This weeks Blog is again the shots for the weekend at the Australian Botanical Garden's, Mount Annan.

So similar to the last few weeks Ill run thought the shots and a little about each one. The first shot is a little mushroom that was growing in the middle of a walking track in the grass, I set up and was taking a series of these shots when I heard a noise down the path and looked up to see a mountain bike rider riding a long the path, So I grabbed my gear and moved it out of the way while standing over the mushroom to protect it as the bike rode past then reset up and went to work on this one below. AS usual this shot was done with two peed lights plus in this case a small piece of aluminium cooking fold I use as a small reflector to bring back some of the light in the shadows. One of the light has a brown gel over it to add some colour to the shot. 

​I also used a small water spray bottle I carry with me to add in the water drops this usually helps bring out the colours of the mushrooms and in some cases gives some highlights for the flashes to reflect off as on the upper cap of this one. 

Fromt ehre I walked along the track to the plant bank and found this little Grey fantail bouncing around. The shot below shows it with its fan tail up. 

​The next shot shows the Bird just after it leaped from its branch and is in a sort of dive to the next one. Needed a fraction faster shutter speed for this one, But still not to bad.

This week around the daisy no butterflys but some insects to practice with. 

Around the guarded the wattles are starting to come out now as well usually August is the best time for Wattles but there is still a few coming out now, mind you you can always find one somewhere in the gardens in flower depending on the type it is. 

As I was driving around the gardens I spotted this immature grey Butcher bird catching the last of the afternoon sun. The juvenile birds are a brown colour before urn gin he grey of their parents.  

Lastly I finished up by the lakes near the main car park before driving home when this Australian White Ibis flew right over head so I managed to get this shot as it flew by. The ISO was up to 2000 of this shot, happy to go up that high with the 7d mk2 would never thought to go much over 800 on the 60d so the 7d mk2 is certainly a much better performer when it comes to that a and many other things. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog, hope you like it, next week will be somewhere different other than the Australian Botanical gardens so you'll have to wait for next week to find out where. Have a great week there. 

Glenn.

This weeks blog post is again a walk thought of the shots taken this weekend in the Australian Botanical Garden's Mount Annan. My usual place for taking photos most weekends. Plenty to practice with.
 

This week I started off in the Stolen generation walk and found the usual suspect the Eastern Yellow Robin. He also found me by the looks of it as he is staring me down.

This shot the background is a little to busy and the sticks across the feet also take from the shot on this occasion. But still makes a nice subject and they are always around to pose for me each week. 

This one is a different one to the normal one a Jacky Winter, these are a little more timid that the Eastern Yellow Robin. So they don't stick around and don't allow you to get so close either. Still working of getting  a decent shot of one of these. Oh well always next week. 
 

I walked along the board walk and along the path past the plant back and found a small group of Yellow faced honey eaters and managed to get this portrait shot, getting better but I still want a better one of these ones as well, but an improvement on the past few weeks shots of these. 
 

​The Next four shots are of the same mushroom just two different angles and different lighting effects, this one was growing on a rotting tree log. 

The first is natural light no flash used. 

​Where as the next one was the two light set up a plain flash underneath and a brown gelled flash to the right. 

​From there I changed angles and shot back across the mushroom and again with two lights. 

Finally the one I liked the best out of these four this shout with the two lights again, such a difference in the shots just changing the angle and lighting.

I decided to check out the Connections garden again and again found a different collection of mushrooms up there so more to choose from again. Again the next two shots are of the same mushroom just different lighting on the subject.  

By then it was getting late and the red-rumped grass parts were coming down for the final feed for the night before heading up to the gum trees to roost. This is a shot of them coming in to feed. 

Followed by a shot of two of them heading of for the night. Not that happy with either of these shots, the top one needs a better depth of field and faster shutter speed though a bit hard in the low light of the evening even with the ISO raised up. The one below is OK but this has been quite heavily cropped and the low light and high ISO is starting to show up the noise a little to much so when bought down in lightroom the image is taking on that painted effect. But still shot in flight thats reasonable sharp, certainly showing why its named a Red Rump. 

​That's it for the best of, from this weekend, hope some of the shots give you a flavour for this week and some of the better shots and issues I have each week. 

You can also find me on TSU a social media site like google plus but the royalties urned are shared back amounst the contributors. 

https://www.tsu.co/Glenn_Smith

Or google plus, Flickr or Ello, though by far the most shots are posted to my blog each week. 

 Thanks for dropping by my Blog, There will be more net week.

Glenn

This weeks blog is going over the shots I took last weekend at the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan. A good day weather wise so not so cold and not raining as it was all week here in Sydney here last week.  So a good day out. With all the wet weather about there was plenty of mushrooms out. Started off heading to the Stolen Generation memorial walk were there us usually plenty of birds about and of late some mushrooms as well.
 

The first for shots are a collection of some of the mushrooms I found there. Again all the mushroom shots are taken with the Canon 60D with two off camera speedlites, one with a brown gel to add some toning to the shot.
 

The first shot has the brown gel on the right of the shot.
 

The next shot a different mushroom has the brown gel on the left this gives the brown tones on one side and the plain flash on the opposite side gives a whiter light.
 

Same set up again but again a different set of mushrooms, so I'm pretty well set up for these these days and its only a matter of moving the lights a little bit to give the best effect, wither I back light one or use two sidelights on opposite sides. the position of the lights makes a big difference to the shot and only a small difference can make all the difference. For me this is still trial and error moving the lights around, I have a fair idea what will be but until you move it you never know, it really brings out the gills if you get it right with the lights and shadows.
 

While shooting the mushrooms the yellow faced honey eater were about and I finally managed to get at the first clean shot of one, still needs improvement os need to keep working at these ones but certainly a lot cleaner shot than the past of these ones. 

After that I walked along the walkway to see what else was about and eventually found my self over at the plant bank garden, the plan bank is a recently new facility in the gardens where all the scientists work, including a seed bank of all the seats they collect out in the wold, they are often sending the seed collectors out in exotic locations to collect seed specimens and these are stored in the plant bank in the gardens. If you interest the link below will take you to their site where the cover a lot more detail of what they are up to there. all very interesting they run tours thought the facility and often run student education sessions there for school groups. 

https://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/support/Fundraising_projects/PlantBank

The shot below is one of the wild daisys they have growing there. 

While I was shooting the daisys there was a Monarch butterfly about so I got a few shots of this as well, something different for me, compared to birds and mushrooms. 

After the butterfly fly off I found a red Browed Finch in the nearby sheoaks so heres a shot I managed of it. 

Of cause as of recent no trip there would be complete with out at least one shot of the Eastern Yellow Robins in the gardens, so heres two shots of them. 

​From there I drove up to the connections gardens to see what was going on there as its been a few week since I was up that way, I found loads of mushrooms up there so heres a few shots of these as well, No shortages of subjects there to shoot. 

The next two shoots are the same set up the difference is just the exposure and lighting  taken only a few minutes apart but shows you the effects the lighting can have and what happens when you get creative with the exposure.  Same set up just using flashes and under exposing to kill of the background. 

From there I started to head back to the car as it was getting late and I came across the small group of swallows and tried my hand at panning shots with these once more, these are really fast so far more deleted shots that acceptable ones of these. Even with the 600mm lens these are pretty heavily cropped in to get these so starting to loose out on the detail. Oh well more practice required on theres looks like. 

Lastly a shot of a grey Butcher Bird, these birds though plain looking have an amazing bird call and are quite the song bird. 

         
So thats it for this weeks shots, hope you like them, There will be more next week, so stay tuned fro more shots.

Thanks for dropping by my blog .

Glenn.