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.

Pentacon – Reliving The Past #2

23-09-18

A few more images from my Pentacon lens test, really ought to be called “Helios – Reliving The Past” as I swapped over to the lovely Helios lens half way through the roll.

Leaning To The Light

Pentacon 30mm

Rest Awhile

Pentacon 30mm

Seed Pods

Helios 58mm

Signs Of Autumn

Helios 58mm

Catching The Light

Helios 58mm

Tree Hugging

Really enjoyed the walks through the Arboretum, autumn colours should be showing in a week or so, a roll of colour film for the next visit.

Pentacon- Reliving The Past

14-09-18

After scanning in some old slides from the 1980’s see:- (turning vintage) and being impressed with the quality of the Pentacon, f3.5, 30mm lens I managed to get another copy (gave the last one to a friend when I updated my camera gear to Olympus)

I have an adaptor for M42 to Canon ef, I like the plastic Canon as it has focus confirmation, very good for my ageing eyes. I found that when I focused the lens at infinity the mirror wouldn’t return until I turned the lens to a closer focus distance. Loaded the Canon with a roll of TMax 400 that had expired in June 1994 that I found lurking at the back of the fridge. Developed the film in Adox Adonal at 1-100 dilution, and used semi-stand method for 60 mins. The results were not too bad considering the age of the film, and I know It wasn’t always fridge stored (my fridge isn’t that old !) 

All You Need Is Love

This was taken on a very dark path leading to the arboretum, lens wide open. I have yet to post process the other images, spot removal, a bit of contrast, and sharpening, hopefully should be able to run them through LightRoom over the weekend, although I’m out tonight with my buddies for a Beer & Curry evening.

Bike Ride Deflation

08-09-18

Thought I would go out on a bike ride last Sunday as I felt a bit unfit and my road bike needed an outing, I haven’t used it for well over a year. The road bike should be easier on tarmac than the mountain bike I reckoned, but It was hard work on the way back, I put it down to my fitness level until I looked at the bike this morning and found the rear tyre was flat. A slow puncture I guess, it would be the rear wheel of course. Despite that the ride was good as was the weather, the countryside had green’d up nicely after the recent rain.

Allez

Wild Flowers

It’s great to see an area left for wildflowers beside the crops, the insects and wildlife must really benefit.

Kings Norton, My Favourite Rest Stop

Horse Chestnut

Walk From Chipping Norton #2

26-08-18

What with one thing and another I have been waylayed posting part 2 of my recent walk to the Rollwright Stones near Chipping Norton in the Cotswolds.

The Kings Men Stone Circle (object of the walk)

I attempted a panorama with the Sigma, it’s not too easy as it doesn’t have mode for it. So I set the camera to manual exposure and gave plenty of overlap to each shot, then processed it through the panorama function in LightRoom.

According to the information board the stones are from the late Neolithic. There are festivals at the site during the summer and the artwork between the stones has been created by local schools.

The Whispering Knights

With some coins people have thrown onto the rocks, maybe for good luck.

Hard to believe that the stones were put in place nearly 6,000 years ago.

Three Fairies Sculpture

They apparently reflect one of the many folklore legends associated with the Stones.

The King Stone

Latin Seat

The inscription on the front of this bench reads, “ore stabit fortis arare placet ore stat” according to Latin – English translation, “Please stand strong edge to plow edge stands” Mmm, not too sure what that means, only took a bit of Latin at school and that was a long time ago.

Walk Back To Chipping Norton

Couldn’t Resist This Old Tractor

Looking forward to the next outing with the lads even though my feet felt like they were bruised all over after the 10 mile walk. Note to self, visit a Podiatrist.