Tag Archives: Autumn

Then and Now on Dufferin Terrace

I haven’t been back to Canada in many years but 2009 was my first visit there and we stayed near Quebec and took a tour of the city on a wet and cloudy autumn day.


Apertureƒ/7.1
CameraCanon EOS 40D
Focal length20mm
ISO400
Shutter speed1/50s

A Sunlit Afternoon on the Wall

This is me standing on the old walls of Cork where I took this photo in Bishop Lucey Park yesterday afternoon. The sun had already started to head to the horizon and it wasn’t even 3pm, but it did light up the mural on the wall and placed the ground in front of me in shadow.

For many in Ireland, November is firmly in the winter months of the year. It seems to be a traditional Irish/Celtic thing because Met Éireann uses meteorological seasons which classify September, October and November as autumn.


Apertureƒ/8
CameraILCE-7RM5
Focal length24mm
ISO100
Shutter speed1/1000s

The Tiered Beauty of O’Sullivan’s Cascade

One of the highlights of a recent trip to Killarney was discovering O’Sullivan’s Cascade. There’s a 1.7 km walk from your car to the falls, but it’s worth it as the area is lovely.


Apertureƒ/11
CameraILCE-7RM5
Focal length54mm
ISO640
Shutter speed1/25s

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!


Apertureƒ/11
CameraILCE-7M3
Focal length240mm
ISO65535
Shutter speed1/160s

Close

Ad-blocker not detected

Consider installing a browser extension that blocks ads and other malicious scripts in your browser to protect your privacy and security. Here are a few options.

  • uBlock Origin is a free, open source, ad blocker for your browser.
  • Use pi-hole if you have a spare Raspberry Pi on your network.
  • Set the private DNS settings on your phone to dns.adguard.com to block adverts and trackers.