Lunch!

I've just got back from a highly enjoyable trip to Belstead House with other members of Cambridge Camera Club, and I'll post some pictures as and when I get round to processing them. As a "starter for ten", here are a couple of images I took while waiting to be served at a "greasy spoon" trailer in a car park overlooking Felixstowe docks. Actually, the cafe served good, honest, simple food which was highly enjoyable. There's nothing more pleasurable than a bacon butty and chips at the seaside!



The owners of the chips, in their entirety...

It's a "dog meet dog" world

Out for a walk a couple of mornings ago, Amber and I bumped into one of the local foxes. Until Amber spotted it (Labradors can be pretty blind when they want to be!) the fox simply kept a good eye on us. Amazingly, it also seemed to mirror Amber's movements, as can be seen here.



The pictures were taken on the LX3, which has a very short reach (60mm in old money), so these are 100% crops. I've been experimenting with a new application: Focus Fixer, which was reviewed in the RPS Digital Imaging Group magazine. It's an astonishing piece of software, working rather differently to the more normal sharpening functions. Rather than trying to find edges and then emphasize them, it models the behaviour of the camera and the lens, including the aperture used. By calculating the circle of confusion which would normally result from the chosen settings, it subtracts this "blurred" version from the original - the result is extra clarity, and sharpening apparently without artifacts. For comparison, I've included the originals taken straight from the RAW files below.

Long time, no bee...

The last couple of weeks have been horrendously busy, and I've managed to take very few pictures. This was one I took this lunchtime on Coldham's Common, just across the road from where I work. It was taken with the Lumix LX3, which is proving to be an excellent performer when it comes to close-up work.

CCC outing to Grantchester

On a beautiful late Spring/early Summer evening, a bunch of CCC members went for a walk through Grantchester Meadows. There were, of course, the usual punts and canoeists (the example below looking particularly smug, as one of his colleagues had just fallen in!).



The insect life was abundant - especially damsel flies and mayflies. Being a camera club, people lined up in order to "have a go" at photographing them. Ann had the right idea, however: one of the mayflies had got itself stuck in a spider's web, and consequently wasn't going anywhere!



As the sun went down, the view through the trees towards Trumpington was amazing ...



... as was the amount of washing up which hadn't been done at the Orchard Tea Rooms. The results of a day's dedicated consumption were piled high, and the local chaffinch population was having a great time as a result. Being a truly dedicated photographer, I spent some time taking pictures of the devastation while others went down the pub. Outrageous!

First poppies of the season

A welcome relief from the endless yellow of the oil seed rape, a few poppies have started to flower in the fields where I walk Amber in the mornings. Pictures of poppies are a bit hackneyed, I know, but they're still very attractive and cry out to be photographed. Who cares if it's all been done before?

RPS Advisory Day

There was an RPS Eastern Region "Advisory Day" (aka distinctions workshop) in Bildeston on Sunday, at which I was helping. This is a picture of Paul Foley FRPS, extolling the virtues of Sue's prospective "A" panel and tinkering with the layout of the prints. The rather spooky lighting is the result of some low-level industrial halogen lamps.

Lumix close-up

The Leica lens on the Lumix LX3 is really pretty impressive - especially for close-ups. Being such a small sensor, the depth of field is significantly higher than it would be for an SLR at the same aperture. The resolving power is excellent too, as can be seen in the 100% crop from the dandelion picture.

More from Bletchley Park

Another picture of Don, our guide, doing what all Irishmen do best: talking! He made a reference to having a military background during the morning, so we assumed he was wearing some kind of regimental tie. On closer inspection, it's clear he belongs to the local golf club instead!



Two pictures of homo photographicus specimens in their natural habitats. The first is Tony, our club secretary, with a miniature submarine for scale; the second is Lorne, obviously in contemplative mood (or simply cream crackered, perhaps).



Detail of the wiring in the Bombe room - truly a work of art, as well as being important historically.



Examples of some of the graceful dilapidation to be found by the bucket-load at Bletchley Park. It would be wonderful to get inside some of the huts, but I imagine that Health & Safety concerns would soon put a stop to that. Pity...

Rutland Water

These pictures were taken at Rutland Water on Sunday morning, around 7:30 or so. It started as a fabulously sunny and windless day - so much so that the yacht racing was cancelled, and the fishermen (sorry, fisherpeople) had the water to themselves. As can be seen from the first image, there was a hot air balloon drifting slowly by - the views must have been spectacular. By 3 in the afternoon, however, it was "blowing a hooley" (not sure of the spelling for this technical angling term!) and had gone very cold. Still, with 8 fish in the bag, it was a Grand Day Out.

And the lion shall lay down with the lamb...

...or, in this case, Amber the labrador shall lay down with Hecate (aka Squirt, because of her diminutive size). Dog and cats seem to coexist perfectly happily indoors; outside the cats are "fair game", however, and are repeatedly chased up trees, over fences, and through the cat flap at something approaching Mach 3!

Bletchley Park

I've been very remiss when it comes to posting lately, but this can be put down to important events like Harriet's 50th birthday celebrations (and going fishing several times too, of course).

Cambridge Camera Club had a highly enjoyable outing to Bletchley Park last Wednesday, and here are a few of the pictures from that day. It's a fascinating place, and we had an excellent guide for the day - so much so that I spent more time contemplating the history of the establishment than taking photos.

This is Don, our guide, explaining the derivation of the word Bombe, and a couple of close-ups of the amazing electro-mechanical device which was used to help crack the Enigma code.



Since it was a Camera Club outing, there were plenty of homo photographicus specimens to be found around the grounds. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to go inside any of the derelict huts, so these two had to make do with shooting through the window instead. What's great about Bletchley Park is that it's decaying in a rather graceful way, and has managed to avoid being turned into a "theme park". How much longer this will last is debatable, however...



We were allowed to take pictures inside the "mansion", provided we didn't interfere with a conference which was taking place at the same time. The ballroom had a superb ceiling, but unfortunately it was also the location of the conference dinner - hence I had to make do with looking into the room from the doorway.



The final example of homo photographicus (this time with its mate, which is relatively rare) was observed looking for a natural history subject on an otherwise historical trip! The bluebells in question were growing by the side of the lake.

Five star customer...

...or five star fuss-pot! Spotted just as I was leaving to go home last night, and had me chuckling quietly to myself. My feeling is that anyone who drives their Mercedes into a ditch deserves all they get, and certainly loses any right to be fussy - irrespective of the number of stars. I considered obscuring the number plate to protect the individual involved, but then thought better of it!

Bluebells in Gamlingay Wood

Not much time to do any blog-posting lately, so I've got a bit of catching up to do. Harriet and I (plus Amber, of course) went to Gamlingay Wood on Saturday to see the bluebells. Actually, I went to photograph them and walk the dog; she went with a work colleague to do some reconnaissance before a Geography department field trip. The bluebells were stunning, but I rediscovered that dog-shake is a problem in such circumstances (it was an "on lead only" place, unfortunately). Still managed to get a few pictures, though...

Historical Bazaar at Wimpole

A Cambridge Camera Club trip to Wimpole Hall on Saturday proved to be a highly enjoyable affair. Not only did we get lots of Spring sunshine, but there was a "Historical Bazaar" selling the paraphernalia needed for all types of historical re-enactments. Probably the most astonishing stall was a Polish couple selling suits of armour - not for decoration, but for jousting! Each suit takes two people a month to make, so it's definitely a labour of love. There was a suit of armour there which was complete apart from its arms and legs - apparently someone had just bought those! I tried the helmet - all 4.5kg of it - which was a rather strange experience. As well as being hot and claustrophobic, the visibility was rubbish; also, acoustically it was like being in an echo-chamber! The whole suit would have been 60kg+, apparently, which is like carrying an extra person around...

The Cambridge Quilters themselves

The final stage of my work for the Cambridge Quilters was to photograph the people who had made the quilt to be raffled, along with the products of their handiwork. Everyone concerned was at a workshop in Comberton at the weekend, so the local duck pond proved an ideal location to include everyone - and the quilt, of course - in a very pleasant environment. Unfortunately, I didn't spot the van parked behind the white gate. Photoshop, here I come...