London Visitors and Residents

 Here are a few of the characters photographed in London West End on Sunday.

London Trip

We had a very enjoyable CCC outing to London today - the rain that was forecast originally for the day didn't arrive so a slight change of plan from wet pavements and umbrellas to shop windows and tourists. I will post some of these at a later date but just the final shot of the day 30sec at f22 (800 ISO)

Sony RX100 Special Effects

I decided that it was about time to discover what all the extra items on the Sony's menu do. It has a large range of Styles and Effects. Most of these are too extreme to be of much value as, unlike in photomanipulation software, you cannot turn down the settings to give a hint of the effect. However, as with the monochrome settings, which shouldn't be used in preference to a good monochrome conversion software on the computer, they can be useful in visualising the potential of a scene and what might work well at a later stage. For instance, the top footpath image is very messy as a straight photo but the Illustration Effect simplifies the elements. The High setting on the HDR Painting mode is very impressive but definitely a bit over the top. The other images are examples of the Illustration and Watercolour (church) effects where it worked well  to accentuate the chosen elements in the images.

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.

Pochards

 Large numbers of Pochard winter on the Ouse Washes - mostly males as the females travel further south. Here is a selection of flight images. I particularly like the last female Pochard flying out of the reserve to feed just as the sun set.

Welney Swans

 Great to see the sun this weekend after rather a long absence. It made swan photography very difficult as the highlights burned out even when the rest of the image was correctly exposedvbut here are a few shots. There was a lot of inter-family group aggression resulting in a few minor injuries. The swan in the last frame has lost a patch of feathers from its wing, presumably during a skirmish.

Heron at Fowlmere

This was virtually the only bird that I saw today on a snowy walk round RSPB reserve at Fowlmere. It is presumably the same Heron that was swimming on our previous visit.

Still Waters etc

 I went to photograph the meadows in Grantchester in the fog but found it had cleared so looked for other subjects. The snow was starting to thaw off the branches overhanging the river creating interesting ripples among the reflected trees.

Toft in the Snow

 A few pictures of Toft in the snow for El as she went for a walk to the church without a camera (!) and wanted a record of the snowy scene and for friends in Guernsey to show what their B&B and other bits of the village look like at the moment.

Beech Woods

Straight tree trunks in a Beech plantation after directional snowfall create wonderful graphic images but I also liked the curved branches of an isolated beech tree.Clematis seed heads and the beech leaves with pointed buds also benefitted from a covering of snow.