Today it snowed “quite a bit”. So I decided to take my camera out and go to the cemetery (Innerer Neustädter Friedhof) just opposite of my home. As it got a bit dark, I decided to use the Canon 50 f1.8 II (as it did still snow exchanging the lens wasn't an option). Unfortunately the temperature was just above 0 °C, so I wrapped it in a plastic bag. This makes the usage a bit more difficult, but the basics are quite easy to do (here I was glad again to have the thumb wheel, as a wheel is quite easy to operate with it distinct size and structure). I used a very thin bag for the bin, but these are frosted so you almost cannot see anything clear through them, which basically means no usage of the monitor :-(. The quality of the pictures is quite good, but the white balance is off on some of them.
But first two shots of the balustrade of my balcony. Left before I went to the cemetery and on the right after I returned. It did snow a bit while I've been away shooting showing the white balance problem (I have got the RAW of the second one but it's almost monochrome anyway)…
Some pictures from the cemetery. There are more on flickr. One I like best are the benches in the snow:
This might be a Cyanotype sometime.
Yesterday there was a big winter storm. I assume that this tree and the bench were overthrown then.
Even angels have to carry quite a bit…
As the snow was quite wet, the trees were laden with it. With the 50 mm lens just a few nice shots succeeded.
Coming back home, the bike chained to the bicycle stand of the cinema “Casablanca” in the house were I live looked quite impressive:
Some more “cemetery like” impressions:
Just some technical note: for many of the pictures I used an exposure correction of +1/3 up to +1 EV. Actually this worked quite nice even without the direct checking on the monitor. Just the white balance is a bit of a problem and in such a situation with limited control of the camera I don't know how to avoid it but to use RAW and to do a better white balance on the PC—which I don't want to do for every picture as it is too much work.
If it would have been just a bit colder (lower than -1 °C), then I would have tried to use the camera without a bag around it hoping the snow would just roll off without melting…
What kind of bag?
(Noticed some kind of weird server error while submitting my comment.)
This one:
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The bag: I used a very thin plastic bag for a trash bin, nothing fancy but works nicely even though it is frosted. On the lens I fixed the opening with a rubber band. For the viewfinder I did cut a small hole into the bag and fixed this with a rubber band as well. As the plastic is very thin, you can operate the camera quite nicely (ok, you can't move the wheel as freely as normal, but you get used to it), it would just be better if it would be clear. Using rubber band for fixating the bag is not perfect, as it tends to slip out of position but I didn't want to use some kind of duct tape. I think the next time I'll try to use some kind cling film (Saran wrap), but I'm not sure if this is as leakproof...
The error: I'll have a look into it... Many thanks for the message.