Hummingbird Hawkmoth and Painted Lady

Arrived out of nowhere and gone in a minute or two but great to have Hummingbird Hawkmoth visit the garden along with a couple of Painted Ladies. Initial shutterspeed 1/250th increased to 1/4000th - probably somewhere in between would give enough movement to give a feel of hovering. Painted Ladieswere very confiding.

Attempts at Capturing Hoverfly Flight

A couple of very 'friendly' Eristalis pertinax hoverflies in the garden today, hovering right in front of me looking me straight in the eye so thought I would try photographing them. These are taken 1/8000th sec F6.3 giving ISO 5000 using manual focus. 

Cadwell Park Historic Racing Car Event

On Sunday, I visited Cadwell Park with Phil for the Historic Racing Cars event. Brought back many memories of going to Brands hatch in the 1950s opnwards as a child. The weather was perfect for walking round the wooded and very attractive site though a bit bright and contrasty for photographing shiny cars! or for really slow panning. I varied the panning rate and found that the very small and very fast SuperKarts gave a real challenge (1/400th). For the comparatively slow Formula Ford cars it was around 1/320th and for the Sports Cars etc right down to 1/125th. Obviously head-on shots required 1/2000th and above

CCC King's Cross Outing 1. The Tunnel

Always a great location for images, many of us started our photography in the underground tunnel. I started playing with shutterspeeds to see the effect on the tunnel lighting. The faster shutterspeeds (above 1/200th) gave patterns in the wall as did slow speeds 1/60th (image 7). The smooth effects as in image 2 were shot at 1/125th - no doubt someone will add an explanation. Also here a couple of in-camera multiexposures

Experiments in Panning Snetterton Classic Racing

Enjoyed a few hours experimenting with different shutterspeeds for panning at the classic Car Racing at Snetterton - something that would have been financially impossible in film days as wastage is enormous. Here a selection in shutterspeed order (1/250 (1), 1/125th (2,3), 1/100th (4-6), 1/60th (7,8) and 1/15th (9,10))

Switzerland. Speed of Hummingbird Hawkmoth's Wings

I had a couple of opportunities to photograph these amazing moths - in the middle of the day in Murren and later on the geraniums from my balcony. The first one is at 1/8000th second and the wings have just about been frozen. The wings in the second image show some movement at 1/5000th, more at 1/4000th and by 1/2000th they are completely blurred. The images on the balcony against the evening light were 1/3500 and 1/8000 respectively.