Need advice for London trip in late May

P

parasko

Established
Local time
7:10 AM
Joined
Jun 8, 2005
Messages
192
Hi all,

Just read a recent thread on 'first time to London'. Some great advice that I will use on my first trip there in late May. I will be travelling alone so I'm hoping to use this trip to focus on my street photography.

Some questions/advice needed:
1. I have two M7s, a 35mm and 50mm 'Cron. Is it overkill to take both cameras on a 12 day trip to London?

2. Film? I usually use Provia 400x. Will this be versatile enough for mid-late May? Where to buy and process slide film? Where to buy B&W film and process? B&W recommendations (I've only ever used Neopan 1600 and Tri-X). I've got a truckload of film here in Sydney but don't want to be taking it on a 24 hour flight.

3. My intention was to stay in London for my whole trip of 12 days.
I already have 4 days planned to do touristy Museum things, one day in Bath/Stonehenge, one day of shopping, one day in Oxford, Paul Weller and Cat Stevens concerts on the last nights of my trip so I must be in London. That leaves me with 3-4 days still to fill. Should I be thinking Scotland as well (more money I don't have!) or is it worth hanging out in London, weather-wise in late May for street photography?

Any help appreciated.

Cheers.
 
I don't think its overkill at all to take two cameras. In fact, I'm heading to Italy for 12 days in a few weeks and will definitely be taking two ZI's (and three lenses) with me. I plan to shoot Provia 400X in one with a 28/2.8 and Provia 100F in the other with a 50/2. The 35/1.4 will go on the camera with the Provia 400X once it gets dark.

Regarding places to visit during your spare 3-4 days, have you thought about a trip to York? Not quite as far as Scotland but worth seeing!

Have a great trip!
 
Scotland is great, but it's also far. You'd need to fly if you wanted to fit it in to your few spare days.

If you wanted to leave London for a day - try somewhere close like Brighton or someplace.

I've PM'd you a Google Map I did for a mate who came in December.
 
London for twelve days straight is overkill, IMO. There are lots of great day trips that you can do (Brighton, Oxford, Arundel) and if you want to do an overnight trip you can go to Wales, Northern England, etc. Check out Kully's map, I bet it's good!

As for film, if you're on vacation, I say stick with what you know. The two-camera set up might be good for using slow film during the day and fast film inside or at night without having to swap.
 
Personally I'd take 100 film as well for the days (our weather is not that bad!). Film is also seriously expensive if you buy it in the shops, the last time I was in London 400X was something like £11 a roll, so it might be worth bringing some with you.

If you are staying with English people you could get them to order film for you in advance at www.7dayshop.com which is much cheaper.

There was a thread a while ago on the same topic you might find worthwhile:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69960
 
Last edited:
I second what historicist said about 7dayshop.com - no problems in the three years I've been using them and they're the cheapest too. One thing to note - they will only ship to the credit card billing address, so you'll need to get someone with a UK address to order it for you. If you want to meet up I can do this for you.

Andrew is right, 12 days in London may be too much.
 
Boots are doing HP5 at £5 a roll. Buy two get one free. You will find their shops in every town. Looks like you have some good advice about other locations. Scotland is too far and you will have more than enough, I would have thought ,with London and Bath. Bath is stunning. If you do fancy an ovrnight and want mountain scenery,lakes ,old tudor manor houses try the Lake District on the west coast. It is all there in a small package.
Mike
 
I almost forgot - for b&w go to 'silverprint' (www.silverprint.co.uk) and if you want to see and aladdins cave of 2nd hand camera gear from eyepieces to LF enlargers www.mrcad.co.uk (Croydon, SE London).

Silverprint is also near my favourite fish and chip place in London - Masters.

Masters and Silverprint are easily walked to from the Tate Modern.
 
Thanks for your comments so far. Very valuable.

Historicist, I usually don't even use 100 speed film in Sydney, so I was thinking more of 400+speed film but with a preference for 400x if I can conveniently find it in central London.

Can I assume it will be an effort to find a lab which can process slide or B&W film?
 
Thanks Kully...will look into this..and the fish & chips!


kully said:
I almost forgot - for b&w go to 'silverprint' (www.silverprint.co.uk) and if you want to see and aladdins cave of 2nd hand camera gear from eyepieces to LF enlargers www.mrcad.co.uk (Croydon, SE London).

Silverprint is also near my favourite fish and chip place in London - Masters.

Masters and Silverprint are easily walked to from the Tate Modern.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Twelve days does seem a bit much for London, but not terribly excessive. It's a great place.

Having a few ideas for daytrips in your back pocket in case you do run out of things to do is a good idea. Oxford or Cambridge are easy and rewarding daytrips by train. York is very much worth a visit. It's a long daytrip by train from King's Cross. For that matter, Paris and Brussels are also possibilities.
 
London is a city of 2 halves split between the daytime scene and the night time scene. Soho at night would be very interesting but for those of you that come from larger countries you may find London a little... smaller shall we say than you might expect it to be. It certainly doesn't baffle me and I’m a small town boy. The UK is a very pretty place in the right areas but I’m very sad to say that my brethren are not the happiest people on earth when you point a camera at them so beware and be sneaky ;).

Bath is a beautiful city with all the bath sandstone buildings and great Georgian architecture - perhaps a city for a nice contrasty lens and some B&W film to get all those lovely textures.

May is hit and miss weather-wise although you may notice that London is in the warmer part of the UK and it gets sharply colder as you go further north (and west to a degree).

So, if you're gonna be coming all this way for 12 days why not pop over to France for a day or so as it's only 60 odd miles from Dover to Calis and they drive on the wrong side of the road there so you'll be ok renting a car and driving when you're there.
 
Last edited:
Historicist, I usually don't even use 100 speed film in Sydney, so I was thinking more of 400+speed film but with a preference for 400x if I can conveniently find it in central London.
Click to expand...

Fair enough! 400X is easy to find, any proper camera shop will have it. Regarding 7dayshop, although they say they can only deliver to the cardholder's address I often have orders delivered to a friend in the UK (I live in Germany and my card is registered to a German address). Whether this is because I have a UK card with a German address or because they don't in general check I couldn't say.

I didn't really use slide film before I left London, the only place I know that does it in house and reasonably quickly for sure is Jessops on New Oxford St - though maybe they don't any more with all this digital stuff, worth checking.

Enjoy your trip!
 
Nathan speaks wisdom - Paris is but 2.5 hours away on the Eurostar, catch an early one and you can be back for supper with a days wear on your shoes.

When people talk about London, they normally concentrate on the west part and this does make London seem rather small. However, there is much more to see in the east and south.
 
There are quite a few places that do E-6 &c. The problem is finding one that does it 'cheaply'. I used to use Dlab7, but have switched to Peak Imaging (neither of those are in London).

This place I can recommend and is in the West End of London: http://www.bayeux.co.uk/
 
1. As you have two M7s then why not bring them - gives you more choice with film

2. The weather is notoriously unreliable so you stand an equal chance of twelve glorious sunny days or twelve cool, wet, grey days - most likley a mixture of both. May is a lovely month usually and London will be very green. It will also not get dark until quite late - 10pm by late May - so you will be taking photographs at dusk and twilight quite a bit (the light in the long evenings can be magical). A mix of slower and faster films would be useful to have at your disposal - excellent recommendations here for sourcing them.

3. 8 days out of 12 in London is a lot unless you are spending time with friends etc. As you are coming such a long way then why not have a quick trip to somewhere in Europe - check out Easyjet or Ryanair for cheap mid-week flights to hundreds of destinations - or www.seat61.com for train information. Note you can get some very cheap train fares in the UK by booking off-peak trains in advance.

Enjoy your trip.
 
You can easily spend twelve days in London if you do all the touristy things and then head off the beaten path i.e. further south of the river than the South Bank;) Though it all depends what you're looking for.

A day in Cambridge and a day in Oxford would be two excellent and very easy day trips to take, they're also great for street photos. Have you thought about a day at the English seaside in the tradition of Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr? May is hit and miss for weather but the run down beauty of the seaside resorts and those hardy ( read odd ) Brits that like to sit in their cars eating chips whilst it belts down with rain or paddle in the freezing sea regardless makes for some super pictures. It would be very easy to head down to Brighton ( well worth it ) or even to Kent, Essex, Suffolk or Norfolk.

If you put yourself about a bit, smile and chat whilst photographing people I think you'll find people's natural reserve evaporates...especially if you're a visitor ( though you'll always get a tosser from time to time.:eek:)

Personally I'd gen up on photographs by photographers you like and respect that were shot in and around the UK to give you an idea of what you'd like to achieve picture wise, its all too easy to wander round overwhelmed (or indeed, underwhelmed) by what you see and not know quite where to start.

Good luck and I hope you have a great time. I hope you end up liking the oddities of English life as much as I do:D
 
Whilst I think that 12 days is a long time to spend in London exclusively, you would have no trouble finding things to keep you occupied. One of the greatest things about London as a city is that almost everything is hidden. Yes, there is the tourist trail of museums, galleries etc (and do not let that fact put you off - they are amongst the greatest in the world, and famous for good reason), but there is also a seething undercurrent that as a casual visitor you would not pick up on unless you are consciously looking for it...

What do I mean? Well, take the tube, get off at a station and get lost. Shoreditch, Hoxton, Spitalfields, Hackney - all of them have a thriving and growing arts-scene of small galleries and collectives, restaurants and markets. Hampstead and Highgate have the heath, cemeteries, small galleries... Mayfair, Marylebone, Fitzrovia and St. James are chocked-full of hidden squares and cobbled alleyways of old shops, whilst Bloomsbury is stuffed full of accademic think-tanks who often have world-renowned experts giving public lectures whilst behind Camden and Maida Vale, a series of canals criss-cross the urban landscape. The world is in London, but as a city, it doesn't shout about its depth - making it all the more rewarding when you find something truly sensational.

That said, if I were in your position, I'd hop on the Eurostar for at least 2 days. If you have never been to Paris, you really should, and the train takes you from St. Pancras (center of London) to Gare du Nord (centre of Paris) in a little over 2 hours.

As to film and 'kit' - I'd advise taking only one camera, and loading it with 400 film. That should be enough for both day and night, assuming you have a relatively fast lense. At that time of year, London is swathed (usually) in gorgeous, soft light - powder blue skies filling most of the shot. Stick to colour and you'll be happy...

To buy film, 7dayshop is good as long as you can find someone to buy it for you, otherwise silverprint is excellent. To get stuff developed, I like Metro Imaging (www.metroimaging.co.uk), but bear in mind you have to pay for their excellence...
 
Last edited:
the train takes you from St. Pancras (center of London) to Gare du Nord (centre of London) in a little over 2 hours
Click to expand...
The French are probably rioting now ;)

Personally I'd get knackered travelling around and if you don't mind wandering around discovering things 12 days isn't too long in London. But Bath, Paris, Brighton etc. are all well worth visiting, I guess it depends on how much energy you have. A few places I like:

Bradley's Spanish Bar 42-44 Hanway Street

The bar in the basement (can't remember what it's called) of 57 Greek street under Kokon to Zai (in the hallway just go through the doorway that leads downstairs). I'm not going to try and describe it but it's well worth a visit, possibly less fun if you are on your own unless you are the outgoing type.

Bonnington Cafe http://s208303316.websitehome.co.uk/ off the beaten track but good food cheap and a good atmosphere

can't think of anything else right now...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom