Autumn Colours in Blarney Castle Gardens

We’ve been lucky this year that the autumn and early winter has been so mild. It was 15C today! I think of this display as one last hurrah before the cold and rain and wind really sets in.


Apertureƒ/8
CameraILCE-7M3
Focal length16mm
ISO100
Shutter speed1/50s

Tiny Mushroom

Here’s one of my attempts at a mushroom photo, focus stacked from 4 roughly the same images.

This sort of photography is really hard isn’t it? You have to get down really low which is a problem itself if you don’t have a tripod to suit. An extension tube is a requirement as I don’t have a macro lens, and then trying to manually focus on the different parts of the mushroom is a challenge.

The focus assist in my camera really helped there. It shows dancing dots where the image is focused but even at f/14 it wasn’t enough to encompass the entire mushroom from front to back. Tap to zoom paid off a few times as it blows up the image to help focusing.

It was fascinating to see the focus dots move like a wave through the scene as I zoomed in and out. Yes, zooming in and out moved the focus point significantly! Significantly here means a few centimetres. Everything is small scale here.


Apertureƒ/14
CameraILCE-7M3
Focal length105mm
ISO100
Shutter speed2.5s

The Lispole Viaduct

If you’ve been to Dingle you’ve probably passed through the village of Lispole. It’s on that long fairly straight road where the speed limit is 60km/h. There are lovely views from the top of the hill overlooking the village and this viaduct sits behind the petrol station at the bottom of the village.

I’d seen the viaduct many times over the years but (I think) never stopped to photograph it until 2 weeks ago. According to a nearby sign it was part of the Dingle – Tralee railway line which ran from 1891 to 1953. An important part of the long community so long ago.

Aperture ƒ/1.8
Camera SM-G998B
Focal length 6.7mm
ISO 50
Shutter speed 1/1100s