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Exactly 4 years ago was my first post on the blog.
Cheers.

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These are more like vacation photos, but came out ok enogh. I’m surprized my camera made it without a problem in all that snow and freezing temperatures.

After this, back to landscapes

Cheers to the guys in the photos and the ones that did’t make it on the site . Happy new year. And stop looking at the camera

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Berlin new year. What can I say, I was expecting something completely different than this.
First of all the city is incredibly dangerous on new year . Every skinhead getting drunk and aggressive for no reason. The good thing is that police is everywhere and that saved me a couple of times not getting beaten or robbed.
Not to mention the fact that 20 minutes before 0:00 the Brandenburg Gate area got so crowded that we literally almost got killed in a stampede . Judging by the number of ambulances afterwards some people really got hurt, and we had to celebrate new year separated in the chaos. From what I have read on the internet, this was supposed to be the biggest open air party in the whole world, with more than a million people gathering at the gate. To me it was just chaos, cold (more cold than I have ever experienced anywhere) and a lot of firecrackers thrown everywhere with no  judgment. All in all it was very interesting to see such thing, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you don’t care too much for your safety .
The new year in Amsterdam, even if the sheer amount of firewarks and crackers was 10 times as big, it was fun, everyone was high (compared to drunk here) and there was a sense of safety that made me enjoy it very much. I will probably go there again.

The next days the city was once again quiet and safe, and sort of boring. But that in some other posts.

Happy new year.

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This is my first time using a prime lens, since I was very reticent about them, being used to framing using the zoom.

However since I needed low light filming potential and also being Christmas and all I treated myself with a Canon 50mm 1.4

I had 3 choices : the Canon 100mm f2 , the Canon 85 mm 1.8 and 50mm 1.4.

The first ones had a big advantage of being much sharper. However both of them had smaller apertures and that means less light. Also because of the big focal lenght the lack of IS is a big issue, I know that because I had the 100mm f 2.8 macro, and most photos came out blurry unless in perfect light conditions. And last but not least, the same kind of bokeh and framing was easy to obtain with the zoom lenses I had (24-105 f4 l IS and 7-200 f4 L IS ). However the 50mm gave me a very nice bokeh at angles closer to the ones of the human eye, making it a very casual lens, framing exactly what I see.

Very very good choice. After I mounted it on the camera, in 5 days in Barcelona I could not take it off. Instead of finding it difficult and restraining to use, I found it perfect. Too perfect, since it made making good photos a piece of cake, the bokeh separating perfectly any subject from any noise in the background, turning the background into e very nice light painting. It’s not the sharpest of lenses, not the best build, not the best regarding ghosting or purple fringing, but the final result makes me forget about these details.

And some of the photos made with it.

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If Stalker had a winter environment, this is probably how it would look like. These are remains of unfinished buildings from the communist era that cand be found in Zapaden Park (Western Park ) in Sofia. Most of what was left was stolen by gypsies and the rest is now just ruins, used as Garbage depositing places.  Now that the first snow covered the whole city it makes an interesting view.
The park is otherwise very nice, wild, more like a forest. The lack of lighting makes it a really creepy to walk through during the night, but I have friends that have to go through it all the time coming back from work and say it’s safe. That is compared to our parks, like Tineretului where it might not be a good idea to venture.

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