Il Dolce Far Niente

July 2012

In Ticino Canton (CH), on the ponds where Ticino river lands on Lake Maggiore, there is a nice Nature Reserve area called Bolle di Magadino (Ponds of Magadino). It's a flat land, quite a rare though in the region. However, it is surrounded by mountains on south and north sides, and the lake, Lago Maggiore, on west side.

Revisited area and did longer walk there now than last winter. Was hopeful of seeing large variety of animals, all sort, but they kept hide of me most of the time.

At winter time the sun didn't appear in the area, whereas now in summer time it hit straight there. However, trees brought good shades, helping to survive of a hot day.

Walking, bicycle riding etc. are very limited there, though some predefined paths do exist. Plants cover quite a lot of areas which in turn offer good hides for animals who are not so keen on publicity of human beings and their photo equipments.

Did first a walk around the northern area. Then moved to southern area and had another long walk there.

Saw one very rare view there while walking; a snake was on the tree and had a fish on its mouth, see photo below. It was near the river, obviously it had just raised from there and climbed into a tree and planned to have a peaceful lunch.

Walked route in northern and southern parts, altogether 13km. Ignore vertical line between areas (view in a larger map):

Some photos

Enter to Nature Reserve

Bolle di Magadino ends to Lake Maggiore

There were several ponds ...

... and several meadows with massive trees

Ponds were good hideaways

Supportive tree

A Barnhouse

Left on purpose?

I could run there

Highway

For pedestrians

Ticino river

Variety of birds singing, but couldn't spot them on these trees

Beautiful city of Locarno

Growth

Daily Frog

Wild Asparagus, Yum!

Lazy Sunday

On Boardwalk

Tasty!

Almost ready

Honey Honey

Yellow

Siesta

A break

Where's my family?

A beauty

Biiiiig fish

Tied

Spreaded

Another beauty

Nice dots

You hear the sound, too?

Hmmm ... where to hop next?

Plants

Lunch time

Captivating

Use your wings!

Good smell

Oh gee!

June 2012

In addition to some paddling spent some time on practicing outdoor photography during a faily lazy Midsummer weekend.

Had two lenses in use, a 70-300mm zoom and a 90mm macro lens. Hadn't much used a macro lens so it was about time to learn its usage, too.

Did two tasks, with the macro lens tool close-up photos of flowers and plants which stayed in relatively well in place despite some wind, and with the tele shot birds which allowed to be filmed inly from some distance.

Have used a macro lens only few times and learnt its usage to be difficult, at least on handheld. Now, turning higher ISO to get shorter shutter speed helped but it brought more noise into photos, too. Perhaps the most helped option was to shoot in fully manual mode (M) and with manual focus.

Capturing birds (into photos) was difficult. Once they did something interesting which you wanted to record, pressing shutter happened always a bit too late. Distance was another problem. Mostly had to use it with full 300mm tele with increased ISO (even up to 1600, whereas I usually shoot with a 200). Patience might be useful here.

Did one change in book keeping of the photos, too. Gave up Picasa usage and started to use Lightroom (in MBP). LR needs a little bit more practicing but already now with a short exercise it turned out to be a good tool.