The Millennium Bridge, London

click photo to enlarge

The Millennium Bridge opened in June 2000. It crosses the River Thames between St Paul's Cathedral and Tate Modern, and was the first new bridge to span the river in the city since the opening of Tower Bridge in 1894.

The structure is a footbridge 325 metres long and 4 metres wide, with two "Y" shaped supports in the water. The designers, Arup, Foster and Partners, gave the bridge a low profile to improve the view, and the suspension design was unusual in having the main cables below the pedestrian deck. It was made to carry a load of 5,000 people, and on the day of opening registered a maximum of about 2,000 at any one time and a total of about 90,000 in the 24 hour period. Immediately it was used by the public this elegant bridge was found to have lateral movement (known as resonant structural response) caused by the interaction of pedestrian movement and bridge oscillation. The public liked the slightly unnerving effect and soon gave it the nickname of "The Wobbly Bridge"! However, it was fixed by fitting fluid-viscous dampers and tuned mass dampers to control the horizontal and vertical movement, and passage over it is now much less of a white-knuckle ride!

The Millennium Bridge has proved to be a very popular crossing point between Bankside (Tate Modern and The Globe Theatre) and the City in the area of St Paul's Cathedral. It's also become a great attraction to photographers. I've photographed it a number of times over the years, but on my most recent visit to the capital I thought I'd have a go at dusk to test the effectiveness of my camera's image stabilisation system and high ISOs. The first shot was taken later than the second at ISO 1600, and though it had visible noise cleaned up quite well, though not as effectively as the other image at ISO 800. Both shots were hand-held at 1/5 second, and whilst at 100% viewing are not as sharp as if they'd been shot at a more reasonable speed, or with a tripod, both look like they'll produce an acceptable print up to 10X8 or maybe 12X8 inches, though the lower ISO image with more detail.

photographs & text (c) T. Boughen

Top Image
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 42mm (84mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/5
ISO: 1600
Exposure Compensation: -1.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bottom Image
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/5
ISO: 800
Exposure Compensation: -1.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On