Cry Me A River
I was back in Royal Wootton Bassett, and the family were around so I took the opportunity to get as much use out of my camera as possible when I had the chance. The weather was finally favourable as well so the 100mm macro was out of the bag first.
I was looking for small insects and bugs to photograph but found a good subject hard to find. I settled on getting images that showed the intricacies of common flowers and weeds such as this dandelion
using the macro lens in manual focus, I was able to create different effects that showed the common dandelion weed in a totally different light.
I snuck my tripod and 400mm Lens with me on the Journey down from London after being expressly told not to by Chelsea. I was planning on taking advantage of the Bird table in the garden and a possible trip to see the bluebells, as I had seen that they were still out. (more on that later)
I was up early, (around 8am) and had opened the double doors at the end of the new extension. This looks out onto the garden, with the bird table at the bottom. I threw out some bread, set up the tripod, closed the doors and found myself with a makeshift hide, looking out across the whole garden. The only issue I had was the weather which had started off very overcast and dull. As I have come to expect the 400mm is rubbish in low light situations so many of the images I was able to capture were very grainy and to me, unusable. Others were just too close or far away.
Limitations to the 400mm in action above, with the inability to zoom out and an example of how it performs in low light.
Robin Singing
As the morning wore on, the weather started to improve and I was able to get some clearer images like the image above. The sky behind was still grey, but was much brighter so the ISO levels could be dropped down and the shutter speed kept up. I was getting most joy from the tree to the side of the garden, which the Robin and then a pair of Goldcrests was using.
The Goldcrests darted around the tree, making it very difficult to photograph. Again they were in an area that was not getting a great deal of light, so the ISO was higher than what I would have liked but still gave some nice images in the end.
We travelled to West Woods, Near Marlborough after I had packed up the 400mm lens, to see if we could find the bluebells that it is famous for. The bluebells did not disappoint, they were in full bloom, and really were stunning. I used the 35mm, and the 135mm on the tripod to try and capture this end of spring natural wonder. I used a low aperture of around F/16 and ISO 100 but did play around with this, using an aperture around F/9 as well and a slow shutter speed.
I started off with the 35mm to try and get the scale of the woods. I would try and take a focal point like a tree stump, a path made through the woods or the treehouse to draw the eye. I then switched to the 135mm to get in closer to the bluebells.
The light was a major factor in the wood and it would almost change the colour of the bluebells as the sun would pass into the clouds and then back out again, creating a dappled light on the bluebells.
FIN
