My father-in-law, possibly amused by watching me dick around with a DSLR and laptop over the weekend, decided to dig his camera equipment out of storage
These are the cameras he used, over three decades, to take the pictures for his magnum opus (so becoming the first non-Russian to be awarded the Russian Academy of Fine Arts’ gold medal). He asserted he'd always been pleased with Rolleiflex ...
The episode has a useful pay-off ... it established with my wife a new baseline for the number of cameras it is reasonable for a man to own :-)
Last year I made an autumn photo trip to Wicken Fen; and this morning decided, seeing the light, to have a repeat visit. It was more sombre today, but quite interesting in a muted way I think.
These are three-photo images tone-mapped from HDR with Photomatix.
Before dawn things didn't look auspicious in Oxfordshire this morning - it seemed likely to be one of those days which start with a succession of gradually lighter grays. But suddenly, past five o'clock the sun blazed out a lovely yellow. There was mist in the valleys and everything looked resplendent.
I hopped in the car and drove looking for a vantage point, but failed to find one. It was as if one could be in the beauy, but never on top of it. Not for the first time I thought a big step ladder would help to photograph the English countryside, whose hedgrerows are often in just the wrong places. Still, walking round in the early morning with a ladder is likely to look a bit suspicious.
Finally, I stopped in Churchill to photograph the church; and behind, a glimpse of the light in the next valley. Next time I will need to plan better.
I had a few minutes before a meeting yesterday – and so a chance to take a photo of Big Ben. The only lens I was carrying was the (small and light) Nikon E Series 50mm, which gives a slightly unusual short-telephoto focal length of 75mm (in real money) when used on a DX camera.
So, a trip over Westminster Bridge was necessary to get much into the frame.
I'm pleased with the painterly light/haze effect in this picture. That may be accounted for by the layer of dust I noticed had built up on the front element later in the day; or the software smudging caused by the slightly-misaligned frames which make up this 3-exposure HDR....