WWT Welney Wetland Centre

On Sunday 27th January the Cambridge Camera Club met up at the Wildfowl & Wetland Trust at Welney. It was a lovely afternoon. Most of the snow had cleared. We arrived at 14:15 in good time for the Swans Feeding at 15:30. Although the three breeds of Swan were there we only saw the Mute Swan (Our native Swan) and the Whooper. The Whooper's are quite aggressive and there was one particular pair that were fighting quite a bit.

Whooper Swans ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pochards

 

'Ducks in flight'

 

Greylag geese (I think)

 

 

 

Mute Swans in flight

 

HDR photos from (Not so) Sunny Hunny

Sue and I were in Hustanton on a cold grey day on Friday. Following on from ax excellent talk at the Digital Techniques Group of the Cambridge Camera Club on HDR photography I thought I would experiment with the technique. All the photos were taken on muti shot bracket exposure of +- 2 stops. Hand Held. Most were at 800 iso. These were combined from Lightroom into NIK HDR efex. Monochrome conversion in NIK Silver efex 2. I have tried HDR before and got some 'garish' photos which I was the only person who I know liked them !!! This time following the talk I have tried to be a bit most subtle. Still early days but I am quite pleased with the results from a few hours playing.

(HDR = High Dynamic Range)

 

 

 

 

 

 

I gave this a warm tone.

 

The only photo here not to have been combined from 3 shots is this cafe shot. I obviously had severe camera shake and the ghosts where unacceptable. This shot was a single tone mapping photo. Mono conversion next

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slimbridge Wildlife and Wetland Trust

Long time since my last post.

Sue and I were Swindon over the new year visiting our daughter. We took an afternoon visit to Slimbridge Wildlife and Wetland trust. A fantastic place with the first areas very 'family orientated' but then you can go off into the hides further in. 

This visit gave me a chance to play with my new 150 to 500mm Sigma Lens. Still learning how to use it but very pleased with the initial results.

I am very pleased with the three 'L' series Canon lenses I currently own but when I started looking at this focal length the cost of the Canon 'L' Series long lens was quite high. I started looking at alternatives and found some very good reports on this Sigma lens.

This is the first independent lens manufacture lens I have bought since the early 1980's when I bought a 70 to 210 Tamron Lens for my Olympus OM1, Since that time I have always 'stuck' to the camera manufacturer's lenses. (I now use a 7D Canon camera).

The lens appears to have very good image stabilisation. Most of the shots here were taken at the long end of the zoom (500mm) and hand held. I did lean against posts, poles and barriers etc. Most were taken at ISO400 and f/8. This typically gave shutter speeds between 1/100th sec and 1/250th sec.

I have done no post processing in Lightroom / Photoshop on these photos yet.

On our visit we stayed in the 'family' areas. Can't wait to go back again and go to the hides.

 

 

 

 

I really like the shallow depth of field and perspective the long length offers.

Granddaughter, Eloise 'from a distance'