Saturday, December 28, 2013

Dreaming of a White Christmas

Every so often Lena gets tired of spending Christmas in Southern Californa and insists that we spend Christmas in Sweden and enjoy a traditional Christmas in Sweden. Unfortunately the weather in southern Sweden has a somewhat different interpretation of traditional Christmas, and what we generally get is rain, wind and clouds.

As luck would have it we did get some snow a couple of weeks before Christmas and Lena and I took the opportunity to pay another visit to Skäralid National Park. It made for a fantastic winter setting but it only lasted one day before the rains came and washed it all away.


This image was taken with the Canon 6D and my "walk-around lens" the 24-105L, post-processing done in PS Lightroom, with some extra saturation to bring out the red in the buildings.


This image is taken with one of my absolute favorite lenses, the Samyang 14mm f/2.8. Although this is a completely manual lens, you shouldn't be intimidated by the lack of autofocus. Even at f2.8 the depth of field will extend from 2m to infinity, so focussing is rarely a problem. This lens costs a fraction of what Canon's 14mm lens costs, and easily matches the Canon in most aspects, and surpasses the Canon for astro-photography where the Canon has a tendency to make stars look like commas.

And here is the Christmas weather we were dreaming about:


But I had to dig into the archives from 2005 and the Ice Hotel in Northern Sweden for this one.

Best wishes for a happy new year!

3 comments:

  1. Vidunderliga bilder som vanligt. Den i mitten kan man knappt tro skapats på svensk mark. Istället ser den "amerikansk" ut med storslagen terräng och blå himmel. Samyang ? Eftersom du skriver den optiken är bra ska det hållas i gott minne. Önskar dig Gott nytt 2014, måtte bilderna flöda in fritt och brett...
    / Deerhunter

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    1. Tack Klas! Och Gott nytt år till dig också! Skäralid brukar kunna leverera i alla säsonger :-)
      3500kr hos NetonNet för Samyang jämfört med 19000kr för Canons 14mm f/2.8, men jag köpte begagnad för under 3000kr. Känns som en av de bäste fotoinköp jag har gjort...

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