Gorgeous photos! What a great trip. I totally echo @craigf’s sentiments…wish I could have been there, too. Diolch for sharing them with us!
Wel John Bach, that little slide show has made me feel rather proud to be Welsh. Hen wlad fy nhadau etc! Diolch i ti.
1 Like
Wow!! They are all glorious and @craigf’s pics are brilliant too!! What a day for me to tell you that my incompetent self now owns a camera. Don’t ask what kind!! It is Nikon and an early penblwydd/nadolig present from Janet & our friend Sheila. All I have done so far is point it out of the window to prove it works!! It did but the bad pic of some of our chaffinches is too big to put here, so I’ll have to learn to make it smaller!! Don’t hold your breath, I’m a slow learner!!!
I may have done it…
I hope I will improve with time and practise!!
4 Likes
I think there is a coal tit (titw penddu) in the middle of your photo.
Agree with what you say about Craig’s photos.
Now you are going to have a whole lot of fun with that camera and we will get to know what’s outside yn yr Alban.
Ray has been imaging in the garden, Doug by the river and others, it’s all helping to build vocab and understanding, so thanks all and new comers welcome.
I know out of focus photo’s are frustrating (we all get them) so try not to worry to much about it,
I suspect Tatjana bach could give you plenty of advice on the technical side of it.
I was given a day of work because of bad weather forecast and so have wandered a bit this morning with umbrella, took some poor fungus photo’s.
And came upon these fairly large individuals.
Madarch y maes - common field mushroom.
Cheers J.P.
4 Likes
It does take time. A lot of my pics are blurry. I took many of them when I first got the camera. The camera auto picks the focus points. So ones with a busy background are the blurriest. Plus, a steady hand is not in my genetics. 
I found that manual focus works much better, once you get used to it (not with fast moving objects, of course, but it’s perfect for flowers, snails, and such). I use the manual old Helios lens (from the pre-digital Zenith camera) + adapter ring to join it to the digital camera, and autofocus doesn’t work at all with it.
1 Like
I later found the that out too. For instance my Moon pic. No way I could get auto focus to work on that.
1 Like
And there’s so much more art in it:) Finding the right focal point, deciding on the composition, trying out the scene with different aperture - no way auto mode can make you feel such an artist! 
The downside is that I still get blurry pictures every two or three shots(
1 Like
Sounds like everyone gets their share of blurry images, the biggest problem with photography seems to be getting the camera to capture what the eye see’s.
With stationary objects i can play with amount of zoom and taking photo’s from different angles sometimes this means one image is good enough.
For the shake of hand problem, when possible i lean on or against something.
This afternoon brought a surprise in a moth i disturbed which is well out of season (May-June) for flight time, so i have sent image for expert opinion of my identification.
Gwyfyn Rhesen wen y rhedyn - Brown silver line moth (i think).
Cap porslen - Porcelain fungus.
I was intrigued by a clump of ferns which i have had a go at identifying.
Gwibredyn - hard fern (it looks like).
The way the spores are arranged on underside of frond seem to fit the description.
Cheers J.P.
4 Likes
I’d just add that the light is very important - the more overcast the sky is, the smaller the possibility to take a good photo with clear focus.
Well spotted! I’m so used to a flock of chaffinches, I forgot all the tits and other birds. I only glanced at the birds and totally failed to see one of ‘our’ coal tits lurking there!!
I have never seen an ordinary mushroom as big as that one and we got some pretty big ones on Gower!! I love the cap porslen, they look so delicate and almost artificial!!
To @craigf and @stella Thanks for the advice and hints. BUT I am cack-handed and shaky handed and normally want the pic NOW because the…vole? bird? squirrel? is there and will probably not be there in a second!! I tend to see these things when at the sink.
So, grab camera from case, point…turn on camera… point camera… try a bit of zoom…press button…focus??? Only if it is my Wiwer back, because he/she used to stay for ages. The sparrow hawk sometimes poses, but if I even get a clear pic of ‘our’ vole, I will faint with shock!!! I shall practice a bit with flocks under the bwrdd aderyn, but will only post if I get something worth sharing!
1 Like
Increased shutter speed works magic for quick photos of moving animals:) And I found it also slightly helps with the problem of my own shaky hands.
Alas, my own manual lens doesn’t let me do any reprogramming, so I can only take photos of animals if they are sleeping or frozen in horror, like this babi llyfant melyn.
3 Likes
Bad, shaky, blurry, etc. photos are so much easier not to worry about now that we have digital cameras. You can look at the image and delete it - no extra money spent, and you can be sure (at least relatively so) that you’re getting the photo you want before you leave (especially if you’re traveling somewhere). In the past I have spent a lot of money having my vacation slides (old SLR camera) developed only to find out that several were no good. Much better with the DSLR I have now.
I have also found, with the (remarkably good) camera on my phone, that I can use the “burst shot” (multiple shots very quickly in succession by holding my finger on the ‘button’) and almost be assured that at least one of the resulting photos will be quite clear and sharp. If I’m having trouble getting it with a single shot, I’ll do a burst; sometimes I just do it that way from the start.
3 Likes
I took this photo a couple of years ago (2013 Mai to be more exact). This baltimore oriole was showing off outside my window. I managed to take about ten shots of him and this was the best of the lot. He’s sitting in the mock-orange shrub (not yet blooming) which had been overrun by the (wild) wisteria (the purple flowers). I have to keep cutting out the wisteria or it will take over just about everything!
(click to embiggen)
9 Likes
Twice in my life i have seen a mushroom as big as a frying pan, i can remember both occasions, one found by me when i was about 9 years old and one found by somebody else when i was in my twenties.
Oh how i wait for that photo. if you continue to practice and experiment, sooner or later you are going to post a photo here that has really made your day, enjoy.
That is so true, and these modern camera’s seem to use fast shutter if they sense any movement.
I believe there is now a website dedicated to astronomy with phone camera’s and they are getting remarkable results.
From yesterday, looking rather wet.
Torthau’r tylwyth teg - sulper tuft. (the welsh name translates as the fairies loaves) i rather like that. Now all i have to do is remember it.
Cheers J.P.
6 Likes
They do look kind of tasty.
1 Like
How fascinating:) Made me want to research the plants traditionally associated with faeries in Welsh mythology. There must be a few.
1 Like