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This is another picture from the archives… taken from a recent central London visit. I managed to time my London Eye visit just about right, so that I got dusk and sunset as we were rotating around the skyline…

This picture was taken on the way down as the lights on the parliament buildings and the clock tower with Big Ben started to come on. I used a tilt-shift 45mm lens to narrow the focus to the bridge area, in particular the bus crossing the bridge with its lights on.

Blew up the picture in Lightroom, and noticed that it was a ‘Twilight’ advert on the side of the bus – I guess that figures as London was under the full effects of Twilight-fever when I was there.

There’s another similar picture that I took of the same area, from higher up. In the end I chose this one to post because I like the separation of the different towers from the background. From Big Ben itself, to the darker shapes of Westminster Abbey to the right.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III
1/80 sec at f/2.8
ISO 1000
45mm (Tilt shift)

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Another shot from London, taken from the London Eye – just as my pod was ‘landing’ again. The County Hall sits just over the river from the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben, and was opened by King George V….

Lit up in rotating colours of light, the picture was taken with the tilt-shift 45mm lens. I used a thin band of focus on the people walking on the right hand side, and the banner saying ‘London’.

Also, noticed this site being mentioned on blogs around the place recently – made me chuckle… definitely the cheaper option to make miniature-look photos. The site basically allows you to upload a photo, and create a blur to make it look like a tilt-shift miniature. There’s a gallery on there too to see some examples.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III
1/40 sec at f/2.8
ISO 1000
45mm (Tilt shift)

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Decided to take the tilt/shift lens that I mentioned in my last post, up to the top of ‘Top of the Rock’. Happened to choose the coldest day known to man. Well, so far this year, and so far in the city…

…anyway, it was cold. Go up 70 floors (about 850 feet) and it suddenly gets colder and windier.

Luckily there’s a room with an art installation (resembling the inside of a dance-dance-revolution machine) where you can quickly warm up between pictures. I knew I was only wanting to play with the T/S (the TS-E 45mm f/2.8 to be precise) that day, so I only carried the 1d with that lens attached. Made it easier at the security check on the way up just to be able to sling one bag (the Kata sling bag from my ‘About‘ page) through the machine.

For the above image, I actually went a different way to many of the pictures that I’d experimented with so far, and turned the tilt 90 degrees, so that now the ‘band of focus’ was going vertically rather than horizontally. This meant that I could get the whole of the ESB into focus while keeping some of the slim field of focus on it too.

Post processing in Lightroom involved mostly removing the colour (it was originally a colour image) and adding the vignette.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III
1/4000 sec at f/2.8
ISO 200
45mm (Tilt shift)

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Taken on the same day as this one, just found it in my collection and having initially passed over it, it’s now growing on me, so I decided to post it…

Always tricky when photographing something so photographed. Not sure if this qualifies for anything ‘new’ though, but I like the blue space and the angle. I also don’t mind that you can’t see a whole clock all at once. You can see most of it on the right hand side, and then the part that’s missing, you can see on the one on the left hand side.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III
1/1000 sec at f/5.6
ISO 200
85mm

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Wanted to get a different view of St Paul’s, so was looking around intentionally for reflections. The building opposite (One St Paul’s Churchyard I think it’s called) did the job nicely, and I took this shot featuring the dome, and the cross on the summit. I also like the dark areas between the columns on the front of the building reflection.

Can’t decide if I should be lobbying for the removal of the flag pole on the building though.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III
1/250 sec at f/5.6
ISO 100
85mm

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