Iceland Images Reprocessed

I am off for a short visit to Iceland at the end of February and have been reprocessing some of the images taken on my previous visit in 2008. We had very wet, windy and moderately mild weather for the first two days. The first image is a colour image, which shows how dull the light was - a small amount of colour can be seen in the back hills. The new versions of the RAW converter plus Silver Efex has made such a difference to what can be pulled out of apparently very dull images

West Stow Hide

 Very overcast cold morning so not ideal for bird photography but spent couple of enjoyable hours trying to capture birds in flight. The only really sharp images were static Nuthatches and Chaffinch. I am posting the Great Tit below to remind me that 1/1000th is not sufficient to freeze flight motion sufficiently and f4.0 does not give enough leeway on the depth of focus.

Fond Farewell

 We had to say goodbye to our Murphy yesterday. She was born in the summer of 1995 in a cupboard in our bedroom so was getting towards 19. She was both deaf, with very restricted sight and no longer able to clean herself. Murphy reached about the same age as her mother, Casla - seen above in a typical scrap. Casla was lucky to spend her final years with Bryan and Val while Murphy ruled over the whole of her territory. Always a vocal cat even as a small kitten.

Rutland Owls Part 2

A few more owl pictures from a visit to the Rutland Owl Centre - some with a bit of creative license! The owls are housed within an old poplar wood so had interesting backgrounds to cope with.

Rutland Owls part 1

A visit to Rutland Hawk and Owl Centre today gave plenty of opportunities for bird portraits. Amazing variety of facial markings and eyes. More to follow!

Getting the Best from Liverpool Monochromes

I am continuing to process images for new monochrome presentations this year. Below comparisons between straight Raw conversion and Silver Efex Pro processing. the images were taken on infrared-converted camera.

 

Hazel Flowering

Below images of the female and male Hazel flowers. The catkins in the bushes in our wood and hedgerows are at all different stages of flowering and led me to ponder how this diversity in flowering time is maintained in the populations. The male catkins release pollen before the red stigma flowers appear and so the latter are pollinated by adjacent bushes. It is obviously necessary for a wind-pollinated species where both sex flowers are produced on the same plant to prevent self-pollination.

Our Red Setter

 Images of our elderly Red Setter in the evening light - she is twelve and a half so is doing pretty well for a larger pedigree dog.

Barn Owls at Lakenheath RSPB

 Thrilled to see and photograph (albeit rather distant) a barn owl in wonderful warm evening light at RSPB Lakenheath. We were also lucky to see a pair of Cranes in flight, a Bittern and various Harriers coming into roost.

Leicester Abstracts

 Leicester is being extensively rebuilt at the moment but there are a few finished projects. One of these is the Curve Theatre with strong coloured lights. St Peter's Square has a fascinating a wall of eyes - takes me back to childhood and collecting marbles. The new shopping centre has lots of mirrors producing an upside down view of the world.
Last image is from my window in Donnington Park Travelodge - the start of a series!!