Norton Dreams

ISO400, 100mm, 1/1250s, f/4.5, -1.6 ev, retouching

An old Norton glints in the dappled sunlight of a leafy avenue.

Taken after the end of a local motorcycle meet, where bikes of all kinds line the streets. Thankfully the owner of this very photogenic machine felt the need to stay late.

Using ISO 400 to add some noise - rather than adding it in Photoshop as most people recommend. Exposure compensation dropped almost right down to capture those bright highlights and deepen the shadows.

Wednesday

ISO800, 105mm, 1.200s, f/5, -1/3ev, noise reducation

A bit more colour for the mid-week.

Shot quite a few strong patterned butterflies today, with the idea of possibly converting one to black and white, but this photo was the one that I felt was the best of the collection and impossible to turn off those colours. A nice shiny 7 spot ladybird with simple flowers and nice background composition.

Monday

ISO400, 105mm, 1/640s, f/8, -1.6ev, noise reduction, cropped

Starting the week off with a fantastic splash of colour and a nice photogenic pose.

Meadow Brown

ISO400, 105mm, 1/320s, f/5.6, -1ev, cropped, noise reduction

On a lunch-break when every butterfly seemed too busy to pause for a portrait, this Meadow Brown was the only one whose curiosity/fear overcame it's compulsion to take flight. Very nice patterning on its lower wings, and nicely up-lit by the natural leaf reflector, if a little bit green. (shot with Sunlight pre-set white balance - as always)

Cropped square to make the most of the luscious green surroundings

and simplify the frame.

With hindsight maybe a couple more clicks of aperture, but its possible the background bokeh would have suffered for it. The tilt on the photo I decided at the time was to point the end of the leaf into the bottom right corner (taken portrait orientation), but I decided against that format in post-production and maybe for this format a more anti-clockwise angle would have been more favourable, but again I quite like it - sometimes it's nice to have something tilted the "wrong" way - even if it was by accident.

Hope everyone has a photogenic weekend. If it ends up raining alot you might even see a lesser-spotted MWT weekend blog post! - Mark

Nice weather for ..

ISO1600, 300mm, 1/320s, f/8, -1/3ev, noise reduction, cropped

I'm not sure I'll ever get comfortable with letting more than a few rain drops fall on my camera, even with weather sealed L lenses on it, but with no umbrella available (or my rain cover safely left back at home?!) a few riverside trees enabled me to get a few rainy shots while I was waiting for my MoT yesterday. An eye catch-light, bubbles, raindrops, splashing droplets and water dripping of the beak making this one the pick of the batch.

Two duos

Belltower

Composite of bracketed, focus stacked images. Noise reduction.

Two photos from a lunchbreak trip to a local village church and two photography quotes I liked after a quick search aroung the web...

"Having a camera does not make you a photographer any more than carrying a hammer makes you a carpenter"

"Which is your favourite photograph?" - "The one I am going to take tomorrow"

Clearance

A clearout of my blog folder from the last few weeks of pics, which I didn't feel deserved to host their own post.

Two macro bugs, a lame midday stop-off at a lavender field and a Bee Orchid.

.. and the macro keeps coming ..

ISO400, 105mm, 1/500s, f/9, -1 2/3 ev, noise reduction, cropped square

The background in the areas that I've cropped off was quite interesting, but I wanted to put full focus on the vortex-like pattern of the flower and the hover fly.

These flies are shiny little blighters, so I set exposure compensation significantly down to avoid the glare burning off the end of the histogram (pattern/evaluative metering).

Grasshopper

ISO1250, 105mm, 1/200s, f/11, -2/3ev, noise reduction, levels

Amazing detail and texture in this grasshoppers carapace and wings.

Usually jumpy little things, but you can find the odd one whos curiosity overcomes

it's desire to flea.

Last Day

ISO200, f/5.6, 260mm, 1/500s, -2/3ev (pattern), desaturated, dodge & burn.

Buskers, special offers and empty shops encapsulating the current financial climate.

Taken in Swindon high-street with my extremely un-stealthy 100-400 which can make candid shots pretty tricky.

RAF Lyneham - Final Fly-by

The last C130 Hercules' flying out of RAF Lyneham perform a final flyby over the north Wiltshire coutryside.

They have flown the skies over my home town all my life and the area will never be the same again. I've had a soft spot for them since flying in one as a child over the Bristol channel with the tail gate down and have very happy memories of cycling out to Lyneham in summer holidays to sit at the end of the runway and watch the Hercs taking off. A sad farewell.