eastTour pictures online

Finally they are here :-)

Why HDR (sometimes) sucks

I cannot believe this my first post about a technical fotography aspect in 3 years.
For some time now, I see there a lot of these HDR pictures on the web like on flickr for instance.
I am sure most of you know how these High Dynamic Range images are made and how they look. In case you don't, here's a short introduction:
At first you take several pictures of the same motive but with different "exposure" settings.

Then you transfer your pictures to your computer. The rendering software then produces a high dynamic range image.


As you can see, in this example (taken from the English Wikipedia) the results can be stunning. Especially when the lighting makes good results almost impossible.

OK, but there are MAAAANY "bad" examples...

or
Don't get me wrong. There are some really nice and impressive HDR images out there but lately I've mostly seen pictures like the two examples above. Let's hope some people stop exaggerating ;-)

Paris Picture Collection

Today I finally found the time to upload some of the pictures I've taken in Paris. Unfortunately I had no photo buddy with me so I got sometimes kinda bored cause taking pictures all alone in the cold isn't as much fun as it would be with the 'ours de chocolat' ;-)

Paris Picture Collection

Paris Day 1

Yesterday afternoon at 5PM I arrived at the hotel. The flight and traveling by train from the airport to our hotel went better than personally expected eventhough the train had some delayment.
The hotel so far is in a good location (Google Maps link) and I have internet Access here. To be honest the inet connection was even in China better but most important is I can stay in contact with others so I won't complaint anylonger.
After unpacking I took a little walk at the evening to check out the surrounding area. Right after the start I got lost in the area where Hospital Saint-Louis is located but fortunately some very friendly guys helped us to get back on the right way. I have to admit here that I didn't expect this kind of nice behaviour by the French but I am more than impressed afterwards. After passing Republique and I was heading to the Notre Dame finally. Of course I took some first testing pictures and after my ass was almost frozen I went back cause it got already 23:20h.
Oh yeah and then Kristin and I had the best Crepe in the world. Really delicious and more than just recommendable. Yeah, after that there was some grocery shopping for New Year's Eve and now I think it is time to sleep. Au revoir.

Microsoft Photosynth goes live

While checking the usual IT news websites I found out that Microsoft Live Labs finally released their incredible Photosynth web application. On photosynth.com you can download the needed browser plugin after you logged in with your live-ID but believe me it is worth it.
Here's a little test: Castle in Hesse

New old galleries

During the last weekend I rearranged the pictures I took in Norderney and in China.
The Norderney collection contains now 82 pictures and the China collection includes now all 731
(!) pics. Unfortunately now I noticed that I would take many of the China photos in a different way than I took them almost a year ago...

So here they are:

Norderney
China 2007

All good things...

Fuck, fuck, fuck. The day before yesterday I did a "little"walk to a wreck at the eastern end of the island of Norderney. Many warned me it would take too long to go on foot but of course the incredible stupid Koteshi didn't listen and walked the 15,48 km to the wreck and another 15,48 km back...
I don't have to say my knees and feet hurt like hell right now, but at least I can go to the spa area of my hotel, relax there, enjoy the pictures I took in the last few days and feel proud about what I have achieved so far. Oh yeah, somebody really isn't modest today ;)
Oh I also uploaded some new pictures here.

some Cranger Kirmes pics

Just uploaded some pictures I took on the Cranger Kirmes last Tuesday.
Enjoy and click here for the gallery :o)

take a seat and enjoy the tour

Ok ok, it is not a real tour, but I made a little compilation of pictures that I have taken since the beginning of this year.
Some of them were made with Patti and me on tour and some alone on my own.

You find pictures taken in the first two month of 2008 here.

Almost forgotten

Hah, because of some post-china stress I almost forgot to post the link to gallery containing the last few pictures. It is not a bunch of pics like the other days but I slept over 7 hours on the flight from Shanghai Pudong to Moscow Sheremetyevo...
So here, it is:

day 15 - the way home :'-(

SIDENOTE: Alltogether I made 3032 pictures on my trip. That's a file volume of 32,3 GB because I just took RAW pictures. But even as JPEG they still have a total size of 15,7 GB.

The first ten days - picture overview

Here's are the pictures of my China trip that I have uploaded so far:

• Day 1 - Duesseldorf Airport, Charles de Gaule, Guangzhou Hotel
  
• Day 2 - Teemall, Citic Plaza
  
• Day 3 - Baiyun Airport Guangzhou, Beijing Airport
  
• Day 4 - Tian'anmen, Houhai
  
• Day 5 - Wangfujing shopping street, Sega Game Center, Da Dong Restaurant
  
• Day 6 - Tian'anmen, Forbidden City, Liqun Restaurant
  
• Day 7 - Tiantan
  
• Day 8 - Bus trip, Great Wall, Wangfujing shopping street
  
• Day 9 - Houhai, China Post, Liqun Restaurant, Bars
  
• Day 10 - Beijing University, Shanghai Transrapid (Maglev)

Have fun ^^

Ta da :)

As promised, here are some of the picture gallery links ^^

• Day7 - Tiantan, Houhai Lake
• Day8 - Great Wall

The rest will follow later.

Some news about Beijng

Long time no see because of 2 reasons:
1. Walking 10 hours a day make you somewhat fainted and
2. the Internet in the hotel is not as stable as in Guangzhou.
OK, but after some stress I finally arrived in Beijing on Monday evening.

UPDATE:
Seems like the hotel intern network is really a pain in the ass and some websites that usually work in China are blocked. Suprisingly koteshi.com is one of them...

Well stay tuned for some updates when I go to Shanghai on October 1st.

Happy birthday to me ;-)

Today is/was my birthday. It was a very stressy day, so I only post two links to picture galleries because it is already 2:22 AM here and in about 10 hours my flight will depart to Beijing...

BTW: Thank you for all the happy-birthday-messages ^^

Pics:

• Day 1: Flight to China + first impressions
  
• Day 2: First 'real' day walking through Guangzhou

Further descriptions will follow :)

Loveparade 2007 - Essen

Wow. what a crazy crowd.
Click HERE to find some pictures. I will go to bed now, I'm too sleepy.

Cranger Kirmes Day 9

Here are some pics that were taken during the 9th day of the famous Cranger Kirmes :)
So Aileen should be happy now and everybody else who waited for the pics aswell ;)

Cranger Kirmes Opening

Yesterday I took some pics during the opening of the Bayernzelt at the Cranger Kirmes.
Enjoy it, here ;)

Greetings from Switzerland

Grüezi Mitanand :)

Right now I'm having here a great time in Switzerland. Besides Chocolate we had many other good impressions about the swiss way of life too.
Fortunatelay we had much time and beautiful weather here and made (IMHO) great pictures in the forests ^^
OK, have to leave now for breakfast.

Bye bye Matthias