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The most desired format for the collection is the portrait format 10x15 cm. 
The light should cover most of the picture. We call it "to lick the light" that means, you were as close to a beacon to get a picture which shows the whole light (not a distant shot). So you really could touch (or lick) the light. Well then, usually, the quality is not the problem. Only you have to work with a telephoto lens some of the pictures can show of course poor quality (see photo quality).
If someone has a photo with better quality than shown in the already published parts of the Online List of Lights he/she is very invited either to send me a picture copy with 10x15 (!) format or, in the digital age, a picture attachment to an e-mail will, of course, do. The digital quality should be at least that good to ensure a picture to be set online with a minimum vertical edge length of 800 pixel with 300 pixel/inch. All picture which I receive, and it doesn't matter which kind of format you send, will be inserted definitely into the "offline-collection", so all digital pictures will be printed on photo paper as I try not to differenciate between all material set online and the offline-collection. Do not be worried to send large attachments with pictures as on this side a broadband line waits for your mails. Contact: Alexander Trabas
With this homepage, the "Online List of Lights", step by step I'm trying to put online all my collected lights from all around the world. This collections does not only contain pictures take by myself but I'm getting photos from a lot of assistants from all parts of the world. To respect the seperate copyrights, a list of all authors is provided on these pages.
I am trying to share my hobby with the world on these pages (no collection hobby is really fun if you cannot show your compilation to anybody else ("Do you want to have a look at my stamp-collection")).
Furthermore I think it isn't uninteresting to see what kind of light there are. And some of the picture are very scenic and maybe remembers someone about their holiday. And in the end it is one of the OLL's major task to provide the navigation a compilation besides the official List of Lights volumes published by the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office. As a picture is worth a thousand words hopefully the photos shown here can literally enlighten the tabular arrangement in the list of lights into a picture.
The photos which can be seen online represend the complete collection - but this of course does not mean that they show all lights listed in the official "List of Lights". Not at all. This is why all additions to this collection are very welcome to finally complete the light compilation. The journey is the reward and is why I say THANK YOU in advance.
Most of the pictures have been shot with a Canon EOS 1000F. When trying to reach the objects far away I usually took a 300 AF-zoom from Canon and during this the autofocus naturally was seldom used as the lights in the distance were really too far away for the automatic.
Older pictures (especially the fuzzy ones ;-)) have been taken with a Canon AV-1 with a 80-200 Macro-Zoom. Of course it could be foreseen that the result sometimes was not too good (speaking of sharpness).
Nowadays I get my pictures with a digital Canon EOS 300D, after my old 1000F has passed away during combat. Unfortunately I drowned the camera in seawater in the spanish mediterranean sea. RIP
Now I am using on the body a Canon EF 28-90mm 1:4-5.6 lens for the close-up views. If the light is a little bit more in the distance, a Canon EF 75-300mm 1:4-5.6 III tele has to be applied. And the small light you can see there, yes, there, very far away, nothing but my Kenko 3x Teleplus Pro 300 C-AF teleconverter can deal with this problem which is put in between camera and lens.
And finally, when nothing goes, when I have to spy into a military area, view across a sound or veeeeeeryyy far away into the ocean, I have to pull my very special one: an Exakta Varioplan 1300 650-1300mm 1:8-16 zoooom lens. At least, what can I say, there is a picture.
But as I have mentioned in the beginning, it is not my aim to publish pictures with highest quality but to show a collection with the widest possible amount of pictures of lights. If you are an aesthet concerning picture brilliance, you might have to close your eyes sometimes when looking through these pages.
The finishing of the photos is made by myself with the Adobe Photoshop Elements program and as I am not a genius in postprocessing and due to the large amount of pictures it is not really possible for me to concentrate several hours on a picture to adjust sharpess, light, colour and so on - so here is my wish to the pros: so do not kill me when you definately can see the unsharp mask contour. I'm sorry but I cannot help it.
Furthermore during our lighthouse vacations we have to take a huge amount of pictures in a very limited time. On an average day we have to get at least 35 pictures of lights to ensure for example to finish the complete croatian costline during a two-week-vacation. There is a good chance that picture will show bad weather or crowded places or pleasure crafts in front of a light. So please slur over quality defects or, even better, send me a "better" picture!
Part of the preparation of a light spotting holiday is definately the exploration of the target areas using street maps and, very important, with the usage of sea charts. It is up,ost important to use sea charts for harbour areas and, for example, steep coastlines, to ensure exact locating of lights. To "only" know the exact location isn't often the only way to find the right path to the certain light as there might be missing the crucial hint. In this case good harbour plans or parts of sea charts can help to cut time consuming searches. In the meantime my collection of sea charts has grown to a large compilation of sea charts from hydrographic offices from all over the world. German sea charts, published by the Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie are a big part of the collection but meanwhile more important are the Admirality Charts of Great Britain as they are available for all parts of the world. But greek, candadian, norwegian, US charts and many more are available too. You have to be informed very well indeed.
Step by step all our itineraries will be shown here. We start here with some experiences from our travels to Spain. All diaries have been written by Tina and the choice of pictures lays in her hands too. Alex' business was only the preperation of the pictures and the final "assembly". Have fun reading them. Unfortunately they are currently only available in german.
Souteast Spain (13.06.02 - 30.06.02)
Nothern Spain (31.08.02 - 15.09.02)
Portugal / Southwest Spain (11.05.03 - 26.05.03)
Greece (Revision spotting) (23.09.03 - 07.10.03)
Ireland (16.05.04 - 02.06.04)
Netherlands (16.09.04 - 24.09.04)
West Italy (22.04.05 - 30.04.05)
South England (16.06.05 - 28.06.05)
South Italy (01.05.06 - 14.05.06)
Wales to Scotland (13.08.06 - 24.08.06)
The Canary Islands (by Alex) (03.02.07-11.02.07)
North East Italy (29.04.07 - 04.05.07)
Netherlands/Belgium (06.05.07 - 12.05.07)
West Sweden (02.06.07 - 14.06.07)
Scotland (01.09.07 - 14.09.07)
Poland (01.05.08 - 11.05.08)
South Sweden (07.06.08 - 20.06.08)
East England (30.08.08 - 14.09.08)
North-East USA (16.05.09 - 30.05.09)
South-East Sweden (15.08.09 - 30.08.09)
Well, try this. Each year in the same place on the same aegean island Thassos - and each time four weeks during the summer vacations. After a few years I knew every corner of my new vacation home and there it was, a small light (not a lighthouse, only a tiny metal framework tower, a small rusty one). This E4547 flashed its weak light every five seconds towards the sea which I found extremely fascinating and I decided to search the island for more such lights. Nowadays our vacations are nothing else than beacon-spotting. So my parents are the one which are to be blamed for all the mess you can see here. Forward any complaints please direct to the appropriate place ;-)
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