Tampere in Winter (Lessons Learned)

[mauvesmiles]

Tampere is the city, which is associated as the home of the industrial revolution in Finland. Even if elsewhere a lot of the industry was founded by German families, in Tampere a lot of the equipment and influence came from England. In the winter of 2022, I had the opportunity to spend a weekend in Tampere and visit the various museums and learn about the history I didn't learn in school. The weather that weekend was actually quite horrible and one of the brief moments of sunshine I was able to capture in this image. If you look closely you'll notice snowflakes over the river and sky, as moments later the snow started really blotting the whole scene.

Rookie Mistakes Abound​

This actually spelled trouble for me photographically, since I had not done my due diligence before the trip and cleaned the UV filter which I have an all of my lenses to protect them from scratches. Given the short focal length, 16mm, the smallish aperture of f8 and that the focus point that was quite close to the camera, it caused a nightmare for me in the post process. What happened was that all the small dust particles got superimposed over the image and I was faced with a tedious retouching ordeal if I wanted to publish the image.

Normally, I would have just discarded the image and tried again, but traveling 200 kilometers, as well as getting lucky with the weather wasn't so appealing a prospect either. So I stayed the course and cleaned up the image a dust particle at a time. The larger retouched areas are actually dust particles on the sensor, which yet again I normally avoid through a pre-trip todo list and cleaning.

Here's a second screen capture of the results of laziness in equipment maintenance.

The End Result?​

At the end of the day, I think the 10x8 frame which I have published is fairly OK. I'm not thrilled about the image, but I think it has educational value -- at least for me.

 

[jeffashman]

I really like this image! Thank you for sharing what you went through to process the picture. Because I habitually forget to clean my gear before going out, I've now gotten into the habit of taking lens cloths and wipes, a very soft lens brush, and a bulb duster... and I still forget to use them. Paying the price of cleaning up the image afterwards is a good lesson and reminder.

 

[mauvesmiles]

I really like this image! Thank you for sharing what you went through to process the picture. Because I habitually forget to clean my gear before going out, I've now gotten into the habit of taking lens cloths and wipes, a very soft lens brush, and a bulb duster... and I still forget to use them. Paying the price of cleaning up the image afterwards is a good lesson and reminder.

Exactly!

I feel it is much nicer to clean my gear in the comfort of my living room than on location where it might be snowing, raining etc. Moreover, in my living room the temperature is a comfortable +20C, whereas outside it can be -20C in the winter.

 

[John 2]

Two comments from me. The image was very worth it and just think what it would have been like to spot a print of this. Computers are quite useful sometimes.

 

[mauvesmiles]

Two comments from me. The image was very worth it and just think what it would have been like to spot a print of this. Computers are quite useful sometimes.

Indeed!