Zürich, St.-Peter-Hofstatt

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Zurich, St.-Peter-Hofstatt, 2014-12-28, with Sony A7 and Minolta MC 28mm f/2.0.

It's summer, so time for a winter photo. The church in the background is the St. Peter church, one of the five churches in the inner city of Zurich. It has the biggest clock on its tower in all of Europe, bigger than the one on Big Ben in London. The Swiss like to put a Lime/Linden tree on the central town square (in Germany it's the Oak tree). With the near by Lindenhof (square), one of the nicest places in Zurich. And the winter lights certainly don't take anything away from its beauty.

Zurich, Claridenstrasse

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Zurich Claridenstrasse, 2015-10-04, with Sony A7 and Olympus Pen-F 70mm f/2.0.

The Olympus Pen-F lens is designed for half frame 35mm film, that means 18x24 mm2 is used in portrait mode on the 35mm (the 35mm includes the perforations in order to spool the film - therefore its name). Yet the 70mm lens fully fills out the 36x24 mm2 frame (thought here the image is a little bit cropped on the right, and only slightly cropped at the top and the bottom).

The use of this half frame 70mm lens on a full frame digital camera is is very much to my delight, as it is very difficult to find any full frame prime 70mm lenses (and that is also fast). I realised over time that I prefer the 70/75 mm view very much (and for this the Leica Summilux and Summicrons are unfortunately bit out of reach:). As it happens it is just in this range that a real gap between the very popular 50mm lenses and the again specialised portrait 85mm focal length appears.

At this moderate distance and stopped down the lens seems also more than sharp enough (no extra post processing applied besides the slight crop). Still have to see how it works on close up range and fully open.. but that would be in another post.

Zürcher Lachmöwe

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Common black-headed gull in Zurich on 2014-11-10 with Sony A7 and Minolta AF 100-300mm f/4.5-5.6 (the non-APO version).

The small gulls are very common around the Zurich lake and Limmat river and masters in catching breadcrumps in flight.

The Minolta AF lens is actually very small (short when focussed to infinity), light, and cheap. It feels plasticy, because it is. But it allows a minimal focus distance of 1.5 m only. The little more expensive APO version is supposed to be very sharp, but for a web picture I am more than pleased with this one.

Church of Zurich

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Zurich, 2015-02-20.

The Augustinerkirche, first build in 1270, the least known of the five churches in the old town of Zurich. Hidden in a side corner of the trendy Bahnhof street - shot over lunch time.

It is one of the few Catholic churches in the Protestant Zurich of Zwingli, however this one is not Roman Catholic but belongs to the Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland .

After the reformation it was used for 300 years as a mint, therefore the name of the Münzplatz next to it.

Taken with the trusty old Leica M3 on Tri-X 400 and the Summilux 50mm pre-A.. ah, bullshit.
Used the Sony A7 with Canon FDn 50mm f/1.4 ;-). Stopped down a bit and some grain added in Lightroom.

Zuri Town Hall Quay by Night

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A view on the Zurich Stadthausquai in a winter night, 2015-02-02.

The building on the left with the clock on the tower is the post office.

Then comes the department of the major - the traditional city hall. Thought there is another town hall one bridge further down the river which is actually the parlament for the canton. BTW, the town house (on this photo) is also the final scene of the most famous Swiss movie, Die Schweizermacher (starring Emil Steinberger). That one is all about getting the Swiss Passport :D.

Then the famous Fraumünster, which is the number one must see for tourists here. This is because of the Chagall Windows, which you can see as the three narrow tall black windows on the front side of the building (plus one more window on each side plus a third rosette, which are all not visible in this picture).

At the beginning of the bridge you see the small silhouette of Hans Waldmann on a horse, one of the two Swiss main general of the Battle of Morat. He was also a major of Zurich.

Behind this statue is the Zunfthaus zur Meisen, the wine makers gild, which was the riches of the Zurich gilds and looks a bit like a French castle - unlike all the other wooden or old style Zurich gild houses.

Oh, and last not least on the right side the tower of the St.Peter church (with yet another clock, in this case the biggest church clock in Europe - yes bigger than the Big Ben clocks).

With Sony A7 and the lens used is the Leica Elmarit-R 28mm f/2.8 vers. 1, stopped down, so with its six aperture blades you see six "sunstar" rays from the lights near the boats and on the bridge.

Family Formation

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2014-08-14, on (my) way to work.. with Sony A7 and Minolta AF 85mm f/1.4.

Zurich Crane

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Zurich over lunch time with a 10 stop natural density filter and the Olympus OM 50mm f/2.0 Macro and Sony A7. This one is with 30 sec exposure time. I also made one with 1 and 2 minutes, however it seems there are some artefacts coming up in the resulting picture. It looked like maybe (with a second 2 stop filter on top of it) there were some reflections between the two filters, but it was some rectangular imprint, so it must be something like a light leak on the mount or some reflections through the lens adapter, don't know yet, but for 30 sec and one filter it seems to be OK.

Otherwise zero post processing or cropping, the black and white is also straight out of the camera.

Oh yeah, and what do you think of the crane? Art?

Oh, actually this is a macro lens, which is very practical in itself with f/2.0, which can be just as well used as a normal lens. Actually I am surprised, it is one of my favourite lenses, thought I haven't had any picture with it published on the blog yet. And even this time it is no close up photo - for which I like to use this lens very much.

Talking Hands

Zurich, Landesmuseum, 2014-06-21.

With Sony A7 and Leica Elmarit-R 60mm f/2.8.

Movement - A Moment

A photo walk with the Photo International Club Zurich about the topic Movement.



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Sony A7 with Minolta MD 35mm f/2.8 and ND8 filter and the last picture with Sony A7 and Canon FD 135mm f/2.

White Buoy

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Lake Zurich, 2014-02-24.

With Sony Nex-5R and Leica Summicron R 50mm f/2.

I'm Walking / For Sale

I don't know what they have in common - street photography? Both from today, 2014-01-21.

And with Sony Nex-5R and Olympus OM 90mm f/2 Macro.

Moon Over Bourbon Street

Zürich, Erlenbach, 2013-12-09. With Sony Nex-5R and Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 AI-s.

Moon over Bourbon street-Sting

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).

Opera Ball

Zurich Opera House, 2012-09-22.

With Sony Nex-5 and Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 Ai.

Meiyintang Collection

Museum Rietberg, Zurich

2013-03-24, with Panasonic G2 and Minolta MD 50mm f/1.4.

UBS Late At Night

UBS Private Banking building at Paradeplatz, Zurich, 2013-03-09.

With Sony Nex-5 and PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8 non-Ai.

Wednesday Lunch Walk

View from Hotel zum Storchen, Grossmünster in the background.


UBS next to Paradeplatz.

(Sony Nex-5 with Nikkor 24mm f/2.0 Ai-s.)

Tuesday Lunch Walk

Tuesday Lunch Walk

Da spring is coming! Do you know where the frozen spring in the background is?


Hey boss, little dove, how was your lunch!?

(with Sony Nex-5 and Nikkor 24mm f/2.0 Ai-s)

Fractals in Nature

Both pictures have been taken on a walk today at the same place, just one horizontally, while the second a meter away straight up - with the new Panasonic 20mm on the Panasonic G2, yeah, early Christmas present! Great lens and lot's o'fun.

Anyway, both, sujets reminded me of this older simulation from some time ago:

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The Niederdorf

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Zurich Niederdorf, 2012-11-24, from Lindenhof.

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