Fireworks
We've had three days of fireworks called the Pyromusikale. I went by on Thursday but didn't buy a ticket.
I was one of the very few photographers that stood on Columbiadamm. The fireworks were on Tempelhof Airport. The fact that I didn't have a ticket
also means that I'm not bound by their legalese. But it also means that my shots aren't
as good as theirs - especially as I had either a tree, a fence or a street lamp included in every shot. It was my first go at shooting fireworks. It's
easy enough when you follow the instructions that many have left on the web: Aperture 8 to 11, ISO as low as possible (for me 200), shutter opening
of 4 to 8 seconds on bulb and a tripod helps too. The wind drove to smoke towards as making the photos even worse. I'll upload some to the Picasa
site later.
Buddha
My Buddha has arrived.
Since Dylan and I have seasonal tickets for the Legoland Discovery Centre I'm back
into building with Lego. I built a
miniature Brandenburger Tor a few months ago and was thinking
what else to build. Now I've built a Statue of Buddha.
The Brandenburger Tor was constructed in my head, then drawn to make the part list. This model was built
with MLCad — a free software for designing Lego models. Lego also has such a software
(Lego Digital Designer), but it's by far not as good. All the bricks needed can be ordered through the Lego
website. Anything between a few days or weeks later the bricks arrive (today) and you can build you're model.
MLCad also produces step-by-step construction manuals for the models. I'm not uploading these, but if someone wants them I'm willing to share.
Just send me a mail.
Dylans Smile
Jul 11nd 2009 (14:29) NIKON D70, AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G (1/10sec, f=8.0, ISO:400, No Flash, WB:Auto)
Dylan helped to build the figure. So I grabbed the camera and said: "Dylan look this way please!". This photo also introduces my new 50mm lens.
Saturday, July 11th 2009
Friday
I had last Friday more or less off. I had taken part on a training course in Königs Wusterhausen and
decided not to head home afterwards. I had my camera with me and I was expected good weather all day. We finished shortly after three and I headed
back to Berlin in the look of something to point my Nikon at. But even before then I had made my shot of the day during my midday break while
walking through the little bit of forest on the campus. I found a path leading through the woods that was completely overgrown with moss. Near the
exterior fence I found a table tennis table (lovely word, but according to LEO quite correct) — a relic from
East Germany. It was made of concrete and crumbling in places. This shot was taken at the foot of that table.
Moss
Jul 3th 2009 (13:19) NIKON D70, AF-S DX Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED @66.0 mm (1/400sec, f=5.3, ISO:800, No Flash, WB:Auto)
Arriving back in Berlin it actually started raining very, very heavily. I was luckily underneath the S-Bahn bridge when it started. So I got my
camera out and made a few shots, amongst them this one of a boy running for shelter.
A Boy in the Rain
Jul 3th 2009 (16:23) NIKON D70, AF-S DX Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED @135.0 mm (1/100sec, f=8.0, ISO:800, No Flash, WB:Auto)
Tuesday, July 7th 2009
Quiz #115
I completely missed writing here that I did another quiz on very short notice May 28th. I enjoyed myself as usual. I think everybody
else did too. It was a lot easier than #114. Still got complaints, so it was probably just right. You can read my questions
here. It will be the last quiz for quite some time. Apparently I had hardly left when the proprietor
claimed to have found someone else to do the quiz (Ok, it was the following Day - but hardly my fault?). It only goes to show that I did the right
thing when I got out after Lisa went.
Thursday, June 28th 2009
Low Light Limits
Looking again at that last picture I put up here it really goes all the way and further as far as the low light capability of my gear goes.
There is a light on over the pool table but most of the light came from the window off to the left. Many a year ago I used roughly the same to
get these results: My Nikon F301, Nikkor 50mm f=1/1.8 at 1.8, shutter speeds longer than 1/10 and an Ilford HP5 ISO 400 film pushed to ISO 3200.
I've uploaded another two shots of Dylan to Picasa: One with him back stage at the Feté de la Musique
the other him at home playing my electric guitar.
Thursday, June 25th 2009
Dylan is growing up
Dylan is making light years of progress nearly by the day. You look and think: He's never done that before; he never said that before!
Four weeks ago we went to the Flughafenstraße-Kiez-Fest (actually taking place in
the Erlangerstr. - right in front of the Sandmann). We played pool - as best he could whilst standing
on a chair: most of time a pushed the balls with the side of his queue.
Dylan playing Pool at the Sandmann
May 16th 2009 (16:48) NIKON D70, AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D (1/4, f=1.8, ISO:1600, No Flash, WB:Preset)
Helmut did the roadie/sound mix job on the stage and Dylan apparently watched him quite intently. Yesterday he played "music man". He now knew
what many things were for: guitar amp, cables, microphone and stand, his guitar, his drum. In the end he held a
concert. After every song he changed the set-up playing being Mr Important.
Dylan in Concert
May 16th 2009 (19:12) NIKON D70, AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D (1/5, f=1.8, ISO:800, No Flash, WB:Auto)
For regular readers I've written a script to import pictures - that's why I haven't updated this site for a few weeks. So now I show technical
details on how a shot was made. I've also slightly updated the Style (again).
Even if I upload more images here I will still upload even more to the Picasa Site.
Thursday, June 18th 2009
Dad in Berlin
My father, Dylans Grandsha, was in Berlin for a week. What remains are 162 photographs from Dad's Kodak and 373 from my Nikon. It will take some
time to weed through them all. At first glance there no really good pictures amongst mine.
Dylan and I were the only relatives at the airport picking him up (and dropping him off). That's not unusual. On both cases we went on the
visitors terrace. It was a bit
windy on the day of arrival, but luckily for Daddy's wallet the ticket machines were broken and it was therefore free - it cost us 3 € on the
day of departure. On both occasions I took photographs of planes all around. On the second day Dylan also made some shots, amongst them this
picture that shows how far his view over the bordering concrete went.
Last.fm et al
Being a keen music listener I had noticed last.fm some time ago. At the same time I'm not a big friend of these social networks - you can do
all that with a website and E-Mail. It's just that then someone else knows everything you said. Anyway: I've enlisted to last.fm as
da4cu4 (highly cryptic, I know). It's collecting tons of info on what I'm hearing. I can't fathom
what's supposed to be in it for me. Sure I get better statistics. But everything else on the site seems boring. For the statistic: I was listening
to Neu! when I started this writeup but have now landed with
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album
Abattoir Blues.
As a social network hater but web friend I'm also to be found with more or less empty pages on
StayFriends and Facebook.
Web site roll over
Concepting this version of the website I decided to do roll overs (when the index page gets too long it get's copied) by hand. Let's see how
it goes. With two or three pages it's fairly simple to add the links to elder pages. With time I might have to write a little script to edit
the links. So for now I've entered markers in comments into the page to find those links.
Sunday, May 3rd 2009
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