No worries – I did not get lost in the Namib desert. In fact, we successfully crossed it, arriving in the coastal town of Swakopmund today. But the last four days we had no access to the world wide web.
So I’m lagging a bit behind with my posts, but I want to stay in sequence. After visiting the Fish River Canyon I want to show you to a special place in the Namib desert, the Diamond Ghost Town of Kolmanskop. For more info and photos continue after the jump… Continue reading “Namibia Explored – Diamond Ghost Town”→
Fish River Canyon | Namibia | 2017With its breathtaking beauty the Fish River Canyon is one of Namibias prime tourist attractions. Behind only the Grand Canyon in Arizona, it is the second largest canyon in the world with a total length of about 100 miles (160 km), up to 17 miles (27 km) wide and in places almost 1800 feet (550 meters) deep. It was carved out by the Fish River about 600 Million years ago.
The Namibian night sky is spectacular. Last night at Gondwana Canyon Village I had a first try at shooting the stars. I took this image right next to the cottage we were staying in.
Camera was the Olympus OM-D E-M1 with the mZuiko 12mm F/2 wide angle prime. I put the camera on a tripod, set the 12 second self timer (to avoid camera shake) and dialed in a 60 second exposure time at F/3.2 and ISO 400. I manually focused the lens to infinity. These are good starting points for some trial and error. For composition (as it was pitch dark in the direction I was looking) I lit the rocks with a torch while positioning the camera on the tripod, then turned off the light while taking the image. The lighting on the rocks came from the small walkway lights in my back of Gondwana Canyon Village, so I did not need to manually paint the foreground with my torch.
In lightroom I increased the white point to bring out the details in the milky way, opened the shadow up a tad, then adjusted the grad curves until I was happy with the results.
At next opportunity I will try a reduced shutter speed (like 1/30 sec) to make the stars more crisp while turning up the ISO a bit.
The “Streets of Nuremberg” continue with the road trip through Namibia. After leaving the capital Windhoek, we drove around 500 kilometers down south. First stop in the South of Namibia was Keetmanshoop with its famous Quiver Tree Forest.
This unique piece of nature comprises of about 300 trees of “Aloe dichotoma”, more commonly known as “quiver tree” or kokerboom, because bushmen traditionally used its branches to make quivers. The tallest quiver trees are two to three centuries old.
Quiver Tree | Namibia | 2017
African Sunset | Namibia | 2017
We arrived at the Quiver Tree Forest in the late afternoon, it is spectacular in the light of the fading day and to photography the tree silhouettes in front of the golden evening sky.
Tomorrow we will head to Fish River Canyon, the second largest canyon in the world only behind Arizona’s Grand Canyon. Stay tuned for more of Namibia!
Africa is calling again! Tomorrow I will once again board a plane for a long distance flight. But this time it is for a family vacation. And the destination is Namibia. 23 years after our first visit we will return to this great country on the Atlantic Ocean side of Southern Africa. I’m looking forward to the immense friendliness and hospitality of the local people, colorful street life, great landscapes with oceans, canyons, mountains and deserts and the wildlife in the bush and the plains.
We are deeply in love with Africa since having lived in Johannesburg in the early nineties. Back than we have toured all of South Africa and the neighboring countries like Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia. We spent our vacation two years ago in South Africa. Last year we visited Tanzania. And this year we are looking forward to see Namibia again.
The equipment I bring is my OM-D E-M1 with the mZuiko 40-150mm F/2.8 Pro Zoom with the 1.4 teleconverter and the PEN-F with the mZuiko 12-40mm F/2.8 Pro Zoom. Additionally my Walimex 7,5mm 1:3.5 Fisheye and the mZuiko 12mm F/2 prime lens.
So stay tuned for some insights into Southern Africa when the Streets of Nuremberg will travel the roads of Namibia.
Watchtower | South Africa | 2015
I see you | South Africa | 2015Hungry | South Africa | 2015
Another ten day stretch in the Pacific Northwest comes to an end, in a few minutes a Delta Airlines Airbus A330 will take me into the afternoon Portland sky for its 10 hour journey across Canada and the North Atlantic Ocean to Amsterdam, from where I take the connecting flight back to Nuremberg.
On the flight I will open the digital darkroom to go through my photos from last weekend’s trip to the Oregon coast, where I had plenty opportunity for some nice travel photography (you might have seen the two appetizers here and here). But there are even better times ahead (not only photographically 😉 )….three more days in the office and then I made it to summer vacation. And my destination will be Namibia.
The photo above was taken with the Olympus PEN F and the mZuiko 14-150mm travel zoom. Image specs are 1/500 sec @ f/8 and ISO 200, focal length was 150mm (equals 300mm in full frame due to the m4/3 crop factor of 2).
I’m back in Portland after a great weekend on the Oregon coast. I took too many photos that will take a few days to sort through and post-process. So like yesterday I show you once more the final image of the day, a sunset scene near Lincoln City. Isn’t this what a drive along the great ocean is all about?
In my free Learning Center is a post how to shoot silhouettes, check it out!
Image was taken with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 and the mZuiko 40-150mm F/2.8 Pro Zoom. Image specs 1/2000 sec @ f/9 and ISO 200, 90mm focal length.
It was a long trip down the Oregon Coast. I had sunshine on white sandy beaches and spectacular views of a blue Pacific Ocean. I had the incoming seafog turn the coastal rain forest trees to misty giants while hiking along the cliffs of Cape Lookout. I saw seals, and I saw grey whales. My last highlight of this splendid day was the beacon of historic Hecata Lighthouse near Florence, where I’m spending the night. This coast is magic. If you haven’t visited it put in on your bucket list.
The Hecata Head Light was built in 1894, the 56-foot (17 m) tall lighthouse shines a beam visible for 21 nautical miles (39 km; 24 mi), making it the strongest light on the Oregon Coast.
Photo taken with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 and the mZuiko 40-150mm F/2.8 Pro Zoom. Image specs are 1/200 sec at f/3.2 and ISO 200. Focal length was 67mm.
This week the weekly photo challenge (WPC) from Word Press’ “The Daily Post” has the theme “Textures“. Without questions there are innumerable ways to photography textures, both man made and natural. To meet the challenge I decided to post a small collection of textures from the surface of our planet that I took from airplane windows, both natural and man made. To see more continue after the jump…. Continue reading “Weekly Photo Challenge: Textures”→
Window in the Sky | Germany | 2017The summer has been wild here in Germany, with scorching hot days being interrupted by massive thunder showers causing flooding and heavy damage all over the country.
This photo of some distant cumulonimbus clouds visible between two cloud layers I took with my Olympus PEN-F with the mZuiko14-150mm travel zoom. Image specs are 1/320 sec @ f/6.3, ISO 200 and 135mm focal length.
Raw conversion in Lightroom CC. I cropped the image to 16×9 format. After increasing the dynamic range by manual setting of the white and black points I reduced the highlights and opened up the shadows. After increasing saturation and contrast a tad I played with the tone curves, further bringing out the details in the thunderstorm clouds. Finally I increased the luminance of the reds and oranges in the HSL panel.
I’m thinking of getting a large print from this. Haven’t made up my mind yet.
Have I said that on of the greatest assets of my job is that it allows me connect with so many great people all across the globe. This is especially true for those I work closely with on projects, and this forges bonds beyond pure office colleagueship. With two others of those great guys I teamed up to spend our free Portland Saturday going hiking on Mount Hood. Leaving Portland at 9am we drove the 45 minutes to Zigzag Ranger Station where we asked for a recommendation for a nice hike on the slopes of Mount Hood. They recommended the Ramona Falls hike, a pretty easy 9 mile loop trail with about a 1000ft elevation gain towards the falls. The first 4 miles of the trail are identical with the famous Pacific Crest Trail, running from Mexiko through the US up to Canada. Toughest part was that we had to cross a mountain stream balancing on tree trunks. The weather was splendid, we had great talks and enjoyed a wonderful 3 hour hikes in the beautiful landscape of Mount Hood National Forest, with views of the 11,240 feet (3,426 m) volcano, walking through fairy like treescapes and capping it with the spectacular Ramon Falls, crashing down a black, 120 feet rock wall. As camera I brought the Olympus PEN-F with the mZuiko 14-150mm F/4-5.6 Travel Zoom. To see the pics from this great hike in the Pacific Northwest continue after the jump……. Continue reading “Around the World in 12 Days – Hiking on Mount Hood”→
Today America celebrates 4th of July – Independence Day. A good day to show how beautiful this country is. With this selection of photos from my 2012 trip through the South West (see more after the jump) I wish everyone a fun and peaceful holiday! Continue reading “America the Beautiful”→
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