Falcons and Kites

Some images of Falcons (Saker and Lanner) and Black Kites from Thursday. It was a dull day so I had to use a fairly high ISO to get sufficient shutterspeed. In the final image the Falconer was catapaulting food high into the air and the Black Kites were attempting to catch it.

Owls

Four very attractive species of owl photographed at Hawk Conservancy Centre on Thursday - lovely setting but very difficult for the camera to pick up the owls as they fly through the trees. Two noctornal owls with dark eyes, the Ural Owl and Tawny Owl, and two crepuscular owls with amber eyes, the Eagle Owl and Snowy Owl.

Late Afternoon in Bath

Four images taken with the Lumix on way back to Bracknell from an Away Day at RPS in Bath. The staircase and columns are part of the new development opposite the station. The sun had come out during the late morning but had not fully burnt off the mist so the lighting on the platforms was beautiful. I especially like the well-trained pigeon that walked into just the right position.

London in Monochrome

I had a bit of time today to process some of the London images from our visit in December and have put a new gallery on my website (Kensington area London). Now just need the time to print a few!

A Day in Cambridge

An enjoyable day showing Jan and Philip, visiting photographers from the Netherlands, round Cambridge. Thanks for the loan of a tripod to do the interior of Pembroke Chapel, one of the earliest Christopher Wren-designed buildings. Then a few images before I had to catch the bus home from a twilight shoot arranged for Advanced Photographers' new feature on Camera Clubs. It will be interesting to see what Nigel, Marcus and Sarah have produced for the article.

Sunny Day at Pensthorpe

A few images taken with that super lens of Bryan on a sunny Thursday at Pensthorpe. The depth of field on the Black-headed Gull is fairly shallow but I think it works for me with the eye, beak, legs and edge of tail in focus. The Bearded Tit had very unusal facial markings. The Smew had just surfaced from a dive - love the water shute on its tail. The final image is my favourite as I was delighted to see Bramblings at the bird feeders so even more delighted to get this action shot.

Pensthorpe in the Rain

I had Pensthorpe completely to myself in the morning as it was raining and very chilly. The rain eased off over lunch so a few souls braved the reserve but by 3 pm heavy rain set in. I managed the iconic Bearded tit picture. The Lapwings show beautiful colours in dull light while the Long-tailed tit looked a bit bedraggled. The Falcated (?) Teal reveals the quality of Bryan's lens and it also makes flying bird photography possible in the low woodland light.

Lakenheath RSPB Reserve

Called in at Lakenheath on my way to lecture at Norwich. Bryan had kindly lent me his 300 2.8 lens. Unfortunately it rained for a while when I arrived and the light level remained very low. I liked the dynamic pose of the Great Tit and the Coots were in full aggressive mood. There were several Marsh Harriers around but all too distant so I decided to photograph just the reeds!

Finished Screen Print

This was the last week of my screen printing course and I am relatively happy with my final print although there are several improvements that I could have made.The misalignment of the three screens (mainly because the paper edges were not square has resulted in white edges on the trunk and movement in the branches both of which I like. The main problem is the overlapping of the colours at the edges of the images; this will make mounting a bit difficult as I would have liked to have left white round the print but may have to bring the mount right in.

Trying SilverFX

I have been trying out Silver FX, produced by Nik software, which is a very easy to use monochrome converter. I am very pleased with these pictures of Sadie.

Night Photography with IR

A couple of images taken with the IR camera. The first from our lane, which has no lighting and so gives a very evenly lit image except for the light spilling out from the back windows.
The second one is from the Travelodge window in Basildon - there appear to be a couple of UFO over the Liquid night club!

Sculptures from Chippenham Park

Chippenham Park

This was our first but certainly not last visit to Chippenham Park to see their snowdrop display. Extensive gardens with a lot of interesting statues (subject for next blog). These were mainly taken with 100mm macro lens but the final one, which is my favourite, was with the 24mm TS lens.