A bit of bully

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I had a few hours while away to pop into Rutland Water NR. The birds were quiet so I had a chance to experiment with a few more shots for this blog. It started out with the 50mm f1.4 Takumar and some cows.

The view from the hide was crying out for the fisheye. I couldn't resist. This lens does do extraordinary things to the sky

17mm fisheye Takumar

35mm

Reeds. There's a lot of reeds

This Cormorant scarpered when three Mute Swans came along. It made for quite a nice shot

17mm fisheye

Then it was time for this Swan to be enigmatic in the fisheye

It was 100mm macro time. I'm liking this lens. I have a mental block with the longer Takumars. Probably since I don't want to start yearning for the 200mm and then the 500mm then the 1000mm  which would be silly since the older telephoto lenses aren't that good and you're better of with modern ones. I have the Canon 100-400L zoom for birding and will do very nicely for anything far off. However I will have to start using the 135mm f2.5 Takumar in the future. In the mean time here's some 100mm fun.

When the sun came out I walked into this hide. The light shining through the holes and gaps really hit me. I couldn't resist.

50mm f1.4

While getting a bit lost in the woods I stumbled across this little patch of Bulrushes. It was nice and quiet so I spent some time playing with f stops etc.

50mm

50mm

100mm

100mm

100mm

100mm

100mm

100mm

Rustle in the wind

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A study in longish exposure from Westhay Nature Reserve. It was an EFRS day with James but due to a severe lack of birds I dug out the Canon 6D and clipped on the Takumar 50mm. Deliberately slowing the shutter speed down to 1/4th or 1/3 sec as the wind blew through the reeds around the hides. It was fun but sods law dictated that when I wanted to get a snap the wind would invariably stop!!

Enjoy the fuzzy reeds, it makes a change from fuzzy water.

For a change I swapped to the Takumar 100mm f4 Macro which serves very well as a standard prime as well. I kept this on for the rest of the day just to see what would happen. I need to use it more I think.

The slow-mo reeds were easy to snap. Whats to go wrong! However windy dull days isn't the best for macro with no flash. I gave it my best shot. Most was hit and miss.

James tried to bag a hover fly above him with his all singing all dancing auto focus 400mm zoom. He quickly gave up. I then trotted up and simply focused and snapped a few off. Another winner for the manual focus gang hee hee

A bit of fuzzy water and fuzzy reeds to end the day.

Overcast and dull and lifeless light never bothers me. It was like that today. You can get around it and as I often think, there is no such thing as bad light only different light. Use it.

Jumping on the bandwagon

Something a bit different.  I was invited to come along and take some photos of a local band down at The Sheppey.  Possibly the best pub in the universe!

I was more than happy to accommodate.  The 2 main questions were:
a. What lens?
b. Should I wear my gorilla outfit? (Halloween)

I selected the Carl Zeiss DDR 50mm and didn't wear the gorilla suit.

It was quite a challenge as there were people eating and it was dark!

The lens is fantastic though and performs really well even in low light.

It was a great venue for the band and it all went off really well.  More importantly they liked the pictures and I'm back for more in February (maybe with a different lens).