Winter Evening Cathedral from St Anne's Street

Tripod did not get a trip out today, which was my intention - most of the pavements are like skating rinks, but without the bars around the outside to hold onto.

Still wanted to get the cathedral later in the afternoon/early evening than yesterday's pic and this view down St Anne's Street is one I always try to get when there's snow. I had been out for over an hour before and thinking carefully about equipment again, I wanted the opposite to yesterday's very wide-ranging but slow zoom.

Didn't want a rucksack so it was my favourite three fixed focal line-up; the 20mm f1.8 Sigma and the two very old, completely manual everything 35mm f1.4 and 135mm f2 Nikkor's, stuffed into my big coat's pockets.

Went up on the top of the multistorey carpark, where I got my Blip for the 12th - this time, no cars at all and a sea of unmarked snow. The shots from there with all 3 lenses to the cathedral and old medieval were OK but it was still too light. Being a Sunday and any shops open closing at 4pm, the carpark closed at 5. So, just my luck, at 4.30 a security guy trudged over through all that virginal snow to shout that I wasn't allowed to there - this deck was closed to the public. Considering, the doors to it, which could be locked, weren't, you can't but help think that this was just a rule he had made up on the spot, cos he didn't like what I was doing.

Anyway, the top of this street and the streetlamps were only just coming on and a few positions, in the road, on the pavement, etc, with or without cars - this was the only way to kill the 30mins in the sub zero temps. I haven't even checked them all; this was one of later ones, the fast 135mm being easily handheld at a reasonable iso, not just to allow smooth tones in the sky but to allow easier shadow detail extraction.

On way home, got some icicles, with same lens, set against town lights but you won't get this rather pleasant view any other time from me, so here it is. I added the vignetting, to draw the eye in but v slight cropping was a difficult choice - though the view looked lovely, there was always some sort of distraction.

I did find my Sandisk Extereme CF card not allowing me to check my results, at least not straight away. I should have used my Extreme Pro - and would recommend in minus C temps you use your best cards. This is where the better makes do shine - I looked on websites for many popular cards and they state that their operating temperatures go from 0 C up to some very high figure. We don't get affected by that top one in the UK, but certainly do at the lower. Sandisk and Lexar are exceptions but as I saw, even a good Sandisk wasn't that happy. (It recorded and downloaded fine, as you would expect.)

It's back out into the dark and cold, to walk to a friend's for dinner, so won't be able to comment or reply anything Blip-wise, until tomorrow.