Today I needed to get out a bit from the apartment, been ill and in bed too much and I am going to work tomorrow again so I ventured in town with camera ready to take some pictures. I went off the train at Centralen the city central station and then walked Sveavägen down. On the way I passed old Grand which is one of the well kept old cinemas that does a bit different films, not just the ordinary run of the mill action movies and dramas from the big Hollywood circus but also does more narrow French and Belgian movies as well as low budgets and Swedish movies you may or may not see again.
We went to watch the Stockholm Marathon 2009 today and it was a great party really, so many people everywhere! And so many people running today, it was great to see, a wonderful bunch of people from everywhere running together or spectating.
We had a picnic at Långholmen close to the dreaded bridge Västerbron which is a rather tough part of the track. The runners pass this point twice and I took some pictures from the crowd running.
We were also looking for a couple of people we knew who would be running but since it was really crowded at times I think we missed them all in the crowd. Sorry, we still cheered for you!
The dreaded bridge. It's quite long and the first part is all uphill and terrible. The next part is downhill and also terrible Runners pass this at km 12 and km 33.
People running happily about.
The more crowded bunch are coming. Look at all the spectators on the left hand side!
Some was running quite cool, others looked like they'd drop dead. This guy here was cool.
Rails tracks at Karlberg station photographed in the nice sunlight yesterday. Filtered to B&W and post processed in Lightroom. Nikon D300 and Nikkor 16-85/3.5-5.6 lens.
On my way home from work I pass a curious place. It is a double bridge with the upper part for cars and pedestrians and then there is the underneath level for the metro underground trains. Underneath this bridge there is a really shoddy place in otherwise very nice and posh quarters.
Panorama över Akalla. Nikon D300 med objektiv Nikkor 16-85 mm. Manuellt stickat i Photoshop och sedan efterbhandling i Lightroom.
Akalla är en stadsdel i Västerort inom Stockholms kommun. Den ligger ca 13 km NV om centrala Stockholm och är byggd på Järvafältet. Stadsdelen tillhör stadsdelsområdet Rinkeby-Kista och Kista församling. Akalla nämns första gången 1323 och går då under namnet Akarli. Namnet betyder Åkarlarnas by och ån som åsyftas är då Igelbäcken som flyter i närheten av området.
Akalla var ett av de sista områdena som byggdes i Stockholms miljonprogram på 1970-talet och det var en fortsättning på den mindre lyckade 60-tals lösningen med Tensta i centrum. Akalla domineras av de arton höghus som står på rad rakt igenom området. Denna bild är tagen från ett av dessa höghus som ligger längs Sibeliusgången.
På norra sidan höghusen finns lägre hus som bildar storgårdar med små skogsdungar och lekplatser. Genom dessa hus går den långa backen Slingerbulten som slingrar sig fram mellan husen.
Söder om Akalla intill Järvafältet ligger Akalla by som består av äldre bevarad bebyggelse. Här finns bland annat hus från 1600-talet och gården hålls levande av bl.a. 4H. På båda sidor om Akalla by finns det radhusområden.
Akallas nordöstra sida domineras av industrier framför allt mjukvarubaserade sådana och här har även svenska Microsoft sitt huvudkontor. Genom industriområdet löper Hanstavägen.
Mellan 1905 och 1970 ingick Akalla i det område på Järvafältet som militären använde för övningar. Detta har bidragit till att området så länge bevarades som jordbruksmiljö även om det låg mycket nära Stockholm. Akalla har en tunnelbanestation och är den ena ändstationen på linje 11. (more…)
Hötorget is famous for the people selling things in the daily market place all the way back to the early medieval days. This used to be a village called Väsby in those days and when they built the street “Kungsgatan” (the King’s Street) they found several skeletons, money and other remains from some 700 years back in time.
In 1914 the trade with fresh raw meats such as beef, sheep, swine or horse. Later the same year all freshed and skinned animals as well as birds, salted or smoked fish, boiled shellfish, butter, bread, cheese and flour was also banned for sanitary reasons.
Many of the people selling foodstuffs then moved into the indoor marketplace nearby instead where it was still allowed.
Today you will find mainly people selling used second hand items, toys, mobile phone accessories, bags, handbags and valises, cheap clothes (with varying quality I must say) your various bric-a-brac stuff and old musical instruments, CD’s, LP’s and so on… and you can find pretty much anything if you asked around. I saw two laptops being sold as well. One looked severely used. The other looked brand new.
No questions asked.
The houses around is dominated by shopping but there is a huge blue house where which is the Stockholm Concert Hall. This building requires a page of it’s own but it is a great example of 1920s architecture.
It is winter now, but still not much in the way of snow. Temperature has dropped rapidly in the last few days and we did have a bit of snow falling for an hour or so yesterday but there is nothing left on the ground. It’s getting icy on the roads though and of course a couple of people did not observe this in the morning rush, I passed by two cars on the side of the road. None looked too worse beaten up though.
I shot the following on my lunch walk today and I liked the way it came out representing the oh so barren winter that we are having right now.
Nikon D300, Nikkor AF-S DX VR 16-85/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF
Idag på Regeringsgatan där den korsar Kungsgatan på en bro lyckades jag ta denna bild. En av mina första lite svårare bilder tagna med min nya D300. Objektivet jag använde var Nikkor AF-S VR 70-300/4.5-5.6G ED-IF som jag kommer recenscera senare när jag har använt det lite mer!
Today at Regeringsgatan (regent’s str.) crossing the Kungsgatan street on the bridge overpass. I managed to take my firs a little more demanding photo using my new D300 camera. I used the 70-300 lens for this one which has performed excellently. I really like this lens after just using it a few times, it is great. I will review it later on when I have used it even more.
This is an old factory where they used to make iron cast wood-fired stoves and other products like that. It is now the home of a broad range of small companies inhabiting the old factory houses. Here are some pictures of the factories that I have taken.
Bolinders grundades 1844 då bröderna Jean och Carl Gerhard Bolinder grundade J. & C. G. Bolinders Mekaniska Verkstads AB på Kungsholmen i Stockholm. Under de första årtiondena var produktionen inriktad på ångmaskiner, träbearbetningsutrustning och råoljemotorer för till exempel båtar och sågverk. Man producerade också olika sorters gjutna produkter som till exempel vedspisar, kaminer och köksutrustning som stekpannor, grytor, våffeljärn och köttkvarnar.1893 byggde Bolinders sin och Sveriges första motor med intern förbränning. Motorn designades av ingenjör Weyland men var inte så framgångsrik. Istället tog man in ingenjör Rundlöf som konsult och 1897 hade man en tvåtakts råoljemotor som blev en väldig framgång. På 1920-talet hade man en världsandel av 80% av alla fiskebåtar tack vare motorernas pålitlighet, låga bränsleförbrukning och långa livslängd.Efter brödernas död i slutet av 1800-talet togs företaget över av Erik August Bolinder. Vid 1906 ansåg man att lokalerna på Kungsholmen hade blivit för små så man köpte Kallhälls gård eftersom man ansåg Kallhäll i Järfälla hade bra kommunikationer då den låg vid järnvägen mot Västerås och man kunde också använda sjövägen via Mälaren in till Stockholm. 1909 började produktionen i Kallhäll. Man tillverkade då spisar och köttkvarnar samt gjutgods som transporterades sjövägen till fabriken på Kungsholmen. Vid 1919 hade Bolinders 1900 anställda på de båda fabrikerna.1913 byggde Bolinders sin första traktor. Den drevs av en tvåcylindrig tvåtakts råoljemotor på 30 hästkrafter.
The darkness can be a comforting friend and ally as well as an intimidating scary place. It is many times up to you what you will feel like and how you will react to it.
I met Björn when we met up for an excursion into the Solna Badlands. He seemed to have an affinity for shooting abandoned industrial areas and general industrial environments. Here in Sweden it is increasingly difficult to find abandoned places like this but Björn has recently put up a series of pictures from an abandoned Sugar Mill in the southern part of Sweden. We also had company of another Flickr photographer, Len Lysén.
All pictures in this slide show are Copyright Björn Sahlberg, I have just linked to his Flickr set displaying them as a slide show. Enjoy the tour.
People sometimes ask in forums and other places what is the optimum settings for certain types of photography. Although there is no absolutely clear answer—it depends what you are trying to capture of course and your own style there are some things that are useful to remember.
Continuous shooting (Ch or continuous high)
Tracking autofocus
Aperture priority
ISO200
Center focus
Matrix metering
White balance daylight/cloudy
RAW format
Here are my arguments for each of these settings.
Continuous shooting this is great because if something happens unexpectedly you just point and keep shooting frame after frame and you might get that special picture even if you was not ready to compose and wait for the moment. Things happens fast in the street so be prepared. A useful lens to have mounted is a superzoom, 18-200 mm or similar, they give you great range and can handle almost any urban situation. The drawback is of course that superzooms are a compromise and may lack sharpness for example.
Tracking autofocus this means the camera keeps focussing all the time even if you keep shooting frame after frame. This is good for tracking moving objects but you have to be aware where the focus points are in your frame. On Nikon cameras this is AF-C (Autofocus continuous). Single time focusing is called AF-S.
Aperture priority or the “A” mode on the camera. This allows you to select the aperture for best depth of field and focus and the camera will automatically pick the apropriate shutter time for a good exposure. This means you don’t have to worry about the exposure and you still maintain a high level of control. Most lenses are sharpest when they are stopped down 2-3 steps. For most this means that f/5.6 – f/11 is probably the best choice in broad daylight. As your light diminish, keep shooting but open the aperture to f/3.5 or f/2.8 or even further if your lens supports it! Most superzooms can not open byond 3.5 at their broad end and 5.6 at their far end.
ISO200 this is a good setting because it minimises the noise from the sensor. If the light conditions are low, raise it but do it with caution since it can produce severely grainy images. Some cameras are much better than others though, you may want to experiment with this. But if your light conditions do not require it—keep your ISO low.
Center focus is preferred because thats where you aim. Use the AF-L (autofocus lock) button to lock if you wish to recompose. The reason center focus is so nice is that if something happens quickly you tract it the focus system has a better chance of concentrating on the object you are tracking. On Nikon cameras the 21 point focus system is great. On the older models as the D70 that has a very limited number of focus points use the single center dot.
Matrix metering means the camera is ready for most light conditions. Activate the “highlight” function on your display to see if the metering has overexposed the picture, then use the exposure compensation setting +/- to change, recompose and take another shot. Using spot metering it may be very difficult to get the right exposure when there are multiple light sources as it generally is in the city. Centre weighted can sometimes be useful but most of the time matric metering is the best.
White balance does not matter too much if you are shooting RAW which you should be anyway… you can always correct this afterwards in your post processing because RAW files keep the sensor data as it was while JPEG will apply the white balance to the final picture. If you are shooting JPEG then set your WB accordinly, if you are shooting RAW you may do so but auto is usually fine as well.
RAW format is great because it allows you to adjust exposure and white balance with the maximum dynamics in the picture. In RAW you can easily correct 1 EV underexposure but if you attempt to do this on a JPEG the picture usually does not fare well.
JPEG format is not listed above but still very useful in certain situations… There is one time I will flip to JPEG when shooting street phot and that is when I will be taking long series of pictures of some event such as marathon runners or similar. The reason is that when I shoot RAW my camera buffer overloads after a few pictures and the camera can not fire as rapidly as in the beginning because it has to wait for the memory card to “swallow” all the data. Since JPEG images are pre-compressed before they are written to the memory card they are smaller and thus allows me to shoot very long series of pictures before the camera memory buffer is full and it starts to “stutter”. Don’t forget to set it back to RAW when you are done!
I just walked past it. The workers looked like they’d kill the next student coming along. Apparently they were emptying the fountain from water so that it does not freeze in the winter time when someone dropped a bottle of washing up liquid into it. Great foaming ensued and the guys trying to empty it was the only ones not laughing…
This time of the year is my favourite for photography, you can just go outside and get some really nice photos, grandiose colours and exiting subjecs, the surroundings is excellent, just your ordinary park offers a lot of things that are just waiting to be photographed.
Here are some of my autumn photos for inspiration or to just enjoy:
Here in Stockholm there are many interesting pieces of art in the underground metro lines. This autumn SL, the authority running the three metro lines here in Stockholm arranges a series of train rides with a guide to guide you through the art pieces.
This will happen roughly twice a week starting this thursday (day after tomorrow) but unfortunately I am busy thursday nights. The second night is on the coming Sunday however when I think it would be a great time to meet up and bring the cameras along.
Anyone interested in joining in on a project and learn more about the beautiful metro in Stocholm and perhaps get the chance to photograph the arts in the subway?
So yesterday 50 people were enlisted for the photo-walk, I think more than 40 turned up at Högalidskyrkan and we started walking. It was a beautiful day, we had exeptional luck with the weather and it turned out to be a very nice event.
Lots of pictures was taken and due to an unfortunate accident I lost some good pictures on a memory card that decided to fail of course. But since I regularly swap cards in the camera this did not affect too many pictures and most of the really good ones I liked was saved!
Looking forward to the photo walk here in stockholm, to meet up with other photographers is always fund and I hope I will be able to get some good shots as well but I really suck when it comes to street photography. I have such a hard time composing that I miss the moments that I want to capture and I need to practice this. So I have considered “going light” this time with the stuff that I need mainly in my pockets and of course a tripod, camera and one lens.
Instead of focusing on using the proper prime lens for the job I will be lugging my 18-200mm lens that can do almost any kind of shot. Although this lens is a bit on the soft side and I prefer a harder sharpness in my photos it is still a really nice all-round lens that can do many situations instantly. It is also equipped with the VR function to reduce shakiness when hand-held and that should be a great help today.
Here are some street shots that I have done earlier which are not half-bad but I don’t feel confident I can actually “make” the photos the way I really want them. So this will be a very interesting test for me.
"Rain and reflection" - Kingston Upon Hull, Yorkshire, United Kingdom
"Black Side - White Side", Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, United Kingdom
"Nightfall over Stockholm" - Shot from the roof of the highest building in Stockholm, the old tax office.
"The Light Comes In" - There is a crack in everything, that's how the light comes in, Leonard Cohen. Shot in Gamla Stanm, Stockholm
The walk starts at hornstull at Högalidskyrkan (the church) and then we are off in smaller groups. The walk ends at Mosebacke. I will of course post pictures as they are developed after the walk. The weather looks nice still and I hope we get a really nice evening in town!
I am also considering trying out IR photography in this setting. It could be difficult of course but I think it could be interesting. But this means I have to lugh around my tripod – something that has never been a problem before but it is of course time consuming to set it up to shoot when everyone else snaps a picture and moves on but I think that it would be cool.
One morning on my way to work I found several kilograms of ice cubes around the foot of a tree. It later turned out that a company had a party and this was their way of disposing of the left-over ice that never made it into the drinks. They did also look a little... tired...
Taken in Kingston upon Hull, UK. I used to live nearby here in 1996 when I worked for a games company called Perceptions togheter with some great guys. I went back in 2006, ten years after and met some of them agan for a great number of laughs and some beers.
The rainbow flag, the symbol for the pride movement globally.
We sat out pretty early anticipating a lont of people in town for the big pride parade. This year bigger than anything seen before and although the weather was not so nice it was already people on Hornsgatan, one of the major spots where people gather to see the parade, at eleven in the morning, two hours before the start and three hours before they were expected to arrive at this location.
After a brief breakfast at Café Puck we staked out a good position slightly above the street the parade was going to come through. The weater then quickly turned to worse and a light drizzle started. And then it turned into showers and then quite heavy rain. Did not matter, people were gathering by the thousands anywat.
A 152 groups were marching today and countless of other people, supporting and cheering. Notable events from the parade were the Gay Police community, proud parents to LGBT children and nothing could hold back the lovely mood, not even the pouring rain!
I think the best moment that I had from the whole parade was the proud parents when they walked in, the cheer that rose from the crowd was ear-deafening and the appaluds never seems to cease! It was heart warming to say the least.
I had good use for the towel that I have on my list to bring always for excursions, but of course this time I forgot it and was saved by Jeanette who brought one! (She does that a lot. Saves me, that is.)
The light conditions were far from ideal, it was raining and it was difficult to get the shutter times required to freeze motion, therefore you will see some motion blurring in the pictures, and I needed to use the 18-200 lens this time to be able to capture both wide angles and zoom in on single faces. Wit an aperture from f/3,5-5,6 it was sometimes difficult to get good exposures. But some of the pictures came out pretty good in my own opinion.
This effect is not post-processed but created byt zooming and shooting at low shutter speed at the same time.
Runners pass this at km 12 and km 33.
