Still No Answer

Bored or what? Is this Reggie Perrin's Mother-in-Law?

The question I posed in my blog last week is still unanswered and from the look of the forecast for the next seven days, it's not going to be any time soon. Personally it has been a great help in dealing with my well documented backlog such that I expect to clear it in the next day or two.
I've also been noting how others are dealing with the situation, a few even carrying on regardless. Maybe we all should just go with what we have. Others are taking the opportunity to go back through their saved images and see what they can find. I even noticed a pro photographer doing just that and using his latest version of processing software to re-process images that pre-date that software.
Finally, I can't end this blog without mentioning our good friend Frank Gardiner who really allowed his creative juices to flow yesterday. His blending of two images showing a train on the Swanage railway steaming out of an alleyway in Bridport shows his creative skills in a new light. And that is something else we can do while the weather is against us, learn new processing skills. I could certainly do with that, but I'm not about to wish the weather stays the same in order to achieve it.

When Will it End?

It's difficult to write a wildlife photography blog when you're not actually out there practising the art. Like a lot of Dorset togs, especially those with weekday jobs, the weather at weekends has not been good enough to get out for weeks. Had I not attended a Canon demo day at Kimmeridge by taking a day off work in early November, I would not have used a camera since October 25th. For Rose, it's even worse and she is now approaching two months since she got out.

But there is a silver lining to all of this. With 7500 unprocessed images to go through from this year, I was starting to feel overwhelmed. However I expect that by next weekend, I shall have reduced that to zero and then I shall be looking for decent weather.

Finally, some wildlife news, but not good news. This image is of the very well known and much photographed Frodo. He was one of the resident foxes at the British Wildlife Centre at East Grinstead and this year I had the pleasure of photographing him on two occasions. Indeed, on my second visit in July, while I was laying down in his enclosure and shooting his female companion, Frodo was actually stood on my back to get a better view. Sadly, last Friday week, he passed away through old age. RIP Frodo

Captive Photography

Shooting captive wildlife such as this fox image from the British Wildlife Centre is something of a problem for me, but should it be that way? 

To me, wildlife photography should mean just that, the animals are wild. Not only does that test your photographic abilities, but also tests your fieldcraft skills. So the decent images that result are doubly pleasing.

But more and more we are moving away from that ideal to a greater or lesser degree. I'd never post an image shot in a zoo, but somehow this one seems different. Is it because the centre was closed to the public and just a small group of photographers were given access to the actual enclosures with the animals? The images are much easier to come by (if you discount inadvertently laying in fox poo to get it) because the animals are used to people.

Then we come on to the subject of hides and also the number of staged shots that appear quite regularly.

Even some African safari images are of captive animals, although the vast areas covered by the reserves mean they are essentially wild and they do have to find their own food.

So does any of this really matter? Just like the view on individual images, the answer is subjective. If you get pleasure from the image, it doesn't matter. I know I'll always get the biggest kick out of a decent image of a fully wild animal, but that won't prevent me doing some more captive work. I'm less comfortable with it, but what I will always do is make it clear the animal is captive. Now that is another ethical question entirely!

Be Careful What You Wish For

Canon 5DS, Canon 24-70mm f/4L IS USM at 24mm, 1/8sec at f/11, ISO 800

The problem with a full time job is it leaves only the weekends to indulge our hobby at this time of year. With the last two weekends having bad weather and the good one prior to that being otherwise engaged, the trigger finger is in danger of seizing up. So I was glad I took the opportunity to take an afternoon off and spend it at Kimmeridge Bay in company with David Noton and fourteen other F11 members. Also along was Rob Cook from Canon UK with a boot full of cameras and lenses for us to try out.
The main cameras on offer were the Canon 5DS and 5DS R, along with a selection of lenses. My preference was to try the 5DS with both the 24-70 f2.8 and 24-70 f4 L series lenses. All I had to provide was a tripod and memory cards.
Both of these cameras boast 50 megapixel sensors and consequently record amazing detail, something we all want. But apart from the financial side of owning one of these, there are a number of costs to bear in mind. First and foremost is an absolute need to be spot on with focussing, anything slightly off will be readily seen. For that reason, it is a good plan to use high shutter speeds too and that is a luxury that we don't always have.
Supposing we have that aspect nailed, when we get back in front of the computer, the next set of costs hit home. The resulting file sizes are obviously huge and that extends the time it takes to download the images, to deal with them once you have them in your software of choice and finally it massively increases the amount of storage required.
The quality that can be achieved is beyond doubt, but is the price worth paying?

Storage and All That

The advent of digital photography has brought the pastime into the range of many more people than was the case in the old film days. I know I couldn't sustain the cost when I first tried photography in the 1980s and the levels to which we can, and do go to these days was unthought of.

But there comes with it the problem of storage, unless you can be very disciplined in what you keep and ruthless in what you discard. Rose and I are not good at that, so I've had to work on a system to keep all our precious pictures safe. I'm just about there now and pleased the hard work is behind me.

I took the opportunity to look back at some of the images I've made in the past few years and discovered two things. The early images that I thought were good at the time would these days probably go straight to the Recycle Bin and secondly, in amongst the files are some images that I either forgot, or worse didn't know, I had. This Siskin from January 2014 at Blashford Lakes is a case in point, even though I did post it to my Flickr account.

Storage sorted, hopefully I can get out and shoot some new images in the next week.

Quiet Weekend

After a three busy weekends chasing Red Squirrels on Brownsea Island, Red Kites in Wales and Fallow Deer in West Sussex, there was nothing planned for this weekend. It was a good opportunity to catch up on a mountain of processing, but the weather today (Sunday) just begged for a session with the camera.
It's been a while since we ventured to either Radipole Lake or Lodmoor, but the lure of the juvenile Spoonbills that have been at Lodmoor for a few days required a visit. Once there, it was apparent that only one of the three remained and as usual was quite distant. But this one was more accommodating than usual and not only did we get several fly pasts close to the viewpoint, we also got a landing quite close, which yielded this image.
Other highlights of the day, although not in range of the camera, were a Yellow-browed Warbler, a pair of Marsh Harriers, a number of Snipe and a Bittern in flight. It was good to meet up with Richard Collier, his wife Ann and Linda Priestley for the first time too. Mustn't leave out Danny Dench, who was giving out his usual nonsense, as well.

Red Kites - Take 3

We've had a couple of visits to Gigrin Farm to get some shots of the Red Kites and on both occasions had dismal weather. On both weekends we also tried a back-up shoot at Nant yr Arian, but encountered rain there. So it was unfinished business.
We learned about another feeding centre in the Brecon Beacons at Llanddeusant and last weekend paid a visit. This site is a bit lower-key and in our opinion the better for it. The feeding is much closer to the hides and there are less birds, around a hundred, which makes the photographic experience slightly easier.
Needless to say, conditions were against us again. So we decided to delay our return on Monday, when the forecast was for unbroken sunshine, to have another try. Sadly it was no better, probably worse, but we had fun trying. Red Kites are still unfinished business, but we feel this site is just about achievable as a day trip when the weather is set fair.

Red Squirrels - Time to Blog Again

I don't seem to have had much time recently to blog, post images to Flickr, or do much other than try to make images. The blogs that have appeared recently have been lifted from our website, which we have now closed down. The problem lies in the fact that I have 5700 images to go through and little time to do it.

I suppose the answer is to put the camera down and not pick it up until I have either cleared the backlog, or at least made a major dent in the total number. But the time of year is against that; the Red Squirrels are busy, the Red Deer rut is underway and we also have a date booked with Red Kites. It looks like there is a recurring red theme there, but that's just the way it is.

So I'm going to try my best to get something out there on a weekly basis from now on, starting with this Red Squirrel captured on our trip to Brownsea Island over the weekend. We had a memorable day and over three hours with a small number of these beauties entertaining us. This was probably at least our fourth attempt to get some decent 'Red' images and there's still a trip to the Isle of Wight booked for next year to get them. Maybe after the Brownsea success, we should cancel that trip so that I can spend more time clearing my backlog.

Long Time No See

It's been absolutely months since I blogged on our website and apologies for that. It's not to say we have been idle, far from it, but with thousands of images to go through and work to be done, there hasn't been the time.
To give an indicator of the problem, since our last blog we have been to the British Wildlife Centre at East Grinstead, Cornwall, Botswana, Shetland, Mull and finally Bempton Cliffs. Thankfully we now have a three-month lull in proceedings, which hopefully will allow us to process the backlog, ready to shoot some more in the Autumn.
Meanwhile, we have been posting a few images in our Flickr accounts and also on the Ian Rose Photography Facebook page. This Oystercatcher is a sample image from the trip to the Isle of Mull, taken on the shore of Loch Na Keal.

Processing Time

It's hard to believe it has almost been a month since the last blog post and it would be easy to think we've been idle. That couldn't be further from the truth, but time has been at a premium and some of the IT kit has been in hospital for treatment.
With only weekends available to get out at the moment, the weather has to play ball too and it hasn't exactly done that for us. But every cloud has a silver lining as they say (how apt), so it has given the opportunity to work on the cataloguing of our images and also do some much needed processing. Hence this Red Kite image, shot back in October 2013, has finally seen the light of day.

Upton Country Park

Having a day off and with reasonable weather forecast, Rose and I ventured down to Upton Country Park, where we knew there was a chance of photographing Jays. The Jay has been one of the birds we've long wanted to get more images of, but we knew the park had to be quiet to have a good chance. 
We saw quite a number and set out to get them, but it wasn't easy. The forecast sunny periods were very few and far between and the appearance of a Jay naturally didn't coincide with them. This turned out to be my best effort and from quite a distance. But it was a good test for the new Canon 100 - 400 Mk ii zoom straight out of the box.

Radipole Again

We've been a little quiet on the blog for a while, but that's not to say we haven't been busy. We've taken a number of trips to Radipole Lake, but have always come away fairly disappointed. Either there wasn't much about or conditions were largely against us. That little bit of luck was always missing too.
Today we decided to go down and have a look for the Water Rails that our friend Danny had found yesterday. To our surprise, they were showing very well, but not as well as the Bearded Tits. We have found the beardies on previous visits, but they have been quite flighty and hard to get at. Today was slightly different in that they stayed in one location for long periods,but it was breezy and trying to get focus through the reeds was as difficult as ever.
I was pleased to get this one and also the one on my Flickr page. Rose also got some excellent images and they are starting to appear on her own Flickr page. The Water Rails? Well we did get some shots, mostly bum shots in truth, but it was just good to be seeing them as they are usually very elusive.

Kicking Off in Somerset

We decided to venture over to the Somerset Levels yesterday for our first visit in over a year just to see what we could find. Starting at RSPB Greylake, we have never seen so many wildfowl in one place, but they were all asleep. However we did get one or two pleasing shots. 
Next we tried Shapwick Heath, but never raised a camera to our eyes, so across the road to RSPB Ham Wall we went. This was looking to be much the same, apart from a friendly Robin that seemed to be following us wherever we went. But just when we thought we were going to have an unproductive day, an obliging pair of Reed Buntings put on a show for us in front of one of the hides, albeit at some distance. That was the theme for the rest of the day, typified by this Cormorant drying off after fishing trip.