New Forest Welcome

 We had Friday morning free so Rikki and I had a quick introduction in the sunshine to a very wet underfoot New Forest. The greens are extra vibrant with all the rain so a conversion to monochrome seemed called for!

f4.0 Butterfly Portraits

 I stopped off at a butterfly house en route to Southampton on Thursday. The Sony demisted much quicker than the SLR so I used the former to take close-up views of some of the larger butterfly wings. The photo of the white butterfly on the left was taken with the Sony and that on the right and the final image with the Canon 20-200 at f4.0 aperture giving a lovely soft background.

John Lewis Cambridge

We did a preliminary planning visit to John Lewis in Cambridge to see get a feel of what the photographic project will involve. The mixed lighting will be a challenge but does create some very pleasing colour combinations. The moving staircases and the symmetrical layouts lend themselves to wide angles. The project will involve  photographing both partners (staff) and shoppers so fill-in flash may be helpful.

London Impressions

 The crowds of tourists in bright clothing worked well with a bit of creative blur giving a carnival feeling to the images in many cases. I don't like the streaked lights in the Westminster Bridge images and will try another time a bit earlier before all the lamps come on.

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.