Photos from Gothenburg

OK, it's time to get back to the camera again after relocating and doing a few business trips with my new employer. The spring is just beautiful right now. The weather has been great my first two weeks in Sweden, so there is an explosion of colors going on right now. I took the opportunity to shoot from the top of the building where I work in heart of Gothenburg.On my may way home I stopped by a park close to where we live. This is also where you find the church where I married my wife a "few" years ago. Every spring the hills get all white from the flowers.
Click here to view the complete set of photos.

Relocated ! !

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I've been busy and off line for some time. As you might know we've decided to relocate back to Sweden. I moved here mid April and the rest of the family will join early August. I will return to San Diego for a few weeks during June to wrap things up and have vacation. The photo below pretty much summarize my life moving into our very empty house. The first dinner was a pizza in our office which was the only table and chair available. By now, I've found mor furniture and stuff in the addict and the storage rooms. Click here to view more photos from this set.

Birch Aquarium & La Jolla Walk

I went to Birch Aquarium (click for slide show) with my photo buddy Walter who was kind enough to bring me as his guest. We shot at Shutter priority set to 1/125s and ISO 2000 (yapp two thousand). Still, it is very hard to capture sharp images.After the aquarium we did a La Jolla walk from the Cove to the Children's pool and back. It's a really nice walk with a lot of thngs to photograph.

PQ Canyon goes Vivid

I did a hike in the Canyon close to where we live to try out my new camera backpack, the Lowpro Slingshot 300 AW. I've been looking for a camera bag or backpack for a long time. Yesterday, I decided to buy the Slingshot and it worked really well and holds all my equipment. It is very easy to switch to a lens that is in the backpack without even taking the backpack off. The various storage places are well designed.

I also decided to try out the Vivid setting in my Nikon D300. All the photos are in Vivid mode and uploaded without any post processing (click for slide show). I know, some of you might say that the photos look really too saturated, but is actually closer to reality than what the camera captures in Normal mode and I think it looks cool.

I passed a milestone with my D300 today. Since I got it 12 days ago I've now shot over 7,000 images. That includes a number of test sessions, photo outings at various places and an event. Of course, the images with any decent quality represents only a fraction of the total number of images. Nevertheless, it is a joy shooting with the D300 so all those images where shot with no major effort.

Quail Gardens - again

I visited Quail Gardens in Encinitas (click for slideshow) with a friend to show her the Gardens and get her out shooting. Even though I visited the Gardens only a few days ago, it was a great outing with a lot of fun and nice shooting. One reason it was a pleasure was of course trying out my new D300 and the lenses. Both the Nikon 70-300 VR and the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 are great lenses. I guess the main subject for this shooting was the big frogs in the pond at the Gardens. Cool guys making a lot of noise and fighting about who's the boss.
I played a bit with the WB settings in the post processing in the waterfall shots that I think made them look interesting. I've said it before and I say it again, it's almost as fun doing the post processing as the actual shooting, especially when using Lightroom. I've recently began using Capture NX, which came with my D300. I must say that it is a very strong competitor to Photoshop. Easy and fun to work with. I'm also looking forward to trying the Lightroom 2.0 Beta that is out now. It has some really cool features, similar to the Capture NX local changes in an image.

Catching up on blogging

I have done quite a bit of shooting lately, but not so much blogging. So, here are a few catch-up posts. One of the reasons I've been busy shooting is my new D300 and a couple of new lenses. What can I say, it's like early, or late, Christmas. Another reason I've been shooting a lot is to document as much as possible of San Diego, as we're in the process of leaving San Diego and moving to Sweden. Expect different type of nature photos in the future. With the spring coming I'm really looking forward to explore the nature in Sweden with my camera.

First Nikon D300 shots

Finally, my new Nikon D300 and a couple of lenses arrived. I took the opportunity to shoot in the neighborhood (click for slideshow) to try it out. IMPRESSIVE!! Image quality good enough straight out of the camera for web publishing (see below, only minor editing like cropping), user interface is amazing and the ergonomics are just great. Sooooo fun shooting. There is no going back to my D70. I only hope that the kids will pick it up and start exploring photography. The D70 will most likely also be used as a second body when needed.

San Diego Harbour

Took the opportunity to take photos from the Coronado bridge overlooking the San Diego Harbour (click for slideshow) while Eric was practicing driving.

Nature Tour

I took a day off exploring nature in North County as the poppies where in bloom. The poppies makes the nature look like the hill sides are on fire. The areas north of Lake Hodges (click for slideshow) was just beautiful.


I also spent a few hours at Quail Gardens, where is this little fellow lives in a pond. There are more Quail garden photos to come - soon.