Project 52 - Weekly Photos - First Quarter

[Geoff F]

Once again, I will be attempting to post at least one image per week during 2022. No specific subject at the moment although some trends may develop during the year.

Please do not upload your images to this thread; simply due to the thread size, although comments will be fine. However, if you want to try a similar project, you will be encouraged to have a go at creating your own Project 52.

Week 01 - Salcombe from Splat Point. Fog eventually cleared to produce a mixture of sunshine and dark clouds with a rather strange light.



7D with Canon 70-200 lens. 1/200 F11 Iso 200 Merge of two bracketed exposures.

And looking the other way, towards Prawle Point in the far distance.



Canon 24-105 lens 1/200 F8 Iso 800. Merge of two bracketed exposures

[Geoff F]

Week 02 - Andrews Wood Volunteer Work Gang. A day of hard work at the wildlife site. Getting to be a bit too hard for my age!

I only had my little Fuji X20 pocket camera and the extreme mix of bright low angle sunshine with deep shadows was a bit too much for this camera. However, I had a go anyway. It was more about just capturing some real life, not posed, scenes than attempting to create some top class images. A lot of problems with noise in the shadow areas.

1/180 F3.2 Iso 250. Merge of two conversions from a single Raw file.



1/550 F4 Iso 250. Merge of two conversions from a single Raw file



1/1200 F3.2 Iso 250. Obviously these settings were a mistake but I preferred the composition of this image to those which had more realistic settings. I had to crop tight to the bottom to remove my shadow. Very limited shooting angles in this woodland situation.

[Geoff F]

Week 03 - A day of sunshine and clouds. Uncertain weather for photography with variable light so I nipped down to the same general nearby area of Week 01, but tried different angles. Chiefly thinking about including some blue sky and clouds in these scenes. If I had stayed at home I feel sure the weather would have become perfect conditions.



7D with Canon 24-105 lens 1/250 F 11 Iso 400. Merge of two bracketed exposures.

[Cantab]

Geoff, I realized that I hadn't seen any photos by you recently, then realized that I needed to look for your new thread for this quarter. Even though it's starker than the other images, something about the last image in post #3 caught my attention.

[Geoff F]

Thanks for the reply, Bruce.

There is a bit of a colour fringing issue with that last one if you look very closely at the skyline so I have had to do some correction to my archive version. I tried several slightly different shooting positions and crops to different image size ratios. Any further to the left meant excessive sun burn out and going to the right introduced a bit of heavy shadow areas.

Definitely a winter scene with that wind burnt vegetation.

I tried photographing from the other side of the harbour in bright sunshine today. Images to follow soon.

[Geoff F]

Week 04 - Salcombe harbour entrance; from the other side. This shows the area from where I shot Weeks 1 & 3; but from across the harbour with the Claire Louise passing by. One of those cases where it took a 15 mile drive and a bit of walking to actually get a few hundred yards across the harbour.



7D with Canon 70-200 lens. 1/500 F8 Iso 400. Merge of two conversions from a single Raw file.

And nearby, the George Edwin is passing Bar Lodge, which is beside the coastal path.



I have moved the boat slightly closer to the shore but still wonder about a slight crop from the bottom and left side. There was another shot with the boat more towards the right and directly under the house bit I decided having the boat slightly towards the left side made a better composition.

Looking across the harbour towards the town.



1/320 F11 Iso 200. Merge of two bracketed exposures.

And part of the coastal path on the East Portlemouth side of the harbour.



1/640 F11 Iso 400 at 70 mm. Merge of two bracketed exposures. I could have done with a slightly smaller lens but the only other one with me was my Sigma 150-600. I moved back as far as I could without getting unwanted vegetation into the scene.

[Geoff F]

Week 05 - A walk around the harbour. Last year, on a wildlife site, I produced one image each month of the same scene. It was from my house, looking towards the next village with plenty of changing sky. This year, I am trying a different location but still including a plentiful amount of sky together with a foreground which should also present many changes. Not sure if I will manage a whole year but I will give it a try.




7D with Tamron 24-70 lens. 1/500 F11 Iso 400. Merge of two bracketed exposures.

Just around the corner, I found a couple of boats fishing for scallops, but by then the light had totally changed. Not only was it dull but I was getting a difficult angle to what light was available. However, I had a go with over exposing by one stop and using an Iso of 200 with F8 in order to reduce the shadow noise problem. That, of course, produced a rather slow shutter speed for action scenes. Also, my best available lens was a Canon 70-200 at 200 plus a 1.4x extender and that was a bit small for the distance.



1/320 F8 Iso 200. Merge of two conversions from a single Raw file



1/250 F8 Iso 200. Merge of two conversions from a single raw file.

Because of the distance, my camera tried to focus on closer areas of water instead of the required subjects. I used centre weighted exposure instead of evaluative metering to concentrate of the required areas.

[Cantab]

Interesting set of photos. Despite the lighting challenges, the end results seem to work.

The these type of boats use diesel or gasoline (aka petrol) engines?

[Geoff F]

Thanks for the reply, Bruce.

Yes, all diesel engines now. Over recent years a number of excellent small diesel engines have become available. When I started fishing around 50 years ago the smallest available marine diesel engine was a substantial and heavy 4 cylinder lorry engine giving around 80 hp. Both petrol and diesel have become very expensive here although fishing boats get a reduced (tax free) fuel rate.

A hundred or so years ago, little fishing boats of a similar size would have been dredging for scallops with similar size boats but with rather heavily built side valve petrol engines which drank enormous quantities of petrol to produce 8 to 10 hp from a two cylinder engine. The most popular engines of that period around here were the Brit engine, produced at Bridport in Dorset and Kelvin engines which were produced in Scotland.

When still at school, a long time ago, we had an 18ft launch with a Brit engine and would expect to burn up to 5 gallons of petrol a day. But at that time, petrol was only a few shillings for a gallon. There were also 4 cylinder versions of these engines but many people adapted them to run on paraffin or Tractor Vaporising Oil to reduce the cost.

I also shot some video of them fishing for scallops but I haven't quite finished putting everything together.

[Cantab]

Geoff, interesting information. My recollection is that you use PBase for many of your photos. Does it also accept video? It would be fascinating to see the scallop fishing video you're putting together.

[Geoff F]

Unfortunately P base only hosts photographs so I use Vimeo for video

My scalloping video can be found at

vimeo.com/673886376

I have done what I could under the poor light conditions but it certainly won't win any prizes.

It will be a copy and paste into your source bar because direct linking at CinC produces a very small size replay

Clicking the face logo beside my name will show my other works; some serious and some silly.

[Cantab]

Geoff, I thoroughly enjoyed the scallop fishing video and watched several of your others. I kept expecting the two fishing boats to either tangle their gear or collide with each other at one point – but they didn't.

P.S. I've sent you a pm about one of the other videos I watched.

[Geoff F]

Week 06 - From the bird hide. Spent an hour at a local bird hide this morning. A marshy area on one side and part of the estuary on the other side.

A calm clear and slightly frosty start to the day.



7D with Tamron 24-70 lens. 1/250 F11 Iso 400. Merge of two bracketed exposures.

Looking across the marsh towards West Charleton village.



1/320 F11 Iso 400. Merge of two bracketed exposures.

[Geoff F]

And a couple of bird photos. This Water Rail kept running around between the reeds, hence the saying 'As thin as a Rail'. When it appeared in a better position, part of the scene was behind the top part of that crossing bridge which provides access to the feeding station. So I had to do a bit of editing to produce this image.



Sigma 150-600 Sport lens at 600. 1/400 F8 Is

And a female Ciril Bunting at the feeding position. This species has become rather scarce in the UK but they are doing well along the south west coast and some are becoming used to seeing people

[Geoff F]

Week 07 - Local history society committee meeting. Because of Covid worries our local history society committee has been meeting in the unheated workshop of a nearby farm instead of the previous more comfortable locations. I didn't want to lug around the better equipment so I just popped my Fuji X20 into my pocket. A bit of a struggle for that little camera but I just about got away with it after a bit of editing.



Fuji X20 camera. 1/20 F4 Iso 400. Far too low a shutter speed but I didn't want to get any more shadow noise problems



1/30 F4 Iso 400. Flash used.

[Cantab]

Interesting photos. In the first photo, I was somewhat distracted by the tractor that, with the engine hood up, looked like it had its mouth open and was ready to eat something!

[Geoff F]

Week 08 - Today was a windy day. A rather strong gale has been crossing the UK today and during the afternoon, when the wind had reduced a bit, together with some spells of hazy sunshine, I had a look at a nearby little cove.



7D with Canon 70-200 lens. 1/500 F11 Iso 400. Merge of two conversions from a single Raw file.

Quite a bit of moisture in the air and that hazy light was from the right side. This was shot from the road above the beach. I also had a look at shooting from sea level but that angle wasn't really working as well as this higher angle.

The wind was from a westerly direction which gave a bit of shelter to this site.

[Cantab]

A good action shot, albeit the surfer appears to be betting out of the water. What is causing the line of breaking waves? Perhaps subwater rocks or a sandbar??

[Geoff F]

Thanks Bruce. The 'surfer' is actually a child doing a bit of dangerous paddling. The last bit of ebb tide is flowing towards the right side, against the wind while on the far left there is a shallow sandbar. That cove is sheltered from both the wind and tide.

[Geoff F]

Week 09 - Birds. We have had a spell of rather dull weather and I haven't been able to find any interesting scenes which were worth photographing, although I did spend a couple of hours at a local bird hide. Only a few common birds came close enough for a photo.

Black-headed Gulls with a Shelduck



7D with Sigma 150-600 Sport lens. 1/800 F11 Iso 400

Pied Wagtail. A bit too far away for such a small bird.



1/640 F10 Iso 400

Redshank



1/640 F8 Iso 400