Sail boat on the Orwell

This boat sailed by down the River Orwell as we got back from our walk round Levington Lagoon the other day. I had to dash to the end of the quay to catch it, framed by the low tide mudflats in the foreground and the big blue sky above.

This was a very contrasty scene, so I added quite a bit of Fill Light in Lightroom, and also boosted the colour of the sails back up to how I remembered them.

Canon 60D with Canon EF-S 28-200 at 35mm, 1/640 sec at f/16, ISO 160

Heavy weathering

Here's another image from Landguard Point, this time looking across to Harwich. I noticed that the huge logs embedded between the concrete sections of the quay at this point had weathered in this fascinating gnarled way. To try and capture the feel of it, I put the camera on the end of the log, and set the aperture as small as possible. This, combined with using maximum wide angle, gave me almost infinite depth of focus. A square crop seemed to frame the scene best, and the image was finished off with the Topaz Detail plug-in for Lightroom to bring out the wood grain as clearly as possible.

HINT: If you click on any of the pictures in my blog, your browser should bring up the full size image, which you can then zoom into to see all the detail. It's really worth doing that for this one!

Canon 60D with Canon EF-S 28-200 at 18mm, 1/125 sec at f/20, ISO 200

Wheatear at Landguard Point

We went back to Languard Point this morning, but to the nature reserve which lies on the very seafront. It's a rare shingle heath environment, with whole areas fenced off to protect nesting birds. But there were plenty of birds around in the accessible areas, including this male Wheatear - the first time I have seen this species.

Canon 60D with canon EF-S 28-200 at 200mm, 1/640 sec at f/13, ISO 640

Baby Canada Goose goslings

A trip today to the Levington Lagoon, on the river between Ipswich and Felixstowe. This lagoon was created to compensate for wetlands reclaimed to extend the Felixstowe docks. There's a cormorant colony there, and a wide variety of ducks and geese. These Canada Goose goslings were unbelievably cute and fluffy! The lovely bright sunshine allowed me to select both a quck shutter speed, freezing the geese and the water, and a small aperture, helping it all stay in focus, while still using the maximum ISO for best colour saturation. Lightroom easily compensated for the high contrast by applying a quantity of "Fill Light". However, the bright reflections off the water, and being at full zoom (and then cropped in Lightroom), mean some loss of detail, especially in the outlines.

Canon 60D with Canon EF-S 18-200 at 200mm, 1/250 sec at F/14, ISO 100

Sunset over Harwich

This image was made from the Landguard Fort seafront at Felixstowe, looking over to Harwich. It wasn't quite sunset, but this was the last of the sun for the evening as it dipped behind cloud. This is actually one of a set of exposures which will make an HDR* shot, when I get round to processing them, but I'll have to wait and see which version I prefer. It is "under-exposed" by 2 stops, which preserved the colour and detail in the sky. I rather like the high contrast in this version. I've boosted the colour saturation to bring it back up to how it looked to me at the time.

Canon 60D with Canon EF-S 18-200 at 28mm, 1/320 sec at F/16, ISO 200

*HDR=High dynamic range, when you combine several exposures at different settings to bring out the detail in both the highlights and shadows.

Formal wedding portrait

Here's my formal portrait shot of Richard and Marion, who got married at the local Baptist Church recently. This is lit by a mixture of ambient light and on-camera flash, swiveled to bounce off the wall and ceiling. This softened the shadows on the couple's faces, while still giving good definition. The space at the foot of the stairs was a bit cramped, so I had to use a relatively wide angle setting - I would have prefered to stand further away and zoom in a bit. I put in quite a bit of work in Lightroom in post-processing, removing flaking paint and softening the background to de-emphasize it. Canon 60D with canon EF-S 28-200 at 28mm, 1/100 sec at f/5.6, ISO 1600

Down by the riverside

This is a real case of serendipity. I was experimenting with depth of focus on this row of Cow Parsley plants on the banks of the River Cam, and only realised when reviewing the pictures on my computer that a ladybird had landed on the flower head that is in sharpest focus. A quick re-crop put it at a key point in the frame, and I was done.

Canon 60D with Canon EF-S 18-200mm lens set at 35mm, 1/640 sec at f/4.0, at ISO 125.

Small fry

This shoal of tiny fish were basking in the sun in the River Cam at Fen Ditton today. They range from about 50-75mm in length. They were very wary of human outlines on the river bank, so this had to be taken at full 200mm telephoto, and needed a lot of work in Lightroom post-processing to increase the contrast. Note to self - make sure I have the polarising filter with me before going down to the river!

More sunshine in Cambridge Botanical Gardens

Another lunchtime photography trip today, this time to the Botanical Gardens. Sunshine glowing through a copper beech, shimmering in the sparkling fountain, and warming the tiny baby waterboatmen. These last were less than a centimetre from tip to tip, and quite hard to get in focus!

Cowslips in close up

These cowslips were basking in the sun today, at Barnwell Nature Reserve. An ideal subject to try out my new macro filter add-on, so I could get really close up. I also made the most of my Canon 60D swivel screen, laying the camera on the ground and tilting the screen up so I could line the shot up.