The Limbo Connection's photos with the keyword: house

On this day in history: I travelled across the county and part-exchanged a Benbo Trekker tripod for a Nikon MB-D10 grip to fit my Nikon D700. Returning, I stopped at Avebury and took a few photographs, using just two lenses: 24mm and 50mm. This one was shot with the 24mm. Shooting with the D700 was a bit like when the automatic focus multi-mode instruments came in during the late 1980s except it was digital and the AF was much better. It was like Christmas and birthday and holiday all rolled together.

Fujifilm X-E1 and Fujinon XF 35mm f/1.4 R lens.

This is the house where she once lived. When you are a child you don't get to choose where you live nor with whom. That is one of the great disadvantages of childhood. Camera: Fujifilm X-E1. Lens: Fujinon 35mm f/1.4 XF R.

Among the many curtailments to usual life brought about by the Corona Virus is the simple pleasure of travelling on the railway. This photograph was taken through a dirty carriage window whilst my train was standing at Castle Cary station in Somerset.

The view is from inside a stationary train which had stopped at Castle Cary railway station.

Nikon D3s and Tamron 35mm f/1.8 lens.

AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G at 78mm on a Nikon D90 (field of view equivalent to 117mm on a full frame camera). You can buy these lenses cheaply on the secondhand market.

Nikon D2Xs + Nikkor 200mm f/4 AI lens + Nikon TC-16A teleconverter.

The view south through a window of an eastbound train which had stopped at Castle Cary railway station. 4.30 in the afternoon in mid July. Shades of 'Adlestrop'.

Being a very small hamlet, and not even of civil parish status,Tytherton Kellaways has few amenities. There is an ancient causeway to keep your feet dry on the way to market if the river has burst its banks (quite a common event) but most of the local people have rubber tyres between them and the water nowadays. There is a small Anglican church which has to share its priest with four other villages and English people are no longer regular churchgoers anyway. And there is a letterbox, surviving against all the odds. That's it. Nikon D700 and AF Zoom-Nikkor 35-70mm f/2.8 lens.

A trip to Avebury. The weather forecast was for blustery winds with just an odd chance of a shower. I got a few pictures and then ... I got drenched. The cheese scone was worth the trip however. Nikon D700 + Tamron 70-210mm f/2.8 LD SP lens.

There are innumerable opportunities for photographers in Avebury, but it is enormously difficult to do anything original. It has all been done before, and better. I regard it simply as a benchmark for my own development in using a camera. I took this picture in the summer of 2011 using a camera and lens which I have since replaced. It is perfectly possible to make wonderful photographs with the most basic of equipment, but every incremental improvement, particularly in lens quality, gives a photographer a sporting chance. At that time I had not discovered that photographing in RAW provided the greatest chance of making a satisfying image. This photograph is a straight-out-of-camera JPEG. Adjustment is possible, but limited. Naively, I once believed a photograph could simply be repeated on another visit to the same place if an improvement was sought. There are so many variables that prevent this. Maybe with patience and skill it can be done, but I lack both. So I am left with a picture which I like but which I know is not original. In fact, I took this photograph because I had been inspired by something similar (and better) by somebody else. And here I have applied some of the Lightroom tools which were not available to me in 2011. If you are a visitor to Avebury and the perspective in the photograph appeals, the settings I used with an APS-C camera were 210mm; f/4.8; 1/400th. (But much depends on where you position yourself and the light, of course).

A recent change of ownership for a pretty house with an attractive brick wall in the back streets of Trowbridge, Wiltshire. Canon EOS 30D and Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor-H Auto 300mm f/4.5 lens. Opinion varies over the quality of the Nikkor-H 300mm f/4.5 lens (although everyone agrees it is exquisitely well built). Ken Rockwell rates it highly (though advises against its predecessor, the Nikkor-P which has one glass element fewer and performs less well as a result). Bjørn Rørslett, on the other hand, is only lukewarm about its prowess. Until I acquired this lens - factory AI-d, or else I wouldn't have bothered - my experience of the 300mm focal length was limited to the Nikon AF Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G zoom lens. That was produced in vast quantities and is flimsy and disappointing at full stretch (although a decent performer up to about 150mm). Its main attraction is its cheap price on the secondhand market, at around £50 - £60, and its featherweight effect in your bag. I spent £74 on the Nikkor-H behemoth about four years ago. It was made around 1971 and weighs in at over two-and-a-half pounds. Is it worth carrying it over fields for several miles? Probably not, but from time to time I do just that, knowing that I can shoot it wide open and still get a passable image. It doesn't ghost, either, when pointed at the sun. For this photograph it was on a full frame camera. On a D2Xs, the field of view is 450mm and 600mm in hi-speed crop mode. And if you put a TC-16A teleconverter in between you lose a lot of light but end up with the equivalent of a 720mm lens, or a 960mm field of view in hi-speed crop mode. The mind boggles! And apart from carrying a heavy D2Xs and a lens weighing over two-and-a-half pounds, you'll have shouldered a heavy-duty tripod as well, or else your trip would have been pointless. I might not do that heavy lifting too often.