Friday at the Flicks - Disturbed Ants + Homeward Drive

I was moving some planters around when I found the inevitable ants nest under one. They immediately started rushing about moving their eggs to a safe place:



This time, by special request from Mick in Australia, the journey home from the Wagon and Horses has been saved at 1x, normal speed.  I am told the burned out house near the start of the journey is the final result of a domestic dispute. The journey ends when I stopped off at a post office near home:



At normal speed the Hyperlapse also saves the sound so you get the same music I was listening to during the journey.

Hard At It - On The Land

On our mid-day walkies down to the cricket field I could hear some almighty clanking so I guessed there was work being done on the adjacent fields. So, we went to have a look:

On one field the work was close enough for some good shots and a bit of video:



Work on the other field was at the far end so I am not sure whether they were sowing or fertilising:



The disc harrow at work:



You could almost think the Nikon was tripod mounted but in fact it was hand held and the original video was very wobbly. The stabilisation process in iMovie on the Mac can work really well at times, as it did for that video.


I think I have mentioned before that I am always on the look out for Apple apps which have gone free for a short while. One good place is the appshopper.com site. There, new price reductions can be listed for iOS and Mac apps. Also, if you sign up to the site and you spot or hear about an app which is a bit more than you want to pay you can search for and mark it on site as 'want it' and as soon as its price changes the site will email you. That is the only type of communication you get from there - no spam.

Yesterday I noticed a Mac app called 'Dramatic Black & White' had reduced from £3.99 to free for a short while. I checked it out and read the reviews on the Apple Mac App Store and decided to download it.

These are a couple of quick trial photos I converted to B/W with the app:





There are good facilities in the app for adjusting what they call 'spotlight' and introduce grain to simulate a b/w film along with adjustments to contrast, tint, etc..

Gulls Galore

I often see large flocks of gulls, usually travelling from one field to another. A couple of days ago there were more than fifty all soaring round above the same part of the village. Often swooping down just like enormous Swallows. I would guess they were hunting insects and spent a good half hour cruising the same area before moving on. Given the number of gulls and the length of time they were around there must have been a lot of insects though they were too high up to make any out.

I grabbed the 70D with the 300mm zoom half expecting the gulls would have gone by the time I was ready to shoot - which is what usually happens - but this time I was able to get some aerial shots, at times nearly falling over backwards as I tracked them directly overhead.









I assume from their markings they were all Black-headed Gulls in their Winter plumage.

Tuesday Twister - Guess What

The first batch of new virtual gold stars goes to Adrian and TexWisGirl who correctly identified the twisted photos of a Horse Chestnut seed (conker) last week.








The first of the new virtual silver stars goes to Wilma who worked out it was a seed or nut.







 My thanks to all who take part.


     


Back to a single twisted photo for this week's mystery object.
Guess What:
 

Please leave any guesses in the comments.
They will be revealed, along with the answer, next Tuesday.
No prizes, just for fun and possibly a virtual gold or silver star.

A Star is Born

I found a great free app for the Mac for making artistic text which can also work with some built in shapes. The app is 'Art Text 2 Lite'. I wondered whether I could design a new gold star for the blog.

The first idea was to have a plain textured gold star:



Then I decided to personalise it to the blog and make a silver one as well:

    
The app does everything really. I just fiddled around with various choices and settings until I was happy with the results. The app can be very slow at showing the result when more than one layer is used.

It can do fancy things with text:









Even though the Lite app is a cut down version of the paid app there is still plenty to go at and experiment with. The full version allows the import of your own photos and patterns, full control over vector shapes and has many more built in shapes and backgrounds.

Fly - Mesembrina meridiana

My ivy is in full flower at the moment and I have never seen so many flies, bees and wasps visiting at the same time. One lone fly caught my attention as the orange on its wings and face parts almost glowed even on a dull afternoon:









After a bit of searching I found the identification on the GardenSafari site. It would appear to be a Mid-day fly. This one doesn't normally enter houses. It lays it eggs on dung. Can't remember ever seeing this particular type of fly before now.

Camera Comparison Nikon S9050 v iPod Touch5

Just how good is the 5Mpixel camera in the iPod Touch5?
Yesterday I spotted a spider in its web between a water butt and the shed so I took close shots with the Nikon S9050 (which has 12.1Mpixels) and the iPod Touch5. I took three hand held shots with each as the web was moving in a gentle breeze and chose the best result from each camera. On the iPod I used the Camera+ app.

First the full shots:

Nikon:


iPod:


Then crops which were auto enhanced in iPhoto:

Nikon:


iPod:


As far as I am concerned the 5Mpixel camera in the iPod Touch5 does an outstanding job!