March. A time of transition in Denmark. Life (and the sun) is slowly returning to the mostly grey and featureless landscape, making itself known in the form of flowers and the buzzing of bees diligently doing their duty to keep the cycle going. As I write this on the 31st of March, most trees are budding, with the promise of leaves again soon.
Continuing on the transition theme, I’ve also just been offered a new job! More on this next month.
It’s been a fairly quiet month for me photographically, but I have an experimental series on flowers and some big camera news to share, as well as a video about my daily coffee routine.
Desaturate
I wanted to showcase some of the vigorous spring growth by making a series on some local ground flowers that popped up this month. To keep things simple, I opted to play around with selectively desaturating (using hue masks in Photolab). I really like the effect as it simplifies the images, and also perhaps helps emphasise the return of life into the grey that has been Copenhagen winter.
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
New camera!
Here’s the cinematic trailer (use audio for best experience):
I’ve had my trusty Nikon D7200 DSLR for nearly 10 years (purchased late 2016)! Cameras have improved since then, and I felt that it was time to make a switch to a Nikon Z6iii. It’s quite a big thing to consider, particularly if your new camera body will not be compatible with your old lenses (as in my case). Here’s a list of some of the reasons why I made the switch, and my initial thoughts after using the camera for less than a month.
The first big difference between the cameras is that my old D7200 is a DSLR (digital single-lens reflex), whereas the Z6iii is a mirrorless camera. DSLRs use a mirror to reflect light into the viewfinder (eye hole thing) so you can see what you’re shooting, whereas mirrorless (as the name suggests) lack said mirror, and instead use a digital viewfinder. An advantage for mirrorless is that they tend to be lighter (fewer moving parts), quieter, and can take photos at a more rapid rate. The downside is that battery life in general is lower.
Another major difference is that the D7200 is a cropped sensor (Nikon calls this dx), whereas the Z6iii is a ‘full-frame’ sensor (35mm film equivalent). Advantages of full-frame sensors include better low-light performance and higher dynamic range.
Some of the features/improvements of the new camera that enticed me to make the switch:
INSANE autofocus: It’s honestly on a completely different level, particularly for people and wildlife. It’s amazing what nearly 10 years of improvement can do here. This can mean everything in a wildlife situation, where sometimes you only have a second (or a fraction of a second) to take the shot.
Improved rear display: The rear display on the Z6iii can be pivoted and even flipped around. While this may seem like a pretty minor thing, this is a huge quality of life improvement, as sometimes in the field you’re low to the ground (making it nearly impossible to use the viewfinder or rear display). It’s also far more ergonomic (less bending my neck at odd angles to see the screen).
Video recording: 6K RAW video (up to 120 frames per second). I’m keen to get more into video, and this will let me do so. The D7200’s video features were very dated (1080p max, 30 FPS).
In-body image stabilization: This will help keep videos stable, and photos sharper.
Pixel shift: A mode that takes a photo and then shifts the sensor a pixel at a time. Combining multiple photos shot this way can increase the effective resolution (from 24 megapixels to 96), and improve colour representation in certain situations. A key caveat here is that what you’re photographing has to be completely still, so only really viable for some landscapes and macro situations. You can read more about it here.
Focus shifting: A mode that lets you choose multiple focus points in the frame, and then take a sequence of photos at those different focus points. You can then merge these images together to create a final image with more of the frame in focus. This can be nice if you have a foreground that you want in focus in addition to the background of the photo, and other creative things that I’ll show in the future. While this is technically possible to do with my old camera, focus shifting will be much easier to do with the Z6iii.
Lens-wise, I have the Nikon Z 24-120mm S f4 (super sharp!) and a Nikon 40mm f2 (great, as it’s light at only 175g!). These should keep me going for a while as they cover the range of what I typically photograph.
Ultimately, it’s not the gear that takes the photo, it’s the person behind the camera. With that said, the new Z6iii is going to open up some new creative opportunities and make my life behind the camera easier and more enjoyable.
Anyway, here are some of the first images taken with the new camera, enjoy:
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC 4.0
Coffee
I’ve had my manual, lever espresso maker (The Robot) for years now (perhaps since 2018?), and it’s still going strong. It’s lighter and smaller than any traditional espresso maker, and requires virtually no maintenance (a bit of grease from time to time, and a perhaps a new silicone seal). You can also adjust the flow profile dynamically (by adjusting how hard you’re depressing the levers), which can be advantageous. Anyway, here’s the video (again, use sound for the best experience):
From making this video I’ve come to appreciate how much time and effort goes into the process of shooting, cutting, and editing a video! I took the shots over 3 separate days with my DJI Osmo pocket 3 (fixed 20mm focal length, so a bit of a pain to get certain angles). It’s not perfect by any means, but I learned a lot from the process, and look forward to creating some more in the future.
Photo of the month
Sometimes being in the right place at the right time pays off. This was outside the apartment in the late afternoon. A pretty ordinary place most of the time, but with this lighting it was striking. I love the shadows, contrast, and patterns.
Interesting things I’ve read/watched
Great video about how social media algorithms are probably not good for us. One of my favourite quotes is very pertinent here:
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune
Very nice take on why AI in research is overhyped.
Excellent explanation about what toxicity means in regard to snake bites, and why it’s not that important.
So it turns out that Meta pirated millions of books and scientific articles to train their large language model. If you’ve authored a book or article, the Atlantic created a tool that lets you see whether your work has been stolen by Meta. I’m sure that other Big Tech bozos have been doing this, but it’s sad to know that whether you’re held accountable for your actions largely depends on how big a company you are (and how much money you have to pay for lawyers).
Firefox has updated its terms of service. Community members noticed (commit history here if you’re interested), which led to some outrage over privacy concerns. Basically, certain lines such as these were removed:
Question: “Does Firefox sell your personal data?”
Answer: “Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox products are designed to protect your privacy. That’s a promise.”
Mozilla’s response to the outcry was:
The reason we’ve stepped away from making blanket claims that “We never sell your data” is because, in some places, the LEGAL definition of “sale of data” is broad and evolving.
I can see where they are coming from, but if they were smart they would have been upfront about it before people discovered the changes. Some additional context that’s worth considering in this case is the fact that Mozilla has long relied on Google for its income. In 2023, ~85% (555 million) of Mozilla’s income was from Google as payment to put their search engine as the default in Firefox. As there is a antitrust court case against Google currently going on that’s likely to rule against Google for this practice, Mozilla will have to find a new income stream from somewhere. As a longtime Firefox user, I’m currently on the fence, and will wait to see what eventuates.
Excellent audio report(20 minutes) about the current school lunches fiasco happening in NZ.
Can you buy a house (in Australia) on an average income? The short answer is no. I’ve got to thank the Liberals and John Howard for absolutely ruining the Aus housing market by introducing 50% capital gains tax discounts in the late 90s, which, when coupled with negative gearing, have led to huge increases in property prices. The sad reality is that we’re not likely to get rid of these bad policies any time soon (Labor got smashed in 2016/19 for attempting to address them), and the current Labor government will not likely touch it with a pole in the upcoming election in May. Enough people (i.e. anyone who owns a property or anticipates that they will inherit one in the future) benefit from the outcomes of these bad policies – higher house prices – that the political inertia seems too big to shift.
Saw a great film at the CPH:DOX festival - The Castle. Really interesting technique, and profound.
Results from a Te Papa (Wellington Museum) natural history curator’s bird census as he walked the length of NZ. Amazing dedication to collecting this data over a >3,200 km hike!
