Kicking off this year's odds and sods with Starlings in a rainbow on that extreme rarity: sunshine.
It was early morning, with the sun barely cresting the tree line. We were able to get out for our morning walk as it wasn't raining. This photo is my trusty Canon 80D and Sigma 18-300mm lens zoomed in at 300mm.
Pulling back a bit.
And finally all the way back.
Oh, 2024 got off to a good start with this.
So far my cat, perhaps two neighbouring cats visiting our garden, a local fox and Tawny owl, and this trap have accounted for at least five of the beasties. Sightings of rats in our garden are getting rarer, so I think I'm winning. Two rather timid and wary rats, that I know of, are proving more elusive to catch. I've resorted to buying a lethal trap. The trap was triggered, yesterday, but no rat, sadly. Though a mouse might have triggered it, and was small enough to be within the kill bar.
90% luck, 5% field craft, 5% camera skills.
Very nice to see Kevin.
Lovely photo's Bob.
Thank you
Fabulous pics Bob
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
Thank you all.
Continuing with my surprise of reasonably tame wildlife along the Thames, we hop back to near the beginning between Hambledon lock and Henley bridge. I spotted some rather nice dragonflies, flitting about some reeds on the edge of the Thames. I was able to get very, very close to the dragonflies to photograph them. Far closer than round our area. I guess the ones along the Thames have got used to people.
Beautiful sunshine at this point. Able to get up and personal. What could go wrong? Well, I had to be careful and not slip off the bank into the Thames.
Arghh! Not quite all in focus, as the dragonfly launched itself backwards into flight. I pushed shutter release at the correct moment, but camera was still focused on where the dragonfly had been a microsecond earlier.
After chasing off a rival, the dragonfly returned to be even closer to me!
No particular photography skills. Just point and shoot, just don't slip into the Thames.
Oh, I went out an bought a new 24" ASUS monitor, for the princely sum of £79, from Curry's, in their sale, with special free delivery. My Lenovo laptop has a rather dull, anti-glare screen. Images look as if I'd photographed them in slight mist. As a result, I feel I tend to over process my photos (i.e. too much contrast, too much lightening, etc), when 99% of the time the image is fine right out of camera.
I'll hook the ASUS to my Lenovo and edit from there. Results should be interesting.
I'm also hoping that printing will be easier. The ASUS has an sRGB mode. My printer is sRGB. My Lenovo laptop does not display sRGB, regardless of what I do. Thus I cannot render correctly an image of my art, for subsequent printing.
Some crackers there Angus
Well captured Angus. Glad you didn't fall in! You will certainly find your new monitor better than your laptop, I much prefer a bigger screen. I use a Dell 27", much easier for editing and fine detail work ...
Now I'm taking my first tentative steps in Lightroom, I've decided to revisit some pics I took in RAW with the thought that one day I'd do something with them... That day has come!
First up a few from a cold, wet, miserable boat trip I took in Scotland, in May '23
Somehow the cold and wet didn't seem to matter after that!
Cracking shots there Angus, and it looks like a bargain day, good iif photos, new monitor and not slipping into the Thames.
I hear fully what you say about laptop screens, a lot is down to the angle of view, something not overly critical on the old CRT screens and less of an issue with fixed monitors. The issue is the angle of view being variable on laptops and basically, with the modern screens; they have a polarising layer effect. Whereas you will position a desk monitor to avoid that reduced image clarity.
Mike
Flickr: Peak Rambler
PimperneBloke said:Now I'm taking my first tentative steps in Lightroom, I've decided to revisit some pics I took in RAW with the thought that one day I'd do something with them... That day has come!
Those photos look good to me, considering the weather conditions at the time.
It's difficult to judge how much of a difference using Lightroom has made without the originals in jpg format alongside, but the same response is, they look good to me.
Keep plugging away.