Sony 24-70mm Zeiss – Page 7 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Vienna – Day 2 – Part 2

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We took the subway out to Wien Meidling railway station to go ahead and purchase our train tickets to Prague for Monday. The subway is clean and fairly easy to navigate so we didn’t have any trouble except that somehow we managed to get off one stop too soon coming back and had to hoof it a bit further than we would have liked.

Having the train ticket secured we were able to confirm our driver in Prague who will pick us up at the train station and drive us to our apartment. Apparently, taking a cab from the train station in Prague is a dicey proposition and should be avoided. Having a driver pick us up takes a load off our mind.

After taking in the crown jewels and the crypt we had planned to go to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, but the sun had come out and it was so beautiful outside we opted to skip it and go for a walk instead to get some outside photos.

We were walking down the street when I saw this

The Third Man

Movie buffs may recognize this as the front of Harry Lime’s apartment from the film “The Third Man” featuring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli and Orson Wells. I recognized it immediately, despite the scaffolding.

We walked over to the The Vienna City Hall, only to find that they were in the process of setting up for the Vienna Film Festival. This included putting a giant movie screen smack dab in the middle of the city hall building.

Vienna Film Festival

From there we walked across the street to the Burgtheater

Burgtheater

And then across the street for a much needed sitdown and snack break at the legendary Cafe Landtmann, the preferred coffee house of Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Peter Altenberg, Felix Salten and Emmerich Kálmán,

Cafe Landtmann

From there we walked back along the Ringstrasse back to the hotel to recombobulate.

Belize – Jay The Wedding Photographer?

As I mentioned previously, I do not see myself as a wedding photographer. I think it is a challenge I would be too fearful to face. At least currently. I dread the thought of being responsible for the photographic memory of an event so special only to find that I blew it. Aside from my general lack of photo talent, there’s potential mechanical failure or just brain fart where you shoot the whole event using the wrong ISO or something stupid. It’s not like you can just declare a wedding mulligan and shoot again.

Luis and Sarai hired a pro to shoot the wedding, as I suggested and for the reasons I stated above. This meant that I had to stay out of the pro’s way. Something the pro made VERY clear when she arrived. But it did not mean I had to stay idle. I took advantage of the time before she arrived to catch some candids and then I was up to the balcony of the villa to shoot long distance and then back down to take advantage of some of the time after the actual ceremony.

These are the results

Next – Defying certain death!

Wider Than Wide

Experimenting with my panorama setup. The first photo is 8 shots taken in portrait mode with the Zeiss 24-70mm at 24mm while the camera is mounted to a Nodal Ninja pano head.

Living Room

The above panorama is known as a single row panorama. It is comprised of several photos, each take side by side while moving the camera a short distance between each shot. This next one isa bit more complex. It is a multi-row panorama and is comprised of 45 separate shots in 3 rows. The camera shoots a series across while angled up, a series across while angled down and then again along the horizon.

The House

Click any of the above images to see a larger version.

And for fun, another 360 degree panorama of the reading room shot with the Nodal Ninja and the fisheye lens. Comprised of 6 shots around and one zenith and one nadir shot. Click your mouse inside the picture and hold the left button down and you can then spin the image around and up and down to see a full 360 degrees.

Full screen, ultra-high resolution version (10 meg file) available here. Will take some time to fully load, but is VERY interesting!

Sunrise vs. Moonset

Sunrise

Moonset

Click images to see larger versions.

Macrocosm And Microcosm of Color

Vortex

A Series Of Tubes

Brennan’s Houston

I shot this on request for my friend at Studio RED Architects who were strongly involved in the rebuilding of Brennan’s here in Houston. You might recall that Brennan’s burned down during Hurricane Ike.

Shot from across the street using the A850 and the Zeiss 24-70mm.

21 second exposure at f/13.

The neon sign wasn’t finished before the grand opening and if you look closely, the gas lanterns are also not complete.

Brennan's

Sun Rises, Sun Sets

The last few weeks Houston’s been treated to some spectacular sunrises and sunsets.

This is the view from my office last week

Sunrise

And this is the view from my house the other day

Sunset

Copenhagen – Last Full Day

The last day in Copenhagen. New Years Eve. We’d wanted to go to the Nationalmuseet (National Museum) after running out of time the previous day (read: we couldn’t find it). Alas, it was closed due to the holiday

We figured not much would be open and decided just to walk around for awhile which lead us to the Børsen (Stock Exchange) building which features a tower formed by the tails of four dragons twined together

From there we spied the telltale tower of Vor Frelser Kirke. If you look closely you’ll see there’s a spiral staircase that goes around the outside of the tower.

It’s open to the public, but not at this time of year….

Even more unfortunate, the church was closed for the day but we did spend some time outside shooting pics.

From there we walked leisurely back to the hotel and upon arriving asked the hotel concierge for a recommendation on a place to get a traditional Danish meal and we were directed to Cafe Nytorv just off the Strøget. It was a charming place and the food was delicious. We ordered Carlsberg beers and snaps as our beverages. Cynthia is not a beer drinker. She hates it in fact. But she decided to be adventurous and ordered one and when she took the first sip she found that she actually liked it.

She did not, however, like the snaps. I had to drink hers as well as mine. Drat the luck! 🙂

After lunch we walked a bit more but then headed back to the hotel to pack and get ready for the fireworks.