I regularly enter the online Photocrowd competitions and was delighted that in March 2022 my image ‘Mind the Bend’ was judged by the expert, Mike betts, from over 3,300 international entries as the winning image in his competition “Corners”.
Road Trip Book
After several trips through the Alps of Austria, Italy and Switzerland, I’ve been putting together a number of images to create a Book of Roads to highlight the fantastic roads that cross various alpine passes.
Below is a screen shot of sort of pages I’ve been creating:-
I’ve been using PhotoBox, who I’ve used an number of times before to create a photo album of each of the trips we’ve undertaken.
Normally I create a 20-25 page A4 landscape book but as there are a large number of images I’ve ended up with around 110 pages so far using an A3 landscape format, as I wanted to have a whole image per page, with a narrative and maps for each Pass.
Examples of the images that will be in the book are under Road Trips in my Portfolio
Property shots
Recently I have been taking some more photographs for Pure Cornwall, who are one the County’s leading property rental specialists.
Competition
At the end of last year I entered my image Blue Keeled Skimmer into the Wonders of Wildlife Photography Competition run by the Society of International Nature and Wildlife Photographers and was awarded a Highly Commended
Recent Competition
At the end of February 2017 I entered my image Broad-Bodied Chaser into the Living World Photography Competition run by the Society of International Nature and Wildlife Photographers and was awarded a Highly Commended.
Fuji 100-400 lens
I have recently purchased the latest Fuji lens and their first long telephoto. Being a 100-400 on a crop sensor, this is the equivalent to 150-600 in 35mm.
I’ve not really had much opportunity to try it properly but the handheld image of a Robin in tree at 400mm shows how sharp the lens is.
Panorama
One feature of the X-T1 I’ve not used as much as I should is the panorama mode.
I find the ability to stitch the images in camera so cleanly very impressive. In the past I used my DSLR on a tripod and used various programs to stitch the images together afterwards but none have been as successful this.
There are various modes to allow the images to be either landscape or portrait, swung left to right, or right to left.
Neutral Density Filter
I’ve recently been experimenting with a Hoya 10 ND400 10 stop neutral density filter to smooth water with my X100.
This view is across the river towards Truro Cathedral – 12 seconds at f11
Evening Light
Finally had a good sunset to coincide with the tide being in at Truro to get a shot of the Cathedral:-
Taken on the X-T1 with the 55-200 lens. 1/4 second at f11 on a tripod.
Fuji 18-135 Lens
Finally had a chance last night to try my new 18-135 lens on our “Up the Creek” boat trip.
This is a fantastic trip organised by Ann and Alan Cox for local charities where they charter one of the river ferries to take a group out on the very high tides to parts of the rivers you can’t usually access.
I’ve not tested it back to back with my 18-55 and 55-200 but initial impressions are that it’s not quite so sharp. Here are a few of the sample images taken from a moving boat:-
