Geoff showed us around the stud in Newmarket where he looks after the stallion. The foals wer adorable as always. I concentrated on closeups with simple colour combinations and backgrounds. I also tried a few slow shutterspeed panning shots of two yearlings. I managed just one hoof sharp.

Experiments in Shutterspeed.

We spent yesterday afternoon and evening at the Shuttleworth Collection, photographing birds of prey in the afternoon and then switching to veteran airplanes in the evening. I experimented with different shutterspeeds for the photographs and it has reinforced my puzzlement as to why we have such rigid and different conventions for the two subjects.

With birds in flight, it is generally thought that the shutterspeed should be such that all motion is stopped and everything is sharp. Hence in the first Kite picture, 1/1000sec is too slow for the wing tip motion. The second kite image at 1/1600 is sharp throughout as is the Saker Falcon at 1/1250.

With airplanes (and cars etc), the opposite holds in that there should be some motion in the propeller (or wheels). Hence the image taken at 1/1000sec although very sharp isnot acceptable as the prop motion has been frozen. I tried at both 1/250 and 1/400 but found that, as I was using my camera on a tripod, I didn't manage to follow through sufficiently well with the panning so ended up images that were not sharp. My best images were a compromise at 1/800 sec

Images from Gloucestershire

It was raining hard this morning so went into Cheltenham for an hour until the rain eased a bit. Liked the muted colours of this scene. 1/15th sec.

This was an accident as I let the shutterspeed drop to 1/250th second but it has produced an interesting image, especially the water thrown up in the wake.

A couple of horses near Cheltenham - it was foggy at the time and has resulted in a pleasing muted background

Red-legged partridge on a wall in the Cotswolds

Travelodge Series

This is another in my series of blurry pictures taken when staying in Travelodges while away lecturing. This is from the Ilford Gant's Hill TL - any guesses and, no, they are not trees this time.

Chain Maker at Black Country Museum

First photo taken at 1/400th f4.0 so hand and hammer are still - shows the speed that the sparks shoot out.

The second and third photos were taken a bit later in the day when the light levels had dropped so shutterspeed was 1/80th f 4.0 - movement on the hand and hammer and longer spark trails.

Motion in the Ring

Took a lot of these at Crufts. I like the flow of this one but I guess there should be something sharp. Unfortunately everything is moving in different directions, including the ears, in an Irish Setter