Category Archives: rats

More Woodland Experiments

I’ll put a couple of wildlife shots at the end of the blog, but I’ve been spending more time taking dodgy woodland photos. I was better prepared today, and actually had a tripod with me. This certainly makes a big difference and will open up more possibilities. I have plans, but am not going to reveal them yet. Suffice to say, there are some interesting sections in the 7DII user guide which are going to come in handy.

Anyway today, it was basic stuff. Woodland path. Tripod and big tree in the centre of the shot. This is what it starts off looking like. Nothing fancy here, just a basic shot.

woodland

The I started playing around with the zoom. The tripod meant I could concentrate on how I was using the camera and the differences between fast/slow, pause/zoom, zoom/pause and so on. Counter-intuitive though it may be, the fastest zoom doesn’t produce the greatest blur. I suppose that should be obvious, but now at least I know for sure.

Woodland zoom

Here’s another pair, the second one being a steady zoom that moved for the whole period the shutter was open. As you can see, the effect is extreme.

Woodland zoom

Woodland zoom

I also played around with some proper woodland photography.

tree detail

As for wildlife, I took this shot of a robin earlier in the week but didn’t use it in the Cormorant post. I like it too much to waste it though.

Robin on wall

Robin on a brick wall

And the final shot is one from this morning… one of the local rodents.

rat

Rat Portrait-style

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens.

Also posted in Birds, Landscape, Wildlife Tagged , , , |

Rat Portraits

The brief break in the weather has ended. More rain today, and forecast for tomorrow. It was not too bad early today, which is when I took these four shots of one of the local rats down at Falmer Pond.

rat

Rat nibbling on bread left out for the birds

rat

Side portrait of the rat in weak early morning sunshine

rat running

Rat on the move (click image to enlarge)

rat

Nice and close!

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens.

Also posted in Wildlife Tagged |

Animals Being Active

No great theme today, and indeed I’ll start with a photo taken on Thursday at Falmer Pond. A number of people were out feeding the gulls (a mix of herring gulls and black-headed gulls), and the inevitable feeding frenzy followed. I decided to go for motion blur shots this time, despite the quite reasonable light. They were taken at between 1/13 and 1/15s at f/18 (I needed the small aperture to get the shutter speed down).

Motion blur gulls at Falmer

Motion blur gulls at Falmer

Sticking with motion blur, I photographed this little rat in mid shake. The shutter is around 1/125 which is fine when they keep still. I like it though. It had just jumped up on to the branch after a quick swim across the corner of the pond.

rat shaking itself dry

Rat shaking itself dry

Rat swimming

Rat swimming

The robins (who seem to share the same corner of the pond as the rats) were active again. I caught this little bird stretching its wing.

Robin stretching its wing

Robin stretching its wing

The last trio of photos were a chance sighting of a dog out in a local field. That’s not unusual in itself, but I’ve not previously seen one having this much fun playing with a broom!

Dog playing with broom

Dog playing with broom

Dog playing with broom

It seems there was a theme after all. Not planned, but there you go. Sometimes these things just fall into place.

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens.

Also posted in Birds, dog, Wildlife Tagged , , , , |