New Dogs

Got two new additions to the household. They've been here around four months now (where did that go!). Despite being father and daughter, they're very different characters.

Being much younger than the last dog, they're fast. Really fast. Which makes photographing them much more of a challenge. This is shot at 1/1000th of a second on a sunny day, and has frozen Daisy quite well. The tongue is just a bit of luck, but adds a bit of fun to the picture.

This is at 1/1600th. Despite it being a sunny day, the ISO is at 1250 in order to use an aperture of F6.3. Any smaller than that, and there's next to no chance of them being properly in focus.

Trying to photograph a running dog is really hard. These were done while my wife played ball, and I stood to the side to photograph them. There's no way you can throw a ball and try to shoot them while they fetch it.

Dunkeld Shot

Took about fifty pics over the weekend, and this was by far the best of them. In better times, I'd have had a tripod and remote release, but instead I just rested the camera on the wall of a bridge and hoped for the best.

Bit of photoshop to balance the lighting, but otherwise quite happy with this one.

Self Portrait

Off camera flash, fired using the remote. The background should be more black, but I'm standing a bit too close to the wall. Overall though, I'm pleased with this.

Sunset through the trees

Got a loan of a 17-35mm Canon lens at the moment, to make sure this is what I want for Christmas last year (!). The thing I love about wide angle lenses is what they do to clouds, but we've just not had the right weather since I got it.

I took it up to a local reservoir yesterday to try to get some sunset pics, but it was pretty cloudy so I gave up. Just as I got to the car, the sun broke through some trees, and I fired half a dozen shots off to see what came back. Best of the bunch by a long way...

Fireworks 2012

Another attempt at taking firework pictures, at the end of the Edinburgh Festival. Still not great, but at least there were one or two that were "ok". And my battery didn't die, as it did last time I tried this.

Bram

My dog died last Friday. He'd been showing his age, and his back legs had been getting noticeably weaker over the last six months. The dog that could clear a four foot high wall from a standing start now had to be lifted in and out of the car. On Friday, he could no longer stand, so it was time to say goodbye.

As well as being a great pet, and until recently a very effective way of keeping fit, he was a great photography subject.

Star Shot

Ok, these aren't actually stars. It's Jupiter and Venus, shot from the decking at the back of my house.