The “Nollaig Shona Duit” signs at both ends of St. Patrick’s Street in Cork are all lit up again this year.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/1.3s |
Tag Archives: 2022
Walking in Youghal
The Ferris Wheel and the Crystal Ball
Reflections on The Elysian
Ruins of the R&H Hall Office
The shell of the R&H Hall office in Cork Docklands today. It went up in flames on November 23rd, following a fire in the main R&H Hall building on November 10th.
It’s not the first time this block has been damaged by fire. In 2006, grain silos that stood next to this office were damaged by fire and subsequently demolished. Here are a few photos of this office in 2006 and the grain silos behind it.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 3200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/125s |
Hoppy on Caturday
Hoppy, one of our cats, loves the luxury of having multiple beds she can lie in around the house.
Actually, all our animals can do that. Diego, our chihuahua, certainly takes advantage of that, laying himself down near whomever he wants to be with at any one time.
Animals in this house are spoiled? Whatever made you think that?
| Aperture | ƒ/2.4 |
| Camera | SM-G998B |
| Focal length | 9mm |
| ISO | 640 |
| Shutter speed | 1/35s |
The old Howth Harbour Lighthouse
Following on from yesterday’s photo of the new lighthouse in Howth Harbour is this one of the original lighthouse. It sits at the mouth of the harbour and according to Wikipedia was built in the early 19th century.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 26mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/320s |
The new Howth Lighthouse
River at Sunset
Running from the shop
Robin on the Ground
A few weeks ago, I visited Blarney Castle to take some photos of the Autumn colours. Unfortunately the light was dull, and the ground was wet, but I had my tripod with me, so I set it up for some long exposure shots.
After a few minutes of that, I noticed a flicker out of the corner of my eye. I spotted a robin almost right in front of me! He was literally standing on the large log next to the mushrooms I was photographing. And of course, my camera settings were completely wrong to photograph him. In the 10 seconds it took me to swivel the camera around, fiddle with the settings and look up again, he was flying off to a nearby tree. This time I got a couple of shots of him, and then his friend approached and landed on the ground right by my feet! This time I was ready!
Why do settings change so much? In low light, you have to amplify the light hitting the camera sensor. Sort of like turning up the volume. You know how if you turn the volume up really high you’ll get distortion and crackling (and a headache and sore ears), the same thing happens with cameras. The best quality photo comes when the volume (called ISO for cameras) is turned down to a “normal value” but then it takes longer for the camera to “hear” an image. Damn, I’m straining an analogy here. For most cameras, that’s 100. This photo was taken at ISO 12800 and the only reason you don’t see lots of crackling (noise) is because of the magic of software called Topaz Photo AI. A previous ISO 100 image took a whole 1 second to make a photo. This robin photo was 1/160 of a second. He wasn’t going to hang around long!
| Aperture | ƒ/11 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 240mm |
| ISO | 65535 |
| Shutter speed | 1/160s |
Sparklers! 2 for €3!
A man selling sparklers on Henry Street, Dublin on Halloween this year. He promised that 2 for €3 was better than in the shops where they are 1 for €2, and he was right as we were in a Eurogiant later on!
We didn’t buy any sparklers. He had plenty left over when we passed him again.
| Aperture | ƒ/3.2 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 5000 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |