Blog Content — Gavin Vella

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Canon 100mm 2.8

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Early Autumn Summary

I’m actually enjoying taking a little break from the blog lately but I do apologise to those that like to have regular updates. I’ve been in the process of changing out all my camera gear so there has been a lot of testing and less exploring. Here are a few photographs with the Canon R6, which is my first mirrorless camera and also my first full frame camera, so it’s taking a little time to get used to. So far though I’m really enjoying the focusing system, the noise performance and overall the speed. I previously used the Canon 7D mk ii which is a tank of a camera, but it’s beyond it’s life expectancy and the usability, despite still working, isn’t very inspiring, what with the fact that I have to turn the dial 8 times before it starts to do what I want it to lol, which isn’t ideal when photographing time sensitive wildlife.

SO! Here’s are a few photo’s from that transition. Same two lens combo: Canon 300 2.8 IS with 1.4 and 2x ii extenders, and a 100mm 2.8 Macro IS.

Starting with my last Nightjar photos of the year, in the form of a Chick which stayed quite late in the season with parents sticking close nearby.

I’ll end with a random doorstep photo of a young Sparrowhawk that managed to fly into my upstairs window. Thankfully only a few displaced feathers and he shortly flew off strongly, weaving his way back thru the woodland opposite my house.

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Ivy Bee's

Finally caught up with an autumn and found my own Ivy Bee’s, unintentionally of course. Just met up with a friend at Pontypool Park Gates and thought I’d check the Ivy along the bridge right next to the Esso Garage. Took a while to spot them at first in amongst the wasps and hundreds of Harlequin Ladybirds but there were about 7 Bee’s regularly feeding at the same time nearest the Esso garage. Not easy subjects to get a good photo of really but I did my best. I may return this week for a second crack at it.

Ivy Bee

I’ve been organising photographs this weekend, getting on-top of backups before installing a new operation system on my Mac. Mac 0s Majave is proving to be a must-have upgrade for photographers. The new finger ‘showcase’ viewing mode is particularly useful for previewing a days work of photographs. Mac was always good for photography as you only needed to press spacebar to preview files and photo’s without even opening them. Well, in this new showcase mode you don’t even need to do that, you can simple zoom into the photo there and then, without opening anything. This allows you to find out which images are sharpest much quicker and delete those which aren’t needed, very quickly. In doing this, I came across an image from the Spring. A Garden Warbler, peeking out of the shadows of a dark gorse bush.

Garden Warbler

Whats a Garden without a Garden Spider? Been keeping an eye on this female for a couple weeks. She’s laid quite a few eggs so next year should be good for them if they can survive the winter.

For those that watched Autumnwatch this year, what did you think? Squirrels were a big feature, and I was shocked to see that American Grey’s were actually below their native Red Squirrels in dominancy. Being much bigger animals, I would have thought the Greys would have dominated over the Reds at the bird feeders. I wonder if our native Red Squirrels would be as dominant over the Greys? I guess we’ll never know if the Greys continue to spread disease to them. A trip up North is needed soon, I do miss seeing our Reds.

Grey Squirrel

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