In middle of the night

Posted on Oktober 29th, 2015

All the sunlight is gone and all the starlight was visible.
Okay, I promise you, this is the last image of this lake. Not all clouds were gone but I could see the milkyway above the glacier.
For this image I tried something special. I made this image with the Sony A7s, my low light king. But I used a technique which I developed for my Canon 6D. I used an additional a star guiding tool, the nano.tracker, for the possibility to become an exposure time of 120 seconds without any startrails. This was my best technique to get images without so much noise. Because of the long exposure time, I could screw down my ISOs.
And what now happend is interessting, although the A7s is so good with high ISOs, it is very bad for long exposures. If you look closely, you will see all the red, blue and green dots of the hot pixels. With the Canon I was getting also some hot pixels, maybe five or ten, but this, there must be about one hundert of them.
The conclusion of this, every camera body has it’s pros and cons.

The night is arriving

Posted on Oktober 26th, 2015

Look at the sky, the first stars are visible now.
After my last picture only a few minutes later we can see the stars in the sky.  And the wind must be blowing very hard in the upper atmosphere, as you can see at the clouds.
And because this was a moonless night, with a bit of luck we can see something different in the sky a bit later, when the daylight is completely gone. I would say, we will see more stars, unbelievable more stars, if the clouds are blown away.

At the glaciers

Posted on Oktober 23rd, 2015

After a few curves, I reached the top of the Sustenpass.
The sun was already gone now and I was preparing me for the night shooting. The angle was not optimal, but to my right side was only a large stone field and I was not in the mood to climb another hour over all the cairns. So I stayed here, where I could see, the glaciers, the lake and the snowy mountains.
And it should not take long and the stars where visible in the sky. I could image how beautiful this must look, with all the sparkling stars in the sky. The only thing I had to do, is a bit waiting until the last light of the sun was disapeard.

Red damp

Posted on Oktober 20th, 2015

Always a bit late can give you an unexpected view.
It was a heavy traffic jam at the beginning of this trip and so I was again a bit late. Too late to be on the top for the sunset, but early enough in the mountains to get this colorful shot.
The plan was to be on the top off the Sustenpass before the sun sets and take some sunset images of the small lake there. Because of the delay, I had the chance to take this image a few minutes before the destination. Better to stop on the way and take a sunset image, than beeing at the desired point without light.
After I took some images here, I drove ahead to the top with the glacier and the lakes.

Tellsplatte

Posted on Oktober 16th, 2015

On the road again, up into the swiss alps.
After a few weeks the weather was still stable and I had to go back to the mountains for another exciting night. At the half way, I stopped at this beautiful point on the Vierwaldstaettersee called Tellsplatte. Who knows which story is behind this point about a character of an old german story teller.
But anyway, the light was very nice, while the sun was setting and the first reddish light was in the air. After a few minutes I was already back in my car and on the road towards deeper into the high swiss alps.

Cascades under the bridge

Posted on August 26th, 2015

A short stop on my way back to the civilization.
You may know this, you are walking and every few steps you see a new place to stop and take a photo. But escpecially at night I think twice until I take a photo brake. Because I have always take my backpack down and setup my tripod. And you know I’m a lazy guy.
But on my way up, I noted this point to take an image and so I stopped, thought a moment whether I should or not. Then I put my backpack on the ground and took some images of the melting water falling down into the barrier lake.

Moonshine lake

Posted on August 24th, 2015

This HDR-Panorama-Night-Image is another picture from my trip in the Gotthard region.
And it is also another sample of my out of focus series. But you can anyway see the mood of this fullmoon night in the middle of the alps.
And I can promise you, in real was the landscape sharp and in full color

The moon lights the way

Posted on August 21st, 2015

A bright fullmoon is shining to the landscape of the Gotthard region.
The landscape is bright and it looks nearly like a daily scene, except the few stars which are strong enough to overrule the power of the reflected sunlight.
How beautiful is this landscape especially at night, if, yes if, the dumb photographer rechecked the focus. Oh no, with full of anticipation I watched my tresure two days later in the lightroom and realized, that all images I made with my 14mm Samyang on the Sony A7s are out of focus. What a shame
Full of regret I tested my lens with a canon mount at day again, to find out what happend. Normally this is a very easy lens to get in focus, turn on the focus ring until you are 2mm before the infinity mark and all is fine. But on the the Sony with the FE adapter, strangly the infinity point is now between 0.7m and 1m which is far away where it should be.
Well, now I know, actually I allready knew it, I should check the images, after I took it, with a full zoom in.

Melting water

Posted on August 19th, 2015

Far away, high up in the mountains, where all the big rivers are born…
After another hour of walking a steep trail up to a ridge, the moon came over the peak from the other valley side. And the mountain meadow shows me a creek of fresh melted snow, swooshing down in front of me.
That’s a good place for a break, I thought and took some images of the the lovely landscape. After I checked the time, I realized, that the day is nearly over and so with a regret, I decided to turn back instead of walking entirely up to the ridge. Therefore I don’t know what great landscape is hiding behind the hill, it seems I have to go again to see what is behind the meadows.

It clears off

Posted on August 17th, 2015

Back to the trip at the Gotthard pass…
The sun is gone, the light is dwindling and the clouds are blowing away. Good, it seems this can be a good night for starscape photos. After the rainshower and all the clouds, was it the right decision to continue walking up into the mountains.
Now it’s time to pack together and walk further, because it will now getting dark very fast. And so was it, after the next two curves I had to turn on my headlamp…