Cambridge Botanical Gardens in Winter

The Botanical Gardens in Cambridge are not large, but they look beautiful, even in winter.  And the glasshouses are (mostly) warm on a cold winter's day.  All pictures taken with Olympus E-3 and 12-60 lens.

Grass reaching for the sun

HDR (mk 2) treatment of gardens

Powder Puff plant

A bookcase set into the glasshouse wall

The vent mechanism in the Alpine House

Into the Blue

Today was my first day back at work, for various reasons, and my first flight for 3 weeks.  It was a gorgeous day, with blue sky and little cloud – no sign of the cold front which would arrive in the afternoon bringing a polar maritime air flow . . .

Here is my cockpit as I climb through 2,000 feet at 80 knots heading north.

Clear Ahead

New Hood for my Lumix 20/1.7 and GF-1

This is the new hood for my Lumix 20/1.7.  It means that I can use my pancake lens as a pancake lens again; although I do like my Leica-like hood (the "vented" type), this will allow me to carry my GF-1 in smaller bags or pockets.  I bought the hood from Japan Exposures, and it arrived very quickly (less than 10 days' time, over Christmas!).

Well done, Japan Exposures.

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Dome Hood from Japan Exposures

Effects in LightZone

I use Apple's Aperture for processing almost all my images, but I own Pixelmator and LightZone.  I've just checked to see if Pixelmator will open my .CR2 files from the new G12, but no luck.  However, LightZone will show them in the browser window, at least.

But when I open the full file I get wacky colours, as if a slide had been cross-processed in negative film chemicals; it looks interesting, but unpredictable.

So, still with LightZone, I opened the .JPG file of the same image (I'm shooting RAW with JPG while I wait for the RAW files to be readable with proprietary applications like Aperture) and used a bit of mono conversion and Palladian Gold tint; this is how it turned out, and I like it.

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The Lodge on Croxton Park

G12 Images of Autumn

Well, I took the rather lovely Nikon P7000 back to the shop; it had been the demo model so there was no problem from the shop (Digital Depot, in Stevenage).  No, the problem was between me and the P7000: it was too slow.  I like, sometimes, to take a shot followed by another to improve the scene, as it were.  It's impossible to do that with anything that's moving with the P7000 as it takes so long to write RAW files to the card – about 5 secs.

Whereas the G12 takes a second or less.  So I bought the Canon Powershot.

I had a G5, years ago, then a secondhand G7, so I am familiar with and like the shape and functionality of the G12.  It is pretty speedy, has a decent display and an articulated monitor.  I'm not a great user of articulated monitors; I have an Olympus E-3 on which I use it but it takes me ages to level the camera when the monitor is at an angle.  But the G12 has a little level gizmo available on the display; hurrah!

And today, despite a hacking cough and rather debilitating cold, I managed to get out in the sunshine and get a few shots of autumn trees.

Wood near Waresley

The Lodge on Croxton Park

Woods on Croxton

Gate and Leaf, Croxton

I took each of these photos with the G12 and processed the jpgs in Aperture.  The RAW files are not yet readable in Aperture; I normally have to wait a month or 2 after the first sales of a camera to be able to do that.

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The Nikon CoolPix P7000

I have a new toy tool.  This is a shot taken with my brand-new Nikon P7000 "compact" camera.  I hesitate to describe it as compact as it's larger than my Panasonic GF-1, well taller, but not as wide or as deep.

So it is compact, I suppose.

I took it out for a run in the sunset this evening; here is a shot of an ancient driveway to an old estate around where I live.  The RAW files are not yet readable with Aperture, so I have just taken the camera's JPEG file and plonked it here.

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Tetworth Estate

Ford and Packhorse Bridge

This is the ford and packhorse bridge in Sutton, near Potton. I had already washed my car, but fords would be used for washing vehicles in times gone by.

The sign beyond the bridge cautions drivers, "Try your brakes".

Chris

Ford and Packhorse Bridge in Sutton