Hi, boys and girls! We're back form old blighty after a splendid week in London with brief excursions to Milton Keynes and Oxford.
We toured Blechley Park with Bob W and Chris Mitchell and his wife and had a fascinating look at the code breakers' headquarters and then a nice bit of dinner & wine in Milton Keynes. We chatted a lot about the rest of you on the PDML and laughed at several of you behind your backs. Jolly good fun! Wednesday was the trip to Oxford and a meet-up with Cotty and wife. Japanese food for lunch and a brief tour of the "800 Years of Medical History at Oxford" exhibit. Dr. Lisa was impressed. Other relevant and irrelevant items of interest: The Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibit at the Natural History Museum. We've seen it in many previous years but this one was the bet yet. Truly outstanding stuff. And the kid's division(s) looked more like the photos really had been taken by the ages indicated (rather than daddy setting up the camera/lens/tripod and junior pressing the shutter button when instructed). The Astronomy Photographer of the year exhibit at the observatory in Greenwich was fairly small but absolutely breathtaking. The effort and preparation that these amateur astrophotographers put in is humbling. Brilliant stuff all astronomers should see (you getting this, Miserere?) Turner exhibit in Greenwich was superb. He's one of my favorite artists and this didn't disappoint. We also saw the Spencer exhibit at Somerset House and enjoyed that a lot. The Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons was a high point for Dr. Lisa. It held my attention for half an hour or so but she was enthralled and could have spent a day there. She's just been reading a superb book about Hunter (http://www.amazon.com/The-Knife-Man-Snatching-Surgery/dp/0767916530) and has been astonished by the work he did in the 18th century brilliant man. We'll be back to this one on future visits. If you visit London and like books you absolutely must visit Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street. Fabulous book shop. Impressive building. Nice people. Photographically I ran the gamut from HCB-style street shooting to overprocessed HDR photography and everything in between. London and Oxford are both fabulous places for photography and, for my purposes, particularly at night. I'm doing more and more experimentation with the third dimension of photography, time, using long exposures and/or multiple exposures. I was traveling without a tripod and I really enjoy the challenge of finding a spot to rest or brace the camera and then work out the composition by trial and error. I had a blast and got some pretty good stuff, I think/hope. I did almost all my shooting with the DA 12-24 (which saw the most use) and the DA-L 55-300, the latter purchased specifically for this trip. It's supposed to be sold only with a camera body as part of a kit but some dealers break up the kits and sell body and lens separately. The lens was $179 new, including shipping. It lacks the quick-shift focus of the DA version and has a plastic lens mount but it's the same optically, which is to say, superb. An amazing lens and highly recommended. The 21mm Ltd also saw a little use. Now I'm getting ready for the start of school on Wednesday and since I'm teaching Digital Design again, a course I haven't taught in a few semesters, I'll be fairly busy, so it'll be a while before I get a UK photo gallery up (I also have the PDML Photo Annual to contend with). Hang on, because I think it'll be worth the wait. -- Mark Roberts - Photography & Multimedia www.robertstech.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
