Monochrome Monday 6-25

Take care!

I’m back …

… from the Dutch coast.

While I was in Wales, my wife changed the destination for our summer holiday. Instead of heading south to the Bavarian Alpes for staying two weeks near the National Park “Berchdesgardener Land”, we were heading north to the Dutch province Groningen. Beach instead of mountains. Fair change in my eyes 🙂

But, what a surprise. No beach 🙂 Only a harbor for ferries and fishing boats. But, a huge lake with no tide and lots of birds was nearby. So, from a wildlife photographers point of view fantastic opportunities. But, this wasn’t her intention. So, she was quite disappointed with her choice although the area was very nice and offered many options for walking, hiking or biking, but no town nearby. The next shops were about 15 km away.

I also was a bit disappointed, because I left the lens, I usually use for wildlife, at home. I didn’t expect these conditions. So, I have to return 🙂 Is anybody out there willing to accompany me?

So, now tons of images are waiting on my hard-disk to get developed. Most of them are birds, but I also have many landscape images. Some of them are a mixture of both kinds, just like the one above: a flock of seagulls is chasing a spoonbill at sunset. In one of the next frames, you can see them attacking the spoonbill. But, I like this one more because of the light conditions.

When taking wildlife images, I use a technique called panning. The camera settings are continuous shutter speed, a fixed shutter speed depending on the kind of animal and expected action, fixed aperture (wide open), continuous auto-focus spreading over a couple AF fields and Auto-ISO with spot metering. The camera has an APS-C sized sensor and a tele-focus lens sitting on a monopod. These settings help me to get pretty sharp images even of flying birds. I start taking photographs in a certain moment and following the movement of the birds with my camera. That’s quite easy because it’s mounted on top of the monopod and follows my turns. So, I’m able to follow the movements of my main subject. Back at home, I have to view lots of images and many of them get deleted. But, this technique gives me the opportunity to not miss a shot.

The exact settings for the above image are: APS-C sensor, 1/1000, f5.6, 80-400mm lens at 280mm (~420mm equivalent for a 35mm camera or full-frame), ISO 500

Some images taken during the trip are already on my Instagram account. Check them out over there and consider following me on Instagram, too.

Take care!

 

 

 

Throwback Thursday: windmills

A wonderful short trip back in fall 2012 with some friends

Take care!

dps Weekly Photography Challenge – Golden

The guys over at dps asked for their weekly photo challenge for anything golden and gave several interesting examples containing objects colored from gold to yellow. Of course, the golden hour wasn’t left out in their examples. The golden hour also was the first idea I got, when I read the topic without having seen any of the examples.

The golden hour is the time shortly after sunrise and right before sunset. The more you came to the poles, the longer the golden hour lasts, or the more you come to the equator, the shorter the golden hour is. Here, in my area, the golden hour usually lasts 20 – 30 minutes. During the golden hour the sun stands low over the horizon and that’s the reason for these beautiful colors.

Often you don’t have any wind during this time of the day, because the sun is the engine for the wind. This is true especially in the mornings. So, getting up early pays back.

This is my first share for any of the photo challenges at dps, although I read their posts for a very long time every now and then for getting ideas and to enjoy the photos.

Take care!

Windmills in the early morning

Here are the remaining photos. The crowning of a wonderful weekend. Nice friends with me, wonderful weather, a nice hotel, no traffic jams, the unexpected illumination and the fog between the windmills in the morning.

This certain mood is very special. The fog modifies the sunlight and forms a very special ambience. 

Windmills at night

We were so lucky. Only one week of the year, the windmills are illuminated at night and we arrived just at the last day of this illuminations week. We didn’t know about it in advance and we learned about it by a waitress while having a break and waiting for better light.

Even our hotel manager was willing to keep the

A short trip to Zuid-Holland

Two weeks ago I was in the Netherlands, region Zuid-Holland.

The Netherlands are well-known for agricultural products like vegetables and cheese. The national symbol in our eyes is the windmill (or maybe Vrouw Antje,