London Zoo
A day after having visited the London Aquarium, Alison and I went to see the London Zoo. I had been there quickly once during a DPC get-together, but this was my first opportunity to actually explore the zoo properly.
The photos above were all taken with a Canon EOS 5DMkII and EF 70-200 2.8L IS lens, handheld.
Mouse-over the photos to see the name of the animal on the photo. I can’t ID the owl on the third picture, if someone can help me there please leave a comment.
London Aquarium
I visited the London Aquarium and decided to film a bit rather than take photographs. I lost quite a few takes because somebody bumped into me while I was filming… The place was really packed with people.
The video is CC-BY-SA.
London with Ollie
My friend Ollie had to go to the University College London for an interview. Since a) you don’t pay £16 (or £24 if like me you leave your railcard at home…) to go to London for half an hour and b) it’s no fun to visit London on your own, I went along and we visited the National Gallery and the British Museum. In the National Gallery I had fun reverse engineering the lighting techniques of the masters, and I got told off for taking a picture of the cupula in the entrance hall when we were leaving (I had asked one of the wardens about photography restrictions earlier and what he said sounded like no photography of the paintings was allowed.) In the British Museum photography is fine, but it’s also one of those places that’s been photographed to death so it’s difficult to take something new there.
While Ollie went to his interview I visited Jacobs Digital Photo & Video where they had a pretty good deal on Manfrotto 5001B Nanos (I have no idea what the difference between those and the 001Bs which they replace is, they look the same to me). I had also planned a visit to The Flash Centre but by the time we got there they were closed. So we went to a pub instead.
Richmond Park
Back in March Alison, her cousin Lucy and I got up at 4am to take four London buses and reach Richmond Park before sunrise. My excellent sense of orientation got us there at 6.30 or so, a few minutes after the sun kissed the horizon.
It was good fun, albeit a bit cold. (Since lithium-ion batteries don’t like the cold very much, it’s a good idea to keep them warm and close to your body.) Richmond Park belongs to the royal family, and it’s a massive park (for my humble circumstances) in which deer can roam about freely. No fences between them and you. I remember that last time I went there with some photogs from DPChallenge we got a bit too close for the animal’s taste and one or two young bucks decided to attack us. No close encounters this time though.
I was a bit annoyed at someone else however: we had sneaked up to the group which you can see in the first picture and stayed at a distance (70-200 lens on the long end with 2x multiplier and crop sensor = 640mm effective focal distance) so as not to disturb the animals. Halfway through the two bucks fighting some random guy just walked right up to them with his camcorder and scared them away. Well done.
It was a really nice day in the end, and I didn’t fall into any of the lakes or rivers which is always a bonus.
[Update:] Here are some photos which show what happened to me last time I went to Richmond – and why it’s a good idea to keep your distance. One by Alan Jager and one by Manic.
London
I couldn’t very well live two hours away from London for three years and not go there to take some photographs at night. Alison and I took a ride on the London Eye, then walked along the river waiting for the sun to set. The HDRs have been combined using Photomatix Pro 3. The zoomable hi-res panorama of the Tower Bridge below has been stitched using PTGui and is presented here using PSCS3’s Zoomify plugin, integrated into Wordpress using the Kimili flash plugin.
DPChallenge London GTG
Once again a bunch of crazy photographers met to walk around London in the rain and take pictures. This time the get-together had a slightly more international feel: Olivier and I represented Luxembourg (we’re used to the rain and the cold). Alison and Mikey from the Photography and Modelling Society represented Bermuda and Barbados, respectively (they’re not used to temperatures below 15°C). The four of us who are or have been studying in the UK met up with Natalya, Andi, Robert, Dain and Matthew. Some of their photos can be found in the DPChallenge.com forums, here. Apart from taking photos, by walking about three miles we also contributed to the Walk Around the World for Brain Tumours.
Related links: International Brain Tumor Alliance, Rose McGill, Digital Photography Challenge.
DPChallenge.com GTG 12, London
Once again users of DP Challenge met in London. Once again, it rained. This time I had a few more people from the UKC Photography and Modeling Society with me: Kristel, Charlotte, Ibi and his friend Dan. We walked from the London Eye past Westminster to Trafalgar Square, then to Buckingham Palace and back to the Southwark. Here is another group shot by Mark Simms. And here is one of me by Deb Fort.
For the photos that everyone else took check out the DPC forum photo thread.
DPChallenge.com GTG 11, London
Once again dpchallenge.com users met up in London to hang out and take photographs. This was the eleventh get-together held in London and quite a few photographers and one model, Elika, from the UKC Photographers and Models Society braved the pouring rain.
This was the first time I got to use my new Peleng 8mm Fisheye; I apologize if I used it a bit too much.
The forum thread with everyone else’s pictures is here, and here are links to the attending photographers’ user pages on DPC: DainMcgowan, booboo_goon, Mr_Pants, MAK, Ecce Signum, Hanae, Simms, Talj, Moe (who doesn’t seem to have a profile), and myself, gloda.