View allAll Photos Tagged Tempted
My remote shutter release died on me while shooting this. Time to buy 2 this time for safety measures.
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Inquisitive swan...
I’m not really a bird photographer. Which is odd.
Ever since I was a youngster I’ve been interested in birds (and the natural world in general). My family were ardent members of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (Britain’s main bird conservation society - the equivalent, I guess, of the USA’s National Audubon Society), I was a member of the Young Ornithologist’s Club, and for a while the British Trust for Ornithology.
Even today I live seven miles from Slimbridge, the headquarters of the Wetland and Wildfowl Trust (WWT) the UK’s premier wildfowl conservation charity.
And by a strange quirk of life, my godmother in Venezuela happened to be a close relative of Sir Peter Scott, the founder of the WWT. Not that it has ever given me free entrance as I would hope ;)
This, I think, is my first ever published bird image. Being a poor cameraman I am tempted to blame the absence of avian imagery on my photostream on lacking the right lens (my longest lens is the 105mm macro).
But I suspect the truth is that I am running away from the competition. The genre is densely populated and there are some stellar bird photographers out there, including some I follow. I much prefer the quiet waters of abstract or even macro, where I can make mistakes and nobody will notice :)
This is an in-camera multiple-exposure of a mute swan, the most common of the three British swans, taken in St Ives in Cambridgeshire a few weeks ago.
I’ve been investigating the effect of using the camera’s multiple-exposure facility combined with continuous shutter-release mode (at a low frame rate of about 5fps). This is one of those experiments.
And it’s odd and curious and I don’t understand it.
The camera is set to create a multiple-exposure composite internally using an Average function (which is suitably vague - even the advanced manual is hardly loquacious).
But looking at this one it became apparent that the first image of the sequence contributes much more than the others to the result - the white is more opaque. And perhaps the last image contributes more than the ones in between? Maybe.
Now if I were writing the program I would have either created a result where every capture contributes the same amount (equally opaque) or, simpler, where the later images are more significant (by averaging each capture with the preceding average to date).
I smell a plot! I wonder what Canon cameras do…
For most of my life killing an unmarked swan has been a treasonable offence because they belong to the Queen - I’d be hung, drawn and quartered.
In English law, only very privileged people or entities could own swans (including some of London’s powerful guilds). The swans needed to be marked though (and they could be killed and eaten by their owners). Unmarked swans belong to the Crown.
The law was changed a couple of decades ago, presumably because the cost of all that drawing and quartering became prohibitive.
Nowadays, though, killing any bird is illegal. I think they just shoot you...
Thank you for taking the time to look. I hope you enjoy the image!
[In-camera 10-shot multiple-exposure taken handheld in continuous shooting mode (5fps) letting the bird swan around… as they do.
Developed in Capture One to add contrast and colour saturation, and get the colours a bit more agreeable (partial fail there I think!).
In Affinity Photo extended the canvas downwards from the capture and smart infilled with inpainting to give more space in the photo for the crop and composition.
Used a Lighting filter with a white spot down and to the right of the image pointing diagonally in. This was to throw more light and emphasis on the budgie’s head. Kind of worked :) ]
It's so tempting to just reach out & pat Flynn when he does this but I still tend to avoid putting my hand over the top of his head, due to his past fears around hands coming at him - particularly towards his face. Flynn's far more keen to seek out physical contact & affection with me (& others) these days though. Every morning now, when we get up, Flynn has his "daily cuddle", where he comes & sits with his back to me & I scritch his neck & give him a fuss, while Flynn makes funny little squeaks & leans into my hand. Sometimes he twists back & gives me the teeniest tiniest lick on the tip of my nose! I get a tail wag if I give him a quick pat on his side, or back & he'll often voluntarily come & rest his chin on my knee when I sit... if we're walking, I'll feel his nose nudge at my hand & when I look down, he does a happy little hoppy skip. Our friends have commented how happy & affectionate Flynn's become as he's aged. He's still quite tentative about requesting attention but it makes us all so happy to see this little dog genuinely enjoy any contact with people. It's sweet to see that side to him.
I was worried Flynn might be unable to enjoy his daily cuddles this week. We started him on the new meds on Monday, for his kidney/urine issue & as they don't react well with NSAIDs, Flynn's not had his usual daily pain relief for his arthritis. I've put him on restricted exercise - short, on lead walks only & thankfully, he's allowed to take 1/2 a paracetamol/tylenol tablet twice a day, which helps - but not the same as NSAIDs did & I know he's more achy now. When Flynn's been sore in the past, he's very quickly become really anxious & defensive... so I was worried I'd see a reversal to past behaviour. However, at least so fa, Flynn's continued being sweet & (by his standards) cuddly. I'm being careful but I'm glad he seems to be able find comfort in being close, rather than becoming fearful again. We won't know if the new meds are helping him for another week or 2, when Flynn'll have another blood test & urinalysis done... fingers crossed!!
With gale force winds, waves crashing five stories high and roiling seas, this photographer braves it all to shoot Thor's Well at Cape Perpetua. Even from my high vantage point, I was catching ocean mist. I cannot imagine this guy shooting in these conditions. I've already trashed one camera at this place last year, wasn't going to tempt fate on a day like this again. Thor's Well, Cape Perpetua National Monument. Yachats, Oregon USA
A reproduction poster carried in the Buffet car of the 'Lets Go Round Again ' LNER HST farewell tour .
British Rail catering in its day was how shall I put it...:)
19 12 19
Back at the established hideout at De Smet, we posted up to wait for our day gas to depart. Dispatch however had other ideas, that being to send this coal train first before routing the day gas behind him along the river subdivision. If we hadn’t already established that the gas train would be the target, we might have fallen for this bait, but instead we left this crew in peace as they began their trip west.
(more details later, as time permits)
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A couple years ago, I created Flickr album for photos that I had started taking with my iPhone5s, which I then followed up with a Flickr album of photos that I had taken with my iPhone6 and iPhone6+. This is a new vintage-2015 album for the ongoing photos and videos that I’m shooting with my iPhone 6/6+ … until the iPhone7 comes out this fall (drool, lust…)
In my first such album, I wrote, "Whether you’re an amateur or professional photographer, it’s hard to walk around with a modern smartphone in your pocket, and not be tempted to use the built-in camera from time-to-time. Veteran photographers typically sneer at such behavior, and most will tell you that they can instantly recognize an iPhone photo, which they mentally reject as being unworthy of any serious attention.
"After using many earlier models of smartphones over the past several years, I was inclined to agree; after all, I always (well, almost always) had a “real” camera in my pocket (or backpack or camera-bag), and it was always capable of taking a much better photographic image than the mediocre, grainy images shot with a camera-phone.
"But still … there were a few occasions when I desperately wanted to capture some photo-worthy event taking place right in front of me, and inevitably it turned out to be the times when I did not have the “real” camera with me. Or I did have it, but it was buried somewhere in a bag, and I knew that the “event” would have disappeared by the time I found the “real" camera and turned it on. By contrast, the smart-phone was always in my pocket (along with my keys and my wallet, it’s one of the three things I consciously grab every time I walk out the door). And I often found that I could turn it on, point it at the photographic scene, and take the picture much faster than I could do the same thing with a “traditional” camera.
"Meanwhile, smartphone cameras have gotten substantially better in the past few years, from a mechanical/hardware perspective; and the software “intelligence” controlling the camera has become amazingly sophisticated. It’s still not on the same level as a “professional” DSLR camera, but for a large majority of the “average” photographic situations we’re likely to encounter in the unplanned moments of our lives, it’s more and more likely to be “good enough.” The old adage of “the best camera is the one you have with you” is more and more relevant these days. For me, 90% of the success in taking a good photo is simply being in the right place at the right time, being aware that the “photo opportunity” is there, and having a camera — any camera — to take advantage of that opportunity. Only 10% of the time does it matter which camera I’m using, or what technical features I’ve managed to use.
"And now, with the recent advent of the iPhone5s, there is one more improvement — which, as far as I can tell, simply does not exist in any of the “professional” cameras. You can take an unlimited number of “burst-mode” shots with the new iPhone, simply by keeping your finger on the shutter button; instead of being limited to just six (as a few of the DSLR cameras currently offer), you can take 10, 20, or even a hundred shots. And then — almost magically — the iPhone will show you which one or two of the large burst of photos was optimally sharp and clear. With a couple of clicks, you can then delete everything else, and retain only the very best one or two from the entire burst.
"With that in mind, I’ve begun using my iPhone5s for more and more “everyday” photo situations out on the street. Since I’m typically photographing ordinary, mundane events, even the one or two “optimal” shots that the camera-phone retains might not be worth showing anyone else … so there is still a lot of pruning and editing to be done, and I’m lucky if 10% of those “optimal” shots are good enough to justify uploading to Flickr and sharing with the rest of the world. Still, it’s an enormous benefit to know that my editing work can begin with photos that are more-or-less “technically” adequate, and that I don’t have to waste even a second reviewing dozens of technically-mediocre shots that are fuzzy, or blurred.
"Oh, yeah, one other minor benefit of the iPhone5s (and presumably most other current brands of smartphone): it automatically geotags every photo and video, without any special effort on the photographer’s part. Only one of my other big, fat cameras (the Sony Alpha SLT A65) has that feature, and I’ve noticed that almost none of the “new” mirrorless cameras have got a built-in GPS thingy that will perform the geotagging...
"I’ve had my iPhone5s for a couple of months now, but I’ve only been using the “burst-mode” photography feature aggressively for the past couple of weeks. As a result, the initial batch of photos that I’m uploading are all taken in the greater-NYC area. But as time goes on, and as my normal travel routine takes me to other parts of the world, I hope to add more and more “everyday” scenes in cities that I might not have the opportunity to photograph in a “serious” way."
In September of 2014, I got the iPhone 6 and the 6+. They say that the camera is better, and that the internal camera-related hardware/firmware/software is better, too. Obviously, I’ve got the newer iOS, too, and even on the “old” phones, it now supports time-lapse videos along with everything else.
I’ve still got my pocket camera (an amazing little Canon G7X, which was an upgrade/replacement of an equally amazing Sony ERX-100 Mark III), and two larger cameras (Sony RX-10, and Sony A7), but I have a feeling that I won’t even be taking them out of the camera bag when I’m out on the street for ordinary day-to-day walking around.
Like I said last year, “stay tuned…"