Night Photos

Last night saw the combination of four items - bright moon, clearish skies, camera with me, and some time to play.

Given the opportunity I decided to try some night photos with my normal, carry with me camera.

I think the first thing is that  need to find out more about taking these type of photos.
Of the ones I got I've had to enhance in order to see anything, and that just seems to bring the brightness way up, until you loose the sense of how dark it actually is.

 

These two shots are only a few degrees out from each other, but in the second one the lights of Kilmarnock, about 6 miles away, really dominate the picture.

The other aspect of taking these pictures is simply how cold it is. I think I will need to read up on the process and try again once all the criteria are matched.

Churches and Whatnot

Just back from 2 days in Aberdeen where we had our latest club meeting. It was a quieter trip as it was Ming and not Alick along this time, but workwise, it went very well.
We had a good turnout and with 6 presentations we had good lively discussion.

We left the office earlier than usual yesterday to visit one of our contacts who runs an analysis lab from an renovated church. Ideally we would like to set up a joint training course with him, but personally, I would be happy just to be instructed on these machines I'm supposed to teach others to use.

 As we spoke to him he got more and more excited, so once I've settled back in I'll have to write a detailled proposal to try and get something off the ground.
Best thing for me though is the idea of working in the former church.

Bonfire night

The Loans Scouts had their Bonfire and Fireworks tonight. Since no one had contracted food poisoning at the 60th last year, I was again manning the barbecue. Again, thanks to Campbells meats, we had a great selection on the burner.

Pity we couldn't control the weather. All morning it had been scattered but very heavy showers, with a few of hail. By the time I arrived to prepare at 1600 the rain was on again, and the plan was to run the BBQ in the hall itself and hope the extracter fans would cope with the smoke. That was the plan... Sadly there was too much smoke coming off the old BBQ that the extractor fans simply couldn't cope and at the last minute we had to move outside. Fortunately it had stopped raining and actually remained dry for the rest of the evening.

By 1830 the bonfire was well ablaze, the food was ablaze, and the fireworkswere about to start.

Though I tried, it was simply too difficult to get a good shot of the fireworks, especially from where I was standing. though I did actually get to see them this year.

The camera can actually capture them, but there is no background, and often nothing other than the firework burst - so the pictures are really quite samey and boring.

Plus the open door, and the light coming from the hall inside would wash the image out.

Once Troon started their display I was in a better position, but due to the distance it was harder to get shots in focus with the burst, like this:

After the fireworks most people settled back into the BBQ with David's mulled wine and simply ate meat products til there were none left.
Back home with a litre of mulled wine by 2100. Job done.