Paxton Pits - Favourite Birds

There were very few birds within photographic distance yesterday but three favourite birds did oblige. First consecutive frames of a Female Goosander consuming a large fish, then an Egret fluffing up their feathers and a Blackbird taking the abundant rosehips.

 

Light Painting in Cambridge

Some images from Sunday evening shoot in Cambridge. The first is a very long exposures (4 minutes, f 22). The other two images are using a very bright torch to illuminate the punt and Trinity Bridge respectively. I always enjoy night photography as the colours and details are different for the same scene on different nights (see https://pin-sharp.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/night-photography-in-cambridge-after.html taken  with heavy cloud cover)

Cambridge Winter Fair - Updated Dodgems' Lights

 Always surprises me what the camera shows us that we don't notice with the eye. The lighting system on the dodgems has totally changed from last year. This year there are lights that constantly change colour on the poles creating geometric designs as the cars move and bump. It is the same camera and lens as last year but the images are very different.

2016

2015

 

Misty Walk Barton to Cambridge via Grantchester

Rather than battle with Cambridge traffic, we decided to walk into Cambridge, parking the car at Barton and passing over the M11. Here are some shots from the walk including a final image of a Kingfisher which obligingly perched on branches in Cambridge City by Hobson's Conduit

Cambridge Using Panorama Module in Lightroom

I was trying both horizontal stitches of images (holding camera vertically) or Vertical stitches (holding camera horizontally) with the Fuji 18-55mm lens as often this does not have quite a wide enough angle for shots. Results in first four images; rest a few extras from a rather dull rainy visit.

Fen Drayton Pits in the Gloom - Experiments of Fuji Raw Processing

We visited Fen Drayton RSPB Reserve yesterday afternoon when the light was very poor so 3200 ISO was the minimum. For my own future information, some results on using different Raw conversion recipes. I have been trialling the Phase One software as this has the best reviews for processing Fuji XT-2 files. In the images of Redwing and Fieldfare (of which there were hundreds at FD!) the Capture One conversion is first and ACR (Lightroom) second. For the Marsh Harrier, I show the  Capture One, then  ACR conversion, and finally with Nik Define used for Noise Reduction (the best result possibly for this image). Only real conclusion is that it depends on the paricular problem in the image and how much time to invest in processing. Certainly Capture One does a routinely better job on most files against straight ACR processing but the latter combined with Nik Define and Sharpening may well match it in most cases.

Night Photography in Cambridge After the Rain

Yesterday was wetter than Ros and I had hoped for our photoshoot in Cambridge. Some photos from the day's shoot to follow but here some from the afternoon as the light faded. The rain really helped with wet pavements and cloudy skies to reflect the city lights. The 6th and 7th images were taken at the starting exposure for full night photography (30secs, f8, 800 iso) and are more or less unaltered from the RAW file. I closed the aperture for the subsequent images to f16/f18 to cut the flare from the lamps and give the classic star burst effects. We have a CCC outing on Sunday afternoon so hopefully these images will be helpful in determining exposure settings. Monochromes are Lightroom conversions