Sunset at the Hammarsund bridge

July 27th, 2008 Peter Korkala

Today when I drove to my job I took a detour of about 15 km, and passed the Hammarsund Bridge just about sunset. These are some of the around 100 photos I took:

The bridge is located at the northern tip of Sweden’s second largest lake, lake Vättern.

I can say that it was definitely worth the extra fifteen kilometers to get these photos! And the road on this way is much better (not as curvy and hilly as the shorter way), which is a nice bonus.

Tags: lake vattern, photo, sunset, bridge

Posted in Photo | 5 Comments »

A day at the beach

July 26th, 2008 Peter Korkala

Junior is bathing.

Laying at the beach, and junior is bathing.

A dragonfly joined us for a moment
Tags: photo, beach, lake, dragonfly

Posted in General, Photo | 6 Comments »

Sky watch Friday - Vasselhyttan

July 26th, 2008 Peter Korkala

Here’s my contribution to the Sky Watch Friday - a bit late but anyway…

I took the photo on my way home yesterday, in Vasselhyttan (a tiny village).

Tags: photo, sky watch friday

Posted in Photo, sky_watch_friday | 11 Comments »

New job

July 24th, 2008 Peter Korkala

Just a quick post here. I’ve started my new job as a core driller, and everything is great. But I don’t have the time to post so much, so I’m only going to offer you one photo I took yesterday:

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After the thunderstorm

July 22nd, 2008 Peter Korkala

The central parts of Kopparberg. The red house to the left is the police station.

I took this through my windscreen, but it’s rather good anyway. I love the strong colors and the contrast against the dark sky.

Tags: photo, kopparberg, rain, thunder

Posted in Photo | 1 Comment »

Photos from a country walk (updated)

July 19th, 2008 Peter Korkala

I took a country walk this afternoon, to get more practice with my new camera. These photos passed my “quality check”:

I love photos with unsharp background - “bokeh” (that’s a Japanese word, huh?)

Harebells. They are very common around here.

A butterfly of unknown species. This photo is cropped.

I’ve investigasted a bit more about the species of the butterfly, and it seems to be a Queen of Spain Fritillary (Issoria lathonia). In Swedish it’s called Storfläckig pärlemorfjäril.

Two beetles on a common daisy. This photo is a bit unsharp, so it really didn’t pass my quality check, but I’ll throw it in here anyway.

Tags: photo, flowers, bugs, bokeh

Posted in Photo | 8 Comments »

Visitors, geographic representation

July 19th, 2008 Peter Korkala

During the last month, Jun 18 - Jul 18 my visitors came from these countries:

It’s really funny to see where you are coming from, but them I’m both a map geek and a statistics geek. :)

I think I’ll start to publish this kind of statistics once a month. If you don’t want to see it, just skip it, OK? :)

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My first Sky Watch Friday

July 18th, 2008 Peter Korkala

This is my first contribution to Sky Watch Friday:

The old Court House in Kopparberg (see more pictures of it here).

Update:

I took a photo of the rainbow a couple of minutes ago (actually it’s two rainbows), and since it’s Sky Watch Friday I have to put it here, of course:

Tags: photo, tingshuset, sky watch friday, rainbow

Posted in sky_watch_friday | 14 Comments »

View from Bastkärn to Fjällberget

July 17th, 2008 Peter Korkala

This photo is taken from Bastkärn, a tiny, tiny village less than 10 km from my home. The village in the valley is Silverhöjden, another tiny, tiny village here. At the horizon you can see mount Fjällberget, the highest mountain in this area (466 m). The border between my (Ljusnarsberg’s) municipality and the northern neighbor, Ludvika, is somewhere in the forest between Silverhöjden and Fjällberget. The road on the photo is called R50, and is the main road around here. During the winter the trucks are having big problems getting uphill here, at least when it’s snowing.

There are five wind power stations in the Fjällberget area, and they’re planning on building between 15-20 additional wind power stations there. I don’t mind though, I think they’re kind of beautiful to look at, and the energy generated is very environmentally friendly. I have some great (close up) photos in my archive from the construction of these wind power stations, I have to post them here some day.

Tags: photo, Sweden, wind power station, Bastkärn, Fjällberget

Posted in Photo | 4 Comments »

Heavy rain, Lake Hörken

July 17th, 2008 Peter Korkala

On my way to Grängesberg today I drived  by Lake Hörken. It was raining very much at the moment, so I didn’t want to step out of the car. The picture is taken from inside the car (yes, I stopped at a safe place first).

Here’s a photo I took a couple of minutes ago (about 10:30pm), when I was walking one of our two dogs. It’s not perfect in any way, the sky is overexponated and the trees to the left are unsharp. But it will serve as a first photo taken in the dusk. I will have to practice more, and probably bring the tripod (but not when I’m walking the dog). And as you see the weather got better during the evening.

Tags: photo, Sweden, lake, Hörken, dusk

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Hailstorm

July 17th, 2008 Peter Korkala

Todays weather at noon: hail, rain and +13 degrees C:

I hope it’ll be better soon, I want to go for a ride and take some photos - but I don’t want to bring my new camera out in this weather…

Tags: photo, Sweden

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Malmtorget, Kopparberg

July 17th, 2008 Peter Korkala

Malmtorget, central Kopparberg:

Malmtorget means Ore square in English, it sound’s really strange. :)
Kopparberg is in the middle of an old mining area called Bergslagen, hence the connection to Ore. We’re having many street names and such with connection to the mining industry.

Tags: photo, Sweden, Kopparberg

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Panned photos

July 16th, 2008 Peter Korkala

I tried an interesting technique with my new camera today: panning.

My old camera was too slow to manage this, but the EOS 450 is able to take 3.5 photos/sec and that’s really good. A lot of the photos were blurred all over, but some of them were pretty good (photos linked from my Swedish blog):

1/80, F11, ISO200, 25 mm

The same photo, but I cropped it down a bit:

Another one:

1/80, F7.1, ISO200, 51 mm

And the last one for today:

1/125, F7.1, ISO200, 42 mm.

I almost filled up my 2 GB card today - lucky me that I ordered a 8 GB SDHC yesterday! The files are very big, between 15-20 MB each (I’m saving them in RAW-format), and my 2 GB card can only hold around 120 photos. The new 8 GB card can hold between 550 and 600 RAW-photos, and with the 2 GB card as a backup in my (new!) photobag I think it’ll be enough - but you’ll never know…

I have a lot to learn about the camera, but it’s very fun! And I love the thought of getting additional lenses some day. I would love to have a 300 mm zoom lens, and a wide angle lens (maybe 10-15 mm). And then I would like to have a very light sensitive lens to take photos of the moon and the stars, but they’re very expensive.

Tags: photo, panning, eos 450

Posted in Photo, Photographing | 5 Comments »

A first photo with the new camera

July 15th, 2008 Peter Korkala

OK, here’s a first test, taken with my new Canon EOS 450:

There is really a LOT to learn, but it’s very funny!

Tags: canon, eos 450, photo

Posted in Photo | 2 Comments »

New camera!!

July 15th, 2008 Peter Korkala

Yes!!

I just ordered a new camera! In a few hours I’m going to be a proud owner of a Canon EOS 450D (or Rebel XSi for you americans)!

This will be fun!!

Tags: canon, eos 450

Posted in General | 4 Comments »