caraoNet

Yet another damn lens test

ajcarao — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 02:57:05 +0000

Yup… It’s President’s Day and having done my long run yesterday, I have nothing better to do than test another lens on my Leica M9

This time is the Voigtländer 21mm f/4, which I’ve had for a while but never used on the M9 because all the reviews indicate that it takes weird color shifts on the edges since the rear nodal point is too close for the sensor. I gotta say, I have no idea what these guys are talking about. Unless I’m blind (which I think I’m not), these images speak for themselves. No color shifts of any significance, and the lens is extremely sharp at any aperture.

These were all taken today, some with a B+W Natural Density filter (0.6) since there was simply too much light out there today. There are no works of art here; it’s just a small set of photos around the block to test the lens. As always, you can see the full width version of the gallery here: http://web.carao.net/12-2/random-galleries/?album=3&gallery=67

Enjoy

[Show as slideshow]

A relic

Moe's & Joe's

Afterglow

Bricks

Chains in color

Looking in the distance

Blue in yellow

Ragged entrance

Where I live

Brick reflections

Peachtree at night

My street

La Vecchia Italia

ajcarao — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 03:31:16 +0000

Since I’m going to Italy in just a couple of weeks, I decided to dust off some of the (very) old photos I have from that beautiful country…

These were all taken 11 years ago, on a trip that took us all the way from Liguria to Toscana over two great weeks. The photos were taken with what was back then a state-of-the-art 1MP camera from Olympus.

Bear in mind though that back then photography and I weren’t the good friends we are today. My skills were rudimentary at best, i.e. I had no eye whatsoever for good photos, and I was also married at the time, which meant that taking good pictures was definitely not the main purpose of the trip. Most of these have never been published; doing it now as a comparison tool. Once I get back and post the new batch from my upcoming trip, they better be much better…

[Show as slideshow]

Pisa and its leaning tower

Riomaggiore (Cinque-Terre)

Camogli (Cinque-Terre)

Santa Margherita Ligure

Wine country

A stroll

Portofino #2

A lonely tree

Portofino #3

My ex-wife

Portofino #4

Paglio - Siena

Midtown Sunset

ajcarao — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:53:51 +0000

Little experiment with time-lapse photography. 240 shots taken over 3hrs with the Canon EOS-5DMII and the EF-17-40mm f/4 lens (and an intervalometer from Canon). Edited using Final Cut Express. Will play around with this a bit more in the next weeks…

Cupid’s Undie Run

ajcarao — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 13:50:49 +0000

Yesterday was a cold day in Atlanta. I raced in the morning in the Chattahoochee Challenge 10K. We had snow flurries and it was chilly but by the time the Cupid runners took to the street in the afternoon it was really cold and windy. I love running in cold weather but even I would think twice about going out naked in a 19F windchill (-7 Celcius). Still, it made for a fun time behind the camera…

All these taken with my trusty Canon EOS-5DMII and the fantastic EF70-200mm f/4 IS lens from Canon. You can also see the gallery in the full-width format, i.e. BIGGER, here: http://web.carao.net/12-2/sports-events/?album=6&gallery=65

[Show as slideshow]

Virginia-Highlands

Love and the police

The good pain

What was I thinking?

Wearing it

Ageless runnners

One among many

A view from behind

Tan lines

Elton and the groupies

Im with Cupid

Feathers