Autumn Arboretum #1

14-10-18

After the walk to the Botanic Gardens last Monday, Tuesday I took myself off to the local Arboretum, it was a really sunny bright day. Took my old Olympus E620 with the standard 14 – 42mm and 40 – 150mm zoom lenses, because it was so bright I used a polarising filter for all the shots to cut down the reflections from the leaves and bring out the colours. I opened the images in Lightroom  and then edited them in On1 Perfect Effects, really like that program, it’s quick and easy. Glad I went early in the week as the weather has taken a turn for the worse. Took far more photo’s than I normally would so will divide the images into two or maybe three postings.

Through The Trees

Still a lot of Green

Ready To Fly

Pine Tops

Show Your Colours

Old Wounds

Veil Of Leaves

Bend With The Breeze

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Botanics #2

10-10-18

It was a unusually warm day today, 71 deg F. / 22 deg C. Spent the day in the garden catching up on the chores I’d put off, pruning and tidying up, could do with another week at least. The best part was having my cats with me, both of them laying on the lawn enjoying the sunshine, interspersed with dashing around and investigating/supervising what I was up to.

Here are the last few images from my walk to the Botanic Gardens on Monday.

Cheerful 

Fuzzy

Maples x4

Fall Fallen

Seed Pods

Botanics #1

08-10-18

Wasn’t sure if autumn had shown up owing to the hot weather we had recently. But to prevent seizing up I needed a walk, the Botanic Gardens seemed a good idea, an easy 3 mile round trip. So off I went this morning with my old Olympus E620 digital camera and Minolta HiMatic of 1962 vintage. The weather was changeable so I set the Olympus to 400asa to get reasonable shutter speeds with the penalty of a bit of noise in the images.

Lemon & Lime

Autumn Grasses

Contrast

Still Blooming

Hostas On The Turn

Good For The Eye

Soft 1&2

The Arboretum tomorrow I think, it’s supposed to be a sunny day, better for film images.

It’s Arrived

11-11-17

A few shots from my walks into town last week.

Christmas Tree & Clock Tower

The Christmas tree has arrived in the town, and it was a lovely sunny day.

Dare To Wear

Colours On a Dull Day

These were taken on the sigma DP1, I also took an old 120 film camera with me, will see If I can develop the film tomorrow, and if I get any images.

We Had A Sunny Day !

28-10-17

Couldn’t believe it, yesterday (Friday) was beautiful and sunny, so many dull days here in my part of the UK lately. Thought I’d make the best of it and take a walk to the University Botanic Gardens. I needed the exercise and wanted to get some images of the autumn colours, I packed my Sigma DP1 digital and Olympus OM101 film camera.

Here are some of the digital images from the Sigma, I’ll be getting the film shots  processed next week.

Silver Birch

These were just in from the entrance.

Greenish

Very soothing.

Looking Up

Radiance

The Pond

Lovely Greens again, this shot was an HDR.

Japanese Maple

While I was admiring this lovely Maple a women came and stood next to me and commented on the beautiful colour. I turned to speak to her and was immediately stunned by her lovely Grey eyes, I was lost for words, if you knew me you would laugh as I am not noted as being the quiet sort, even though I think I am.

Fungi

I even managed to get my Fungi fix !

Golden Crowns

and Blue skies.

Dappled Maples

I’m looking forward to seeing what the film images will look like.

Orange Skies

16-10-17

The skies turned a soft Orange colour today, it’s the tail end of Hurricane Ophelia. Fortunately the wind speeds are not too high in my part of the UK, but other parts of the country have not been so lucky.  The Orange skies are apparently being caused by the debris and dust from forest fires in Portugal and Spain.

I had just cut the lawn for (hopefully) the last time this year, the camera’s white balance had a bit of a job getting it right.

The fungi are quite orange in colour anyway but the light gave them a lovely glow.

Autumn and the Sigma

11-10-2017

It’s dull, grey, and blowing a gale in my part of the UK today. Was thinking about going out and taking some autumnal images, oh well. Plus side is that Mimi one of my lovely cats is curled up on my lap purring, keeping my blood pressure steady, and my legs warm, symbiotic. It’s also given me some time to have a good look at the Sigma X3F software for processing images from the Sigma DP1 camera. I’ve always just imported them into Lightroom and processed from there but never been totally happy with the results. Here are a few images put through the Sigma software, I still have a lot to learn, but the results are encouraging.

These were taken on October 3rd on a quick walk to the town.

Mimi

Taken on a Canon “Sureshot Classic 120” film camera