A Second Visit to the Cold War Site, Norfolk

This was our second visit to the site that housed the atomic bomb store. Many thanks to the owner Keith Eldred and his wife for their hospitality. See details of the site at https://pin-sharp.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/visit-to-cold-war-site-norfolk.html. This time I was shooting in infrared and have left them as colour images as I felt it suited the images well.

Starry Skies at Elveden

A third starlit night at Center Parcs so some long exposure shots of the lake, the pines and the stars (30sec, F8 or F4, iso 800 or 1600)

Star Trails at Elveden Again

 Another attempt at mastering star trails and this time pointing towards the north. The first composite has 20 images, the second 11 images at 60 sec intervals (30 sec, f4, iso 500 plus 30 sec processing). Obviously a slightly longer recording series is required to get a good spin. Interesting to confirm that the earth revolves around the north star and to see how the big dipper can be used to locate it!! The last two images show Jupiter rising in the east - a very bright planet. I lit the duck in the final image with a torch.
(NB. Need 75 mins of recording to get good trails, turn off long exposure noise reduction to reduce the processing time)

Star Trails at Center Parcs

I am still trying to master using the interval timer on my Fuji to take multiple images for star trail composites. The first picture here is from 60 images (30secs f4 500iso) taken at 80 sec intervals - clearly too long as the trail shows gaps even when gap-filling software employed. I had set a 20 sec interval between exposures but clearly an extra 30 secs has been added presumably because it is taking more than 30 secs to process the image (even with a very fast card). Trial suggests minimum interval (1 sec) will give the shortest interval. Would like to find a north facing view for next trial - watch this space.

Bird Portraits at Elveden Forest

 We are spending the weekend at Elveden Center Parcs, hoping to concentrate on bird photogrpahy though the weather doesn't look that good with overcast skies. Today there were large numbers of Coal Tits and Blue Tits on the Feeders along with Blackbird, Jay and Wood Pigeon. We spotted the Sparrowhawk in a tree after all the birds had disappeared suddenly. A very tatty looking individual but the yellow eye is unmistakeable.

Tits in Flight

 The hide at Elveden Center Parc is the best place I have found to attempt to get birds in flight as the feeders are very high and the background a long way away. Despite two visits and a lot of exposures, I still didn't achieve a really sharp image image where it needed to be. Also, as I was shooting fairly late in the afternoon, I had to use ISO1000 to get an even tolerable 1250th of a sec at f7.1 - more depth of field and faster shutterspeed should be possible in the morning if the day is bright. Unfortunately will have to wait another year to try again.