I have a few days off on a photography weekend this weekend. We're off to the Farne Islands in Northumberland to photograph Puffins and the local area. Can't wait, just fingers crossed the weather holds out.
So, I went to the Farne Islands. Come back with over 1600 photographs to process (so far i'm only happy with one. Then again, i only went for one. Ohh, and a terrific sunburn.
Another long gap since ive posted on here! Been busy working away with the GP as usual. Just got back from Mugello so thought I would share just a few here.... Loads more on my Instagram/facebook etc etc. Not sure how popular this sort of stuff is on here, but if you like MotoGP & Superbike give me a follow.
I've been working on the water drop collision photography, experimenting with different backgrounds, colours and a couple of other things. One of these was making a solution of water and dissolved Xanthan Gum, then adding food colouring to the solution. The Xanthan gum thickens the water and gives a better collision effect. It's a pig to dissolve into water though, if you add it too fast it clumps and forms big lumps. The backgrounds for these images are simple colour gradients I printed off onto A4 and stuck onto a cereal box, which was propped behind the water container. Water drop collision by Stuart Boardman, on Flickr Water drop collision by Stuart Boardman, on Flickr Water drop collision by Stuart Boardman, on Flickr Water drop collision by Stuart Boardman, on Flickr Water drop collision by Stuart Boardman, on Flickr Water drop collision by Stuart Boardman, on Flickr
I quite like the colours of the last one. I would however have cropped the image to centralise the water droplet where possible but well done with capturing the moment.
Had some fun in the Farne Islands a few weeks back. Took over 1400 photographs over the weekend so it's been a pita working through all of the photographs. Here's my favourite so far. Farne Island Puffin by Warren Jones
Shame the sun didn't show itself, it was just starting to show. Anyway, HMS Queen Elizabeth departing HMNB Portsmouth for the states and further sea and air trials. HMS Queen Elizabeth R08 by Sam Masters, on Flickr Sam
Pro Tip: Blast the bugger with compressed air before taking the picture to get rid of most of the dust, then remove the worst bits that remain with the healing tool (or all the bits, if you've got All The Time.) Like so: SiFive HiFive1 by Gareth Halfacree, on Flickr Raspberry Pi 3 B+ by Gareth Halfacree, on Flickr
Doing some more work on thermal imaging. I have to say, I love what you can get out of a cheap (relatively speaking, anyway) thermal camera with a bit of effort in the post-processing stage!
Flir C2 - which has since been superseded by the C3, which has identical specs except for adding built-in Wi-Fi. It's pretty accurate - or it was, when it was calibrated back in 2015, but I've not kept up with the annual calibrations. I point it at a boiling kettle every now and again, and it seems to still be okay! Very low resolution thermal sensor, though: 80x60. Good enough for a game of "where's the heat," but if you want something that'll go down to individual resistors look elsewhere (and spend ten times as much, of course.)