Dave Frost Photography

OK, I know it’s a weed, and follows the other recent weeds, but for some reason, this is just depressing……..

Nearly three weeks old, and now they’re quite speedy. Instead of lurching from one spot to another like a demented tortoise (or turtle for my overseas visitors) the little ones asre almost walking. It’s quite funny watching them fall over though. This one is ‘Number 1′, who aside from being bigger than the others was also the firsdt one to open her eyes.

“Woody” and his mate used to live in the Leylandi trees at the back of the garden. Last year however, the trees went and he was forced to move next door but one.
Don’t think he bears a grudge though as he often drops in to say hello and aggravate the dogs.

Quite tricky to get a shot off as he moves about quickly – it’s also very gloomy out there at this time of the year.
Was pleased with this attempt, especially as the patio doors haven’t been cleaned for weeks. The Sigma 70-300 is definitelty out performing the old Tamron in pretty much every area at the moment.

I’ve seen quite a few shots recently involving playing cards and motion blur so though I’d have a go myself having borrowed a rather nice Manfrotto Tripod from a friend. I didn’t realise how hard this is to do by yourself !! – For those interested, the Flash was bounced off of the ceiling, and the exposure was metered for the ambient light minus around 1 stop.
Multiple test shots gave me a resultant shutter speed of 1/5 @ f6.3 which captured the movement of the cards quite nicely when I was able to get the timing right. Keeping an eye on the timer, and making sure the cards are within the frame was rather tricky, and I only ended up with two usable shots from 20 or so attempts

Sadly, my living room is too small to not have included the wall in the shot. I already had to clone out a bit of sofa behind me. This for me, makes this shot pretty much just below average, but at least it’s good practice. I thought about trying to remove the wall by copying or cloning in more floor, but my PS skills fall way too short to even attempt it.

Added to the list of shots to re-try properly at some point this year.

So, we packed up and shot of to Southend for the afternoon. Unfortunately we were a week early for the Christmas light switch on (oops) but were looking forward to the fireworks. I never had the tripod, but did think I’d be able to rest the camera on a fence or railing. I hadn’t planned on the crowds and completely forgot that my “pointless” and “annoying” hobby would of course come much lower down the list than everything else.
So, the firework shots were appalling. I mean really really bad. But I did manage a few shots while the kids were on the rides in the Adventure Island Theme Park instead.  This one (as were all the others) was hand held, shutter speed was 1/4 Second @ f4.0.   Have a couple of other shots of this at different settings which can be found at my Flickr page here.

There were also a couple of attempts to shoot some of the other rides. such as the Rage roller-coaster. Under the circumstances they also turned out OK. I’ll be trying more long exposures throughout the winter. I need the practice !!