Lovely shots of the Beemer - especially the first one. Nice look you've achieved with whatever tweaks you've done to it in PP, too.

CBA to go to the gym tonight, so here's some shots from my trip to London instead.

First, on the evening we arriving, a wander round Hyde Park which was a stone's throw from the hotel. It was generally cloudy but a break in the cover allowed a lovely warm light through.

#1

A700, Minolta 24mm, 1/320, f/8


#2 From the bottom of the Serpentine as the light began to dim slightly...

A700, Minolta 24mm, 1/320, f/8


#3 At Chelsea Flower Show the following day, I swapped the 24mm for the lovely Tamron 90mm to get up close and to the details of the flowers and scenes laid out. I'm no gardener, so don't expect me to caption these, they're just plants to me...

A700, Tamron 90mm, 1/1000, f/2.8


#4

A700, Tamron 90mm, 1/200, f/4


#5

A700, Tamron 90mm, 1/640, f/8


#6

A700, Tamron 90mm, 1/200, f/2.8


#7

A700, Tamron 90mm, 1/160, f/2.8


#8

A700, Tamron 90mm, 1/250, f/2.8


#9

A700, Tamron 90mm, 1/125, f/4, with flash


#10

A700, Tamron 90mm, 1/125, f/7.1, with flash


#11 A reflection in a water feature. Please ignore my flashgun spoiling the reflection.

A700, Minolta 24mm, 1/160, f/13


#12

A700, Minolta 24mm, 1/1000, f/2.8


#13 This is the tribute garden to George Harrison. Could barely get near the damn thing, the crowds were two or three deep all the way round.

A700, Minolta 24mm, 1/400, f/6.3


#14 A quick snap of the Royal Hospital, whose grounds are used to host the flower show.

A700, Minolta 24mm, 1/400, f/8


#15 Back to the Tamron 90...

A700, Tamron 90mm, 1/100, f/2.8


#16

A700, Tamron 90mm, 1/40, f/4

Later this week, I can also bore you all with pictures of Kew Gardens, the South Bank at night, and various other touristy stuff.

Quote from mcintyrej :

I got it for £75 brand new at my local shop. One of the best prices around, even beats most on the net and definately beats Jessops £130.

Nice. I'm still hurting from the cost of the battery grip for my A700. It set me back £179, which is the cheapest I've seen it from any reputable retailer.

@STROBE - thanks, mate, and good stuff coming from you, too. #5 is my favorite! That Tamron is doing a mightly nice job. What's the full specs on it? And A700 = Sony Alpha 700?

Took my friends D70 to Laguna Seca a few weekends ago, got some nice pics I think

http://www.flickr.com/photos/d ... d/sets/72157605152421298/

Thanks Speedy. Yes, A700 is the Sony Alpha 700. Absolutely cracking camera - most comfortable, fast and intuitive thing I've ever held. And I've only had it a week!

The Tamron 90mm macro I've had a little longer - it's full frame, with full 1:1 reproduction ratio at closest focus. Bit slow to focus but otherwise great, and brilliant value for money.

(EDIT) Lovely pics Tweak - what lens were you using? The pics all look sharp and shallow, so I'm guessing it's something fast and fast-focussing. Either that or you're a whiz at manual pre-focussing.

Quote from SamH :

I found a bit of rural decay today, which I found quite striking. Seemed so strange to find the mix of grafitti and technology out in the middle of nowhere. It's an abandoned weather research station, owned by Bradford University.

That looks like a scene out of half life 2.

Quote from STROBE :

(EDIT) Lovely pics Tweak - what lens were you using? The pics all look sharp and shallow, so I'm guessing it's something fast and fast-focussing. Either that or you're a whiz at manual pre-focussing.

It says on Flickr what lenses some shots were using. I wish I had a slightly longer range than 300mm (which was the best I had), most good photographers are using something far bigger than that. However not all shots are completely sharp, Flickr adds a bit of sharpening to the re-sampled sizes. But yeah, I did have to do a lot of pre-focussing on bits I wanted photos of, otherwise it would've focused too fore/aft of the subject and the photo would've looked bad. The D70 is good with auto-focusing at a fast pace though.

Laguna Seca is a hard place to take photos, there are big runoff areas and some high fences in most places, so you are somewhat far from the cars for the good angles as a normal spectator. Photo/media passes are hard to get I imagine, and they have the best locations to shoot.

I am more of a macro and landscape kind of photographer, so this was my first real attempt at racing photos with a decent camera. And I like your macro shots Strobe

If you're curious where I took some of the photos around the track, Flickr has a neat 'map' feature you can click on the lower right, I plotted all the spots I took the pics

Quote from Tweaker :

Took my friends D70 to Laguna Seca a few weekends ago, got some nice pics I think

http://www.flickr.com/photos/d ... d/sets/72157605152421298/

Awesome shots from the corkscrew, man! I really want to get out there at some point. Maybe ALMS in October.
Where in California are you?

Quote from STROBE :

Thanks Speedy. Yes, A700 is the Sony Alpha 700. Absolutely cracking camera - most comfortable, fast and intuitive thing I've ever held. And I've only had it a week!

The Tamron 90mm macro I've had a little longer - it's full frame, with full 1:1 reproduction ratio at closest focus. Bit slow to focus but otherwise great, and brilliant value for money.

Since you were able to use the Tammy on whatever you had previously, I take it you had another Sony/Minolta? Or does the Sony system accept other mounts?

Thanks,

And just for the hell of it, here are a few other car pics I took in the past

Another 2002 (I get soft in the knees whenever I see one :nod



E46 M3


MINI S


and the classic one and only...116

A few non-car shots

San Fran Downtown




Elsewhere in SF


Flowers...sort of


Sunsets with Golden Gate/SF in the background (I need a tele-zoom!)




And something random



Sorry for the image overload

Quote from mcintyrej :

I got it for £75 brand new at my local shop. One of the best prices around, even beats most on the net and definately beats Jessops £130.

Hmm......wonder if it's worth looking at getting a Chinese knock off battery grip for £30..........

Quote from Speedy Pro :

Awesome shots from the corkscrew, man! I really want to get out there at some point. Maybe ALMS in October.
Where in California are you?

I goto ALMS every year, always the best racing to see there lately. Though I missed seeing Champ Car which was fastest of all (CART of late 90's), which will now come back in 2009 (didn't show up that race weekend, only Atlantics raced -- all due to the IRL merger, lame).

I am north of it, on the peninsula in Redwood City, about an hour and a half away.

And nice pics. There was a girl I dated that owned a beautifully restored 2002.

Quote from Tweaker :

There was a girl I dated that owned a beautifully restored 2002.

Lucky you! Hope she was as nice as the car
I'm up in Berkeley, btw. And given our parking situation, finding a girl with a beautifully restored 2002 ain't easy

Quote from Speedy Pro :

Since you were able to use the Tammy on whatever you had previously, I take it you had another Sony/Minolta? Or does the Sony system accept other mounts?

Previously I had a Sony A100 (still do in fact, although it'll be going on fleabay soon to help finance the A700 & grip). Sony mount = Minolta mount. They're one and the same. (And no, you can't use other mounts lenses, with the exception of converters for things such as the ubiquitous M42).

Fuji Finepix A920

Quote from danowat :

Hmm......wonder if it's worth looking at getting a Chinese knock off battery grip for £30..........

I thought the exact same thing, looking at the ones on ebay - until the guy in the shop pulled out one of the knockoffs and it felt like a toy.

The extra money is really worth the genuine Canon one thats built properly and won't endanger any warranty's or anything.

imageshack being a pain, take a look at these and tell me what you think please

Quote from Xaid0n :

imageshack being a pain, take a look at these and tell me what you think please

Hi Xaidon,

I like them, they've got simple concepts but they look nice. The third one with the boat on the lake is nice.

What camera do you use?

Fujifilm Finepix A920, mum bought it for herself, but she doesn't know how to use it lol, the original size pictures look much better.

E: Jack if you'd like, go on msn and I can send you some of my pictures

That second picture of the Eden Project?

Yep Beefy, went to cornwall last week

E: More Pics

Oviously you went to Land's End, where else did you go in Cornwall? Most of it is a beautiful part of the country.

Perrenporth and Polperro are probably my favourite places in Cornwall, so peaceful and right by the sea.

Perrenporth has a nice pub right on the beach, called The Watering Hole and when the sun sets, you get an awesome view of it, reflecting on the sea. And Polperro do the best proper cornish pasties!

Marazion, Porthcurno, St Ives, St Just, Goonhilly, Cape Cornwall were the places we visited... I wanted to go to Polperro but we ran out of days lol, I think we will be going there in September or something.

Here are a couple of sisters.. if anyone wants their number, PM me