Swans at Brayford Wharf
I work and live in Lincoln and I consider myself quite lucky to live in such a wondrous place with lots of wildlife around. The main office is based on Brayford Wharf (if the map below doe snot show, refresh the browser window):
There are many species of bird who reside on the main expanse of water, such as the Mallard ducks. I have already seen one group of ducklings with their mother and she was guiding them through a group of hungry swans - I didn't see any of them get eaten. I wasn't expecting to see any hatched ducklings this early.
I unfortunately wasn't able to get a good shot of them as they were too far away and the camera I had with me at the time my SONY NEX-7 only had the 18-55mm lens attached - I am still waiting for the 55-210 lens that I pre-ordered back in November to be shipped 
)
I went out last Friday with my D3S and 70-200+1.7x to see if I could get any better pictures. The swans are quite interesting this time of year as they are looking for mates.
The males are displaying their wings:
To the various females around:
There are some juvenile swans on the Brayford:
The one in the picture above and below is probably around 2 years old as he/she has nearly shed all of his/her brown feathers.
It will be another 2 years before this swan seeks out a mate and starts breeding; Swans mate for life.
You may have seen swans who lift their feet out of the water:
This is normal its like where we cross our legs; additionally the large surface area of the foot is used for body temperature control, absorbing heat from the sun if needed.
My last swan picture in this post is technically a "butt-shot" buts shows a swan diving for food:
Note the claw on its large foot - I wouldn't want to mess with this guy (which by the way is totally illegal and will lead to prosecution).
As I stated at the start of this post, there are other birds on and around the wharf. Such as the last of the black-headed gulls:
There is also this goose:
I have seen this goose before,it is probably an Embden goose - a domestic goose bred for food; this one probably escaped at some point and is now living in the wild around the Brayford Wharf. They don't normally have brown heads though; there is a Wikipedia entry here.
And as always the ever present Feral pigeon:
This is one of the better (not so inbred) specimens and he has rather helpfully landed on the edge of the wharf for me which makes this shot pleasing to the eye.
Finally I will leave you some links if you would like to read some more about swans. I'll start with my nest watch posts from last year:
- Urban Wildlife Photography (30th April 2011) - click here
- Swans Nest Update 2 (18th May 2011) - click here
- Swans Nest Update 3 (1st June 2011) - click here
- Swans Nest Update 4 (6th June 2011) - click here
The next two links proved useful in providing some data into the research I did for this post:
If you use the data at these sites, you should consider a donation.
Adobe releases Photoshop CS6 Public Beta
Today Adobe have released for free the public beta of the next version of Photoshop.
This is ready to be downloaded from Adobe Labs here.
As is usual, NAPP/Kelby media are involved with the release and have various videos to help, Scott Kelby's blog has some information.
Michael Reichmann’s thoughts on the Nikon D800/D800e
At the back end of last week Michael Reichmann who is a photographer I have admired for some time now (mostly to the now discontinued? Video Journal) and his excellent website has written a very good piece on the Nikon D800 and D800E - I recommend that anyone considering the purchase of either camera read his article here.
I have read quite a lot about the D800/D800E as I considered (maybe still considering) the purchase of one and this is one of the best articles so far.
It seems that to get the best out of the 36MP is going to be some work and may involve "slowing down" of the process of taking the picture. You will also be required to purchase/own some of Nikon's better and newer lenses - fortunately for me all of the lenses I own (except for the 50mm AFS 1.4) should be OK.
Second March visit to Hartsholme
As stated in my previous Hartsholme blog entry I am the proud owner of the 70-200mm f2.8 VR II Nikon AF-S lens and that I had ordered the TC 17E II (1.7x) teleconverter but it hadn't arrived. The following Wednesday after the visit I got a call from London Camera Exchange in Lincoln that the teleconverter had arrived.
So the following Saturday (last weekend) I went to try out the 70-200 +1.7x which gave me an effective aperture of 4.76 with an actual aperture of around f4 (from a depth of field point of view).
So what shots did I get?
I started at the usual place and got the obligatory Canada Goose:
I like this shot due to the way the Goose is craning its neck.
As I stated in my last post, this is a great time of year for bird photography as there is a lot of action as the various species mark territory and select mates. Here me have a male Mallard duck chasing off another male Mallard:
And here are two Coots in a similar manner:
There were also a pair of Tufted ducks swimming around and diving for food, I saw some tufted ducks the weekend prior but couldn't get close enough, the extra reach of the 1.7 TC allowed me to capture them:
Here is one close up:
and then diving for food:
There were also a pair of Cormorants, one was there at the start of my visit and second one arrived:
The one at the back of the picture (with the browner plumage) is younger than the foreground Cormorant.
After sitting on the branch together for some time they decide to go into the water. I didn't see them enter and from a distance I though that they were Crested Grebes until I took the picture that is:
As you can see the one of the left is about to take off.
Here is the Cormorant as he takes off:
The Cormorant on the right took off to the right a few seconds after this - I couldn't get pictures of both unfortunately.
The Herons were also present, I didn't see any young but they were flying around and occasionally bringing back twigs to maintain their nests:
As usual, the Geese were flying in from time to time. Sometimes in singles or pairs:
Technically this is a "butt" shot but the eye is in focus and I like the motion blur in the wings.
Sometimes wholw flocks of them cam into land:
Finally, there were a number of black-headed gulls around although less than before which means it's getting warmer and Spring is finally upon us:
I like this picture as there are two birds in focus while the other birds all at various points of focus.
All in all it was a very rewarding trip with lots to see and the extra reach of the TC17-E II made all the difference.
Lightroom 4 – Shadow Slider
Whilst going through my photo's from last weekend's photo shoot (blog post coming soon), I was using Lightroom 4. In fact I am now using Lightroom 4 for all of my photos. The controls in the basic panel are simply fantastic and it's amazing what it can do.
I took the following shot of a pigeon that landing on a tree not far from where I was standing, I didn't know it was a pigeon when I took the shot because it was in shadow:
I moved the shadow slider in the basic panel to the right (from the zero - middle position):
And "voilà!" the image became much clearer:
You will also note that the Highlight slider was moved to the left quite a bit so that the background wasn't too blown out. I never cease to be amazed at what you can pull out from a picture that wasn't exposed appropriately. This is one of the many reasons why I shoot in RAW.
Hartsholme – March 2012
Just over a week ago I visited Hartsholme Park to see if there were any changes to the available wildlife as Spring is a very active time. I also wanted to test my new Nikon 70-200 f2.8 VR II lens on the D3. I have also ordered the Nikon 1.7 Extender II but this didn't arrive in time for the photo shoot.
I must admit it was a breath of fresh air shooting at f2.8 and ISO 200. The only problem is that I am giving up some of the reach so have to crop heavily, however the amazing sensor of the D3 allows quite a bit of this before degradation.
The most active birds at the moment are the Heron's they are busy building nests for their young which will be along shortly:
You can see how much I cropped by looking at the full size image below:
There was fierce competition for some of the nesting sites as evidenced by these shots:
Fortunately there were other birds that did allow you to get closer and hence the cropping was less:
The Geese were very vocal as they always are, I noticed this Goose and I couldn't decide if it was a Greylag or a Canada Goose. Apparently it isn't unusual to find hybrid Greylag/Canada geese; so this is probably one of them:
Whilst taking pictures there was a rustle in the bushes behind me and I could just see a blackbird in there foraging through the deal leaves. It took some patience on my part but I eventually managed to get a picture of him:
Apple iPad 3 and more
Last night (UK time) Apple announced the widely anticipated iPad 3, there were some rumors thay it may have been called the iPad HD but these turned out to be false. I was particularly interested as I still have the original generation iPad; I didn't deem the enhancements for the iPad 2 as enough to justify the upgrade. That is changing though as there are two applications that I want to use that won't run on the original iPad - Photoshop Touch and (according to the App Store) iPhoto.
So what are the new features of the iPad 3 over the iPad 2:
- Retina Display, this is now a 2048 x 1536 hires display that has more pixels than a 1080p flat-screen TV. The colour fidelity has also been improved.
- A5X Quad-core Graphics chip, this is needed to drive the retina display but will also means awesome graphics for games.
- iSight camera, the rear camera has been upgraded to a 5MP camera and it uses some of the same technology that is used on the iPhone 4s camera. This also offers 1080p video recording.
- 4G Wireless, well in the UK this doesn't mean much as we don't have any 4G yet. They have, however also upgraded the various 3G technologies that are available such as HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA. The wireless also now supports personal hotspot for sharing of the wireless bandwidth.
- Siri Dictation, the power of Siri is available for dictation (only).
Needless to say I will be getting one of these puppies (64GB + 3G).
Apple also released iOS 5.1 with the following features:
- Japanese language support for Siri (availability may be limited during initial rollout)
- Photos can now be deleted from Photo Stream
- Camera shortcut now always visible on Lock Screen for iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (4th generation)
- Camera face detection now highlights all detected faces
- Redesigned Camera app for iPad
- Genius Mixes and Genius playlists for iTunes Match subscribers
- Audio for TV programmes and films on iPad optimised to sound louder and clearer
- Podcast controls for playback speed and a 30-second rewind for iPad
- Addresses bugs affecting battery life
- Fixes an issue that occasionally caused audio to drop for outgoing calls
My iPhone 4s is currently downloading iOS 5.1, I'll do the iPad later.
Apple also released iTunes 6 to support the new iPad and 1080p films. This also means that my Apple TV (2nd generation) needs to replaced if I want to watch the 1080p films.
Adobe release Photoshop Lightroom 4
Adobe have announced the release of Lightoom 4 (LR4). You can find more details here.
They have reduced the price slightly too; the full version costs £237.60, while the upgrade costs £76.25. You can get LR4 even cheaper if you purchase it with one of the CS5 or CS5.5 suites. NAPP members should also be able to receive further discounts on these prices.
Interestingly, Adobe have announced the support of additional cameras including the Nikon D4, D800 and D800e as well as the Canon EOS-1D X, Powershot G1 X, S100 and a handful of Fuji Finepix models.
There is going to be a lot of coverage of the software over the next few days and weeks. DPReview have some coverage already here; Scott Kelby here and Michael Reichmann at Luminous Landscape is already promoting their training course that they have provided for this software since the first version here.
My Gear page updated
I have just updated and re-instated the My Gear page. It was out-of date and didn't include some of the new stuff I have recently acquired.
The only item listed that I don't have (because it has been out-of-stock for as long as I can remember) is the Sony 55-210 NEX lens. I hope that I can get this before I go on holiday to Florida.
Once I have had a chance to use some of the new stuff a bit more I'll post hands-on-review posts.
Photoshop Touch for iPad is here
Adobe have announced Photoshop Touch, more can be found about at their website here.
It only runs on the iPad 2 (I only have the v1 ), looks like that faster processor is needed. I am waiting for the iPad 3 anyway so there's one more reason to upgrade.
Scott Kelby also mentions Photoshop Touch on his blog here too.
You can get the app from the app store, here is the link.