I think I can safely say I am well and truly back into the swing of things now on the photography front. I've had a productive couple of weeks!
First a trip to Marwell which is responsible for kick starting me, then acquiring a new body and lens. This was followed by a trip to the Hawk Conservancy. a few sunrise / sunset trips landscape sessions in Dorset and The New Forest, and finally trip to scout out Richmond Park this morning.
The result? A fair few new photos! My post processing has gotten a little rusty but I'm getting back into it.
I've been really pushing myself to improve my in land landscape photography and I'm starting to get a bit better at it, especially around here in The New Forest.
Here's a shot from last night.
This shot was well and truly out of my comfort zone. A sunset, with the sun in frame and no water for reflections! I found this quite difficult to process as well.
On the wildlife front, I've spent some time down at Lakeside in Eastleigh, (another new location), patiently waiting for some Great Crested Grebes to get close enough to my 400mm. So far I've not gotten anything fantastic except for a few macro shots of some Southern Hawker Dragonflies in flight. That was good fun and the first time I have ever captured a dragonfly in flight.
I was quite chuffed with myself for that one.
On the kit front - the Nikon D810 is proving an amazing camera. My trusty D300 has now been relegated to backup body and my old D200 is long gone, along with a few DX lens. I treated my 200-400mm f4 to a LensCoat clone as well which arrived yesterday just in time for this mornings trip to Richmond Park.
Looks nice don't it. Its mainly for protection and party to make me look even more geeky than I already do!
This mornings trip to Richmond Park was nice. The weather was very overcast and light was next to non-existant forcing me to shoot at ISO1600 all morning, and in some cases at 3200! I've never shot that high before due to noise but the D810 is fantastic on high ISO. Ok its not as good as the D4S but thats twice as expensive.
It was mainly a scouting mission anyway as I have only ever been to Bushy Park and I wanted to see if Richmond held any unique possibilities. Its a nice place I must say but I prefer Busy so far.
I got a few interesting shots - the usual Red Deer stags bellowing through the trees, one dressed up for me in some grassy headgear and I also encoutered a strange sight - a Stag with a antler deformity.
I've never encountered anything like this before with a deer. I did some research and apparently its quite common. It could be caused by damage to the deers skull or pedicle, (which grow their antlers), from a previous battle with a rival, or from a hereditary condition. Interesting stuff.
At any rate I shall be return when the weather looks more promising, and hopefully when theres some mist and fog around so I can capture some wildlife/landscape hybrid shots.
Anyway I'm off to catch up with some sleep. Hope you enjoy my new works and please don't forget to like my facebook page and share with your friends!