It’s been a long time since I had anything to write about. But yesterday we finally managed to get out of Dublin for a trip to the Saltees Island off the coast of Wexford. A great place to go for photographs of birds. in particular, Puffins, Gannets, Guillemots and Razorbills to name a few. So eleven of us headed off to get some photos of the these beautiful birds. Sharon joined us for her first trip to the Saltees having missed out last year. It was not a great day with rain showers always threatening, but they stayed away for a few hours to let us get a few decent shots. We set off from Kilmore Quay at 10.00am and returned at 2.00pm. We had a great day and here is a short video and a few images.
Wicklow Waterfalls
Just before Lockdown 2.0 here in Ireland a few of us travelled to some beautiful waterfalls in Co Wicklow at Cloghleagh and Glenmalure. Especially beautiful in their autumn colours. Here is a short video, which I hope you enjoy.
Video taken on Fujifilm X-T4 and DJI OSMO Pocket
A few phots from the day.
St Anne's Park, Clontarf, Dublin
Some photos from a trip this morning to St Anne’s Park with a good friend. The autumn colours are definitely coming.
I hope you enjoy the images. Click on an image for larger view and navigate through the images.
Wicklow Way - Sharon
Yesterday we went to Wicklow and I showed you my photos, today we will show Sharon images from the drive. Enjoy, click on an image to see a larger version.
Wicklow Way
Today Sharon, Ita and I headed off to take a few landscape photos in Co Wicklow. We went first to Cloghleagh, then for a bite to eat it in Roundwood before heading to Glenmalure Waterfall. We had a great day and the weather was perfect. Very pleased with some of the images. I hope you enjoy, click on an image in the gallery to magnify and scroll through the images.
Many thanks for viewing.
West Cork Video
From our few days in West Cork here is some video taken with DJI Mavic Air and a DJI Mavic Mini. A great few days. See previous post for some photos from the few days.
Short Holiday in West Cork
A short holiday in West Cork, Ireland.
Read MoreTrip to the Saltees Island
On Wednesday 1st July a few of us from the camera club headed down to the Saltees Island off Wexford. Due to Covid-19 restrictions the 6 of us travelled in 4 cars, and we drove anxiously for 2 and half hours through a fairly consistent rain. But we were rewarded when we arrived with lovely weather. Here are a selection of photographs taken on the day. I have to thank the friends who came a long as I learned a great deal from them. I hope you enjoy.
Lough Oughter Castle Co Cavan
It’s been a while since I was out droning, but the weather has been good so we headed to Co Cavan to fly. I took the following footage with my DJI Mavic Air.
Cloghleagh Video with DJI Spark
In October I took my DJI Spark to Cloghleagh bridge to do some video. I finally got around to editing and publishing it. I hope you enjoy.
DJI Spark - First Flights
Just got a DJI Spark and having some great fun with it. Surprisingly good smooth video (HD 1080p). 4K doesn't really interest me at the moment and takes some serious computing power to edit and render. Here is some of the video from a trip to Killinthomas Woods, Kildare and Portmarnock Beach. Mind you there were some anxious moments when it does some of its built in routines. It went so far I thought I would lose it at sea! Anyway here's a bit of video from my first attempts at flying and videoing! https://vimeo.com/229624180
Weekend in Dungarvan
We spent a lovely weekend in a friend's home in Rinn, Dungarvan. Although the forecast was bad and we drove through some wild weather on the way we were very lucky and got great weather. In particular in Ardmore a truly beautiful village which I've never been to before but would highly recommend. A few photos from the weekend.
Sunset Long Strand
This evening after dinner we decided to head to Long Strand Castlefreke for the sunset. The forecast looked good so off we set. We arrived at the beach and sky looked wonderful, when all of a sudden the skies opened and it lashed rain in us. We missed the best views but here's the best of the rest.
Bluebells in Castlefreke
Bluebells in the woods of Castlefreke near Roscarberry
Gordon Bennett Rally
At the weekend a friend and I headed to see some of the vintage cars taking part in the Gordon Bennett Rally. The Rally is organised by the Irish Veteran and Vintage Car Club every year. They select 3 separate routes for the cars to take and it is run over the weekend. There can be up to a hundred cars taking part and the participants come from far and near, this year two cars came from Australia. James Gordon Bennett (1841-1918) born from an Irish Mother and Scottish father and who owned the New York Herald Tribune. To promote the Tribune he sponsored many different sporting and expedition events such as a balloon and airplane race and a yacht race which eventually became The Americas Cup Yacht Race. In 1900 he sponsored the first international motor racing event held on a closed circuit The Gordon Bennett Cup Race. The fourth race was held in Ireland and these races paved the way for Grand Prix racing. Today the event is primarily a tourist event held every June bank holiday in the midlands. We headed to Burtown House to catch some of the cars. When we got there many of the cars had gone but we saw quite a few. Burtown House itself is also very nice with a cafe, gallery and lovely gardens, well worth a visit when in the area.
baltray-120121-70
Another Saturday another "Wreckie"
Another outing last Saturday (Jan 21), Joe and I decided we would reccie Baltray Beach Co Louth, to try and photograph the wreck on the beach there. After a nice and very brisk walk in the cold and drizzle we arrived at the beach which thankfully was protected from the cold wind by the dunes. The only problems were, the tide was in too far so we couldn't get close enough to the wreck to get any decent shots and the cloud cover was too deep to let the sun through. But we had a good bit of craic and played around with our filters and that. Another problem I had (apart from leaving my camera on the tripod as the tide came in around it) was that I didn't realise until near the end I had set my ISO at 1000 from the previous shoot. Anyway here are a few of the better shots from the morning.
All comments welcome!
this
Howth Sunrise
This morning we headed again to Howth for sunrise and this time I got a few nice images, though they needed a bit of work. Especially for Keith here is the edited and original version (just roll your mouse over the image). firstly my hand holding the filter had to be cropped out. Since it wasn't a graduated filter the transition line is a bit hard and slipped into the water but not too bad. Additional grad filters applied in Lightroom and a bit of processing in Topaz Adjust as well.
The edited version above is a bit stretched to fit the holding box so here it is again:
HowthSunrise-8566_120114-Edit
It was a cold morning but I'm glad I didn't decide to ignore that alarm as I was tempted to do, and roll over for another wee sleep!
Happy New Year and the first shoots of 2012
Well 2011 is over and it was another tough year for everyone, and it doesn't look like it's going to get much better too fast. So we may as well make the best of it. So far since Christmas I've been out on 4 shoots with friend from the camera club and although the weather wasn't the best for photography we had some good fun and it got us out into the open air.
The first shoot was the Wednesday after Christmas which Sheldon organised and called it a Wayzgoose, which according to Wikipedia is defined as: "A wayzgoose was at one time an entertainment given by a master printer to his workmen each year on or about St Bartholomew's Day (24 August)." Anyway about 8 turned out and we started at 7.45am at Highrock Malahide and 6 of us headed off to Glendalough for Breakfast and a few more shots. It was a cold but mostly dry day we lst another 2 by midday but the remaining 4 of us headed off to the Avoca store for a fine meal and the first good day ended and I got home about 5pm.
Joe Doyle and I headed off to Dollymount the following Wednesday for sunrise but the sun only showed itself for about 30 seconds. But I had a bit of fun again with my 10 stop filter, need a bit more practice though. Next we headed to Howth for sun rise the following Saturday and the sun was kinder to us but not as well placed for the lighthouse as we hoped. that afternoon we headed to the National Cyclocross championships - St. Anne's Park. We got a few better images there. Anyway for what they're worth here's the best of the bunch.
Saltees
This week our camera club had our annual week-end away and we went to Bunclody. The highlight for many of us was the day trip we took to the Saltees Island a bird sanctuary off the Wexford coastline. As we headed off from Kilmore Quay the weather looked fairly overcast and the thought of 5 hours stranded on the island didn't look too enticing. We were all wrapped up but wondered would the cloud blow away and give us a nice day to take some photographs of the Gannets, Puffins and other wild birds. We trekked off towards the Gannetries and we were not disappointed. The clouds cleared, the sun came out and we had great photographic opportunities. A few lucky people also caught glimpses and a few frames of the odd Puffin or two. By the end of the day we were exhausted but very happy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU1m0jqqOYs
The weekend was a great success we had lovely meals, a great day out and hopefully everyone got some great photographs.
My favourite shot of the day.
Group photo
The group that went to the Saltees, thank you Roisin for the photo.