February 2008 Monthly Photo Comp Discussion Thread!!!

Lovely, my dearest ... I like that ... clever.

I'll really have to get my thinking cap on for this one.

 

Great caption Roders, Love it...

 

Sorry posted original in wrong thread.
All very confusing for someone of my age

 

going up to the quarry nature reserve monday night, jazz said she would go with me, we will go in the car and taking torches, lets hope i have my new kodak camera on the right setting and will take my fuji for back up.

 

Good luck girls

 

thanks roders it should be a laugh up there especially with someone with me, lets hope theres something interesting to take

 

jazz and i went up to the quarry nature reserve last night as arranged, we got their about 5, took a few pics and walked around to the other side, it got darker and must admit it was very eerie and freezing cold, I had mentioned to jazz that i had seen very large rats in the past and she started to panic. :D :D she was pleased to get out of there.
the darker it got the more frightening it became and the the photographs didnt come out too good in the dark, i have deleted loads and picked out the best 3 for the comp.

 

oh LoL. your what fungi am i pic, really made me giggle, love it

 

Thanks, Cutie ... he just about scared the ???? out of me there in the dark as he appeared on the beam tongue hanging out and teeth bared! :eek: And he had the cheek to bop me on the back of the head in the process! Bless him.

 

GlenW what a fantastic shot unusual to catch birds roosting,well done.

 

GlenW, what a great shot, are they Pied Wagtails?

 

my beloved said to me,(dont worry if they see you through the day they wont touch you in the dark) and that came from the man who gave me a sloppy valentine card :D :D did take one or two but they turned out dark, someone told me to turn off my flash,does this sound right to you :eek: :eek:

 

Thanks, yes Sue, they are pied wagtails.

It wasn't that difficult a photo to take really, they have taken to roosting in a tree outside my local tesco! my main problem was avoiding shoppers giving me strange looks, especially as it a 24 hour store. I went on a sunday when it closes over night for a few hours.

Funniest thing was, whilst i'm stood in the middle of a car park, late at night, outside a closed supermarket, with a camera on a tripod pointing at some trees, a bloke in a car pulls up, winds down his window and asks if I know of a shop that might be open nearby! No indication on his face that i was some sort of nutter, just as though it was an every day occurance in his life! :D

 

Kathy - turning the flash off can sometimes help, it depends on what your taking a photo of and if your using a tripod etc.
My photo is taken without a flash, I've set the ISO to 400 and the exposure time is 1.6 secs. I also used a tripod to stabilise the camera and as I can't use a remote shutter release cable, I used a 2 sec timer to avoid shaking the camera when i pressed the button.
The high ISO allows shorter exposure times which is helpful if your taking a photo of something that might move, like the birds in my photo. I did try the same photo on a 100 ISO but the exposure was then about 6 sec and the birds were blurred cos they were moving around!

i know not all cameras have as much manual control as mine, but a lot of even small digitals have some manual control. Most will have changable ISO, I wouldn't use higher than 400 because photo's start to get very grainy above that. Then look to see if you can change the settings to 'shutter' and if you can, experiment by taking several photos but increasing the shutter speed time. Your camera will need to be on a tripod/beanbag/support of some kind. If you try to do it hand held the photo will almost definatly be blurred unless you've got ultra steady hands!!

Its probably easiest to try all this in the comfort of your house, in a dark room until you get a hang of what your doing, its very frustrating when your fingers are going blue and the photo's just don't seem right.

Hope this helps, I find it hard to explain things in writing so if it doesn't make sense, tell me and i'll try again!! :D :confused: