Happy New Year – A little light at the end of the tunnel – portents perhaps of a return to some semblance of normality although some way to go and Tier 4 restrictions to endure in the meantime.
Light at the End of the Tunnel
Saddleworth
Weavers cottages, millstone grit, stone mullions and flagstone roofs – the architecture of Saddleworth (Yorkshire).
Continue reading “Saddleworth”Year-end Walk
So 2020 comes to an end and many will be wishing good ridance to it. Travel restictions have meant that photographic opportunities have been few and far betwen this year and frankly the weather hasn’t helped either. Who knows what 2021 will bring but one thing is for sure, climate change is having a dramatic impact on the weather, it seams that dry crisp winters are a thing of the past to be replaced with seemingly endless drab grey days and rain. A final year-end walk and a final couple of photographs.
Continue reading “Year-end Walk”The Wreck
The Wreck on the hill – Lajares
A Quiet Summer
The Pandemic drags on and opportunities to get out and about to photograph the wildlife have been few and far between. A brief foray to Suffolk & Norfolk yielded little with many of the popular sites overwhelmed with holiday makers that should have been abroad staycationing instead – so just a couple of images – hopefully autumn and winter will bring a little more activity and perhaps a little more enthusiasm on my part.
Continue reading “A Quiet Summer”Olympus 40-150 + MC20 or Olympus 300
By popular request, well a couple of people asked, I thought I would attempt to answer a question that I quite often see discussed online that is “How much better is the image quality from the Olympus M Zuiko 300mm f/4 Pro than the Olympus M Zuiko 4-150mm f/2.8 Pro with the MC20 2x teleconverter ?”
Olympus 300 + MC14 or Pana-Leica 100-400 ?
Following on from my post yesterday regarding getting extra reach out the excellent Olympus M Zuiko 300m f/4 Pro lens where I concluded that the MC14 and MC20 teleconverters do produce better image quality than simply cropping the image in post production, I thought it would be useful to look at the fifth option for getting extra reach namely not using the 300mm at all but replacing it with something longer.
Continue reading “Olympus 300 + MC14 or Pana-Leica 100-400 ?”
To MC or to Crop ?
As primarily a wildlife photographer my most used lens by some margin is the excellent Olympus M.Zuiko 300mm f/4 Pro. Â For a 600mm full frame equivalent lens it is light and compact these being the key reasons why I use m43 cameras. Â It is as sharp as any lens I have ever owned, including Canon’s big whites, and the optical image stabilisation combined with the IBIS of my OMD EM1 mkII is nothing short of astonishing.
Sri Lanka Trip – Postscript
By way of a postscript a few days after we left Sri Lanka and transited with Emirates through Dubai, Dubai Airport was closed to transit passengers and whilst we probably could still have got home on a direct flight we think in retrospect we did the right thing.
Udawalawe National Park
14 March 2020
A twist in the tail today which unfortunately meant a premature end to our Sri Lankan trip.
Yala Block 5
13 March 2020
This morning we returned to our preferred Yala Block 5. Â It was a little quieter today perhaps due to the extreme heat which really does make a large part of the day fairly sterile when it comes to birding and no doubt the Leopards were also avoiding the heat and thus also us unfortunately.
Yala Block 1
12 March 2020
We were a little uncertain whether to bother with Yala Block 1 but given that we had plenty of time we thought we would, so at dawn we joined the long queue of jeeps waiting to enter the park, not a promising sign from our perspective but time would tell.
Bundala National Park
11 March 2020
Bundala National Park today. Â Bundala is an internationally important wetland area, it was the first RAMSAR designated site in Sri Lanka.
As usual we were at the gate before dawn.
Yala Block 5 (Lunugamvehera National Park)
10 March 2020
A day in Yala. Â Yala National Park is the second largest but far away most visited national park in Sri Lanka. Â The park is split into a number of blocks some of which can be visted and some which cannot. Â The vast majority of visitors to the park take a safari in Block 1, the coastal part of the park, the reason being that you supposedly stand the best chance of seeing Leopard which, for most people, appears to be all that they are interested in. Â The result of this is that Block 1 is frankly over-run with jeeps which does tend to somewhat spoil the experience.
Continue reading “Yala Block 5 (Lunugamvehera National Park)”
An Owl & More Owls
9 March 2020
On the road again today heading south to our base in Tissamaharama gateway to the likes of Yala and Bundala National Parks.
Horton Plains National Park
8 March 2020
An early start this morning so as to be at the entrance to the park not long after dawn and to catch sight of the endemic Sri Lanka Woodpigeon at its well kown roosting site, before they flew for the day, this being the only real chance to see this species on the trip.
Nuwara Eliya
7 March 2020
Next on the itinerary was the highland town of Nuwara Eliya and from there a trip to the Horton Plains National Park.
Kitulgala – Day 3
7 March 2020
This morning, before dawn, we headed off into the hills to the north of Kitulgala.
Kitulgala – Day 2 (Reptiles)
6 March 2020
The birding on day 2 of our Kitulgala stay was pretty slow but it was more than made up for in a photographic sense by the fantastic lizards that we came across and they really do make the most fantastic photographic subjects, not least because unlike the birds they don’t keep flying away ! Continue reading “Kitulgala – Day 2 (Reptiles)”
Kitulgala – Day 2 (Birds)
6 March 2020
Our first full day at Kitulgala and up at the crack of dawn for some endemic owl hunting.
A Good Place to Stand 