Third Bird Photography: 2012

Saturday, 22 December 2012

Cluster Room

Not much time or good weather to get out recently but I've been back in the cluster room again, getting some shots for the Christmas meeting (none of which were used but, whatever). Some of these really show up the deficiencies of Aperture's RAW processor. Blue LEDs and highlights end up as purple blobs, or with posterisation of what should be smooth graduations of colour.

All of the straight lines also show the lack of distortion removal at wide angles. Hence I've been trialling DxO Optics Pro 8. This has very good distortion removal and handles some of the failings of Aperture much better. DPP from Canon also does a good job of processing wide angle shots very well, although it softens the end image far more than DxO. Still, these are extreme examples and usually for wildlife and landscape work Aperture is good enough, and even on sale, £179 for DxO is just too much to fix a few images and the workflow becomes a lot more complicated. I hate Post Processing enough without adding a whole load extra!

New Force10 Switches

New Force10 Switches and Network Servers

HAMMER Grid Cluster

Cluster room and old networking

Core HEP servers and HAMMER

Friday, 12 October 2012

Holme Fell

A little one to end the week with Holme Fell, but still plenty of walking there and back.

Elevation profile

Holme Fell route

Photos to follow...

Path towards Slater's Bridge

Pile of slate near Slater's Bridge

Cathedral

Two isotonic, hydrating sports drinks at the Three Shires

Tuesday, 9 October 2012

Skiddaw

Now that our legs had recovered, the second big climb, this time taking in Carl Side, then the steep climb up to Skiddaw and Skiddaw Little Man.

Elevation profile

Skiddaw route

Photos to follow...

Long, long shadows on the way up

Walkers on the summit of Skiddaw

Looking back at Skiddaw from Little Man

Warning: Gills ahead

Monday, 8 October 2012

Leighton Moss

This time armed with wellies we sloshed round Leighton Moss in search of Bearded Tits. We weren't disappointed (although we never really got the shot we wanted).