Fogey

I take Steve's point, Polly as I do yours. I've gone back to the title and looked again with fresh eyes. The thing that strikes me most is the complementary colours of the green and orange/red first and then the shapes. An interesting concept

They are notoriously shy birds and the Green Woodpecker even more so.

Now that I like! I can't put my finger on it, but the image slapped me awake.

They look stunning on a plain wall. It's a great feeling when that happens, isn't it Steve. My dining room and lounge are now beginning to resemble a photgraphic exhibition.

Well done Rybear

You are fast becoming to flowers what Paul is to macros. Another lovely shot - so atmospheric.

Now I really enjoyed watching that. I see you are beginning to use transitions to break the video up. All in all, a great video - well done!

I take it that's your garden? If so, lucky you - although it seems there's a lot of hard work just to stand still. I have some very nice dandelions growing in my garden - Lellow ones.

Very nice indeed. Was that taken with your Laowa?

Well worth the effort, Polly - a cracking shot.

Such detail! Great set, Paul.

The first for me - by a country mile.

I like the tapering perpendicular. Gives a certain dynamism.

Well done Cheryl, another worthy winner. A good choice Paul.

Excellent set, Monkey. Minus 21 degrees in the wind? You do suffer for your art don't you?

Isn't that a cricket, Cheryl? Amazing shot! Edited to say: Doh! just looked up Katydid - also known as a bush cricket.

And therein lies the problem with this country. Us ancient old farts witnessed, when going for a drive in the countryside of an evening, the amount of bugs that splattered on the windscreen of the car. Now with the widespread use of insecticides to promote the artificially pristine standard of vegetables we see in the supermarkets, the decline in insect life has had an impact on the animals and birds that preyed on them, together with the raptors that preyed on the birds.

What a difficult job this has turned out to be, with some excellent shots from Stevedevil's Miami Beach, (https://www.tipf.co.uk/forums/topic/57845-miami-beach/), Ryewolf's Conwy Bay, (https://www.tipf.co.uk/forums/topic/57849-conwy/) and Clicker's excellent shot of the Merlin, (https://www.tipf.co.uk/forums/topic/57824-at-last-the-merlin-has-landed/), all deserving of a mention, for the difficulty of the shot from shooting into the sun, the photographer's 'eye' for the scene, and scrabbling to get camera and lens assembled to capture a very elusive raptor. Now this is where my problem starts as my POTW comes from Monkey's 'Cobra warrior' series. I have studied this set time and again and could pick any one of them for the POTW winner, such is the excellence of the series. However, choose I must and I have chosen the shot of the turbo-prop plane, because Monkey must have taken the shot with a slow shutter speed of 1/60th to 1/80th of a second to get such a brilliant blur on the propellers, yet the image is pin sharp and, even taking into account VR, shows Monkey's skill in panning on a moving subject. It's not so much the subject matter, but the photographer's skill in presenting the image as he has done, that I am applauding. Well done, Sir. See the full series here.

Up to your knees in water? In Winter? I sincerely hope you had waders on Matt, just to make those lumps in the back of your neck to go down. A great shot and a great viewpoint. My Life! How we suffer for our art.

Ah! yes! I remember it well. Beautiful little village, isn't it?

Brilliant set, Geoff. Love the shot of the bay and am so pleased you found some place to park.

Excellent set of shots. I really can't pick a favourite as they are all so good. I did notice the falcon, (of the feathered variety), in the penultimate shot and was a bit surprised as I know, certainly at RAF Shawbury, they try to actively discourage birds for fear of bird strikes. Unless, of course, it was a trained falcon/harrier being used as a bird-scarer.

Congratulations Matt. As Cheryl says simplicity at its best.

Amen to that!

I have to say it took a lot of working out and assembling. You can put a ball head on the sliding camera attachments, but that raises the camera to an unacceptable height. I had to fix the camera directly to the attachment, using an adapter screw from 3/8 to 1/4 inch thread to get the right height. Then it was a case of positioning the legs of the tripod to counteract the weight of the camera. Once all that was done and the crossbar set up, it was easily manoeuvred to any situation. I could have used the ball head in the portrait position on the end of the bar, with the legs of the tripod spread a little wider to keep them from showing in the wide angle lens. A counter balance would be useful to keep the tripod steady on uneven ground, but other than that I reckon the crossbar works very well. It's all a case of trial and error, I suppose, but the possibilities are endless. The use of live view was a breeze - so easy to set up and use. I pre-set the camera's ISO number with the lens' aperture setting and used the shutter speed for a good exposure.