I’m not saying that the village where I live looks like this all the time, but occasionally, it does … and it’s quite nice when it does.

Let’s continue my “photo posts” series with two portraits of Albus who is a German Shepard, which is pretty obvious to most people. Although big, he is a wonderful and very kind dog, who seems to be very fond of children … and cats … but the cats are not fond of him.

For those who speaks Swedish: jag antar att alla andra vet om detta men “schäfer” betyder bokstavligen “fåraherde” … det är mindre än ett år sedan jag lärde mig detta !!

Jag insåg plötsligt att det är ganska sällan att jag lägger upp några av de bilder jag tar. De hamnar oftast på något annat konto, på nåt ställe där ingen hittar dem eller så laddar jag inte upp dem alls.

Det vore nog bra om jag ändrade på detta, så jag börjar med en bild ur dem samling jag sitter och redigerar just nu. Denna är en ögonblicksbild från en gradering till 5:e dan i ju-jutsu kai, det som du ser är en händelse i katan Kime No Kata som ska utföras just till 5:e dan (det är den enda katan i hela systemet numera).

Sigh, just discovered a few things that’s going to cost me some money.

I have a couple of flashes that I used to use a lot, this meant that I had a fair number of AA batteries. About 1.5 year ago I bought a Godox flash with a special battery (+ one extra battery) and I’ve been using that flash exclusively since then. This means that my AA batteries have been left unused since then … and uncharged.

Yesterday, I decided to try a camera that I haven’t used in a long time, so I put the camera batteries in the charger, and also started to charge my AA batteries. And … very sad face … it seems like all my AA batteries are dead, I’ve tried several different chargers but the batteries don’t take any charge at all.

Even worse is that the camera batteries doesn’t seem to charge either, when I put the first one into the camera – after charging it – I got a message “This battery can’t be used”.

In short: look after your batteries!!

No, I’m not talking about my stomach … although it’s also widening … unfortunately … I’m talking about lenses. It appears that the older I get, the wider I go.

When I bought my first SLR as a teenager, I considered a 135 mm a wide lens and preferred a 200 mm or 400 mm. When I bought my first DSLR I used something like a 24-120 zoom for almost everything, later I’ve become fond of prime lenses, first a 90 mm, then 85 mm, then 50 mm, then 40 mm and the latest lens I bought was a 28 mm.

I don’t understand why this has happened, but I find it interesting that this happened. I still use my zoom lenses a lot, but I’m increasingly drawn to prime lenses. Currently, my favorites are the 85/1.8 + 28/2.8 for my Nikon, and the 40/2.8 on my Ricoh IIIx.

I wonder what I will be using in two-three years 🤔

On YouTube, there are many “What’s in my photo bag”-videos, it’s both silly and fascinating … so I can’t resist making a “What’s in my photo bag”-post. I’m actually going to make several posts, since I use different gear for different situations.

My mini bag

This is my mini bag, I usually put these two bags in my workbag, or toss them in the car when I’m going somewhere. The GR IIIx is my everyday camera, it’s a quite fantastic camera in a tiny body. To be completely honest, I typically only have the GR IIIx in a pocket, and nothing more.

So what’s in the photo?

• A small Lowepro pouch
• A Maxpedition pouch. I bought it a few years ago for a different purpose.
• My Ricoh GR IIIx HDF
• SD card, 128 GB. There is no chance that I will fill this card.
• Two batteries — one in the camera
• A slightly damaged card reader that I can use with my phone, infrequently used since I rarely edit photos “on the go”. I normally use my iPad and a better card reader.
• A small old power adapter
• A short USB-A to USB-C cable, used for charging batteries in the camera if needed.
• A short USB-A to Lightning cable to charge my phone.

The Lowepro bag is strictly a “transport” bag, i.e., it should protect my camera when I have it in my workbag, or when I throw everything in the car. If I expect to use the camera, I remove the bag and put the camera in my pocket. And if I expect to be out and about for a longer time, I put the Maxpedition pouch in a pocket.

My mini bag, deluxe edition

First, I very rarely use this, but I’ve actually tried doing indoor sports photography with acceptable results. Not something I would actually use, but it can be done.

What’s added to the setup is

• Some small pouch that I bought 15–25 years ago.
• A small flash from LightPix Labs.
• AA-batteries, in flash.
• Some filters that came with the flash

As you can see, the flash is small, but it’s fairly powerful. One thing that’s not obvious from the photo is that it’s possible to remove the “hot shoe”-part of the flash, and use it to remotely control the flash.

This makes the flash really powerful since I can use it off-camera. While it’s a completely manual flash, I find it not too difficult to get a decent exposure. I wouldn’t hesitate to do some portrait photography using this setup (I would improvise some kind of reflector and a diffusor).

So the whole setup looks like this when packed.

Yesterday I got my new wide-angle lens, new and new … it’s an old second-hand lens (14-24/2.8) from MPB, and it’s a giant piece of glass. Compared to my other lenses it’s “silly big”, I’m starting to get a bit worried if I can fit it in my rucksack!!

Anyway, I went out today to test it and here is my first shot … and it’s going to take some time to get used to this lens. When I took this photo, I could almost touch the sign—I’m not used to that.

I then tried to take some more “open landscape” photos, and it’s really different from my other lenses. I was standing right beside a tree, not visible in the photo, and the branches from it were visible in the frame, so I took a step forward and made a second attempt … and the branches were still there. Not until I walked up to the tree you see, it’s almost within touching distance, I was able to get the branches out of the frame.

This photo is more the kind of photos I expect to take in the future. This one has an obvious flaw … the branches melts together with the background. But what really amazed me was that it felt like I had the camera below the tree … I still got the whole tree in the frame with room to spare.

The final photo was taken with me crouching down right beside the track and the snowmobile passing me just 20-40 cm away.

It was fun to take it out to see how it works, I really need to practice a lot, to learn how to best use this lens. It’s quite different from the other lenses I have for this camera.

Every so often, I wonder if I need a larger working memory. A couple of days ago, we went on a short trip to visit family, since it was a short family trip, I decided not to bring any serious photo gear. Instead, I would just take the GR IIIx (almost always in my pocket) and the Lumix GM5 with the small 12–32 and 35–100 zooms (fits easily in a pocket). My idea was to take a walk or two and try to capture three landscape photos.

Right before we were leaving home, I realized that I had forgotten the 35-100 and ran in to fetch it. Then we left home and after a couple of hours of driving we arrived at our destination.

After eating lunch, I decided to take my walk before the sun disappeared, and I started to dig in my bag to get the GM5. After about 30 seconds, I realized that I had forgotten to pack it … what an idiot I am!!!! So I had the tele zoom but no camera, great !!

Fortunately, I had the GR IIIx in my pocket, so I was able to capture some photos … but not what I had planned.