Wow. This time our line including telephone and some HDTV (3play) was cut off for almost 24 hours – seems that UnityMedia is up to some restructuring since they have been bought by Vodafone? Let’s hope that it’s stable from now on…
I took a photo of our cat again yesterday, this time with proper light (one of my studio strobes bounced over a wall). Then I cropped it into a 16:10 format to use it as a screen background, turned it into black & white using a Kodak Tri-X film simulation, and vignetted the corners a bit so that my Conky system monitor output (in white) can still be seen layed over it, as here:
Tuna the cat, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2020 as my current screen background. Original (without the Conky system monitor output and the headline from Gnome3) is on Flickr.
I wish everyone who reads this a happy new year 2020.
Ours started with a bit of concern – Mitchie had let our cat out in the night of January 1st after most of the fireworks were done – and then we waited. And waited. And waited. And after 2200 (10pm) and at temperatures below freezing point I was really worried.
But then, about 10 past 10 she finally showed up, smooched us all a bit, ate, and then fell asleep on a carpet right in front of our TV set. I took her photo hand-held using my small Panasonic 35-100mm zoom lens, and converted it to black & white with Silver Efex (on Windows):
Tuna the cat, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2020
And by now she’s had breakfast, and is sleeping again – this time on my bed.
To all those who celebrate it, we wish a Merry Christmas 2019.
I don’t have any new music (yet), just a few photos:
Early Sunday morning cat portrait, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2019
This is an in-camera black & white photo (also simulating an orange filter) of Tuna from early Sunday morning. She doesn’t eat much since then, so at the moment we’re a bit concerned about her.
We’ve also got a nice Christmas and season’s greetings card from Shi – and I had nothing similar to send as a reply (I’m really not that good in the graphic arts as she is), so I took a photo of an old Welsh song which I’ve played with the orchestra this season. Also uploaded it to Wikiloops to greet all other musicians as well:
Deck the Hall (for Bass), Mörfelden-Walldorf 2019 Happy holidays 2019 from a bass player…
This is more a New Year’s than a Christmas song, and you can read more about it or hear it if you wish. I took this and the following photo using Mitchie’s nice little 20mm f/1.7 Panasonic Lumix G lens.
The next photo is of Tuna again, close up and with Mitchie’s lens wide open at f/1.7, so just one eye is sharp – and everything else more or less blurry. I also used a black & white conversion in software this time, and simulated an Ilford HP5+ film in RawTherapee. Midtoned as usual, which means the whites are white, the blacks are black, but those middle tones are more brownish than grey:
Tuna the cat, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2019
Two different light colours in this one, natural daylight from outside, and artificial light in our living room. And I liked that high contrast effect from the film simulation in this case.
Edit: here’s another photo from today. In this one I simulated a colour film, Fuji Astia – and also cropped it into a 3:2 format like from the time we were still using film:
Tuna the cat, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2019
Hope that our cat is better soon.
As always, thanks for reading, and for viewing. Nice holidays to you all.
I haven’t done much this weekend – in fact it almost didn’t feel like a weekend at all, since I was busy with the server again (and still am). But in between I could at least take another photo of our cat. Not sure what she saw there – herself, or some potential prey through her own dark silhouette?
Mirror?, Moerfelden-Walldorf 2019
Cropped it into a 3:2 aspect ration like from Kleinbildfilm, and used midtoning and also a HP5+ film simulation from RawTherapee.
My proclaimed “month of the kit zoom” will end today, and I haven’t taken many photos this month. So when I saw our cat on that towel beside my computer desk (in our living room), I thought let’s take a picture…
Tuna the cat, Moerfelden-Walldorf 2019
So – that’s my kit zoom at 17mm again, a bit like 35mm on film (tho the format is 4:3 instead of 3:2).
This evening I’ll go and play the bass somewhere, but I don’t know if anyone will take photos of that using my camera – let’s see.
And as always, thanks for reading, and for viewing.
Tuna the cat from today – short before she got about 3/4 of a chicken leg…
Tuna the cat, Moerfelden-Walldorf 2019
I took this with the help of one of studio strobes, “bounced” into the corner above my computer desk. So I had 1/160th of a second at f/5.6, and with ISO200 (the camera’s native base ISO). The lens was at 17mm again like in my last photo. Oh, and this time no post processing at all – straight out of camera .orf to .tif to .jpg. Added only meta information to it (like a title, and some key words).
One of many photos of our cat, this time taken for my ‘month of the kit zoom’ series, with a focal length of 17mm at f/4. Out of camera jpg with no post processing whatsoever applied. ‘Muted’ camera profile.
Tuna the cat, Moerfelden-Walldorf 2019
Still my favourite model by far – she doesn’t pose, and nothing is in vain… 🙂
I have decided that this November should be my month of the kit zoom. Wanted to go a bit more to taking wide-angle photos, and although I have a very nice Panasonic Lumix 14mm/2.5 I’ll opt for the Olympus kit zoom instead which also offers other focal lengths up to 42mm – very convenient.
Of course it has maximum apertures of f/3.5 at the wide and f/5.6 at the long end, and November isn’t the brightest of all months, but I’ll see how I’ll get along. For inside, there’s always flash, right?
Here are some three shots (of my favourite model) using daylight only:
Tuna the cat, Moerfelden-Walldorf 2019
Tuna the cat, Moerfelden-Walldorf 2019
Dust, Moerfelden-Walldorf 2019
First and last one are at 14mm (which is like 28mm on film), and the middle one at 42mm (like 84mm on film).
I’ll show you more after I took any. For now and as always, thanks for viewing, and for reading.
Update, in the evening:
Here are two more photos – or in fact it’s one photo taken with two different focal lengths (of the same kit zoom lens), 14mm and 35mm:
Notice how the cup seems to be kind of ‘flatter’ in the second photo, taken with the longer focal length? And how that flower vase seems to be coming closer to the cup as well? Well, you’ve just discovered the main characteristics of tele vs. wide angle perspectives, that’s the exact reasons for using one vs. the other.
Oh, and these two photos are the jpg files straight from my camera – no post-processing whatsoever.
Working on our server is about finished, with only minor issues left. I have to thank Michael from Frankfurt who is the lead developer of our admin tool which is called ‘Froxlor‘, and who is known as ‘d00p’ in the forums and IRC channel of his program. He helped a lot, also directly on our server (thanks again Michael, and my offer for coffee still stands).
Last Sunday, in between those server works, I took this photo from Tuna from under my own chair, using my 50mm/2 macro lens from the digital Olympus Four Thirds system:
Lazy Sunday Afternoon, Moerfelden-Walldorf 2019
I cropped it into a 3:2 format like from a film camera.
And a few minutes ago I took a photo of our bird feeder from my desk ‘workspace’, through the closed veranda door, using my newly Panasonic Lumix 35-100mm lens fully zoomed out at 100mm, and wide open at f/5.6:
Taken from my desk “workspace”, Moerfelden-Walldorf 2019
And because this one was taken through a glass door, I tried the ‘Clarity’ and ‘Dehaze’ filters in Olympus’ relatively new ‘Workspace’ raw developer (on Windows). Made a screen shot from these settings, kind of a ‘making of’:
Settings of ‘Clarity’ and ‘Dehaze’ in the relatively new Olympus Workspace raw developer
Interesting, isn’t it? Almost like using a polariser filter which we used in the old film days when taking photos through glass surfaces. You still can’t beat them even in digital (laws of physics), but you can come pretty close already.
So this is what I see if I look left from my computer. As always, thanks for viewing, and for reading.
