High summer in Chynów - storms, fruit and exercise.

This is a lovely photograph, taken around the corner from my działka, a few minutes after Saturday's sunset. Looking north from Chynów. Good to see local people exercising - quite a few cyclists, roller-bladers and Nordic walkers out at this time of day. 

Taken from the same place, at the same time - but with a totally different lens. Instead of a telephoto zoom at 300mm, a super-wide-angle zoom at 10mm. The red glow of the horizon a few minutes after sunset is all you get when zoomed in tight - but  rise above it, and then the sky gradually turns a deep blue. Nearly three weeks after the year's latest sunset, the day has lost just seven minutes in the evening; hardly noticeable - yet.

Friday's storm caught me briefly; there was trouble on the Radom line (it's still not right since the 28 June reopening); I jumped onto a Góra Kalwaria train that arrived at W-wa Jeziorki when a Radom train was due, which meant changing trains at Ustanówek (below). By the time I reached the shelter at the end of the platform, the downpour began - mercifully it turned into a regular rainfall by the time I emerged from the pedestrian tunnel in Chynów, and got home to the działka just slightly wet.

On Sunday the sun disappeared behind a bank of cloud on the north-western horizon, but a far more ominous one was heaving in from the south-east. Flashes of lightning occurring often; as I turned the corner, the downdraft from the rainstorm suddenly whipped up, tearing leaves off the trees. A good day's walking, 15,000 paces (compensating for a shortage of paces on the rainy Friday).

Taken from nearly the same point as the top photo, but looking the other way. I set off with the wrong camera; I had hoped to do some extreme zooms of the Warsaw skyline with my Nikon Coolpix P900. Sadly, the skyscrapers were hardly visible. When the storm approached, I was armed with the P900 (which does not do wide-angle well) and my phone. Neither is optimised for extracting subtlety from the heavens, nor capable of taking .NEF (RAW) files to work on in Photoshop for an accurate rendition of what I saw and felt. So - an approximation.

I got home from my walk about ten minutes before the heavens really opened. In the meanwhile, the sweet cherries that haven't been picked or eaten by the birds have rotted and fallen; the sour cherry season is getting into full swing, and I've been picking blackcurrants to make more nalewki. Current score - 11 jars of various size, enough for about three litres, once the secondary fermentation has been carried out. Plenty more to come - the classic wiśniówka next! It should also be a good year for blackberries, though the raspberries coming through are meagre and dry.

[Update 14 July - it's been like Groundhog Day this week; I wake up, open the roller blinds, the sun's shining in a cloudless sky. As the day goes on, the clouds build up to the east. As five o'clock comes along, the lid goes down on the laptop, I stroll out for blackcurrants. It's hot. I'm sweating as I pick the berries. To the east, the increasingly frequent claps of thunder from an ever-darker sky - to the west, the sun continues to shine, untroubled to cloud. A contest between east and west. Wind is blowing from the high-pressure area to the low-pressure area - a good sign, because it means the downdraft, caused by large volumes of water falling out of the clouds, is still a long way off. As I finish picking the blackcurrants, the wind starts to veer. The thunder and lightning become almost continuous; as I start climbing the gentle slope up towards my działka, there's no mistaking the downdraft. By seven, the storm reaches Jakubowizna. Lights on - it's dark outside. And yet sunset's nearly two hours away. Repeat the following day.]

Update 17 July - as I cross the tracks to pick blackcurrants, I'm passed by a group of six cyclists. Nice bikes, and cracking performance! No one whistling show-tunes here!

This time last year:
Summer wet and dry
[A pattern is emerging!]

This time three years ago:
Rainy summer Warsaw moods

This time six years ago:
Marathon stroll along the Vistula

This time seven years ago:
Complaining about the lack of a river crossing between Siekierki and Góra Kalwaria! 

This time eight years ago:
S2 update 

This time nine years ago:
Progress on S2 bypass - photos from the air

This time 11 years ago:
Up Śnieżnica

This time 14 years ago:
July continues glum (2007 - yet another rainy summer)

Justify the buy – Nikkor 10-20mm vs 10-24mm

I don't like buying new, but from time to time it makes sense. It's been longer than I thought since I bought a superwide zoom for my Nikon camera – nearly seven years. Over that time, the Nikkor 10-24mm lens has delivered stunning photos. Since then, Nikon has brought out a new lens in the same category. It has two advantages over the old one. One is size and weight. The new 10-20mm lens is - would you believe it - less than half the weight of the old one, and significantly smaller. The other is vibration reduction (VR - or in Canon parlance, image stabilisation or IS). VR allows photos to be taken at longer exposures without fear of camera shake. Drawbacks? The new lens is a whole stop darker than the old one (maximum aperture is f4.5 rather than f3.5, and it zooms out to 20mm rather than 24mm.

Neither drawback can overcome the weight/size difference. The new one is 227g, the old one 465g. That's a noticeable difference when carrying it around your neck all day long. Nearly a quarter of a kilo (half a pound) less for something that does the same job. Some camera snobs like the weight and solidity of the old 10-24mm zoom, with its metal mount, focus-scale window, separate zoom and focus rings and autofocus switch. For me, it's like the difference between the paperback and hardback versions of the same novel; same content, but the hardback was designed with an eye on posterity.

The old lens I intend to sell on OLX or Allegro - the prices for a good used 10-24mm (around 1,700zł) are higher than the new price for a 10-20mm model (under 1,500zł).

First results are pleasing - I can't see any visual difference between the two. The newest versions of Photoshop correct any chromatic aberrations and distortion for both lenses. One caveat is that the new lens does not work on Nikon bodies earlier than the D3300 (and corresponding premium models).

Below: the two lenses side by side. The size difference is evident; the new lens (left) has a 72mm filter ring, the old one's is 77mm.

The old lens below looks more 'impressive' than the new one... bottom.

This time six years ago:
The Big Melt

This time nine years ago:
Waiting for the meltdown

This time 11 years ago:
Warsaw's inadequate airport (since then, Terminal Two has opened, a railway line links it to the city centre and a new road links it to the motorway network)

Wider-angle London...

I usually travel with my trusty (and really excellent for the money) Nikon D3300 with its kit 18-55mm lens; a mildly wide to (very) mildly telephoto lens. Knowing I'd be in two cities that amaze with their architecture, I elected for this trip Kingdomside to take the superwide 10-24mm Nikkor zoom. So here's a bit of London...

Below: I love every bit of St Pancras station. It has been so beautifully restored; the grimy brick of my childhood also had its charm (I remember when Scammell Scarabs plied the Midland Road). I can imagine Victorian railway officials at work, poring over forms, in those windows to the left, as smoke billowed over the turreted rooftops.

Below: hidden behind London's main streets are the mews - the stables in which rich folks' horses were kept, and above them stables for coachmen, grooms and ostlers. These days mews, with their historic character and cobblestones make for desirable residences for many a million.

Below: Regent Street, looking south. There are 12 days of Christmas, but none of them fall in mid-November. The Xmas lights are up, reminding us to part with our money to buy things we don't need. I mean for Christ's sake, Black Friday's still four days away...

Below: into the City of London, Bishopsgate (one of the Seven Canonical Gates of London - Aldgate, Ludgate, Moorgate are the ones that most readily spring to mind). Bricktorian Britain jostles with the New.

Ah now! This is interesting! The corner of the Old Brompton Road; a grocery store goes out of business, the shopfront is taken down, and a ghost sign appears - and what an interesting one! Borgward was a postwar German car brand that itself went out of business (in 1961), not before producing some nice cars (the Borgward Isabella coupe was particularly attractive). The sole concessionaire for the UK market was Metcalfe & Mundy Ltd. All history now - worthy of note.

This time last year:
First snow. first frost of the year

This time eight years ago
Childhood memories of Warsaw

Along mirror'd canyons

Rondo ONZ, named after the institution that first set global standards for the roundabout or rondo in 1946, is one of those places where Warsaw looks convincingly modern. Always a pleasure to be invited to a meeting at Rondo 1, my favourite skyscraper in Our City, even if only to a floor half-way up.The views, on a day like today, always reward. And from ground level too! Below: More high-rises are on their way, one replacing the 1990s Mercure hotel (centre background) and another soon to replace the Ilbau building rising above the left-hand side of the photo. The building where the cranes are will not, however, grow much taller.

The building stands atop the new station, Rondo ONZ, on the second line of the Warsaw Metro, now due to open sometime before hell freezes over.

Meanwhile, I'm forgetting what ul. Świętokrzyska was like when filled with pedestrians, buses and cars. I feel sympathy for the shopkeepers and restaurateurs struggling to keep their businesses open despite dramatically reduced footfall.

Below: the view from the 12th floor, looking eastward along ul. Świętokrzyska. Click to enlarge. No tweaking  in Photoshop, just the use of a polarising filter on 10-24mm zoom lens.

Below: shot from the back of a tram heading south down Al. Niepodległości, towers from left to right: Złota 44; Oxford Tower (Elektrim II); LIM tower (Marriott) and the Palace of Culture. A strange perspective, given how close Złota 44 is from the Palace of Culture.

This time two years ago:
Mad about Marmite

This time three year:
Komorowski wins second round of Presidential elections?

This time four years ago:
A beautiful summer dusk in Jeziorki

This time five years ago:
Classic cars, London and Warsaw

Mlecznie - or the Dandy Lions

It's that time of year, when the dandelion is in bloom again. Everywhere, across the whole of Warsaw. Wherever there's some grass, the dandelions are out. Mlecz in Polish, mleczno, the adjective - also meaning 'milky'. Dandelion is pronounced 'DAN-dee-lion' in English, rather than 'dan-DELL-yon'. The word comes from the French, dents de lion or lion's teeth.

Below: if Wordsworth could compare his daffodils (żonkile) with this lot, his heart would also with pleasure fill. Except that these dandelions weren't dancing - just looking pretty in the morning sun against a cloudless sky. Junction of ul. Puławska and Poloneza.

Below: more mlecz, this time on the central reservation of ul. Indiry Gandhi. Ms Gandhi is still the only female premier to have a Warsaw street named after her. The three blue cylinders in the middle of the frame are ventilators from the Metro, which runs beneath this point.

Below: looking southbound along ul. Indiry Gandhi; photo taken on 55-300mm zoom set at 300mm.

Below: on Pl. Unii Lubelskiej, ul. Marszałkowska running off to the left, Al. Szucha to the right. The 10-24mm lens set at 10mm (15mm equivalent on 35mm film camera or full-frame digital) has amazing depth of field, giving a rodent's eye-view.

Below: evening rush hour, ul. Marynarska. Oceans of dandelions here too. Further on up the road, I saw two more photographers with the same idea, squatting down, taking low-angle shots of dandelions.

The good weather and the brilliant yellow flowers will go to seed within a few days, each plant becoming a puff-ball of white, but thanks to digital photography, they now belong to the ages.

This time last year:
Early-May thunderstorm

This time two years ago:
Men at work

This time three years ago:
What's the Polish for 'to bully'?

This time four years ago:
Making plans for Jeziorki: Hołubcowa bis
[Not surprisingly, nothing has come of these plans]

This time five years ago:
The stirring sight of sunset

This time six years ago:
Blessed rain - after two dry weeks

Warsaw: spruced up and looking in its prime

The football starts in just over two weeks. Seven kilometres of motorway have been opened this morning, linking the S8 which skirts round Warsaw's north-east flank to Pruszków, still over 100km from Stryków where the motorway from Berlin currently ends. Meanwhile, the city authorities are doing their best to make Warsaw look clean, modern and welcoming.

Graffiti has been removed from my favourite bridge, Most Poniatowskiego. Left: steps leading up to Al. Jerozolimskie from the passage to W-wa Powiśle station. The écru-coloured walls are a magnet for the vandals; within minutes of the painters restoring this structure to pristine condition, Warsaw's public monument-defacer community has been out and about uglifying this beautiful structure, and others, such as Arseniusz Romanowicz's W-wa Powiśle station.

Birching is too good for them. Bring back the stocks, public flogging etc. In the meanwhile, before too many visual equivalents of doggy-do return to despoil the walls of the bridge, it is a rare chance to photograph it looking like it should.

Right: steps leading down to Śmigły-Rydz park in Powiśle. The neo-gothic vaulting reminds me of the Chapterhouse Steps at Wells Cathedral.

Once at street level, turn left for the Polish Army Museum (Muzeum Wojska Polskiego). Entrance to the park, filled with an eclectic mix of Soviet and Western militaria, is free of charge.

Below: a Cold War-era MiG 21 fighter gleams bright in the morning sun.

Below: a Sherman tank and 25-pounder field gun, both as used by Polish soldiers fighting alongside the British in Italy and the Normandy campaign. Worth remembering that Poland provided the fourth-most numerous army to fight the Germans (after the USSR, USA and UK). Hanging on the railings of the museum, a series of illustrated historical posters leaving our footballing visitors from the East in no doubt as to who won the Cold War.

Our city is truly at its best right now; spruced up for the visiting football fans, and enjoying some wonderful spring weather. A north-easterly wind cooled the air to a pleasant 21C today; walking around Warsaw a real joy.

This time three years ago:
Heron over Jeziorki

This time five years ago:
Present rising, future loading

Noc Muzeów: night of pride of being Polish

Noc Muzeów rolls around once more, a wonderful institution. The trick is to see those places you normally can't, rather than save a few zlotys and waste a few hours to queue for those places you can easily pop into during the year. Eddie's choice this year was the Presidential Palace on Krakowskie Przedmieście.

Above: we join the queue at half past six, half an hour before the palace opens its doors to visitors. Eddie looks on as behind us, the queue rapidly gains length.

Left: compared to last year's rather dull six-hour queue to get into Warsaw's Filtry, standing on Krakowskie Przedmieście was far more enjoyable. An endless throng of people of all ages, many foreigners too, heading up the thoroughfare, there's much to look at, like a Spanish paseo. The queue's good-natured; no political comments, a general sense of contentment in the warm evening air. A cavalcade of veteran cyclists passes, in 19th Century dress; every few minutes something of interest happens.

Below: at nine o'clock, we're almost there; 20 minutes later, we're through the metal detectors and in the palace.

Below: the Round Table, at which in April 1989, Poland's communist rulers accepted the framework for handing over power to a democratically elected government. The papers with black diagonal stripes indicate those participants of the round table talks who are no longer alive.

Right: Eddie in the ante-chamber before the hall of columns, in which the main presidential receptions are held. The ultrawide lens has been corrected for parallels, but in doing so, the sofa on which Eddie is sitting appears massively stretched! The lens has proved very useful in capturing the interiors of the palace.

Below: the tour continues into a vaulted room that looks like it should be underground, but is actually on the first floor. In it are replicas of flags and standards representing key moments in Poland's history.

Below: three of the flags. From the left - King Jan III Sobieski's standard at the Battle of Vienna (1683). The eagle looks like a hatchling! Middle - Insurgents' flag, Battle of Olszynka Grochowska, 1831 November Uprising; motto: In God's name For Our Freedom and Yours. Right - standard of Józef Piłsudski's 1st Brigade, Płock, 16 August 1915; motto: A Free Person in a Free Poland.

Below: we leave the palace from the front entrance. It is beautifully illuminated; for me this has been a night of pride of being Polish.

This time three years ago:
Why Poland can no longer afford to keep the grosz

Biblical sky

As I wrote this time three years ago, this is the time of the Ice Saints. On cue, they came; St Pancras and Servatus, and with them unseasonably cold weather crashing in after a hot start to spring. On Friday, it was 30C, yesterday 12C, today the thermometer was showing 9C. Cold rain lashed down on Warsaw.

But by this evening, sunshine began penetrating the leaden skies. Eddie observed from the kitchen rain falling through the lowering rays - ideal conditions, I noted, for a rainbow to appear (as it usually does) to the south-east. And a chance to try the new 10-24mm lens. Now, my old lenses (18-200mm, 18-55mm) both start at 18mm (equivalent to 27mm on a full-size sensor or 35mm film camera) - are not wide enough to capture a full rainbow end to end. In the past, I've had to stitch together two photos to form a panorama - not an easy task.

Well, as you can see, the rainbow's there, made the more visible by using a polarising filter (makes a big difference, which you can see by rotating it). Sadly, the rainbow was not full - the rain was only falling on the right side of the frame. Traces of a secondary rainbow can just be seen to the upper right of the main one. The lens is set to 14mm, so 10mm is totally ample to catch a full rainbow (125th sec, f5.6, 160 ISO).

Going home by train with a superwide lens

Whichever form of public transport I take home, I must pass the Patelnia (below), the area between Rondo Dmowskiego and Metro Centrum. On Monday the sky was glowering over Warsaw, low evening sunlight picking out the colour. The new Nikkor 10-24mm lens is put through its paces, yielding outstanding results.

Yesterday it was sunny - to get to W-wa Jeziorki, I board my train at W-wa Śródmieście station (below). Socialist Realism to match the Palace of Culture to the left of frame.

The train passes through W-wa Ochota station, a nice piece of architecture, like W-wa Centralna and W-wa Powiśle, the work of Arseniusz Romanowicz.

Onwards, uneventfully, until we get to W-wa Śłużewiec, where the S79 will intersect with ul. Sasanki. On the left side of the southbound train, here's the new Netia building (below)...

...and to the right side we see the flyovers that will connect the new road to Sasanki. Soon, there will be a rail connection via this station to the airport.

Below: further south, where the main Warsaw-Radom railway line crosses what will be the S2 (Southern Warsaw Bypass). Right now, work is under way to tunnel under the line.

Finally, I reach W-wa Jeziorki (below), about half an hour - if all goes well - from W-wa Śródmieście. It is 3.3km from Okęcie sidings, from where the coal trains run down to Siekierki power station, over the unelectrified line in the foreground.

The last 800m or so I hop on a bus - one stop to ul. Trombity. There are four buses an hour from W-wa Jeziorki station headed east towards home, two coincide with train arrivals. Usually. Otherwise, a 12 minute walk.

This time last year:
Loose Lips Sink Ships - part II

This time two years ago:
Jeziorki in the infra red

This time three years ago:
Some rain, at last!