Wow, dude. It seems like you put all your energy into these things. They look great. My favorites are the ship, the ropes and the first beercan shot. And I love the bokeh on the car shot, too. It's not completely obliterated all the detail, but did it retain any of it. It was almost like a great happy medium. Can I ask what f-stop you shot all these photos on? If that wouldn't be too hard to dig up... .
--Kiran

I like the ropes, the ship, the fountain and the flowerpots on the street especially.

I thought the first shot with the ropes could maybe use a slight crop on the left to help emphasize the ropes, and I wonder if it would have been improved if the aperture was even smaller to blur the background just a bit more. But it's nice I like it.

I like the ship shot esp with the city skyline in the background. I think it would look nice if the lens distortion or horizon could be corrected, I'm not sure which it is.

I like that city shot of the car as is mostly, and same for the fountain. I like the sky, and how you've got the angle with the buildings in the background and how you've positioned the statue against the sky.

I like the first beercan shot a lot, very nice color and an attractive street, you framed it nicely. If I had to choose something I'd say maybe the second rain pipe isn't completely attractive, had there just been the one older looking grey one mounted there it might have been more attractive. Not that you could do anything about that.

thanks for sharing these

Thanks Eric and Kiran for your kind words. My favorite is also the first beercan picture, I liked a bit after I checked the sharpness etc just after I took the shot, but at home I liked it more and it's now my wallpaper at the moment.

I usually let the EXIF's alone, so by saving a pic and then looking it's properties, one is able to see all the settings used, but here they are:

Sigma:
Ropes: 50mm, F5.6, 1/125 and ISO100
Audi: 35mm, F4.5, 1/160 and ISO100
Sea Cloud II: 18mm, F9, 1/160 and ISO100
HighISO: 18mm, F6.3, 1/4000 and ISO3200

Beercan:
#1: 75mm, F5.6, 1/20 and ISO100
#2: 210mm, F6.3, 1/200 and ISO200
#3: 210mm, F5, 1/50 and ISO200

I took yesterday as a learning trip, the M-setting on the dial has been quite useless so far for me, but when start to realize what happens when I change the settings (ISO,shutter speed and F) it's more fun and I can get results I like myself more. So, just trying to lern, before A200 I'm always just shot usually with the point and shooters and there's not much to change.

I learned a nice trick at least for myself, first when I arrive to a new shooting place, I focus with the Auto setting, take a look about the ISO, F and shutter speeds, then change to the M-mode and I know already the basic values, then if I want sharper results, I just gain the F and use a longer shutter time and/or increase the ISO setting. I noticed, that I can get better results by this way than using the plain macro, landscape etc programs.

By the way, any recommendations about a software I could easily correct the lens distortion? Later that would even more useful after I got a new wide lens.

I like #1 and # 2 the best but all look great.
Dan

I enjoy the last one the most. I only wish you had shown a little more at the bottom, but it is an interesting take on a flower shot...

Excellent series, with #2 being my favorite. Wonder shot there.

Thanks for the numbers, man. It really helps getting an idea of what others used so if I'm in a similar situation, I could do something similar. Also, as far as software goes, I might sound like I'm on Adobe's payroll, but Lightroom is by far my most favorite application. It helps you adjust any CA and it'll also let you add or remove lens vignetting. Whatever you wanna do, it has your back.

However, there are free apps like gimp that you can download and install (it works on mac, PC and linux.) However, the only downside to gimp is that it doesn't do 32-bit images. So, you really can't get a true HDR image out of it. Now, I'm not a big gimp user. I did use it a few times when I used to shoot jpegs, but I didn't wanna use a program that was very analytical in terms of editing. I knew about aperture, but I tried out lightroom and I loved it. I can also safely say that gimp will take care of all your needs unless you wanna squeeze more out of raw. As far as I know, there is support for raw, but I don't think the plug ins have been updated since the alpha 100's raw came out. I'm sure there's something that's been updated in the raw reader because lightroom just added support for alpha 200's raw in version 1.4.

Either way, do look around. I'm sure other guys would know anything but lightroom far better than I. Hope that helps.
--Kiran

And here's few more, just came back from the summer cottage. Just had a great midsummer day/weekend with friends, sauna, good food and plenty of drinks. Nice bonus was also, that I managed to get few brown trouts from the river (smallest about 500g, biggest 750g and one between those) with a hook and line, so not a bad result at all.

Sigma:

It's almost 10PM and you can still see the sun light, sun went down just about the midnight and came back about 4AM...

Beercan:

I love the composition on the first one and the last one's just priceless.
--Kiran

Thanks Kiran! =)

Forgot to mension, that I really appreciate the SSS, the first two pics of the new ones, are taken handheld and I used 1sec shutter time, I shot 5 pics, and only one is a bit blurred, others as these now seen here. A small hint, it helps a lot to use a 2-sec timer, so you just have to hold the camera without any movement, so you don't have to press the shutter button. A reason to use such a long shutter time was to have this effect with the water falling down smoothly and because I wanted to use long shutter time, ISO-value was only 100 and aperture value higher I usually use.

All the details if somebody likes them:

#1: ISO100, 18mm, F13, 1sec

#2: ISO100, 18mm, F18, 1sec

#3: ISO100, 210mm, F6.3, 1/200sec

Dude, I was wondering why they had a generally brighter feel to them. Only after you told me did I realize that they looked like long exposure shots. I just tried it out with the 2 second delay at my desk and I kid you not, you weren't even lying. The picture of my lamp came out pretty damn sharp and I didn't even expect it to be that intense. One more reason I'm glad I didn't go Canon or Nikon. Oh, and beercan shots always make my day.
--Kiran

Hi,

Great photos (both lots are great) here, I really like your style- seems fresh and interesting. I really like the last image, there is just something about a beercan photo. The tones in that image and the wonderfully soft bokeh really help to isolate the droplets of water. It's a really nice photo.

Cheers for sharing these.

Andrew

The last one is excellent! Did you use glycerine to keep the bubble shape or was it all "au naturell". If "au naturell" then that is an awesome shot.

Thanks Leon, it's au naturell, just after the rain. I was fishing there and noticed that the rain drops look quite nice when the sun 'touched' them, got my camera and took the shot, didn't look that shot until I got home and I was quite happy about it and wondered myself also, that how come those bubbles look like that. :D

It's a really, really good shot, now you need to do the same again with a close up Macro on the bubbles :-). Best get playing those rain drums :)

PS, your first selection of shots are also really good. I'd like to have seen No.2 (the boat) with the omission of the tug on the other side, were you out on the water when you took this, or on the opposite pier?

Thanks again, I was on the opposite pier when I took the #2 shot. Unfortunately I was too lazy to remove that tug away from the pic :D Perhaps later when I order some copies I will do some PP also.