Take a picture once a day, whether you need to or not

[Khaldun]

Fantastic. Love the shot of the tree on the hillside w/the mountains in the background.

Mantis in the garden this week. Stood still long enough for me to try some focus stacking on it.

[Mosesandstick]

Thanks everybody! That's a brilliant shot Khaldun - you must be using a focusing rail?

[Khaldun]

Doing it by hand for now, but I'm going to have to start using a rail--I find I'm not really able to control what's in the sharp and non-sharp areas of a composition well enough just trying to chimp it with manual movements of the lens.

[apocrypha]

Very nice pics Moses & Khaldun, the tree & the cave are great, and cool focus stacking on the mantis!

Going for a rail is always a difficult decision because you lose so much mobility and add so much set-up time. Limits the kind of subjects you can choose, but gives you much more control.

[Yoru]

Looks like Norway. Is that Norway?

Edit: I meant Moses' pictures. Obviously, the praying mantis isn't Norway.

[Mosesandstick]

The Lake District in the North of England. The whole week we were there it was sunny and 25C, amazing!

[IainC]

Just got back from a ten day photo holiday to the Isle of Skye, with stops in Fort William, Edinburgh and London on the way home. The full album is available here but here are my favourites from the trip.

The Quiraing, Skye by Iain Compton, on Flickr

The Quiraing, Skye by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Neist Point, Isle of Skye by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Docklands and Tower Bridge by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Kew Gardens by Iain Compton, on Flickr

[Lantyssa]

Really pretty, Iain!

[Khaldun]

Great shots. The sunset at the small lake particularly.

[apocrypha]

Yeah, beautiful!

[Pagz]

Neist Point one is gorgeous

[Mosesandstick]

Lovely shots Iain. I really like the composition in the shot of the Shard/City Hall/Tower Bridge - I think the Shard tends to stick out, in a bad way, but it really fits in that photo.

[satael]

Wish I had taken more time to take more better photos last weekend on a bike ride when it was really foggy in the morning.

edit:same view without fog for comparison:

[IainC]

HDR at El Escorial.


El Escorial by Iain Compton, on Flickr


El Escorial by Iain Compton, on Flickr


El Escorial by Iain Compton, on Flickr

[Engels]

These photos are amazing IainC. I particularly like the ones from England/Scotland.

[Lantyssa]

I had an osprey visit yesterday.



I have two more of it taking off, but they're a little more blurry.  I got dad's old camera from mom, so I'm hoping to add pictures to this over time.

Off the Dock album  (Does that link work for others?  I don't generally FB...)

[apocrypha]

Yes the album works. That is a gorgeous bird. I want a dock!

[Signe]

When I lived in Portsmouth we had a dock... well, a berth, really.  No Ospreys but the swans and ducks used to come up on the patio to visit and nibble on my fingers.  I have a feeling that if I didn't have bread the swans would have taken more than a nibble.  The Solent there is full of petrol so I was always very careful not to smoke around the birds.  Just in case.  I love the pic and I love raptors.  My sister is going away for a couple of weekends to learn raptor rescue.  She does other wildlife but she's really looking forward to classes on birds.  I miss living so near water.  I want a dock, too.

[Samwise]

Took this the other day (with my phone, no less):



The depth of field isn't actually as tight as it looks -- that's a tiny flower on a very tall flower stalk.   

[Count Nerfedalot]

very nice!

say, is that Venus Flytrap? I didn't even realize they had flowers! LOL I guess I thought the trap bit was made from flower parts.

[Samwise]

The traps on carnivorous plants are generally modified leaves -- at its very simplest a plant might just have somewhat sticky leaves that happen to trap the occasional bug which will then decay into useful nutrient runoff that the plant can absorb.  A lot of plants we don't think of as carnivorous (like potatoes) benefit from this sort of "accident".  Further along the evolutionary process the leaves get stickier, secrete digestive enzymes so they get more of the nutrients themselves, develop into pitcher shapes or spring-action traps, etc.

Anyway -- ya, that's a flytrap in the background, but the flower is from another carnivorous plant (a cape sundew) that's growing with it.  A venus flytrap flower looks like this:



With both sundews and flytraps (and a number of other carnivorous plants) the flower is carried on a very tall stalk so that the pollinators are less likely to stumble into a trap before they do their job.

[calapine]

My niece. The facial expresion has something of a 'U WAT M8' image meme. 

[Mosesandstick]

Couple of photos from a kind of recent holiday in South West England.


2014-08 Cornwall and Devon 007 by Aled Moses, on Flickr


2014-08 Cornwall and Devon 009 by Aled Moses, on Flickr

[apocrypha]

Devon & Cornwall are beautiful  

Did a photo-booth at our (non-religious) godson's 1st birthday party yesterday. Worked really well, you get a totally different kind of photo from people when they're the ones in control. Here's a few of my favourites:

[Mosesandstick]

I think those belong in the awesome pictures thread!

[apocrypha]

See, I find this fascinating. Do I say thank you for that comment or not? Because I think there's uncertainty regarding ownership or, more correctly, authorship of these pics. I think they're great, I love them, and I set up the booth and the lighting and the backdrop and edited & processed the pics (although there is almost no editing in them, they're tweaked slightly in RAW conversion and that's it)... but I didn't take them!

It makes me think of issue with that picture of the monkey some time ago where it had taken a selfie and the photographer who's camera it was lost the copyright battle. I played a large part in the creation of these photos, but I didn't press the button and I think the greatest part of their awesomeness comes from the people who are in them and took them.

Regardless, they make me very happy, and they've made the people who were at the party and who are in them happy too, and that's all that matters   

[Fraeg]

Saw these where I was sampling:

[Samwise]

The heavy rain last week has somehow resulted in amphibians moving into my front yard.



 

[MisterNoisy]

Another insect at the office:

[Merusk]

Those little fuckers where EVERYWHERE this year. If they were bigger it would have been worse than locust.

Nice shot.

[Khaldun]

Dog who really liked his new ball for Xmas.

[IainC]

Happened to have a few hours to spare while within walking distance of the Donington Collection.


Many Williamses by Iain Compton, on Flickr


McLaren-Mercedes MP4-21 (De La Rosa) by Iain Compton, on Flickr


Vanwall VW9 by Iain Compton, on Flickr

[Khaldun]

Green car is especially cool.

[Khaldun]

Snowy woods.

[Nebu]

That top picture is amazing.  If it were a wide-angle shot I'd use it as my desktop.