Reveal, and More Night Snow

I love snow. Is that weird? I used to live in Montreal and I would be kind of sad to see the ridiculously cold winters end. Now that I'm in California I take any chance I get to go see snow. And then the camera comes out with a vengeance!

Ok, so I left you hanging for a while. I never explained what the difference was between my two pictures of City Hall. Some commenters got pretty close, but since no one really completely nailed it, I'm afraid I won't be giving out any firm handshakes yet. :) Sorry Ron, I did want to come to Australia and see some of your Snow. Maybe next time.

Anyway, my anonymous commenter got it the rightest. (Yes, it's a word. English is my day job so I get to make the call.) The secret was a special lens that I rented for the week of Thanksgiving from Borrow Lenses (who were adequate, but I was not completely pleased with their service; that's a subject for another post perhaps), a 17mm tilt/shift lens. Tilt/shift means that I can move the front of the lens up and down or right and left and therefore make sure that all vertical and horizontal lines are straight in my photograph. It's particularly useful when photographing architecture, which is full of straight lines. If you go back and look at the two pictures you should be able to see the difference. Here's with my 17-55 regular lens (which I still love) and here's with the tilt/shift lens.

Anyway, it was really fun to play with, and I was sad to return it yesterday. Perhaps it will be somewhere in my future; we'll see. It's not cheap.