Signs of Spring

A few images taken on Sunday afternoon. The clocks have gone forward and everywhere I look Spring is under-way.

Trip To Duxford

On Saturday I took part in a Camera Club outing to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford. It's an interesting place to visit with many excellent exhibits. However, photographically, I struggled a little to find pleasing images. Each of the hanger is packed quite tightly with planes and other vehicles, making it hard to pick out individuals. I chose to isolate small parts of engines and fuselage, trying to make fairly abstract patterns of shape and colour. Too boring?

Moonlight Photography At The American Cemetery

Since hearing David Clapp speak at the club early in the season, I have been keen to have a go at moonlight photography. The trouble has been getting a good clear night on the full moon, when I wasn't busy with other things. Saturday night gave such an opportunity. Added to this it wasn't just any full moon, it was a super-moon. So after the Annual Print competition, I headed to the American Cemetery.


All of these images were shot at f8 and ISO800, giving me 30 second exposures. Autofocus was impossible so I switched to manual, set the focus to infinity and hoped. Next time I might try using a spotlight to allow the autofocus to work before switching to manual. The images were also a little under exposed and very noisy. Capture One and Noiseware have cleaned up the noise but taken too much out of the grass. More practice needed methinks.

Camera Club Annual Print Competition

Saturday was the camera club's annual print competition, which was held at Harston Village Hall. The main room made a fantastic exhibition space.

The Lent Bumps

Last Saturday I spent the afternoon in Cambridge watching the Lent Bumps on the Cam. The Bumps are one of those things I had always meant to watch. But every time I thought about it, it turned out I had just missed them. Fortunately this year I was helped by a Camera Club reminder Email and some excellent advice from Sue on where to park and where to watch.

Unfortunately, the weather, which had been glorious the day before, was dull and grey with occasional drizzle. I decided to make use of the poor light to try some panning. This was something else I had never done before. The technique was every bit as tricky as I thought it would be. My trusty Leki pole came in very handy. I took and have deleted many hundreds of pictures. But, I did manage to get a few that I am fairly happy with. In each case I tried to focus on just one rower and the let the others blur. This wasn't easy as the race pace was fairly frantic, so my focus points could be a little sharper. I will just have to have another go during the May Bumps.