New Japan pics (preview)

I'm thinking of posting some of my unreleased Japan pics from last year around a theme like people (portraits), landscape, architecture or something. don't know yet how I'm exactly going to do it, but I will give it a thought.

I noticed that my last posting already goes back to 11 November this year, so to keep visitors curious about new pics, I'll post a preview from some uncut and non-edited pics from our last year's trip to Japan that might show up at some of the theme based posting in the New Year.

Hope you like them and hope to see you visitors come back next year.

In the mean time wishing everybody all the best for the New Year and hopefully it's going to be a healthy and smashing 2011.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

First attempt macro photography

Noticed that I didn't post for more than two weeks. I was quite busy. N. and I went on a short three day trip two weeks ago. Hardly didn't took any pictures. Until last weekend. I tried my 105mm f/2.8G AF-S VR Nikon Macro lense for the first time. It was my first serious entry in the amazing world of macro photography.

I didn't had to go far, I only had to walk a few metres from the living room to the conservatory. There was a 3 to 4 mm little fly sitting on the leaves of one of the plants over there. I'm quite new to macro photography, but I soon found out that it's a whole different branch of sport than portrait-, architecture- or landscapephotography. I surely have a lot of trial and error and experimenting to do when it comes to macro photography, but it certainly is exiting.

N. is also growing lavenderplants on the outside balcony which attracts humblebees. I've already shot some pictures of humblebees collecting nectar from the lavender, but most of the pictures didn't came out too well. I didn't use a tripod so that's probably one of the readons why most of the pics failed, but it also was windy which made the stems of the lavender move a lot.

Anyway, despite the poor result with the bumblebees and the so so result with the fly I'm exited enough to go on and continue with macro photography.

I also might need some extension tube sets between the camera and the lense so I can get closer to the subject. The closest focus range for the 105mm f/2.8G AF-S VR Nikon Macro lense is 31 cm and for little animals like flies, bees etc.. that's not close enough. And of course animals and children in general are not the most cooperative creatures in the world. With the picture below I made a cut out from the original picture and enlarged the cutout to the size of the fly that you see below.

Here is an example of one the shots from the fly.

Utrecht sunset

Just a few pictures that I took last Mondaynight from the sunset as seen from our conservatorybalcony with the outlines of the playground, the railways, and the children's farm.

For a second the sun was gone

Catching up posting pics

Here are some pics again which I made during a cyclingtrip on one of my regular routes. I often ride from my hometown Utrecht, through Oud-Zuilen, Maarssen, Breukelen, Nieuwersluis and Loenen. It's a very nice route. If you take the camera with you, you always find something interesting to photograph from birds, nature, landscapes etc.. And besides the many photograph opportunities it's also a very nice and gorgeous route to ride. Also an advantage is that about 95 % of the cyclingroad is asphalt which guarantees a comfortable ride.

Unfortunately the wheather has become worse the past few days, but the past weeks I've been lucky and I drove hundreds of kilometres on this same route. It still doesn't bore me.

In this post you see a selection of pictures that I made on April 22nd, a little more than two weeks ago. And again it's a mix of animals (birds), still lifes, landscapes and houses. Most of them will speak for themselves, I guess.

This heronnest with youg herons was taken with the Nikon AF-S VR 70-300 mm f 4.5-5.6G IF-ED on maximum zoom. Because the nest was on the other side of the river and about 25 to 30 metres high in the tree I had to make a cutout from the original picture to get them at this close-up size. Despite the maximum zoom and the fact that I didn't use a tripod the result is quite sharp I think. I like the mohawks on the heads of the youg herons.

I wonder where the grebe is looking at.

The reflection in the water of the leaves and branches gives a bit strange effect around the swimming duck and her two younsters

It was hard to take pictures of the swan without any shadow. But because of the position of the wings I wanted to take some pics anyway. On the third and the fourth pic it doesn't bother too much, I think in these two pics it probably enhances the picture.

I already posted a picture from this electricity distribution house as a preview in my former post. Here is a selection of the whole serie. As you can see it's not that big from the other side of the river Vecht. So it's not that strange I didn't notice this remarkable point in the landscape earlier during one of my previous cyclingtrips.

You might think I put this empty Gauloisesbox by myself for compositional reasons, but I swear I didn't. I noticed it while I was taking the pics from the electricity distributionhouse.

This picture is unsharp because these babyducks were moving pretty fast in the water. But it also gives an impression of movement in the picture, I think.