'Most Interesting Photos' - According to Flickr!

Evening,

Well Flickr believes the following are my 'most interesting photos' Click here to see if you agree!

SB

Lowestoft Air Festival...

Morning,

I'm dragging the family up to the Lowestoft Air Festival on Thursday 24th.

I'm hoping to get some good shots of a variety of planes. Apparently the newly restored Vulcan bomber should be flying, along with the usual red arrows etc...

I'm also hoping to visit Minsmere again at some point. May go early morning on Thursday..

SBB..

First Photo Published!

Well I was sent a private message from 'Heiky' at 02:00 this morning
regarding one of my bee photos!

She asked if it could be used for an article she's written on
nowpublic.com

Not very exciting but have a look here to see a buzzy friend from my
front garden
http://www.nowpublic.com/environment/bees-lose-buzz-when-sick

SBB.

The Weekend...

Well this weekend has been pretty much a working one... and I don't mean photography!

I've been in doing my security patching weekend in London, followed by another load of Oracle security changes across all out production databases - not what you might call fun!

However I did manage to get quite a few shots in the hours I had spare.. I'm starting to get the hang of shutter priority now added with ISO control.

The photos from the weekend are dominated by the Goldfinch and the Greenfinch, although I did get some nice close ups of a slug or two.. and some bees..

Oh yeah, almost forgot.. We went to the Ufford Bygones day at Church Farm, where I snapped a few dogs and a ferret!

Click on either of the photos to view my 'flick' link.

SBB...

Garden Birds

Evening,

I've been snapping quite a bit over the last few days, some of the photos have come out really well, some not so clear..

Most of the images are cropped to some degree and were taken approx 20 metres from the subject..

Click on the photo to see more...

SB..

New Bird Feeder Station!

On the way home last night I sneaked in to Wyevale and bought a new bird feeder station..

It's basically a 6ft pole with various arms for more feeders! It's also got a bird bath and feeding tray.

In our garden we've now got
3 Nyjer seed feeders
4 wild bird seed feeders
3 peanut feeders
2 bird baths
3 sunflower / sunflower heart feeders...

I put this together with Oli last night.. No birds as yet but I'm sure there will be tonight... Unless they've all drowned in the rain!

Had a large family of Goldfinches on the Nyjer's last night, the baby was a noisy little fella. I got some photos but the light wasn't perfect! I'll upload them soon..

Here's a photo of the bird feeders, from my conservatory at 100mm with my L 100-400 IS lens..

 

 

Here's another photo, from the same position but at full 400mm of zoom... I'm guessing I'll get some good photos going forward...

STOP PRESS... Got home tonight to discover about 3 Goldfinches all over the Nyjer feeder, not bad considering it's only been there for 24 hours. To be fair though, I'm probably one of the only locals that has a constant supply of Nyjer's...

SB

ISO, Shutter Priority and Black Sheets....

Morning,

I was playing with my camera's semi-automatic settings last night in the fading light of my garden! There were birds galore and with the automatic settings the camera was struggling - too low shutter speed etc...

I decided to 'up' the ISO to 800 and then 1600, to enable me to increase the shutter speed. I was actually quite suprised by the results, not too bad. You do add the risk of getting too much 'noise' in your shot but you still get the shot...

It's nice being able to experiment with the more manual settings on the camera. I actually feel as if I almost know what I'm doing now!!

One thing I need to master now is white balance, so not to get bizarre shades of colours in my photos! sometimes this can make the photo too warm, or even cold...

Been looking at backdrops on the web. I want to get one so that I can start experimenting with portrait photography.. I'll either get a white or black one me thinks.. I'm tempted by black... not sure why though!

SBB...

SB...

Introducing my new E-Commerce Website!

Afternoon all,

I've been trialing a website created by ifp3.com

It allows you to use their template, fully customize it and upload your images to it.. It saves you paying thousands for a web developer to create one for you!

At the moment I am still in my 'trial' period, so the URL of http://stevenbenton.ifp3.com/ is merely temporary. Take a look, let me know what you think.

Once I've signed up to this site it will be accessible by http://stevenbenton.com (clicking on this now will take you nowhere!)

This site will enable me to sell any of my images. The best bit about it is that anyone can make a purchase using their Paypal account - using credit cards, debit cards etc.. So I won't need to set up a merchant account.

So that's about it really. I aim to build up an extensive portfolio so that the site becomes more desirable!

I'm also looking in to other ways of making money through photography - obviously let me know if you have any ideas or know anyone that could help!?

Please let me know what you think about the website, I'm open to all sorts of criticism!

SB...

Jimmy's Farm

Afternoon again..

After the morning at Manningtree we went along to Jimmy's Farm with my cousin and her family, they stayed at ours for the weekend.

Jimmy's Farm is great for taking nature photos as there is always something walking \ flying \ running around!

I think my best shot here has to be of the rabbit having a stretch - quite amusing...

I'll keep going back to the farm as firstly, the boys love it and secondly, it's a great place to take photos..

I'd love to see the Kingfisher but it would mean sitting by the lake for a few hours, trying to stay alert :-)

Click the photos to see more or here.

SBB.

Manningtree Station and The River Stour

Afternoon,

Well I got up early yesterday to see what I could find around the River Stour and near to Manningtree Station.

It turned out OK but not hugely successful! The light wasn't great and there was the odd shower of rain, which hampered proceedings!

I managed to get a few shots of baby sparrows and swallows and a few of the trains as they came it... It was a very windy day so holding my lens at 400mm proved tricky!

Click here to see the results or on the photos above.

SBB.

The First Post..

...if only I had my bugle!!

Well by popular demand, by 1 person, I've decided to create a Blog dedicated to my new obsession with photography!

As you can see on the right hand side, I've recently discovered that I can take a pretty good photo now I've got my new lens!

The lens cost me just over £800 but every time I use it I seem to get good results.. (that's not just me saying that either.. ha ha)

I've included one of my favourite photos so far. It's a Muntjac I stumbled across whilst at RSPB Minsmere... I went all that way to photograph birds and my best shot was of a Muntjac :-)

I'm off to the River Stour tomorrow, by Manningtree, Essex. I'll get up about 05:00 so not to ruin my 'family time'. Last time I shot there I got quite a good collection of photos, which can be seen here

I'm also in the process of setting up a website to enable me to sell photos! I obviously need to build up a quality portfolio but I'm sure it won't take too long!

Other news is that the Rendlesham Community Centre are going to have a kind of tabletop sale in October. I thinking of aiming for that with regards to selling some prints, or even getting some business! I'd love to try portrait photography however I need some funds for a new lens, lighting equipment and backdrops... an expensive hobby you might say!

SB.