable boattrip. The perspective from the river is quite different than the perspective from the riverdykes when you're cycling there.

In this post some pics from the boattrip and I'll post e few more in a the next posting which I'm planning to do tomorrownight. BTW these pics were taken with a Canon Ixus 850, a compact camera that I got 4 weeks ago. Since my wife's digital camera broke down the beginning of the year she use my Nikon P2, so I was looking for a new compact camera and that became the Canon Ixus 850. One of the resons to choose for the Canon Ixus 850 is that this is a small camera which is one of the few camera's in this section of the market with wideangle possibilities.

Mrs. Aerden's Courtyard seen from the Linge

The gloomy skies I was talking about

The tower you see are the remains of a former windmill

The wall you see behind the topped pollard willows is the citywalls from the town called Asperen

It's been a while

It's been a while since my last post. Been pretty busy both with work and private. I cycled a lot, but I didn't took much pictures lately. Until last weekend. Last Saturday I went out on the bike early. the weather was looking good. It was a bit chilly in the early morning, but the light in the early morning and late afternoon/early evening is the most gorgeous for photography I think.

I'm still in the middle of getting to know my new camera, the Nikon D200. This semi professional camera has, let's say, a little more steep learning curve than the point and shoot compact digital camera's. But finally it's worth the whole learning process, because it will reward you with much better pictures. But I'm still at the beginning of this learning process. But I must say that I was not unhappy with the first results of my first serious photo cycling trip from last Saturday.

I cycled from my hometown Utrecht through Oud-Zuilen, Maarssen and Breukelen and then through Loenen (aan de Vecht), Nieuwersluis and Vreeland and then back. Most of the pictures I shot near Oud-Zuilen and Maarssen. After that I mainly cycled. When I came back around noon I had cycled almost 60 kilometres.

Here is a first selection of the pics I shot. I hope you like them.

Although the coot is not so detailed I liked the light and the reflection in the calm unruffled water
I always found the great blue heron an impressive bird. They were quite rare for some time, but are more common in Holland right now.

I spend about one hour on the waterfront of the river observing this grebe-couple and their youngsters. First I thought they had two youngsters, but later I discovered a third one on the back of the mother between her feathers. It was fascinating to watch them. While the mother looked after the youngsters the male grebe went out for food. I can't help they are operating in such stereotype sex-roles. Women's liberation hasn't made it through the birdsworld obviously. Anyway, they are excellent divers and the male grebe came back with little fish quite often, which caused great enthusiasm among the youngsters judging by the exiting sounds they made.

Typical cat behavior, completely ignoring me

Geese on the run for a tractor.

I liked this one because of the early morning sun shining on the back of the head of the goose.

My latest aquisition

It's been awhile since my last post, so I thought I better post something. I haven't any pictures to share yet. Maybe I'll scan some older pictures later this weekend.

Anyway I want to show you my latest aquisition. I was planning to get a digital SLR-camera for quite some time, but I was waiting for a good offer. In December Nikon had an interesting offer. If you bought a Nikon D200 you would get a booklet with vouchers which gave you discount on many accessories, like lenses, software, flashlights etc.. The total discount that I would get on the accessories (which I already planned to purchase) was more than I would get if I waited if the D200 body maybe would drop a 50 to 100 Euro. So I decided to purchase the camera. I also bought a AF-S VR 70-300 f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED lens and I have the AF-S VR 105 f/2.8G IF-ED in order at my local photoshop.

An important reason to get the D200 was that I already had some Nikon lenses which were given to me about 6 or 7 years ago by my mother in law from Japan together with a Nikon F3 HP. And I'm a Nikon-fan. I also joined Nikonians recently. Besides the Nikon F3 I was already using a Nikon Coolpix 5700 and a P2.

Some more info about the Nikon D200 can be found here on Wikipedia.

There is still a lot to learn and to discover about my new camera. Spring starts within a few weeks so I guess I will be out quite often taking pictures with my new D200. If the results are satisfying I'm sure I will post them here.

Dolphins, birds, cats and dogs

This time some scanned animal pics that I shot in the past 5 years on several occasions. The first two pics were shot during a trip that Noriko and I made somewhere at the end of April or beginning of May 2000 to Miyakejima, an island south-east from Tokyo and belonging to the Izu-islands, known for it's vulcano, birdwatching and also dolphinwatching. Short after our visit the vulcano Mount Oyama became active again in July 2000 and by September that year the whole population was evacuated. After a little more than four years of activity and vulcanic emmissions, the population of the islands was allowed to return permanently in February 2005 (!!!).

The actual swimming with the wild dolphins and the dolphinwatching we did from the island Mikurajima, a small nearby island with only 300 residents. This was a very memorable and impressive experience which I won't easily forget. The curiosity of the dolphins, the possibility to get real close and touch them, it was very, very awesome.

The dolphinpics were shot with the Minolta Vectis GX-4

The picture below is a pic from Ranchan the Shih Tzu dog of my mother in law in Japan. Ranchan unfortunately passed away almost two and a half year ago. She was a very cute and funny dog with some typical characteristics and behavior. She was a vegetarian dog, because she was allergic to meat. She was very strongminded and she had a preference for men, more than women. Maybe that's why she was so fond of me. She liked classical music, but not the heavy symphonystuff. That always made her very nervous. She also got nervous from the sounds of laughing on the television, for instance when you were watching some comedyprogramm. She hated other dogs, but she loved cats, although that love often wasn't mutual.

She always got very exited when you took her for a walk. I often took her for a walk to the nearby park. It sometimes was a nice way to get in touch with people, because there were often parents with kids who wanted to pet Ranchan. Most of the time I took her around the big pond in the park. Some proof of her stubborn mind was that halfway the pond, when she got tired, she always wanted to take a rest and sit on a bench. Then she got completely frozen, not willing to move an inch, unless we were taking a rest and she could sit next to me on a bench.

I love animals in general, but I have always loved cats more than dogs, but for Ranchan I had a weak spot.

The next pic was taken in the same park where some of the pics of my previous posts were taken. I don't know if the golden necklace had anything to do with it, but this cat was called the Empress by it's owner, because of it's royal behavior. She didn't want to sit on the wooden table without a small blanket. Everywhere the owner took the cat he had to take the blanket with him, because without it she didn't want to sit on anything.

Finally two bird pics. One of a grey heron that I took during a long walk about 4 or 5 years ago near my hometown area and the second one of a kingfisher that I took in the same park as where I shot the pic of the cat above and some of the portraits in some of the previous posts.

The last 4 pics were all taken with the Minolta Vectis S-1