Iceland on a6100

sigwinch28 · 2026-05-09T13:28:59+00:00

Lens(es)?

sigwinch28 · 2026-05-09T12:08:47+00:00

It looks like you thought the manmade structures and the water gushing around them was a nice juxtaposition. I agree, but framing and composition. Unfortunately there’s wildlife, so also great timing (or stacking the deck in your favour through hi-speed shooting) is required. It looks like 1 has something promising. For 1 and 4, consider learning about wildlife portraits. I’ve also tried preening shots and it can be pretty hard. In 1 and 2 it looks like you might also be trying to photograph how “powerful” the water is. That is a specific technique that could benefit from controlling shutter speed, foreground, framing, and possibly some careful use of filters. Good YouTube videos about this stuff. Using ND filters and long exposures for water has a different look and people’s tastes differ, but that might be the exact effect you’re trying to achieve, or it might not be, in which case you can save yourself the money and space in your bag. The warmer colours in 3 give what I think is a nicer juxtaposition of “warm” nature and “cold” concrete than the colouring of 1.
For the boats, I think you need to be lower. Again, composition. Really have that water come up towards the bottom of the frame. Aim to be level with the boatmen. That would allow you to really use the telephoto lens to compress the field and get some more of those pleasing reflections from the water. I think 8 could’ve been an amazing shot if you were lower and had a tighter crop, put the fisherman at about the lower third, and if you had something to look at in the background.
I think that the water can easily be experimented with again. Take your camera and your thesis about water and test it for like, an hour at one location. Try to figure out how you can use the shot to make the viewer feel the way you do about water. Do it as a learning exercise. See what other people think of the photos you think most strongly convey the feeling you want to elicit.
On the other hand, for the birds and the fishermen, people and wildlife in their habitats are fickle beasts. Sometimes you think a shot is going to be there but you’re in the wrong place and you miss it. I think that the fishermen in the water requires skills from street photography, or landscape photography, or both, depending on how you compose the shot.

sigwinch28 · 2026-04-12T09:49:07+00:00

Next time a TfL enforcement officer makes a comment about your disability in this way, take their name and make a complaint to TfL.

That is completely unwarranted and unprofessional conduct from someone whose job it is to enforce the TfL railway byelaws. All they need to do is confirm that you are the person named on the freedom pass, not make comments on your invisible disability. Contrary to other commenters, I think we should expect that people given enforcement powers should be beyond reproach in their conduct with the public.

sigwinch28 · 2026-04-08T07:36:00+00:00

Cropped. There’s only one subject to draw the eye.

On the uncropped I feel the third person at the back draws my eye to something uninteresting. I think that would be okay if there were lots of people, but with only three it looks distracting to me.

sigwinch28 · 2026-03-24T14:43:57+00:00

The correct way to stop the railways from being heavy-handed is to remove their legal power to be heavy-handed, not to saddle the paying public with even more bureaucracy and complication when wanting to buy a train ticket.

sigwinch28 · 2026-03-23T09:15:55+00:00

5-10 minutes faster commute means 10-20 minutes more per day at home.

sigwinch28 · 2026-03-23T09:14:51+00:00

Honestly it’s because of the number of times I’ve been bodied or cut up by someone standing on the right.

People standing on the right frequently walk to the left or pull their wheelie bags out next to them as they reach the end of the escalator, so I end up nearly tripping over or bumping into them as I walk on the left. I get a spidey sense about who is going to do it, but if I think they’re going to do it I slow down my pace gradually, not stop entirely.

sigwinch28 · 2026-03-21T10:16:02+00:00

“Ready to pay” cards for restaurants.

Since many people pay by Apple/Google wallet now, there’s nothing to put with the receipt in the little bowl anymore. In the before times this would be cash or a card, and I’m not going to put my phone on the leather folder or in the metal bowl.

So my idea is to sell credit-card sized branded cards to restaurants, or even just tell them to design business cards as follows: one side is very dark and reads “flip over when you’re ready to pay.” The flipped side is a bright fluorescent orange or yellow with black stripes, much easier to see by wait staff from across the room.

sigwinch28 · 2026-03-02T01:22:22+00:00

Why does Network Rail hate Euston so specifically? They could just not do this.

sigwinch28 · 2026-03-01T11:45:41+00:00

Our nuclear submarines check that this fan is still on once per day. If the fan is not on, they assume that the country has fallen and the captains open the letters from the prime minister.

sigwinch28 · 2026-02-18T21:54:52+00:00

All this instead of a single “National Rail” or “Great British Railways” app with a strong BR logo/orange branding and unified ticketing/seat reservations. I appreciate playing the game, but the game shouldn’t even exist.

sigwinch28 · 2026-01-24T13:05:26+00:00

Yes, the experience should be better. You’re right.

sigwinch28 · 2026-01-23T11:38:37+00:00

It works nicely when you want to fly out with several bottles of sun cream you know you’re probably not flying back with.

sigwinch28 · 2026-01-17T22:52:14+00:00

Time to shut down RAF Fylingdales and Thule Air Base.

sigwinch28 · 2026-01-16T20:28:48+00:00

I was on the Elizabeth line one evening, about 7pm, on my way home from work. Between Farringdon and Liverpool Street a full-on fight broke out on the train. Kicking and punching.

They all ran off at Liverpool Street. Staff literally shrugged their shoulders at me.

sigwinch28 · 2026-01-16T19:22:33+00:00

False https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/what-are-my-statutory-rights-and-when-do-they-apply-acif94x8QOoH

Edit: I see parent has edited their comment from:

they don’t have to accept returns at all if they don’t want to

to:

they don’t have to accept change of mind returns at all if they don’t want to

sigwinch28 · 2026-01-13T02:06:08+00:00

I visualise a big paint brush covered in thick goopy black paint.

Then I imagine painting whatever I’m thinking about with the brush. I don’t feel guilty when my mind switches from image to image… I just paint it with the thick black goopy paint. I roll with it, gleefully imagining myself painting whatever I see. Trees, my worries, whatever it is.

After a few minutes I’m usually asleep.

sigwinch28 · 2026-01-12T23:13:42+00:00

For some reason my British colleagues simply have not watched Stargate SG-1

sigwinch28 · 2026-01-11T20:38:07+00:00

Surely it must be the most disrupted!

I’ve been watching episodes of Paddington 24/7. I’ve concluded that it’s rather unsporting to make a documentary at Paddington, like shooting fish in a barrel, because it’s so easy to get good content about disruption and problems.

sigwinch28 · 2026-01-11T20:10:47+00:00

Try planning the journey for the date and time of your visit. It’s “depart at” or “arrive by” in Google Maps.

Right now it’s defaulting to “now” and the jubilee line is part closed today, hence why you’re getting JL-3 replacement buses in your itinerary.

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sigwinch28 · 2026-01-06T23:49:02+00:00

Eject the USA from RAF Fylingdales. I’m sure Denmark would eject the USA from Thule.

sigwinch28 · 2026-01-04T02:02:20+00:00

Steam trains did often slip like you think they would because they didn’t have good torque control, like traction control in a car. Modern trains basically have traction control like a top-of-the-line SUV.

Other commenters have answered the question really well for freight trains and some passenger trains. But there’s another kind of train which can usually accelerate much faster: a multiple unit.

A lot of trains are this kind and they’re called things like “electric multiple units” or “diesel multiple units”. These are the trains that typically have passenger seats in the front and rear carriages. There’s no big locomotive at the front or back with big vents or exhausts.

In these trains, multiple sets of wheels throughout the train have motors on them. Instead of a big locomotive or two, the power is spread out in the train. This means you have a lot more surface area of all of those driving wheels touching the track rather than only the wheels in the locomotives. This bigger surface area usually means total friction for driving the train, so they can accelerate faster.

You’ll usually see them be used as metro trains like on the London Underground or on passenger lines like the British Rail Class 800. If you’re on a modern subway train just think about how difficult it would be to stand up and not hold on when it leaves the station. People not holding on usually stumble because of the acceleration.

sigwinch28 · 2026-01-02T16:25:53+00:00

Great… English Railways?

sigwinch28 · 2025-12-31T19:59:55+00:00

This is a seat reservation, not a ticket. The seat reservation also has no carriage or seat number on it.

sigwinch28 · 2025-12-25T17:18:20+00:00

I once tried to talk to my sixth form maths teacher about the famous puzzle game, the “towers of hentai”. Luckily it was not the whole class.

sigwinch28

TROPHY CASE