After the Rain at Cambridge Botanic Gardens

The weather was just perfect for a trip to the Botanic Gardens yesterday with rain until we arrived and then bright clear sunshine shining through or onto wet autumnal poppies and leaves.

High Contrast Images from Ely Cathedral

Unusually for any event that I organise, yesterday's CCC Points of View took place in hot bright sunshine so it was ice creams rather than hot chocolate on the wish lists. When the images are all in for judging, I will share some of my efforts at the topics, but here are a few images taken in the Cathedral  mostly using light and shadow in the design. The third image is an in-camera double exposure - one of the topics and quite a few Members were trying this for the first time with their cameras.

Cambridge in the Summer Heat

Yesterday, the temperature in Cambridge was around 30 degrees but this didn't deter the visitors enjoying the City and recording themselves in all the favourite spots. Newton's apple tree outside Trinity is obviously on the 'places to see' for many visitors who come equipped with an apple for the classic image. I was using a manual-focus Olympus lens on my Fuji so success was a bit limited but the 1.8 aperture gave pleasing results when focused right.

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Cambridge contrast

 Amazing blue sky all day so Cambridge was looking at its best with spring flowers and new leaves. All taken with RX100 (welcome to the club Barry) which performs particularly well under these bright conditions as with most compacts. The top two make use of the high contrast. I then set the camera to 6-stop HDR - these are handheld and again in bright conditions there is enough shutterspeed to cope (left is the middle exposure that the camera saves along with the HDR image). Very impressive performance. Not so good where there is a figure moving as there is ghosting.

Snowdrops at Chippenham Park

We enjoyed a visit to Chippenham Park for the snowdrop weekend today in beautiful warm sunshine. The flowers were at their best. Images 4 and 5 show the difference in the image that you get from normal viewing height and from using the camera close to the ground.

Cambridge Reflections

 Bright sunny day in Cambridge after a lot of rain gave plenty of scope forphotography with reflections in puddles and for wet discarded posters.