Hello everyone!

Finally i have a few pictures taken with my point&shoot that might be worth it to be shown here.
I know its nothing special, but wanted to post a little as well and not just comment only on others all the time...
Naturally this is not the level of quality most works here are in, but maybe that story can make up for it

The weather was lovely so that i went for a 5 hour trip in the snow, with my bike...
It ended up in an excessive sliding contest resulting in bruises all over my body.

Every male biker ever having pinched certain southern parts of their body can imagine how it felt like
when i lost control on a hill and fell from the saddle to the front on the pole of my bike...

OUCH!!!!
I guess after that accident one can say men are just not made to ride a bike. At least no family men...
If i want to have own kids in the future, i better just go for a walk next time or my wife is going to be really disappointed!!!
On the contrary, it would allow more attempts to try it again and again which isnt too bad after all
But the effort was worth it with these outlooks and the experiences of the day.


Unfortunately, i dont have any pictures of the highlight of the day....

A little deer decided to make a journey far from home, but got lost and found itself at the river bank.
Since there is a HUGE fence to the Autobahn on the one side and the river on the other,
it must have walked on this path for many kilometers till it found itself stuck in a trap...

On the one side me with my bike and on the other a family... with their dog without a dog leash.
It starting chasing after the deer instantly so that it got panic and jumped into the fence again and again...

The fence is way too high and it was hopeless, that barking dog coming closer and closer.
Someone should have told him that saying "His bark is worse than his bite", but it didnt know.

In the end, it was so in fear that it turned around... and made a long jump straight into the freezing river.
The water splashing into my face and you could hear it breathe harder and its muscles twitching in the cold.
If someone ever broke into ice on a lake or so in winter you can imagine how this feels like.

However, it appears that this wasnt the first time to have happened to him on one of his adventures.
It swam to the other side surprisingly smooth, shook his head to have a look to the other side and the strangers a last time and pranced away.
Leaving us in astonishment about what just had happened. Only the dog was disappointed to have lost his playmate.
Apparently it was just a short love affair though, otherwise he could have just jumped after it into the river.

I felt so pity with the poor deer and had an argue with that people about their unleashed dog. ( its a really BIG one also!!! )
To my misfortune, i was way to astonished to get off the gloves and the camera out to capture it all into a nice picture
That was just the unexpected event that could make a special picture not every day like, but i wasnt ready for it yet...

Oh well, gotta practice some more and hopefully on the next time my first reflex will be to press the trigger!!!

Here are a few pictures i made:

Yes, we have snow in Germany, too. And i love snow!!!!
It snowed for the past week and everything is covered in a beautiful and pure white.

This is the mountain range in our backyard. I was busy shoveling hard to make it
It played a central role in our snow battle against the neighbors.
Guess this is something only snow can inspire, was real fun to discover the inner child again and cheer.



The mighty fir trees in our garden, looks really beautiful with that layer of snow on their branches.
We had more of them in the past, but they got too big and after one of them crashed into our garage it was time to fell a few.


This is the local river with some islands and the sun reflecting in the water.
On the very right, you see some ducks making their way to the other riverside and get some of the bread a family fed to their fellows.
I was hoping they wouldnt change their direction to make some experimental shot with the reflection in the water...



It almost worked, a little to high above in the end but this was the idea i had in mind.
Wanted to make it appear as if they were kinda chasing the sun in the water...



Here are some more islands in the river. This looks really beautiful in summer also.
The whole shore is covered in green grass and colored flowers, great place to relax.
Took years to change the riverbank, this all looked totally different before.
It looked like a battlefield with mud and holes for a long time, but the effect was worth it.


My journey ended at a little cabin with a lookout to the river up the stairs.
I liked the panorama effect when sitting there and looking across the horizon.
Couldnt stay really long though in this weather as i was freezing my butt


Our little refugee house for the birds is covered in snow, too. At the moment, their was no little visitor inside.
But usually its quite crowded and a popular place to spend the holiday among the local bird society.
Most of them are happy to use it in this weather and they make quite some noise in the morning!


Last but not least, some experiment with my soccer net.



Thank you for stopping by, some feedback or comments are appreciated.
Will try to upload some more later on when there is more time.

really nice

I love pics #2, 4, and 5.

But #2 is slightly underexposed (The camera probably metered for the sky thus the trees are underexposed. Try a different metering mode such as center weighted average or spot metering if your camera has that function)

Also #4 is overexposed by quite a alot.

But anyway. With proper gear and a circular polarizer, those pics will really shine.

The composition on pic number 5 is outstanding

This post was edited by Eek on Feb 16 2010 07:06pm

I learned a useful tip the other day while taking snow photos! Always over expose it a little bit, so it doesn't get that gray or blue tint to it. It makes it look more real ! It was pretty neat when I tried it out. Thanks for showing the snowy pictures!

Yep, but make sure to keep an eye on the blinkies and the histogram. You don't wanna over expose too much and lose details in the snow

Yeah - it takes some practice. I don't even know what the blinkies are... and what's a histogram? I'm trying to get used to all these things but they are sort of confusing sometimes .

Do you still have snow outside? If you do, take a picture of it with +2 EV during the day and press display a few times till you see a small thumbnail of the images on the top legt with a graph on the right.

You'll see that there are black spots blinking on the white snow. Those are call "blinkies" and it signifies that the image has been over exposed and the parts that are blinking have totally blown out (lost all details).

As for a histogram, it's a graph that represents the tonal range of the image. the X axis represents luminous value from 0 to 255 (just like in photoshop, that RGB tool?) 0 represents black and 255 represents white.
The y axis represents how much of that luminous there is in that photo.

If you see a huge spike on the far right, that means that parts of the image has been blown out. If you see a huge spike on the right, either your image has alot of shadows or dark areas have lost details.

It's a pretty useful tool once you understand how it works. It'll help you compose your shots better, basically telling you how much to overexpose or underexpose a picture by.

edit:

Found a great link, this should help you understand histograms alot more. Better then i can explain at least
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/histograms1.htm


This post was edited by Eek on Feb 16 2010 07:31pm

Ohhh that's what the blinkies were! Haha I've noticed those black spots before, cool! That helps a lot. Thank you for this I appreciate it

xD, not a problem

2, 4 , 5 nice!!!