Flying birds and a sunrise

So, what have I been up to recently...?

Well, mainly trying to photograph birds in flight. It's been tricky - trying to get a successful setup of flashes, get the birds in the right location, and balancing the lights sources. But here's the result:

The shot comprises of four external flashguns. On mounted on the camera and facing towards the subject. Two at 45 degrees, one on the right, one on the left and one below; lighting the underside of the bird.  Fortunately, technology has made this very simple - having the camera-mounted flash as a 'master' and the other three flashes as 'slaves', meaning that when I press the shutter (using a remote control), the 'master' flash is triggered and using an infra-red signal it triggers the other 'slave' flash units instantly, providing balanced lighting of the bird in flight.

There is still room for improvement, but I have to move onto other things for the time being.

Oh yeah, and it was a very beautiful frosty sunrise yesterday...

The Night Sky at Bissoe

Something I had been keen to do during this project was star trail shots.  I've had a lot of fun doing them previously and figured Bissoe would be a great place to do them.  However, winter is not the best time because of the cloudy skies and the temperature (more on that later) but I gave it a go.

Bingo! The Met Office predicts to clear nights in a row (yesternight and tonight).  It's surprisingly spooky being alone on a nature reserve in the dark.  The moon was out, which was a big help for illuminating the landscape and giving me more light for shorter exposures.  And then we come to the weather.  It was cold even for Cornwall.  When I set up on the first night I put my camera bag down and a lens beanbag attached to it fell in a puddle.  I pulled it out, not too worried about it, and a few minutes later the side submerged in the water had frozen solid.  Similarly the toes of my wellies which had water on froze too.

The first night of shooting was probably the most successful but was cut short.  I had just moved to a new location and had taken some shots when what sounded like a tree falling down resounded from a patch of woodland nearby.  I turned to look thinking *nothing to be scared of, trees have to fall down some time* and then a light started flashing from the trees location.  Who cuts down tree at 10 o'clock at night??  Anyway, that was more than my already heightened senses could take.  I quickly, and rather silently, packed away my cameras - that's right, two camera's means twice as many shots and less waiting around doing nothing during long exposures - and vacated the area.

The second night was very slightly hazy and completely uneventful.

Shots from the first night:

The big pile of bricks/ruined building in the second and fourth photo is all that remains of the 'stack' that was once twice the size and used for the refining of arsenic pre-1939.  It got damaged when someone removed the lighting conductor off the top and  - you guessed it - it got hit by lighting, throwing bricks hundreds of metres every which way.

Shots from the second night:

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