Thank you for writing about your preferences, Martin,

and listing the lenses you own for your PENTAX K-70 APS-C-tool. Six days ago, when you wrote: »Perhaps later you will share your experience« in your welcome, of course you could not imagine the consequence these seven words of you might evoke in corresponding with me.


(a) Before I go into details about night landscape photography, allow me some remarks about photography as a craft (literal translation into German: Lichtschrift or mit Licht schreiben - English: to write with light). As you know, my first year of systematic photography (PENTAX) was 1977, my first camera, a German Voigtländer Vitoret DR (attachment 4) I had bought as a teenager years before. True photography has never been a »hobby« in my life, from 1977 onwards until today it has been and always will be a craft, to learn it and to work with it is real craftsmanship including many craft skills. Anything else is »knipsen« (German, there is no equivalent word in English), all these hundreds of millions are »Knipser« who know very little or nothing about optics nor what it needs to be able to write with light, having no idea what makes a true photographic image come into being.



(b) Nowadays the Automatic White Balance & autofocus of the (smartphone-, four thirds- or APS-C-) machines produce images which s e e m to be photos, but they a r e n o t . They are mere digitally processed data (01-01-01-01 ad finitum). Even most 36 x 24 mm (wrongly called »full format«) sensor camera users who call themselves »professionals« save so-called »raw data«, not being aware of the fact, that they do NOT produce IMAGES, but machine-processed brightness and colour DATA combinations. These data combinations with subsequent subjective data processing (via »Capture One«, »Lightroom«, »Photoshop« etc.) have literally NOTHING to do with photography in terms of writing with light.


(c) Thank you for telling me that your mother is a German teacher & translator. This enables me to send you my work Vom Geist der Photographie,

(attachment 2). Please give my kind regards to your mother, print the text and ask her to translate it into Russian for you. Her translation will give you an idea what true photography is (see footnote in attachment 2: photography, a French invention, was given its name by a German in 1839) from the beginning 1826/27 until today and what it always will be in the future.


(d) After having read and having thought about the facts & perspective explained in Vom Geist der Photographie, if you feel you are interested to get to know TRUE photography but no longer interested in producing digital data only, I am prepared to share elementary photographic experience & knowledge with you and whoever else might be interested. But you would have to do real WORK, Martin. It is your decision. To give you an impression of what I call TRUE photography (German: Echte Lichtschrift), see attachment 2 (16:9_original 7316 x 4912 pixel_9,38 MB, here reduced to 476 KB) and attachment 3 (3:2_original 7360 x 4912 pixel_16,4 MB, here reduced to 371 KB).


There's no hurry - take care
BOREALIS

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Vom Geist der Photographie_MMXIX.pdf (864.9 KB, 23 views)

[Martin Stu]

thank you very much Borealis

great shots

[hamm20]

Welcome and very nice shots Borealis!

[bogwalker]

yes, Pentax lovers from all over the world have gathered here... yes, I am a native Russian,
:
:
Until 1991, 2 million Germans lived in Russia (in the USSR)... when I was in school, there were two Germans in my class, a boy and a girl, they studied very well ... the girl was an excellent student in all subjects, and the boy was an excellent student, primarily in exact sciences, such as mathematics, trigonometry, physics, chemistry... this boy was one of my best friends...
:
:

I'm drifting a little off-topic, but hopefully you'll forgive me. My family is one of those of the "German-from-Russia" category. My grandfather was born near Saratov, his family and my grandmother's family were able to get to the U.S. before 1917, and the subsequent Stalin persecution of Germans and others. We lost contact with our family members remaining there. Catherine the Great invited Germans to settle in southern Russia, they formed their own villages with their own churches and schools. My ancestors always spoke German, despite living in Russia for several generations.

My sister studied Russian in university, and visited when it was the USSR. I'm surprised she didn't get in trouble with the tour leader, because from her stories she spent quite a bit of time away from the tour group. She met some locals, sold some blue jeans to them, even went to their villa (she didn't tell them at first that she spoke Russian, just to make sure they were being honest).

I've studied some German, but forgot most of it. I can basically get around as a tourist as necessary. I've visited a couple times, in the south and central regions. I rented a car in Frankfurt one time and quickly found out the difference between "ausgang" and "ausfahrt", luckily without damaging the rental car.

Back on topic, I assume you're familiar with the astro-tracer feature on the K-70? It requires an optional GPS unit on the hot-shoe, from what I understand. I haven't tried it myself.

Dear Bogwalker,

thank you for your »letter«. In it you qoute MartinStu's (from Irkutsk, Siberia/Russia) sentences, with whom I'm corresponding, as he is the only forum member who answered my thank-you-lines and photographs. I'm a bit confused: Do you want to answer his remarks and, by accident, you posted your lines to me...? --- Be that as it may... I am the only son of my father's quite late 2nd marriage. My ancestors, like yours, lived in Russia for several generations, speaking German at home and Russian outside. 1917 (World War I) they were expelled from their farm (Western Russian Zitomir region - at that time nobody spoke of »Ukraine«) losing their farmhouse, their land and all their animals. Also having had to leave behind their house organ my father used to play, he told me that before the day of departure he played all night through, tears running down his face, swearing to himself never to touch an organ again for the rest of his life...

Theme photography... 1977 I decided to learn all about this art & craftsmanship. In one of Stuttgart's best camera shops I tried several mirror reflex camera makes - at that time Fuji, Minolta, Olympus, Pentax, Nikon and Canon. Being craftsman and artist by profession (hand compositor, printer & graphic designer) I was allowed to try them all. By far the best stability, best light meter, best focusing, most logic operating technique was offered by PENTAX, some others didn't even come near to it. My choice was a KM with 1:1.8 / 55 mm lens. I worked six years with this instrument, travelled to Austria, Greece, South Africa and the Baltic Sea with it. Until today I regret that I sold it to a friend... who lost it !!! 1984 I bought a PENTAX LXbody (probably the best professional 24 x 36 mm film camera system ever built). Example photos: attachments 1 & 2. For about ten years I had my own black & white photo laboratory, developing all films and producing prints up to the size of 60 x 45 cm. 2008, after my LEICA M6 & 1:1.4 / 35 mm asph Summilux lens (today's price equivalent: € 9.500,00) had gone underwater in the Indian Ocean, I refused digital photography (01-01-01-01 sensor, »APS-C«, »four thirds« and other bullshit) for nine years...


2017 a camera dealer in Tübingen told me: »There is a new and uniquely well built 36 x 24 mm digital camera on the market now, named PENTAX K-1, all your PENTAX lenses from the 1970s onwards will work perfectly on this new camera - exept autofocus.« Immediately I drove to Tübingen, tried some 1980s lenses on this camera - an extremely well-built optical machine - it worked... Aside: As luck would have it, I bought my second (night sky) K-1 body on 27th November 2019, the very day of PENTAX's 100th anniversary... getting a sensational price of € 1.200,00 !! Regular price at that time: € 2.000,00. After long research, as a well built high-brightness night sky lens I bought the SAMYANG 1:1.4 / 35 mm AS UMC lens - example photo: attachment 3 - original: 7360 x 4912 pixel / 13,8 MB (16:9); Pentaxforums reduces it to 114 kB, so apart from Venus as evening star (taken from our garden Oct 31st), the other stars cannot really be seen. This photograph needs to be looked at in dark surroundings only with all artificial light sources switched off.


Now I wonder if you will answer to this letter and photographs.


All the best to you

BOREALIS

[exposeric]

Hello Borealis
Welcome to the forum! Your work and your words I do appreciate very much.
Take care
Eric

[bogwalker]

Dear Bogwalker,

thank you for your »letter«. In it you qoute MartinStu's (from Irkutsk, Siberia/Russia) sentences, with whom I'm corresponding, as he is the only forum member who answered my thank-you-lines and photographs. I'm a bit confused: Do you want to answer his remarks and, by accident, you posted your lines to me...?

I appreciate the response, but you do realize this is a public forum, right? Martin Stu and you were corresponding, and both of your stories interested me, so I chimed in to the general conversation. You can see at the beginning of the quoted section who I had quoted.
If you intended the messages with Martin to be private, you can instead click on his avatar and there is an option there to send a private message.
I'll step away now.

Hello Borealis
Welcome to the forum! Your work and your words I do appreciate very much.
Take care
Eric

Danke für die freundlichen Worte, Eric.
Gerne hätte ich Ihnen meine Arbeit »Vom Geist der Photographie« beigefügt (pdf-Datei, 911 kB), doch Pentaxforums läßt das nicht zu (»exceeds your quota«) !?
Die Bedienungsmodalitäten hier (_das dürfen Sie, jenes nicht, das erst später; _bezahlen Sie, sonst dürfen Sie keine Anhänge mehr schicken [ trotz hochaggressiver Werbung...]; _Extrem-Verkleinerung hochgeladener Aufnahmen und anderes mehr), empfinde ich als ganz und gar ungut. Wenn Sie mir Ihre Netzpost- (»E-Mail«) Anschrift nennen,könnte ich Ihnen die pdf-Datei zukommen lassen.

Herzlich grüßt
Reinhard (»Borealis«)

[exposeric]

Danke für die freundlichen Worte, Eric.
Gerne hätte ich Ihnen meine Arbeit »Vom Geist der Photographie« beigefügt (pdf-Datei, 911 kB), doch Pentaxforums läßt das nicht zu (»exceeds your quota«) !?
Die Bedienungsmodalitäten hier (_das dürfen Sie, jenes nicht, das erst später; _bezahlen Sie, sonst dürfen Sie keine Anhänge mehr schicken [ trotz hochaggressiver Werbung...]; _Extrem-Verkleinerung hochgeladener Aufnahmen und anderes mehr), empfinde ich als ganz und gar ungut. Wenn Sie mir Ihre Netzpost- (»E-Mail«) Anschrift nennen,könnte ich Ihnen die pdf-Datei zukommen lassen.

Herzlich grüßt
Reinhard (»Borealis«)

Dear Borealis
It‘s a wild world and I take photos to show how I‘m impressed..:
You‘ve got a PM
Eric