Creative woodlands AKA Poor Camera Control

I was using my Fuji compact camera yesterday to shoot fungi with its very sensitive screen control. as I returned it to my neck, I obviously touched the screen on a few occasions where I hadn't turned the camera off. I like these 10 examples - I am sure I can't repeat any deliberately.

Playing with Lighting Fungi at Wandlebury

Despite all the rain, fungi were in pretty short supply at Wandlebury but I found a few to practise different lighting set ups (flash, gels and continuous LED). The minute spider was obviously attracted  (or disturbed) by the underneath lighting and got in on the act. The gills of a large bracket on a beech tree reminded me of the fan vaulting in King's college Chapel but so much more intricate.

Wandlebury Trees and Leaves at F1.8

Yesterday was Cambridge Camera Club 'outing' to local beech and mixed woodland in search of fungi and autumn colours. Well with the new Covid regulation, it couldn't be an outing in CCC tradition of being able to explore in a group sharing our screens and  subjects. However, it was good to get out and see people at a social distance. The fungi were very sparse (blog to follow) so I spent much of the time using a legacy Olympus lens at F1.8 playing with composition, depth of field and focus point. Even did a bit of ICM exploring direction of camera movement in relation to result - the start colours will bleed into the finish colours so with these autumn colours different results for 'up' or 'down' respectively. 

Garden Life through Infrared

I started a session with my infrared camera intending to photograph flowers but, as usual, the insects  on the plants soon took my attention. Some of these are taken in my spinach plot which is alive with snails and shield bugs at the moment (very crunchy in a salad!!) and shows very high UV reflective properties, revealing normally camouflaged green bugs and spiders!

Caldecote Church Cambridgeshire

Records of a Caldecote chapel date from Norman times and, by the 1300s, the villagers had developed a chapel into a church with a tower, with bells and a nave. During Victoria’s reign the tower and nave were rebuilt and a chancel added. The organ has a long history from around 1720, this being its fifth home in the area. Yesterday the light through the windows was beautiful and the cobwebs and bat droppings seemed to add to the feel of a real community church.