It’s been ages since the last post. And that’s because my camera has been in Tartu, Estonia as my girlfriend needs it there. But now I have it back for a few days and here are some photos I snapped yesterday while dropping a letter at the post office.
A pheasant hiding in the bushes
A curious crow
Surveying the grounds
In flight
Bathing
Ducks diving for food
Here are the last photos from my trip. Taken from the cruise ship Baltic Princess while arriving in Helsinki.
Sun rays through the clouds and some boats
A small catamaran leaving from Lauttasaari
Seagulls followed our ship closely
Refreshing
The water tower of Lauttasaari seen from the smoking area
A lonely coffee cup, considering jumping perhaps..
On my last day in Tartu we went to see the sunset on a small artificial lake near Tartu, here are the photos. You can see the silhouettes of our dogs and my girlfriend in some of them. Check out their blog also at http://enyama.wordpress.com !
Chili standing in the water
Chili and Unna sitting on the shore
A buoy floating in the water
I threw a stone in the lake..
And last a wide panorama of the lake with the dogs and my girlfriend on the shore
This weekend I have been in Tartu, Estonia. Visiting my girlfriend who studies veterinary medicine here. And also to get “my” camera back 
Here is some photos from yesterday when we were walking with the dogs and also a sunset photo from her apartment window.
Two herons (haikara) flying away
A wooden bridge crossing a small river
Huge trees, maybe silver willows?, (hopeapaju?) near the bridge
Some sort of hay or a reed near the river
An old rusty transformer and some wiring, notice the posts are made of concrete instead of wood
Sunset over Tartu
This time I got something a little different for you. The annual Finnish fireworks championship competition was held in Helsinki last Thursday. The weather wasn’t the best possible since there was a brief rain shower in the middle of the show. Also I didn’t have my tripod so the photos could have been better. Anyhow I a lot of photos and got some interesting shots too. Here they are. No captions this time since they are all just fireworks except the last one which was a shot of people but I forgot the shutter time to 20 seconds 
As always you can click the images for a larger version.
It’s been a while since the repair of my camera took a little longer than I expected. The “error 99” was caused by a broken shutter and it was repaired. But somehow in the process they managed to do something to the sensor and all the pictures I took with repaired camera were way too warm. Orange flowers looked bloody red and green leafs were almost brown. Anyways they promptly fixed that by recalibrating the sensor in one day when I took it back and now everything is in order. Here’s a couple of photos now with the fixed camera. The butterfly is near my home and the two others I took when I was walking home from work.
A peacock butterfly (neitoperhonen) drinking from a thistle (ohdake) flower
A dead hedgehog near the walkway in Munkkiniemi, probably been hit by a car 
A lilac hanging down after the rain
So it’s been a while since my last post. And that is because my Canon EOS 450D is being repaired. I was happily shooting one day and then all of a sudden “Error 99. Shooting is not possible.” text popped up and the camera refused to take another photo. Hopefully I will get it back this week or the next. Seems to be something wrong with the shutter mechanism. In the meanwhile here is a nice panorama lake sunset landscape I shot with my mobile phone during yesterday nights golf round in Kurk. Phone used is the Samsung i8910 HD and the image has been composed of four separate photos. I’m pretty happy with result considering it’s shot with a mobile phone camera, albeit a very good one (8mp and does 720p video too), and in relatively low light.
The view to the lake is from the 14th tee, flag is uphill next to the trees in the right side of the image
Here is the same image as a yellowish/blue split-tone
Sorry for not posting any new photos for a while. Here is a collection of random photos from the last two weeks. I’m very happy with the dragonfly as I have been hunting for a nice shot of one for a while now
First a waterskiing goose..
A hot-air balloon that has landed
A small two passenger balloon
A nice but lonely yellow pond-lily flower
Cool looking purple flower fully open and a second one that has already died in the background
And here is the nice macro shot of a dragonfly
I went to Kattilajärvi in Nuuksio today with Chili, Soma and Joonas. The weather was great and we got some nice photos of the dogs. You can see more of those in Ammin eläintarhan elämää blog. We also found a nice marsh pond where I took some macro shots.
Cooldog
There were some roaches (särkiä) in the lake
The marsh pond
Some marsh grass growing from the water
Nice looking peat moss (rahkasammal)
Mirror image of the grass in the water
An artsy bee on a flower
These great photos were taken last week by my girlfriend Ammi. Especially the ones of the giant beetle are very cool.
Nice blue shine on his armor
A better view of his antennae
This guy is probably some sort of butterfly larva
The green larva again
It’s been a while since the last update because I have been working so much last week and then there was the Midsummer Day celebration weekend. I took some good photos of the goose chicks that are growing up near my home. The same day I took some photos of the lilac flowers up close and even spotted some snails. The frog is from last weekend and the lupine and poppy as well.
Lilac (syreeni) flowers close up
Goose chicks enjoying a summer day
You have to tread carefully on the edge
A little bit of yelling is good every once in a while
A mute swan was not too happy about the geese taking a bath and kept them on the shore
A cool frog was chilling amongst the grass
Sine snails having a meeting on a branch
Some sort of beetle hanging around in a poppy (unikko) flower
A lupine composed of several macro images of the flower
Today when I came home from a football match I saw three hot-air balloons flying over Tapiola and went to the roof of my apartment building to get some photos of them and the sunset. Here they are.
One of the balloons passing behind Mäntytorni
This one seems to be caught on the edge of the clouds (click for a larger version of the panorama)
Burning the flame to get over the trees
It has been a while since the last update. Here is a mixed collection of images from last week and the weekend. There is a few more images from Suvilahti and also some macro and nature shots.
Here is a dandelion (voikukka) ready to be blown away in the wind
Some weird dry moss (sammalta)
Bleeding heart (särkynyt sydän, Dicentra spectabilis), thanks Kukka for letting me know the name of the flower
A maple leaf hanging from the tree
Barn swallow (haarapääsky) taking off from a powerline
Barn swallow in flight
Hanasaari power plant photographed from an old gas bell (kaasukello) in Suvilahti
The other still brick covered gas bell through the steel frame of the other
A lonely chair in the sun
I visited Suvilahti this morning. Mainly because there is a new 100 meters long wall where it is legal to paint graffiti art to. I think this is an excellent idea and the artwork I saw was quite awesome. Here are some of the best shots I got.
First a panorama of the whole wall. Click for the large version (21342 x 800 pixels, 6.64MB)
Then a shot with the Hanasaari power plant in the background
and the paints and tools of couple of artists in the front
Cool flames
Some shrooms through a fish-eye..
Scratchy’s arch enemy…
Finished artwork with the paints and tools
The second photo in color
And a black and white version of the panorama
It’s been a while since my last post and that is because I was sailing last weekend and got so much good photos I can’t decide what to upload. Here is a short travelogue and some of the about 1300 photos I took Remember to check the link to the gallery in the end of the post where you can see some more of the best shots.
We left from Taalintehdas on Friday afternoon and set sail towards Sweden. Unfortunately it was so calm that we could only use the sails on the first day of the journey and had to rely on the motor for the rest.
Here we are on the way in a superb weather
And here is our captain with our sponsor clearly visible
After sailing over the open ocean during the night we saw a magnificent sunrise. Our course was set for the island village of Sandhamn which would be our first stop. On the way there we even spotted a couple of white-tailed eagles (merikotka) or at least I think so, please leave a comment if you think I’m mistaken.
Sun is going down while we leave the outer islands behind
Sunrise looked a bit like a mushroom cloud
White-tailed eagles watching a seagull fly by
We stopped in Sandhamn only to eat and continued to Sjaltsjöbaden for the night.
We slept here (in the boat, not the hotel)
On Sunday morning we had only a short distance to go to our final destination which was here (can’t remember the name of the harbour).
We saw some should we say “valuable” boats too
And houses also..
After reaching our final destination we took the train to Stockholm and went for a mandatory stop at the Sergels torg Burger King and then came back to Helsinki by Silja Serenade.
A cruiser was leaving Stockholm only a few minutes after our ship
A weird UFO has landed in Stockholm…
Overall the trip was very nice and the weather was good although a bit more wind would have been nice. For some more nice photos check out this link for a little gallery I put together and please leave a comment if you like (or dislike) a photo!
