We’ve had a bit of snow last fall, and I’ve written about that, but for this winter we now had the first one… just took a photo with +0.7 exposure to keep whites white, then adjusted the white balance in Gimp, and cropped it to 800×600 pixels so I could send it with mail. Now I also uploaded it to Flickr, from where I show it here again as usual:
… in a hospital in Bremen, Zuleikha was born. Don’t know if I can show you her picture (haven’t asked yet), but here are her birthday calendar, and our cat, both in black & white and with a simulated Kodak Tri-X film:
Sending out so many Christmas wishes on behalf of the family got our brave little companion a bit exhausted – so as usual she was resting next to my feet a bit:
Tuna the sleeping cat, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2020
Although I had the camera set to black & white already, this is “developed” using RawTherapee on Linux only, with a Kodak Tri-X film simulation. I also cropped the image into the 3:2 format like we had in the old film days. Light was pretty much non-existent, so this is ISO 1600 with a bit of electronic noise added to the simulated film grain. My 25mm/1.4 lens is fully open, still this was 1/8th or even 1/6th of a second – I’m really thankful for today’s IBIS (in-body image stabilisation).
As always, thanks for viewing, and for reading.
Edit, ca. 3.5 hours later: alive and kicking again. Here taken with a studio strobe:
It should speak volumes when you have your real camera in reach but still take the mobile phone to take a portrait. No, the handling of the phone is much worse that that of a real camera – but I still like what it does. This is “OOC”, or “out of camera”, with the phone’s software in “portrait” mode, and “enhancing” it after the shot:
Merry Christmas from Ms Tuna, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2020
As always, thanks for viewing. And merry Christmas to those who celebrate it.
Mitchie got the new Pixel 4a 5G phone, so I was willing to buy for one shilling – her “old” and “normal” Pixel 4a. Which basically means that for the first time in my entire life I’m now the owner of a current smart phone (the iPhone doesn’t count since that belongs to my employers).
I had to test the camera of course, so here’s the obligatory cat picture, in the phone’s ‘portrait’ mode:
Tuna the cat, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2020 shot with the Google Pixel 4a phone in ‘portrait’ mode
Not too bad what you can get out of these devices – both this Pixel 4a and the iPhone SE – without any further processing even. Without any doubt this is good enough to use it for blog posts such as this one, even if these pictures can’t reach the quality from a real camera with their much bigger sensors like the µ43rds ones I have…
But ok, fun anyway in a device millions of people carry around their daily lives anyway. No wonder the camera industry is struggling, and only the best of the best survive in that field.
I only got that phone yesterday evening but like it already.
As always, thanks for reading and for viewing.
Edit, in the evening of the same day:
Here’s another photo of her, this time taken with my Olympus camera and a 45mm lens, with using a studio strobe bounced over the ceiling:
Tuna the cat, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2020 studio strobe, bounced
Again, thanks for viewing, and for reading.
Second edit, from Sunday evening:
And here’s another photo of Tuna who jumped our bench, ready to steal whatever she might have found. That was in almost no light at all, the only light source was from the kitchen – and I took the photo from my computer using the same 45mm lens and camera as in the previous one. Converted it to black & white, and toned the greys more brownish as usual:
I’m quite happy that I could get my camera working as usual again, without having to send it in for repairs and such – so today I thought about using a studio strobe again, haven’t done that in a while (since the photo shoot for school in early spring).
And I was just finished setting everything up and measuring the light intensity when my favourite model decided to relocate – so I’d had to turn, measure again, and live with a not-so-optimal kind of light. I’d loved to having added a second one of my studio strobes, but that one also didn’t have a power cable attached, and I would have to climb to reach it on its higher stand… so…
Tuna the cat, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2020
That’s what I came up with. Much better and sharper than yesterday’s photo using the incandescent room light of course; all measures are better once you’ll get a flash or studio strobe into the game – lower ISO, much better colour accuracy, shorter times (the camera is on 1/160th of a second, but the strobe was way faster than that which really freezes any motion), and you can close down the aperture a bit (here I was using f/4), all of which would give a better picture. Really, having a flash or strobe which you can bounce over a wall like here will make more of a difference than having a 1k€ lens vs. a 300€ one… (I was discussing that with a friend recently).
It’s hard to get the light just as you’ll want it and then have an animal sitting still at the exactly right place, these are rare moments. But it’s still fun and good practise to also try with not so optimal conditions, all of that will make you think, and see, and if you’re honestly judging yourself and your results, it will make you a better photographer in the long run… or so we hope… 🙂
