Seaton Deleval Hall - Northumberland

A relatively recently acquired National Trust property, now undergoing restoration.

The hall gets a face lift, clad in scaffold, but you can still go in

Work is in progress to provide cathodic protection to the corroding iron supports of the statues around the hall.

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The garden looks better each time we visit.

 Bees enjoying the fragant lavender

I took this photo a few years ago, I'm not sure if the architectural plans are still on display.

Sony NEX 6

Cragside Rothbury

We try to get to the National Trust property Cragside at Rothbury every year at this time in order to see the rhododendrons and azaleas in bloom.

There was something new to see this time, an Archimedes screw used as a water powered turbine to generate electricity. It was not working, but the installation looks to be complete.

I assume that the blue thing in the cabinet is a speed increasing gearbox, driving 

a generator mounted above the axis of the rotor. (Pentax 50mm f1.7)

They are also installing one of these machines in the river Wear 

as it passes through Durham City. (Pentax 28mm K f3.5)

Now for some flowers. Ideally you should use a tripod and a reflector to get good crisp and contrasty flower shots, but Cragside was very busy on Bank Holiday Monday and some of the paths quite narrow, so I made do with hand holding the camera. Samsung 35mm f2 (rebadged  Pentax) at f11.

View across Tumbleton Lake looking towards the Visitor Centre.

View from the Iron Bridge towards Tumbleton Lake

For more Cragside photos see here and here.

Sony NEX 6 manual focus lenses.

Step This Way at Darlington 2014

Appalachian dance team Step This Way with musicians from the Bones Creek Band performed within the market place as a part of Darlington Arts Showcase.

Audience participation is always popular!

50 mm lenses on Sony Nex 6

Over time I have compared the performance of the Sony 16-50  kit lens supplied with the NEX 6 to that of old manual focus prime lenses that I have in my collection.

Is this a fair comparison, an image stabilised zoom against a manual focus prime? Well the zoom was designed and manufactured in the 21st century and the old primes in the 1960s. Possibly 50 years between them.

Judge for yourself.

The overall view taken at a focal length of 50mm 

Below are 100% crops of the sign to the right of the lion.

Sony 16-50 at  f5.6

Zuiko 50mm f1.8 at  f5.6

Sony 16-50

Zuiko 50mm

Further testing - to investigate the influence of auto focus error on the results of the tests I conducted further experiments with the following parameters. Manual exposure, camera on tripod with 2 sec shutter delay. 3 shots for each situation, best chosen for comparison.

1) Sony at f8 autofocus 

2) Sony at f8 manual focus at f5.6 ( wide open)

3) Zuiko at f8 manual focus at f5.6 ( to match Sony)

Default processing in LR and PS. No adjustments made. Actual pixel crops from top left hand corner of image.

Sony f8 - manual focus (137kb)

Sony f8 Autofocus (137 kb)

Zuiko f8 (196 kb)

The manually focused Sony result is slightly better than that achieved by autofocus, but the Zuiko is clearly superior, both in terms of the JPG size, but also visually. Actually you don't need to do any of this testing as the Zuiko looks far better in the EVF!

More comparisons, Sony 16-50, Canon 24-105 and Pentax 50mm f1.7. Default conversions in LR and PS, no adjustments. Forget the colour temperatures, they can be adjusted easily enough, this is a test of sharpness and contrast.

Overall view ( Canon 24-105 on 5DII)

Actual pixel crops of top left corner. (Click for full size)

Pentax 50mm on NEX  (JPG size 187 KB)

Sony 16-50 on NEX (JPG size 142 KB)

Canon 24-105 on 5DII (JPG size 179 KB)

My pecking order would be Pentax 50mm f1,7, followed by Canon 24-105 with the Sony a poor third, but judge for yourself.

This test demonstrates quite nicely why I prefer to carry a lightweight Sony NEX 6 rather than have the Albatross of a Canon 5D11 around my neck!

Sunderland Steam Spectacular

Billed as Sunderland Steam Spectular, this event is taking place in Herrington Country Park, just over the road from Penshaw Monument. The photo below is a stiched panorama taken from the monument. Click for an enlarged view.

I can count five full sized steam vehicles, not what I would call Spectacular, but I guess that they have to start somewhere. This was taken at the start of play on Sunday morning, so it is possible that more steamers arrived during the day. 

Having peered in from above I elected not to spend the £6 entrance fee, or £15 for a family. I suspect, but don't know for sure, that the various fairground rides would incur a further charge, so a pretty expensive outing for a family for what is a fairly limited display.

Beamish steam weekend, by contrast, is on a far greater scale and easily worth the annual membership.

I can only hope that, if they do this again, it will be more truly "spectacular".

Sony NEX 6 Pentax 200mm f4

Consett To Broom Park - Cycle Ride

Later this year the people who volunteer for the sustainable transport charity Sustrans in the north east are getting together for a weekend away. This "Festivol" will include a number of organised cycle rides. My wife, Carol, is the coordinator of the local Coast to Coast (C2C)  group of Sustrans rangers, and we agreed to lead one of the rides.

Prior to any organised Sustrans event you have to recce the route and note any possible hazards, before completing a risk assessment.

Accordingly, this weekend we rode the proposed route, from Consett towards Langley Park along the Lanchester Valley path, over the ridge there and down onto the Deerness Valley path to Broompark, near Durham, and so back along the Lanchester path to Consett.

The route, designed by fellow Sustrans Ranger Doug Ridgway, can be seen here

Coffee stop at a recently opened and very nice cafe in Langley Park - a place coming up in the world

The route climbs high above Langley Park and this photo shows a view across the town, with new houses in the foreground. Carol's uncle was a miner at the pit in Langley Park, he would be very surprised to see what has happened here, were he able to return.

The route follows the Deerness Valley path to beyond Broompark, where there was a complex railway intersection, Relly Mill Junction. Traffic free paths now occupy most of the old lines, but the East Coast Main Line still passes through near to this point.

We had come down the Deerness Valley from the rear centre of this photo, and would be continuing along towards Lanchester. The path off to the left goes to Bishop Auckland, while that to the right leads through a car park and into Durham City via Neville's Cross. Later on there is a better traffic free route into the city. 

The disused railway lines in north east England  provide a wonderful network of safe cycle paths.

The scenery along the Lanchester Valley path looks lovely when the sun shines. Not everyone likes the strong yellow colour of oil seed rape, but I think it makes an attractive picture.

Lanchester is the place to live in these parts, never a pit village and with an adjacent Roman Fort, it is one of the nicer spots in Co. Durham. 

We returned along the Lanchester Valley path to Lygett's Junction ( another old railway intersection), just outside Consett.

Nothing now remains of the once extensive steelworks at Consett, save two old bogie ladle wagons.

Terris Novalis a stainless steel sculpture depicting a level and theodolite, complete with obliging resting cyclist, Consett.

Sony NEX 6 16-50 Sony lens

Great North Steam Fair - Beamish Museum 2014

I try to get along to this annual event every year, and look out for new things to photograph, so not many steam machine shots this time!

Four different varieties of steam wagon.

Tried my hand at panning - need to use a slightly lower shutter speed - despite choosing ISO 100 and f8, the background blur is not as pronounced as I would have liked. Probably needs to be sub 1/100th for these relatively slow vehicles. I believe that this is a 1903 Ariel motorcycle.

Hold on to your hat, 1927 Star Motors car

Smiling lady cyclist on vintage bicycle, my favourite shot of the day.

Meccano models of the locos that competed in the Rainhill Trials by Fred Thompson

Sony NEX 6, probably Pentax 28mm f3.5 K and (Samsung) 35mm f2