Autumn Signs in Toft Wood

If we believe the Press then it is to be a hard winter this year; certainly folklore also predicts this with a very heavy crop of berries. The Spindle tree with its pink and orange berries is my favourite at this time of year. My Grey Dagger moth caterpillar has finished feeding and is pupating under some bark ready to overwinter and already the Alder and Hazel are showing catkins.

Dangerous Liaison

This male spider made many attempts to approach and mate with the female. He approached slowly and extended a leg towards her but on each occasion the female appeared unreceptive and he retreated. The second image is an attempt at focus-stacking but it failed as the spider was constantly on the move, although it does give a feeling of the tension in the approach.

Paxton Pits; Macro in the Reserve

One of those days when the weather forecast got it wrong, at least at Paxton as three of us from the previous RPS session had a great walk round the Pits with only a light sprinkle of rain and lots of warm sunshine. Here are a few finds from the morning including a Migrant Hawker, Little Egret, Hornet-mimic Hoverfly, a Bee-mimicing Hoverfly, a very large Araneus quadrata with grasshopper prey, and Ruddy Darters laying in puddles along the track.

RPS Macro Session at Paxton

Yesterday, we ran a macro day at Paxton Pits for the RPS Nature Group and were treated to demonstration of Multiflash techniques, focus stacking and general flash techniques - many thanks to those who helped on the day and to the patient participants as the weather was not ideal with strong winds and occasional showers. This was my only shot of the day - a very obliging Eyed Hawmoth caterpillar reclining on a toadstool - the question is which end is front and which is back? 

Common Darter: Playing with Light and Lenses

As a prelude to today's RPS Macro day at Paxton, I have processed the images taken at Shuttleworth 10 days ago in very bright sunlight. Different apertures produce very different specular highlights in the background (image 3-f14; image 4 F22). I tried using a wide angle (c24 mm full-frame equiv.)  to get the darter in its environment (images 5 and 6). The last image is  an infrared - renders the darter like glass.

Shuttleworth Swiss Garden Infrared

Last Wednesday, Shuttleworth House and Swiss Garden were open free during Heritage Week. It was a very warm sunny day so I added my pocket SonyRX100 that has been modified for infrared to my kit and was pleased I did. This conversion does not produce the sharpest of images but they are fun to take and attempt a conversion that I like. Here a set using a custom profile that results in a more or less monochrome image with just hints of colour in some areas.

 

CCC Evening Playing with Water!

Thanks Paul for bringing along the Pluto water droplet system and Charles for his set ups. Great fun though never enough time to get that finished image as it is possible to change the timing and size of the first and second drops (and even add a third though we haven't tried that yet). Then there is background, flash positions, flash colour etc etc.