Shapes and Echoes

Dark drizzly grey and cold day and respite inside the Cathedral (Salisbury) for an hour or so.

On previous occasions, it's been the widest angled lenses to greedily get as much in as possible - today, purposefully took just one in - and for a specific purpose - my old battered, manual focus very heavy Nikkor 135mm f2, which on the D7000 used, made it an equivalent of 202mm. Nikon do sell a 200mm f2 AF, VR and all that, which Amazon have listed at 4 and a bit grand!!

Having just one fixed lens makes you look - not only for those subjects that work but makes you work intimately with that lens/camera combination, knowing what shutter speeds you can use (no VR on this old banger!). What's also good, apart from being able to pick out statues and stuff in the darkest corners is the bright viewfinder makes it easier - not necessarily easy to focus. But also, it doesn't look especially big though it is one fairly big chunk of glass, so you don't look like a pretentious tourist and of course, never have to use flash. Even in the darkest corner, I didn't have to go above 4,000 iso, most were at between 1600 - 2500, usually wide open.

This shot - yes I took many looking down these side knaves and they look wonderful but one of the main features and mouth-watering aspects of a super-fast lens, is the bokeh, the dreamy creamy background. The foreground is the corner of one of the many elaborate tombs that are dotted around the flanks of the outside walls. I also liked very much the contrasting steely-grey-blues coming through the far window, a product from the miserable day outside.

Found also that it wasn't a good idea to experiment with my settings in Photoshop CS5 - not only did it throw up new menus and strange procedures, I somehow had managed to lock the layers and I found more editing than I'd already done, as here, impossible.