Citadellkliniken in Landskrona

The Citadellkliniken in Landskrona is probably the most beautifully located clinic I have ever seen, nestled as it is on a piece of land jutting out into the Öresund, with a lovely beach on one side and gorgeous seafront parkland on the other. Taken at 22.37 with the sky still fairly bright from a sun that set at 21.27 it is resplendent in a golden glow that couldn't be more spectacular!

Tripod, Aperture Priority, f11.0, 10.0s exposure time chosen by the camera, ISO 200, quick run through DXO and then time spent in PSP X5 working on colour, contrast and sharpening.

"Phone-o-graphy" - the future of popular photography

123 years ago Kodak released the Box Brownie and brought photography to the person on the street in the form of an easy to use camera that was cheap as well! Soon everyone could take photographs, as Kodak said at the time: "You push the button, we do the rest." Heck, my first camera was a Box Brownie and I still have pics around that I took with that little box with a lens!

The last few years have seen the rise of cell phone cameras and at first they had really crummy quality, but lately the picture quality has been getting quite good. Not DSLR good, but good enough for some great family pics and a handy travel companion for the hurried and flurried tourist with family in tow. Look around and you see them being used every where! I think they will almost certainly become the most prolific kind of camera on the planet, actually they may already be that simply because every person with a cell phone already has one sitting in his pocket whether they like it or not.

I recently acquired a Samsung S3 mini and of course I have been playing with the camera a little. B-) I spurned it's bigger brother because I prefer it's smaller form factor and just wanted a phone I can slip into my pocket. Why carry a separate bag just for a phone? The camera is just 5 mega-pixels, but it takes quite nice pics, and with just a few simple tweaks can look pretty decent. I use either Snapseed (on the phone) or Picasa on my PC to do the tweaking because they do what needs to be done quickly and easily at no cost to me!

Below is a pic I took on my way to Swedish classes yesterday morning. I think the S3 camera did a splendid job of handling the tricky exposure presented by the morning sun glinting off the windows.

"Phone-o-graphy", it's the future of popular photography, just like the Box Brownie was in it's day and the Olympus Trip 35 was when it was released!

Old Brick Building in Malmö

Evening Light and an Apartment.

Alnarps Slott på Hösten. (Fyra)

Closer up to the ivy covered walls of Alnarps Castle as the leaves display their gorgeous autumn colours. It is almost as if this is their final swan song before the drab colourless enduring morbidity of winter settles in. There is beauty in everything if you look at it right!

When taking photos of foliage a polarizing filter is absolutely essential to remove any unwanted reflected glare from the great light source in the sky (Sun). Without a CPL filter this shot would have looked quite awful,  drab and generally blah. ("Blah" is a highly technical art term) Please CLICK HERE for more info on what a polarising filter actually does.

Nikon D90, Aperture Priority Mode, Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX, CPL filter, tripod, f/10, 1/13s, ISO200, edited in Corel Paintshop Pro X4.

Alnarps Slott på Hösten. (Tre)

The other side!

Nikon D90, Aperture Priority Mode, Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX, CPL filter, tripod, f/8, 1/80s, ISO200, edited in Corel Paintshop Pro X4.

Alnarps Slott på Hösten. (Två)

Another angle. :^)

Alnarps Slott på Hösten.

Alnarps Castle in autumn. The leaves of the trees and vines are displaying beautiful autumn colours in southern Sweden right now so get out with your cameras and don't miss it!

Nikon D90, Aperture Priority Mode, Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX, CPL filter, tripod, f/10, 1/15s, ISO200, edited in Corel Paintshop Pro X4.

Why I like to take Photographs at Night!

When I am out taking photos at night I often get asked by passers by why I am "shooting in the dark"! Until I show them the pics on the LCD screen of the camera and then they are sold on the idea. ;-) But I thought it might be a good idea to illustrate the difference between the results of daytime and night-time photography.

The photo at the top of this post was taken in Tivoli (Copenhagen) about an hour after sunset on a sturdy tripod and
with a long exposure time. The result is bright saturated colours and a rather striking image of the Chinese Restaurant. Now compare that with the pic below that was taken during the day from more or less the same spot.

Dull, bland, flat, and totally boring! Just another file waiting to be deleted. But it's what most of the tourists would take home judging by how many of them were taking snaps before the sun went down and how few (almost none) were still taking any after dark had settled in. The few that were taking pics at night all had their flashes firmly on. Yuck! Worst part though were how many of the same folks had big expensive pro gear that they were essentially using as giant point and shoot fashion accessories! Haha! Do I detect a hint of gear envy creeping in? ;^)

Not that I'm against taking photographs during the day, just look around this blog and you will see a LOT that were! Just pointing out that for certain subjects, especially ones with lots of coloured lights, night-time is the right time. Just remember to take the tripod and you are good to go!

Lomma, Sweden (1)

Nikon D90, Nikkor 18-105mm kit lens at 18mm, Velbon Sherpa tripod, f/11.0, 20.0s, ISO200, edited in Corel Paintshop Pro X4.

Dom Kyrka Cathedral in Lund

900 years old and still standing! Now that is good workmanship.

Night Walk in Malmö 6

I'm not sure if this building has a name, but it is on the Stortorget in Malmö, southern Sweden.

Nikon D90, under-rated plastic Nikkor 18-105mm kit lens, f3.5, ISO 800, 1/50s, hand held, processed in Lightroom 4.

Night Walk in Malmö 3

Another in the series. Stay tuned for more!

Night Walk in Malmö 2

The TGIF Restaurant in the corner of Lilla Torg (Little Square) in Malmö, Sweden.

Pretty much all the same details as this pic.

Night Walk in Malmö 1

In South Africa when "magic hour" came around I really had to get cracking with picture taking because it got dark so quickly, I only had about 20 minutes or so. Here in Sweden the sun sets really late and really slowly. The magical light that photographic dreams are made of lasts a very long time. That's great, but now I have sooo many photos to process. Stay tuned, because there are a heck of a lot more on their way!

This one is of the Scandic Kramer Hotel on the Stortorget.

Nikon D90, under-rated plastic Nikkor 18-105mm kit lens, f3.5, ISO 800, 1/100s, hand held, processed in Lightroom 4.

Dom Kyrka in Lund Sweden

Nikon D90, Nikkor 35mm f1.8G DX, ISO800, Aperture Priority mode, f1.8, 1/80s, hand held, edited in Corel Paintshop Pro X4.

This lens is remarkably sharp wide open and it is such a pleasure to have that beautiful shallow depth of field in a small sensor camera. Also, at ISO800 the images from the D90 are still great, I hear the new D7000 is miles better. Can't wait to get my grubby little hot sweaty hands on one! ;-)

Dom Kyrka in Lund Sweden

Blue on Blue

Sometimes photohraphy has less to do with documentary content and more to do with composition, shapes, texture, colour and imagination. I often like to look for art in everyday objects and scenes, which requires really looking and seeing beyond the obvious and useing the old imagination to find what the French call a certain "I don't know what". A lot of people just think I'm strange... this includes members of my own family! ;-)

More "strange" stuff here, here, here, here, and here.

Malmö Turning Torso Building (four)

The Nikkor 35mm f1.8G DX lens is a great mobile light weight solution that is super cheap as well. Being an AFS lens it focuses fast and silently. On a crop sensor camera it gives roughly the same field of view as a 50mm lens would give on an FX camera, and this is often referred to as a "normal" lens. There is a misconception that it gives the same field of view as the human eye, but that is not true, we can see somewhat wider than a 50mm lens. They are, however, relatively distortion free, just like our eyes, so this might be where the rumour originated.

Nikon D90, Nikkor 35mm f1.8G DX, ISO200, Aperture Priority mode, f8, 1/640s, polarising filter, hand held, edited in Corel Paintshop Pro X4.

Malmö Turning Torso Building (three)

In the top left hand corner you can see the sun reflected, and at this time of the day it was blinding! But with the circular polarising filter it was a simple matter to reduce the glare to what is now a simple highlight that enhances the photo instead of ruining it. CPL's are the only filters I ever use on a lens by the way... but perhaps that is a debate for another time! ;-)

Nikon D90, Nikkor 35mm f1.8G DX, ISO200, Aperture Priority mode, f8, 1/400s, polarising filter, hand held, edited in Corel Paintshop Pro X4.