Rural Relaxation - A Jack Snipe at College Lake

A Jack Snipe at College Lake Nature Reserve, near Tring
(at least that is what I was told by another bird watcher at the time
Can anyone confirm this?)

Over the Easter period I have been very busy with family and other matters - which have kept me away from the computer. The activities have included two visits to College Lake with my Canon Powershot SX40 HS which allowed me to take some wonderful bird photographs no that I am getting used to it. (I still haven't found time to read the manual to try out the manual features - which in some cases should allow me to get even better shots.)

Chaffinch drinking at the "Window in the Wood" hide, College Lake

While the SX40 is fine for my more serious outdoor shots my older Powershot SX120 IS camera has been repaired and because it has the advantage of slipping into my pocket is more practical for more casual everyday use - such as the family photographs (including a short video of my granddaughter dancing in a ballet) I took over Easter.

Rural Relaxation: Greater Spotted Woodpecker

Greater Spotted Woodpecker

While I have been on some most enjoyable country walks recently, and taken many pictures with my Canon Powershot SX40  HS, I have been too busy to sort them out and post the better ones online.

This one is a cheat. I was working in the kitchen - and the only walking I did was to go into the hall to grab the camera. I kept well back from the window to avoid frightening it off and the feeder was hanging from a tree some 10 metres away. The camera worked well - with hand-held shots on high zoom.  O.K. not every shot was perfect - for instance in a few the camera focused on the background. It also turned out that if the woodpecker was in the act of pecking its head was moving so fast it was slightly blurred. However I got a number of excellent pictures and am delighted with the results.

Rural Relaxation: A Spectacular Canal Walk

Frost-covered Trees at Marsworth Reservoir
Adjoining the Grand Union Canal, near Tring.

By the Canal near Startops Reservoir, near Tring

On Wednesday last week my car was due for service at Lower End Garage. Marsworth, and I planned to drop the car off when it opened and walk back to Tring along the canal, having breakfast at the Garden Centre at Bulbourne. Very low temperatures and freezing fog had been forecast so I dressed warmly and took my camera. When I arrived at the garage the fog had gone and the countryside had been converted into a winter wonderland - with everything covered by a thick layer of hoar frost.

As a result I ended up with a large number of photographs of the Grand Union Canal, Startops and Marsworth Reservoirs, plus some other views. There were close-ups of frosted leaves - rimed with ice crystals, and the birds were not ignored. The best pictures can now be seen, in high resolution, on Geograph. One of the pictures, "Its warm inside - and bitterly cold outside," was selected as the picture of the day on December 16th.

Lock 44, Grand Union Canal

The pictures were all taken with my new camera, a Canon Powershot SX40 HS camera, and in view of the interest in my earlier First and Second impressions of using it, I provide a Third impression, after using it for three months - below the fold.

High resolution modern photographs of Flamstead

As part of my assessment of my new Canon Powershot SX40 HS Camera I took a number of photographs of St Leonard's Church, Flamstead, and the nearby village. These have now been uploaded onto the Geograph web site (with higher resolution options) and linking thumb pictures have been posted on the Flamstead home page, and also on the St Leonard's Church page.

Some Modern Views of Flamstead
] Almshouses	Spotted Dog	Three Blackbirds	Village Hall

Second Impressions of my new Canon Powershot SX40 Camera

Kingfisher at College Lake
Click for full sized picture

Yesterday we took our Australian friend for a walk round the College Lake Nature reserve, near Tring, and I took my camera with me for what could be considered a normal day out and the "routine" pictures were all very satisfactory - but didn't need such a powerful camera.

However as we approached Castle Hide we jocularly suggested that Janet should visit the hide as this time she might be lucky and see a kingfisher. Much to our delight there was one fishing about 40 m away and I took a whole series of pictures of it at maximum optical zoom (x33) plus maximum digital zoom (x4) and have then cropped the pictures (equivalent to another x3 zoom).


The only difficulty was that I didn't have a tripod with me so I used the jamb of the hide opening, plus my left hand, to provide a firm base from which to aim the camera. For amateur wild life snapshots, taken for fun, for display on a computer rather than very high definition prints,  these results taken at the extreme zoom are good enough for me, and I am delighted with the result.

Red Kite at College Lake

However I had problems trying to photograph a red kite at College Lake which were due to a combination of extreme inexperience and the limited eye level viewfinder. Even when the bird was flying above the sky line I could not spot it in the view finder as a dot over the top of the trees, when with a good single lens reflex I would have easily been able to do so. (Of course a single lens reflex with a suitable zoom would have been very much heavier and difficult to control). The kite suddenly swept closer, and not having time to decide what to do I shot blind at full optical zoom and consider myself extremely lucky to get this rather blurred shot (full frame shown, resolution reduced with slight image enhancement).

If you don't know College Lake visit Geograph  for some pictures I took earlier on less powerful Powershot models. You may also like to see my first impressions of the SX40 camera.

My first impressions of the Canon Powershot SX40 HS Camera

When I visited Flog It at Ashridge I had an accident with my camera (a pocket-sized Canon Powershot SX120) which for some reason objected to being bounced on the floor! While it may be repairable I decided that initially I would upgrade to a rather larger “bridge camera” and purchased a Powershot SX40 IS. I purchased this on Friday, taking some photographs in Aylesbury and spent Saturday touring round with a view to visiting the Early 19th Century Exhibition at St Albans, and some of the Bike & Hike open churches. I also went for a short walk on the Sunday and took some more pictures - all in the auto mode.

Perhaps the first photographs I took illustrate some of the power of the system. I left the shop and went to St Mary's Church, Aylesbury. I sat at a table in the little cafe at the west end, unpacked the camera, and without reading the introductory guide took these two pictures.

The first shot was taken with the default setting and shows the Nave with the Chancel beyond. The second was taken from the same spot by selecting the maximum optical zoom (x33) plus some additional digital zoom.  It shows the crucifix at the top of the middle window at the east end of the church, and the detail gives some idea of the resolution. (It might have been even better if I had read the manual and used a tripod!). Compared with the comparatively simple 100% manual fixed focal length camera, with 120 black and white film I had at school some 60 years ago the power of this camera is mind-blowing.

This later test shot is the weather vane on the spire of Ivinghoe Church taken from Pitstone Windmill - a distance of about 450m. In fact I really wanted the camera to take wild life photographs involving real birds rather than a metal one. So far I have only taken one wild bird shot - showing two swans, several lesser black backed gulls, and some black-headed gulls at a distance of perhaps 500m. It was not perfect (perhaps because it was hand held) but was good enough to allowed me to identify the birds. 

Tortoiseshell Butteryfly 

A more demanding test was to film a butterfly visiting some flowers from perhaps 4 to 5m. The electronic viewfinder (not present in most smaller cameras) proved useful in tracking the insect's movements when I took this (cropped) picture. However the viewfinder image quality is poor by single lens reflex camera standards.

St Mary's, Aylesbury.
This view between the trees is only possible as a wide angled shot 

On the Saturday I spent most of the day visiting the St Albans area, and visited a number of open churches - and some of the pictures will be displayed on this site later. However I discovered an advantage which had not been on my original shopping list. The bigger zoom includes wider angled shots - which are useful in photographing the nave of a church, where you can get a good general view including the high ceilings.  The same thing applies in trying to get photographs of churches and other old buildings in narrow streets.

The chief snag, compared with the Powershot SX120, is its size. The body, excluding the lens, is only a little bigger, but the large lens means it will not slip into a pocket, although it is very much smaller than a SLR camera - and does not require interchangeable lenses. The extra power and facilities (which I have yet to explore) compared with my previous camera will be very useful for taking nature pictures on my country walks, and in photographing historic buildings for this web site. However for more everyday use such as family events and holidays a pocket sized camera which you can forget about will be more practical - and I may see if I can get the SX120 camera repaired for everyday use.

See also Second Impressions - where I take pictures of a Kingfisher and a Red Kite.