New York - Day Two Going up.

A tilt-shift lens is one that allows the optical elements in the lens to be moved relative to the camera body. Tilt is angling the lens away or toward the film plane, which has the effect of lengthening or shortening the depth of field (See the Scheimpflug principle). Shift is moving the lens up or down and side to side, keeping the lens parallel to the camera body. This has the effect of raising or lowering the apparent camera position.

This photo has been taken by leaning the camera and lens back until all the building is in the photo. If you look at either edge of the they are angled and appear to be converging to a point. The building looks like it is falling backwards.


In this photo, the camera body is held vertically and the lens is shifted up until all the building is in the photo. Notice that the edges of the building are a lot straighter and it doesn't look like it's falling backwards.


Anyway, enough of the photography lesson. We kept wandering down Fith Ave, we made various detours, until we made it to the Rockefeller Centre. One of the building along the way was the Trump Tower.


The Rockefeller Centre was too tall to get into one photo.


The Radio City Music Hall is also part of the complex.


The view from the top was awesome. Looking south to the Empire state building.


Looking North over Central Park. The lake in the distance is the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, that we walked around in the morning. The shell at the bottom of the photo is part of the decoration on top of the tower.


We sat down for a while to enjoy the sunshine and watch the other crazy tourists. (The mark in the glass aren't there, they are optical patterns due to my polariser.)


We were fascinating by the tops of the buildings below us. Most of the them had big airconditioning fans, but some had lawns and there were also restaurants on the top floor.


They also came in all shapes and sizes and I think some of them, wouldn't see the sun.


There were two levels to the viewing area, which was a good thing as there were a lot of tourists.


Looking northwest across the Sheep Meadow in the corner of Central Park. It did actually have sheep grazing there until 1934. The bridge in the distance is the George Washington bridge.


I also played around with the tilt shift lens, changing the depth of field to make the city look like a miniature model.


We also spotted Time Square, hiding in between the buildings.


There was an awesome display in the shop windows opposite the entrance to the observation deck, that was made from slides.


The beam of slides widened out as it went through several windows.


Closeup you could see the annotations and notes that people had made on the slides.


We stopped for some dinner that turned out to be very, very ordinary, probably the worst meal we ate in New York. We also wandered down to Times Square, but that's for tomorrow. ;)