Just a close up shot of my terracotta tea-pot. I think the comment on it is great

“Ideal for Use at Home or on Safari”

I don’t think it’s ever been used! I love my terracotta kitchenware however

Today’s shot is one I’ve been wanting to try for a while, well it has been with the coffee beans. I’ve seen plenty of great photos of food shots on a white background, and fancied have a quick go at it myself. Whilst pulling out the coffee beans I found the amaretti biscuits and figured they’d go well together.

I think I need a decent sized piece of white card, as I just used one of our plain white pizza plates and the lip gets in the way in my opinion, however the overall shot was still okay I think.

I’m currently stuck indoors as I can’t go too far due to a twisted ankle so my first few shots on this are going to be indoor shots! Plus, it’s cold outside!

Happy new year! As a last minute decision both Dave and I have decided to try and complete Project 365, where we take at least one photo a day.

So I’ve set the ball rolling with a photo of a flower on my christmas cactus. I bought this plant just before last Christmas, and last year it looked promising but right before Christmas all of the flower buds fell off leaving just one flower on it. This year, thankfully, it’s covered in gorgeous flowers, and here is one of them. I’ve been meaning to take a few photos of it so I figured it was a good way to start the year

I’ll try and post up about each photo every day, however it may come down to one a week, afterall if I’m taking a photo every day then I need to keep up with that first!

1 down, 364 to go!

On Thursday it was the Oxfordshire County and Thame Show, which is held about 10 minutes away from where my parents live. I try to go every year as it’s a fairly large county show with plenty of stalls to look round and, more importantly, plenty of photo opportunities. This year I managed to catch the Falconry display, where the star of the display was a gorgeous and well behaved Barn Owl.

I’ve taken shots of birds before but never as good as this. I had my 100mm lens on, which allowed me to get reasonably close into the bird, and still get sharp shots of it. Even when it was in flight I managed to follow it quite well, despite the weight of the lens, which I’m slowly getting used to.

I love opening up the large version of these photos and just seeing the feathers in detail. To me, that’s the best way to tell if your photo is sharp. Of course, a gorgeously cute bird will always help make the photo look better!

A day out at a falconry centre is probably the best time to take bird of prey photos. I think the ‘holy grail’ of bird photography is to get a photo of one flying straight towards you so that you’ve got both eyes looking directly at you and the full wing span showing. At least, that’s my plan

Recently we’ve had a couple of events round here where I’ve finally had a chance to try a bit of panning to get the feel of motion in my photos. The first was the Prom Stages Rally in New Brighton, Merseyside. Several stages of races around a selection of circuits along the promenade of New Brighton.

I read up on motion photography in The Digital Photography Book (Scott Kelby) the night before, to get an idea of which settings to use and how best to do it. The book didn’t mention changing the auto focus to AI Servo though (or I missed that bit!), so that’s a good point to make. AI Servo will refocus as you’re panning which is what you need as your focus point will usually change whilst the subject is moving past you. I switched to shutter speed priority and tried 1/60 seconds at first, but with very little backdrop it was hard to see much motion, so I continued to slow it down until I reached 1/30 seconds which seemed the comfortable point for me.

The following weekend we had the Tour of Britain cycle race finishing in Liverpool. At first I took a few shots with a quick shutter speed but then fancied trying a bit of panning again. Have to admit, it’s a lot harder with a group of cyclists as it’s harder to catch sight of one person and focus on them throughout. I took a few shots and only one or two came out semi reasonable, however even though there’s no one cyclist in full focus, I still think the effect you get is good enough.

The points I’ve learned from these attempts are:

1. If it’s one item, such as a car, focus on something with a lot of contrast and easy to catch sight of. With the cars I tried to focus on the number on the door.
2. Use continuous shooting and keep following the subject even once you’ve stopped taking shots else it’ll more likely blur the subject.
3. Have plenty of cards for photos.
4. During any break take the chance to run through your photos and remove the obviously blurred ones to keep as much space available as possible.
5. A good quality lens will give a noticeably better result.
6. Try a variety of shutter speeds as it depends on the speed of the subject as to how slow you can go.
7. If you can, have a good backdrop to give more emphasis to the motion.

Above all, don’t forget that you’re there to watch the event so don’t forget to do that too!