Chobe River, Botswana

Plenty of multiple entries creeping in. I’m not sure it was made explicit in the rules, but one photo each seems right to me.

@boxelder

When you click on the ‘full members can post images’ box, it should open a folder on your computer (probably the last one you uploaded from) then just select the image, click ‘open’ and the image will upload with a percentage graphic. This is on a PC, phone seems to want an img url.

Obviously, this isn’t happening for you, but that’s what should happen.

King Alfred’s Way

Loads in Sheffield. Flock of over 100 on Manchester road for the last month or so  

Anyone know how many entries there are each day? Just wondering about the odds (I’ve never won anything at all).

An app call Road ID or some such has a Lock Screen that you can put numbers, so mine has 2 ICE numbers visible without a PIN.

@duakan – good demonstration of the differences that different levels of equipment give.

And I want your job!

It’s certainly playable – I don’t have a wheel and I have passed all the licences.

I do get the impression that a wheel might well be easier, and I haven’t raced online so I don’t know what that would be like with a controller.

I’m a keen wildlife photographer, and realistically I think that you would need to spend £700-£800 to get second-hand DSLR kit that would give you bird pictures that you would be happy with unfortunately. Canon 7d (£200) plus 400mm f5.6 prime or 100-400mm mk1 zoom (£550). The good news is that you would lose very little money on either of those lenses if you decided you didn’t like photography after all.

Bridge cameras now give half-decent results, but older ones are poor for wildlife (slow to react, slow to use, poor image quality when zoomed in) – a Nikon P900 would be your best bet second-hand for maybe £400, but manual control is still clunky compared to a dslr.

For me, the main improvement with every generation of camera body is ISO performance – my 40d was tricky at over ISO 400, but my current body is ok at 25,600. As you pay more for lenses speed of focus and image quality improve. Ultimately it is those few simple things that cost the money.

Comapare the images from my first trip on safari in 2009 with a 40d and 100-400 with my most recent trip with modern gear, the difference is clear. (Don’t get me wrong, old gear can still take amazing images, but modern gear vastly increases your chances of getting a great image in a much wider range of conditions).

My website

Have a look at Arc’teryx Atom. I’ve had one for years and it’s brilliant.

This list DOES include flyovers I’m afraid – it’s ‘birds seen from our garden’.

46 species, house on the edge of Sheffield. I reckon 7 of those didn’t land.

Blue Tit
Coal Tit
Great Tit
Long-tailed Tit
Robin
Blackbird
Thrush
Dunnock
Wren
Magpie
Wood Pigeon
Rock Dove / Feral Pigeon
Collared Dove
Nuthatch
Treecreeper
Crow
Jay
Bullfinch
Siskin
Goldfinch
Chaffinch
Greenfinch
House Sparrow
Brambling
Reed Bunting
Heron
Black-headed Gull
Goldcrest
Starling
Swift
Swallow
House Martin
Chiffchaff
Blackcap
Sparrowhawk
Tawny Owl
Buzzard
Kestrel
Osprey
Fieldfare
Redwing
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Mallard
Ring-necked Parakeet
Jackdaw
Pink-footed goose

I got a refund confirmation today of some stuff I sent back last week if that helps?

DrJ
Full Member
Just picked up my MG4 and after a quick trip down the A1 I am really loving it. And this morning I turned on the a/c to pre-heat it using the app while I was sitting on the toilet – what a time to be alive !! 🙂

Interesting. Which version did you get? We are looking at one to replace an iD3. Head says Extended Range, heart says X-Power obviously. Both cheaper than iD3.

Jumbo’s Twitter feed should leave them in no doubt as to how their fans feel about today’s antics.

For sure, but there is a big difference in totally gifting someone a win (as you sometimes see on a stage) and actually attacking a team mate, causing both riders to expend extra energy (or all 3 in this case).

I hope those 2 don’t need quite so much help from Sepp next year in the mountains.

Read the room Jumbo! Stop attacking Sepp!

Thanks a lot @prezet.

And that is very kind of you / them @sandboy. Hopefully our first night accommodation will have somewhere for the car, but otherwise I might take you up on your nice offer.

@StuE, thanks, that is useful info.

Some saddle bags clip in too.

Some great pictures on there – followed.

Reels clearly are the way forward with Instagram for growing followers, I just get the same couple of dozen folk liking my pictures each time!

Riverside Hotel in Ashford (next to Bakewell) does fantastic food (same folk as run Rafters in Sheffield).

Riverside

Out of interest, what made you choose the XC90 over the Q7? From what I’ve read the Volvo is very good but the Audi is comfier, quieter, easier infotainment system and has stronger engines. Used prices seem similar.

No increase from LV for my renewal last month – £350 for an Audi A6.

<p>Thanks, little owls are reasonably plentiful across the UK, but can be very hard to spot if you aren’t sure where to look, especially as they are masters of sitting still and doing bugger all. I know of at least 5 pairs pretty close to my house, but they can still be pretty tricky to see. </p>

As mentioned above, we have just come back from the Chobe River area of Botswana / Namibia where we went for a 12 day photography trip. As you can imagine, I took rather a lot of photos, but I have managed to distil them down to the best ones and put them up on my website.

As some of you were interested previously, I thought you might enjoy these:

Botswana Birds

Botswana Animals

It was fantastic to see 5 species of kingfisher and 4 bee-eaters whilst the big draw of the Chobe region is the huge number of elephants. Most of the time we shooting from a small boat on the river which allowed brilliant views of the wildlife. We were also lucky that it was the time of year for the lilies which the elephants love to eat and added an extra dimension to some of the photos. Light was generally excellent, but early starts and late finishes meant that some of these pictures are over 20,000 ISO, especially when trying to keep the shutter speeds up.

Alice Powell was funny on C4. She said directly to Horner that it seemed Max like to dish it out but couldn’t take it. And for once even Horner didn’t massively defend Max.

Can’t imagine Coulthard or Webber asking that.

I’ve just looked up the original thread from that 2011 race.

If anyone thinks we are exaggerating about it, it’s worth a read. Quite funny with 12 years of hindsight…

Pad Armageddon

Yak
Full Member
Nothing lasts forever in wet Kielder grinding paste. But tbf, the race that I recall destroying everything was one really wet Kielder 100, from bitd (I wore through 3 pairs of pads then failed to finish anyway… Only 20% of the starters actually finished that year!) But that was a mountain bike race. I also recall a rider with a new carbon bike wearing a hole in the frame with a wobbling water bottle.

Yep, that was the race, 2011 I think. I finished, but had zero brakes for the last 30 miles, which was fun. I remember the guy who wore through his frame with his bottle. A couple of others went through their carbon chainstays with foot rub.

I don’t remember which pads I was using, they normally last me ages even in the Peak District, but that fine Kielder paste destroyed everything.

Despite cleaning my bike after the race, a day later not a single bearing on my bike worked, wheels, headset, suspension, bottom bracket – all seized utterly solid.

I hate Kielder. No idea why I’m going up there again! I think it was the blue skies and sunshine in the pictures – false advertising I reckon.

Hmmm. I am absolutely gutted about the forecast. I hate rain, and after my last 100 mile mountain bike race round Kielder that destroyed the bike I vowed never to return.

Seems I should have listened to myself. I’ll be switching to the 130 (at best) if the weather doesn’t buck its ideas up.

TAKE SPARE BRAKE PADS.

I went through 4 pairs last time and still finished with the backing plates worn through on the last sets.

The report I read said that she told the marshals at the checkpoint when she got out of the car that she was stopping. So she knows that some officials saw her get out of the car.

Surely it must be an honest (if very odd) mistake. No way she thought that those marshals weren’t going to say anything when she stepped onto the podium…?

“Oh look, that lady we saw in the car managed to come third!”

WorldClassAccident Free Member
To make it commercial really easily, just add a price, dimensions and ask them to contact you directly for sales.

True, cheers, that would be easy to add. Not sure there is much of a market for photos as opposed to paintings, but it is no bother to add so I will try it.

Watty Full Member

And also what equipment you use, lenses and whatnot. I know it’s not all about the gear, but it’s still interesting. Fantastic pics btw.

Hmmm, the gear does have a huge part to play, so it is mainly about the gear! – it’d be impossible on a phone or with basic kit. Some of these pictures are 14 years old, so over that time I have used Canon 40d, Canon 7d, Canon 5d2, Canon 1d4, Canon 5d3 and Canon 1DX, all bought secondhand. I have just bought a Canon R3 though, in preparation for a trip to Botswana in May. The R3 is so good it does feel like cheating.

Lens-wise I mainly use a 600mm f4 with 1.4x converter. Some shots are with a 100-400mm or 70-200mm though if the animal is larger or I want more background. Again, all were bought secondhand. Still weighs more and costs more than my bike though.

kayak23 Full Member
I’d love to know the story behind how you got some of the images.
I imagine it involves hours of lying in bushes.

Yeah, pretty much this.

To be fair, it varies hugely depending on the species and picture. eg, the best kingfisher images were taken at a purpose built, buried hide so you sat at water level, and the birds fished in a small pond stocked with fish. There was only one perch, so you knew where they would come to. They are still fully wild birds though, so there are no guarantees – I was there for 12 hours, and in the afternoon there was a 5 hour period with no birds at all. Other kingfisher (and the dipper) shots were simply taken in a park in Sheffield.

The owls are all local to me, maybe 5-10 minutes away. But there are many, many evenings when I don’t even lift my camera up to take a photo as nothing happens.

The foxes and badgers are in our garden, cultivated over many years of bribing them with chicken wings and peanuts. None of the shots are remotely triggered, the wide-angle fox was basically at my feet.

Hummingbirds are hard work, just so bloody quick and unpredictable.

Wildlife photography goes well with cycling – it’s basically just resting and recovering with a camera nearby. The only issue is that it costs even more than biking!

And yeah, light (or lack of it), is a killer in the uk. So much easier abroad.

Glad you’ve enjoyed them – I only posted the link ‘cos of the cycling stuff.

Im going to try and keep the website updated, but I put stuff on instagram fairly regularly. @tim_russon

You are in the perfect place for it, all sorts of interesting stuff on the Norfolk coast.

Thanks – I am very lucky in that a large number of those photos have been taken within a few minutes of my house, especially the raptors and owls. Hummingbirds are a bit further afield…

Wow. I’m 186cm on a large Scalpel, but it sounds like you know what you want geo wise.

I looked at Oiz TR, Blur TR, Epic Evo…

…And bought a Cannondale Scalpel SE1. Seemed like the best value and was lighter than others at its price (although availability played a part too). No complaints with it so far. Perfect for my speed-mincing around the Peak.