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 ear...

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.)       ...

There are moments in our lives, which we never forget. Moments, when time slows down. Moments, when we know that we are in the right place at the right time. It is great to feel the essence of those moments again and refresh our own memories. So we take photographs... I check my older photos from time to time. I was just learning the basics, so many of them is not technically perfect or composition is not well thought. But many preserves exactly the moments I described above.   Today I would like to show a few pictures, which were taken after a summer storm. The date was 26th August 2004. It was a typical late summer day; really hot and dry. Strong east wind started to blow around 5 o'clock; clouds were travelling fast towards the west. Heavy downpour followed soon; it just ended not long before sunset. The sky became yellow thanks to the golden sunrays...   Yellow sky Metadata   Camera: Olympus E-10  Cloud factory Metadata ...

It's time to write about one of my favourite screw mount lens, the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 135mm F3.5 MC . First some words about the exterior. The lens is painted in black with white and red markings. It looks professional, and the colors nicely match Canon bodies as well. I showcase the lens here on a "retro" Praktica film body.     The front element   Side view   When you pick up the lens, you immediately realize that the build quality is good; it is made of lot of metal parts and some plastic. I heard that the internal contains more plastic in my late, red MC version; but its weight still shows that there is good old glass inside. :) Weakest point seems to be the aperture mechanism, but fortunately mine is pretty well-preserved, and don't have any mechanical problems. Aperture can be set between F3.5 - F22. There is a depth of field scale, as you can expect.   DOF scale  The lens has only...

Let's start today with some background about how I select the pictures shown on this blog. This would explain why I present now a couple of shots taken in early March, when my country was still covered with thick snow... Living in the digital age It is cheap to take a photo. And the relative cost is basically the same as taking 1000 shots.  Most probably every photographer has some kind of process to select the pictures they publish; this is even more important in the age of digital cameras! (But if you check popular photo sharing sites, you can see the opposite as well..) So how can we ensure that we keep only the best photos? Check my guide to find some advices. :) Capture only the scenes you really like.  It is hard not to use your expensive photo gear just for the sheer pleasure of operating your equipment; but this habit rarely leads to good pictures. However if you find something interesting, then it is worth taking pictures with different settings and fr...

I have to admit that the backwater near my home in Tiszafüred impressed me a lot. Sunsets are always amazing there! And I just had to walk a few minutes from my home to enjoy them, which I miss a lot since I have moved to Budapest. This was the most significant impact, which made me a hobby photographer.  In early spring I took a walk on the dam around the backwater with my trusty 5D. I found this bike waiting for its owner in the glowing, late-afternoon light... Gone fishing.  Metadata Camera: Canon 5D Lens: Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 135mm f3.5 MC

A few weeks ago I visited a local tavern in Tiszacsege. This place is famous for its traditional fish dishes, and it is located right on the bank of the River Tisza. I took the opportunity to explore the surrounding area.  This river is one of the untouched wonder of Hungary, I am always amazed how peaceful and natural  it is. Unfortunately there was a flood not long ago, so it wasn't possible to approach the river this time. But I spotted a pile of timber, which I found interesting. This is the shot I got. Marks Metadata Camera: Canon 5D Lens: Pentacon 50mm MC f1.8 Processing: Large format (4x5) crop Maybe not the most exciting lens, but I think the bokeh is pretty nice! However I am not satisfied with the sharpness. This time the aperture was set at F4. Central sharpness is acceptable, but the edges turned out to be really soft. I also applied large format crop, the image has better balance this way. There are a batch of images waiting for processing, st...