Dorset 18 Hooke Park - Final Location!

 Although not a great set of images as it was very windy and raining a bit so wide aperture/slow shutterspeed needed and no chance of focus stacking, this blog past records Hooke Park, close to Higher Kingcombe, as a great location for a future visit to Dorset. The Stilt Bug was definitely one of the strangest insect encountered during my 10 days!!

A Good Year for Bluebells

The Bluebells in the Cambridgeshire/Bedfordshire woods are very impressive this year. Here a few from recent visits - mostly taken with the Olympus legacy 50mm 1.8mm lens so manual focus only. I varied the aperture in some shots and really like the softness of focus and colour that this lens produces.. The last image is with a modern Fuji 80mm macro - the glass results in much more contrast and saturated colours.

Early Purple Orchids

A wonderful display of Early Purple Orchids in our local woods at the moment. A very difficult species to do justice to with its supersaturated colour and always ' messy' surroundings, especially as I prefer to have the flowers with enough detail in the background to show habitat. A very variable species in its colour and petal shape etc.

Using Legacy Telephoto Lens

 While clearing out the loft, we found an old 135 Takumar lens and so I decided to attach it with a suitable M42 mount to my Fuji. It is regarded as one of the best telephoto lenses and used at  f3.5 aperture gives lovely 'soft' images and muted colours. Perfect for a misty morning in the wood.

Late Fungi Hardwick Wood

I was surprised how many fungi were present in Hardwick Wood today - mainly Mycena species, plus some very large Clitocybe geotropa caps. I focus stacked quite a few of the toadstools at F2 or F4 (30 images) giving diffuse backgrounds. Used a LED light that changes colour temperatures for lighting - mainly daylight but also did a composite of several images taken with different colour lights.