On our own. The Mrs and I only very rarely do guided tours, we prefer to find our own path. At the moment we are dragging a caravan to Austria.
On our own. The Mrs and I only very rarely do guided tours, we prefer to find our own path. At the moment we are dragging a caravan to Austria.
More church photos, this time from Dießen am Ammersee, the Münster Mariä Himmelfahrt. Also, a lesson in repairing a fence.
This looks like a great trip, one that I would prefer. If I know a general area, I will just rent a vehicle, plan a few stops along the way, and let fate be the guide. Enjoy... and we can all live vicariously through your images!
Bob
Before Entering the Sistine Chapel
Hello, Again, and thanks for enduring images from my holiday… I took a boatload.
This week starts with images before one enters the hallways leading the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. The image below is the Pinecone courtyard before entering the hallowed area. There had been a lot of rain the first part of the trip but the morning decided to cooperate and was beautiful. The 2 additional images are of a sculpture in the middle of the courtyard. The following description was taken from a website and succinctly describes what you see better than I could. I uploaded a larger version of the courtyard so you could expand the image to see the peacocks on either side of the Pinecone. Oh..... the sphere rotates.
From vaticantips.com:“The courtyard is named after the huge bronze statue shaped like a pinecone. The metal sculpture was originally part of a fountain dating back to the 2nd century A.D. and was crafted during the Ancient Roman times. The base for the pinecone was taken from the baths of Septimus Severius also dating from the 2nd century A.D. The two peacocks either side were taken from the Emperor Hadrian’s villa in Tivoli. If you notice a theme here, you will find other examples of Ancient Rome throughout the Vatican museums. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Vatican was quite fond of collecting art and other valuables.
What is most noticeable when you enter into the Pinecone courtyard is the Sphere within a Sphere. This sculpture is placed right in the center of the courtyard and it is a spectacular piece of modern art. The Sphere within a Sphere was created by Arnaldo Pomodoro who was born in Moricano, Romagna in 1926. The art is over 40 feet (13 meters) in diameter and depicts a smaller sphere inside a larger sphere symbolizing how the religious world relates to the world as we know it today. Numerous versions of this sphere are placed around the world including Trinity College in Dublin and at the United Nations offices in New York. The piece is known in Italian as Sfera Consfera.”
Hope to see a lot of your images.
Bob
Wonderful, Bob! Thanks for sharing these images. Thye allow me to see, learn about and appr4eciate things I'll not see in this life!
Greg
I am loving your travel images here - thanks for sharing.
Even though I just got an X-T5, short of a session of band portraits, I have not yet had the time to explore deeper and go shooting for myself. But I do have 4 quick shots from a music gig today. It was a private birthday party in a house located on the northern shore of Sjælland.
X-T5 with 35mm 1.4 and 16mm 1.4.
More church photos, this time from Dießen am Ammersee, the Münster Mariä Himmelfahrt. Also, a lesson in repairing a fence.
Lovely! Ammersee is beautiful. Actually sailed on the lake long ago - also sailed Starnberger See and Chiemsee. We lived not far from there for a few years after I returned from Vietnam and found the US a difficult place for a combat vet to live at the time. Those Bavarian churches are kind of the ultimate of excess - amazing what humans can achieve. Thanks for the memories.
Greg
These are the last of the Ocracoke pics (I'm sure you are glad).
Weather remained very bad until the end - ferocious winds and wild seas. Here is our little motorhome/truck/boat caravan waiting in a long line for the ferry to get off the island:
We were concerned that they would shut down the ferry and we wouldn't get off the island. Conditions were right at the edge with steady 30 knot winds and gusts in the 40's, but we made it on - an experience that really gets your attention when driving a 30,000 pound 40' machine on to a leaping ferry - to be followed by poor Nancy driving the truck towing the boat (she is a good sport - not sure why she married me). Don't know if anyone behind us ever got off the island. Huge waves were breaking over the bow of the ferry and carrying all the way back to the stern. The ferry was heaving and rolling. In all the years I've been doing this, I've never seen that before. It was not safe to be on deck (to say the least), so we stayed inside the motorhome and watched the spectacle through the MH windshield.
Here is a sequence of just one of countless breaking waves.
The drive home was the usual two long days of traffic and tedium, but we finally made it; and the dogs are happy in their yard (do you think the grass needs mowed?). Things sure look a lot different here in the mountains and woods than out on that island!
I have been going to Ocracoke in the spring to sail for many years. Normally we spend April and May there. This was by far the worst trip there in terms of weather. Very little sailing was possible; and even beaching was a challenge in the blowing sand and wind. To me, this pic epitomizes our 2023 Ocracoke trip.
It's nice to be back home! Lot's of work to catch up on. We'll be here for the summer and then in late August head out to Montana for the fall.
Greg
I am loving your travel images here - thanks for sharing.
Even though I just got an X-T5, short of a session of band portraits, I have not yet had the time to explore deeper and go shooting for myself. But I do have 4 quick shots from a music gig today. It was a private birthday party in a house located on the northern shore of Sjælland.
Thanks. That's a nice house to have steps going down to the shore. The X-T5 is a very nice step up in resolution. Just installed the updated FW and I think the tracking is stickier at least with the rectangle. Haven't tried the subject detection.
Bob
Just to break up your holiday pics as suggested Bob 😃
Not the best image but I liked what was happening with the way the Silvereye was holding the Spiders home with both feet, having extracted the spider which it held firmly in its beak. I can't figure out how the bird was staying in that position.
Below is another shot of (I believe) the same bird a few moments before not actually defying gravity.
Cheers
Paul
3 shots from a walk and 1 of Mozart napping in the sun.
The first two images are shot with my Nikkor 180mm f/2.8. I must say I am pretty impressed by the IBIS in the X-T5, since I am able to shoot with this lens at a shutterspeed of 1/30 (not these images) without any camera shake blurring at all. For me, that is extremely useful for static subjects in low light, when not having my tripod around.
I have also noticed that so far, the autofocus is quite trustworthy. I am at the moment editing around 100 photos from a band portrait shoot and I have still to find the ones with missed focus. That is with the old 56 1.2, 35mm 1.4 and 90 f2.
Anyway, I am getting really excited about my latest purchase. It feels like a decent step up from the X-T3, which is still a great machine for me.
All the best and take care everyone.
Mozart is cool. Please give him an ear scratch for me.
Wildflower Multiple Exposure
Very "cool."
Bob
Very "cool."
Thanks Bob. New work inspired by two members of a local peer critique salon. Very early stages. I’m not yet sure where it’s going or what (if any) voice it will take. At least I now know how to activate and use the multi-exposure function on both cameras. This is a true in-camera multiple exposure, not a composite. "SOOC", except I did tweak the jpg just a bit to make it punchier. (And of course cropped this one to square.)
As a happy byproduct, I also discovered the Advanced Filters (Toy, Retro, etc.) on the X100V. I've occasionally used these on the X-S10, but never knew they were on the V, or I had forgotten them completely. Not a feature I use every day, but like ketchup in a French restaurant…comforting to know they're available.
Travel photos from Vilnius (Lithuania) last week
This is my first comment here; bear with me if the images aren't inserted correctly.
All photos were taken with X-T2 + 35mm/2. It was a bit narrow focal length sometimes, especially inside the city, but I wanted to keep it small would have chosen the same again over anything else.
Processed in Capture One 12 (perpetual license) to taste. Provia and Pro neg hi. as base color profiles.
Travel photos from Vilnius (Lithuania) last week
This is my first comment here; bear with me if the images aren't inserted correctly.
All photos were taken with X-T2 + 35mm/2. It was a bit narrow focal length sometimes, especially inside the city, but I wanted to keep it small would have chosen the same again over anything else.
Processed in Capture One 12 (perpetual license) to taste. Provia and Pro neg hi. as base color profiles.
Thanks for posting. I edited your post so the thumbnails would be visible. Welcome!
Bob
The group shot is great!