Padfield

[Padfield]

Sorry to hear about the death of your camera, Guy - and I'm glad you're replacing it! I don't know what we'd do without you to relieve the short winter days! And that 3rd QoS is remarkably fresh.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little excited about getting a new camera, Pete! I never replace things until they wear out but when they do I always look forward to the upgrade. In theory, there should be an increase in the quality of my pictures, but that remains to be seen ...

Yes, that third Queen of Spain is in very good nick. The species is quite simply continuously brooded - individuals can be found in any state of repair at any time of year. Last year I photographed several on 17th December, shortly before flying back to the UK for Christmas, and then saw them again early in January on my return. Red admirals and clouded yellows are wasting their energy at this time of year but Queens breed fruitfully because their foodplant, Viola tricolor, is available throughout the winter. It was in full flower today:



This, of course, is also the foodplant of the cardinal ...

Guy

[David M]

Welcome update, Guy and believe me, I think I'm looking forward to your new camera even more than you are!

[Jack Harrison]

My faithful Canon compact has taken tens of thousands of photos since I got it five years ago but this year it let me down on several occasions

You did well to keep it going for five years.
I thought that anything with a year's guarantee (eg microwave, toaster) ALWAYS failed on day 366 - presumably being built to do just that

Jack

[MikeOxon]

Your camera symptoms sound as though they might be due to poor battery contacts. Try cleaning them with something like a pencil-style type-eraser. The only compact I've had fail was a Canon A630, where the shutter refused to open. With nothing to lose, I opened it up but couldn't find the cause. Since then, I've used Panasonic Lumix cameras - one even survived a dunking in an Iceland stream, though it acquired a small mark inside the lens, so I replaced it with a later model. My TZ25 has the identical sensor to my FZ200 and is an excellent choice, when I want something small and discreet.

As others have said, it's good to see the butterfly pics flowing in during our fallow months.

Mike

[Padfield]

Thanks for the encouragement, all!

It might be battery contacts, Mike. In fact, though I've been hampered by the autofocus all year, I discovered yesterday why - and it was embarrassingly simple. When the camera reset itself it would default to a different autofocus setting than the one I used before; and because I originally set it years ago I forgot I had changed anything. I have now (yesterday) reset the autofocus to how I like it and when it works it works.

I chose the new camera (SX520 HS) on specs and price (£209), not reviews. In fact, some of the reviews and sample images are a bit mediocre but the reviewers often take pictures badly, on daft settings or through heat haze &c. From the specs and from the more useful (i.e., intelligently taken) images and videos I found I am confident this will more than replace my old SX130 IS. But the proof is in the pudding, or something like that... Let's wait and see what I can do with it. I've had a lot of practice getting the best out of Canon compacts!

Guy

[Padfield]

A few night-time shots from my walk this evening. The valley looked spectacular and these pictures certainly don't do it justice - but they do prove that even ugly industrial works can look good at night!









And my village, Huémoz:



Guy

[David M]

Sorry to put a dampener on things, Guy, but your current camera seems to still be in rude health!

[Padfield]

I certainly won't be throwing it away, David! In fact, it did stop functioning tonight, and I had to take it off the tripod, remove and replace the batteries (so Mike is probably right ...), and set it up again - after which I could continue taking pictures. There's no harm in having a back-up camera and I'm sure it will still see action.

Guy

[David M]

That's fair enough, Guy.

Here's wishing you an enjoyable trip to the UK for the festive period and I hope you arrive safe back in la suisse to continue to delight us all in the new year.

[Padfield]

I was wrong - I thought I'd photographed my last butterfly of 2014. I had to work all morning but zoomed down to the valley with Minnie first thing in the afternoon and arrived at my winter site just in time to see a single Queen of Spain and one red admiral. There were doubtless more earlier in the day - in the mornings they congregate at hotspots to warm up and strut their stuff, while in the afternoon they disperse much more.

Here is the Queen - just two days off the winter solstice, beating last year's record of 17th December by a margin!



Guy

[David M]

I'd love it if this species could populate the southern parts of England. It is surely a candidate to be the next UK endemic (English endemic at least)?

[Padfield]

It's had plenty of chances to establish itself in the UK - not least in Suffolk in the 1990s, when there were high hopes it had succeeded on the coast. But so far the mild, humid climate, lacking the extremes of temperature this species favours, has defeated it.

For me,it will always now be the Winter Queen. Uniquely in Europe, so far as I know, it flies in the Rhône Valley of Switzerland all year round. My friends in France assure me it doesn't do this there, even further south. But near Martigny, many a bright, bare, sunny January day is animated by these butterflies, zooming around in search of early-flowering speedwells or basking on banks. Until recently, I thought they stopped flying in November but for the past four years they have flown in December. Very strange.

Equally strange this year are the primroses, that have been flowering continuously in my local woods since November. Here is Minnie, averting her gaze from the flash on a gloomy walk a few days ago:



That was one of those days you're glad you don't live in the valley ...



Guy

[Susie]

Weird weather here too, I've snowdrops, primroses and roses in the garden at the same time.

[David M]

Don't be too sure, Guy.

I'd gladly 'trial' your valley for a year or two!

[Padfield]

No lep activity (so far) on my UK trip so I've been experimenting with the new camera by photographing birds and the moon. The sky was wonderfully clear tonight and I found I was able to to explore the topography of the moon's surface in much more detail than I've been able to before without a telescope.

This is tonight's moon, rotated a little to put North at the top (for comparing phase pictures):



This close-up has been smoothed a little with noiseware (a free version that removes exif data). The mountain range casting shadows around the southern borders of the Mare Imbrium (the Sea of Rains) is the Montes Apenninus, named after the Apennines. These mountains are comparable in height to the Alps, containing the highest mountain on the moon, Mount Huygens, at about 5500m



Both these pictures are handheld. I'm looking foward to seeing if I can improve on them using a tripod.

Guy

[Padfield]

Me and my shadow ...



(a little egret at Iken, today)



(a yellowhammer, also at Iken)



(turnstones at Woodbridge, a couple of days ago)



(a black-tailed godwit, also at Woodbridge)

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

Nice work, Guy! And how on earth did you get such great photos of the moon?! I can't believe they're handheld! What camera/settings are you using?

Cheers,

- Pete

[David M]

Can you supply a picture of your new camera?

It takes magnificent images!

[MikeOxon]

By coincidence, i was also taking photos of the moon on the night of the 29th/30th with, not surprisingly, virtually identical results. My target, however, was Uranus, which was a little to the West of the moon. Not having any caljbrated equipment for setting up the direction of my lens, I managed to just miss it off the edge of all my photos!!! I had another go this evening and, to avoid cluttering your thread, have posted the results in my own diary.

Mike

[Padfield]

Thanks, Pete and David. Yes, I was pleased to get such detail handheld, Pete. I used point metering and auto ISO (I think the camera chose 160) - then just point and shoot and steady hands (+ IS, obviously)! The proof of the pudding is still the butterfly shots, though, and it might be a few weeks before I have the opportunity to take one of those ... I'll post more details of the camera, if it interests you David, when I'm not getting up to pack at 05h00!

Nice shot of Uranus, Mike. I photographed Uranus in 2011, when it was close to Jupiter (visually, that is!). I'll have another go with the new camera and see if I can rival your shots! This is what I got then:



For reference,here is a cropped Stellarium screenshot from the same time, showing which dot is Uranus:



Stellarium is a fantastic programme and completely free. I've run planetary simulations back thousands of years and the results agree with those of the professional astronomers, so it's certainly accurate - and very useful.

Guy