Toft Wood - Lichens, Catkins and Moss

Beautiful sunny day after early frost so a bit of photographic recording in our local wood - still intending to put together a book of the wood through the seasons.

 

 

 

High Water Levels at Welney

The water levels at Welney Ouse Washes are still very high so there were very few Whooper Swans around yesterday as there is no ground for them to graze but there was plenty of activity among the Mute swans, ducks and Coots to keep the camera happy. Here a few portraits in beautiful winter light.

Swan Lake at Welney

I had fun today at Welney taking sequences of the Swans preening and the ducks and coots diving. Here a low-resolution time-lapse movie of the 'ballet'. Some of the individual photos to follow.

Sign of Early Spring

Not surprisingly with the mild weather so far this winter, the hazels are already in full flower with the male catkins and the small female flowers. Image 2 is an in-camera focus stack. All our fields around Toft are waterlogged at the moment and the paths very muddy!!

Brightlingsea 2

Once the sun was above the horizon, I changed to my 100-400 lens to capture th boats, beachhuts and birds in the early light. 

 

 

 

Dawn at Brightlingsea

After an enjoyable day on Sunday selecting Ipswich PS Exhibition (thanks  for the hospitality David and Lynda), I decided on a dawn visit to Brightlingsea to let the traffic die down before returning home yesterday morning. Fortunately, the forecast wind and rain stayed away. The moon still gave enough light to illuminate the water and beach before the dawn light took over. I always enjoy the transitition from the blue light to warmer shades as the sun rises. Testing out using my very light 28mm pancake lens for landscape etc to see if ok for a family holiday at the end of the month. I did miss my wider 10-24mm lens so it may be that something else has to left behind!!

Processing Variations

I often find it difficult to choose what exposure to use for an image and then how to process it so I have been reviewing a set if images that I liked to decide how to process and print them. I bracketed three RAW exposures originally but (as almost always) it was the middle exposure (i.e. that chosen by my Fuji) that gave the widest tonal range when processed even though the highlights were flagged as overexposed on my camera screen - far left image. Then two colour and two monochrome conversions - needless to say still not sure on my preferred.

Lunar Eclipse and Wolf Moon

I am sure there will be plenty of images of tonight's spectacular full moon. It coincided with a  penumbral lunar eclipse, which happens when the sun, moon and earth are perfectly aligned. The Earth's outer shadow fell on the moon and made it look a bit darker than normal. The January full moon is called a Wolf moon. 

Paxton Pits on Dull Day

Unfortunately the light was pretty poor for my visit to Paxton Pits on Wednesday, so with an ISO of around 2500 the images lack quality but I was pleased with the Woodpecker flight shots (taken with Preshots on the Fuji).