8
30 March, 2013
Easter, we've been looking forward for this extra long weekend, giving us a chance to catch up on some of the things that needs to be done at home. I'm not really a fan of eating eggs, but they do look nice when painted.
Guessed it would be crowded at the store on Thursday so we went there Friday morning (yes morning!) instead and the best things, besides having a full fridge, were the tulips we found and Zeunerts Påskmust. Not Easter without Påskmust.
Earlier today, when being outside enjoying the sun, this yellow bird showed up and sang and since it's Easter, we can call it a fluffy chicken, right? :)
Wild birds is not something I've photographed much before and I've set a challenge for myself to do more of it and catch at least a certain number of different species before this year is over - and at the same time, I might get better at telling different species apart.
Other interpretations can be seen here.
16
23 March, 2013
A new theme over at fototriss, silhouettes. I like the theme and also if photographing towards the sun, it can tell technical details about the lens - the shape of the lens flare is determined by the number of diaphragm blades.
Here goes, my triplet:
Other interpretations can be seen here.
1
23 March, 2013
Last week the blog fototriss had architecture and buildings as theme. Architecture and (ultra) wide angle lenses can make dramatic images, but also cause much distortion in the image. To over exaggerate a little, walls that should be parallel can appear like the sides of a pyramid.
For example one image straight from the camera taken at 21mm with a crop camera (equiv. 33mm on full frame):
If we trace lines along the vertical walls they will intersect. That is not how the building appears in real life. If the image would have been taken at equivalent to 16-18mm on full frame, the distortion would be much larger.
With the meta data recorded in the image and the help of the lensfun library the image can be automatically adjusted. The second image is processed in GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, which is great and free alternative to Photoshop. With the plugin GimpLensfun the image is easily adjusted by selecting Filters > Enhance > Gimplensfun. The default settings should be okay if your camera/lens is recognized.
A much better result than the first image. For more advanced use or if the camera-lens combination used isn't available in lensfun, the panorama stitcher Hugin can be used. It can do perspecive correction, simulate architectural projections besides from stitching together many images and more.
The image from Hugin is not cropped compared to the one processed with GIMP and lensfun.
All the tools mentioned in the post are free and open source and part of my must-be-installed list.
7
17 March, 2013
One of the more recent buildings in my close vicinity is the new train station, "Umeå Östra". It's located close to the University hospital (NUS) and the Umeå University campus area. There is also another station, Umeå Central 2km away but in my opinion it's not really needed anymore. Umeå Östra is mostly made of wood and glass and has a very characteristic look, specially since the walls are not vertical, but angled slightly outwards.