13th: An early morning start at Granchester, made famous by the poet Rupert Brooke, but equally well know for the Orchard Tea Rooms. Not many customers this morning!

5d, 28-75 f2.8, 6 seconds at f16, iso 100.

5d, 17-40 f4, 1/4 at f16, iso 100, Hitech 0.6 hard nd filter.

A few months back i bought a set of Hitech hard and soft graduated nd (neutral density) filters. They have come in very useful for landscape work to balance a bright sky and dark foreground. I've also taken some HDR (high dynamic range) photos. You take a series of bracketed exposures say -2, 0 & +2. Back on the pc you combine them together to extract much more exposure range. I use Photomatix Pro for HDR conversions. As well as combining multiple exposures it also has the ability to convert a single RAW file which can be useful in some circumstances.

1/200 at f11	1/80 at f11	1/30 at f11
5d, 28-75 at f11, 3 images combined with HDR, iso 100.

July 07

21st: My birthday! A quick walk with the family around Magog Downs i was allowed to take my camera along, but left my tripod at home. Managed to grab a quick handheld pan, 4 landscape images looking south towards Stapleford where i live.

5d, 28-75 f2.8, 1/100 at f16, iso200. Original RAW images. Finished pan after a little teawking in photoshop.

May 07

7th: Another fleeting opportunity. The weather had been up and down for a few days, lots of heavy showers and sunny periods often the best weather for taking photos since the light is always changing. I had just sat down for my tea when the most brilliant rainbow started forming, i sat on enjoying a beer, the rainbow went double and full, i grabbed my camera and ran all the way to the farm track about 3 minutes from my house, by this time it was down to faint double, but still worth the sudden burst of energy! Next time i will be quicker... Maybe!

5d, 28-75 f2.8, 1/160 at f11, iso 200.

5d, 28-75 f2.8, 1/160 at f9, iso 200. 4 portrait handheld images stiched.

April 07

28th: Sorry i've not posted anything in ages work has been really busy and although the weather has been very good it's generally been a bit hazy. Anyway got a few hours to try and grab some photos of the brilliant rape fields.

5d, 70-200 f4, 1/640 at f5.6, iso 100.

5d, 70-200 f4, 1/200 at f11, iso 100. 5 landscape images stiched.

The Heath Farm image, is just the central portion of a much wider stitch, which was just a bit too long and thin to do it any justice. i also passed a field while out an about, in fulbourn which i had photographed a year ago, other than the light not much has changed!

5d, 70-200 f4, 1/50 at f11, iso 100, 3 landscape images stiched.

5d, 70-200 f4, 1/40 at f10, iso 100. 3 landscape images stiched, may 06.

Feb 07

8th: More snow and another early morning. This time i decided to drop the car off at work and walk into town via Fen Causeway, the Granta pub and Darwin College. Got a shot or two of the Mathematical Bridge at Queens before making my way to all the bikes stacked up outside Kings College, a classic snow shot. Back through town and a final stop at Parkers Piece. A whistle stop tour indeed. It was really quite cold, i had cut my thumb quite badly at the weekend, it was bleeding again and it was wet and cold. Anyway here are a few photos.

5d, 70-200 f4, 1/2 at f16, iso 100.

5d, 28-70 f2.8, 1/2 at f16, iso 100.

5d, 28-70 f2.8, 1/8 at f16, iso 100.

5d, 70-200 f4, 1/125 at f8, iso 200.

The Parkers Piece photo was a touch grey so after processing the raw file i took it into photoshop duplicated the layer, converted to lab colour space, applied a default curve on the foreground image to lift the colours, adjusted the opacity so it didn't look too overdone, flattened the image, converted back to RBG and saved as jpg.

Jan 07

24th: SNOW! Who would have thought it, not much, but worth an early trip in to grab some pictures of the backs. I think everyone must have had the same idea i've never seen so many folks with cameras and tripods in Cambridge before!

5d, 28-75 f2.8, 4 sec at f16, iso 100.

5d, 70-200 f4, 1/8 at f9, iso 100.