HI-TECH. (30/08/15)

I have moved down the road a bit to look after horses. Carole looks after them and I give them a stroke and fill hay nets……sometimes they let me loose wheeling the wheelbarrow full of muck. It never ceases to amaze me how much muck six horses can produce overnight and one horse is only small at fifteen hands and a bit.

Here is Toby the small one. He is wearing his best halter. Very proud he is as he only has it on for coming and going in case he trashes it on a fence.

This is Brav. He is much bigger but a bit of a whimp as he has to wear a rug in summer. I have to be quick taking horse pictures or else they blow snot all over the camera. Worse still they have a nasty habit of sniffing it whilst I have it up to my eye and they aren’t the gentlest of sniffers.

I am still using a bit of film. I have two rolls exposed and am part way into another two. When I have four ready I’ll send them away for processing. I have two rolls of HP5 and two of Velvia reversal film. The latter I am always a bit wary of, it doesn’t always seem to appreciate a cavalier attitude to exposure. HP5 is grand stuff. Anywhere within a stop or so seems to be fine.

I have been experimenting with a bodged up Macro rig to try and eliminate black backgrounds.

It does the job up to a point but I will have another mess around.

Ring flash on it’s own.

With the milk carton….I’ll have to now start watching the background as it shows up a treat.

I’ll leave you with a picture of Candlesnuff Fungus. Xylaria hypoxylon.

A BIT OF BLUE. (25?08/15)

Yesterday the rain gauge stopped working so I stripped it down only to find the seesaw was clogged up with spiders web. The spider must be a fast spinner to have managed to seize it solid between showers.

Here is the culprit a Comb-footed Spider. Enoplognatha ovata. These come in lots of different colours, some with one red stripe, some with no stripe at all and  pretty ones like this with a pair of stripes. They all have the three black spots on their abdomen.

This is it’s egg ball in a rather attractive shade of blue silk.

Field Scabious.

Harebell. I was hoping to continue the blue theme a little longer but this is as far as I got.

I can’t identify this larva.

Common Green Capsid Bug sitting on a Tansy flower.

This is a new insect for me. I think it is a female Grass Plant Bug. Leptopterna dolabrata.

Honey Fungus……I hope.

Jelly Antler-fungus.

Sulphur Tuft.

The Sickener.

I’ll finish this post with two I am not sure of.

A STINK. (23/08/15)

Today’s post is all pictures of fungi. I am getting so far behind that I’ll either have to file them or post them.
Really smelly…………………………

Even worse………………………..

Spotless. This is a Common Stinkhorn. Phallus impudicus. There is no mistaking this but the Flesh flies seem to love it.

Amethyst Deceiver. Laccaria amethystea.

The Deceiver. Laccaria  laccata.

Common Puffball. Lycoperdon periatum.
These are all edible but rather you than I.

MISTY. (21/08/15)

The fungi are all much the same at the moment. There are now thousands of sulphur Tuft and I’ve seen two different piles of Slime Mold. There are other fungi about and I will do a post sometime over the weekend.

I am still using the film camera and now have a strobe set up and working. Film doesn’t really suit blogging but I am starting to wonder what does. I am sure there are some interesting Blogs out there but I have few that I look forward to reading……………I suspect I’m blogged out.

Have a good weekend.

LOOK WHAT I FOUND. (19/08/15)

Yesterday whilst the rain rained and drizzled I was looking for some filters and found a pack of Velvia transparency film. It’s a year out of date but should still be fine. I can’t remember where it came from as I don’t buy colour film. I only get HP5.

I could have done with the amateur stuff as the professional will be less likely to tolerate my exposure guessing. It is a funny thing that digital gives us exposures to within a hundredth of a second and lots of ISOs and yet a RAW file can be pushed and pulled six stops. I have to change heads to work film. I have an incident light meter and take a reading of the ambient light and if there are a lot of light colours in the scene drop the exposure a stop.

I decided to get the Bronica out, give it a good clean and put a battery in it. I loaded up a film back and was ready for business. I even remembered to take the little notebook and a pencil to jot down the settings. It was at this stage I found a beautiful set of dioptre lenses. I got to thinking and decided to pop 5 dioptres onto the 150mm lens. This got my minimum focus distance down from 5’ to about a foot. I went out and baited a Privet flower with some honey and took five shots of Bumblebees. It will be interesting to see how they turn out. The clatter when the mirror goes up frightens me but didn’t seem to bother the bees.

I don’t know how old these lenses are but they don’t make stuff like this anymore even the dust cap is machined from the solid.

I am wondering if I could get a used Phase One back machined up to fit this camera as it is a joy to use. The lens focusing is silky smooth and the aperture stops have a nice positive click. The shutter is an electronic leaf but will work at 1/500s without a battery. I did get an old Vivitar strobe out but can’t find a sync wire for it.

I really must start using this camera more often as it is a real pleasure just to handle. Tomorrow I will bracket an exposure if I can by pulling the dark slide out a bit at a time. The little lever above the winder disengages the film advance and just allows one to cock the shutter. The only thing this camera is missing is mirror lock up but despite the clang it doesn’t seem to affect the end result.

Here it is all ready to go. This lens is 75mm so a bit wider than standard for medium format.

The view through the view finder. I do have a prismatic top for the camera which also gives auto exposure metering but the meter is not in the first flush of youth so not reliable. It is a little odd that it does not meter a stop or two fast or slow but seems a bit random. I don’t bother with it anymore.

I’ll give it a really good clean this afternoon.

SOME THINGS. (18/08/15)

I forgot to post yesterday as I was making a new oil cooler and then trying to get some pictures of birds. The oil cooler is a success, the birds were blurry.

On Sunday I found some more Slime Mold and again tried to time lapse it with the same results as before….it shrivelled up and died.

Slime Mold. Fuligo septica.

As had this…..Dead fungi can look attractive. This is both dead and dried out, I think it is a funnel cap of some sort.

A lone Sulphur Tuft.

I think this is a Mining Bee but am not sure which.

Now onto some things that are similar but totally different.

A hard boiled egg…………………………………

A young Rose-gilled Grisette……I will have to guard them to stop the slugs getting to them first.

A Dandelion seed head……………………

Hairy Horse muck. This grows fast so I may have a go at time lapse. It’s not the most interesting stuff but may make a bit of video. I’ll bring a bit back to the van and see what happens.

A GREAT DISPLAY. (16/08/15)

I am enjoying a bit of dry weather as it hasn’t rained for twenty four hours. Yesterday afternoon I was wandering about and found several things to snap.

I checked the old straw bale to see if the Common Inkcaps had re-appeared, they hadn’t but this had. It’s a Rose-gilled Grisette. Volvariella gloiocephalus. There are many names for this mushroom both in Latin and English. These are edible and Slimy Volvar is one of the less appetising names.

There were plenty of Small Tortoiseshell butterflies around and with it being cooler they were posing nicely though not nicely enough for me to get a head on shot.

A Green or Blue Bottle. I have yet to convince myself there is any difference. I suspect it is how the light hits them.

The young Buzzards came out for a glide around and this is as good as it got.

I was very pleased the dogs found this wonderful display of Sulphur Tuft. Hypholoma subericaeum. It is a grand show.

Have a good week.