Westminster 03

Big Ben on the left, Westminster Abbey on the right. This is another one where I wish the focus were sharper. RRRrrrrr....

Any comments or ratings are appreciated!! :-)

RRRRRRRRrrrrr, but you had a GREAT time, didn't you LAA, also important, and you know I am a person for details, I cannot focus on such a big city, but big ben is excellent in foreground, thanks for sharing your holiday.........

 

and I wanted to say hello to you

 

Els

Hi Els!! Thanks for stopping by!! We're winding down our school year ... will be done in about three weeks (+). I'll be more available more often after that! :-)

Again, Lou Ann (and that rhyme was not deliberate), you are shooting stuff that looks like it came off of dpreview.com's sample photos for Canon or Nikon.

 

This is from another one you will recognize:

 

http://www.dpreview.com/gallery/canoneos1ds_samples1/

 

(If you have never done it, Lou Ann, you have got to look at the HUGE download version underneath the picture.)

 

--Lannie

Wow, Lannie - you're right! I have some more images OF the Eye for next week. Thanks for that link ... I'm going to spend some time wandering there later. :-)

 

By the way ... my Yankee tongue doesn't rhyme "again" and "Lou Ann". They don't sound anything alike. ;-)

Nor would a British accent rhyme them, Lou Ann. My operative accent (acquired as a child in northern Ohio) finds them more or less identical, with more variations on the "Ann" than on the "again." Down South, well, Lou Ann has three syllables. In C/W songs, all things are possible if you need to make melody and meter congruent (strictly optional).

 

I'd like to know how you pronounce both, if you have some way of comparing them to other words, in lieu of writing them with the International Phonetic Alphabet, which has problems of its own. . . .

 

I have a daughter named Anne and my own nick "Lannie" gets an incredible range of pronunciations, with much more nasalization obvious in the South. In the Middle Atlantic and Northeast, social and economic class come into play as well. That is true in the South, too, but even wealthy, highly educated people in South can occasionally knock your socks off with what comes out of their mouths.

 

--Lannie

an oringinal capture of a very well photographed subject.

Well done. nice shot!

Lou Ann, I too like the tight capture of the image, well done. Sondra

Well done, great capture of the place, wonderful colors, amiga, congrats!

As a Brit, It's fair to say that I've seen these two landmarks far too many times, but you've managed to show them to me afresh here Lou Ann, I can safely say that this is a very original viewpoint for me. To be honest, you've probably spent more time in London than I have, my geographical knowledge of London is atrocious! Without reading the comments above in detail, so please excuse my ignorance if I've missed this, I must assume this was taken from the London Eye.

 

Again, very nice.

Ben - thank you for your compliments, which mean even more coming from a native!! Now, it's your turn to come on across the Pond and take some photos of DC so that you can show ME how it's done. :-)

 

Yes, you are right ... taken from the London Eye. Click on the folder view, as there are several images in here that were taken that morning.

 

For the record, if you enjoy finding new things to photograph, I'd highly recommend that you wait for what is forecast to be a clear day, come downtown super early in the morning and make sure that you're one of the first folks on the Eye. It's almost directly across the river from Parliament. Although expensive, the views from up there are fabulous ... it's a must-do, even if you only do it once in your life!

I may be working there before too long, if so I'll most definitely have a flit on the eye.

 

As for DC, I do have some very old P&S film shot from there - taken in 1993 or 4, I can't remember which year I was there both. I like the fireflies that appear in the early evening.

 

I may dig out something to amuse you later. (no access to my home pc just now)

Hi Lou Ann,

 

Yes, this is an interesting and fresh viewpoint. It gives the building context....

 

What were the details on this?..lens, f-stop, etc. I am often disappointed with sharpness in my pictures, and I'm finding it is a combination of factors. Maybe we can figure this out for you...

Thanks, Linda! When I'm in a situation where I'm going to want to snap off a bunch of shots without time to stop and analyze much before each, I usually set the Av to f8.0 and let the camera choose the shutter speed.

 

For this I had the ISO set to 400, f/8.0, the camera chose 1/800 sec. and my lens was zoomed all the way out to 300mm. I am sure that I could have used a much smaller aperture and thus a faster shutter speed, and in theory should have gotten more detail. But really, shouldn't I have gotten enough detail with the f/8.0? Or, maybe as Jayme has suggested in some of my other images, it's the lens?

 

I'm learning ... slowly but surely. And I fully intend to take a bunch of day-trips this summer to work on the craft. Hopefully I will learn something each time. :-)

Yes, Lou Ann, you should have gotten more detail with f8. I have started using a tripod because I find I don't have as steady a grip as I like. Also sometimes I manually focus instead of leaving it to Auto focus...you have more control.

 

Lenses DO make a difference. Like you, I am in search of the best focus I can achieve. Roger's Olympus lenses for his digital are amazingly clear.

Thanks for the thoughts, Linda. I love my tripod. I use it a lot around DC (although they're supposedly going to start charging a fee for the use of tripods around the monuments). But I can't imagine asking to take a tripod on the Eye. :-) The financial aspects of acquiring quality lenses are the only things standing in my way..........

As promised, don't laugh too hard, this is from about 93/4 - I'm on the right, we're pointing at a bullet ding in the fence (caused by a guy who went nuts with a machine gun in the 80's iirc). Got to love our attire. PS, my friend is a British ex pat who lives in Milwaukee.

Cool, Ben - I didn't know that was there. I'll have to look for that bullet mark on my next visit to downtown. :-) By the way ... there's no WAY I would post a photo of ME from the early 90's. Talk about HAIR!! ;-)

 

Yeah, working in/around DC is great in some ways, and frustrating in others. If you're used to the traffic and the pace and the crowdedness of London, then you'll probably be okay. I'm a bit tired of it. Colorado looks more and more and more appealing to me every day.

 

Let me know if you do decide to move here for your job ... we'll have to meet up.

Not DC, Lou Ann, but possibly London. I won't be moving, but doing a mon-fri B&B thing most probably - just depends if/when I decide to go back to IT contracting.

Ah! Now I understand your meaning! Well ... there's lots to photograph while you're in London. That's for sure! I liked the place where I stayed near Pimlico Station ... they had a nice little breakfast every morning....

I'm still trying out saying 'again' and 'Lou Ann' different ways and still not getting any sort of rhyme....:-) I like your selection of towers here - very effective. As for sharpness, it could be the lens - tele zooms tend to get a bit dodgy at their longer ends. The glass of the gondola won't help either. Sounds like your shutter speed was fast enough.

 

I agree with your advice on the Eye - there are always big queues in the summer. Gill and I went on a clear day in the winter when there were fewer people about.

For once I'll be critic of one of your shots, dear Lou Ann. Here I would have gone to the vertical format in order not to cut off the spire of the first tower.

Thank you, Alberto - you can be a critic all you want ... I know that your recommendations come from an excellent photographer himself. :-)

Thanks, Lou Ann, for taking it so gallantly!