Messin' about

Nothing much to report owing to work and fishing. At least the fishing was slow, allowing me to play around with some 'selfies' and other stuff for a bit of fun. Taking photographs in the dark certainly finds the limitations of your gear and my fishing DSLR is a bugger to focus with when there's barely any light. For the first shot I hung my head torch on the brolly, zoomed in on it using live view and focused manually. I used a radio remote to take the shot.

In daylight things were easier, except for some reason the camera used face detection to pick the focus point - even with the distant face - when I wanted the reels sharp. Once more the best shot of the bunch was the one with the dodgy focus and the ones where the focus was on the reels were rubbish because the light had changed.

Next time out I tried some light painting using my head torch as an experiment to illuminate the rods. Difficult to pre-visualise the results at first, but I find it far easier than using flash. You might think that spending twelve hours in one spot trying to catch fish would mean I had a high boredom threshold, but I gave up on the photography long before the moon moved round to the perfect place in the frame because it became tedious!

At dawn I spotted (ho, ho) a four-spotted chaser waiting to dry off and warm up before taking flight. So I pestered that with both fishing cameras. The best results coming from the compact. Not great by most standards, but acceptable for unplanned pictures. Especially as the only flash I had was the one built in to the camera.

Using the flippy screen I was able to get better angles than the awkward ground allowed. I'd have got a dunking had I tried to use the viewfinder for framing. Rather than go for the usual out of focus background I was trying to make environmental pictures. Even so I could have cleared some of the dead reed stems out of the way as the insect wasn't going anywhere. Again I gave up before I got a really good shot. I don't have that urge to pay attention to every detail and strive for perfection. Story of my life really. Near enough is good enough for me most of the time!

Despite this lackadaisical attitude I have learned a few things. So maybe one night, or day, I'll be able to get some better results from the gear. If I do some pre-planning. Which is unlikely...