Stonehenge...how close/what lens?

Im planning a quick 4 day trip to London next month and I want to go

to Stonehenge. How close can you get to the monoliths? I always see

pictures with no people. it is sealed off and if so, how close can I

get and what lens would suggest? I been to London central before and

know what to take but I want to expand for this little jaunt.

If I remember correctly, you can get to within fifty yards or so. You can't go right up to the

stones. They are actually located right next to a highway, but the Brits had the sensitivity

to locate the parking lot below a small hill so that it's not visible from the stone area.

 

I'm afraid I have little advice on lenses since the one time I was there my Kodak Signet 35

promptly died (I suspect druidic influence).

A long zoom might be in order. The "monoliths" are not as monolithic as most people imagine! Stonehenge is small, and the stones as small, and if your lens is too wide you will gets lots of hilltop and a little pile of stones. Take something with reach.

The monoliths are huge but cordoned off, although you get quite close. About 100mm will fill the frame but 35mm will give an environmental shot.ie same sort of lenses as you need for London city shooting. Getting shots without people in is not so easy however. Check people have been there before taking too much notice! Don't forget Old Sarum and Avebury as well.

I was there last summer and found it surprisingly easy to get pictures with few or obscured

people in it eventhough it was quite crowded. There is a path that allows you to walk all

the way around it. The distance to the stones varies between maybe 50 and 200 feet in

various places. People tend to bunch-up when walking around it, so being patient allows

you to take the picture when a bunch is behind one of the stones. English Heritage has

done a good job to not mess up the landscape with lights, paths, and other ugly things.

 

Going out to Stonehenge from London will take much of the day and the tour around it

takes at most 45 minutes. You might want to plan on doing some other sites if you're

going to make the effort to go out there.

 

Here a shot I took last June:<div></div>

Sorry - I forgot to mention in the above picture caption that it was an EF 28-105mm USM at

45mm (~76mm taking the crop factor in to account).

There's every chance you will get there and think "so what!". I used the 50mm and 70-210mm on my K1000 to shoot the henge. If it's a "must" to see it, get there as early as possible (providing it's not a solstice) so thart there are fewer people about. Use the rest of the day to see the interesting places in the area.

 

Bath, Bradford upon Avon and Castle Combe are all worth a visit and are not very far north and west. As pointed out above, Avebury is not far from there either. It's a village situated within a stone circle.

 

Regards. Pete

I would agree with Pete. Stonehenge is a very significant artefact in archeological terms but is not visually very exciting. Still, if you want to go, why not. Access has improved recently so you can get reasonably close, and a standard or short tele would be fine as regards lenses.

Last time I was there we walked around the stones themselves all alone, but that was 30+ years ago. Sorry, no shots from inside the circle are possible now, except for National Geographic, of course ...

It's perhaps a good thing that you can no longer walk right up to the megaliths. I was there about 30 years ago, when you could do that. With several tour buses full of people milling around it's just about impossible to get a good picture of anything. The <a href="http://www.tedsimages.com/text/stnhngs.htm">only halfway-decent shot</a> I was able to get (with the Pocket Instamatic 60 I had then) was a silhouette of a megalith against the sun and sky. It gave a better impression of the place than any of the other "tourists crowding around the stones" pictures I took. When a place is too crowded, abandoning the notion of a conventional representation may be the only way to go.

I was there in 1995. As someone mentioned, the tour bus gives you about 45 minutes. That should be enough time to look for what you want to photograph at that time of day and set up your tripod as needed.

 

Of course there was a crowd, but you can get pictures without spectators if you're patient. I was astounded that most of the people on our bus saw everything they were interested in seeing in less than twenty minutes (including the walk from the parking lot) and then headed for the gift shop. My wife and I were the last ones back on the bus, and we were careful to be back before the 45 minutes were up.

I passed there two days ago and it was raining buckets. The druids had the sense to build

Stonehenge away from shopping centres but quite close to the motorway, so it's easy to

get to... ;-)

 

If it is raining, Plan B - if you have a car - could be Avebury (stone circle), Wells (cathedral),

Bath (Roman baths are very photogenic) or Glastonbury (Grave of King Arthur and lots of

new age/old hippy shops). Wells and Glastonbury are near each other and neither is far

from Bath. You could easily do Stonehenge and several of the others in a day. If you're a

Leica fan, Ace Cameras are in central Bath.

I understand that the ruins are cordoned because they feared that some tourists would figure a way to carry off the stones.

Alex, the stones weigh 50 tons a piece. Don't know where you come from, but English tourist aren't that strong!

With your Stonehenge visit you might also like to include Laycock Abbey where Fox Talbot started all this photography nonsense, it is about 30 miles from Stonehenge. The village of Laycock is also a good photo opportunity. See www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/ w-visits/w-findaplace/w-lacockabbeyvillage.htm

I have run into some tourists that are pretty strong. Just get downwind from them.

As a resident of South-East England who, despite all my contrary intentions, tends to end up visiting the South-West of England for an annual cheap camping break during summer, I join those merry throngs of motorists who clog up the A303, virtually the only artery to reach Devon and Cornwall. Near Salisbury, the A303 passes within a few hundred yards of Stonehenge and I always think: "Shall we stop? Nah!". But for some reason I always wave my camera at it from the car window (the missus driving), with the 300mm affixed, and take a picture. I have noted that Stonehenge does not change much from year to year and I really ought to buy a decent postcard instead. It's all a far cry from the pre-fence days. I can remember visiting Stonehenge in 1964, when I was 5, and touching the rocks, even being a bit rough with them. My mum still has some little square b&w snaps (127 rollfilm) of my dad, heaven forbid, actually leaning on a sacred pillar.

Buy a postcard! And take the train down to Brighton for the day and shoot yourself silly....Brighton Pier, Palace, the Laines...and plenty of nice places to duck into for various libations should the weather be unpleasant!

Surprisingly enough, that's almost the reason why. People have been carrying away the stones in small pieces chipped off using geology hammers since the early 1800s, when small, portable geology hammers became cheap and popular. Surprisingly, the invention of photography and the availability of cheap postcards did nothing to stem this desire to take a souvenir of the henge...

Distances notwithstanding, it really depends on your personal vision. Which in turn depends on several factors at that point of time, including environmental conditions. <br><br>

 

Sweeping clouds in the sky coupled together with a strong leading line to the monuments? You may choose to use a wide for maximum effect. Want to go in for storytelling shots? Abstract the image? Longer focal lengths. Depends on your personal vision, as I said.<br><br>

 

<a href="http://www.nevillebulsara.com">Neville Bulsara</a><br>

Travel and documentary photography

The Salsbury Cathedral which is close to Stonehenge is worth the trip from London by itself.

The only decent shots of Stonehenge I've ever seen are at twilight either with good sky colour, or strong silhouettes, or interesting cloud / shooting the sun through the stones at the right time of year. Its very accessible but you can't go right up to the stones themselves. 99% of people get the same standard record shots... its not too easy to shoot creatively.

Try to go to Avebury which is nearby and see the huge stone circle there - it is impressive and atmospheric and if you get there early enough you can have the place to yourself.<div></div>

James, your photo is fantastic!

 

A friend lives in Surry and suggests several days can be spent in and around this area. I can't wait to head over and check this stuff out for myself!

 

Such inspiration.