Cambridge by Infrared

A couple of images taken with the infrared digital camera and converted to monochrome in Lightroom adjusting the various colour channels.

Experiments with Closeup

Peacock butterfly taken with 50 mm macro lens - it was a fairly 'lazy' butterfly and allowed me to get close with 50mm macro lens. Many of the other insects were more wary and wouldn't let me close enough.













Following suggestions from John at our meeting last night, I tried an extension ring and 1.4 converter used together with my 100-400 lens. I needed to manually focus but it certainly allowed me to photograph some very skittish Painted lady butterflies, which wouldn't let me close enough with the 50 mm lens.

Great Crested Newt

We found this Great Crested Newt underneath our wheelie bin last night.

Great Crested Newts are our largest native newt species and have distinctly warty skin of blackish appearance.. They also have fine white spots on their lower flanks, which are more obvious in breeding males. Their undersides are either yellow or orange-coloured and are covered in large black blotches. Males can be distinguished from females by the presence of a jagged crest that runs along their backs, dipping at the rear of the abdomen to a smoother-edged crest above and below the tail. The male’s crest is more pronounced during the breeding season, and lies flat to the body when the newt is out of water. Females lack a crest, but have a yellow-orange stripe along the lower edge of their tails.

You can see a small crest along the back of our friend and the orange stripe along the underside of tail - probably a female - any experts out there?

Open Studios Favourites

Two of the three weekends that I am participating in the Cambridge Open Studios are over, so I am interested to see which are the favourite images so far.

The two Norway ones from the trip I made last December have been popular but also the low light Brancaster beach scene and the Granchester trees in the snow.


I am open one more weekend - July 25th/26th so still time to come and cast your vote.

See entry for Ann Miles at Cambridge Open Studios website

Capturing Lightning

Had a go at photographing the lightning this morning as it was almost continuous at one point and so bright it was visible for long enough to press the shutter. Didn't get any really good forked strikes but pleased with those I did record.

Some more images from Infrared camera. This time the photos were all taken in RAW and an initial correction done using a camera profile made with DNG profile editor. The temperature and tint were then further adjusted to give the desired colour.

Experiments with my converted Infrared camera

I had an hour to play with my digital camera that has been converted to take Infrared shots.
I read on the web that the white balance should be set to custom setting by photographing a white card. I then took shots with both JPEG and RAW. Below shows the two unadjusted files.

I had downloaded a Photoshop action to process files taken with infrared digital cameras. This increases the contrast and then does some colour swapping using Channel Mixer. This works well with the JPEG file that has had the white balance correction but also gives an interesting effect with the RAW file

Each of these files was then converted to BW with Channel mixer - here the RAW files, as expected, gives a superior result.

I obviously need to do a lot more experimentation and theoretical consideration to achieve a consistent result.

Attempts at Photographing Skippers

It has been a busy week preparing for Cambridge Open Studios so I have only just got round to looking at the far too many images that I took of the Skippers and Bees in the lavendar plants at Belstead House last weekend.

I tried both my 50mm Macro and a 180 mmm lens that Jane kindly lent me. The 50 mm lens allowed enough depth of field to get the whole insect in focus (first image) but the close-up detail and the diffuse backgrounds with the longer focal length were great.

My favourite is the bumble bee just launching off the lavendar

More from Suffolk

We visited Orford Ness on Saturday on a very hot sunny day. I decided to concentrate on using my 15 mm fisheye to take the flowers on the island.
The yellow-horned poppy grew in lots of places on the shingle. It was not easy to photograph as the long seed pods that give it the name made it very difficult to fit in the frame.

The other dominant flower on the shingle was sea campion

Cambridge Camera Club Weekend at Belstead House near Ipswich

The Friday evening three of us went down to Levington on the Orwell and enjoyed a quiet stroll along the river looking towards Harwich docks. It was a very calm evening with a nearly full moon reflected in the water.

I wasn't sure which of the images I liked best so have included both for comparison, one concentrating on the sky and the other with foreground interest.

Chaos

I thought friends would appreciate this accidental shot taken in the chaos of my studio as I prepare for Open Studios on July 11-26th.

Loo in a Barn

Came across this very spacious loo in Devon.

It felt quite daunting to have so much space around - it is normally 'the smallest room' in house descriptions.

Poppies in the Mist

It is a great year for poppies and other wild flowers.
This field is near Barton and gives the feel of Provence with the line of trees. It was taken early on Sunday morning when there was quite a thick mist.

The blue flower is chicory and has always grown around the area but I have never seen so much of it as is present this year in with the poppies.

Foxgloves

The foxgloves were at their best in Devon last week so I couldn't resist putting up a couple of images

Goodbye

Unfortunately my holiday in Devon only lasted a couple of days as I had to return when my mother was taken into hospital. As I left our cottage, the cows obviously wished to say goodbye. I particularly like the elegant legs on the second image.

Westward Ho

A few pictures from Friday's visit to Westard Ho. The Bathing pool is the one where I learnt to swim as a 5 year old and hasn't changed that much over the years.

I think I prefer the pebble and round pool picture with fewer clouds in the sky - I have many versions of the scene but this is the only one with a relatively straight horizon.

The matching of the sky and the pebbles attracted me in the third image.

Budleigh Salterton

A couple of images for the Wider View Series.
They need the horizons straightened. I think I prefer the vertical framing for the second image.
While drinking a mug of tea sitting at one of the tables, I noticed several dolphins playing around the buoys in the bay. I mentioned it to a local and there was great excitement as, contrary to my belief, they very rarely observe dolphins there.