In the Spotlight, Gamlingay Woods

A group of CCC members explored Gamlingay Woods yesterday on a very warm and contrasty morning. Our target, the Silver Washed Fritillary, was flying in fair numbers but didn't very often perch for us. However, there were plenty of other butterflies to keep our cameras active, including many Large Whites, and several Peacocks and Brimstones all looking fantastic in the shafts of sunlight. My particular project was to capture butterflies in flight using the Precapture mode on the camera. Limited success as the butterflies quickly moved out of frame. Second post will show some of the other species captured by our cameras. 

Website Redesign

After many years with Slawko Websites, my reason for having a website has changed as I no longer hold Exhibitions or spend time promoting my art work. My requirement is now to sort and categorise my previous photos, to have a platform for new work and to share my images with the community. I have started working on my new website and trying out various methods for sharing my images. The front end is a free site from Blogger and I was hoping to use FlikR where I already have albums of nature and sport images. However, although you can create hierarchical albums, there is no navigation structure to explore just these. Once any album is opened, then the only supplied 'Back' option is to All My Albums. I am still trying to work out how to best display images. This is with a another (small fee) image-hosting company. Any suggestions welcome!

Fisheye and Pinhole Close-Up Views

Continuing my quest for creative techniques for flower photography ready for the workshop in August, here are images using 15mm Canon Fisheye (low light conditions) and a Holga Pinhole on the Fuji XT series. Certainly the fisheye give a different perspective - can only be used wide open giving relatively shallow depth of field. Pin-hole images have very low success rate bur I do like some of them. The flower ones are hand held with a breeze blowing the flowers (1/15th second).

 

 

Shallow Depth of Focus - Technique 2

My second technique for getting a shallow depth of field required a F1.8 aperture. The only F1.8 lens I have is an Olympus 50mm from my film days so I attached it to my Fuji with an adaptor. I am very impressed with the results. The lens is more contrasty than I remember and produced some clean sharp images with the required narrow depth of field. Taken in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.

Shallow Depth of Focus - Different Techniques

In August we are running a Flower Photography Day at Scotsdales Garden Centre so I am gearing up to this by trying all types of creative techniques. First using the camera with a Macro 80 mm lens at 2.8/5.6 plus 16mm extension ring. 

In the Meadows at Wicken Fen

Some of the species seen and photographed at Wicken Fen yesterday - Ruddy Darter, Emerald Damselfly, Blue-tailed Damselfly, Essex skipper and Large Skipper etc.

Marvel of Metamorphosis

I always enjoy this time of year when a visit to our pond early in the morning will usually be rewarded with views of emerging dragonflies - here a Southern Hawker. Difficult to photograph as early on flash is required or I use focus stacking as in image 2 (25 shots on Fuji X-T2 at f2.8) but this is very hit and miss with the dragonfly often moving. Later F8 and then F13 can be used but the lighting is much harsher (small amount of fill-in flash)