Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place vs. home

Posts by HL fotoeins

Salzburg city views from Mönchsberg

In Salzburg, I’m motivated by a search for Mozart and for signs of modernity. I’ve already examined part of the city through its art: what more can Salzburg offer?

Excellent views of the city and surroundings.

The Mönchberg hill on which the Hohensalzburg fortress sits provides many viewpoints over the city. You can walk along the entire length of Mönchberg for varying perspectives, or you can approach a number of the viewpoints separately.

I ascended and traversed the hill on foot from southeast to northeast, beginning from Kapitelplatz to the viewpoints just north of the Museum der Moderne. I returned to the Old Town below with the MönchsbergAufzug elevator which is a part of Salzburg’s public transport.


( Click here for images and more )

My Fuji X70: Ektachrome 100SW (XTrans2 recipe)

Above/featured:False Creek east, from Cambie Bridge – 12 Jul 2021.

A variety of film simulations in the form of recipes with different settings are applicable to Fujifilm cameras to create uniquely historical and/or vintage look to images. Fortunately, a number of recipes are available to apply onto Fuji cameras with X-Trans II sensors.

That’s where my Fuji X70 has entered the fun fray. Previously, I showed examples of images made with the Kodachrome 64 recipe, simulating images made with the Kodak analog colour film produced from the mid-1970s to its final run in 2009.

I wanted to try another film-simulation recipe: the Ektachrome 100SW (SW for ‘saturated warm’) described by Ritchie Roesch in Fuji X Weekly. Historically, the Kodak company produced the ‘Ektachrome’ line of colour transparency or slide films. From its introduction in 1996 to its termination in 2002, the ‘Ektachrome 100SW’ film with increased ISO sensitivity produced images with deeper colours and warmer colour balance.

At locations throughout metropolitan Vancouver over a period of four weeks in July and August 2021, here are images below straight-out-of-the-camera (SOOC) with the following settings:

  • ‘Velvia’ built-in film-sim
  • Dynamic Range: DR200
  • Highlight: +2 (High)
  • Shadow: +1 (Medium-High)
  • Color: -1 (Medium-Low)
  • Sharpness: 0 (Medium)
  • Noise Reduction: -2 (Low)
  • White Balance: Auto; +1 Red, -2 Blue
  • ISO: Auto up to 3200 (or fixed to 1000)

All recipes sorted by specific sensor are found here.


( Click here for images )

Palacio de Cibeles, Fuente de Cibeles, Plaza de Cibeles, Paseo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, España, fotoeins.com

Madrid: Paseo del Prado, new UNESCO WHS

Congratulations to Madrid and Spain!

In the Spanish capital city, the Paseo del Prado and the adjacent Parque del Retiro were inscribed together as a new UNESCO World Heritage Site on 25 July 2021. The Paseo del Prado is a wide tree-lined boulevard populated with big fountains, beautiful architecture, and buildings dedicated to scientific research and to collections of world-class art. As prototype to the Hispanic “alameda” found throughout Latin America towns and cities, Paseo del Prado is an display of vision and desire for an idyllic society within the (former) Spanish Empire.


Palacio de Cibeles, Fuente de Cibeles, Plaza de Cibeles, Paseo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, España, fotoeins.com

Plaza de Cibeles: Palacio de Cibeles (palace 1919); Fuente de Cibeles (fountain 1780, moved 1895).

Banco de España, Plaza de Cibeles, Paseo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, España, fotoeins.com

Plaza de Cibeles: Banco de España (1891).

Palacio de Linares, Casa América, Plaza de Cibeles, Paseo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, España, fotoeins.com

Plaza de Cibeles: Palacio de Linares (1877), host to Casa América.

Museo Nacional del Prado, Diego de Velázquez, Aniceto Marinas, Paseo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, España, fotoeins.com

Diego de Velázquez statue (1899) by sculptor Aniceto Marinas, in front of the Prado Museum (1819).


I made all images above on 9 May 2009 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-lhx.

My Fuji X70: Kodachrome64 (XTrans2 recipe)

Above/featured: South portal, Lions Gate Bridge – 25 Jun 2021.

I wrote about how the Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime has been great for my photography. Fujifim prides itself on good to faithful reproductions of film simulations (film-sims). For the most part, I’ve used the default or “Standard” setting, equivalent to the “Provia” film-sim which is one of 11 film-sims built into the X70.

I learned about other film-sims, particularly those applicable to the older X-Trans II sensor that’s in my X70 camera. I’ve been interested in digital reproductions of “old” colour slide film, and seeing how images over a variety of subject matter appear with a film-sim that looks a little more like “old school film”. Ritchie Roesch describes in Fuji X Weekly the differences between the Kodachrome II and Kodachrome 64 film-sims; the former resembling the look of Kodak film from the 1960s to the mid-1970s and the latter echoing the final version of the film-type from the mid-1970s to 2009. Roesch provides additional historical context to the development of Kodachrome film here.

Here I’ve used the Kodachrome 64 film-sim recipe with the following settings:

  • ‘Classic Chrome’ built-in film-sim
  • Dynamic Range: DR400
  • Highlight: +2 (High)
  • Shadow: +1 (Medium-High)
  • Color: 0 (Medium)
  • Sharpness: 0 (Medium)
  • Noise Reduction: -2 (Low)
  • White Balance: Daylight; 0 Red, -3 Blue
  • ISO: Auto up to 3200 (or fixed to 1000)

All recipes sorted by specific sensor are found here.


( Click here for images )

Berlin Hauptbahnhof, B Hbf, Berlin, Germany, Deutschland, fotoeins.com

Germany: 30 years of ICE on the rails (2021)

Above/featured: Berlin Hauptbahnhof – 9 Dec 2015 (6D1). Departing from track 3 is ICE 554 to Köln (front-half) and ICE 544 to Düsseldorf (back-half); trains split in the town of Hamm.

June 2021 marks the 30th anniversary of high-speed Intercity Express (ICE) service on German rail.

In the 1991 vs. 2021 comparison graphic provided by Deutsche Bahn, I’ve marked in green the ICE routes upon which I’ve made dozens of trips since late-2001 (when I moved to Heidelberg). Even after leaving in 2003, frequent annual trips back to Germany meant spending a lot of time planted on express trains across the country. Arriving in Europe mostly meant flying into Frankfurt am Main airport, from which I’d travel:

  • Frankfurt to Berlin, via Kassel
  • Frankfurt to Heidelberg, via Mannheim
  • Frankfurt to Köln
  • Frankfurt to Munich, via Stuttgart
  • Berlin to Frankfurt, via Kassel
  • Berlin to Köln, via Hannover
  • Köln to Berlin, via Hannover
  • Köln to Frankfurt
  • Munich to Frankfurt, via Stuttgart

Over the last few years, the express stretch between Erfurt and Halle/Leipzig has vastly improved the Berlin-Frankfurt and Berlin-Munich routes, cutting the one-way travel time for each route by about one hour. Except for the Erfurt-Halle/Leipzig stretch, I’ve travelled on every “Stundentakt” ICE route (thick red/green in the graphic below).

Intercity Express, Deutsche Bahn, German Rail, Germany, Deutschland

ICE coverage, including recent work on the Erfurt-Halle/Leipzig stretch; graphic courtesy of Deutsche Bahn. My “dozens on ICE” are marked in green; red filled circles indicate cities I frequented the most (B, F, HD, K, M).

Intercity Express, train fleet, Deutsche Bahn, German Rail, Germany, Deutschland

The ICE fleet of trains include vehicles with maximum speeds of over 300 km/h; graphic courtesy of Deutsche Bahn.

Frankfurt am Main Hauptbahnhof, F Hbf, Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, Hessen, Germany, Deutschland, fotoeins.com

Morning ICE 5 service from Frankfurt am Main to Basel; how to read this train station signage – 20 May 2016 (6D1).

HackerbrĂĽcke, MĂĽnchen, Munich, Bavaria, Bayern, Germany, Deutschland.

Morning light at Munich’s HackerbrĂĽcke station. Foreground: westbound metallic-white ICE train just departing the city’s central station, traveling right to left. Background: red DB regional train approaching central station, from left to right. Photo on 23 Feb 2017 (6D1).

I made three images above with a Canon EOS6D mark1 (6D1). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-l60.