Macro on Monday - Guess What

Last week's mystery photo might well have been a close shot of a vegetable peeler but my congratulations and the virtual Midmarsh Gold Stars go to Adrian, Wilma, Ragged Robin and ImaBurdie who all correctly identified the eye of a needle. Don't know whether this might really be called a tapestry needle with its thicker shank and large eye but it's the size I need to see to thread these days.

   

As always my thanks to all who have a go.

On to this week's close crop of a mystery object.
Guess What:


Please leave any guesses in the comments.
They will be revealed, along with the answer, next Monday.

No prizes, just for fun and maybe a virtual Midmarsh gold or silver star.

Showering in the Rain

'Twas a good job I woke a bit earlier than usual on Sunday morning. Heavy rain was forecast and it was just beginning to drizzle so we went walkabout before things got worse. For once the forecasts were correct as heavy rain set in by 6.30 a.m. and it didn't clear until 1 p.m.. At least the 16mm of rain had topped up my rain water containers and given the land, which had become parched, a good watering.

As often happens in heavy rain one of the Wood Pigeons took advantage to have a good shower:



They will spend time first raising one wing and leaning over to get everything wet. Then they will raise the other wing and keep alternating until they are thoroughly soaked. I managed to take some video clips which I will save for Friday at the Flicks.

The temperature had risen nicely but by teatime we were again having heavy rain but this time accompanied by a thunder storm which means poor old Penny was having one of her panic attacks, shivering and panting. She really is badly affected by thunder.

Fortunately the storm passed through very quickly and was followed by nice Sunset to end the day:

 

Tiny Two Spots

I don't see many of the tiny two spot Ladybirds around the garden.
This one made an appearance yesterday:





A real gardeners' friend as they and their larvae eat copious numbers of aphids such as greenfly. They over Winter in buildings or trees and start looking for a mate in the Spring.

The Persistent Robin

I set up the Toshiba X-Sports camera right next to the hanging bird table to try recoding some of the visitors. It wasn't a good day for WiFi reception. The picture on the iPod kept freezing. Part of the problem could be to do with the nature of high frequency transmissions and the way I had previously mounted the camera on the tripod. The metal upright was between the camera and the iPod which can cut down the signal strength.

 

I fiddled around for some time and eventually cobbled together several of the supplied mountings with a clamp I already had to come up with a mount which put the camera a short distance away from the metal pole.



This wasn't a complete cure so I'm not sure whether it is a bug in the iOS app as even when the monitored picture had frozen it would still record OK. Maybe the camera goes on some sort of standby though I hadn't notice that the other day.

Anyway here is one of the captures

There she was, a female Blackbird, trying to stuff as many sunflower hearts as she could get in her beak when along comes a Robin who is determined it is its turn on the hanging bird table:




I cut down the quality of the recording by setting the camera to 720P in case the reduced processing time would help with the WiFi problems, it didn't but did save space on the microSD card. The quality looks fine so I will probably stick with that setting.

Friday at the Flicks - Bird Bath (Toshiba X-Sports)

Not a brilliant day on Wednesday, overcast with showers from time to time. I decided to mount the X-Sports camera in its waterproof case to see what the picture quality was like:

 

 First I tried it next to the pond waterfall but while I was watching no bird went anywhere near it. Later I moved the camera to stand next to the bird bath:

 

Having switched on the camera's WiFi signal I could control it with the iPod Touch in the kitchen:

 

When the camera was next to the waterfall it was out of range of the kitchen but it was possible to pick up the signal from the Summer House so somewhere between the two is the limit for a decent signal.

I only managed to get a few clips of visiting Blackbirds but it did show me that the picture quality was good with the camera enclosed behind what I assume is acrylic. It also survived a short sharp hail shower:



The original was shot at 1080P, 25fps. The finished video was reduced to 720P to keep the file size down for uploading. Having WiFi on uses more power so the battery life seems to be somewhere around 70 - 90 minutes. At the moment the batteries are charged while in the camera but I have ordered a charger with comes with a couple of extra batteries.

The one thing I have to take into account is a delay of 1 or 2 seconds between touching the record button on the iPod and  the recording starting.

Lampranthus

Over the past few years I have tried the occasional plant which is more drought resistant. This year I bought a couple of Lampranthus (means shining-flowers in Latin) succulents which produce brilliant orange daisy like flowers:

 


They are mainly found in arid areas of Southern Africa.
The blooms are tightly closed at night but open wide in Sunshine.

A few more views.

Notebook 08 filter in Fun Sketch:




Colour popped in Color Accent:



Finally, created in Happy Photo Frame:

 

Toshiba Camileo X-Sports Camera

Managed to pick up a very little used Toshiba Camileo X-Sports camera. It belongs in the same range of cameras as the Go Pro but for far less money. The Toshiba version comes complete with waterproof casing and a range of fixings for mounting it. Without the case it is a very dinky size:



It has a fixed wide angle lens which focusses from about 30cm to infinity, 12M pixel sensor  and built in WiFi (which is very useful as there is an app for iOS and Android devices which can control the settings of the camera, operate the shutter and gives a live view of what the camera sees). It also comes with a wrist control which can also be used to control the camera but is much more basic. There is the facility for up to 10x digital zooming though that will obviously affect the picture quality. On the back of the camera is a 2 inch LCD. A microSD card is needed for storage.

Yeserday I just had time for a quick fiddle with the camera to work out what does what and make sure it was working OK. Along with various qualities of movie and frame rates, still photos and burst shots it can be used for time lapse photography. This was a quick trial looking through the bedroom window. One shot every 2 seconds:



The Toshiba doesn't make the video. It just saves the stills. These can be dragged and dropped to the laptop once plugged into the USB port. One problem I found was that the camera stores two photos for ever still shot. One is full quality, the other being a thumbnail which is what is sent to the app for the live view. That made it a lengthy job choosing only the full quality photos. These were then process using a free program called Time Lapse Assembler. This used the full size of each frame:




The resulting movie was then cropped to 16:9 in iMovie. As can be seen there is distortion noticeable at the edges of the view as a result of the wide angle lens. I think it has about 135 degrees view.