London's Millenium Wheel

[Pete]

Well.. It's kinda "Transport"...

With the prow of the Queen Mary
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a294/peteghia/IMG_0428-Small.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a294/peteghia/rotated.jpg

[RadAL]

I stayed at the hotel right by it... and rode on it twice while I was in London.

[52k]

I'm by no means an expert here so this is just my humble opinion. I think the second shot could do with some levelling off by rotating the canvas... I've taken similar shots at this location and it's a difficult one to balance the angle of the bridges with the buildings the river and make the whole shot look right. Also there is a blotch inside the top half of the wheel. I've seen these in my own pictures when photographing skies and sunsets and I think it's caused by sun glare. Perhaps a hood will help here. On occasions I've just used photoshop to blur them out but in this case with the spokes of the wheel you might need to be more creative. When I first saw this I thought it was dust on the sensor but it's not. Maybe someone else could give a better explanation. Hope this helps.

[Pete]

Thanks for the comments, 52k. Edited original post to rotate it slightly.

The blotch is in fact a small bit of dirt on the sensor (I think). Throughout the afternoon, it's consistantly visible in the pictures (you can just see it in the first picture as well). I wasn't too fussed in removing them as they don't massively detract from the pictures.

[52k]

Hi Pete,

Yeah it's a wierd one with those blotches... I'm still convinced it's to do with glare though and not dust on the sensor. I bought a brand new 30D a few weeks ago and the first pictures I took had them and then guess what?, they dissappeared several frames later. I also spotted them in my old 350d. Each time I thought it must be dust as they seemed to appear in the same place throughout several frames and the only consistent thing was when I'm shooting skies and sunsets. Doesn't always happen but now and then they appear.

Whats even madder and the reason that leads me to believe it's not dust is because in worst examples I've had as many as 10 or more appear consistantly in a number of consequtive frames. An odd spec of dust I can allow for but I'm meticulous about keeping the camera capped or fitted with a lens and even take care to change lenses in clean environments so as to avoid dust ingress... it's a strange one... Hopefully someone will read this and all will become clear soon.

[Pete]

Hmmm.. Understand what you're saying there, but I've taken plenty of pics with the camera in the shade, pointing out toward sunlight and still get the same thing happen. The intensity of the spot appears to change with aperture:-

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a294/peteghia/IMG_0462-spot.jpg
F/14 - 1/50th sec - Zoom 28mm

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a294/peteghia/IMG_0463-spot.jpg
F/7.1 - 1/200th sec - Zoom 28mm

As you mentioned, it doesn't appear all the time... Intriguing..

[mojo_uk]

Definatly dust on the sensor Pete. Nice photos BTW.:)

[Woolburr]

No question...you have a dirty sensor. Try a few shots with a blower and see if that doesn't clear things up.

[52k]

There you have it Pete, the concensus seems to point to dirt on the sensor. It does seem as though yours appears in the same place looking at these other pics.

Wonder what I was seeing on my camera, especially when I got multiple spots mainly when shooting sunsets, can't have been dirt. I reckon probably something caused by the intesity of the subject, i.e. the sun.

Another one that's caught me out once or twice are birds in flight. With the sometimes longer than normal tripod style exposures they appear as dark blurs.

Worth airing this stuff anyway... I'm still learning.

Like the other pics by the way.

[PhotosGuy]

Some personal views on Sensor cleaning. (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=184448)

[Pete]

The plane pictures are from the Imperial War Museum by the way. I'm in the same boat - learning all the time..

Thanks, PG for the link. I saw that one before and that's why I was pretty sure that I've got dust on the sensor. I've got a friend who works in a camera shop, so I'll get him to clean it for me. Since I've only got the one spot, I'm not too fussed about getting it cleaned too soon - easy enough to fix in CS2