Hamburg's Big River (Elbe) Freezing

[t00fri]

Here is what we enjoy right now up North (53 degrees):

The Elbe river is a really big one and is Hamburg's "principal blood vessel"...
After a number of much too warm winters, this year is back to normal, meaning that in January we get bright and cold weather (since the Golf stream has cooled down by then).

Have a look:

Ice,ice,...and the flood coming in









"Big" traffic on the cold river...








Typical northern style (an excellent restaurant actually )


We got here some of the oldest trees in Germany. This one is more than 500 years old...



Enjoy,
Fridger

PS: as always, 3.2 Mpix mobile phone camera, images much reduced to w=700 px

[chris]

Thanks for the winter photos. It's nice to see that you're getting some proper winter in Northern Europe. We had a stretch of cold weather in Seattle at the end of December. First time since I've lived there (~12 years) that I was able to do this:

http://picasaweb.google.com/claurel/Sno ... 1324750850

That was three blocks away from my house. You can imagine that getting a car up those hills was... tricky.

--Chris

[Chuft-Captain]

Nice one Chris,

Looks like this year is the year that I should have done the North American ski-trip I've been meaning to do for years.

I very much like the title "Snopocalypse".
However, IMHO you were getting just a little bit TOO excited considering the (at most 10 deg) gradient of that hill!

BTW. Judging by the color of the snow, your neighborhood is a lot cleaner than the River Elbe.

[t00fri]

Chris,

Thanks for the winter photos. It's nice to see that you're getting some proper winter in Northern Europe. We had a stretch of cold weather in Seattle at the end of December. First time since I've lived there (~12 years) that I was able to do this:

http://picasaweb.google.com/claurel/Sno ... 1324750850

Oh yes, I have enjoyed that video already right after you put it out to your album place! . Noted that admiring female voice . Descending E Columbus with skis would look a little different ....

That was three blocks away from my house. You can imagine that getting a car up those hills was... tricky.

--Chris

Surely NO GO (at least without snow chains). But it's probably much safer/easier to reach your house via 38th Ave => Norwood Pl, instead... ?

Fridger

[t00fri]

BTW. Judging by the color of the snow, your neighborhood is a lot cleaner than the River Elbe.

You might be surprised: While the Elbe was dangerously dirty before the Unification with Eastern Germany (due to bad pollution from the industrial Dresden area), the river has been completely cleaned since. It's now perfectly safe for swimming again and there is lots of (healthy) fish in there.

Fridger

[Chuft-Captain]

BTW. Judging by the color of the snow, your neighborhood is a lot cleaner than the River Elbe.

You might be surprised: While the Elbe was dangerously dirty before the Unification with Eastern Germany (due to bad pollution from the industrial Dresden area), the river has been completely cleaned since. It's now perfectly safe for swimming again and there is lots of (healthy) fish in there.

Fridger

I am surprised, but that is good news.

Not meaning to turn this into a photo forum (there's plenty of them), my guess is that you had the camera on auto exposure mode. (Check your EXIF info).
The trouble with the "so called intelligent" auto-metering systems in modern cameras is that they're not as intelligent as the person behind the lens. When the camera sees a scene with a lot of bright white like these shots, it assumes 18% grey as usual, and the result is underexposure of the scene, making snow come out as slightly dirty grey. (This can however be easily corrected on the computer if your camera handles a RAW format.)

If you're shooting in JPG, rather than RAW, it's more important to get an accurate exposure in-camera.
The solution in this situation is to either:
Put the camera in manual mode and use a grey card to lock your exposure, or if you don't have a grey card, spot-meter off an object in the scene approximating 18% grey,
or alternatively put the camera in Aperture or Shutter priority and use exposure compensation of 1.7 - 2.0 EV.
.... and maybe bracket your exposures.

There's my 2c worth anyway. Still nice photos though.
CC

EDIT: Oh, I see you used a mobile phone camera!! ( Disregard previous instructions!! They don't tend to have a manual mode, or Exp. comp. )
Actually, for a mobile phone those are nice photos.

[t00fri]

BTW. Judging by the color of the snow, your neighborhood is a lot cleaner than the River Elbe.

You might be surprised: While the Elbe was dangerously dirty before the Unification with Eastern Germany (due to bad pollution from the industrial Dresden area), the river has been completely cleaned since. It's now perfectly safe for swimming again and there is lots of (healthy) fish in there.

Fridger

I am surprised, but that is good news.

Not meaning to turn this into a photo forum (there's plenty of them), my guess is that you had the camera on auto exposure mode. (Check your EXIF info).
The trouble with the "so called intelligent" auto-metering systems in modern cameras is that they're not as intelligent as the person behind the lens. When the camera sees a scene with a lot of bright white like these shots, it assumes 18% grey as usual, and the result is underexposure of the scene, making snow come out as slightly dirty grey. (This can however be easily corrected on the computer if your camera handles a RAW format.)

If you're shooting in JPG, rather than RAW, it's more important to get an accurate exposure in-camera.
The solution in this situation is to either:
Put the camera in manual mode and use a grey card to lock your exposure, or if you don't have a grey card, spot-meter off an object in the scene approximating 18% grey,
or alternatively put the camera in Aperture or Shutter priority and use exposure compensation of 1.7 - 2.0 EV.
.... and maybe bracket your exposures.

There's my 2c worth anyway. Still nice photos though.
CC

EDIT: Oh, I see you used a mobile phone camera!! ( Disregard previous instructions!! They don't tend to have a manual mode, or Exp. comp. )
Actually, for a mobile phone those are nice photos.

CC,

I was using the most fancy auto-metering method that is available for that mobile phone: it's matrix based, with plenty of measuring points distributed over the entire image. The weighting algorithm is FFT based (Fast Fourier Transform) , Also, the white-level and color temperature can indeed easily be corrected /after/ the exposure. There is no RAW mode available in that camera. But I know pretty well how to handle JPG with a minimum of losses....

Incidentally, do you use a high-quality digital TFT monitor with a standard color rendering profile implemented?? If yes which one? If no, that would explain most of your comments . Next to my high-quality digital monitor, I have a 19" analog monitor , that is simply unable to do a satisfactory color rendering of whites, grays etc.

From your other post, it seems that you rather use a simple, builtin Intel 82xxx graphics chip with current driver problems? And all that in a laptop screen?
Corresponding color artefacts can easily be larger than those from good auto-meters of digital cameras

I think the color of the ice is quite like it actually looked like in these rather extreme lighting conditions (against the setting sun). A plain white color would have been incorrect simply for the reasons that

-- most of the shots were done right AGAINST the sun.
-- the sun was already low down (only one more hour to shine) with corresponding shifts in the color temperature.
-- it was quite hazy.

Moreover, I had to do a strong reduction from 2048 -> 700 pixels in width, which lowered the color quality somewhat.

Fridger

[Chuft-Captain]

Incidentally, do you use a high-quality digital TFT monitor with a standard color rendering profile implemented?? If yes which one? If no, that would explain most of your comments . Next to my high-quality digital monitor, I have a 19" analog monitor , that is simply unable to do a satisfactory color rendering of whites, grays etc.

My TFT is out of action at the moment. I think the backlight's kaput!! The laptop monitor is definitely inferior especially wrt contrast. So yes that may well explain my comments. I'd still recommend spot metering off a selected object (if you have spot-metering available on the phone).
What you don't want in this situation is an *average exposure* from a matrix-metering method, because with a LOT of white you'll get under-exposure. Matrix metering is usually extremely effective for scenes with a more typical range of contrasts. (Some of those scenes probably meet that criteria, but if snow filled the majority of the frame... probably not.

From your other post, it seems that you rather use a simple, builtin Intel 82xxx graphics chip with current driver problems? And all that in a laptop screen?
Corresponding color artefacts can easily be larger than those from good auto-meters of digital cameras

I think the color of the ice is quite like it actually looked like in these rather extreme lighting conditions (against the setting sun). A plain white color would have been incorrect simply for the reasons ....

I would agree with you. Now that you point out that much of the scenes are actually ice rather than snow, then that makes sense, as in fact ICE does tend to be closer to a grey color than snow.

[Reiko]

Just looking at those photos makes me cold.

[t00fri]

Just looking at those photos makes me cold.

I am sorry for that So looking at your avatar, I suppose your face is turning dark blue now??

Fridger

PS: Look how the hazy winter sun looks like: it's precisely how it looks in Stellarium! It would be great to have a similiarly natural Sun rendering on Earths surface in Celestia...

[cartrite]

Hi Fridger,
Nice pics.
Cold here too.

dscf0020a.jpg

cartrite