Canals and roads. a 5 day trip to the Netherlands (Part 1 - A Place Beyond Belief)

Late August, early September. A crazy conversation, and between jokes and provocations. Suddenly, I see myself with plane tickets to fly to Amsterdam in 6 days.

Although traveling alone is awesome in all the possible ways there's a saying that goes by: "The joy of traveling is being able to share it somebody else" or something like that. Well, in this trip I can say that there's not a bigger truth. 

And yes, trust me when I say that I those 5 days traveling through Holland were some of the best I've ever lived. Perhaps I'm over exaggerating (I'm not) but you get the point.

We spent the days between Amsterdam, The Hague and Delft. An boy those cities are beautiful. I don't know how to explain it but there was an special atmosphere that it's hard to describe. 

After this introduction I'm just gonna let the photos speak for me and let you enjoy this trip as much as I did.

I'm dividing all the photos in 2 or 3 posts so you don't get bored with hundreds of images. 

---

All the photos have been taken with a Sony A7ii and the Zeiss 24-70 f/4

---

Summer taste Part 2 The mediterranean landscape

I promised a part two focusing only in the mediterranean landscape. Here it is.

I hope you enjoy the photos. These were taken in a very special moment as mentioned in the last post. Must admit that although you know I love the mountains, there's something really special about this place that never tires me and always surprises me and makes me more addicted to it. I guess company, thoughts and the fact that you can connect with nature as you are pretty isolated make a great combo and this time, all of that reshaped into this photographs.

PS: I want to tell you that the first picture (down below) is the first serious B&W digital picture that I have shot and mind you, the last picture is the first Digital and Color long exposure I've ever taken. Really, ever!  So if you have something to critique or just say (constructively) I am more than welcome to hear(read) your thoughts and opinions, so keep them coming :) )

Summer taste (part 1, El Perelló i Delta de l'Ebre)

June 23rd at night, "La nit de Sant Joan" what we catalans know as the shortest night of the year and the start of summer. It's for me practically one of the most if not the most special night of the year. Even for a winter and cold lover like me, saying hello to summer and summer nights are two things that I enjoy.

So with the intention of celebrating Sant Joan with a company that hardly could get better at one of my favorite places in this world, lost in the pure mediterranean coast and very near the Delta de l'Ebre natural park we enjoyed a disconnection from the world and celebrated these special days.

This has been the first time I've been enjoying and shooting the sony 100% for photography and for my own pleasure. Although I'm still getting used to zoom lenses, I'm pretty happy with the Zeiss Vario-Tessar 24-70mm f/4 I bought along with the camera.

So, consider these photographs my way of saying: "welcome summer".

PS: in this first part I'm uploading only the photos taken in a wonderful town called El Perelló and at Delta de l'Ebre natural park.

---

All photos taken with the Sony A7ii and the Zeiss Vario-Tessar 24-70mm f/4

---

Here's how special was the moon that night, once again nature left me out of words.

A welcome home and a not so typical "review" of the Sony a7ii and the Zeiss 24-70.

It's been a month and a half since my birthday. Yes it was a special day, and not only because I turned 24 which is leading me to the 25 next year. That day something big happened, a crazy investment. 

Everybody who follows my nonsense on twitter (@joanolleb) or in real life (poor you!, if you're reading this blog for the first time, welcome!) know that I call myself a film photographer because, well, I shoot film. Dah! 

Yet this time something different came in the way (as if I hadn't spoiled it with the tittle and the picture). As I manage to find my place in the "pro" and the fine art world, I found that for the first one, speed and time are very important things as clients want extremely short time file turnarounds so after a little thinking and a big amount of craziness we headed to the camera store and yes, ended up with a Sony A7ii.

Yes I know it's not 40 gazillion mp nor shoots internal 4k. And so, what? 24mp is more than enough for the size of the prints I'll make and how the work needs to be delivered. Plus 4K it's cool, yes but yet again, for an assigment by now 1080 is what is mostly asked and if I needed something else I'd rent an a7Sii. So no problem. Plus for my videos I'm more than covered with this beast. The S-log recording and the cine modes are just bliss.

Enough of this boring text let's dive straight to what we all want: How does it feel? Do I like it?

Oh with it I bought the Sony Zeiss, Zeiss Vario-Tessar 24-70 f/4 because I thought it's a nice tool to work because for my personal photos I'll be using my Nikon legacy glass and the Hasselblad, as always. But more on that later.

The camera is bliss, it's extremely small and light (coming from the 3 ton Hasselblad it's light as a feather), so it makes for the perfect hike companion. Plus it's weather sealed and the full body is made of magnesium alloy which makes it super resistant.

As said before it has the same 24mp sensor as the a7 but with improved autofocus and IBIS. 

ISO Is decent enough but I won't be shooting higher than 6400 so it's perfect for me and at base ISO the IQ is outstanding. That's what I call a WIN WIN.

The 5 axis IBIS is pretty convenient both for stills and for video, I've taken pictures at 1/10th without blur! And for video mixed with it's capabilities, recording in Slog and XAVC-S which makes its bitrate faster than the old a7s, is for me too much already to venture into the world of fine art videography or however it's called.

The EVF is superb. It's like looking at a massive TV inside of the camera, and I haven't found any drawbacks about the blackening after taking a photo whatsoever.

The flip flop back screen is gorgeous to look at but hey don't trust the film guy who only looks at his computer screen perhaps for the pixel peeper is not good. For me it's too good! Having a screen is nuts!

What about the lens? Well I've read tons of bad stuff about it and can say only one thing: Mine must be a defective one because it's stunningly sharp (perhaps a little bit soft on the edges at 24mm but nothing that I bothers me at all) and works smooth as a knife cutting through butter. Yes, the bokeh isn't comparable to anything we're used to: Loxia, Planar, summicron, etc but hey we're talking zooms here. So for a 24-70 f/4 it's decent and beautiful enough. Harsh and distracting depending on the background but overall I quite like it when the background is good.

---

What else is left to say? If you really want to know how does the camera work and the results of it go try it out, nobody will tell you if it suits you or not. I've had a lot of criticism because I bought this instead of the new A7Rii which has 42.4 mp and records 4K and it's just that I don't need that much at my level and for the work that people ask for, this is even too good. If some day I find myself shooting for VOGUE or ELLE I'll surely buy... LOADS OF FILM and make them drum scan it to a gazillion GB file to print!

Jokes aside, cameras are tools and we choose the tools we like to use to solve the things that our clients ask us to do. At the end of the day any review of some guy online will tell you what is like to use it and maybe what for some may be a bad ISO performance or a bad camera or lens for you can be the best you've ever shot with. Everything is relative my friends and with this I finish.

And oh! stay tuned because there are a few photos from the last 2 weeks coming later this week involving this camera and this lens, I hope you have enjoyed :) 

---

Quick Update

Well, it's been a long time since I posted something and I don't want you to think that this blog is dead. Not even close.

From the beginning of this year I've been devoted to film photography. Basically I haven't used a digital camera for my personal photography since December of 2014.

I've added one more step into my film photography. Until now I developed my own B&W film at home. Now I've started digitizing myself as well, so I've got complete control over my photos.

Below is one of my first attempts on digitizing film with a dslr and some extension tubes, although this concrete photograph has been made only with a 50mm lens.

Be sure to come back as in these last two months I've been traveling and exploring some places and there are plenty of photos and projects to come to the blog and the web.

---

 - Hasselblad 500 C/M - Carl Zeis Sonnar 150mm - Ilford HP5+ - Self Developed and scanned -

---

In Paradise with the Hasselblad

---

Little is left to say how special was this trip to the mountains. 

It was like a dream come true, everything was as I wanted it to look like, a cold, foggy and rainy day. And although it was mid winter I didn't get angry because there was no snow.

I think the Hasselblad has something magical and makes you see the world in a completely different way compared to all the cameras I've used and owned. Some of the photos look as if they were about to pop and get out from the screen or the paper.

It's not about composing in a square and seeing the world inverted as I had that shock when I bought a Yashica Mat 124G. It may be that I'm in love with the Hasselblad and everything related to "her" but I'm definitely experiencing a different way of shooting and viewing things.

This was my first trip with the "little" Hassie, and since I had taken these photos I've been wondering how would they look, as I was trying a new film in some conditions I've never shot before and I was shooting with a new camera.

I could be writing the whole day about how wonderful this camera is and how much I'd love to live isolated in the mountains as we did for a few days but I think it's better if you sit down, relax and take a look to that wonder that is nature.

---

All the photos have been taken with a Hasselblad 500 c/m - 80mm f/2.8 CT* and Ilford HP5+

---