Sony 24-70mm Zeiss « The Bald Heretic

Archive for the ‘Sony 24-70mm Zeiss’ Category

Belize – Jay The Wedding Photographer?

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

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!

Posted in 2011 - Trip To Belize, General, Photography, SAL-50F14, Sigma 12-24mm, Sony 24-70mm Zeiss, Sony Alpha 850 | 7 Comments »

Wider Than Wide

Friday, June 18th, 2010

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!

Posted in General, Photography, SAL-16F28, Sony 24-70mm Zeiss, Sony Alpha 850, panorama, wide angle | No Comments »

Sunrise vs. Moonset

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

Sunrise

Moonset

Click images to see larger versions.

Posted in Houston, Photography, Sony 24-70mm Zeiss, Sony Alpha 850 | No Comments »

Macrocosm And Microcosm of Color

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Vortex

A Series Of Tubes

Posted in Photography, SAL-100M28, Sony 24-70mm Zeiss, Sony Alpha 850 | No Comments »

Brennan’s Houston

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

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

Posted in Architecture, General, Houston, Photography, Sony 24-70mm Zeiss, Sony Alpha 850 | No Comments »

Sun Rises, Sun Sets

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

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

Posted in Photography, Sony 24-70mm Zeiss, Sony Alpha 850 | 9 Comments »

Copenhagen – Last Full Day

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

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.

Posted in Architecture, General, Photography, Sigma 12-24mm, Sony 24-70mm Zeiss, Sony Alpha 850, Trip To Denmark - 2009 | No Comments »

Copenhagen Day 5 – Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

We’d heard good things about The Glyptotek but were apprehensive as Cynthia and I are not big fans of sculpture museums. They tend to be dim and crowded. The Glyptotek was a huge surprise. Everything is open, well lit and nicely displayed. I also discovered that my fisheye lens is great for shooting this type of setting and used it for about 50% of the shots.

Interesting to note, the museum was named after Ny Carlsberg, the brewery owned by the founder, brewer Carl Jacobsen. He added the word Glyptotek, ’a collection of sculpture’, to indicate the pride of place taken by that art form and in recognition of his debt to the older namesake, the Glyptothek in Munich.

One thing I really liked about this museum was the lockers where you could stash your coat and other cumbersome items, making for a much more leisurely walk about the museum

The first thing you see is The Winter Garden, a huge open space with plants and trees and a fountain.

Designed to attract more people into the museum, I could see myself visiting regularly just to sit on a park bench all day long.

The rest of the museum is just spectacular. Cynthia and I had a wonderful time exploring all the rooms and walking amongst the sculptures.

There’s even one of the over twenty casts of the sculpture “The Thinker” by by Auguste Rodin.

If you are ever in Copenhagen, I heartily recommend a visit. What follows are some of the better photos I took while visiting. I know there’s a lot, but it’s only a small portion of what I got during this visit. I have never enjoyed photographing a museum more than this one, and I have been to a LOT of museums!

Posted in General, Photography, SAL-16F28, Sony 24-70mm Zeiss, Sony Alpha 850, Travel, Trip To Denmark - 2009 | 2 Comments »

Copenhagen Day 5 – The Rundetårn

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

We headed off this morning to climb The Rundetårn (The Round Tower) which is not too far from the hotel. Cynthia really likes to climb things when we travel. Fortunately, the tower had a mildly sloping ramp that winds up most of the 130 feet to the top. There is a set of small stairs at the very top which are tight and difficult to manage when there’s too much two way traffic.

The fish-eye lens made for some really good photos inside the tower.

About halfway up we found this little alcove. The sign says Kissing Corner in Danish and there’s a piece of missletoe hanging from the ceiling.

Once to the top there’s a pretty spectacular view of the city

Another successful adventure!

Posted in Architecture, General, Photography, SAL-16F28, Sony 24-70mm Zeiss, Sony Alpha 850, Travel, Trip To Denmark - 2009 | No Comments »

Copenhagen Day 4 Part 2

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

As I noted in my previous post, I had not met with success in my efforts to capture the Copenhagen Opera House at night. When we had gone out to the waterfront it was a Sunday night and the building was dark. Checking on line I saw that there were performances all this week so on Tuesday night I loaded up the camera bag and the tripod and headed out to try again.

This time I got what I came for.