BB FANS

Excellent vagabond ,the first one especially would look good framed.

Thank you so much Larry - it's nice to get a compliment from you, given that your photos are so brilliant.

My photos were taken in Co Donegal - I was there for most of the month. The first one is at Ards Friary near Creeslough, and the other two are on the farm where my Granny grew up.

Although the ones you get to see might look good I'm getting picky so out of the 300 odd that I bothered to store from July (all the Butterflies are from July) there are a lot that haven't seen light of day as they didn't turn out the way I wanted them to.
My attempts to capture lightening only got a couple of interesting ones out of a few hundred pictures. But saying that I was blindly firing with a very long exposure towards the storm as my digital SLR doesn't have provision for a shutter release cable like the analogue SLRs.



This post processing with Photoshop. Also tried with Paintshop Pro but can't get a decent print.
Next electrical storm I'll try a longer exposure and get the tripod out . Last time I used a 3 second setting and still managed to hold the camera still. At full size you can see a spark (lightening) near the lefthand edge in the clouds.

This one of my first pictures from last year after getting the D50 camera but it worked a lot better than I thought it would. It's now my desktop image (1024 x 728).
Ive shrunk it down so hope it still looks ok.



In the full size image the depth seems to go on for ever and in Paintshop Pro you can zoom right in well beyond full size which doesn't fit on screen. Left to right must be 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile probably more.

Larry - do you post photos on the flickr site? You seem to know what you're doing!!

There are some great photos to browse through on there.

No ,I haven't heard of that one.

I'm still learning ,there's still a lot I don't know.
I've read a couple of interesting books which cost me a few quid with the extras I bought for the camera. Some of which I wasted my money on as they don't do what I thought they'd do and haven't been used since the original testing.

I know a lot of basic theory and a few other bits but some of the best results are from using preset options. Things like manual operation for focus is very useful but as for the rest you need to learn a bit more and spend more time setting up the shot than I have.

For the lightening I used Shutter Priority where I set the Shutter time (Exposure) and the camera does the rest. Focus was set to manual and the zoom locked at minimum (28mm). But as I said I need a lot more practice before I can match some of the pictures that was shown on the local tv and paper from the storms of last week.

I keep getting told to send some of the pictures to the local paper as they say some of the readers photos are very good. I have had one printed last year but I have to drop the DPI to 200 before they'll accept them which is easy enough in Paintshop Pro.

Good luck with finding out all that you need to know, Larry.

If you google Flickr it'll give you the registration page, I think. It's a great place to learn more about photography, if you're really interested. And for those of us who merely point and click, it's a nice place to appreciate the efforts others go to.

Cheers.
Some good pictures on there.
Did a couple of searches and got huge number f results each time.

Glad you found it, Larry. It's quite addictive once you're on there, let me tell you! You can invite friends to join, or click to add people as a contact, etc. I don't have many so far, but I enjoy chatting to people from all over the world. I'm perfect_circle80 over there, but if you check my profile out, don't be expecting to see expert photography!!!! I'm a point and click person, with an automatic digital camera, and no control! But some of my contacts are good, and they have great contacts of their own. Enjoy it!

Some from today.

First off is a small Dragonfly



Next two are a strange looking thing called a Hummingbird Hawk Moth. It looks like a tiny Hummingbird while it's feeding. It seems to prefer White Buddleias.




Next is a Peacock Butterfly on one of the many Buddleias.



Next is a Black Fuscia ,which doesn't look too dark with the flash. BUt was taken with the pocket Olympus.



Last is a rose. Again taken with the pocket Olympus and flash. There is another earlier one from the bush so this is the second time of flowering this year.

What beautiful photos.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks.

Keeps me out of trouble as the saying goes.

Next Saturday is competition time again at the local show.

Don't know how many of the categories we are entering this year. I know mother has won the wine making class a few times now.

My niece is doing the 'vegetable monster' ,and 'The Garden'. The garden has to be a certain size and either mounted in a seed tray or on a piece of card / wood. This year she has gone for a winter garden to be different .
She also wants to enter the photography section ,shame there isn't a children's sub-section but some of hers are better than some of last years.

I've been trying to choose a picture to enter and am having a hard time picking one. The subject has to be connected with your garden. I've tried using ideas in the past from previous years. For instance 2 years ago someone won with a collection of pictures of their garden during the year and come to think of it I think they also won the previous year with similar or the same pictures.

So I tried a collection of insect pictures which some of the other entrants loved especially the Butterflies but the winner was and insect on a Blue flower and I think the kindest description would be to say to has 'soft' focus. And I'm not to sure that the plant would be found in a garden.

That a side it has been suggested that the Marigold with the small Butterfly posted somewhere in this thread might be a good one. I've also got another one with miniature wasp like flies feeding on a Marigold that looks good. But there are also a couple of Dragonflies and a Purple Petunia that looks almost 3d on the photo-paper. I really don't know what to choose and I don't think they allow multiple entries else I'd put maybe 3 or 4 in but I also want my niece to have a chance so that would be unfair.

Once I've decided I'll post it on here. We are both hoping to better our second places from last year so fingers crossed.

Yesterday I managed to photograph a Common Blue Butterfly which dispite it's name isn't normally ,around here anyway ,spotted in a garden.




The latter one is the one I've been recommended to enter in the compitition.

A good days work by all.
Between us we came away with two firsts and two seconds.
The firsts were for the Butterfly picture above and for Red Wine. Think that's the third time my mother has taken first place in the wine making section. Today she also had a second for her White Wine.