Introducing Year of the Alpha – 365 Days of Sony Alpha

[Kalainen]

Out of this world, Toni.

Hah! I knew I went to scifi with this one! Though I got to say that I was disappoined when I got to antenna. In my mind it had a red light on top it, but reality was more flat.

The Touit 2.8/12 is just great for this kind of shot: small focal lenght means I can expose the sky 27 seconds without stars movement and relatively large aperture 2.8 means it will suck light in. I took this picture in weak circumstances (in the city-area and with full moon) and can't wait to see how it performs when I finally get where my brother lives (middle of nowhere) during the winter nights. Should be able come up with great pics.

-Toni

--
Toni Ahvenainen (1976)
Year of the Alpha - 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: http://www.yearofthealpha.com
Flickr-account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/109262328@N06/

[Marcell Nikolausz]

Hi Toni,
Nice work. I really started to follow your blog recently, especially because of your close-ups and macros. Nice work with the Zeiss Touit 2.8/50. I still have mixed feeling about this lens. No question, that the picture quality is perfect, but the price for this perfection is too high for me. Medium priced or even cheap macros can make wonderful job, but I follow your blog, maybe you can convince me that there is some extra in Zeiss worth to pay. (In addition to the fact that there is no real alternative as native AF lens.)

Hi Marcell! I'm very glad to hear that someone is following this season particulary because of Zeiss. It feels that I'm reaching the right audience.

As for the Zeiss, it really is a nice lens - but I also very much understand your concern about the price (in real life it would be out of my reich). In coming posts I will tell about the image quality in more detail and after that I will try to contemplate particulary about this 'extra' what Zeiss brings to table. However, I don't want to see myself a person who will try to convince others to buy Zeiss - I'm not a marketing guy. If possible, I will share my Zeiss experience in detail and everyone will have to decide what it worth on their own. That way it's a fair game.

Do you have some special application/need for the macrolens or is it just for fun/hobby? If I know your needs better, I might be able to raise some points which might make it easier for you to determine if the Touit 2.8/50M fits for you.

-Toni

Hi Toni,

Macro photography is just a hobby for me, but a serious one. I have the SEL30M35, a sigma 50mm f2.8 and a minolta 100mm f2.8 macro, so getting a new one needs good arguments. But the price is too high anyway. Nevertheless I will follow your blog with great interest.

Best

Marcell

--
Toni Ahvenainen (1976)
Year of the Alpha - 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: http://www.yearofthealpha.com
Flickr-account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/109262328@N06/

[Kalainen]

Macro photography is just a hobby for me, but a serious one. I have the SEL30M35, a sigma 50mm f2.8 and a minolta 100mm f2.8 macro, so getting a new one needs good arguments. But the price is too high anyway. Nevertheless I will follow your blog with great interest.

Yes, you've got a pretty good setup right there, especially that 100mm Minolta. Many people take macro pictures with cheap extension tubes and while you can certainly take some pictures with them too, nothing beats a dedicated macro lens. Field curvature is usually non-existant with dedicated lenses and cross the frame sharpness too.

As for the Zeiss autofocus that you mentioned earlier, I've found out that it is much more convient to use in MF-mode when doing macro photography. Autofocus is pretty slow and can miss the target. It's nice to have for regular photography of course, but that's a different thing.

-Toni

--
Toni Ahvenainen (1976)
Year of the Alpha - 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: http://www.yearofthealpha.com
Flickr-account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/109262328@N06/

[Kalainen]

Season of Touit - Picture 11
Week 38, Wednesday - The obsession with contrast & color
"People who are into photography usually approach it from some particular point of view which is often individual and determines, at least to some extent, their photographic eye. For example, the composition might be something you always consider and come back, while others seek perfect light. Possibilities are endless and the one thing I am always drawn to in my photography is color. I love color and I'm always drawn to it at first. But to be truthful to you, my relationship with color is really a love-hate thing and [...]"

Read full post at my blog: http://www.yearofthealpha.com

Toni

--
Toni Ahvenainen (1976)
Year of the Alpha - 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: http://www.yearofthealpha.com
Flickr-account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/109262328@N06/

[Kalainen]

Season of Touit - Picture 12
Week 38, Saturday - Lemons
"One goal for this photography project has been that I should get to know better my own photographic eye, that is the way of seeing and photographing things which is unique to myself and stems from my visual history/interests. Getting to know your photographic eye is also growing as a photographer, since because of it, it becomes more clear who you are as a photographer and what is your photographic identity. While I haven't discussed about it for a while, I have still thought about more often and this certain silence about it has given me time to think about more carefully. The reason why I wanted to bring it up today relates to this particular picture of lemons. [...]"

Read full post at my blog: http://www.yearofthealpha.com

Toni

--
Toni Ahvenainen (1976)
Year of the Alpha - 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: http://www.yearofthealpha.com
Flickr-account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/109262328@N06/

[Birma]

Brilliant Toni! I really like the lemons. Did you find the stairs with yellow walls first, or were you looking for somewhere to match the lemons? I assume you've phitoshopped the lemons? Where you influenced at all by Chris Stewart's 'Driving Over Lemons"?

[Kalainen]

Brilliant Toni! I really like the lemons. Did you find the stairs with yellow walls first, or were you looking for somewhere to match the lemons? I assume you've phitoshopped the lemons? Where you influenced at all by Chris Stewart's 'Driving Over Lemons"?

Thanks for the kind words, Birma. Yes the lemos are photoshopped, kind of. These stairs go to train station and there is some traffic in them, so I knew I couldn't occupy it all with lemons. To solve this dilemma I bought 20 lemons and shot this picture in little pieces always moving the lemons two steps at once (my Nex-5N was of course on tripod). It took me 15 shots, which I combined later on in Photoshop. So it took me quite a quite a while moving lemons between the shots and going up & down at the stairs. There were also some passengers from time to time, and couple of times I had to explain what I was doing with the lemons - ever wondered how convincing one can be with a camera and set of lemons in a stairs?

I found the stairs already at earlier at this year, but had to think up what would fit in - and wait for the perfect light. Rather than influenced by Chris Stewart's 'Driving Over Lemons", I was more influenced by the smoothie which Sari did at one evening! For some reason it just clicked me when I saw the lemons color in our fridge before the smoothie. I know it's weird...

-Toni

--
Toni Ahvenainen (1976)
Year of the Alpha - 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: http://www.yearofthealpha.com
Flickr-account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/109262328@N06/

[the_hefay]

Wow! That lemon shot is interesting. The fact that it took several shots while moving lemons and trying not to look like you just escaped from some institution as people continue to use the stairs to get in and out is something special. Well done!

[Kalainen]

Wow! That lemon shot is interesting. The fact that it took several shots while moving lemons and trying not to look like you just escaped from some institution as people continue to use the stairs to get in and out is something special. Well done!

Hah, thanks Hefay! You know, it's difficult to see from the finished picture, but a guy with *just* 20 lemons on a stairs actually looked pretty stupid and I would have been a lot more credible with 300 lemons. I soon found out that I don't want to explain this to strangers as it makes me look even more stupid...

--
Toni Ahvenainen (1976)
Year of the Alpha - 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: http://www.yearofthealpha.com
Flickr-account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/109262328@N06/

[Kalainen]

Season of Touit - Picture 13
Week 39, Wednesday - Sea of Light
"Today's picture is something that was already shot some time ago. And it was actually taken by Sari, Aura's mother, while me and Aura were playing in the lake. One of my favorites of this summer for sure. There are two reasons why I wanted to include this picture in to 'Season of Touit'. First of all it's a good example how nice the Touit 2.8/50M can be shooting in standard range. Even though it is labeled as a macro lens, many times it works very nicely in standard photography too. The second reason is that the picture also exemplifies the optical quality of this lens [...]"

Read full post at my blog: http://www.yearofthealpha.com

Toni

--
Toni Ahvenainen (1976)
Year of the Alpha - 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: http://www.yearofthealpha.com
Flickr-account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/109262328@N06/

[the_hefay]

That's an amazing picture. Your Mother-in-law is a real pro at this.

[Kalainen]

That's an amazing picture. Your Mother-in-law is a real pro at this.

Thanks for the kind words and a small correction: Sari would be my spouse rather than Mother-in-law. But yeah, she is stealing the show from me slowly..

-Toni

--
Toni Ahvenainen (1976)
Year of the Alpha - 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: http://www.yearofthealpha.com
Flickr-account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/109262328@N06/

[Kalainen]

Season of Touit - Picture 14
Week 39, Saturday - Shadow Theatre
"I took this picture the other day when we were visiting local children's culture center. It has always been a good place to take some unconventional pictures of Aura because they change the exhibitions on a regular basis. This time their theme was children's theatre and they had all sort of hand puppets, costumes and props set up there. However the most exciting of them all, for me at least, was the shadow theatre. They had set up a projector and the screen where the shadows would projected, and behind the screen were seats for the viewers. For me the fascination of the shadow theatre lies in the way it reflects some core ideas of western philosophy and epistemology – but in a simplified child like way. [...]"

Read full post at my blog: http://www.yearofthealpha.com

Toni

--
Toni Ahvenainen (1976)
Year of the Alpha - 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: http://www.yearofthealpha.com
Flickr-account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/109262328@N06/

[Birma]

Great control of the light and I love the profile of Aura's face. Fabulous picture

[Kalainen]

Great control of the light and I love the profile of Aura's face. Fabulous picture

Thanks for the kind words, Birma!

-Toni

--
Toni Ahvenainen (1976)
Year of the Alpha - 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: http://www.yearofthealpha.com
Flickr-account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/109262328@N06/