Wrapping up the year - state of my nation
25/Dec/2015 18:01
2015 has been very nice to me. I was able to enjoy most of the year in the company of my first son all day. Additionally the last quarter of 2015 brought a new, bigger flat and a new, more exciting, more challenging job to the table. It was a really really good year aside from my photography.
Concerning photography it has been an interesting year. I left Samsung and sold all my NX equipment to get back to DSLR. It was the right move for me for many reasons, not only for the fact that Samsung might ditch their NX camera business on the whole but also as I rediscovered the joy of seeing the world through a Pentaprism instead of a "crappy little television", to quote camerastoretv host Nick Devlin.
I also slimmed down my gear to only having four lenses (28mm, 50mm, 85mm and 135mm) ,the two wider ones being autofocus. It would have saved me some money and a lot of time if I had gotten to this point right after selling my mirrorless gear but this is not the way how life goes.
Concerning creativity I learned a lot from my One Month, One Lens project and will try to bring this experiment to 2016 as well. Aside from this, I mostly photographed my kid and tremendously enjoyed the faster AF perfomance of my SLR compared to my mirrorless before.
I learned to appreciate the "real" focal lengths of full frame and became a little addicted to my fast 28mm.
I also learnd the downs of bigger sensors, such as the corner performance of lenses, which has never been something I was very worried about with my APS-C, let alone 4/3rds, cameras. Also, the Fullframe sensor hasn't brought as much to the table of image quality as I have though beforehand.
I don't know what 2016 will bring but 2015 ends very nicely for me and I'm looking forward anxiously.
A merry christmas and happy new year to all of you!
Concerning photography it has been an interesting year. I left Samsung and sold all my NX equipment to get back to DSLR. It was the right move for me for many reasons, not only for the fact that Samsung might ditch their NX camera business on the whole but also as I rediscovered the joy of seeing the world through a Pentaprism instead of a "crappy little television", to quote camerastoretv host Nick Devlin.
I also slimmed down my gear to only having four lenses (28mm, 50mm, 85mm and 135mm) ,the two wider ones being autofocus. It would have saved me some money and a lot of time if I had gotten to this point right after selling my mirrorless gear but this is not the way how life goes.
Concerning creativity I learned a lot from my One Month, One Lens project and will try to bring this experiment to 2016 as well. Aside from this, I mostly photographed my kid and tremendously enjoyed the faster AF perfomance of my SLR compared to my mirrorless before.
I learned to appreciate the "real" focal lengths of full frame and became a little addicted to my fast 28mm.
I also learnd the downs of bigger sensors, such as the corner performance of lenses, which has never been something I was very worried about with my APS-C, let alone 4/3rds, cameras. Also, the Fullframe sensor hasn't brought as much to the table of image quality as I have though beforehand.
I don't know what 2016 will bring but 2015 ends very nicely for me and I'm looking forward anxiously.
A merry christmas and happy new year to all of you!
One Month, One Lens #1.2 Conclusion on the 28mm
15/Oct/2015 16:20
It's already been a month, I thinkto myself today, 11.10.2015 as I write this article. I wouldn't have though that time went by so fast and maybe it wouldn't, if there hadn't been a toddler around in my life.Read more...
Copying one person is called stealing, copying multiple is called research - Youtube discoveries
04/Oct/2015 18:59
Recently, I've become bored with the notoriously "must be funny" videos of DigitalRev. Also thecamerastoretv didn't put out a lot of content either. I have noticed this more and more now, as I'm at home, caring for my son since nearly ten months. I always watched a lot of youtube videos, starting of with the enthusiastic Gordon Liang of cameralabs.com back in the days.
Read more...
Read more...
One Month One Lens #1.1 28mm
24/Sep/2015 20:40
It has been another week with the 28mm f1.8 glued to my 5D. Recently I've figured out more and more what the field of view of that 28mm is like. I played around a lot with trying to look in 28mm as well. It is as if the field of view of the lens ends just shortly outside the borders of my sharp sight.
Read more...
Read more...One Month One Lens #1 28mm
15/Sep/2015 20:56
Some days ago, adoramatv posted a video on youtube rediscovering an article, Steve Huff wrote back in June 2011 about how shooting with a single focal length over a period of half a year can benefit your creativity…
Read more...
Read more...
Optically again
17/Aug/2015 09:15
About a month ago, I wrote a short blog post accompanying my newest gallery about the City-Nord business complex. As noted in that article, I'm no longer using Samsung mirrorless cameras.
I will not go over what's so bad about Samsung that it drove me back to DSLR, because Samsung does a great job in mirrorless and the decision was completely based on gut feeling. The biggest point for me was my desire to go back to a viewfinder and actually none of the electronic viewfinders could convince me in the end.
After trying out many different DSLRs like the Nikon D700, Pentax K-3, Olympus E-3 and Canon EOS 5D, I settled on the old, tried and true EOS 5D Mark 1/Classic/Queen Mum, however you wanna call it. I chose it because it felt right in my hands from the first touch and didn't wear off, like the D700 after some days. The Pentax K-3 didn't convince me with its image quality. It produced just technically very good images but somehow I didn't like them at all (a first for me...). The Olympus has a nice body, is tremendously well built, on a level with the K-3 and a step above Nikon and Canon. Also it handles beautifully. In the end, I decided against the E-3 and its beautiful colors, as I didn't want to spend money on a system that was dead already, no matter how good the lenses are.
I'm shooting with the EOS 5D for about a month now and am really enjoying it. The camera produces nearly perfect skin tones right out of the box and the image quality doesn't need to fear the comparison with modern cameras if shot in RAW.
Together with the camera, I got three Sigma lenses, the 15-30mm Ultrawide, the 50mm f1.4 DG (not the Art) and the 105mm Macro with OS. All three are really satisfying so far. I also got a Canon 580EX Flash and even though I like manual flash very much, it works a treat in E-TTL mode.
I will write more about the lenses and maybe the camera as times goes by but for the moment, let this be a status update on my gear.
As a side note, I don't want anyone to go away from Samsung just because I did, as it was a totally personal decision, that doesn't need to be the right route for anyone else! Samsung makes great cameras and lenses and I still believe in the observations I made on their gear!
I will not go over what's so bad about Samsung that it drove me back to DSLR, because Samsung does a great job in mirrorless and the decision was completely based on gut feeling. The biggest point for me was my desire to go back to a viewfinder and actually none of the electronic viewfinders could convince me in the end.
After trying out many different DSLRs like the Nikon D700, Pentax K-3, Olympus E-3 and Canon EOS 5D, I settled on the old, tried and true EOS 5D Mark 1/Classic/Queen Mum, however you wanna call it. I chose it because it felt right in my hands from the first touch and didn't wear off, like the D700 after some days. The Pentax K-3 didn't convince me with its image quality. It produced just technically very good images but somehow I didn't like them at all (a first for me...). The Olympus has a nice body, is tremendously well built, on a level with the K-3 and a step above Nikon and Canon. Also it handles beautifully. In the end, I decided against the E-3 and its beautiful colors, as I didn't want to spend money on a system that was dead already, no matter how good the lenses are.
I'm shooting with the EOS 5D for about a month now and am really enjoying it. The camera produces nearly perfect skin tones right out of the box and the image quality doesn't need to fear the comparison with modern cameras if shot in RAW.
Together with the camera, I got three Sigma lenses, the 15-30mm Ultrawide, the 50mm f1.4 DG (not the Art) and the 105mm Macro with OS. All three are really satisfying so far. I also got a Canon 580EX Flash and even though I like manual flash very much, it works a treat in E-TTL mode.
I will write more about the lenses and maybe the camera as times goes by but for the moment, let this be a status update on my gear.
As a side note, I don't want anyone to go away from Samsung just because I did, as it was a totally personal decision, that doesn't need to be the right route for anyone else! Samsung makes great cameras and lenses and I still believe in the observations I made on their gear!
Hamburg City Nord - Blue Hour
11/Jul/2015 12:17
Yesterday Evening, I took the opportunity of a brilliantly clear sky and pleasant temperatures to take stroll during the blue hour.
Read more...
Read more...Talking Firmware...Thecamerastore
28/Jun/2015 05:59
Thecamerastore just released a new video of their after dark series, talking about firmware updates and the possibilities. Very well made and informativ talk! Enjoy!
After Kai did it, Chris did it too! NX500 review video!
21/Jun/2015 22:16
After Kai Man Wong of DigitalRev did his Samsung NX500 review 3 weeks ago, Chris Nichols of thecamerastoreTV followed suite! Enjoy!
In Contrast to the DigitalRev review, this video is much more serious and I have to say, I like it better!
In Contrast to the DigitalRev review, this video is much more serious and I have to say, I like it better!
Samsung NX1 - A Beast after the buzz
13/Jun/2015 22:57
The NX1 is the Samsung camera that generated the most buzz since the release of the original NX10, which was the first APS-C mirrorless on the market. It came about 5 months earlier than Sony’s first mirrorless. Since then, Samsung never generated the attention that their lineup should have been given.
That has changed with the NX1. This new beast has generated a lot of attention on dpreview, youtube, thephoblographer and many others.
Read more...
That has changed with the NX1. This new beast has generated a lot of attention on dpreview, youtube, thephoblographer and many others.
Read more...