Quest for the magnificent light

It's summertime! Yes, this also means going on holiday, nice weather and lot of sunshine. Ideal conditions for taking some photos as well! Today I decided not only to publish a new post, but to start a mini-series about my recent experiments. "Learn the rules; then break them." Probably this is the most quoted rule of photography.  But how does it apply to sunset images? I think about this quite a lot, mostly while walking around with a camera in my hands. Shooting these kind of photos is pretty straightforward; the time of sunsets are well-defined on each day. The only thing to do is finding a nice place, then fire the shutter in the right moment. So what makes the difference between an average capture and a great one? I consider the following things to be the most important aspects: Timing Weather conditions Composition Timing Usually the right time to make the shot is 15-20 minutes before sunset. There is no point in arriving earlier as th

This is just a short post about my first impression with the mighty Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm F1.4 ZE . I will definitely write more about it later, but let me share close-ups this time. The lens does not perform really good in this type of shots according to many forum threads on popular photo sites. However I like its painterly rendering , so I don't mind that it is not clinically sharp at closer distances and faster apertures.     After lunch tablsecape     Metadata   Camera: Canon 5D Lens: Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm F1.4 ZE Aperture: F2     The center sharpness is already good at F2. Even F1.4 is sufficient to shoot portraits; the slight softness adds to the dreamy atmosphere of shallow depth of field shots. At least F2.8 is required to achieve sharpness across the whole frame. (But DOF is still thin on full frame, so I have sometimes problem with getting my son completely in focus.)       Time for dessert! Metadata   Camera: Canon 5D L