Bowood 2015 #28 (Saturday 6th June)

When I visited Bowood on this late afternoon there was a flower festival going on in the adjacent field that the garden terraces overlook. I don't know if this was an influence but I spent my visit mainly photographing the flowers in the terraces borders.

I was also trying out a new compact camera. After Smokey knocked my so-called Tough onto the carpet and broke it, the repairs proved uneconomic and I put the amount of the estimate towards the sale price of a rather lovely Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100, and it had arrived late the previous afternoon.

One of the things I liked about it, as a former film camera user, was the number of physical dials and switches, which seem so more intuitive than the software controls on the back of digital cameras, and which will soon become second nature encouraging the use of the manual settings that I remember well from 35 mm film days with my Pentax ME Super and K1000 cameras.

Initially, despite a quick read-through of the printed manual, I hadn't quite got to grips with it. I couldn't find the macro setting, my main purpose for the camera, which turned out to be on a switch, and for some reason the default presets were for indoor lighting, lending a blue cast to all the images, and I later found it difficult to persuade it to use AWB by default. It was wonderfully light and comfortable to use, though, and the EVF was much brighter and clearer than the one on the P900. The sensor is as used in micro four-thirds cameras, half the size of a full frame sensor, so giving good quality, detailed images.

This blip has been colour-corrected in post-processing and I think I had accessed the macro setting by using Intelligent Auto mode. It looked pin-sharp on my monitor but the uploaded version does not. The gallery view is slightly better but does not accurately reflect the image, Blipfoto.

Bowood was quite busy, so after a quick circuit of the house, I drove on to the Rhododendron Walks which has a separate entrance a mile or two up the road, where it was far more quiet, and sat there in the Jubilee Garden to read and write. It would be my last visit of the year as it opened its doors for the last time the following day.

L.
19.6.2015 (0953 hr)

Blip #1597 (#1847 including archived blips)
Consecutive Blip #000
Day #1900
LOTD #831 (#952 including archived blips)

A Visit To Bowood, 6 June 2015 (Flickr album)

Bowood 2015 series
Bowood series
Bowood 2013-2015 (Flickr collection)(Work in progress)
Flora series
Macro series

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Connie Francis - Eighteen (1957)

One year ago:
Bowood 2014 #21: Rhododendron Walks