Spring colour and cold nights

A nice dog-walk in Brockwell Park near home this morning (SE London).

I took advantage of the mild weather and blue skies whilst they were there – the weekend doesn’t look so good sadly. I think both of these images are helped by the fact that the trees aren’t in leaf yet – especially the first. They’re both from the X100 (original) with TCL – 50mm equivalent focal length.

I also listened to a TWiP podcast with Valerie Jardin this afternoon, extolling the virtues of gear avoidance syndrome and wandering around with one camera, one lens (prime), and pushing yourself to make the most of it. I suspect the results are all the better for making you think that bit harder. In some ways, I think I get that kind of discipline with my E-1 – in that instance I know I only have 5MP to play with, so I work hard to get the framing right first time because I really don’t have much ability to crop afterwards.

I’m also often surprised when I see (and hear) people “run and gun” with continuous shooting, presumably hoping that at least one of their images will turn out as they hoped. I can understand it for sports or some wildlife photography and it can be quite helpful with very long lenses. But the discipline of making one image at a time, slowing down, being careful with framing and pressing the shutter when you’re ready appeals so much more. However, here’s an image which does come from a burst of a few frames – it really increases the success rate when at the longest end of my Lumix 100-300 zoom. It’s going to be a cold night tonight….