One of my favourit features about Fuji digital cameras are film simulation recipes. The main reason for that is that I hate post-processing. I want to take photos and get what I wanted without having to import them to some kind of software on my Mac to edit it until I like it. Therefor I experiment a lot with this functionality. This time I tried to recreate the look of an analog film I really liked.... more...
Throughout the last years I mostly focused on analog film photography, because I simply love “the film look”. Nevertheless I am also a big Fuji digital camera fan, mostly because they somehow feel a little bit like analog cameras. This is especially true for my current favourite the Fuji X Pro 3. One of the features I like the most about Fuji cameras is that I can create custom film recipes to produce a specific look directly in the camera without having to take RAW photos and later apply the look I want in post.... more...
I started to write this post in October 2022 after recording a podcast episode with Daniel Gollner about AI and the future of photography. While I write this sentence it is April 2024 and I‘m still not sure that I should publish it. It is about art, what I think art is and yes, I‘ve re-written every single sentence within this post countless times. It feels like I should not write about this at all, I‘m not an artist at all.... more...
I often say that it is only a matter of weeks until I hate each and every photo I took myself after seeing it for the first time. That’s true by the way, but in recent months something seemed to change. It probably all started with my first analog photography book I created during the first covid summer during lockdown. no story to tell That was the theme of the book.... more...
There are certain film stocks that are more special than others. One example is Cinestill 800T. It is basically motion picture film that got its remjet layer removed to make it safe for C-41 photo lab processing. Removing the remjet layer gives this film its characteristic look when it comes to artificial lights. You’ll see what I mean as soon as you look at the photos at the bottom of this post.... more...
Is this title clickbait? Maybe, but I really wish that these photos were taken by me using one of my lovely old analog cameras on good old color film. AI did not really take my job, but just because I am not a professional photographer. I take photos for fun. It is my hobby. I have no preassure. The only one who has to like my work is myself. And actually that’s kind of the problem.... more...
As I scroll through instagram I often see photos of Coney Island. To be clear, I would never get myself into any of these rides, but the structures themselves, the colors, the sligthly nostalic and kind of creepy feeling and mostly the sadness and tragic stories hidden behind the artificial facade of joy, fascinates me and always captures my attention. close enough I have never visited Coney Island myself, but there is a place in Austria, which is “close enough”: The “Wiener Prater”.... more...
I recently bough this 1.14‘‘ LCD screen for the RaspberryPi Pico. This screen not only just fits perfectly onto the Rasperry, you literally just put it over all of the pin headers, it also comes with a little analog pad, up, down, left, right, as well as an A and B button. So it is already kind of a very small handheld gaming device. The Game It is really simple, the player, a little green square on the left side of the screen, can move up and down using the analog pad, and shoot lasers using the A button.... more...
We all know the stories of spies placing letters in hidden dead letter boxes during foggy cold november nights to communicate with other spies. Since the year is 2022 now, we will build something like this, but using a RaspberryPi Pico W 2. Basically the Raspberry Pi will act as a WiFi Accesspoint, which you can connect to without the actual need of physical contact with the device. The Raspberry Pi will also run a webserver, which we will use to to read and store messages, for anybody else who knows where the WiFi can be found and also have the password.... more...
Text2Image generators like Dall-E or Midjourney are the new hot dudes, when it comes to generating images just from text inputs and also sparked some serious discussions about certain professions might getting obsolete, like artists and photographers. To be honest, it is extremly impressive what these generators can do, but on the other hand they do not replace a photographer for your weddding. Nevertheless I absolutly see practical applications for Text2Image generators.... more...
Sometimes I need a little visual hint to do things, especially when it comes to little things that I should do on repeat, like dayli or even multiple times per day. I’m not really someone who does a lot of sport, but I love to go bouldering. In my “best times” I went three times every week. A few weeks ago I injured my left leg and since then I was not able to go to the bouldering gym anymore.... more...
If someone asks me what my favourit film is, I would probably answer Kodak Portra. Recently I also shot a few rolls of Kodak Gold 200, which is also a film I really started to like a lot and since it is also now available as 120 film, I like it even more. A separate review on this film will follow soon. But this review is not about films I use all the time, but rather about a film I never used before, the Lomography Metropolis.... more...
In this example we will build a very simple chatbot, which we will train on pre-defined questions and answers. This approach is very simple, but in fact could be used to build a chatbot that allows users to talk about a limited scope. So basically you could use this as a different way for users to search your FAQs or allow users to get information usually found in your service documentation or even your product offerings, opening hours and menu of your restaurant and so on, by simply asking.... more...
Analog filmphotography is a field with so many techniques and technical possibilities. Most films are developed using a process called C-41. Kodak Gold 200, Fuji Pro 400H and most other films you’ve ever heard of are developed like this. Every company that can develop film will also be able to develop C-41. Silbersalz35 is different, they describe their film as “true cinefilm”. In fact it is KODAK VSION 3 motion picture film.... more...
Recently I bought a Yashica T4. An ugly piece of plastic produced in the early 90s, but why though? I can’t resist analog cameras, but why this one in particular? Although it is, as mentioned, not a beautiful engineering masterpiece, like the much older cameras I own, it is also not a regular 90s point and shoot. The reason for that is its lens, a Carl Zeiss 35mm f/3.5. This detail set’s this camera apart from most of the other plastic cameras from that era and that’s also why a lot of analog photographers these days have or at least want one of these.... more...
I know, you now expect me to tell you about the secret doughs my ancestors used to make and how this knowledge was passed through the generations until it finally reached someone like me who is able to write about it on the internet. No, sorry, but no. What you will get here are three very simple recipes for doughs you could actually use when cooking meals for you or your family or friends.... more...
In this example we will use the Boston housing price dataset to predict house prices based on several features such as crime rate, local tax property rate and so on. The biggest difference to the previous examples here is that we do not predict fixed classes. This time we predict a continous value. Prequesites This is the third part of my Tensorflow and Keras Sample series. To better understand what is going on here, I highly recommend to read part 1 and part 2 first and then return here to continue.... more...
In the first part of this series we developed a simple binary classification model using Keras' Sequential model class, which is the easiest way of using Keras. Since the Squential model is easy to use, but also limited in what we can do with it, we will use Keras' functional API from now on. That way we can build more complex models for use cases that are not so simple. Allthough in this example we will basically use the functional API to build a model that could also be build using the Sequential model to show how it works on with a very simple example and then use this in upcoming parts of this series to implement more complex usecases.... more...
This is the first of - hopefully - a lot of Tensorflow/Keras tutorials I will write on this blog. In this first - very simple - example I will demonstrate how to use Tensorflow and Keras to train and use a model to predict if an IMDB movie review is positiv or negative. We will use the IMDB dataset for this, prepare the training data, so we can use it to train the model, and finally make predictions on data the model has never seen before.... more...
Since Apple’s M1 chip is a really good choice for maschine learning at home, but the setup of a Tensorflow environment isn’t exactly straight forward, I thought it would make sense to simplify it a little bit and write a short guide on how to do it. What we need and what the finished solution will look like We need an Apple device with a M1, M1 Pro or Max chip and macOS 12.... more...
Ever wanted to build a custom controller, or a have a few buttons which you could map some shortcuts to? Then the RaspberryPi Pico and a few touch buttons are everything you need. The Pico can be used as a HID (Keyboard, Mouse or MediaController) by using Adafruit’s HID library. The only problem here is that you can not use it using Micropython, but if we setup the Pico to run Circutpython we are good to go.... more...
I wrote a book. I guess most of you haven‘t expected that. In fact ‚wrote‘ is maybe the wrong word, because there are, besides the title, only two sentences to read in the whole thing. The first one can be found right after the first two blank pages and it reads as follows. “If future generations will ask me about that time, I will pretend I can‘t remember.” This is basically the whole idea behind this book.... more...
As you might have noticed I did a lot of analog photography during the last years. I started with a Canon AE-1, 35mm film, and my grandfather‘s Agfa Isolette II, 120 mediumformat 6x6. Later I found a Shanghai Seagull TLR, also a medium format camera, on a flea market and got my hands on two Voigtländer Vito rangerfinders 35mm cameras. I love all of them and I really enjoy taking pictures with them, but about a year ago I saw some photos taken using a Mamiya camera and so I started to inform myself about this vintage device.... more...
I own a classic Nintendo Gameboy, a device that hit the consumer market 32 years ago. I was born one year before that. Of course a few more years passed until I got a Gameboy myself. I played Super Mario Land, Tetris and later Zelda: Links Awakening and (of course) Pokemon. Then the device was replaced by various other consoles and PCs over the next decades. Two years ago I rediscovered it and somehow, after all these years, I felt the desire to relive that time in which I sat down to play those games.... more...
Rural areas fascinate me for a rather strange reason. It’s a world I do not fully understand and a world I don’t belong to. When walking through small villages in rural areas I always feel like a visitor from a different world, even if the village is just 20km away from the city I live in. Old houses build between vast fields and dark forests, communities spread out over a large area, all of this leads to a different lifestyle and how people interact with each other.... more...
Christmas is something special to me. I’m not religious, but this time has some kind of special feeling. It’s about things that happen and people I usually meet during this limbo between the current and the next year. Usually I spend some days around Christmas Eve with my family in the Austrian mountains. This is the most relaxing time of the year for me. We cook, we spend days together and no one has something really important to do.... more...
I love Ramen and I’m not talking about instant Ramen, I’m talking about real fresh Ramen, but there is a problem. It usually takes me two days to make them. So what if I want to eat Ramen today? Fake it, but still use only fresh ingredients. That’s what this recipe is about. Let’s create Ramen in about 60 minutes. We’ll create a very tasty broth, crispy chicken, eggs, crispy ginger and add a lot of fresh vegetables.... more...
Wether you want some Tagliatelle or fill some Ravioli, you’ll need a base noodle dough. This is what this recipe is for. Ingredients (for 3-4 servings) 200g of all purpose flour 200g of corn flour 100ml of cold water 1 teaspoon of salt Preperation Knead all of the ingredients until you have a nice even dough. If it is too dry, add some olive oil, but keep in mind that the dough should not be sticky.... more...
I’m not a big cake-guy, but Brownies are something I really enjoy. It’s like fluffy chocolate and with this recipe they are easy to prepare for everyone. Ingredients 80g of all purpose flour 1 package of backing powder 200g of chocolate 160g of sugar 4 eggs 200g of butter Preperation Melt the chocolate and the butter over a water bath. Now add all the other ingredients and mix until you have a nice even batter.... more...
Burgers are complicated. A lot of small details determine if they are great or not. One of the crucial thing is the bun, brioche of course. But buns aren’t that complicated, if you follow this simple recipe. Ingredients (4 buns) 300g of all purpose flour 1 package (7g) of dry yeast 60ml of warm water 70ml of milk 2 eggs 1 teaspoon of salt 1 tablespoon of sugar 50g butter 1 tablespoon of sesame Preperation Mix the yeast and the water until the yeast is dissolved.... more...
Pizza is life and everybody can cook it at home pretty easily. The key is to make it thin and crunchy and a tasty tomatoe sauce. If you can do that, you can top it with whatever you like to make it truly yours. This recipe is very simple and can be done in any household oven without any special equipment. I use this recipe at least twice per month, because it is so easy and the result is so delicious.... more...
In this how to I will show how to setup a PostgreSQL server on docker, including how to persist data outside of the container, and also how to run PGAdmin in a container as well. In this example I asume that you’ve already got Docker running on your server, if not, set this up first. Install PostgreSQL By default the PostgreSQL container is configured to save its data to /var/lib/postgresql/data inside of the container.... more...
On a cloudy sunday aftrnoon in August 2020 I took my grandfather’s Agfa Isolette II, loaded a roll of Portra 400 Medium Format film and went for a walk in the suburbs of my Hometown. Alone On days like this, in areas like this, you can feel the emptiness in the air. The weather and also the ongoing pandemic kept people inside. Walking through the streets felt like walking through a ghost town.... more...
Most tutorials I’ve found so far are about 3-pin photodiodes. These are meant to recieve digital IR signals from TV remotes or similar devices. The 2-pin diodes can be used to simply meassure the available IR light. So you could use this to build a distance sensor, if you add a IR LED emitter and then meassure the reflected light, or to meassure the IR light emitted by a natural or artificial light source.... more...
The Arduino Nano 33 IoT comes with a built-in 3-axis acceleromteter. This sensor meassures values for x, y and z acceleration between -1 and 1. If we want to know the actual position in which the sensor is, we need to know it’s rotation on two axis, pitch and roll, in dregress. This two angles could be used then later on to control two servos which rotate an object exactly the same way the sensor is rotated.... more...
I’m running the official Ubuntu for RaspberryPi on a RaspberryPi 4 and wanted to use the RaspberryPi Camera Module. The thing is, this is not as simple as it is on Raspian. So here are the steps you have to perform to use the Camera Module on Ubuntu. Activate Module First of all connect the Camera Module to your RaspberryPi like you always would and boot it up. Next you have to add the magic setting “start_x=1” to your /boot/config.... more...
On a rainy sunday afternoon I found out that the RaspbeeryPi Pico fits perfectly into a 35mm film box if you cut a little hole for the USB port into the lid. Since my box was a semi-transparent white box, I decided to add some LEDs and build a little temperature sensor, that indicates the current temperature range using either a blue, green, orange or red LED. Build I connected the power pin (long side) of each LED to a GPIO port (green = Pin4, blue = Pin5, orange = Pin3, red = Pin2), of course with a 220 ohm resistor in between, and all the short sides to GND.... more...
A few days ago I got two brand new RaspberryPi Pico Boards and so it is time to build something using this new toy. So let’s talk about what it actually is, how to setup a MicroPython development environment and also build a simple example project to make sure everything works as expected. This one is not like the others I won’t go to much into the specs of this board, since you can read them for yourself here, instead I will focus here on two specific things that set’s this Pi appart from others like it.... more...
As I’ve already mentioned in my article about how this website was built, this website get’s updated every night automatically with content I wrote the day before. To do so I use a cronjob and a little script that get’s the latests version of this website from Github, builds it and then uploads it via ftp. Since mirroring a local directory with a remote ftp directory is a pretty common task, I thought it would make sense to write about how I did it.... more...
This whole website does not use a traditional CMS. It is 100% statically generated using Hugo. Hugo is a static site generator, which allows me to write new pages as simple and portable Markdown files and then generate the whole website based on the template I wrote for this. No JavaScript, no cookies, no tracking As you might have noticed, this website does not set any cookies, it does not have any social media share buttons or integrations, there is not even a single lineof JavaScript.... more...
This year created a dystopian atmosphere like I’ve never experienced before. Empty streets and abandoned playgrounds in the bright sunlight. Although this is a small town and not a buzzing metropolis like Berlin or other european capitals, it was still always filled with life, at least during the day and friday nights. But suddenly things changed, on the streets and in our heads. We felt haunted by an invisible enemy, a thing we can’t see and don’t fully understand.... more...
I am not a huge fan of black and white photography to be honest. Still from time to time I feel like it is the right choice to create a certain feeling. For me black and white film always creates a somehow dramatic atmosphere, that’s why this album does not contain color. I wanted drama. In the shadows The goal of project was to catch the dystopian feeling of beeing watched by something unknown.... more...
It took me and Martina nearly 14 years to finally decide to get the same surname. We’ve been together for more than a decade before we took two of our best friends on a weekend trip to vienna to get married. This happened on November 16th 2019, just 9 days before our 14th anniversary. Keep it simple We never wanted to have a big wedding with 100+ people and a complicated and exhausting day full of wierd traditions and the need to do things, because “that’s how it should be”.... more...
This project is all about concrete blocks to live or work in. It’s about colors, light, shadow and geometry. Old and New As I walk through cities I always have this feeling of chaos. Buildings that were build or changed since the day the city was founded. Different eras, different time, different styles, build as close to each other as possible to not waste a single inch of ground. Unfinished This album is one that will grow over time, because I think I will find more blocks that need to be added to here.... more...
I am not a good climber. Not at all. I’m a beginner at best. Nevertheless I love doing it. This album was shot during an outdoor climbing session with friends on a single roll of Kodak T-Max 400. Raw Size I think why this black and white film worked so well, was because the contrast plays nicely with the scale and hight I wanted to capture. Also the sunlight creating a white sky and deep black shadows made everything look more dramatic.... more...