#soligor c/d 28mm

[simonhawketts]

As I have mentioned in a previous post we went to a tudor day at Kentwell Hall in Suffolk in April this year and I’ve posted several pictures which I took that day, but I still have a large number which I wanted to publish so I’ve collected them all here in a large gallery.

I can thoroughly recommend the Kentwell Hall tudor day if you are in the area or would consider travelling. It was the best day we had during our holiday both from an entertainment and an educational point of view.

Kentwell Hall, Grounds, Interiors and characters

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Kentwell Hall

Kentwell Hall close shot

Looking at the main entrance

The moat

The path round the hall

Twigs drying for besom use

Outhouse

Wooden fence

Hall from the stables

The hall viewed from the moat

Carved tree

Carved Tree

James sitting on carved tree

The Peacock

Topiary

Field

The Moat

The Moat

Outbuilding

Donkeys

Arrow types

Emma fitted for armour

Checking she is happy

James not sure!

Explaining the archer’s role

Explaining the archer’s role

Talking to Frankie

Archery practice

Shooting

Wheat display

Emma drawing a picture

The kitchens

Sideboard

Dining room

Old sofa

Bedroom

Child’s cot

Cooking

Cooking over the fire

Stiring the pottage

The carver

Model warship

Flags

The forge

Metalwork

Armour

Amour gloves

The forge

Battle wear

Small shield

Blacksmith and assistant

Knives

Dried fruit being soaked

Emma in Chainmail

Emma in Chainmail

Emma in Chainmail

Full chainmail

The Alchemist

Alchemist portrait

The Alchemist and his bones

The Alchemist and pan

Tools of the trade

Mixing potions

Emma and the alchemist

Emma waits

Components of gunpowder

Components of gunpowder

Components of gunpowder

Mixing gunpowder

Making Butter

The apothecary

The apothecary

The apothecary’s room

The apothecary’s room

The sewing room

The sewing room

Tudor boats

Making dye

The gunsmith

The gunsmith’s toolbox

Armour

The baker

Waiting for bread to rise

The bakers

The wool dyer

Wool drying

Wooldrying

Spoons

Provisions

Provisions

Provisions

Tudor Bed

Spinning wool

Spinning wool

Fleeces waiting

Minstrels

Playing for the spinners

Wool

The woodcutter

Jesters cap

Wool dyer

Kentwell hall Tudor day pictures As I have mentioned in a previous post we went to a tudor day at Kentwell Hall in Suffolk in April this year and I've posted several pictures which I took that day, but I still have a large number which I wanted to publish so I've collected them all here in a large gallery.

[simonhawketts]

We have been away for a couple of days visiting my Sister in Norwich. I assumed that since she lives in a city the last thing I would need would be my macro kit so I only took my standard ‘takumar kit‘ with me. Unfortunately it turned out I was wrong as we went for a walk into the woods by her house and discovered there is a nature park next to the woods and a whole collection of small insects which I would have photographed if I’d brought my macro lens kit with me.

I managed to grab some low quality shots with the only semi-macro lens I had with me, a soligor c/d 28mm and I’ve vowed that when we next come I’ll bring the whole kit.

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Ladybird

Unknown

Soldier beetle

Scorpian fly

Fence

Bee

Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get a shot of a very interesting blue mayfly with black wings which was flying around in abundance – oh well, next time.

I wish I had my macro lens today We have been away for a couple of days visiting my Sister in Norwich. I assumed that since she lives in a city the last thing I would need would be my macro kit so I only took my standard '

[simonhawketts]

Favourite Pictures - A bowl of flowers

Favourite Pictures – A bowl of flowers

A bowl of flowers

This picture was taken in Tranmer House at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk during our recent holiday. It ls a very simple picture but it’s my favourite of all the pictures I took during that day because of the light caught on the flower’s petals and the out of focus area in the background. It’s quite normal to isolate a subject by throwing the background out of focus, but I normally aim…

[simonhawketts]

Favourite Pictures - Framlingham

Favourite Pictures – Framlingham

Framlingham lane

This picture was taken in the Suffolk village of Framlingham during our recent holiday.

We went for a visit to the castle at Framlingham but Jan found a walk round the town which took in all the interesting and historic properties and views and so I took pictures as we walked around. When we got to this lane I tried lowering the camera to use the brickwork pavement as a series of…

[simonhawketts]

Favourite Pictures - Toy boats

Favourite Pictures – Toy boats

These toy boats were sitting on the window sill in the apothecary’s room at Kentwell Hall when we visited on a Tudor Day reconstruction a couple of weeks ago. I’m not sure it they are an accurate representation of tudor England toys or just something made to look like models, but they caught my eye and so I took this picture.

Sony nex 6

Soligor C/D 28mm f/2.8

iso 200

1/60th sec

f/5.6 ?

[simonhawketts]

Sony Nex 6 panorama function

Sony Nex 6 panorama function

When we were on holiday I wanted to try out the Sony nex 6 panorama setting, which will create a panoramic picture in real time as you hold the shutter button and sweep the camera. The image above is one I took on the beach at Dunwich in Suffolk and I think it actually works quite well. There is no obvious stitching errors that I can see and considering this was produced within about 3 seconds…

[simonhawketts]

Favourite Pictures - The alchemist

Favourite Pictures – The alchemist

The alchemist

Back to Kentwell Hall for another picture in my series ‘Favourite Pictures’. We came upon this chap in a clearing in the woods showing a sheep’s skeleton to a family! Emma immediately ran up to see what this was all about and we ended up stopping for about 20 minutes listening to him telling us all about how glass is made (Tudor version that is) and why it’s so valuable, why the…

[simonhawketts]

Favourite Pictures - The jesters cap

Favourite Pictures – The jesters cap

The jesters cap

This is another of the pictures I took at Kentwell Hall during their recent ‘Tudor Day’. It is a couple of Jesters Caps which was left discarded on a pile of banners and bunting on a bed in one of the outer barns and I took it with the available light in the barn. It was the lighting which attracted me to the picture because in the dingy interior it was a beacon of colour sitting…

[simonhawketts]

Favourite Pictures - The seashore

Favourite Pictures – The seashore

Seashore

This is one of those pictures which I like because of the simplicity of it. It was one of the first pictures I took when we arrived at Dunwich National Trust nature reserve on the Suffolk coast and it was one I had been planning to take since we decided we would go there. It’s a classic simple view of the water meeting the land and vanishing into the distance, but it’s improved by the…

[simonhawketts]

My favourite picture choice is again from Kentwell Hall, but today it’s two pictures of the same subject.

One of the rooms was set out as a normal Tudor house and this display of foodstuffs was arranged in the sunlight streaming through the window. It was the light which attracted me to the shot – if it had been a dull day I probably wouldn’t even have noticed it, but in the almost dark room this simple arrangement of food stood out as a colourful beacon. Because it was so dark I had f/2.8 (the widest aperture available) set on the Soligor C/D 28mm lens I had fitted to my Nex 6 and there is not quite enough depth of focus to cover the whole table. Both pictures were taken at high ISO but the noise is well controlled on the Nex so in retrospect it would have been better to push the iso a bit higher and use f/4 perhaps. That’s a lesson to learn for next time.

Sony Nex 6

Soligor C/D 28mm f/2.8

iso 800 / iso 2000

1/60sec

f/2.8

Favourite Pictures – Tudor provisions My favourite picture choice is again from Kentwell Hall, but today it's two pictures of the same subject.

[simonhawketts]

Favourite pictures - The apothacary's room

Favourite pictures – The apothacary’s room

The apothacary’s room

We are back to Kentwell Hall for todays favourite picture and it’s one I included in my post about using prime lensesduring our holiday but I really like this picture so I’m giving it it’s own post. This is in one of the upper rooms in some of the out houses at Kentwell, where some Tudor re-enactment players were collecting herbs and manufacturing medicine used by tudor…

[simonhawketts]

Favourite Pictures - The gunsmith's toolbox

The gunsmiths toolbox

Another picture today from our trip to Kentwell Hall where a ‘Tudor Day’ was taking place. In one of the out buildings we found a gunsmith at work and I took this detail picture of the small wooden toolbox sitting on his bench. Because of the low light this picture was taken at 3200 iso with the lens set to f/2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/60 sec but it is still a remarkably…

[simonhawketts]

Nex 6 video clip sample.

Fairground ride ►

JavaScript required to play Fairground ride.

I don’t often take video clips but while we were on holiday I did take this clip of my children on a fairground roundabout at Bressingham Steam and I thought it might be of use to anyone contemplating a sony Nex for video with fixed focus lenses. This video was taken with my Soligor 28mm lens with the aperture set to about f/5.6.

I…

[simonhawketts]

Favourite pictures - The Wool Dyer

When I first started this blog one of the reasons I wanted to write it was to publish some of my favourite pictures – in fact the tag line to the blog reads ‘My favourite pictures and other things’. For that reason I’ve decided to resurrect that aim with a few posts from our holiday in Suffolk. Because I took a lot of pictures I think this will mean that I will increase my frequency of posting…

[simonhawketts]

Before we went on holiday I wrote a post about the kit I was intending to take with me. Now we are back, this is a follow up post to explain how I got on using that kit.

Clock on the mantlepiece

The bookcase

Oil lamp

Golden shread tin

Planes

Music on the Piano

A bowl of flowers

Emma tinkling on the piano

Composing a chapter

Blacksmiths tools

The apothacary’s room

Toy boats

The gunsmiths toolbox

The baker

Waiting for the bread to rise

The bakers

Provisions

Provisions

Spinning some wool

Wool waiting for weaving

The jesters cap

The pictures above are all ones which I feel were helped by using the manual lens kit I took with me rather than a standard kit zoom.

Each of these pictures was taken a with one of the manual lenses I listed in my original post and the thing which was most affected by that was, surprisingly enough, the focus. For all of these pictures I feel the focus had been nailed and that’s something which I haven’t been able to say reliably for a long time using my Pentax and the autofocus lenses I’ve been used to using. Of the 1000 odd photos I’ve taken in the last week only about 5 are not focused exactly on the subject I wanted. If I were to rely on the autofocus on my Pentax I would be lucky if I could count less that 30. Of course it could be that the Pentax is not a good autofocus camera, and I know a lot of canon and nikon shooters say their brand is particularly good, but I would suggest any photographer would be pleased with 5 poorly focused shots out of 1000.

These pictures are all predominantly indoor shots. Normally with my Pentax this is the sort of shot where it is normal to find the camera hunting around as it tries to get focus at probably f/3.5 or f/4. Also the autofocus would often lock on to a part of the picture which is not the main subject I’m interested in. Using manual focus I’ve been able to choose exactly the area I want and focus it precisely. The majority of these shots were taken with a Soligor 28mm f/2.8 or Takumar 28mm f/3.5 (fitted to a camdiox wide angle adapter which adds a stop approx so probably f/2.8 also) but the real killer feature has been the focus peaking of the nex. With the focus peaking on and using the viewfinder I’ve been much more successful than I’ve been in the past relying on autofocus.

I have to also comment on the optical quality of these lenses. I feel they have been outstanding and some of the images above are really well defined, contrasty images. The particular lens I would say which has really stood out for me has been the Soligor 28mm which I always felt was the weakest of the bunch but has actually turned out to be a star. I’m definitely on the look out for some more examples of Soligor C/D lenses now.

The other advantage of using faster lenses of course has been the greater depth of field available, and although there are only a couple of shots above that show it, there have been several times over the last week where I’ve got some nice blur to really make a subject stand out. It goes almost without saying that the extra couple of stops that the faster lenses have afforded has resulted in cleaner images because that has been directly related to a lower iso.

I think the only thing which has been a negative really has been the more frequent lens changes necessary. This has probably (certainly actually) been a contributing factor to getting a dust spot on the sensor very early in our trip which resulted in trying to shoot everything below f/8 to minimize the amount the spot shows up, but all in all when I balance up the fact that I have had less weight to carry around it’s not such a big deal. I’m also happy to say that the lens change recording technique which I worked out before I left worked out really well and I have managed to tag all the images with the lens used for the picture. I’m going to use a small lightroom plugin to convert these tags to exif image data.

Shooting with primes Before we went on holiday I wrote a post about the kit I was intending to take with me.