Cross-country skiing!

I went cross-country skiing on the sea ice today and found a few nice things to photograph. I also tried to take some night shots of the beautiful frozen trees last night but the old point-and-shoot wasn’t really up to the job. The first picture of this post is the only half-decent one I got and after that come the photos from today.

A pine covered in frost

A panorama of a little point near my home in Otsolahti

A snow covered bent reed

Some more reeds covered in the frost

A large pine that has fallen into the sea

The old boat that is frozen in the ice every year in Keilaniemi

A panorama of the office buildings covered in the cold mist in Keilaniemi

Another version of the same panorama with Nokia HQ also in the photo

Stockholm, frosty mist and a sunset

It’s been quite an awesome weather for a couple of days. It’s been really cold and at the same time really foggy. As a result all the trees are covered in a really nice frost. Too bad my real camera is in Tartu with my girlfriend so I have had to use an old half-broken Ixus 40 for these shots. Despite the lackluster equipment I think the sunset photo turned out quite nice. Also there’s a few photos from my trip to Stockholm before Christmas that I haven’t had time to upload.

First the sunset panorama from the top of my apartment building

Then an enigma for you to solve, leave a message in comments if you know what this is. Hint: It’s from my trip to Stockholm

A sailing ship in the chilly water

The amusement park is a bit empty during winter

Some pretty cool icicles

A frost covered birch

And to finish a panoramic view over misty and frozen Tapiola

Winter

Finally the winter is really here. –15 centigrade and sunny nice days and snow! Here is some photos from the past few days.

First a cool cloud formation from Kirkkonummi

A curious blackbird peeking from behind a tree

A great tit (talitiainen) going for the seeds

A fieldfare (räkättirastas) sitting on a branch

Looking quite fat and happy aren’t we

The sea is freezing up finally

There was some beautiful ice crystals near the stones

They were quite peculiar

Like giant snow flakes at close

Razor sharp and cold but very pretty

A forest of shapes

This one looks almost like a sailboat

Rose hip under the frost flakes

Nice contrast against the sun

And to conclude this long post a nice view of the winter sun through spruce branches

Tartu Christmas lights

Been meaning to post this one for a while. Some photos from my last trip to Tartu are finally here.

University of Tartu with the lights on (shot has been merged from several images)

An old trade boat in the middle of the square

A view of the main square with the lights

City hall from the back side, the main square is behind it

Red light at a railroad crossing

An oil train passing by

Break from the inactivity

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

Back to Helsinki

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..

More sunset photos from Tartu

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

Road trip to Tartu

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.

A family of swans

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

Fireworks

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.

Broken shutter finally fixed

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

Error 99

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

Long time no post..

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

C00ldog and some marsh vegetation

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

Giant beetle and a green larva

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

Macro shots, goose chicks and flowers

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