This lens is usually bought as a step-up lens from the kit lens with the entry-level digital SLR cameras from Nikon. I got one as well before my first trip to Öland because I was still waiting for my 18-200/3.5-5.6 lens to arrive in the mail. As it turned out I would have to wait for more than six months for that beauty so I had some time to use the 55-200 and get aquainted with it.
A few years ago in 2004 I had the opportunity to go to Cambodia. It is a fascinating country in many ways and it serves us well to remember that it was not long ago Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge spread fear and terror in trying to implement his distorted idea of communism in the countryside. Pol Pot executed so many educated people that the country was left depleted of knowledge. With help of their neighbour countries such as Thailand and other world-wide associations Cambodia is coming back now as a proper functioning country.
This site has an incredibly cool step-by-step on how to build your own pinhole camera.
The camera can be built using normal appliances and stuff that you have in your house normally. Some of the pictures shown taken by this camera is quite incredible.
The aperture of the camera is about f/90 and I am not sure what the focal length is but I believe it is not too far from a 50 mm lens actually. This means that exposure times in broad daylight is 2-3 seconds, in cloudy conditions 5-8 seconds indoor is 5-10 minutes or so but it is cool to have built your own camera.
Here are some pictures taken with a pinhole camera by the original maker of it. Alspix profile on Flickr here.
There are many historical grounds not ver far from where I live. One such place is a Peninsula called ”Sko” in Swedish which means ”shoe” in English. The name probably comes from that the peninsula resembles a shoe from the air, or when viewed on a map. Check out the google map of the area and you will see what I mean.
The weather was not very nice for photography, a thick cloud layer making all the photos very dull and bland, to the point of being completely ”flat”. Sometimes I use a flash as a tool to fix this, if you have a dull landscape in the background, place a person in the foreground and use a flash properly you can get a very nice effect. Especially with some gels that gives yellow color. When you compensate the white balance for that yellow colour you get a very nice blue cast on the sky even if it was completely dull when you shot the picture.
But today was different, I decided to work with contrasts and black & white photos instead to the point of almost making them cartoonish. Here is the result of today’s little excursion…
It was just before sun-set one beautiful evening in April when we had been driving down the pacific coastline from San Franscisco and we stopped at the beach in Carmel to sit together and view the sunset before we went to a local pub and had a beatiful steak dinner.
As we were sitting there, watching the sun slowly set into a rather calm pacific, this man an his dog came for a walk on the beach. The stopped and played for a while, the man throwing sticks and the dog fetching and it was clear that they had known eachother for a very long time.
I managed to take this photograph which I really like, the captures the mood at this time on the beach very well in my opinion.
I shot these two squirrels on a road trip along the pacific coast going south of San Francisco on the way to Carmel where Clint Eastwood used to be mayor. My best squirrel-shot so far.
Sometimes the simplest things are the most interesting to photograph.
The rumours have it that Nikon is about to reveal the D90 camera. It is said to have the following features:
I am sure that more information will be hitting the presses soon…
I remember when I got my first fishing rod, I must have been around five years old. My first task was to try to find some worms to put on the hook in order to bait the fish, it was my father who helped me and told me how to get fish to take the bait.
I have ever since enjoyed fishing although I don’t do it very often these days here in Stockholm. This picture was taken as I strolled past a young fella who was trying to put his bait on and I suddenly remembered these old times again.
One of my first jobs was working at a place where fishing equipment was made. Something I did in the summer when I was 16. I enjoyed it very much and I had the opportunity then to spend my money earned on fishing gear which I thought was well spent at the time! Since then the catches I have done (fishwise) are easily counted, but I still have the gear I bought then – in pristine condition.
There is a fantastic opportunity for you when in Stockholm to get some greate scenery, take one of the boats into the archipelago, there are several different companies that makes day-tours or similar that you may go on. Most of these boats will take you through the archipelago which is thought of being one of the most beautiful things you can see here in Stockholm.
There are mainly two companies you can check for taking you around the archipelago, one is ”Waxholmsbolaget” and the other is ”Strömma Kanalbolag”. The ship shown here is from Strömma. On the Internet you can find a plethora of information about these two lines, also in English, just follow the links.
There are mainly two types of cruises, one is the get there as as fast as possible and the other is we take it slow, enjoy. I prefer the slow cruises and to have dinner on the ship as well as a great opportunity to view the archipelago.
I recommend:
For equipment I would recommend to get both a wide-angle and a telephoto lens. There are lots of beautiful scenery that does the wide angle justice but at the same time you may want to reach out with a telephoto lens and get the shot from far away, there are hundreds and thousands of small islands that you may enjoy through the telephoto lens. Focal lengths should probably be about 18-70mm for your wide angle (DX camera body) and 24-50mm for the full frame camera. The telephoto should probably range 70-300mm in an idea situation although DX cameras may get away nicely with a 200 mm.
If you can not pack two lenses, go for a superzzom, something like 18-200mm and use that extensively. Normals and fixes lenses do have their uses but they are more difficult to use from the boat and better used when you are ashore again where you may use them as you would in any other situation.
Hot-shoe flash is not a bad idea at all, can be used to lighten shadows and for interior shot of the ship as well as good to fill in when taking shots of people for portraits.
Tripod while I almost always recommend bringing it is not very useful on the boat for shooting telephoto, the boat has a lot of vibrations from the engines and the rolling of the waves at sea does not help. However it may be quite useful for you when you are ashore again – though I think that for this kind of trip you might be better off without it.
Cleaning equipment is very much necessary, you may get brackish water sprays at sea and you need to get that off the lens before it dries in and form saline crystals that may scratch your lens badly when you polish it later. Wipe off the water, rinse with lens cleaning fluid and wipe that off as well.
Keep a standard platsig bag for you whole camera if the weather is bad or could become bad, you may want to shoot in the rain anywyay and always bring the towel.
It depends a lot on what you are looking for. My personal favourites are to go to Birka, the old viking city where you have a lot of things to see and photograph, Waxholm is another nice place to go to over the day and of course Fjäderholmarna and the ”Thousan Island Cruise” can be warmly recommended!
If you have more tips you are welcome to leave them as comments!