I'm a twit

Being antisocial by nature (if you ever track down my mobile number I won't answer if you're number isn't in my phone book!) I'm not sure why I created a Twitter account. I think it seemed like something that might be less of an annoyance than Farcebook proved to be when I gave that a try. The plan is to use it just as a place where people I photograph might be able to track me down to see the pictures. Easier than pointing them here. I'll probably give up on it though as I like being in control of how web pages looks, and all social media sites hamstring you in that respect, and they keep telling you who you should follow or like or otherwise want to know about. As if I can't think for myself. If either of you who read this nonsense can be arsed my twitter link is https://twitter.com/dave_lumb I give it a month...

The start of May has brought some warm and sunny weather along. Which means my thoughts have turned to fishing. I can't resist playing around with a camera when the bites are scarce. I like pushing the boundaries of what a compact camera can do. They are far more versatile than camera snobs give them credit for. The small sensor models only really falling down in the low light/hand held stakes. And when it comes to using flash I still prefer a camera's built in unit to messing about with flashguns.

It's a bit of a cheat to call my 'good' compact a compact as the sensor is APS size, with no AA filter and a really good (fixed focal length) lens. I'm almost convinced that it makes sharper pictures than my DSLRs!

'Serious' photography has had to wait until today when the poultry club held its annual egg show. More lessons were learned. I fiddled with the auto white balance which made a big difference, as did moving out of matrix metering mode and using centre weighted. That's not to say I didn't make my customary selection of technical errors. Too slow a shutter speed gave me camera shake when I had sufficient light to have easily avoided it for one thing.

Although I messed up some shots I wanted I did manage to get some new looks at the poultry world as this time I concentrated on the judging. A deadly serious business.

I've changed my way of working over the last two or three shows and have been using my mid-range zoom instead of two fixed lenses. It has advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side it means I can react quicker if something happens suddenly, on the negative side I think it is a partial reason for the camera shake. At 50mm I can hand hold down to 1/30th with confidence, but at the long end of the zoom (which is only 70mm) that's dodgy and I need 1/125th to be safe because the lens is heavy.

One thing is for certain, it's easier to take un-posed pictures of people when they are engrossed in something than when they are self-consciously aware of your presence. And the pictures are, to my eye, more interesting than posed pictures.

Once more there is a gallery of pictures - which can be found here.

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