Project 52 - Weekly Photos from Geoff F - Part 4

[Geoff F]

Once again, I will be attempting to post at least one photo per week throughout 2025. Part 3 is here

Project 52 - Weekly Photos from Geoff F - Part 3

Week 39 - I was searching for Hornet Robberflies These are stunning flies which can reach 30 mm in length. Females lay eggs in fresh cattle dung so searching near 'cowpats' often produces a result.

These animals found something interesting in the hedge.



7D with Canon 24-105 lens 1/60 F9 Iso 400

While these weren't so friendly looking 'We don't want you in our field' !



!/160 F11 Iso 400

But I eventually found what I was looking for

[Geoff F]

Week 40 - South Sands Ferry passing Poundstone. The gales had died away but it was still a dull day.


7D with Canon 70-200 lens. 1/250 F7 Iso 400. Merge of two bracketed exposures.

[billtils]

Geoff, I readily concede that there is as always a degree of personal taste in these things, but for me this is one of your very best images. Thanks for posting.

[Geoff F]

Thanks Bill. I have been looking at a different style of photography after seeing the images of Kaskais.

Maybe I could try a fraction less foreground and add a bit more to the sky?

[Geoff F]

Week 41 - Lunch break for the wildlife reserve volunteers. Once again, my best camera was the one which I had with me. My pocket sized Fuji X20

[Geoff F]

Week 42 - Trying to catch the wind. We have had another spell of wet and windy weather so a few hours of sunny periods and a slightly moderated wind tempted me to have a look at a local beach, but, of course, by the time I arrived I realised I had missed the good light. However I decided to have a go at some dull light scenes.

[Geoff F]

'We can drive away buzzards - so we can deal with this strange looking bird'

[skitterbug]

Hi Geoff - It has been awhile since I've been to the CIC forum. I found your "Project" and have been enjoying your work. I wanted to ask about the Hornet Robberfly. It looks like a formidable and complicated creature! And well done to have found it. My question is about focus. How can we have the thorax be as sharp and in focus as the eye,head and front feet? Thank you for any hints and suggestions!

[Geoff F]

Thank you for your comment, Sandy. Macro photography is difficult and lenses usually only have a few millimeters of perfect focus depth. Live subjects frequently fly or run away while I am searching for that perfect angle so when a suitable subject for identification is found the best plan is to get something in the camera as soon as possible. If the subject is settled and relaxed I will take several slightly different focused shots then merge them together.

You need to know what areas are important for identification and concentrate on those parts. In the case of that robberfly getting the prey sharply focused was important.

[skitterbug]

Thank you Geoff. I appreciate the information. I would have replied sooner but for some reason CiC's website did not want to load for me. It is still very slow. But that doesn't have much to do with photography.

I think I will start to give merging a try to obtain sharper focus over all. Have a great day!

[Geoff F]

Week 43 - More dull weather. I have decided that to combat typical UK weather my only option is to adapt to working under difficult light conditions.
Fly the flag and ignore the rain. North Sands - Salcombe

[Geoff F]

North Sands from a different angle



Salcombe Castle view from North Sands

[Geoff F]

Week 44 - A bit of sunshine at last but it soon changed to more dull conditions.



Claire Louise passing Blackstone Rock

[Geoff F]

More drab weather approaching

View from Snapes Point Path



Just another few hours of sunshine as clouds thicken

Tenacious heading for the harbour with Prawle Point in the background.

[Geoff F]

Week 45 - A glimpse of the harbour Looking for some unusual camera angles of local scenes for the next history society calendar. Images must be 4 x 5 ratio which is rather limiting.

[Cantab]

I've been absent from CiC for several weeks, partly because of problems trying to load the website. But all seems working today.

I'm curious about the structure on the left side of image #15. Is it a dock for disembarking at high tide??

The two images in the previous post work well. I read in an earlier post that you were wondering about composing some photos with the division, between foreground and the more distant sky/sea, lower in the image so that the sky/sea is visually more prominent.