Lately I've been enjoying my longest telephoto lens. It's a 500mm reflex lens and is most useful for birds. Yesterday's posted photo of the Hooded Mergansers was taken with this lens. These birds were so far out in the water that with the naked eye I could do little more than guess at their identity. Yet thanks to modern technology I was able to capture the relatively sharp image I posted. Today's photos were both taken with the same super telephoto lens and I selected them to show the kind of distortion that comes about with long lenses like this. In the photo above, of course, the sun is about 10 times bigger than it appears in reality. It's a great effect- it makes it look like a blistering hot morning in mid-summer instead of a cold autumn sunrise. The photo below is more of a curiosity for locals to consider. In the foreground is the shoreline from Saxe Point (on the left) to Macaulay Point (on the right) with Fleming Beach and Buxton Green closer to the middle on the right. Where it starts to get weird is what's further back - many of Victoria's trademark buildings in apparently odd locations and looking larger and closer than seems possible. If you look carefully you can see Craigdarroch Castle, the Rocklands water tower, Christchurch Cathedral, the Empress Hotel, the Legislative Assembly Buildings, the Sussex Building and others.
That really is remarkable, the amount of 'condensing' the telephoto creates. It's like a puzzle to pick out the tiny bits and details in the mid-ground of the landmark buildings and imagining exactly what your angle was for them to overlap as they do. The south corner of the Empress appears immediately in front of the east end of a torquoise Legislature tower, which to me, wouldn't line up with the direction eastward towards Rockland as the picture shows. I would have thought it would point out to sea or at least Clover Point. ? :)
ReplyDeleteHmmm, interesting.
I find when I view things from a height I'm often surprised at the relationship (distances and angles) between landmarks. It seems very different from when you are driving or walking between them at ground level.
ReplyDeleteThat's some zoom lens! I recognize the top of the Castle, but everything else looks out of place!
ReplyDeleteEnjoying all that distant detail brought forward, did anyone take note of the protruding orca dorsal fin in the immediate foreground to the left ?
ReplyDeleteMe neither.
ReplyDeleteThanks all for your comments.
ReplyDeleteDean I never noticed the Orca but I have my doubts. Just above and to the left of the Orca are a couple of cormorants that, if they were scaled in reference to the Orca, would be about the size of B-52s. I suspect it's just a piece of driftwood.
I did not realize just how large the rock outcropping is at Macaulay Point !
ReplyDeleteThe houses are dwarfed by it.
I like the photo with the big evening or maybe morning sun. Very beautiful.
ReplyDelete