Enter Anat Liberman

On Friday, Dec 26th my wife gave birth to a healthy baby girl whom we called Anat. Everyone is happy, father is ecstatic. Galia has already started reading some books for her baby sister.





By the way, I reckon I should stop mentioning the lens which was used in order to take the picture. Methinks it is nearly insignificant.

Also, "Just like you" is the title of the book Galia is reading.

PAW 2008, Week 52

PAW 2008, Week 51

Most recently I have acquired a fairly used copy of Pentax SMC FA 24-90/3.5-4.5 AL IF lens. So far my impressions were rather mixed. Ideally, I thought of replacing my Tamron 28-75/2.8 (letter soup omitted for brevity) with this one. But it seems that Tamron is visibly sharper than Pentax. Anyway, here is a shot I made this weekend.



It seems that I've found a way to use Mogrify plug-in to my liking. So, hopefully, next year photos will be presented in a slightly more modern manner.

PAW 2008, Week 50

I've been processing more photos from the last weekend shoot. And also I've been playing a little with Mogrify plug-in for Adobe Lightroom...

All shot with Pentax SMC FA 43/1.9.

PAW 2008, Week 49

We had a shooting day today with the local camera club. There is this little street called Wadi Nisnas in Haifa where members of all three major religions celebrate their respective seasonal holidays. This is always a place where great number of photographers can be seen at work. So I went there and tried my bit of luck.

On a side note, I have found a nice plug-in for Adobe Ligthroom. It is called Mogrify. I can say that it does very nice things. I tried it in order to produce simple borders for my photos.

Enough words, here are the pictures.






All shot with Pentax SMC FA 43/1.9 Limited.

Ode to shopping (cont.)

Very soon after I posted my "Ode to shopping" picture I've received the following message to my private mailbox. It is posted here with explicit permission of the author.

Great shot. Reminded me of how "small" our world really is.
I knew the man who invented and patented the shopping cart. His patent was about 1938. One of his son's dated my sister. In about 1962. His family lived a few blocks away.
For some strange reason I couldn't figure out -- at the ages of 12 to 20 -- exactly how this guy could afford such a big house.
And, rather sadly, his two children, boys, have had a rather hard time of it. After their father died in the 1980's, they began to fight over the family money. And one became so distraught he killed himself.
The survivor, sort of a wastrel, the "sister-dater" ended up in a disastrous divorce when his "prenuptial agreement" was ruled invalid. And their familial home, a lovely Frank Lloyd Wright style home sitting graciously in a lovely setting, has been demolished to make way for some Giant Castle of a home ordered by a recently successful medical doctor.

So, the next time you see a Shopping Cart, say "Thanks, Syl Goldman." Wow! What a simple idea, and so much benefit! Probably more benefit than Windows Vista. Although not as much benefit as the K mount lens design.

Sorry, for the ramble, just reaching out -- 1/2 the way around the world.

I must say that I am amazed and humbled.

PAW 2008, Week 48

Ode to shopping
Pentax SMC A 50/1.2 at f/4.

PAW 2008, Week 47

Birds in the park
Pentax SMC A 50/1.2 at f/6.3

PAW 2008, Week 46

The fire within
Pentax SMC A 50/1.2 at f/2.5

PAW 2008, Week 45

Blue and White
Pentax SMC A 50/1.2 at f/6.3

PAW 2008, Week 44

A boat, a bird, a fisherman and a castle in the sand...
Pentax SMC A 50/1.2 at f/8.

PAW 2008, Week 43

Delicate...
Pentax SMC A 50/1.2 at f/2.4.

PAW 2008, Week 42

Up north ;-) we have a beautiful orchid park, called "Utopia". And Utopia it is.

A group of three...
Pentax SMCP FA 31/1.8 Limited at f/4.0.

Water lily
Pentax SMCP FA 31/1.8 AL Limited at f/4.5

I should mention that both photos were processed in Adobe Ligthroom 2.1 using trick of a negative clarity. It gives rather dreamy look to the picture.

PAW 2008, Week 41

Yellow mushroom
Pentax SMCP FA 31/1.8 AL Limited at f/3.5

PAW 2008, Week 40

I used to take a camera to my work. Since September however I changed jobs and now I am working for the new company. The offices are in rather opportunity rich (photographically speaking) area of Tel Aviv. Here is one of the first shots I've taken since I am thinking about restarting the Camera-at-Work project.

Speeding...
Pentax SMCP FA 31/1.8 AL Limited at f/4.0

PAW 2008, Week 39

Adobe Lightroom 2.0 added gradient filter function. I applied it here on the sky which looked rather washed out on the original shot.

Efteling park from above
Pentax SMCP FA 43/1.9 Limited at f/5.6

PAW 2008, Week 38

We also spent one day in Germany, in town of Monschau. As you can see, sometimes straight lines are impossible by design.

Straight, but not vertical #1
Pentax SMCP FA 77/1.8 Limited at f/4.0.

Straight but not vertical #2
Pentax SMCP FA 77/1.8 Limited at f/3.5.

PAW 2008, Week 37

Liege is most fascinating city. The industry is amazing. I couldn't stop wondering how people could live their whole lives in this place. It is so, well, industrialized.

Convergence
Pentax SMCP DA 16-45/4 ED AL, 16 mm, at f/8.0

Where clouds are born
Pentax SMCP DA 21/3.2 AL Limited at f/8.0.

PAW 2008, Week 36

Here comes my geekiness. This shot was taken at ISO 1250 (ISO 1600 being maximal with this camera) with exposure of 1/5 sec. Thanks to Pentax Shake Reduction technology and PRIME image processor, it is good enough to exceed all of my expectations with regard to sharpness and noise.

Napoleon IIIrd's wedding carriage
Pentax SMCP DA 21/3.2 AL Limited at f/4.

PAW 2008, Week 35

Our friend took us to this very unique photo shop. I think this guy has virtually any piece of gear within limits of reason. The rumor has it that he uses a special kind of clamp during sleep so as to keep the form of his mustache.

Photo shop owner
Pentax SMCP FA 77/1.8 Limited at f/2.8.

PAW 2008, Week 34

Cadillac
Pentax SMCP FA 77/1.8 Limited at f/6.3

PAW 2008, Week 33

Poetry of leaves and branches
Pentax SMCP DA 21/3.2 AL Limited at f/3.5

PAW 2008, Week 32

This summer Brussels was full of all kinds of photo-exhibitions. So here is an etude from one of them.

Chairs
SMCP DA 21/3.2 AL Limited at f/3.2

PAW 2008, Week 31

This year we traveled to Belgium and Holland. So, few PAWs from the trip follow.

Here is our Belgian friend from PDML shooting me, while I am shooting my daughter (and incidentally him as well) while she is shooting me while my wife is watching this process curiously. Naturally, all this is being done with Pentax cameras and lenses.

Triple duel (part I)
Pentax SMCP DA 21/3.2 AL Limited at f/5.0

Triple Duel (part II)
Pentax SMCP FA 43/1.9 at f/1.9

Triple Duel (part III)
Pentax Optio W30

Naturally, all images are posted with the permission of respective photographers.

PAW 2008, Week 30

Vanesa
SMCP FA 43/1.9 Limited at f/5.6

PAW 2008, Week 29

Life
SMCP A 50/1.2 at f/2.5

PAW 2008, Week 28

Utopia
SMCP FA 77/1.8 Limited at f/8.0

PAW 2008, Week 27

Moon shades
SMCP A 50/1.2 at f1.8

PAW 2008, Week 26

CATerpillar...
SMCP A 50/1.2 at f/8.0

PAW 2008, Week 25

There is a series of rock and pop music concerts in the ancient Roman amphitheater in the city of Caesaria this year.

There's gonna be some rock tonight...
SMCP DA 21/3.2 AL Limited at f/8.0

PAW 2008, Week 24

Windoze
SMCP A 50/1.2 at f/8.0

PAW 2008, Week 23

Green
SMCP FA 31/1.8 AL Limited at f/2.8

PAW 2008, Week 22

Fellow PDMLer and a great friend of mine presented me with the close up diopter filter. My longest lens is SMCP FA 77/1.8 Limited which I promptly tried.

Raspberries
SMCP FA 77/1.8 Limited at f/4.5

PAW 2008, Week 21

My Bike
SMCP A 50/1.2 at f/2.0

PAW 2008, Week 20

Speaking of wallpapers...
SMCP A 50/1.2 at f/8.0

PAW 2008, Week 19

This year the Independence Day (actually it is 60th birthday of State of Israel) happened to be exactly in the middle of 19th week ;-). Curious holiday, the Independence Day is. This year one of the bigger banks ordered a whole bunch of country flags in China. Unfortunately Chinese sub-contractors rotated the Star of David a little. All these flags came out badly. I think there is a law somewhere that demands that only geometrically correct flags be used. Anyway, we had a trip in the vicinity of Rothschild boulevard in Tel Aviv and I collected quite a few incorrect flags. Here they are.

SMCP A 50/1.2 at f/5.6.

SMCP A 50/1.2 at f/4.5

SMCP A 50/1.2 at f/4.5

PAW 2008, Week 18

And so I was, enjoying the speed and image quality of SMCP A 50/1.2 to the full. But then I realized, I haven't taken even a single shot at infinity range. That asked for a trip to the sea shores of Shfaim Nature Reserve.

Alone.
SMCP A 50/1.2 at f/9.

Just as well, this lens is not showing any color aberrations related to high contrast areas.

PAW 2008, Week 17

One of the peculiar things that is happening to you when you drive, is that you totally forget that there is a public mass transit system. So that when in Haifa we took a drive to the Science Museum only to find that there is no parking slot where our car would fit that would be reasonably close to the museum. Thus we had to return to the hotel, park the car there and ride the subway. Silly, don't you agree?

Yours truly.
SMCP A 50/1.2 at f/1.8.

As it turns out I can never properly level my camera ;-).