Cloudy

Only one photo today. It was rainy and cloudy, but sometimes this kind of weather is just fine for photography. Click on the photo to see it bigger.

September Sunday

Random shots from our morning walk in Devil's Dyke.












Random shots from Brighton seafront.















Starlings flying around West Pier.

Sunny Saturday

Was a lovely sunny day today. First thing in the morning we went to have a walk in Stanmer Park with Zebedee. I love the woods there.












I only had my pocket camera with me and it doesn't really do much justice to the atmosphere, but it was such a lovely walk in a beautiful morning sunlight shining through the leaves.



In the afternoon we went to a camera shop to find out whether I can get my damaged Sigma lens fixed or whether I need to buy a new one... (I scratched it on rocks the other day! Stupid stupid me for not having the lens cap on!), as well as visited the dreaded "mall" just because I wanted to buy a plain white plate to take food photos with. Oh, and afterwards, naturally, we had to pop into a pub to regroup and recover from the dreadful experience.


(photo taken by Miles)

In the evening, Miles cooked a rather lovely roasted seabass on a bed of risotto with red wine sauce. Bliss.

To Brighton for the weekend

Just a snap of the Brighton Pier at sunset on our way to pick Miles up and then to Z's Junior School.



(Miles passed his driving test today - whoo-hoo, I have a fully licensed chauffeur!)

Mostly doggies

...and a bit of Newhaven beach. But first doggies. :-)



This morning we went back to Piddinghoe sailing lake as I wanted to stalk the grey heron. And there it was! On that little island in the middle of the lake.



Not a great photo, but here it is. Looking rather pissed off, actually.



I hope I can catch him closer one of these days. Anyway, during our walk we came across the two Rhodesian ridgebacks we meet in the area every now and then.



The fairer coloured one is a little old and doesn't play, but the younger one does... the only problem being that Zebedee has to be mostly airborne in order to keep up with him.






In the evening we went to Castle Hill and met with Magic. Zebedee was full of kisses again.



When he had given enough kisses (or rather: when Magic couldn't put up with him any longer), Zebedee went back to chasing rabbits, who quickly ran away and hid in the spiky shrubbery.



When we were about to go back, we saw the handsome Benson.



After that, we went down on the beach. I thought I'd get some sunset photos with rocks and the sea in the foreground and the setting sun... but there were no clouds in the sky, and I couldn't really get out to the rocks as there is a wide strip of slippery seaweed in between, so I took some shots nearer to the shore instead.



It is quite surreal, really, what with the chalk and stuff.



Even in colour.

Birds and butterflies

We walked along the river to Piddinghoe this morning and I was hoping to see the grey heron that has been teasing me a few times in the past (when I haven't had my long lens with me!). But there was no sign of the heron, so I took some photos of butterflies along the river bank.



My first ever shot of a small tortoiseshell. You don't see them very often around here.



Swans with cygnets... (is that the second batch of the summer? or third?)



Anyway, as we got nearer to the Piddinghoe sailing lake and I saw that there were loads of geese swimming on it, I admit to some shocking behaviour: I thought I'd run towards the lake and make all the geese set off in a frightened flight and I'll get a brilliant picture of dozens of geese taking off from the lake surface. I know - not very nice to disturb the geese's peaceful morning like that. But Zebedee was playing with me and he headed for the lake, too. As I got very close to the edge of the lake, Zebedee was already there by the reeds and long grasses and had just scared some other bird away. Some really big bird. About the size of a grey heron, in fact.



Damn! I missed it! How clever of me to try and scare away the geese and ending up scaring away the one bird that I didn't want to scare, if it happened to be anyway nearby. And the geese were still exactly where they were before - didn't bat an eyelid at our incredibly scary dash towards the lake. (They probably don't even have eyelids, mind you.)



Not even when a swan flew over them.






In the meantime, the grey heron was on the other side of the lake, not in a very photogenic environment.





One of these days I'm going to get a proper photo of it.

Friston Forest in detail

We went to a different part of Friston Forest today, and I thought I'd take some small detail photos this time. But it wasn't going to happen today; didn't get excited about anything I saw. I was hoping to see some interesting shrooms, but it's been too dry (for a change!) recently. Then I remembered that I've been meaning to test whether it is possible to use macro extension rings with the Canon 100-400mm lens. So I thought I'd give it a try.



Absolutely! OK, what can we find to take photos of...






All the above photos are straight from the camera non-cropped, focal length 390mm shots, taken from hmmm maybe about 50-70cm from the subject. The closest focusing distance of the Canon 100-400mm lens is 1.8m, but with the macro extension rings the closest focusing distance is reduced, thus the subject appears bigger in the frame. When I was on the Sussex Summer Safari with David Plummer earlier this year, first off I started taking photos with the 100-400mm, but soon realised that due to the 1.8m minimum focusing distance of the lens it wasn't practical at all when trying to take photos of butterflies. That's when I got the idea of trying macro extension rings with it, and although David said he wouldn't do it, I'm actually quite pleased with the results: I can take the shot from a lot further away than when using my 70mm (Canon 24-70mm "macro"). So until I buy myself a true macro lens, I'll have a little play with this interesting combination.