Local Walks

We have had some lovely sunny days this week though getting progressively colder. I took a walk  up to Hardwick Wood and was surprised to find quite a few toadstools still apparent. This evening a lovely sunset though Ted was impatient to move on.

 

Frosted Fungi on Stumps etc

From Friday's trip to Hardwick Wood - fungi covered in frost that were growing on rotten wood or tree trunks. All photostacks only quickly processed in Zerene stacker - need a bit more work before saving the final image in many cases.

Winter in Hardwick Wood: Frosted Leaf Fungi

Images from a second visit to the wood this time focus bracketing (21-31 shots) the minute fungi on the woodland floor. The sunlight with the frosted caps and the lit autumn leaves was magical. I have stacked them quickly in Zerene stacker but need to return and try other modes and also in Photoshop as I am getting a halo on some toadstools. The sunlight with the frosted caps and the lit autumn leaves was magical.

 

Hardwick Wood and Caldecote Church

 Our Cambridge Camera Club (and RPS Nature Group) outing was to have been to Waresley Wood but this was closed until the day so we relocated to Hardwick Wood, which in many ways is a better venue. It is certainly at its best and has the finest displays of  spring flowers for several years with all the species out together. Paul and I visited Caldecote Church meadow at the end for the Fritillarias and also a couple of bees. I was using mixture of focus stacking with the X100v and single shots with the 80mm macro. The bees are with the X100V (23mm). The third shot is with a legacy Olympus lens - I love the softness of this but found it too difficult to manually focus in the bright and contrasty light.  Last shot shows some of the group in situ!!

Hardwick Wood Focus on Flowers

I spent a morning in Hardwick Wood last week trying to perfect my technique for focus bracketing  using Fuji X100V  i.e. aperture, focus point, number of shots, distance lens moves between shots etc (images 1-4,6 are stacks) . Not sure I am a lot further forward as still a degree of hit and miss as regards the different parameters including light on the subject - the sun made a brief appearance during the second image plus an LED front light. Other images employed shallow depth of field