Picture Picnic 🅿🅿: Holidays!

Boulders and Clouds - Canon 40D, Canon 17-55mm, 1/60, f/5.6, ISO 100

Here is just a quick post to mention that I'm off on a road trip tomorrow morning that will take us to the Addo Elephant Park, the Drakensberg and Ithala Game Reserve. I'm really looking forward to this, and will hopefully get some nice landscape and wildlife shots.

Print orders

I will probably have sporadic internet access in the next three weeks, so I cannot promise that I will be able to process print orders in time for Christmas. I will be back on 5 January, however.

After Hours - Fuji x100s, 1/60, f/2. ISO 3200

2013

This year wasn't a very good one for me, unfortunately. My brother Klaus passed away in May, which, though not unexpected, was a big emotional hit for the whole family. My work also kept me extremely busy, so I did not produce many good new images.

On the other hand, the Mathematics Division moved into a newly renovated building at Stellenbosch University, and guess whose large print was mounted above the staircase in the entrance hallway :) This 250x100cm print was quite hard to produce. It was printed on matte paper, laminated and block mounted. I first learned the hard way that you can't laminate luster paper very well, so I had to reprint on matte. Then it took me a long time to track down people brave enough to laminate a 250x100cm print, but in the end it got an excellent layer of "wheat laminate", which suits the print very well. As always, Roxanno's in Jamestown did an excellent job mounting and framing the final product.

Gearwise, I have totally fallen in love with my Fuji X100s. I'm still not convinced that the x-trans sensor really is the way to go for the best detail (certainly not with Lightroom - the in-camera raw processor produces better JPGs), but the thing is just such a joy to use and easy to carry around that I'm willing to ignore the pixel-peeping for now. And the high-ISO performance is so amazing that I have it permanently set to auto ISO with 6400 limit. I have no regrets.

Pink Oak Tree - Fuji X100s, 1/60, f/2, ISO 2500, IR72 Infrared Filter

I have been shooting some infrared with the Fuji (with a 720nm infrared filter). The good news is that the Fuji seems more sensitive to IR, so I can shoot hand-held, and even compose in the electronic viewfinder. I also manage get a little bit of color effects, but not as good as these folks who physically convert their cameras (and yours, for a fee!) to infrared. This will hopefully be the subject of a future blog post.