Wonderful Copenhagen, part 2

This piece continues my photographic journey around Copenhagen. You can see part 1 by clicking here. Before delving into more photos, let me say a bit about the lenses I took with me. After some deliberation I decided upon the 18, 27 and 60mm primes. That meant leaving the fisheye, 50-230 and my old manual focus optics at home. I think overall the trio I picked out covered 95% of the shooting situations I found myself in. They are all capable performers, their light weight and in particular the small size of the 18 and 27 make them great for travel. You can just put them into a messenger bag or even a coat pocket and blend into the crowd. I’ve got a great LowerPro backpack that I used to cart my Nikon gear around in, but it’s not something I want weighing on my shoulders for hours, especially when walking around all day. The great thing about the Fuji system for travel photography is that it’s so compact and lightweight compared to even a small DSLR setup – crucially while still producing top notch results. It’s taken awhile for mirrorless cameras to reach this point, but now I know there’s no going back.

Rundertaarn Details

The shot above and below are both from the Rundertaarn, or Round Tower. It’s a 17th century tower and houses a library, church and observatory. Interestingly inside rather than using steps to climb the tower, you instead follow a spiral ramp that was once used to hall books up to the library by means of horse and carriage! The shot below shows an old rocking chair in the bell ringers loft above the church.

Beautiful boats

Copenhagen’s waterfront is dotted with lots of beautiful, historic boats. This lovely old lightship is moored in Nyhaven. Below the spectacular tall ship Georg Stage.

The slightly random selection of apertures in the boat photos is due to me jogging the fairly loose aperture ring on my 18mm and not noticing, ideally I’d have shot all of them at f8.

Street scenes

Seeming to defy gravity with spiritual power these street performers no doubt have a trick up their sleeves (or a metal pole at any rate).

Cisternerne

Cisternerne, the old subterranean reservoir that used to supply drinking water to Copenhagen, has been turned into an eerie exhibition space. It’s well worth experiencing, but if you want to take photos bring a tripod! I certainly wish I had, even shooting my 18mm at f2 and ISO 1600 I struggled to get usable shots with rather slow shutter speeds. I managed to find a spot to rest the camera for the shot above, but otherwise there wasn’t really anywhere convenient.

At the moment strange wax laden chandeliers by artisit Christian Lemmerz are being exhibited. Aside from the very occasional spot light these are providing most of the lighting!