A few more London shots

MarkLG

MarkLG

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Mark
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A week working in London gave me the chance to get out and about for a couple of hours each evening - luckily I had a couple of nights of decent weather:)

All taken on my little Lumix GX7, which I'm loving at the moment!!
There's a few more on my Flickr set, but these are my faves.







[url=http://flic.kr/p/kApYv8][/URL]
 
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Nice captures Mark. Good balance between natural and artificial light. Like the Waterloo Station "Mind the Gap" one also. All of the essence of the underground with very little detail.
 
Lovely shots. have also looked at flickr. Very hard to choose a favourite they are all well composed. :clap:
 
Light quality, not cameras is what makes outdoor photography sing. I like the idea of the last, I like the 1st the best.

IMHO city shots with water, its a tough act, you really want the water to be still for reflections to really pull the shot out of the bag albiet 2 and 3 are good images with good exposure, sharpness but they are held back by the moving water,
 
ST4 said:
IMHO city shots with water, its a tough act, you really want the water to be still for reflections to really pull the shot out of the bag albiet 2 and 3 are good images with good exposure, sharpness but they are held back by the moving water,
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Thanks for the comments, and I understand where you're coming from with the reflections.
I could have slowed down the shutter a couple of stops on these, but wanted to keep in the lens's sweet spot of around f8.0. The shots I took with 20-30s exposures didn't really improve the reflections in the river on the second one.
I've seen some nice ones of Canary Wharf with better reflections - the water in the docks is pretty static, but the buildings throw out so much light that you need to use an ND filter to bring the shutter speed down! A 3 or 4 stop ND and a wider angle lens are on my shopping list for my next trip(y)
 
Hi Mark

Like these a lot, especially the first one, I have an almost identical shot taken about 30 years ago on colour slide film, without the Shard in the background of course!

One question. I see quite a lot of your exposures are around or over a second. I'm wondering how you get away with using a tripod in places like the Tower Hotel and Canary Wharf where I have read the security are a bit anti tripod.

Wondering if you use a mini tripod / gorilla pod which seems to confuse the security people a bit :D

David
 
All the shots along the Thames were taken from the pedestrian path that runs along the river, so no issues with using a tripod. The Canary Wharf one was fairly well off the beaten track.
I carry a little Manfrotto tripod that only goes up to 1 metre, so it's fairly discrete anyway, and doesn't take too long to setup. There were a few security guards loitering around the entrance to Canary Wharf station when I was doing some shots, but they didn't seem interested. To be honest there are so many people using tripods at night in these places that nobody takes any interest.
No doubt you'll soon get into bother if you try setting up your tripod in one of the tube stations, shopping centres, etc.
 
Hi, I like them all very much, but the shot of Tower Bridge is probably the best I have ever seen of this bridge "Excellent".(y)
 
Loving these Mark. I just treated myself to a GX7 (my first M4/3 camera) a couple of weeks ago, but haven't had the opportunity to put it though it's paces yet.

Out of interest, were these taken with the mechanical or electronic shutter ? I ask, as I treated myself also to a 14-140 Mega OIS II lens, which was to be my one lens walk about set up, but I've noticed it seems to be susceptible to shutter shock (which I only read about afterwards), at lower speeds. Don't seem to get it with the 14-42 II lens that the camera came with (as you have), so was just wondering what you used.

Also, if you don't mind me asking, was it a small travel tripod you used for these, if so would you mind sharing, as I'm also on the lookout for one as well.
 
Sootchucker said:
Out of interest, were these taken with the mechanical or electronic shutter ? I ask, as I treated myself also to a 14-140 Mega OIS II lens, which was to be my one lens walk about set up, but I've noticed it seems to be susceptible to shutter shock (which I only read about afterwards), at lower speeds. Don't seem to get it with the 14-42 II lens that the camera came with (as you have), so was just wondering what you used.

Also, if you don't mind me asking, was it a small travel tripod you used for these, if so would you mind sharing, as I'm also on the lookout for one as well.
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For some reason the electronic shutter seems to be limited to 1 second max exposure, so isn't really an option for these sorts of shots. I use a cable shutter release which makes like a lot easier, especially when I'm using the bracketing mode to fire off 5 shots and don't want to risk moving the camera between shots.
For a tripod I use a Manfrotto MK393 - it's very light, and you can pick them up for about £30. Probably not solid enough for a heavier camera, but for the GX7 it's more than adequate. I went for then short version, but it's a bit too short to clear the handrails or walls you find along paths, so I'll probably get the standard length one at some point.
 
Ah, thanks for the additional info Mark. Much appreciated.
 
I've stood in that spot by Tower Bridge many times but never at that time judging by the lights and sky. Your image has compelled me to do just that! Nice one.
 
Keefh said:
I've stood in that spot by Tower Bridge many times but never at that time judging by the lights and sky. Your image has compelled me to do just that! Nice one.
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Thanks - I was lucky enough to have a couple of good evenings when I was down there, and just managed to get out of work in time to hop on the tube to a couple of locations:)
Unfortunately the so called "blue hour" is more like 20 minutes, so a lot of very brisk walking was needed to get set up at the right time!!
 
You did well. I'll have to take a look with my own eyes...
 
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