Tag: Germany

No polar lights

Star spangeled Sky

This photograph taken last night with my iPhone 14 Pro from our bedroom window is the byproduct of a fruitless hunt for the Aurea Borealis. Due to a recent coronal outburst of our sun, the magical fairy lights were visible much farther south as usual, and the past two nights they appeared over Germany, something that rarely happens. But they didn’t make it down to Frankonia. There were no polar lights.

But what amazed me was the lowlight capability of the iPhone’s camera. It was pretty much pitch dark outside. And this was, what the iPhone saw on a 3 sec exposure, handheld. Insane. Why bothering putting a system camera or DSLR on a tripod for a long esposure??

I was sorry for The Significant Other, who never witnessed the Aurea Borealis. I had the chance to see and capture the polar lights a few times while crossing the Northern Atlantic Ocean at night on a plane. Looks like one day we need to travel north in winter to make the wife’s dream come true…

Have a great Tuesday

Marcus

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Summer in the City

Entla's Keller Erlangen
Entla’s Keller | Erlangen | 2022

Summer in the City. The Significant Other and I spent the last evening of June in style, at the Entla’s beer cellar in neighbouring Erlangen. The site of a major 10 day beer festival each year, it’s actually much nicer visiting “The Mountain”, as it is called by the locals, when it is not packed by thousands of people standing shoulder by shoulder…

Continue reading “Summer in the City” →
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Merry Christmas from the Streets of Nuremberg

Snow capped roofs in Nuremberg's historic Old Town
Merry Christmas from the Streets of Nuremberg

To everyone out there, but particularly to all the many magic people I’ve had the blessings to meet virtually during my six years blogging on the “Streets of Nuremberg”,  I wish a peaceful and merry Christmas and much love and laughters together with your family and friends. And please stay safe!

Merry Christmas from the Streets of Nuremberg

Marcus

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Happy Halloween!

Ghosthouse in autumn forest
Happy Halloween | Plech | 2021

Tonight is “All Hallow’s Eve”, the eve before the religious feast All Saints (aka All Hallow’s Day), remembering the dead, saints and martyrs of christianity. Many of the traditions of Halloween are believed to originate in ancient Celtic harvest festivals and pagan traditions. It was mainly Irish immigrants to the USA who brought along the many more secular traditions like  trick-or-treating,  Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns and lighting bonfires. In Europe, All Saints was mainly celebrated in the religious sense (remembering the dead, lighting candles at their graves). Only in the last ten years the more “American” way of celebrating Halloween became more popular into what is now a big commercial business for retail.

This year, we in Frankonia are blessed with a colorful and sunny last October weekend. And with this image of an enchanted haunted house in a forest near Nuremberg I wish you a very happy halloween!

Photograph taken with my iPhone 12. Jpg out of camera.

Marcus

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Home away from home

A pumpkin patch in Germany is definitely nothing native. Sure, we grow pumpkins, we eat pumpkins, but buying pumpkins is something we typically do in a grocery store. Not so in a village south east of Nuremberg. Jerry is a farmer from the US who moved to Germany a few years ago. Unable to find the familiar huge pumpkins, he started to grow them himself on his farm. Then he turned it into a business. “Best Darn Pumpkins on this side of the Ozarks!” is his claim. His clients are mostly US citizens living in Frankonia and Upper Palatine, English was the most spoken language of the families collecting the pumpkins. And they sure have fun roaming the patch and taking home one (or two of three or four) giant pumpkins. For those families something ordinary like a pumpkin patch is special, it’s a piece of home away from home.

Continue reading “Home away from home” →
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Good Friday

Statue in der Pfarrkirche St. Willibald in Möning
1/250 sec | f/2 | ISO 1600 | 50mm

Good Friday is a public holiday in Germany. Time to commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus and his death at Calvary. Time to unwind a bit, taking The Significant Other and the Leica and heading out for a little hike near Etzelsdorf, visiting the site were the golden headdress of a bronze age sun priest was found that I wrote about in this post about our last trip to a museum.

While today’s images still are on the SD card in the camera, I want to share a photograph taken with the Leica M (Type 240) and the Summicron 50mm F/2 during another recent Sunday afternoon hike around the village of Möning, a few kilometers from our house. We took a peak into St. Willibald church, where I was immediately hooked by the rays of light falling through one of the windows of the old church dating back almost one thousand years.

That moment I was glad I had brought the Leica on this trip, as none of the other cameras I own would have been able to capture the magic of this moment as the vintage full frame rangefinder. The tonal range, the softness of the light is special to this sensor almost ten years old now. A perfect image to share on this Good Friday.

If you feel like picking up your camera on this (hopefully for you as well) long weekend and are still looking for more tips, explanations and inspiration around photography, check out my free Learning Center. And then have fun hunting for those magic rays of light.

Have a wonderful Easter weekend and stay safe!

Marcus

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Gnadenberg Abbey

Klosterruine Gnadenberg
Gnadenberg Abbey

My last post was about my first attempts shooting with a 60 year old lens. For that The Significant Other and I took a short trip to the nearby ruins of medieval Gnadenberg Abbey. We’ve never been there before, despite it being only a 15 minute drive from our house. And it is much too beautiful not to share a few photographs and the history of this magic place with you…

Continue reading “Gnadenberg Abbey” →
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Merry Christmas from the Streets of Nuremberg

Bokeh Christmas Tree
Merry Bokeh Christmas

To everyone out there, but particularly to all the many magic people I’ve had the blessings to meet virtually during my five years blogging on the “Streets of Nuremberg”,  I wish a peaceful and merry Christmas and much love and laughters together with your family and friends. And please stay safe!

Merry Christmas from the Streets of Nuremberg

Marcus

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Last trip to a museum

Golden Hat

I never did post some images I took during our last trip to a museum, at least for the foreseeable future, as all museums are closed due to the Covid lockdown. While I brought the Olympus OM-D E-M1X with the mZuiko 12-100 F/4 for the tour through the exhibitions of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, I never really got into the flow that evening, so the yield was rather limited, but there are a few shots that are worth sharing.

Continue reading “Last trip to a museum” →
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Positive side effects

Pretty Woman in a restaurant in Nuremberg Old Town

Who would have thought that Covid has some positive side effects. And I’m not talking global effects, like blue skies without contrails, clean city air and coast lines that see sea life returning. To compensate reduced occupancy due to distancing requirements, the City of Nuremberg allowed restaurants in the Old Town to put tables out on the streets combined with blocking traffic and turning streets into pop-up pedestrian zones.

On the weekend, The Significant Other and I made use of it, enjoying a dinner together with friends in an excellent French Restaurant in a beautiful alley in the Old Town below the magnificent towers of St. Sebald Church.

I took this photograph of my beautiful wife with the Leica M and the Elmarit-M F/2.8 28mm. Image specs are 1/25 sec @ f/3.4 and ISO 3200. The Leica handles the ISO quite well, the only challenge was to manually focus the rangefinder to make sure her profile is sharp. Who says a 28mm isn’t suitable for portraits? There is nothing like the smooth rendering of the Leica lenses shot wide open.

Do you have similar positive side effects from Corona? Let me know in the comments!

Have a great Tuesday and stay safe!

Marcus

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Distanced Observations

Nazi Ralleygrounds

With the daily infection rate on the rise again here in Germany, Covid is still dominating our lives, and somehow also my blogging. A couple of days ago, The Significant Other and I visited the Documentation Center of Nuremberg’s historic Nazi Party Rally Grounds. Our first trip to a museum since the start of Covid was the opportunity for some photographic, distanced obervations…

Continue reading “Distanced Observations” →
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