Larsblog - personal

Sigma 30mm F1.4 EX DC HSM

I didn't know much about lenses, having only ever used the one I bought with the camera. I was fairly pleased with it, but discovered that taking photos of our newborn daughter (indoors, necessarily) gave disappointing results. The problem was the same one that made me give up my compact camera: not enough light. I could use high ISO, and get grainy photos, or low ISO, and get blurry ones. ...

Read | 2009-07-17 21:14 | 2 comment(s)

The year of the DSLR

I bought myself a DSLR almost exactly one year ago, and have been working on my photography skills ever since. I've been reading up on theory and equipment, and also worked on trying to make the most of the new camera. I'm happy to say that I think I've made progress during the year. I attribute the improvements to better theoretical knowledge of photography (understanding aperture, ISO, depth of field, etc etc), much better equipment (camera and lenses), and also better post-production. ...

Read | 2009-01-10 16:14 | 2 comment(s)

Travels in 2008

Once again it's time for the annual travel map. This year's is not the most extensive, as I knew when I made last year's, since I knew I was ill and that we were having a baby. This is also why, for the first time in many years, there was no intercontinental travel, and no trips to anywhere even remotely challenging. ...

Read | 2009-01-03 16:06 | 0 comment(s)

Polarization filter

After buying my DSLR camera I've developed symptoms of beginning camera-geekiness, and have on and off looked at all kinds of camera-related equipment, without actually buying anything. I was, however, given a polarization filter as a get well present by colleagues at work, and in return promised to write a blog entry about it. I actually find this an interesting subject to write about, and as I've now spent a few months playing with it, here we are. ...

Read | 2008-07-27 11:05 | 2 comment(s)

Burnt out

I never thought it would happen to me, but I guess they all say that. I knew I was pushing my luck, but I thought I always stayed on the right side of the line and that I'd be able to stop in time. What I didn't realize is that long-term stress wears you down gradually, and that if the effects don't get you while you're going at full speed they'll strike when you slow down. ...

Read | 2008-07-19 21:10 | 13 comment(s)

Goslar

When I discovered that besides being the birthplace of the beer style Gose Goslar was also a medieval town so well-preserved it's been UNESCO-listed it was clear that our German Interrail holiday would have to include a stop there. In retrospect I can say that this was definitely one of the high points of the holiday. ...

Read | 2008-06-03 16:25 | 3 comment(s)

The Kiso valley

In Tokugawa-era Japan (1600-1868) travellers had two main roads to choose between when travelling between the official imperial capital of Kyoto and the seat of power, which was Tokyo (then called Edo). One was the Tokaido, which followed the coast and required the fording of several large rivers. Another was the Nakasendo, which crossed the mountains of central Japan without crossing any major rivers. These roads were much travelled by, as the Tokugawa shogunate required all daimyos (feudal lords) to reside alternate years in Tokyo (so it could keep an eye on them), and both became very important parts of Japanese national culture. ...

Read | 2008-05-24 12:52 | 0 comment(s)

VDNKh

I've hinted a couple of times in previous blog entries about "surprises" in Moscow, and the biggest of these was without question VDNKh, which has to rank near the top of the list of the most bizarre things I've ever seen. Unfortunately, all of my photos of it were lost, and never recovered, so the photos on this page are shared photos from Flickr. ...

Read | 2008-02-03 13:42 | 1 comment(s)

New camera

On Tuesday I went to the local camera store and came out with a Canon EOS 400D, sold in the US under the idiotic name of Canon Digital Rebel XTi. I'd done quite a bit of reading at dpreview.com beforehand, focusing especially on the lowest-cost DSLR cameras from Canon (the one I bought), Nikon (the D40x), and Olympus (the E-410). From what I was able to gather, they produce images of much the same quality, although the Olympus was perhaps slightly behind and needed its settings tweaked a bit. The Canon came with a poor lens by default. Other than that, they seemed pretty much equal. ...

Read | 2008-01-25 20:36 | 4 comment(s)

To DSLR or not DSLR

I started my digital photograpy career with a crappy Olympus camera I got for Christmas from my father. The camera may have been crappy, but I took lots of photos with it, and hugely enjoyed it. The trouble was that a lot of the photos came out really poorly, there was no zoom, and so on. So eventually I bought myself a higher-level compact digital from Canon, which I was really happy with. ...

Read | 2008-01-20 00:31 | 7 comment(s)

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