Wednesday, January 19, 2022

UV Fluorescence in Toft Churchyard

Having discovered that lichens fluoresced strongly in UV light, I decided to try some night shots at the church illuminating the gravestones with a UV torch. The exposure were 40 secs at f7.1 iso1250/2500 when the church security light were off. There is a street light a little way down the road giving some illumination to the scene. Artifical flowers fluoresce very strongly.

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Sunny Morning at Paxton Pits

After a frosty start, the sun yesterday was pleasantly warming. The Black-headed Gulls entertained us collecting food from the surface of the water together with diving cormorants and lots of ducks. A couple of habitat shots (with Great White Egret) and two 'signs' of Spring - Cormorant with nesting material and a Honey Bee.

Sunday, January 16, 2022

Preliminary Ultraviolet Photographs

I have been playing around with UV Fluorescence photography using a UV torch. The UV light is absorbed into the subject and visible light is re-emitted and can be captured by the camera. I was handholding the camera and using shallow depth of field so the results are not that sharp. 

Saturday, January 15, 2022

Sunrise in Toft

Beautiful sunrise this morning for my walk across Home Meadow and the Bourn Brook Meadow  onto the Meridian Golf course. Very pleased to see Reed Buntings still present (plus Dunnocks) - when I first came to Toft, before the golf course was built, there was a big roost of Reed Buntings in the rough land alongside the Brook and then functional Oxford-Cambridge railways. But then every field also had its Corn Bunting and the woodland along the railway had a good population of Turtle Doves - 2 species unfortunately now very rare in the UK.

Friday, January 14, 2022

From London Trip - Tate Britain

 Our last full day in London was bitingly cold with a strong wind so we were delighted to be able to get into Tate Britain on an instant booking. It was the staircase that took a lot of my time using my 23mm fixed lens and 10-24 and fish-eye borrowed from Phil. I think I need another visit though we hope that, in the future, we will not find it so empty.