Framedlight

I had an excursion to Fermyn Wood with Jane, whose butterfly friend said that this was the place to see Purple Emperors. This involved driving to the wood which is close to Corby, parking on the side of the road and then walking a mile or so down a forest track to an area known as Lady Wood. I had not realised that it was a longish walk and had brought old dog Hettie along, so the going was slow. Jane who regularly walks 20 miles or so must have found this a tad frustrating. Once there we met up with a number of butterfly maniacs who pointed out the faintest whiff of a Purple Emperor 40 foot up a tree. I only saw it when it took flight. The sun was out for a while in the morning but clouded over into the afternoon, and had it been warmer there may have been more action. Jane suggested a pile of dog pooh might do it as the emperors are very partial to dung and rotting fruit and meat. Hettie did not oblige! However we had fun photographing silver-washed fritillaries and the rare whi

A couple of weeks ago I had reason to visit Derbyshire and made a return visit to Magpie Mine in the Bakewell area of the Peak District. I had very much enjoyed photographing it before and this time the weather was brighter, with outbreaks of sunshine! I had a different camera on me, the Fuji XE-1 and 3 lenses, the Fuji 35mm and 2 old Nikon AI lenses both dating from the 70's, a 28mm and a 135mm both f/2.8 but needing to be manually focussed when attached to the Fuji via an adaptor. I am enjoying using this light combination although the Fuji will only take 2 pictures in it's multiple exposure mode, whereas the Nikon can take up to 9. For this reason I did not take as many multiple exposures as they tended not to work so well. My aim was, as before, to try and get a sense of the place into my pictures. The last photograph was taken in the tearoom in Monyash, where I refreshed afterwards.

This is a more family orientated blog than the ones I normally present. The Sunday of the weekend we spent in the Peak District was dry and sunny and we were able to go to the Roaches so that the younger of the party could spend half a day climbing. I took a chair so that I could sit and watch! It was busy, the Saturday had been wet and consequentially everyone had come on Sunday instead. I love the Roaches, the rocks are very interesting to photograph. However today they were teeming with people so I concentrated on snapping Hugh, Mairi and Lizzy climbing instead. I was using a slightly different combo of my Fuji XE-1 camera with an adaptor and an old (1976) Nikkor F 135mm f/2.8 lens. It is a tiny lens only weighing 430g and sits very nicely on the Fuji. It can be pretty sharp although the contrast could be better. It is nice to be able to travel with just a small over the shoulder camera bag. Here are the pictures. The first 3 were taken using the Fuji 35mm prime lens and the