Carpe Lux Seize the Light

While on holiday at the French riviera, there was a fireworks festival making the Casino in Cannes seem like it was on fire.

While out on another nightly excursion trying to capture shooting stars (and failing) I illuminated a friend with a laser pointer instead. This is the result.

Unfortunately, I dropped my DA* 50-135 on the ground afterwards, resulting in something coming loose inside. I sense insurance claims and repairs in my future. :-(

During today's excursion with the Swedish Jaguar Club, not one, not two, but three XK150s showed up -- one coupe, one drophead and one OTS. This is the leaper on the OTS. It made our ten-year-old X-Type seem brand new in comparison. :-)
More images on Picasa for now.

I don't know if all of you have thought about the actual difference between framing a shot with the zoom ring on the lens or just cropping afterwards - or how much a relatively inexpensive modern telephoto lens can magnify. I shot a few pictures while out bathing with the kids that I think will illustrate this.

While out looking for the Pleiades meteor shower, I took this exposure of the moonlit landscape.

At the Liseberg fun park in Gothenburg, they have three rides that propel people into the air, this is the Uppskjutet (launch) tower silhoutted against the afternoon sun hiding behind a patchy cloud cover.

Lying on my back, looking up into the leaves and listening to the breeze while the kids splash away in the lake. Ahhh.

I dug out the macro lens, mounted the new flash (a Metz AF-2 58) and went crawlabout in the garden. While trying to find the best aperture, shutter and ISO combo, this photo was one of the results.

Just in case anyone is still not convinced that shake reduction inna da house is effective, may I present this image of the moon, shot with a Pentax K-5, Sigma 170-500 and a 2x teleconverter, making a total of 1000mm. Manually focused (due to the TC taking away too much light for the AF sensors to work).

Hand held.

While standing.

As I was taking pictures of flowers in our yard, something caught my eye and I walked over. A few left-over fall leaves hung over the wire fence, backlit by a ray of light from the noon sun, in the darkness under the trees. One shot, one picture. This is the result after some rather minor gamma and contrast adjustments in UFRaw. The Pentax K5 and DA* 50-135 is a wonderful combination - many images are useful right off the SD card.