In the days of old they were used to pump water out of the low lying areas surrounded by dikes (polders).

Nowadays the pumping is done by diesel- and electric engines, so these three have people living there.

The picture is taken at a time when I had not yet learned the advantages of RAW shooting, so it is simply a JPEG with a few adjustments.

Dutch Windmills

Easy, you go to the zoo and watch the “Birds of Prey” show, and then stay after the show to chat a bit.

You may not end up with a picture like this every time, but I had a bit of luck with the timing.

Portrait of the Owl

This one comes from the area of Qingdao where the Olympic sailing competitions took place.
The only drawback is the grey weather which was all to common during most of the trip.
The Chinese sense of colour shines through in this picture, too.

Looking at this picture, the Chinese do a lot of building construction, don’t they ?

Bridge and skyline, Qingdao, China

This is a quick experiment:
1) Scanning the paper photo with a cheap paper photo scanner
2) Using photoshop elements for shadow/highlight enhancement
3) Slight sharpening using Unsharp Mask

I need to try making a scan of the negative (I expect that is in the folder)
I consider it possible to do that with my existing Digital camera and some good, even white background. It will probably not be as good as a professional scan, but likely better than the paper scan.

Comments are welcome on this subject.

Colour image :

San Fransisco by day

B/W image :

San Fransisco by day BW

Edit :

Dia-copyer received, after a bit of experimentation I succeeded in getting a decent colour from a negative “scan” (RAW photo), it ended up like this after a bit of processing :

The picture “scanned” with a digital camera

Edit2 :
Testing with noise reduction :

SanFran with noise reduction

When I looked at the RAW picture it looked a bit dull. The adjustment is simple, a bit of highlight and shadow adjustment followed by contrast adjustment via Levels.

No sharpening, just reduced the size of the image to make it suitable for the blog.

A lake due to a dam, Laoshan Mountains

As an experiment I made a black and white version, and I actually like that one, too.

Laoshan : Lake and mountains, B/W.

I think that both pictures are good.
Which one do *you* like best ?

I was looking a bit at this and decided that the distorted reflections were an excellent opportunity.

The picture has been cropped a bit for a better view, that’s all. The old Canon Pro 1 did well for this exposure.

Making Waves

One autumn morning when walking to work in the mist this was one of the sights. Taken with a Canon A610 compact, one that only allows JPEG images :

Into the mist . . . click on image for a larger version

Rocky coast at Laoshan, China

How do you like it ?

The elephants right there look out of place, so how could I resist ?

The building they are passing in front of is the old Royal Theatre.

Elephants in Copenhagen

I managed to be close enough to get this picture :

David Lynch in explanation mode

Taken with a Canon Powershot Pro 1 – yes, it is that long ago. The camera was fine with enough light, but awful in low light without flash.