URBAN PHOTOGRAPHS

Urban Expression And Depression By Infomatique

dublin castle

SAND SCULPTURES 2021 – DUBLIN CASTLE

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SAND SCULPTURES 2021 – DUBLIN CASTLE

It is funny how things work out. Today I went to a restaurant for lunch at 12:30 but I received a text message from the manager informing that, because of staff shortages, they could not open until 14:00.

As I had some time to spare I decided to visit Dublin Castle. I was aware that there had been an exhibition of sand sculptures in the upper courtyard but I had been advised that it had ended last Friday but much to my surprise I discovered that the sand sculptures were still intact.

Tomorrow I hope to visit the Botanic Gardens as the “Sculpture In Context” exhibition begins on Thursday but I hope to capture the artists in action as they install their sculpture.

I USED A TEN YEAR OLD SONY NEX-7

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DUBLIN CASTLE AND GROUNDS – I USED A TEN YEAR OLD SONY NEX-7

Unlike most people I do not sell my old cameras and I have all of them except for the Canon 5D which I gave to a friend on permanent loan. I did sell a few lenses because the were not full frame.

Today I decided to use my Sony NEX-7 and it booted up with no problem which surprised me as I have not used it about six years. However as I sold my cropped lenses I had to use a full frame lens [Zeiss FE 55mm F1.8 which is a beautiful lens].

I purchased my Sony NEX-7 about ten years ago and despite its many flaws it was one of my favourite cameras and it was the camera that resulted in me deciding to switch from Canon DSLR to mirrorless. At the time I also has a Canon 5D and a Canon 1Ds III. The DsIII was very expensive but my copy was faulty and I did not like it the 5D was excellent but I considered it to be too heavy and bulky despite its performance.

The Sony α NEX-7 is a digital camera announced 24 August 2011 by Sony. It is a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera and as such inherits a smaller body form factor than a traditional digital single-lens reflex camera, while still retaining the sensor size and features of an APS-C-sized model. It is targeted at experienced users, enthusiasts and professionals. It is replaced by the ILCE-6000 (α6000).

Albeit being delayed for a few months because of 2011’s Thai floods, the α NEX-7 was very well received by critics and users. In regions like Hong Kong, α NEX-7 was always running out of stock. DPreview.com and PhotographyBlog gave it their highest awards, with the highest score ever attained by an APS class camera. α NEX-7 also won the best camera in Camera Grand Prix 2012 under professional catalog, which was voted by a professional community consisting of 57 council members from the professional press field of the Camera Journal Press Club.

At the time of its release, the Sony Alpha NEX-7 had the best image quality among any mirrorless interchangeable-lens compact camera which had been tested by DxO Labs and also the best APS-C Sensor camera from Sony. Sony α65, Sony α77 and NEX-7 have similar sensors and received DxOMark Overall Scores of 74, 78, and 81, respectively. The image quality of NEX-7 can be comparable with Nikon D7000 (score 80) and Pentax K-5 (score 82)

HEIF FORMAT

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A QUICK VISIT TO DUBLIN CASTLE – SHOT USING HEIF FORMAT

I normally shoot in RAW but I am currently experimenting with an Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max and I used [by accident] HEIF and Lightroom Classic did not like the format and crashed a few times which has not happened for at least a year.

Sometimes colours [especially yellow] and skies can look a bit odd.

High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) is a container format for individual images and image sequences. The standard covers multimedia files that can also include other media streams, such as timed text, audio and video. A HEIF image using High Efficiency Video Coding, HEVC, requires only about half the storage space as the equivalent quality JPEG.

HEIF also supports animation, and is capable of storing more information than an animated GIF or APNG at a small fraction of the size.

HEIF files are a special case of the ISO Base Media File Format (ISOBMFF, ISO/IEC 14496-12), first defined in 2001 as a shared part of MP4 and JPEG 2000. Introduced in 2015, it was developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and is defined as Part 12 within the MPEG-H media suite (ISO/IEC 23008-12).

HEIF was adopted by Apple in 2017 with the introduction of iOS 11, and support on other platforms is growing

A QUICK VISIT TO DUBLIN CASTLE

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A QUICK VISIT TO DUBLIN CASTLE ON A VERY COLD AND FOGGY DAY IN DECEMBER 2020

Today was very cold and foggy … much too cold to carry a camera so I used my iPhone XR and the Halide App which allows me to capture RAW images. Based on the results using this combination I decided to purchase an iPhone 12 Pro Max because of the camera [I will not use it as a 5G phone].

Here is how Halide describe their App:
“Professional photographers know that shooting in RAW can enable better, more detailed photos. But the magic of RAW files is kept locked away to those that knew how to properly edit them. Halide’s Instant RAW lets you immediately capture shots with more detail, dynamic range and an authetic look — all without ever having to edit anything.”

DUBLIN CASTLE – GHOST CASTLE

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DUBLIN CASTLE LOOKS LIKE GHOST CASTLE – WHERE HAVE ALL THE PEOPLE GONE

At times, because of Covid-19 restrictions, when I walk around the city I feel as if I am a ghost who has returned to discover that it is not possible to see people and also nothing is exactly as I remembered it. The other possibility is that I am alive and everyone else is a ghost. Sometimes I do see someone far off in the distance but their faces appear to lack features and as I begin to approach the keep moving away.