On my way from Gamla Stan, the old town, to the south end of the city I stopped on the bridge and decided to try to get a handheld panorama of this part of the city. Usually I am not too much a fan of panorama pictures, they have a tendency to be awkward to frame if you know what I mean.
But I shot using my 16-85 set somewhere around 30 mm focal length and handheld. This pano is composed of 6 stitched pictures, all done manually in Photoshop. If you really want to see the picture you must click on it and view it full size, the limits in width on this blog does in no way make it justice.
You are seeing the Stockholm south end shoreline on the left hand side and parts of the old town on the right hand side. The boat at the quay side is a night club actually. The bride in the middle of the picture is where the metro underground trains pass from station Gamla Stan to station Slussen.
I did not modify the picture in any way except that I worked a little bit with the contrast since it was a bit of a dull light in the air.
The tower in the far background is actually the city hall.
A walk down by the lake today revealed some very nice icicles that has formed in the last couple of days of cold weather together with the moisture of the still open lake Mälaren.
Alien world - Sunset I post-processed this in Adobe Lightroom after thinking the originall was a bit bland and dull. I kind of like the result here.
Sunset with CanoeI believe that the canoe is making most of this December sunset picture. It is interesting how such a small object in such a small part of the photograph can become the main focus of interest really.The post process included some contrast fixing and white balance touch-up.
När jag ändå redan var nere vid sjön och fotograferade Bolinders gamla fabriker så passade jag på att ta några bilder vid marinan när solen stod lågt. Detta är en av dessa bilder.
When I was down at the old Bolinder factories to take some pictures I walked over to the near-by marina as well and shot some pictures with a low sun in the sky. This is one of the pictures from that shoot.
This photograph was shot on the way home from a fabulous course in nature photography last weekend. The course rendered many nice photographs and some of them you can see here on my flickr page.
The driving rain and the darkening sky, in the afternoon. The sun should still be up for several more hours but the weather is really bringing everything down on us now. On the Faroe Islands the ran does not fall from the sky above, it is driven by the wind side-ways and hits you from all directions at once. In some ways it is like being inside a car wash when it goes of. Freezing chilly north atlantic water dashing from the side. An umbrella is of course totally useless, you need layers and layers of good clothing and nice sweaters. And stay indoor in the worst.
The rain is like thick velvet curtains and a thousand needles at the same time. As soon as we step outside the car the door is grabbed by the wind and almost ripped from our hands.
Still the water is not angry or upset, we look at it for a few moments, not sure what to think. The next though that enters our head is that we have in 3 seconds gone from cozy in the car to soaking wet even with our trusty Gore-Tex clothes. The only thing keeping us warm now is the traditional wool sweater.
The temperature is not that bad actually, around 12C but the wind makes every raindrop feel like a needle of ice. Too many of those and not enough fireplace and you’d be done with.
We start hoping the car won’t break down before we get back to Torshavn and the nice hotel with the lovely lady in the reception. And the chef who wants us to try his seven course menu. The thought of this drives us back in to the car, wiping down the camera with a towel and laughing.
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.
Fishing at lake Mälaren down at the old steam boat jetty.
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.
"Stockholm" a ship that takes passengers from Stockholm city to Waxholm every day. The trip takes about 1.5 hours and there is a fine restaurant on board where you may have something nice to eat.
A slow boat to the archipelago
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.
Equipment
I recommend:
Wide-Medium lens 18-70mm (24-105)
Telephoto lens 70-200mm (135-300)
Hot-shote flash
Cleaning equipment for lenses
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.
Best places to go
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!
