Witches flying high...

Well it seems that things are finally looking up for the Witches. Following the loss of Skipper Chris Louis - possibly for the remainder of the season - the boys have pulled together and turned in a string of excellent results at home, disposing of Eastbourne, Peterborough and most recently Wolves in fine style. The shot here shows young German Tobi Kroner team riding home to a maximum heat score with stand-in Captain Steve "Johnno" johnston on Thursday night. Tobi faces his first big test in his Witches career from our next meeting as due to some inbalances within the team regarding averages, he moves to a "heat leader" position within the side. Until now he has ridden as a "reserve" - giving him easier rides in most of his races, however, he's aquitted himself well and beaten many riders far more experienced than he is, so we don;t think he should have too many problems making the step-up. A lot of it is in the mental attitude, and young Tobi has his head firmly screwed on - I can't see him letting the pressure get to him too badly. Good luck Tobi!

Robyn

All the fun of the fair

Ben and I added a new piece of kit to our bag yesterday with the purchase of a second-hand Canon EOS 20D. It's pretty much a carbon copy of my 30D - just without spot-metering and third-stop ISO adjustment, and with a slightly smaller screen. For a while now we've noticed that we tend to have our long lenses on the cameras a fair amount when we're out and about, leading to us missing shots which could have been better captured with a shorter focal length. We also had a bit of a scare with the D30 the other week - now sorted out - which left me feeling that I would be "safer" with a more up to date body as a back-up. The intention is that as well as using the 20D as a shared body when we're both out, I can use it as an additional at speedway, saving me needing to change lenses as often - not a bad thing in such a dusty environment. MPB Photographic of Brighton impressed me a huge amount - they were easy to deal with, and their kit is exactly as described. I'd certainly use them again in the future. Having picked up the camera, I took it for a wander along Brighton Pier in order to check it out and get all the custom settings sorted out - judging by this shot, it certainly handles colour well enough!

Robyn

The nifty-fifty project - part 2.

I had to go into London on Friday - some site visits to be done, so as is my usual habit I tucked the camera into the bottom of my bag. Well, you never know what you might find, do you? I decided to attach the 50mm f1.8 to have a go at stage 2 of the project I've set myself - namely to spend some time with ONLY that lens to use, in order to make me think more about composition etc. Actually, that's a lie. There wasn't much space in the bottom of the bag and the nifty was the only lens that would comfortably fit whilst still allowing me to carry notebook, toe-capped boots etc.....
As lunchtime beckoned I found myself on the way back to Kings Cross to get back on the tube - it seemed like the ideal opportunity to spend an hour working on another little project I've been thinking about for a while - a wander around St Pancras (St Pancras International as I believe we are now supposed to call it). St Pancras is probably my favourite building in the capital. The outside is stunning - OTT architecture at its very best. The inside has been fairly sympathetically treated - heavy use of glass doesn't exactly suit the character of the building but does at least enable you to see through to the finer parts of the structure from almost wherever you are in the upper part of the station. The brickwork is now as clean as the day it was built and the roof-supporting ironwork has been restored to it's sky-blue painted glory. That is presumably what John Betjeman's statue is regarding - and well he might as it's quite a sight to behold. Betjeman has a special reason to look in awe though - he was in part responsible for saving the magnificent building from being demolished when the idea was mooted in the 1960's. Good on you Sir - I'm very glad you did!
Robyn

Macro again...

Thought it was about time the 100mm f2.8 Macro lens saw some action again, and buying a couple of plants for the garden yesterday was all the inspiration I needed to get me going! I love doing macro stuff, but, as I have commented on before, often seem to lack the patience that it demands. Insect photography is beyond me for that reason, if no other - after the little bugger flying off for the fifth time just as I was ready to shoot I'd give up and go in for a cup of tea! These two were both shot using manual focus - AF with the macro lens doesn't really work so well. Settings for the first were f5.6, 1/60th second exposure , and the second - F11, 1/10th second exposure. ISO was 200 for both, as the light wasn't as good as I would have liked.

Anyway - the two pictures posted are both of Aquilegia - but quite different flowers as you can see. I also have a beautiful mauve and white one which I may try and do some shots with in due course. I did try a few this morning but got nothing that I felt was up to standard. Now all I have to do is to decide which of these two images I'm going to use as my pc desktop.....oh, and plant them in the garden, of course!
Robyn

Bath time...

Just a very quick post today I think. The 300mm f4 got another trip out today - by the time we'd finished doing all our jobs around the flat and building the new Ikea bookcase we got yesterday (what a mad place Ikea is!) we didn't have a lot of time so headed down to Rye Meads again to have a wander along one of the trails we didn't cover last week. We ended up sat in the Otter hide - although there were no otters in sight! Plenty of birds though - as well as this beautiful Swan we were watching Pochards, Gadwalls, a Little Grebe, Tufted Ducks, and a very quick glimpse of a Kingfisher! No photos from that encounter, but fingers crossed we might managed to get some at some stage...

Robyn

The nifty-fifty project.....part 1

Well, as I mentioned yesterday, we had a walk around the South bank area on Sunday while we were in London. I decided on leaving the pub to head down that way that I was going to put the "Nifty" (50mm f1.8 for the uninitiated) lens on the camera and take the rest of my days shots using only that lens. All in all an interesting experiment. Being restricted to a focal length is strange for someone used to a Zoom. You have to work in a different way - rather than seeing a shot, you have to really look for stuff that will work, and rather a lot of what you frame doesn't, initially, you have to move forwards, or backwards, or change angle...... 50mm did, however, prove to be a lovely length for capturing some urban action from the skateboarders. This shot has been treated to a bit of "funky urban processing" also thanks to an old magazine article I've been carefully hoarding for just this eventuality!

I'm expecting this project to be ongoing, in fact I MAY even try some speedway stuff with it. ("It'll be too short to get anything decent" said Steve on Monday when I debated this possibility with him.....hmmm, best get thinking how I can prove him wrong, then!). Keep your eyes peeled.

Robyn

Determination...

We went up to London on Sunday to watch - and photograph - the marathon. Mindful of the fact that the best pictures tend to be got early on, before the streets get too clogged with the "fun" runners, we arrived at Westferry DLR and walked along the route to our spot of choice, which was delightfully free of crowds and remained so for the entire morning! (no, I'm not saying where, you think we want everyone turning up there next year?!). As always the wheelchair race provided some great shots - as did some of the "Backroom" staff - more of those shots in due course, perhaps.

Kit-wise it was a pretty simple decision to settle on my standard kit. I started off with the 70-200 f2.8 - with which the shot above was taken - before switching to the 24-70 f2.8 when the course got busier and we started walking around. Once the bulk of the runners had passed us, we headed off along to the South bank (via a pub for a pint and a sandwich whilst my rather damp 30D dried out a little and all its buttons started working again!) and the nifty-fifty got an outing shooting the grafitti and the skateboarders down there. I also got some new shots of the London Eye using that lens - the first time I've shot it using that one, and it certainly put a different perspective on the subject and made me work a bit harder for the shots!

Robyn