Most of the time when I wanted to take pictures of people and animals my old camera limited me. Mostly because of two reasons: it is auto-focus only, and the auto-focus is quite slow at that, too.

That is why on December 18nd I started taking photography serious. That's the date I ordered my new Nikon D7000 DSLR. Before ordering I went through quite a lot of reviews, tests and discussions. I wanted to make a good choice, and not ending up regretting it about half a year later. That's why I decided to choose a DSLR from the upper consumer segment, a camera which could help me grow while I learn about photography.

The choice turned out to be pricy since a good camera depends on a good objective. For now I decided to stick with the Nikkor AF-S 16-108mm/3,5-5,6G ED VR which came with the bundle, as well as a Sigma 50mm/1.4 EX HSM. I use the Nikkor for sports- and action shots, and the Sigma for shots in low-light environment as well as profile shots.

There are still some hurdles to take namely the terminology used in photography as well as the missing experience about why settings to use for specific situations, but I'll learn that for sure =)

That's it for now, I'll keep this place updated as I go along!

UPDATE:

After about a month of trial-and-error I decided to replace my Nikon D7000 by the somewhat older Nikon D700. Even though the D700 is due to be replaced by the D800 this year I do not regret my decision a single bit - the difference between a DX and a FX camera is really worth the money.

Related links:

• Me @ Flickr
• Nikon D7000@dpreview.com
• f/stops explained

I hope you can enjoy the festive period with your family and friends.

If you happen to find some free time in all the turmoil you should consider taking a look at your year 2010 - its soon coming to an end, and I'm sure that there were plenty of good, bad and interesting events for all of you.

2010 was a rough but nice year to me:

• I worked quite hard for a big IT project at empuxa GmbH which kept me busy for nearly three-quarters of the year. The project was interesting, I met lots of nice people and learned quite a lot about IT projects and people's behavior in general. After the job was done the guys who own the company tried to get rid of me - a really crappy move since I considered them friends. Lesson learned - I won't sell myself below value anymore - and I'm going to choose my friends more carefully. I'm just happy I learned this the hard way while I'm still young.

• Simon and I visited Japan for the second time. We stayed nearly four weeks, using a JR-Pass to travel a lot by train. I traveled nearly 5000 km and used every chance to improve my Japanese language skills. It was a really great time - thanks to all those friendly Japanese people I met, which made this trip a great one - and of course Simon. Thanks, Simon - you are a great friend and I just like going on trips with you.

• On August 14th, I got together with Katharina - a really beautiful and charming young woman. We're having a really great time and our relationship just keeps on getting better and better. I guess it's going to stay that way, at least I hope it does :-) Thank you, Katharina. I love you and I don't want to miss you!

• I started working on my Bachelor thesis on October 4th. The topic is interesting and my instructor is really friendly as well. Guess I will be done with my study in 2011. Finally! Thanks, Jesper, for your support and the interesting topic!

• As of November I'm learning western riding. Riding really is a fascinating sport and thanks to Mama Jog, Katharina and all the other pupils I really enjoy the lessons - and Mama Jog and Katharina really are great teachers. But most important I like working with horses. Thanks, all you ponies for enduring me - and thanks Mama Jog for having me :-D

• Even though I said that I never planned on getting a driver's licence I changed my mind in 2010. On December 22nd I got my driver's licence and well, driving is kind of fun. Thanks for the great support from the driving instructors at Campusfahrschule Kiel.

That's it - the events I feel were most important to me in 2010.

Cheers, Raphael

p.s. I really enjoyed creating this short "end of the year review". More to come next year (-:

After nearly a month of DIY OCL parsing I decided to throw it all away and start anew using SableCC 3.2. There is an OCL 1.5 grammar for SableCC 2.0, which did not work with version 3.2. After some tweaks I was able to get the grammar to work.

Switching to SableCC was a very good idea even tho the documentation on version 3.2 is scarce. The OCL parsing works well. SableCC generates a lot of Java classes which can be used to transform the generated concrete syntax tree (CST).

The only problem is that the generated CST is quite complex. SableCC 3.2 comes with the option to significantly reduce the size of the generated CST by specifying a mapping the the underlying abstract syntax tree. It seems like a good idea to update the grammar to work with an AST mapping as well, but I'm not quite sure if it fits into my bachelor thesis. As soon as I'm sure what to do, and how to do it, I'm going to publish the OCL grammar I've updated.

Cheers, Raphael