A Walk in the Countryside - Counting the Birds

I took a trip out round one of my BTO tetrads yesterday for the winter bird count towards the next BTO Bird Atlas.

The walk is on my local patch and I can walk to it from my house. With a mix of various farmland, trees, hedgerows and a village, there is plenty of habitat.

I haven't yet uploaded the results, but there were certainly plenty top be seen with a number of Yellowhammer, plenty of Skylarks and a flock of 100 + Goldfinch, and a single Raven in the first of the timed hour counts, then in the second hour the highlights included numerous large flocks of Fieldfare and Redwing.

It was a beautiful morning, calm, warm and bright sunshine after the gales and rains of yesterday, it made for a marked and welcome contrast.

If you are interested in contributing to the BTO Bird Atlas, check out their website and find out your local coordinator to see what is available . It is an enjoyable walk in the countryside, armed with an OS map, a pair of binoculars and a digital voice recorder, which is easier than a pad and pen.

Martin

New York New York 1

We drove up to New Jersey and stayed with family last night, Had a few too many and didn't get to sleep until 2 am-a very long day, Today we moved into the city and i am at present in Times Square, We dropped our bags and out our tourists heads on and headed to the Empire State building, I haven't been here for about 20 years so it was nice to be back, First impressions of NY for any body who hasn't been is that its a very busy and dirty city-i am not a city person-and its roads are worse than India's, but photographic opportunities abound so i soon filled a 4 gb card and will be doing some night scenes again as we are right in the heart of it, I did manage to get some wildlife in as we had the company of some pigeons at the top of the empire state, Tomorrow i am heading to long island for some shore birds, I damaged my arm a few weeks ago and its still painful just shooting handheld with a wide angle so a 600 could be a problem-we will see tomorrow
For those of you thinking of coming to NY a couple of tips, Go to the 86th floor of the Empire state building and don't bother with the 102nd as its extra money and you have to shoot through glass and get your tickets at the desk and not the guys in the street who will tell you its an hours wait etc etc, there wasn't much of a queue and it was cheaper to buy from the desk, i shot with my D3 and 14-24 and you really do need a wide lens as everything is soo tall





Dave

Trip Report - Fungi in Warwickshire Part 1

OK don't fall off your chairs, I have been out using my camera.

I took a trip yesterday morning to one of my favourite fungi sites so thought it was time to share a few images as it has been a bit of a photo drought for me with one thing and another.

Fungi this year has been very late due to the dry autumn, but it has come out in abundance at my usual spot in probably the last couple of weeks, as there is a lot that is past it's best, but I managed to find some good specimens, which I will share today.

I got a few that were going over that I quite like that I will post in part 2 later in the week.

Among my favourite species are the Mycena group. It is not difficult to find lovely individual samples, but also fabulous family groups so here are some of each.

With two flash heads

Flash heads in slightly different locations giving better foreground lighting

Natural lighting

With two reflectors overhead and wide angle flash from above and too right

For all these shots, I used the 1Dmk3, Canon 180 f3.5L macro, live view, hanging from inverted centre post on tripod, self timer, STE-2 wireless flash trigger, and one or two Canon 580 flashheads, both with Stofen diffusers fitted.

Just wish I had got the two moss fronds sharp on the first two images - didn't pay enough attention to that critical elements.

Some different species and techniques in part 2, plus a short view on rechargeable flash batteries.

Martin

Views - Hands on with the 7D

I got my hands on a 7D yesterday for a brief go.

I took along my 1Dmk3 and shot some equivalent images on both cameras, at a range of ISO settings from 400 to 3200 in RAW.

Just processing and preparing them over this weekend, so if you want to see that and my subjective analysis drop by soon.

It certainly felt nice in the hand, although didn't like the lack of battery grip that is an integral part of the 1D.

Martin

Nikon D3 repairs

After a couple of phone calls Nikon assured me that the D3 would be back with me by today-they kept their word and its just been delivered, I am off to New York tomorrow so really needed it, The camera has been given a service but there was a note saying that the cd error i have been getting with the second card slot could not be found so wasn't fixed, This is a bit of a pain as i know at some point it will have to go back,Thank god for 2 card slots, It seems that the cd error is not uncommon and a few people on forums have been getting the same, As long as you change the cards you can keep shooting so its not the end of the world and i have only had the problem a couple of times in a year but that's because i don't normally shoot enough to use the 2nd card slot, So now its time to clean all the gear and get it packed and ready for an early start tomorrow

Dave

Canon 1D4

Canon are being very pro active in getting their 1D4 owners up to speed by putting out a white paper on its latest and greatest before it hits the shops

White Paper

Also see the CPN 1D4 details

Dave

News - Camera Body Prices

Well it looks like a few of the new body releases are already starting to drop price at a reasonable pace.

A good site resource I have been using to benchmark prices for a few years now is Camerapricebuster here in the UK.

The Canon 7D is now down to £1299 at Jessops surprisingly, who are not usually known for their cutting edge prices, but fair play to the. Just exercise caution when considering memory cards there, as they have been pretty extortionate compared to some of the online offerings that are available.

The latest Nikon offerings of the 300s and 3s are also coming down well as can be sen there too. Certainly, at the current prices the D3s looks a much better option than that of the 1Dmk4, although comparison of those two are totally meaningless until they have decent circulation and availability.

Not that I am in the market for a new DSLR body, but considerate all part of our information service to you at no price to you :-)

Also just to add to Dave's post here on Phase One Capture One V5 Pro, there is also now the standard version available here for download, which is considerably cheaper than the Pro version. 30 day free trail available once you have registered.

Martin

External hard drives

My hard drives are filling up quick so yesterday i decided it was time to go and get a bigger one, I use 3 so over a period of the next couple of months i will replace the others, When you go into a shop there is a bewildering array of different makes and models so which one to go for, I have used the maxtor/Lacie models before and have had 2 go down, I read various forums and at the moment it seems that Western Digital seem to be the most stable, I have used Western Digital for the last couple of years without problems (touch wood) so i have decided to stay with that particular brand, I browsed their range and decided to go for the 1.5TB Elite model, Its USB so simple to install and fast enough for my needs, It has software that allows for easy back up so i will give that a test and see how it performs, The price of drives have come down considerably over the last few years so there isn't a reason to have more than one back up, I would refrain from having too large a drive as there isn't any point of having a drive that will takes years to fill as the chances are that it will fail before that, I tend to change mine every 2 years max

Dave