Strabrechtse Heide

Arjan Wilmsen May 18, 2018

I am an idiot. But sometimes its nice to be an idiot.
So I went out to shoot some landscape and sunset shots last night, at the Strabrechtse Heide. Very cool, all good. Only to forget how big this natural heath land is.

So the entire distance that I had walked from where I had parked my car needed to be covered again. I am talking quite some kilometers here. And all in the dark. Now, walking our hiking in the dark is no issue. But at this place it gets DARK!!

About 30 minutes before the sun went down

Trust me, hiking this place in the dark was no joke. It got my adrenaline levels right up, because there's wild boars, wild Highland cattle probably not super happy with me strolling through their habitat during breeding season. While I am actually also managing to find my way back in the pitch black forest.

But hey, that's my dose of adventure for this week! Haha... But let me tell you, I was quite happy to make it out of the forest a bit faster then usual this time...

Check out more images in the gallery below. Click on them to see the original aspect ratio.
Thanks again for looking at my work, it means a lot to me. Feel free to comment and share.

Faroe Islands

Arjan Wilmsen December 21, 2017

Hi all, I am super stoked to announce that I will finally be going to the Faroe Islands!! Its officialy going to happen later on in 2018. I will go out on a 9 day trip, exploring this amazing country that has been on my wishlist for quite a while now. I am beyond excited!

And this is only the first of a few other amazing announcements I have coming up for 2018. Next year is going to be so awesome!

Out and About 3: Großer De-Witt-See & Ferkensbruch

Arjan Wilmsen August 19, 2017

With the weekend in front of me I decided to end my week with a nice little outdoor photo session. I was going to have to drive a bit for work anyways, so why not make a little detour on the way home and take my camera gear with me? Right? Right! I had been scouting Google Maps for a little bit the past few days for nice locations in Germany, just across the border. My recent trip to the Krickenbecker Seen in Hombergen got me going to find more similar places.

So in doing so I came across two places pretty close to each other that might make interesting photo locations. I am talking about the Großer De-Witt-See & Ferkensbruch. Both situated close to Lobberich in North Rhine Westphalia. Lobberich is situated some 15 minutes away from Venlo, The Netherlands. So really, this place is around the corner. I love living close to other countries. So much.

I found the Großer De-Witt-See quite nice. Calm little lake with lots of nature around it.
This resulted in me shooting a nice set of photographs of the place. Have a look at the gallery below. (Click the images to see them in full size)

Ferkensbruch was a little bit disappointing, small, not much nice viewpoints over the water and a little bit of a boring place. You can't win them all. I do have one nice photo from that place though. All in all not a bad way to start my weekend, and being able to enjoy the outdoors like this is really all that counts anyways.

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New camera / Nikon D500

Arjan Wilmsen July 10, 2017

So recently I had to buy a new camera. Something I didn't plan on doing just yet. It was more of a necessity than anything else...

My good old Nikon D7000, that I will be using still even though its not 100% reliable anymore... Will mainly use it for some landscapes and some videos probably. I can't let it go, it's still a very capable camera

Reason why? My trusty good old Nikon D7000 kind of broke down on me. I was happily shooting away with it on this recent event photo job I got booked for. When suddenly this error showed up on my display. At first it looked like it was only a coincidental error so I didn't bother too much about it. But then it kept coming back, and back, and back... I was going crazy. It seems that the mechanism of the shutter is worn out. If I take a photo more than 50% of the time the shutter "fails". So though the camera still "functions" it's just not reliable anymore. Sending it in for repairs is probably out of question, I probably have lost warranty after years of use. But I am not getting rid of this camera, not at all. I can see myself still using the Nikon D7000 for landscapes, and some video purposes. But its not usable on jobs anymore where every moment and every click should be captured instead of hoping the camera actually taking the photo. (Luckily I had a Nikon D3100 on me as backup to photograph the event, all turned out well in the end)

My new camera, the Nikon D500. a true masterpiece. FX quality camera in a DX format body.

So, it was now time to purchase a new camera, because. Yes... I can't be running around with a sketchy camera. I need my gear to work. I have been looking to get a obvious step up from my Nikon D7000 for some time, but now I had too anyways. So, its was time to decide. Do I go FX or do I stick with DX? With most of lenses being DX and not having the budget to invest in a FX body with a set of FX lenses I decided to stick with DX. But the next question was, what camera is a step up from my Nikon D7000, is it going to be the 7100/7200/7500 or maybe even the D500. Some sleepless nights later comparing specs I decided to go for Nikon's DX flagship, the incredible D500. I just felt that stepping up from the 7K series was the right thing to do, and really take it up a notch while still being it a DX camera. There's no better DX camera then the Nikon D500.

Some short facts about the D500: 20.9mp APS-C sensor, iso 52. AF system is the same as in the Nikon D5 (Nikon's FX top model) 10fps continuous shooting. 4K 30fps, 1080p 60fps, high iso (up to 51.200) and so on... Its basically a professional FX camera with all these specs. But just with a DX sensor. The right choice for me considering the amount of DX lenses I use.

The Nikon D500 and the Nikon D7000 next to each other. Its obvious that the D500 is the bigger adult brother of the D7000. Both camera's are totally awesome.

Below are two first landscape photo's I shot with the Nikon D500. I really love how fast it focuses even in low light. Image quality and dynamic range are impressive. Certainly improved here compared to the D7000. I am aware the D500 is more of a sports/wildlife camera with its AF system and 10fps burst mode. But I can't see why it won't make a bad ass landscape camera too. Do you agree?

I have also tested out the video function on the D500 for a little bit. Watch in 4K!

Video: Denmark and Iceland 2016

Arjan Wilmsen June 28, 2017

Last year my wife and I have been to Denmark (as we so often do) and we went to Iceland for the first time. I did shoot some footage with my action camera and turned all that random footage into a little travel video a while ago. But I wasn't really happy with how that turned out, so did not share it around too much.

I've bought a macbook pro recently and I now have Final Cut Pro X, really awesome and super easy to use. Great piece of video editing software. So I re-edited all the footage from our trip and decided to put this out there for you to enjoy!

*Note: I am not a professional videographer, all my video stuff is DIY and amateur. Mainly for fun and learning matters. The shot in this video are random, I did not plan to shoot on any location in particular (so you might miss some of the more typical locations in this video.)
And all footage is just point and shoot, handheld, pretty straight forward stuff. Nothing pro at all. The slow motion of some clips does give a nice cinematic look and feel to it at times, I love that.

Enjoy! any comments or critique is welcome!