New Year, New Camera (Same Old Slow Workflow)

Having been thinking about it for a quire some time, after Christmas, I finally bit the bullet and ordered a new Camera.  A Canon 7D Mark II.  Several steps up and on from my old and much loved 40D.  It arrived last Friday, giving me Saturday to RTFM and get to grips with the new button positions, before its first outing last Sunday. 

Said outing was a trip to Wicken Fen that Ann had organised for the CCC and RPS Nature Group.  We met early, hoping to see Hen Harriers.  Sadly, birds are never predictable.  Despite waiting for a couple of hours in a spot they were known to frequent, and where they had been seen 2 days earlier, all we saw were some distant crows and the odd swan.  On the way back to the cafe for a much needed hot cuppa, we stopped to photograph the Konik ponies in lovely warm morning light. The afternoon proved more fruitful.  We first spent some time crammed in a cosy little hide watching various small bird species coming to feeders, before moving on to other things.

 

Skyride

Regular readers of this blog will know I can't resist photographing a funfair.  So, in the 'tween days of Christmas I found some time to go the North-pole fair in Cambridge.  Most of the rides didn't interest me, as I had shot them several times before.  But the big tall spinning thing; whose name I didn't determine, but, for the purposes of titling, I have called the Skyride; was new to me.  I wasn't there on a busy night, so, sadly, the ride only ran a couple of times during the best of the blue hour.  I played around with exposure length, from giving the riders some definition, to pure colour trails and ended up with a lot of shots to sort through from only a few rides.

 

Merry Christmas

What with one thing and another, I have had little time for photography recently.  I did manage a little Christmas inspired tabletop photography last night.  Of the few things I tried this image was the most successful.

Red Kites

Some more images taken the day I visited Hamerton Zoo.  As well as the resident birds, the local Red Kites put on a good show for me.  It was a fairly overcast day, but there were a couple of brief breaks in the cloud that gave the birds some lovely light.

 

Birds at Hamerton Zoo

On a recent day off, I visited Hamerton Zoo.  It wasn't the warmest of days, so most of the mammals stayed inside, out of view.  Fortunately, there were a number of bird species to concentrate on.

An Afternoon At Welney

After a busy week at work, I have been able to catch up processing images from the previous weekend.  On the Sunday, I joined other CCC members at the WWT centre at Welney.  I spent a pleasant, but chilly afternoon in the hides.  There weren't many Whooper Swans in, but there was other other activity to keep us busy, most of which I wasn't quick enough  to capture.

 

 

London - A Walk Along The North Bank

Last Saturday, I headed into London for the day.  The weather forecast, windy with cloud breaking up throughout the afternoon, was promising for some good long exposure shots of the big buildings.  Sadly, thanks to a broken down train, my journey in took nearly 2 hours longer than it should have.  With a good portion of the day and most of the cloud gone, I abandoned plans to head into the City.  Instead I took a stroll along the north bank of the Thames from London Bridge to Waterloo.

It was low tide, and I managed to find a couple of spots on the shoreline for some 10-stop photos with the last of the decent cloud.  The backwashes of the many passing boats provided a challenge to getting really close to the water's edge.  After that, it was on to low-light shots. I couldn't resist including the 'Paul's Walk' sign in the shot of Sea Containers House and the Oxo Building.