These images were taken on the Avenida Ribeira das Naus, the street running along the shore from Cais do Sodré to Praça do Comércio, the big square at the riverfront of Baixa, the lower town, commercial center of the city.
Everywhere in Lisbon you see small motor carts. Some, like this one, sell tickets, maps and souvenirs (they are all yellow), and some are taxis. Interestingly enough I have never used one of them. I’m a walker 🙂
Here we have another version of the serpent, this time taken with my mid-range zoom. And this brings us to lenses. What did I take with me?
Basically I own three kinds of lenses. First are the primes. Normally when I shoot primes, I take a set of three. 12, 25, 75 is one of my favorite sets, 12, 17, 45 is another that I frequently use. I prefer a set of three over a set of four or five, because three lenses and the camera perfectly fit into my smallest bag.
The small, light zoom option again consists of three lenses, the Olympus 9-18, Panasonic 12-32 pancake and the ultra-light, ultra-cheap Olympus 40-150/4.0-5.6. That’s what I took for the Italian lakes last year.
A variant of the prime option replaces the 12/2.0 with the more versatile 9-18 zoom. Again that’s ultra-light and ultra-small.
And then there is the Big Gear. That’s what I chose this time. I had to use the Slingshot 300 bag and I had to accept much more weight, but the advantage was f2.8 all through from 7 mm up to 150 mm.
And I’m glad I did. You’ve already seen some church images taken with the 7-14/2.8 at 7 mm. That’s what I bought these lenses for, a trip like this is where they shine. When if not on such a trip should I use them?