Toft Safari

Spending more time in our home locality has provided lots of opportunities for wildlife spotting and photographs. Last week on my early morning walk, I spotted four hares in a wheat field - too far away for great shots but still good to record. The Four-spotted Chasers are emerging from my pond now and displaying well. Add to these, lots of mating Hoverflies, very bristly Empid flies, minute Long-horned moths and at least three species of Shield bugs and there is plenty to keep the camera (photographer) exercised.

Cast Not a Clout till May be Out

An old English saying suggests that you shouldn't abandon your winter woollies until May is out though tit is not certain whether it is till the end of the month of May or till the Hawthorn blossom is out. Either way today's May morning was definitely very cold and lots of ground frost on my early walk around our fields and wood. 

Experimenting with Lens Reversal for Ultramacro

I built an adaptor to reverse my legacy Olympus 50mm lens onto my Fuji XT-1 to try some ultramacro shots. These are taken at F16, ISO 1600, 1/180 with a bit of fill-in flash. Not a great success rate as I was hand holding with quite windy conditions. I will use with a tripod on a still day and see if I can get a bit more consistency. 

Progress Report 2 on Wildlife Garden

From Cowslips to a mass of buttercups in a couple of weeks: the wildflower areas of the garden are flourishing with the meadow now full of Buttercups, the Red Campion and Alkanet doing well in the perennial beds, the woodland white with Cow Parsley and Greater Stitchwort  and the Yellow Irises growing fast in the pond. We have had three chasers hatch out from the pond as well as many more Red Damselflies.

Raindrops on Rose Petals

The rain is welcome for the garden in general and certainly gave the roses another dimension. I used my favourite Olympus legacy 50mm lens on the Fuji with a 16mm extension tube to get a bit closer, shooting at between F1.8 and F4. It is a very low contrast lens which really suits the shallow depth of field.

Infrared View of Hardwick Wood

We are very lucky during this Lockdown to have Hardwick Wood in our walking area. It has many mature trees with the Ivy stems creating magical shapes and lots of spring flowers, including several extensive areas of Wild Garlic. I didn't see the little cricket on the Celandine when I took the photo - it obviously doesn't absorb any infrared through its chitinous outer skin. Canon 1D MkI converted to infrared, 50 mm lens at 2.2mm.