Trip Reports - Some locations disappoint

Occasionally you find locations in your trips out that you think will be brilliant at certain times of the year. A week ago I went to a site about 40 minutes drive from here with a friend to see if that thought was going to be true.

Well we both got a lot of Horse Fly bites, it was extremely hot and it was a long walk.

The Marsh Orchids had all gone over, there were no dragonflies. Only three species of butterfly, all of which are resident in my garden. so it was a few measly Blue Damselflies.

I used my Canon 70-200f2.8IS L lens with a Kenko 36mm extension tube as the 180 macro was being used but it's owner.....sadly.

However, the zoom plus tube makes a pretty good job of it, although it is not quite as good in my opinion. Although you can be the judge of that from the two images below of a male and a female.




As a postscript, the Guinness afterwards sat by the little river in Bourton on the Water was pure nectar.

And I am sure the site will deliver some gems photographically at other times of te year

Martin

Other Comps

Whilst Martin is on the subject of competitions i thought i would add a couple more

Natures Best photography Comp-similar to the Wildlife Photographer of the year, A certain Mr Rouse did well in this one last year

National Wildlifes Photography Contest

North Carolina Wildlife photography Competition-For the locals

Dave

News - British Wildlife Photography Awards 2009

A brand new international photography, the British Wildlife Photography Awards 2009 sets out to celebrate and recognise the talents of all nationalities practising in the UK while at the same time highlighting the great wealth and diversity of the natural history of the British Isles.

The competition is open for entries until 31st July and can be made on line.

Apologies to our non UK readers.

Martin

Low and Mid range Lenses

Not everybody can afford or needs pro lenses but everybody wants to have good quality images, So if your budget is in the low hundreds rather than thousands what should you buy-do you stick with Canon or Nikon or do you look at 3rd party lenses like Sigma,Tamron or Tokina, Well in the past i have used some of Sigmas EX range and had very good results and would have no hesitation in recommending them against the mid range lenses from Canon and Nikon and if you are looking cheaper still then i would buy Sigmas and Tamrons over the Camera Manufactuers lenses, The Quality of 3rd party lenses has increased over the last 10 years and hold their own against low and mid budget lenses from Canon or Nikon, Late last year i replaced all my kit and chose the Sigma 180mm Macro over Nikons macro offerings,Both Sigmas 180 and 150mm Macro lenses are excellent and way below the cost of Canon or Nikons lenses, I used Tamrons 90mm Macro for years and it was as sharp as any Macro lens i have come across, So dont think that as you have a Canon or Nikon body that the lenses have to come from the same as there are some excellent lenses out there are a fraction of the cost

Dave

Sometimes something very useful comes along

With thanks to the EOS Network this fabulous little application came to my notice.

The Photographers Ephemeris is an application that gives you sunrise/sunset times, plus angles of declination.

So what I have one of those little plastic sunrise/sunset compasses I hear you say.

Well I have one too - somewhere. But this little application, courtesy of Stephen Trainor is available for free and can be found here. You will also need to download Adobe AIR if you don't already have it.

It now sits on my little Samsung Netbook and goes with me wherever I go. I can just select the location I am at, look at the map shown and see exactly where the sun rises and sets.

This is a vital and wonderful tool for those golden hour shots so we can work out where we need to go, even before we leave home.

So thanks to Stephen and EOS Network.

Fianlly apologies to Peter Edge - sorry I deleted your comments on my recent Canon Prices blog rather than publish - If you could write again, I will hit the right button this time.

Phew just made the post in time - still maintaining our daily record of a post each day

Martin

To Clone or to Heal

This week i have processed about 300 images, All images needed some healing,a few cloning and some both-Whats the difference and why and when would you use these tools, The cloning tool does what it says,it clones or copies exactly and the healing brush works out what the pixels are like surrounding the brush and blends the area in so that the dust spot or whatever disappears,Dust is a digital photographers biggest pain, Dust removal systems built into some camera bodies help but dont totally irradicate dust and if you shoot with plain backgrounds like sky,snow or walls then dust will show up as grey dots-these are easily removed with the healing brush, But on a few images of mountain goats in snow i had a small piece of rock intruding into an edge of the image,if i tried to remove this with just the healing brush i would end up with a smudged colour so i had to clone a small line along the image edge then use the healing brush on all of the rock this gave a perfect removal, The same goes with anything that touches the image edge like a power cable running right across the image, Clone both ends then use the healing brush on the middle bit-here i would actually chop the cable up into small pieces with the clone tool and then use the healing brush on the smaller pieces,When i processed my fox images there was traces of dog food on some of the tree stump and i would clone some similar tree bark over this,if i had used the healing brush i would have ended up with smudged bark, I personally dont see a problem in removing small items in an image-enhancing it rather than changing it

Dave

Canon Prices - Another whinge!!

So you have a Canon Mr-14EX ring flash and you are of course very happy that it fits straight on to your Canon 100mm f2.8macro lens.

You then get you hands on the Canon 180 f3.5 macro and find that the MR14 doesn't fit. So over to the Canon flash accessories section and you find there are three adapters for different sized filter threads. The three sizes are 52mm, 58mm and 72mm. They are all essentially the same - a pressed and threaded piece of metal - so all the same price eh?

Not on your life - £14.99 for the two smaller diameters, and £29.99 for the larger for the 180.

So Canon assume that because you can afford to buy the 180, you can pay more for the adapter.

This is pure profiteering Canon - and we call on you to stop this unfair practice.

OK Whinge over now - must be the heat

Martin

Review-Nikon 200-400 F4 VR 10 months on

Last night there were some dragonflies in my garden so i grabbed the 200-400 and some extension tubes and even though the light was low decided to give it a go and grab some shots, I have been stuck behind a PC for days so a quick fix is better then nothing, After i had had my fix and went through the images i realised just how versatile the 200-400 is, I have heard it mentioned by some that its probably the best lens in the world and i think that maybe true, I have used it for macro/close up type work in conjunction with extension tubes to handholding in the mountains and for birds in flight,pet and landscape photography-a jack of all trades and a master of them to, The 200-400 compliments both my D3 and D300, The images are sharp and have good depth in the colours, and it works well with the 1.4x and 1.7x extenders as long as you take into account the AF speed slows with the 1.7x the IQ is still good, Its no light weight sitting roughly between a 300F2.8 and a 500F4-Solid in the hand the build quality shines through, People moan that Nikon lenses are more expensive than the Canon equivalent (the 200-400 doesn't have one) but having used both systems i would say that the Nikon lens do feel very solid and that they also have a 5 year warranty which other manufactures don't offer, If i was to have just one lens then this would be the one



Dave