The German online printing service „Saal-Digital“ had another round of testing advertised, this time for their photobook. I applied and got a 40 € voucher to design and put together my own photobook. I decided to go with a matte-standard paper and went for a book in size A4 in landscape orientation. Using the SaalDesignSoftware it was pretty easy to put together. It allows you to center pictures perfectly, you can align multiple images so that they are spread out evenly. You can choose between a lot of different fonts and if you like you could also use presets, which weren’t for me. I went for 38 pages, which is priced at 38.90€, quite a lot, but the quality you receive is really impressive. Colors are retained nicely, images look crisp and detailed. Also difficult pictures, such as aurora or milky way photographs turned out not too dark and colors were quite vibrant. Is there anything I didn’t particularly like. Well, I am totally happy with how it turned out. It is solid binding with a hard cover, which seems very durable. I am just not sure whether I would be willing to pay 40€ for a less than 40 page book if I wasn’t at it as a tester. Overall I can recommend the Saal-Digital photobook if you are looking for a great looking easy to design photo book product.

Das deutsche Online-Printportal Saal-Digital hatte vor kurzem eine Aktion in der Tester für ein Fotobuch gesucht wurden. Nach einer kurzen Bewerbung wurde ich ausgewählt und erhielt einen 40€ Gutschein um ein Fotobuch meiner Wahl zu gestalten. Ich entschied mich für ein A4-Buch im Querformat, wobei ich mattes Standard-Fotopapier für die Innenseiten und das matte Hartcover wählte. Mit Hilfe der SaalDesignSoftware war es sehr einfach das Buch zu gestalten, wobei man aber auch komplett eigene Design (z.B. aus Lightroom) hochladen kann. Beim Gestalten gibt es diverse Ausrichtungstools und eine Vielzahl an Schriften, so dass für jeden Geschmack etwas dabei ist. Ein wichtiges Feature wie ich finde ist die Qualitätsanzeige, welche anzeigt, ob das Bild eine ausreichende Qualität hat. Ich gestaltete ein 38 seitiges Fotobuch, welches einen Endpreis von 38,90€ bedeutete. Ein ziemlich stolzer Preis, aber die Qualität weiß zu überzeugen. Die Farben sind brillant beim Druck auf mattem Fotopapier, der Detailreichtum exzellent und auch schwierige Motive wie die Aurora oder die Milchstraße wurden in beeindruckender Qualität gedruckt. Alles in allem bin ich sehr zufrieden mit dem Produkt. Das stabile Hardcover und die gute Bindung verleihen dem Buch ein sehr wertiges Feeling. Jedoch weiß ich nicht ob ich normalerweise knapp 40€ für solch ein Buch bezahlt hätte, habe bereits von anderen Anbietern bestellt. Die wiesen eine ähnliche Qualität, jedoch ein besserer Preis-Leistungsverhältnis auf. Trotzdem ist das Fotobuch von SaalDigital eine klare Empfehlung für jeden, der ein hochwertiges Produkt sucht.

Last week I have been contacted by the British Filter manufacturer Formatt-Hitech that my application for their ambassador program was successful. In the future I will be constantly in touch with Formatt-Hitech and test some of their newest filters and write about my impressions here on this blog. 

I am particularly fond of testing their Firecrest line of glass ND filters, that promise to have no color cast, which is often found in ND Filters, especially in those made from resin instead of glass.
To celebrate this occasion with you, they have provided a promo code with which you get a 10% discount on every order on their website http://www.formatt-hitech.com :

10% if you use HERING10 at checkout.
​
So expect more images like this one here taken in Rostock recently with a ND0.9 in combination with a Formatt-Hitech Resin GND0.9 to balance the sky.

It has been sometime now since I last wrote a blog entry. The reason why that is? Life brings constant changes and we moved back to Germany at the beginning of February. As my postdoctoral term was set to end at the end of January and the opportunity to start my individual scientific career in Rostock was too good to forfeit, we were forced to leave Edmonton and the beautiful province of Alberta behind. That place has become a second home for us and we are still heavy hearted when looking back and sometimes wish we were still in Alberta's Capitol Region.

Our flight back took as through a night filled with aurora between Edmonton and Iceland. It was mesmerizing to see the lights dance one last time. It was a show that essentially was going for a full 6 hrs and yielded aurora to either side of the plane looking south and north, what a way to say good bye. After that we went to Copenhagen and then on to Hamburg, from we had to drive a mother 2 hrs to back home in Rostock. 
Moving in a new apartment and to get everything rolling at work has put photography a bit on the back burner, which is OK as time will come to get out and explore more. But in the following I'd like to show you our new home through some pictures. Rostock is on the Baltic Sea and has a major port where cruise ships start to explore the Baltic Sea. It is a city full of history that dates all the way back to the 11th century. We don't have mountains here anymore, but a lot of water, fields, sea cliffs and more water. So in the future my work will probably focus bit more on these subjects. Stay tuned and keep following along as explore our old/new home through the lens.

I haven’t been very active on my blog lately, so I apologize for that.But we have recently moved back to Germany and I will write a bit about that in my next post. But this one here is about a trip to the Bisti Badlands in New Mexico during our Christmas Holiday 2016. On Friday December 23rd we decided to head out to one of the hidden gems in New Mexicos northwest. Visiting our friends who live near Albuquerque I wanted to take at least one day trip to explore the area a bit. Searching for things to see in NM I was struck by the crazy rock formations on display in the Bisti Badlands, an area formed some 70 million years ago when this area was still a riverine delta. 

From Albuquerque you drive ca. 3 hrs to reach this remote part of New Mexico, the drive itself was beautiful with constantly changing weather conditions that day. Starting with snow, rain and plenty of sunshine as well. Arriving at the scene we realized that it had rained here quite a bit the other day and that moving forward on the slick and slippery ground would be challenging.

Water still running down some slopes after heavy rainfall in the area a day before we visited. The red hill in the background nicely shows how colorful this place is.

It didn’t take long for me to take the first fall, after that I used my tripod as a walking stick, which helped keeping my balance. The area is vast and stretches ca. 8 km east to west and another 4 km from north to south, with so many areas of interest that we had decided beforehand to take a closer look at the cracked eggs. On the way there we explored numerous hoodoos of different size.

One of the signature sightings here was the thin layers of coal that covered some of the rolling hills in the area. Particularly interesting were the ravines and little wash outs that had formed during the big rain the day before, the colors and patterns were amzing to see. Rigid sandstone and lush material alternate so that you find arches, hoodos and little slot canyons. The hoodos form when the rather loose sandstone gets washed away, while a more resistant top layer remains, forming the typical head on the hoodoo. The cracked eggs, stones that looked as if you crack an egg and boil it, were amazing. 

A "Cracked Egg", what an unreal geologic formation. In combination with the racing clouds (this here is a 120 sec exposure) an outstanding scenery unfolded.

All this happened from erosion and the extreme temperature gradients of the high desert in the San Juan Basin. Also we found rocks that were just perfectly split in two parts. But the most breath-taking view were the huge chunks of petrified wood, with intact outer crust and even the ring structure of the stump was still visible, except it was no wood but stone. The sun set around 5 pm and we headed back to the car after exploring for only 3 hrs, which is way too little, I would suggest to spend at least 3 days here and also to go during Milky Way season. I hope my images give you an impression what this place is like and that you will put it on your bucket list.

2016 has been a great year for me a s a photographer and it was also the first year I dedicated a lot of time to go out and shoot and plan my shots. This payed off big time and I came away with a lot memorable shots. Here is a small selection of my personal favourites from 2016 with some added information how I got each individual shot.

#1 Crowfoot vs. Photographer.

#1
Crowfoot vs. Photographer.
That morning in early August my colleague Tobi and I were getting up 5am at the Mosquito Creek HI Wilderness Hostel and drove out to Bow Lake on a cold and crisp morning. It was mostly clear outside, which was not the greatest start, as most likely there won’t be any dramatic colors in the sky. It was a Saturday morning and surprisingly we were the only guys out there at the lake. This lake is particularly cool because of the immense size of Crowfoot Mt. and the crystal clear waters of the lake. With drama in the sky absent it was a difficult environment to shoot. When the first light of the day hit the peak of Crowfoot Mt. I was trailing behind Tobi a bit and realized that he placed himself perfectly in the frame, so I quickly set up, framed the shot and shot three exposures (one under, regular and over exposed). The relatively cold temperatures that morning helped to generate whispy fog dancing above the lake and In combination with the flat light it created a very minimalistic scene showing displaying the sheer size of the Canadian Rockies.

#2 Dressed in Red.

#2
Dressed in Red.
Late September is the season of yellow larches in the Canadian Rockies, often referred to as “Larch Madness”. Last year I was hoping to go to one of the premier locations in Kananaskis, Chester Lake. Our trip there was OK, but spoiled by bad weather, so waking up in Canmore the next morning I was leased to find overcast skies in the west and clear skies looking east towards Calgary. I quickly drove out from our hotel to my favourite spot in town and when I arrived two photographers had already set up and where getting ready for an epic show. In the beginning all was grey and daylight slowly creeped in, I was almost tempted to packin as sunrise was getting closer and closer and no colors appeared. But 10 minutes before the sun came up the first line of clouds in the east started to glow in deep reds and I was thrilled, I first shot a vertical composition and then quickly ran back to my initial spot to capture the red skies over the iconic “Three Sisters” of Canmore. I often use Long Exposures to capture streaking clouds, but I felt this morning I wanted to show the structure in the clouds and also wanted to capture the color transition. An unforgettable morning spent with fellow photographers, who were all more than thrilled.

#3 Out of the Fog.

#3
Out of the Fog.
Shooting a lot of sunrises and sunsets in Edmonton this year I felt that I needed a change of scenery and I was exploring new avenues for spots that would allow an aerial view of the beautiful Edmonton River Valley. After knocking some doors and getting a proper training I was allowed access to a high point on the University of Alberta campus. My second time up yielded a nice surprise for me. Thick fog was rolling through the Valley of the North Saskatschewan River engulfing the famous High Level Bridge to a level were it wasn’t visible anymore. But with the sun slowly rising, the fog was burned away and crepsicular rays became visible through the bridge. I quickly set up my camera with my ND1.8 filter mounted to smoothen out the rolling fog a bit and got a perfect 8 sec exposure. The golden light was amazing and I caught the bridge in a very unique moment.

#4 Castle in the Mirror.

#4
Castle in the Mirror.
I have long been obsessed with the Castle-like appearance of Castle Mt. in the Bow Valley in Banff Nationalpark. Named Eisenhower Mt. for some time after WW2 it was given back its original name in 1979 and the sheer rock faces that tower over the relatively flat valley are just breathtaking. That afternoon in late January on a mild winter the peaks reflecting in a small pool of water truly caught my eye and I opted to use my 50/1.8 standard lens to take a “portrait” of the mountain mirroring in the perfectly still water. I have a lot of shots of this mountain, but this is the one that will stand out the most for me.

#5 Icy Frame

#5
Icy Frame.
In November 2015 I first explored the edge of the Athabasca Glacier with friends. We were surprised to find a glacier cave that day and ever since I saw it I wanted to come back. In late February I went on another road trip along the Icefields Parkway in a beautiful moonlit night. We arribed at the Glacier parking lot around 2 am in the morning and walked all the way to the glacier through hard, wind-blown snow. When we found the cave the moon was right behind the entrance and we shot some compositions with the moon bursting over the blues of the ice. Getting a little bit more comfortable I ventured into the ice cave and used my head lamp to light paint the cave. The view was breathtaking with the moon bathing Wilcox Ridge in amazing light while the stars were blinking. It was a truly special moment, especially with the knowledge that the cave has now collapsed and this is just a reminder of the ever-changing nature of glaciers.

#6 Frozen in Time.

#6
Frozen in Time.
Abraham Lake is usually all about methane bubbles being trapped in the waters of this artificial lake as part of the North Saskatschewan River system. This day in early January 2016 offered a lot: Icy winds, tons of bubbles, but also a lack of clouds and hence no fiery sunrise or sunset. But I particularly liked here how the stones were frozen into the perfectly clear ice, while the earth shadow created a nice purple haze over Mt. Mitchener on the horizon.

#7 Morning Launch.

#7
Morning Launch.
Canoes resting on a boat launch on the shores of Pyramid Lake in Jasper after a fresh dusting of snow at sunrise in late November. I was in Jasper multiple times during our time in Alberta, but mostly not to mainly photograph but rather on trips with family that yielded little to no time to get out and take pictures. So this road trip in November yielded some shots I had in mind for a long time. This one was taken with my 14mm Ultra-Wide lens a Rokinon 14/2.8 that is known to have an issue called mustache-distortion, especially pronounced if the horizon is not in the middle of the frame. Also the genral distortion for this lens is quite considerable, but the “free-transfrom” tool in PS helped me to work around that problem.

#8 Consolation Lakes.

#8
Consolation Lakes
Hiking up Panorama Ridge is exhausting but equally rewarding with unperturbed birds-eye views of the amazing Consolation Lakes and the mighty Mt. Babel. Not much to add to this, except that whenever you decide to bring all of your gear on a scramble, better think twice and shed some unnecessary equipment for water. I did not make the summit that day because I had too much gear and too little water, so maybe I would have had more amazing views, if I decided to bring the extra bottle.

#9 Up in the Clouds.

#9
Up in the clouds.
Having Wedge Pond all to myself in late August, I was granted an epic cloud play with almost perfectly calm waters. To even out the slightly blurred surface I used my ND3.0 Filter from Haida and got a 3 minute exposure that created very smooth clouds and a perfectly clean reflection. Having no foreground elements I felt that the 50/50 horizon worked best and the rush of light coming in through the valley definitely helped the image to gain some drama. Also when editing reflection shots I recommend making sure that the reflection is at least 0.1eV darker then the object to make it look natural.

#10 Cracked Egg.

#10
Cracked Egg.
Exploring the Bisti Wilderness in New Mexico a week ago was definitely one of the highlights of 2016 and with clouds rushing overhead I got this dramatic view of a so-called "cracked egg". More on this trip in the next blog post. Again I used my ND3.0 (big stopper) to create the streaking clouds.

#11
Star Pool.
A calm early May night at Two Jack Lake with Sue paddling through a pool of stars. First time out shooting with local legend Paul Zizka and thanks to his creative mastermind I came up with this scene. This was totally his idea and I was just happy to tag along. The images he published show Sue being illuminated from below. But my favorite is this here with no added light source and the stars appearing to go down the drain.

#12 Up in the Air.

#12
Up in the Air.
No description needed, flying through the aurora in early February was mind-blowing. If you ever want to photograph the aurora from a plane, make sure to check the flight route and choose your seat accordingly. I was siiting in the first row of the economy class, which helped to have space for my tripod. I used my fast 14/2.8 lens pressed against the cabin window on my tripod. My jacket functioned as a blanket to block out the cabin lights. Shot this at ISO6400, 14mm, f2.8 and 6sec. I feel this is the upper limit to get crisp stars.

#13 Electric City.

#13
Electric City.
I came to shoot the sunset and ended up catching a lightning storm blasting over downtown Edmonton while daylight was slowly fading. To get all the lightning in one frame used multiple frames and painted in the extra strikes using the lighten blend mode in PS, nut nevertheless, this here is just the result from two frames. But in hindsight I probably didn’t use the ideal settings.

#14 Yoho Blues.

#14
Yoho Blues.
The blue waters of the Yoho River in October of last year on a very moody day out near Field in B.C. I stumbled upon very slippery rocks to get this composition and stumbling turned into falling, so I shot this being half wet. It totally payed off. This is another example of using ND filters to your advantage, as it helped to soften the water and bring out the amazing blue hues in the glacial waters rushing down towards the Pacific Ocean. Compositionally I liked how the stones created a line drawing you into the frame, while the peaks in the background created some added interest.

#15 Morning Explosion.

#15
Morning Explosion.
Another one from my high point above Edmonton, which I already showed in my post about “Edmonton from above”. In October Edmonton had some amazing sunrises, but this display was by far the most colorful.

#16 Moon Rise.

#16
Moon Rise.
This is from a long night out in early April earlier this year. Our destination for this morning was an old school house near Hameruka, which is ca. 4.5 h southeast of Edmonton. Arriving there just in time around 3am we were left in the darkness and could not find the house. We came all the way just to be in an open field with no foreground, but at least the skies were brilliantly dark. But luckily we found some roadside ponds and some reet to play with and around 4.15am the moon rose in the southeast just below the Milky Way, it was a 27% waning moon and so low over the horizon it did not manage to blow out the Milky Way, so in the end we came away with something very unique: The moon rise under the MW, which looks fake to be true, but it wasn’t. This is a single exposure at ISO3200 using Rokinon 14mm/2.8 at f2.8 with an exposure time of 30sec. I edited this in LR only, as I still feel my PS editing skills are not advanced enough when it comes to shooting the MW. But one general rule that has done wonders for my night results is to look at the histogram, which should be exposed to the left, BUT be shifted more to the middle, so that on your screen it looks almost too bright, that way you do not cut off blacks which you cannot recover, also bringing down the exposure in LR is easier than bringing it up.

Last Sunday I decided to do a quick daytrip to Jasper Nationalpark just before winter would take over completely and all the lakes would lie under a thick layer of ice. I got lucky and due to the lack of economy vehicles I got a truck at the rental car station and eventually got that Canadian experience of driving one of these massive cars. So I picked up my friends Max and Shane and after fueling our sleepy selves with coffee we left Edmonton at 3.15 am end headed out Highway 16 to Jasper, where we arrived 3.5 h later, just in time to capture some stars over Patricia Lake just above townsite Jasper. The 50% waning moon was up high in the south an shone some great light on the peak of Pyramid Mt.

"Stars and Pyramids". Some stars and the majestic Pyramid Mt. reflecting in the still waters of Patricia Lake, while the moon illuminated the scene.

After that we headed down the road to the end of the Pyramid Lake Rd. and searched for a suitable spot to capture the sunrise over Pyramid Lake. I was sticking closer to the bridge that leads to the island and was balancing on some rocks to capture some cool algae in the crystal clear water along with the beautiful reflection of Pyramid Mt.

Balancing on some rocks I was able to get this perspective at Pyramid Lake at sunrise. My polarizer helped to bring out the amazing detail in the water with algae-covered rocks.

Having found a composition that worked I was waiting for the morning sky to explode, and reds started to appear in our back, but in the end the clouds won and no real colors showed up. Nevertheless, in the end the sun broke through 45 minutes after sunrise and casted the peak of Pyramid in some golden light, and I used the canoes lying on the boat launch as a foreground element, getting a unique perspective.

"Morning Launch". The snow-covered canoes on one the boat launches at Pyramid Lake made for a nice foreground, with Pyramid Mt. and the island as the backdrop.

We quickly drove down to Jasper fuelled up with more coffee and headed down the Icefields Parkway. The light was beautiful, with the sun breaking through a low cloud ceiling here and there and our first stop was at a small roadside turnout near the Goats & Glaciers lookout. Walking down to the bank of the Athabasca River, which was running very low in terms of the water volume. On the shore ice was forming on some on the rocks and a massive rock in the middle of the river was my go-to-subject at this spot.

A giant rock forming a nice foreground as the cold glacial waters of the Athabasca River blur down the river, this effect was created using my Haida ND-Filters.

Our next stop was Tangle Creek Falls, which was hard to shoot, with the sun shining into the scene and creating less than ideal conditions. But just being there was breath-taking to say the least. On our way to explore the upper falls we found some cougar tracks, which was just impressive. We enjoyed the warm midday sun and temperatures of 4°C up on 1600m elevation and went back down again to visit Sunwapta Falls. 

The mid-day light killed all the colors, but in BW this is a very powerful image of the Tangle Creek Falls.

That was a quick stop and we got some classic views in, while a tree stump had shored right over the edge of the falls and some kind of spoiled the image, but I still love what I got here, also a unique angle I feel. Next we had to stop again along the Athabasca River to pick up Shanes intervalometer, which he lost earlier. Goats and Glaciers came next and I totally know now why this is such a popular stop as it offers outstanding views of the Athabasca River and the surrounding ranges in the west, including Mt. Fryatt. 

An angle of the Sunwapta Falls I haven't seen yet, just a little beside the drop. You can still see the middle island but only the right arm of the splitting Sunwapta River. Also the ice in the foreground formed a nice frame.

A last stop along the Icefields Parkway was the ever impressive Athabasca Falls, which were running very low on water and were very tame compared to recent visits, but the ice forming made for some cool angles. Our last location of the day was Maligne Lake, where the winds were coming down the lake relentlessly when we arrived an hour before sunset. We shot over at the ouflow bridge, but conditions with the wind were less then ideal, also the long took its toll and I wasn’t at my best here when it came to find creative angles and unique shots, but I still feel that the ice on the shoreline in combination with the waves on the lake yielded some neat shots.

Ice on the shore of Maligne Lake gave a contrast to the moody dark skies and the waves on the water, which I blurred using my ND, also the arrow pointing to the rocks, which themselves connect the foreground with the background.

Also I was using my telezoom to get some shots of the impressive back-end of the lake. I closed out with some angles of the famous boat house with some of the ice formations in the foreground. Lastly we stopped along the Medicine Lake, a unique lake, that drains through porous rock throughout the year and had some nice snake-like rivers of open water in it. After that we packed in and headed back home to Edmonton having bagged a beautiful day of shooting and 1100 km that were probably a Good-Bye to Jasper Nationalpark for me.

Downtown Edmonton in Golden morning light, while the River and the High Level Bridge are covered in fog. Used a slightly longer exposure here of 10sec. to show the dynamic of the rolling fog.

My first time at the viewpoint during a warm and colorful fall day. Used a circular polarizer to get more contrasty sky.

By far the most vibrant sunrise I witnessed from up there so far, the color progression that morning was intense and everything was casted in shades of red.

Sketching out my compositional thoughts for this slightly zoomed in view. Read the details above.

As usual I would like to here from you what you think about this project and if there is a shot you would like to see in particular. I have three or four more situations envisioned that I can hopefully bring to life. Here are some more that I have captured so far. Thanks for reading.

Photography has brought me closer to nature, but when I first started it was more about the gear for me: I always wanted to upgrade, thought I really need this or that. Why not buy this awesome lens, it will help me to get better images. But I soon realized that I needed to just adapt the gear to what I shot, and that was mostly basketball in badly lit arenas. I ended up with a Nikon D700 in late 2010 and shot with that for four years. It worked great in every situation I shot, but when the Nikon D750 was announced I moved to that, as it had considerably better low-light capability, which would help me in those indoor fast-shutterspeed situations. After moving to Canada in 2015 I was even happier to have the D750, as night-photography became my new obsession. I upgraded some of my lenses and here is an overview about the gear that I use to get the images I regularly share with you:

1) Manfrotto X190Pro with a 3-Way Cullmann Head
2) Promaster Tripod with a 3D ball-head
3) Nikkor AF-S 85/1.8 g
4) Nikkor AF-S 50/1.8 g
5) Nikkor AF-S 201.8 g ED
6) Tamron 70-300/4.5-5.6 USM VC
7) Nikkor AF-S 24-85/3.5-4.5 VR
8) Rokinon 14/2.8 IF ED UMC
9) Rapid Chargers Spare batteries
10) Nikon EN-EL15 (third Party)
11) Nikon D750
12) Haida Adapter Rings for ND-Holder
13) Promaster Air Blower
14) Ansmann Headlamp
15) Promaster Nikon Cable Release
16) Sony A7 Mark II
17) Fotodiox Pro Lens Mount Adapter Nikon to Sony
18) Sony SEL2870 FE 28-70/3.5-5.6 OSS
19) No-Name Spare Batteries for Sony
20) Haida ND3.0, 1000x 100x100mm 
21) Haida ND1.8, 64x 100x100mm
22) Haida ND0.9, 9x 100x100mm
23) Haida Polarization Filter Haida ND
24) Filter Holder
​25) Formatt Hitech Graduated ND, Grad ND0.9

All of that fits beautifully into my Lowepro Whistler AW350 backpack.
 
Let me know if you want to hear more about specific equipment that I use!