Zürcher Schärfentiefe

Two depth of field exercises (with more, or less - last year for Marcel G.)...


From the entrance hall of the ETH Zürich main building, on 2012-09-14 (with Sony Nex-5 and Minolta MD 35mm f/2.8).


The small model at the Zürich Grossmünster church on 2012-09-15 (with Panasonic G2 and Olympus 9-18mm f/4-5.6).

BTW, Schärfentiefe is German for depth of field, in German also often called Tiefenschärfe. That last word doesn't make much sense however, language wise, as it would mean something along sharpness of depth, instead of the other way around. Like Dickenscheibe instead of Scheibendicke (die Dicke der Scheibe vs. die Scheibe der Dicke), it's just not the same etc. However, if a word is used long enough by enough people, it doesn't need to make sense anymore, it's just a new word (and everybody knows - Stundenkilometer [or Stuckis] is another one)...

Oh, and ironically, in English there is also depth of focus, which sounds more directly a translation of the German word to me, however, it again means something slightly different and is also sometimes falsely used instead of depth of field.

OK, genug der Belehrung:o).

The Niederdorf

(click image to enlarge)
Zurich Niederdorf, 2012-11-24, from Lindenhof.

With Panasonic G2 and Olympus 9-18mm f/4.0-5.6 at 9 mm.

Minolta MD 100-300mm f/5.6

2012-04-22

Saw similar pictures taken with this legacy lens on Flickr on Micro Four Third cameras and liked them very much. Now got a nice examplar of it for myself:). On a Micro Four Third system this lens has an effective focal length of an equivalent 200-600mm lens on a 35mm camera.

Back when I was 14 and got into photography with a Minolta X-700, MD 50mm 1.7, MD 28mm 2.8, and some no name 70-210mm (Soligor? thought I also liked it), a Minolta MD 70-210mm was kind of a dream, did not even dare to think much about this one. However the 100-300mm is quite bulky and with 700 g and without a collar doesn't really hold very well on a tripod attached the comparatively small Panasonic G2. For nice weather walkabouts, so to speak.

New Camera

Being very sleepy I let my good old rusty Kodak V705 camera drop on the concrete floor at a Sunday morning museum tour. And it was real concrete, not some soft marble inside the museum, but before entering. First it looked like only the body was scratched with the lens cover having to be forced open manually. I could even do a few more shots with it, but then soon the electronic stopped working.

What I liked so much about this model was the 23 mm wide angle. Also not very big, and now I must say also very robust, I kept this camera in my pocket every day, being able to let the motives get to me without actively going on a photo safary!

Two days ago I got a Panasonic DMC-TZ5. The main reason was the 280 mm max zoom and the price was good as it was a special offer (as with 9 megapixel it is already becoming a bit outdated, but I couldn't care less than about the resolution). At the same time it also has a 28 mm wide angle. Really an exceptional range for a relatively small camera. Unfortunately it is not as small as the old Kodak or other compact cameras. Still, nothing to campare to a big d-SRL camera. Now, my preference was for a very small and super wide angle digital camera. To bad Kodak stopped working on a successor of the V705 and doesn't even sell this old gem any more.

But I am really happy with this now zoom, which offers great new artistic possibilities I did not have at all before. These are just two test shots right from my lovely home environment (the second has gotten some color saturation and contrast manipulation thought):





But what was a bit unanticipated is, that the panasonic also seems to be decent at night shots. Those were completely impossible with the old Kodak. Thought I loved making photos at night (as a teenager and student with an old Minolta X-700 SLR), as the surroundings in artificial light in general make for a great athmosphere.

So, technically speaking, I am very happy with these two first results from yesterday evening with an ISO 100 setting and a small tripod.





BTW, I don't know if with the old camera better night results would have been possible, it just never occured to me before that it might be possible to change the default ISO setting. Still, the first night picture above has been done with an exposure of 8 seconds (and the lowest ISO), I doubt that would have been possible with the other camera.

Still, I am spoiled from the Kodak in terms of a decent wide angle and 28 mm won't cut it anymore. Now still need to do something about that:).