More from our friends Rinie and Nikki, part 2.

"At the end of the day, while Nikki is back in the box (I planned to bike to Chris today, but the weather was so bad), I want to post a couple of photo's taken on my stroll over the island tonight. The barge Nikki was still there, and there was someone on board to whom I could ask whether I could take some picture ON board and WHY I wanted to do that. He put down a ladder for me and I climbed on board. The funny thing is that HE came up with the shot of the small blue boat with the name on it. It was fun.

As it is late, it's a bit of quick&dirty processing, but I wanted to get these posted.

Leighton, I will have more photos to post, but this is a nice farewell post for Nikki.

It was great fun to have her here, and I wish you all a lot of fun too.

With Nikki @ f/11

 OF Nikki, along the quay, with the 35mm. @ f16

 With the 35mm. @ f/8

  

@f/8

Now Nikki is back in the box, and I will drop her off at the post office, on her way to Chris in Amsterdam, but NOT after I gave her a good clean-up. I think I found some remains of Noodle soup… LOLLOL Just kidding of course

 Have fun, Chris!"

More from our friends Rinie and Nikki.



"It's about time that I give you a couple of more photo's taken with Nikki. 
So I'm sorting them a little bit more, and finding photo's that are worth posting. 
I'll start with a couple of more photo's from my visit at the market last week Saturday.  I have taken many photo's last week, as I thought I'd give Nikki a good work-out :), but I am such a BIG procrastinator when it comes to selecting and processing images for this thread, that a lot time is spent on that …. 


Anyway, all taken withNikki (85mm. H)

Stroopwafels, Dutch treat, but apparently you can get them at Starbucks nowadays. Curtis loves them ,and so does my Canadian family (of course), and my friends from Spain. Probably known to Dean then as well.

Grilled chicken through a greasy window, but I LOVED the colors (sorry Monty)

@f/1.8

Spring onions @ f/4

Hmmm, ripe mango! I love it

@f/1.8

Grapefruit @ f/2.8. I have NO idea why they call this a grapefruit, there's really nothing that reminds me of grapes. Anyway, Nikki is a pretty sharp lens as this is a 100% crop. 

Wake up, Monty!!! Strong Espresso! Nikki in my kitchen at f2.8"

A little sense of humor from Rinie.

"D****, I come home from chamber choir rehearsal and I find Nikki in the water!!! What am I to do?

Post a photo maybe, of Nikki in the water??

LOL LOL LOL"

@f/4, 6400 ISO, 1/100, stitch of two photo's.

85.1.8Nikki.jpg

Here's the latest from Rinie.



"A few more from the market. It's a nice place to go, although it's often so busy that you can't move ahead. I thought of Leighton of course, although this is far from a farmer's market with one's own produce. There's a small 'organic' farmer's market on Tuesday in the city, but I've never been there, as it's finished when I come home from work.
Nevertheless, it's a nice place to go and take pictures as well. Rotterdam houses 169 different nationalities and a lot of products from all sorts of countries can be bought here. Lovely!  

Here's my supplier from North African decent (Morocco),  for dried fruits, nuts, olives, herbs (cilantro, mint) and Moroccan and Turkish food. He's a very kind guy, laughs a lot, and addresses you in Arabic, Dutch, Italian, French. Don't know whether he speaks those languages well, but I do think so. His Dutch is perfect, and his Italian and French sound very good too. He said he was afraid of my lens, and I told him she was a sophisticated old lady, who scares no one.

Raw herring (fresh catch) is VERY popular in the Netherlands, you'll find shops and market places everywhere. 

Here's some one who prepares it. When I asked whether I could take his picture, a woman standing beside me made all sorts of comments, like "smile" look at her' laugh in the lens" etc. Laughing at me as well. Should have taken her picture.....

And this is how you eat it. Take it by the tail, and eat it with cut raw onions. Curtis likes it very much too. (I don't eat it, I'm not a fish eater though I try to learn to, but raw herring is a bit too far yet).

We have a big Chinese community in the Netherlands, very active in the restaurant business but that business is declining and they are trying to do everything to turn that. Make the restaurants more modern etc. But the older people hardly speak any Dutch, it has always been a very 'closed' community. Older people used to be part of the family untill they died, but now often they go to older people's homes, where it is quite difficult for them as often they hardly speak the Dutch language. Nowadays they tend to do better, but when the restaurant business was declining, they had a hard time as they had problems finding their way to social security.  

Anyway, here are two older Chinese people on the market."

The lady @ f/2.8 and the gentleman @ f/1.8 

Here is Rinie's second and third posts, enjoy! Be sure to click on the panorama of the bridge to see it at a larger size. It's worth it!



"So here it is, my Erasmus bridge panorama. Creating it didn't go as smoothly as I'm used to, but finally the vignetting button in Lightroom did the trick as there was light fall on the edges. These are 3 photo's stitched in photoshop., take handheld with the lens wide open. 

I took it during the blue hour on Thursday, the day that Nikki arrived. I took her along to my choir rehearsal as I knew I would come home during the blue hour, and wanted to try the lens. I think I will go back and redo this one with a smaller aperture.

The Erasmus bridge is the bridge on the left side of my island and I took the photo's standing on the Willemsbrug, of which I will certainly post photo's taken with Nikki.

It is a very fine lens, very solid and well made, and it's a pleasure to hold it in your hands!

I spent a big part of the day with Nikki, and most of the evening selecting and pp-ing what Nikki produced today. I must say that it's a great lens, I like it very much, though I have to get used to the length a little bit. There's not much you need to do in PP, it is THAT good.

Ben, if you want to get rid of it after it's gone through so many hands, send me an email :)

I'll just post a few photo's now, more will follow.

The first one is for Monty, or maybe for Mr. Rockstar? Meet Ms. Rockstar.

taken wide open at f/1.8

And here's Nikki herself with the Erasmus bridge in the back, the same that was in the panorama. Taken with the 50mm f/1.2 at f/16

and this one with the same lens at f/4"

And now, a message from Nikki.

"Please, allow me to introduce myself, hope you get my name.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66HvCjn8Wsk

My name is Nikki and I travel the world in a box, visiting photographers all over the world who take me out to see their place, landmarks and actually show their world through my eye. I forgot how old I am, but I'm at least 35 years old, but I STILL look good, and there is nothing wrong with my eyesight.

At the moment I am in Rotterdam visiting Rinie, and before that I was in Hong Kong with Dean and before THAT I was in Singapore with Chin. I have seen really beautiful things, things that my godfather Ben could not have shown me if he had kept me in Australia. I'm glad Ben let me go, and let me have so much fun. Thanks Ben, and thanks Curtis and Leighton for organizing  this trip.

Rinie took me to the market on Saturday and to some shop where they had cameras and lenses, newly born's in my family, but I also found siblings all over.

Just take a look and be just as surprised as I was.

I will be back!"

Rinie's first post with Nikki.



"The lens arrived this morning on my doorstep!! I'm happy, and so was Dean. I had expected it to arrive yesterday afternoon, but that was false hope. But now it's here in very good shape, and very, very well wrapped. I think Dean, that when you wrapped the lens itself, you used a whole role of tape.
In the box I found the documents created by Curtis, and a note from Chin and Ben, my predecessors.
Dean also bought a lens hood for it, so thank you Dean!

Sorry for that many photo's...:), but I felt I needed to re-introduce her...

Now my work begins....
Here are the first photo's of it and with it. My cats had to approve too of course and that's what you'll see in the first shots."

Japie gives it his approval.. 50mm f/1.2 at f/2.8

He likes what he smells... 50mm f/1.2 at f/2.8

Then Femmus wants to have an opinion of his own... 50mm f/1.2 at f/2.8

The wrapped lens and the new lens hood... 50mm f/1.2 at f/2.8

The lens itself, while Femmus checks out the rest of the box... 28mm f/2.8 at f/4

And finally a test shot WITH Nikki wide open, the crystal ball in front of my window. 

This is REALLY Dean's last post!



"Last couple of shots from Nikki ... a couple of panorama shots of Hong Kong

Many thank's to Curtis, Leighton & Ben for making this lens adventure possible and asking me to be part of it ... really enjoyed it !

Looking forward to seeing Rinie's shots next from The Netherlands !!

HK.Night"

HK.Day

Here is Dean's last post.



"Last outing with Nikki on Sunday ... some seafood Laksa at the Jumbo Floating restaurant in Aberdeen. 

This is a fun place to spend a few hours eating & drinking ...

All shots taken by Nikki."

Rinie has a report for us:





"The lens is on it's way in the Netherlands!!!
It might even arrive today, which means that FedEx ships it within 48 hours or so."

Here is Dean's next post, this time, street scenes from Hong Kong.


"Today Nikki and I went out and shot some street scenes ...

Firstly, the old district of Sheung Wan ...

We then moved on to a wet market in Causeway Bay ...

And finally over the harbour to Tsim Sha Tsui, where we met up with Bruce and sampled the local brew !!"