Seeing the Royals at Windsor Castle

Between April 28th and May 3rd my wife and I spent a couple days visiting our daughter in England (London, Windsor, Stratford-on-Avon), mostly just for (mental) relaxing and sightseeing. On April 30th, we had pre-booked sightseeing tickets to Windsor Castle — and this turned out to be the only day with (cool, but) nice weather during our stay (for the rest we experienced cold, rainy, "typically British" weather). So, we took the train from London via Slough to Windsor. Coming out of the station we were greeted by the impressive fortifications of Windsor Castle (now apparently the largest permanently inhabited castle on the planet!):

Windsor Castle 2012-04-30, Southwest wall & fortifications
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/10, 1/400, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

When we made our way to the entrance (we arrived some 1.5 hours prior to the official opening of the castle gate), however, we were greeted by the following, rather devastating scenery:

Windsor Castle, South side, Castle Hill, towards entrance
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/9, 1/320, 26mm (39mm equiv.)

There was a crowd of people, all the way up to the entrance of the castle. Our first reaction naturally was "Is this the queue for visitors to the castle?" — we were about to give up, but then asked a guard about the purpose of the crowd. We were told that in about 30 minutes the Queen would "go for a walk" (whatever that means for Royals!). At first, we saw no reason to add ourselves to the large crowd, and went for a short stroll. 15 minutes prior to "the event" we returned and walked up the road, as close to the entrance as possible. People were stacked many meters deep — no chance to see much directly… still, we mingled into the crowd until we were stuck. The rule now was: don't move! If you move, only move forward! — without using our elbows. To Lea's and Deborah's dismay, the girl next to me asked her friend to carry her on his shoulders, so most of what Lea saw was that girl's butt...

Windsor Castle, South entrance & crowd
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/9, 1/320, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

Windsor Castle, South entrance & crowd
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/10, 1/400, 25mm (37mm equiv.)

(click on the images for a full size view). I was slightly closer to the passage than my companions, but just got an occasional glimpse at the passage from the entrance to the castle. I saw a number of photographers with huge tele and zoom lenses — and found myself confronted with a quick decision what lens to mount etc. — 

As there was no chance to catch anything by looking through the viewfinder I decided to leave the 16 - 35 mm zoom lens on, set to 16 mm (24 mm equivalent @ full frame), so I could catch the widest area while shooting blind (and later select the interesting section of the good shots by cropping and straightening); the weather was beautiful, bright, so I let the camera decide what shutter speed and aperture to use (at the default sensitivity setting of 200 ISO); I enabled slow speed continuous shooting (though I ended up doing single shots, at most 1 shot / second), and I left the autofocus on. This last point may have been a slight mistake, see below — though using manual focus bears the danger of accidentally altering the focus and ruining an entire series of shots.

Punctually, at 11:45 local time, the Queen's Rolls Royce appeared at the entrance to the castle, followed by another car — and there she was, in the rear of the car, as I could see at a quick glimpse — I lifted my Nikon above my head and took shots by pointing into approximate directions, merely making sure I did not tilt the camera too much (I hate the extra work with correcting geometric distortions!):

Windsor Castle, Royals arriving on driveway
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/8, 1/250, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

The car stopped, and Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II stepped out of the car, followed by HRH Prince Philip:

Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth II has stepped out of the Rolls
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/8, 1/250, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

After she greeted the welcoming committee, she (unfortunately) turned around and was guided towards the south-eastern side of the street/place, where she was welcomed by a crowd of kids (presumably scholars of  Eton College) who occupied the eastern side of the passage, opposite our position. Prince Philip at first followed her at some distance:

Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth II moves on to greet the crowd
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/8, 1/250, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

Inevitably (with autofocus) someone would lift a camera into the focus area of mine, causing an off-focus shot; I might have avoided some of this either by using manual focus (see above) or by restricting the focus area to the center — but when shooting blind, you never know where the area of interest is:

Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth II moves on to greet the crowd
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/8, 1/250, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

You might wonder what this "pro photographer" is doing with his 400 mm telephoto lens — merely a couple feet from the Royals — I think I was far better off using a wide angle lens and cropping!!
While in the back the Queen was interacting with the crowd, Prince Philip (luckily for us!) turned to the other side of the street and was walking towards us:

Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth II greeting crowd, Prince Philip approaching
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/9, 1/320, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

Windsor Castle, Prince Philip approaching crowd
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/9, 1/320, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth II greeting crowd, Prince Philip approaching
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/9, 1/320, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth II greeting crowd, Prince Philip approaching
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/9, 1/320, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

Windsor Castle, Prince Philip approaching crowd
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/9, 1/320, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

For a split second I saw him standing 3 - 4 meters away from us, now talking to people behind the fence, so I kept shooting blindly — certainly no master photos, but still reasonable (I think), and completely unexpected for us as casual visitors to the castle:

Windsor Castle, Prince Philip talking to people in crowd
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/9, 1/320, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

Windsor Castle, Prince Philip talking to people in crowd
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/9, 1/320, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

Windsor Castle, Prince Philip talking to people in crowd
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/9, 1/320, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

Windsor Castle, Prince Philip talking to people in crowd
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/9, 1/320, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

Windsor Castle, Prince Philip talking to people in crowd
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/9, 1/320, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

Windsor Castle, Prince Philip talking to people in crowd
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/9, 1/320, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

Windsor Castle, Prince Philip talking to people in crowd
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/9, 1/320, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

Meanwhile (2.5 minutes later, that is), the Queen had (apparently) moved on down the street, and Prince Philip started following her. A few moments later, the Queen's Rolls Royce followed the Royals — I took a couple shots from the car (just for the record); on the shot below I have marked the mirror image of my arms holding the camera in the middle window of the car — proof that I saw nothing at all with my naked eyes…

Windsor Castle, The Royal Rolls, departing
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/8, 1/250, 16mm (24mm equiv.)

That was it for our encounter with the Royal Family! The street soon cleared up, and (thanks to the pre-ordered tickets) we were lucky to be among the first to enter the castle, once the gates opened for the public, some 30 minutes later (OK, it takes another 20 minutes to get through the security checks). We enjoyed visiting the castle! Photography is only allowed outside buildings, though — so, I conclude this post with just two representative shots from that afternoon:

Windsor Castle, garden below central tower
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/10, 1/400, 17mm (25mm equiv.)

It was an interesting day — with an encounter that we would not have dreamed of!

Windsor Castle, palace guards, patrolling
Nikon D300, AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 16 - 35mm f/4G ED VR
ISO 200, f/6.3, 1/160, 35mm (52mm equiv.)