CCC Forum

Garden Life in Autumn.
I was pottering in our garden last week on a sunny afternoon with temperatures up to 11*C when I came across a medium sized frog near some potted plants. It was for the most part a beautiful light green colour. Like most frogs in our garden, it did not mind me much and even allowed me to move a few light coloured leaves away from my shot. The frog was well fed and looked in the prime of health. I guess it will soon be hibernating as temperatures continue to drop and will reappear hopefully in February to spawn.

Some autumn colour from plants too.

I hope to capture more autumnal garden life in the next few days and weeks.

Please feel free to add your own images to this post.
Comments welcome too.
Iggy

In the middle of the week, trying to attract some birds to photograph, I placed a slice of bread on our patio table outside our French windows. Nothing happened that first day. Added some small crab apples (rescued from a neighbour’s garden) and next morning before I got up, the bread and apples had been reduced to pulp, suggesting that some birds had been feeding.
Yesterday I cleared the mess off the table and reset it with another slice of bread, crab apples and some bird seed, but was out most of the day.
Late this morning I saw a grey squirrel at the table which soon left after it saw me as we don't like each other (squirrels dig holes in our lawn). Declaring a truce, I reloaded the seed and some apples and waited.

Meanwhile, I set up my Panasonic Lumix FZ1000 on a tripod inside at the French windows and kept an eye out for garden wildlife.
To kill time, I downloaded the Wi-Fi app from Google App on to my mobile phone and managed to get the FZ1000 working remotely from my phone, that included being able to zoom in and out with the 25-400 mm lens!
I was rather pleased with this achievement, as I had not done this before. With nothing on the table for a couple oh hours, around 3.20 pm, as it was getting dark, I dismantled the camera set-up.

You guessed right. Just then the squirrel turned up again. I was fortunate enough to get some hand-held shots without flash in spite of the darkness. I was shooting through the glass of the French windows. Room was lit but images were worse when I turned these lights off! Some colour correction was necessary.
Then I tried to set up the Wi-Fi enabled remote system again, and now that won’t work. Will look at that tomorrow, as I want to catch some bird shots if I can. Perhaps I need to reload the App?

Any suggestions regarding setting up the remote Wi-Fi system again would be appreciated.

Iggy

Hi Iggy, liked your images and the encouragement to share so these were a few I grabbed on my phone, Nina inspired - she has a new phone and sent me a few images she had taken with it:

Hi Frank,
Nice macro (?) shots of the rose hips with lots of detail and the background out of focus.

I have quite a lot of birds coming to the garden again now that I have filled the feeding stations.
My ambition now is to try and capture some of them on film using my Panasonic FZ1000 with its 25 to 400 mm lens. It does have macro too.
Plan is to set camera on a tripod at 100 - 200 mm outside on a bright, dry day and then use remote WiFi control from my mobile with me nice and warm indoors.
Remote WiFi control is great and easy to set-up.
Hoping to capture some foxes too.

Regards,
Iggy

Iggy, I haven't really done much wildlife - maybe Beth or David B can give you some pointers their wildlife shots are fantastic! One of the guys I worked with was into wildlife he used a remote infrared trip-switch to capture some really stunning photos of a family of house sparrows from eggs to fledglings. Hope you are able to get something, well done with the remote installation!

I finally got round to raking the leaves of the lawn on Thursday afternoon.
Imagine my surprise to find two medium sized frogs among the leaf litter.
The frogs were none the worse for their raking experience but further mental trauma by trying to photograph them was avoided.
Instead, they were shepherded to the piles of leaf litter around the edges of the garden where the soon disappeared out of sight.

With most of the leaves from the trees now lost, I could have written an ode to the fallen leaves.
However I decided to celebrate the few leaves still standing by titling my image "The last of the summer leaves".
There are still lots of flowers around, particularly wild weeds. I rather liked the delicate white nettle flowers that I saw for the first time.

For Encounters in Bushy Park, l was looking for actions shots to tell a story but also took several portraits shots of animals and large birds.
Shooting small wild life in the garden is different. Ideally the set-up should have special feeding stages with adjoining hides such as at Millers Wood for very easy capture with a 400mm lens. http://www.johnstantonphotography.co.uk/millers-wood-2/

In my garden, remote WiFi might replace the hide. I have yet to set up natural looking feeding stations.
Unsuitable weather has delayed progress of the trial of a camera on tripod in the open.

Today morning though, there was a brief window of opportunity for 20 minutes with a friendly robin and nice light at midday, even though I was shooting in the shade.
The robin was relaxing in a low bush. Offerings of small bird seed and suet pellets or even live earthworms, gently cast, were no temptation.
Took a few hand held shots and then later when the robin was further in the bush, moved slowly closer to within 2 meters.
I had to re-position a few times to get clearer hand held shot through the bush where intersecting branches were a problem.

Here are a couple of images. Minimal tidy up with dodge and burn in Photoshop.
Hope to have more close-up opportunities with this robin this autumn.

Lovely morning today but rather cold.
Hence decided to get the WiFi mobile phone remote release working from indoors.
With live image on both camera and mobile I was able to relax and watch TV at the same time.
Set up mixed bird seed and some bread on the Patio table and invited the garden wild life to a picnic.
Squirrel and wild pigeon were the only feeders here initially.
Later, a tit occasionally darted in to snatch a sunflower seed almost without stopping.

At noon, I set up a hanging bird feeder for small birds a little further away from the patio window.
The clouds had taken over the sky before the blue tits and coal tits found the feeder.
These images were well out of focus with the WiFi setup.
Additionally, the feeder being in a darker location in a holly tree, did not help.
In any case, a small bird feeding from this feeder is never going to be a pretty picture.
Any how, shall hope to get some WiFi assisted, in focus record shots later in the week.
Might have to use the manual focus facility on the camera.

Thankfully, the robin was on song today and accepted several earthworms.
Unfortunately sparrows and tits are not as trusting!

Does any one else use remote WiFi shutter release from their mobile phones?

After a heavy rain shower this morning the sun came out which prompted me to go out in search of raindrops on colour.
Found yellow, orange, brown and even some green.

Beautiful bright sunny morning with lovely blue skies this morning.
With temperatures at just 4 degrees C, I was surprised & lucky to photograph a bumble bee collecting honey!

Noisy parakeets too in a neighbour's garden.