A spaceship that Dylan built before going on holiday with his Kita. We left it standing on the living room table for a full week. And we missed him too.

Scaffolding seen in the U-Bahn Gleisdreieck that is being thoroughly renovated.

I wasn't very active here the last months but I have been active. There's a some stuff on Facebook and lots of new photographs on Picasa. We've been travelling. We were in Bulgaria for three weeks and spent a week in Venice. I have even at last sorted all the photos from our 2010 tour to Pembrokeshire, The Peak District and The Rhondda and posted them.

Dylan as mentioned above spent a week away with the Kita. He had his camera with him and took quite a lot of pictures, some of which are also on Picasa but in a closed group, as only some of the parents might not want photos of the children searchable on the net. Only two days before he left I managed to talk him into having his hair cut. The results are also visible on Picasa.

last not least I'm active on last.fm

Jeffrey Friedl does these "What am I?" quiz posts every now and then. This one is inspired by him. As readers can't leave comments to posts, mail me.

Dylan is ill with a bad cold. He's got fever and sleeps through most of the day. He was playing with his playmobil in our bedroom today, and I took a few shots from the other side, sitting at my desk. The 105mm is ideal for this low light stuff - only my reading lamp was on!

So I've decided to photograph more doors. As hardly anybody comes past here, I may as well keep on going. See my new flag counter statistics: Hardly any visitors!

As things like this come I head to work every morning in a grey haze and get home when it's dark. I take my camera most days, but don't shoot much. These two are exceptions of the "Dylan playing" theme. It also shows that I got that fantastic 35mm back from repairs. It was worth it.

I'm getting the camera setup better now. I'm using A and M with Auto ISO off, because you can't switch it on and off without going into the menus. Then U1 is set to black and white with auto ISO all the way through to 25,600 and U2 the same but in colour. Auto modes with and without flash are for when other people use the camera. The pictures are crappy in colour at 25,600 but quite Ok in black and white. Reminds me of the grainy shots I used to take in pubs using Ilford HP5+ pushed to ISO 3200.

I've also been experimenting with off camera flash. Nothing to show for it yet though. I was rather surprised to find out that my Metz Mecablitz 48 AF-1 and the D7000 get along quite well together. I certainly wasn't looking at CLS compatibility when I picked it.

Some fireworks just to show that I did go out new years eve. About half an hour. Everything was so misty that most photos have yellowish grey sky. Sort of back illuminated by city lights.

After nearly 6 years of service and two dropped out body updates by Nikon (D80, D90) I have finally updated to the latest model and got myself a D7000. Thanks to Foto Lambertin in Collogne, right next to the Dom I've had it since November 11_th. My first shots were taken in the Dom. The following shots are a collection from the following weeks.

The opener was my first shot of Dylan. The D7000 does Black and White straight out of the camera. While others (i.e. Ken Rockwell) has programmed the two user modes to "Kids" and "Landscapes", I've programmed only U1 to Black and White. The D7000 is fantastic in low light. It's pictures are in my opinion slighty better at ISO 6400 than the D70 at ISO 1600. That's two stops less light or a quarter of the light. It also can go up to "Hi 2" meaning ISO 25600. It's very noisy up there, but it still can take usable photos. Certainly still good enough for publishing on the web.

By chance this coincided with a chance to buy some cheap elder lenses. I picked two from those available. I would have taken them all if I could have expained it to my wife. Lens No. 1 is this Sigma 17-70mm zoom. It starts at f=2.8 and ends at 4.5. So it's about a stop faster than most zooms, that are sold (they nearly all go from 3.5 to 5.6 or 6.3). So it's a cheap low light zoom for 25 €uros. It makes me wonder if a Tamron or Sigma 17-50 f=2.8 would be something for me. This lens tends to flare when it's wide open in both senses. Zoom in a bit, stop down a bit and it's fine.

I had a chance the other day to take a walk in the dark. I only had this lens with me, this is the result at ISO 25600!

Same day, only a few hundred yards further on at ISO 6400. With a tripod the train would blur, which would be a nice effect, but I like this shot as it is too.

Over the last few weeks I seem to have been spending at least one day (and sometimes a night too) somewhere far away. I plan these journeys with a little extra time for a walk. For the meeting in Düsseldorf I had to arrive a day before. It then started snowing heavily. The D7000 has got far better weather sealing than my D70, but I was still forced to pack it in as it was collecting snow. As it turned out, Düsseldorf isn't really worth a visit. But at least I found a great place for a beer.

Another day out, this time in Berlin.

This shot teaches two lessons: There are several ways to prevent distorted lines in photographs. You can bend them back with software, you can use a tilt-shift lens or you can just refrain from pointing the camera upwards! The easiest form of editing is cropping. And then, when at home you may see something that you hadn't noticed while there! Yes I had seen the floor, but I hadn't thought it would look so good.

If you point your camera down an alley, it's no longer as steep as it was. It's a matter of perspective.

And not to forget, you can do the cropping in camera with the D7000.

This shot was taken in Bremen. It was taken with the other really cheap lens I got a hold on to. It's more or less the same lens as my 18-250mm, just without the stabiliser while being a lot smaller and lighter. The truth is that I've hardly used the big and heavy 18-250 on the D7000 as of yet.

What's not good: The buttons need less pressure, so I often press the shutter release all the way through, although I wanted to stop halfway. And the camera seems to sometimes over expose photos. I've read that others think so too and I haven't got any real proof yet either.