Celebration of 25 Years of Toft Wood

Our local Wood was 25years old on 25th November and, to celebrate this, I initiated and put together a book of  the history of the area, the planting and growth of the wood, and the trees and wildlife in the wood. It is full of poems, paintings, photographs and memories from the people of Toft. 

The 96 page hardback A4 book costs £15. 

Orders and enquiries to Ann Miles 07710383586 annmiles70@gmail.com

Misty Ancient Woodland

When I woke to fog on Friday morning I thought that I would go to photograph in a Beech Hangar with their straight trunks either at the Gogs or at Royston Heath but then thought why not try to get a similar evocative image in our local ancient woodland. So half an hour later, after a muddy tramp, arrived at Hardwick Wood and was captivated by the knarled twisted branches and orange oak leaves coming through the mist. In other areas there is straight young growth and still some berries. 

Hardwick Wood is one of the West Cambridgeshire Hundreds, a collection of wildlife-rich ancient woodlands in an area defined for over 1000 years by the old Anglo-Saxon regional divisions known as the Cambridgeshire Hundreds. Historical records show that some woods are older than the Domesday book and may go back much earlier. 

Greenfinches on Our Sunflower Seed Heads

We grew a dozen sunflowers around our bird feeders this year and left the seeds in situ. A flock of 4 or 5 Greenfinches are enjoying pulling out the seeds and cracking them to get at the kernels. Very low light levels and through a closed window so surprised how well they have come out.

Slide Scanning Project 1: Cambridge

My winter project is to scan any slides that have historical or pictorial interest (and to recycle the rest) - no small task as there are thousands of them over the years. Here are a few from yesterday's batch. First the River Cam when it froze over in 1997 and the view in July 1997. The vertical shots are of an earlier cold winter in 1991 and my earliest Cambridge view - probably 1962 when I first visited Cambridge. Robert Sayle became John Lewis in 2007. The next four shots are from 1999 and the last two certainly the last century(!) as the trees lining  Parkside are still very small.

Focus Stacking Fungi - Comparison with Wide Angle etc

Apologies for more fungi but they are very useful for trying out focus stacking as they do not move! I used a 50mm macro and in-camera focus bracketing for taking the stack (25 or 35 shots), processed with Zerene stacker (not tidied up at processing stage so some imperfections evident on the final image), 

Mostly I used the traditional F2.8 for the images but image 2 is F8 giving a bit more background details, images 6 and 8 are wide angles (12mm) to compare the results and the final image demonstrates that, for some subjects, a much large stack number is required at the macro level.

12 mm Lens with Close up Filter for Fungi

 Still on my quest for a wide-angle close-up solution, I have managed to attach a close-up filter to my Zeiss 12mm lens and tried some fungi photography in our local Hardwick wood today. Very pleased with the results both wide open at F2.8 (numbers 1 and 8) and other apertures F7.1 (6), F9 (3) F14 (2,4,5,9-11), F16(7)  F22 (12).