Scilly Gallery

[Mark R]

I've just put up a small gallery of some of my Isles of Scilly photos.

www.guidebook.free-online.../index.htm


-----------Mark Rainsley

[sub5rider]

Nice - you must've been really disapponted with the weather then ...

" I think I'll just be bringing pictures back of flapping tents and rain."

I had been really looking forward to these..
:lol
Nigel, aka Sub5Rider, Onioneer

[Mark R]

They do indeed look rather blue, and I hadn't even gotten around to faking the colours in Photoshop yet.

The weather was grim on our arrival; eg. too windy to leave St Mary's the first day. It then improved through the week.


-----------Mark Rainsley

[David P]

Mine - I've tried to weed the overall number down to a not totally unmanageable total - are at www.cscc.demon.co.uk/scilly/ ... Like Mark's, effectively unretouched (I did have a go at quickly sticking together a couple of panorama pics) - and hopefully, they give a slightly more balanced view of the weather (ie only sunny 75% of the time!). Seal pictures - yes (though connoiseurs of camera threads will recognise the problem of water on the lens!); but no puffins or other exciting furry or feathered creatures.
--
David P.

[Jim]

Nice pictures guys, taken together it seems quite a balanced collection, although Mark's seem to concentrate on Heather (I'm not complaining) and David's seem to concentrate on the botany, saxifrages in particular if I'm not mistaken?

Also David, what size of wide angle lens do you use? The curvature on the horizon is quite noticeable in some shots, I know it is in some of my summer isles pics but it really stands out in some of yours.

JIM

[David P]

Thanks, Jim. You're only seeing about 30% of the total of mine!!

Mark understandably has a different, and more PR-oriented, agenda - he has to recoup the investment somehow :-)

All mine are taken on an Olympus 4040 - the (standard) lens on which has something like a 35-38mm (equivalent) wide angle. On-the-water stuff is same camera in a matching Olympus waterproof housing (with or without optional "water on the lens").

I thought that if you were seeing curved horizons, it was most likely to be on the couple of dodgy "panorama" pix where the gluing together didn't work out too perfectly (and/or I got bored trying to get the result perfect ...) - but on re-examining, I think you're right! Two things. First, I tend to be a wide-angle freak much of the time. Second, I think the lens on my camera *does* seem to have a little more barrel distortion at full wide angle than I would wish. Oh dear!

Wot's a saxifrage? I was (excitedly) doing "visual landscapes" - Heather's the one who probably knows what the green stuff is!
--
David P.

[Jim]

The curvature at wide angles isn't necessarily a bad thing, if you can make some kind of artistic use of it, or over it up with an uneven horizon, unfortunately sea horizons are dead straight in real life and give the game away :-(

"Wot's a saxifrage?"

I'm no Percy Thrower, or even Alan Titchmarsh, but I have a feeling the green and red scaly plants that appear to grow out of stone walls and things are Saxifrages. I planted a rockery as a kid and that's about all I think I can remember :-)

JIM