On my last day in Krk there was an occasion to photograph reflections in the harbour, as the winds had pushed all dirt into a remote corner of the basin. The image above stood out during the first culling, the others remain to be inspected more thoroughly. The colourful dots are the reflection of a Croation flag (red, blue, white) attached to of the stays on a sailing boat.
This reflection series was made with long focal lengths, something I do very rarely meanwhile, even though a tele zoom was the first acquisition after the purchase of the DSLR – maybe a remnant of pubertary reflexes.
It does stand out – flagship quality!
Thanks, Juha. The problem for me in this meanwhile well known harbour was to find something less banal than a straight reproduction of ships and assets. Of course this play with reflections is old, but then – they are so volatile, that hunting them down into an image really became a discovery trip.
“puberty reflexes”
I laughed and I laughed!
You are most welcome, Tyler! Growing older and (sometimes a bit wiser) , some hidden motives become more transparent…
This is great. While I love the blue of the water in contrast to the reflection, and for me that really adds to the image, I was wondering whether you tried this in b&w?
Chris, in fact I never tried it – in spite of my affection for b&w I shy away most of the time from its digital variety, maybe because I don’t print myself but sent the files to a lab. I am more than glad for the moment that at least color (almost) works as to be expected.
Hmm, my first lens for a slr was a kit tele zoom (besides the kit standard lens) … I am still using it … definitely no puberty reflexes in my case … 😉
Of course, being not chromosomatically challenged, you did it out of other than the usual motivation 🙂
“chromosomatically challenged” – made me spit on my keyboard with laughter ….
Uh oh – do I have to contact my insurance company?
Aaaah, it’s okay. Was a nice opportunity to clean the keyboard, ;-).
I didn’t mention how much I like the photo – a little bit untypical in your oeuvre. And no, that doesn’t mean I don’t like the other photos, no.
add the lenses: in fact it was more a financial challenge. I bought the whole kit as a student – worth my month’s income then – about 700 DM’s I think. A Minolta with two lenses. Long time ago … I am that old, yes.
I remember I read about that 70-300mm zoom in your photobook. Lenses of that age (and I guess I am older btw.) are also in my drawer but don’t get too much use besides a 1.7/50 and a 1.4/85. Especially the latter yarns for a full frame camera with a better and adjustable autofocus than my current A700 – all too often it’s slightly out-of-focus, especially when I am hunting for that bokeh such a lens can give wide open. My first camera is still next to my desk, and old Pentax MX with a wonderful 2.8/40 pancake, incredibly small in comparison to what I carry now. Bah, don’t let me get nostalgic. Those modern digital cameras definitely have their merits. I would simply find not enough time (and money) for classical, film photography.
I can highly recommend the a850 – but I think I bought the last one … :-P.
I have gone through some – the a100, the a200 and now the a850 and I might be not that critical but I never faced real issues like being out-of -(auto)focus, even slightly. Hmm, still thinking about this … nope.
The only thing I had to do with all the models is to generally stop down one f stop. Personal taste?
And one other thing – I think photography is more democratic nowadays than it has been – simply because it is cheaper (I really had to think twice in the old days which photos to get printed, if there was enough money for the next roll of film) and less time consuming. Might be bad photography is on the rise because of this – but in the end I think this is a good thing.
My first slr … was a Nikon someone dumped. No idea which model. The mirror didn’t work properly so taking photos was pure chance … sometimes you had to give it a shake … ah .. don’t let _me_ get nostalgic …
Oh yes, the A850. Came at the wrong moment for me, as my A700 was just too new to dream of a new camera. Without doubt a fine tool, but after 50000 shutter actuations it shows wear and tear, the autofocus only one of them. On the other hand I should not bee too strict: f1.4 is definitely a challenge, for most systems. But the A850 would let you do microadjustments…
For the moment I live with what I have, investing more thoughts in photography then tools, trying to find the remarkable in the well known places. Enough of a challenge, and certainly nothing that would be improved by a new camera.
But the NEX7, that might be something to dream of 😉