I’ve been to Bute Park, Pontcanna and Llandaff Fields four times in the past few weeks. Lockdown has forced us all to re-appraise what’s on our doorstep and in Cardiff’s case, we are blessed with some wonderful parkland.
Here are a few shots I’ve taken this summer of things that have caught my eye. Click on any image below to get a slideshow …
Pochard
The Castle from Bute Park
An impression of the Feeder Canal
Yes, it's conkers
Through the still water of the canal
Squirrel
Clear sparkling water
Bullrushes and reflections
Shooting for the sky
Berries galore
Resin aplenty
Trapped
Birds eye of grasses
Pampas
I was especially happy with the shot of the heron which I took hand held. My camera has a feature called Optical Steady Shot which enables the camera to make corrections for assumed camera shake. This means that you can sometimes get surprisingly sharp images without using a tripod.
When you add the large number of pixels the camera has which allow you to crop quite dramatically, you can see that sometimes a long lens isn’t essential. This is the shot as taken in the camera …

… you might even find it difficult to see the heron! The shot was taken with my Sony A7rIII with the FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS lens @ 105mm, ISO 100 and 1/40sec @ f/9.