When Do Swans Sleep?

Using time exposure techniques outlined for my blip two days ago, I returned to shots I'd tried yesterday but, as luck would have it, were now even better.

It was warmer, for a start, I'd got the tripod level, using the camera's on-screen spirit level and I swapped the fisheye of yesterday's blip with the 14mm superwide, on the full-frame Nikon D700.

I'd also got the exposures longer and on my third shot, two swans glided their way silently from under the bridge I was on. One turned to look at me, no doubt expecting to be fed (bottom right) and the other made that superb smudge across the water! Whether or not you actually like this effect, the timing and composition of it made it an absolute must for my Blip.

The tree is the one outside my flat, probably getting its last feature for autumn, now. The long exposure has robbed some leaf detail as a light breeze has ruffled them, slightly. The Spire of Salisbury Cathedral is way off down in the distance, its warning red light at its very top, alight.

Quite a lot of Photoshop fiddling, with much selective shadow extraction, two layers of 'graduated grey' filter to the sky and a slight crop at the top. Colour was not altered.

This lens, cos of its huge bulbous front element is prone to flare and this was not apparent through the viewfinder - this is over a minute's exposure - and the flare blobs fill a space, to me. Cloning them out smoothly would have been a long and fractious affair and I prefer to keep them, anyway.