Hi

I am just back from my 4th trip of this year in Lisbon. The main reason for the trip was for business, but as usual, I add the weekend to visit the city and its surroundings. This time, I received the K-5 IIs just the day before leaving.

Initially, to test this K-5 IIs, I wanted to take rather prime lenses like DA15, FA31 and FA*85, but given the announced weather conditions, I sticked to weather sealed lenses, DA*16-50, DA*50-135 and DA*200.

Saturday started pretty rainy. I nevertheless decided to take the train to Sintra to visit the Quinta da Regaleira. The journey starts with the train ride to Sintra.

1 Railway station of Rossio
0.5s f/7.1 at 16.0mm iso80


2 Decoration of Rossio station
1/25s f/2.8 at 200.0mm iso400


For those less interested in the story but wanting to see the photos, they are under Lisbon Photo Gallery by Dominique Schreckling at pbase.com, the photos of this trip are on page 5 and 6.

[tcom]

Sunday starts rainy as well. I decide to visit the electricity museum, a coal power plant converted into a museum:

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1/60s f/4.5 at 16.0mm iso640


41
1/15s f/4.5 at 16.0mm iso640

[tcom]

42
1/15s f/4.5 at 16.0mm iso1250


43
1/13s f/3.5 at 26.0mm iso2500

[tcom]

44
1/60s f/3.5 at 31.0mm iso1250


45
1/80s f/3.5 at 16.0mm iso800

[tcom]

46
1/30s f/3.5 at 200.0mm iso800


47
1/125s f/8.0 at 43.0mm iso200

[tcom]

48 View over Lisbon, below is Rossio Station
1/160s f/8.0 at 16.0mm iso80


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1/100s f/8.0 at 36.0mm iso80

[tcom]

The botanical garden of Lisbon must certainly be very nice on a hot summer day with the huge trees, but in November, well, there are not a lot of flowers to check the K-5 IIs...

50
1/160s f/2.8 at 200.0mm iso200


51
1/160s f/2.8 at 200.0mm iso200


52
1/250s f/2.8 at 200.0mm iso200


To be continued...

[normhead]

Interesting photos.. thanks for sharing.

[tcom]

After the botanical garden, I headed to the area of the expo in 1998:

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1/80s f/8.0 at 16.0mm iso80


I tried to capture the Vasco de Gama tower from a different perspective:

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1/60s f/8.0 at 16.0mm iso200

[tcom]

55 Vasco de Gama Bridge
5s f/11.0 at 19.0mm iso80


56 Vasco de Gama Tower
20s f/10.0 at 28.0mm iso80

[tcom]

Sunny weather was forecasted for Tuesday. I decided to return to this bridge to try to capture it in sunrise before going to work.

57 Oriente Station
2.5s f/9.0 at 16.0mm iso80


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1/60s f/10.0 at 19.0mm iso80


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1/125s f/11.0 at 24.0mm iso80


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1/500s f/11.0 at 39.0mm iso80


In all my stays I have probably already taken hundreds of photos of this bridge, and I still think there must be a better angle...

Well, these were my photos of this stay in Lisbon. These and the photos of previous stays are under Lisbon Photo Gallery by Dominique Schreckling at pbase.com

[8540tomg]

Dominique,

I'm curious about this well. Clearly, a lot of time, energy and money was lavished on what appears to be a hole in the ground. If you have the time I'd like to know the story behind this place?

Tom G

[tcom]

The Quinta da Regaleira is all build around symbols, ancient believings and mysticism.

Here, first you have the "Guardians" as in photo 16 who are the guardians from the upper and the lower world. The Well is the symbolic of the rebirth where one takes the way down into the lower world. There are a few tunnels bringing you out again, telling you, there are several ways for rebirth, but there is only one bringing you to the "Lake of the Waterfall" as in 19 where the water enters the earth as a symbol of purification being the last step of rebirth before reaching again the upper world.

These and some more can be found under Amazing Facts: The Initiation Well, In the town of Sintra and Quinta da Regaleira - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[daacon]

Some really nice shots Dominique - so what's your take on the K5 IIs worth the upgrade ?

[tcom]

Dave, if you shoot mainly in low light, the upgrade to the K-5 II(s) is definitely recommended.

Now, for the K-5 IIs, I have not done any direct comparison yet between the K-5 and the K-5 IIs. I have however the feeling, just by looking at the full resolution photos I have taken in Lisbon, that these photos show a better overall sharpness than what I ever obtained from the K-5. Also, the DA*16-50 was for me always a practical lens rather than a lens where the IQ shines, but then, this DA*16-50 produces a level of detail and sharpness on the K-5 IIs I never had before. Is it due to the lack of AA-filter or is there something else, I do not know yet.

I still plan to take comparison photos to be sure, but this will take some time as November leaves little time to take photos. It is night when I arrive in the office, it is night when I leave the office. The weekends are either rainy (like the last one) or planned on various events.

[RBellavance]

Great shots of two places I remember fondly from my honeymoon 4.5 year ago. I need to talk to my wife about going back...