Explore My Switzerland

Today I went out to capture some wonderful photos at a special location in my home town. I travelled a lot in the past, but next Year I want to start something new. Instead of travelling long distances, I want to explore the beauty of Switzerland. Switzerland has so many incredible beautiful locations to show and I haven’t seen a lot in Switzerland. It’s time to explore my Home Country! You can follow my journey with the hashtag #exploremyswitzerland  on Instagram and Twitter.

My first Destination was the ruin Tierstein in my home town.

The ruin Tierstein (Animalstone) is the ruin of a castle in the area of Aargau – Gipf-Oberfrick.

The castle was the medieval home of the Tiersteiner. The castle had several modifications and was inhabited from the 11th to the 15th century. Subsequently, the castle was abandoned because Tiersteiner moved their home to Büsserach the New-Tierstein Castle.

Older finds already indicate that the place has been visited 1000 v. Chr.

But the ruin isn’t the only interesting thing about this location. If you go on the top of the ruin you get an awesome view over the Fricktal. It’s a region of couple villages and called Fricktal (Tal = Village).

On the very left side you can see the village Frick but the most of it is hidden by the tree. The houses in the middle of the photo form the village Gipf-Oberfrick. My Hometown for more than 18 years.

But I know, you’re more interested about the photos I made and how they were taken:

To get some wonderful shots I took my Canon 700D with a 50mm 1.4f , 17-135 3.5f zoom lens and the Canon G7X with me. The Tripod I use is a Manfrotto BeFree.  For those who like my backpack, it’s a Miller Cosmopolitan and you can get one here.

• Camera: Canon 700D
• Focal length: 50mm
• Aperture: F16
• Exposure time: 1/80
• ISO 100

The first photo I made with the Canon 700D and the fix Lens 50mm. This is not the typical landscape lens but very good to learn about framing and compose a photo. Specially on a cropped sensor that the EOS 700D has. You have to think about what do you want to have in your picture. I decided to have the fir-tree in the front of the picture but just on the right side as the first layer. I really like the the second layer of the photo with the wooden hill. In the back you can see an other hill – it’s a little bit foggy and it gives the photo more depth. The last layer is very cool – you can see the mountains, it’s very special for this location.

• Camera: Canon 700D
• Focal length: 29mm
• Aperture: F22
• Exposure time: 1/30
• ISO 200

For the comparison the same photo with a wider lens – The tree is blurred but it has more depth of field. I don’t like the photo because the tree looks like it’s falling into the photo and the contrast to the hill isn’t enough.

Back to the photos I really like:

One of my favourite Photo is this one. You will not guess but this one was made with a compact camera. I needed a lens with a wider angle. But the 18mm from the EOS 700D was not enough so I went for the Canon G7X.

• Camera: Canon G7X
• Focal length: 9mm
• Aperture: F8
• Exposure time: 1/100
• ISO 125

Here are some more photos from my little adventure:

I hope you liked my blog, if so leave a comment below and subscribe to my blog. This was only the first blog of #exploremyswitzerland