Late photo opportunities at Stithians Demo Day

On what must have been the warmest, brightest and most still day of the year, came some stunning late afternoon sunlight. The optics demo day was successful with some 25+ people viewing through the best equipment on offer to date. By 4.30pm everyone had their fill, by which time the light was perfect for some eagerly awaited photography. The four shots below are the best of the day.

Male Reed Bunting. EXIF: Aperture Priority F/6.3 . Shutter 1/1000 th. ISO 400. Focal Length 420mm. EV -0.3. WB: Cloudy.

Coot. EXIF: Aperture Priority F/6.3 . Shutter 1/1000 th. ISO 400. Focal Length 420mm. EV -0.3. WB: Cloudy.

Goldfinch. EXIF: Aperture Priority F/6.3 . Shutter 1/320 th. ISO 400. Focal Length 420mm. EV -0.3. WB: Cloudy.

Female Great Spotted Woodpecker. EXIF: P Program Mode. Aperture F/10 . Shutter 1/400th. ISO 400. Focal Length 420mm. EV -0.7. WB: Cloudy.

A rare sight in Cornwall - frost and ice

A mixed bag of images today but the underlying theme is definitly frost and ice - I cannot remember the last time the reservoirs and lakes froze over. The morning started off at -2.5 degrees but generally warmed up later in the day. The image below at about 7.45 this morning is the southern cut off with the feeding station in the left corner. The colour of the sunrise is totally original and unchanged...stunning.

Best of the rest at the res today

For the first time ever I ran out of memory - gigabytes of memory that is. Some 550 plus shots at full resolution today drained the memory cards. The shots below were the end result of a day of very changable weather and light conditions. Dawn started at 0 degrees, ice and frost on the ground, sleet, snow, rain and bright sunshine, all contributing to demanding photographic conditions. For the best part of the day, the ISO has been set at 800 to 1000 - fortunatly, the Nikon D3 works well at high ISO and I have now forgotten what grain is. The aperture has been wide open at F/4 and F/6.7 to push that all important shutter speed up. All of the images below have been cropped and adjusted in Adobe CS3 and are low resolution to aid faster download speed.