We're all gloomed

Hong Kong seems to have been living in grey and white for months. No blue sky days to lift the gloom. I have done trips to Dubai and Korea this week. The former was 35 degrees Celsius and the latter zero degrees. Seoul had its coldest April day for 45 or 100 years, depending on your informant. All I know is that I arrived in good health and left with a chest cough and sore throat.

I was looking forward to unpacking my new camera when I arrived home. The sense of anticipation was not especially high as the new version is not dramatically different from the old one but does perform better in certain key areas such as auto focus, noise levels etc. What I had not bargained for was a second new camera courtesy of Mrs. Ha, bless her cotton socks.

She decided that I needed a new Leica as my old one is now a mere 51 years old and takes that strange old stuff called film. Well whoever it was who allegedly said of I am a Camera, "Me no Leica", I am sorry, me Leica very much. A brand spanking new black M9 with a stunning F0.95 Noctilux lens was waiting to be trialed. So this weekend the Canon has been much neglected and the Leica has been in constant use. And what better conditions can you ask for to test a low light speciality lens than Hong Kong Gloom.

For those who are not already asleep at more camera-porn the M9 is a digital rangefinder. It has no autofocus and in sum it is dramatically simpler than a multi menu, multi custom function modern Nikon or Canon DSLR. It also takes amazing pictures. The clarity and crispness is probably unparalleled and it has a full frame sensor with no crop factor. It also weighs a fraction of the amount of a pro DSLR and as I am using a 50mm lens, albeit quite a hefty one, this is a fraction of what I normally sling over my shoulder on a tripod. As this is supposed to be about birds and / or bugs here is an example of a shot taken with the new toy at F1.4, ISO 200, 1/1500 sec. The sharpness and colour are astounding.




By the way, this is a captive bird and not on the Hong Kong official list. It was seen outside Harrods.

The next shot shows the colour rendition and brightness in poor light.




And finally, to keep vaguely on the nature theme, our dog.



But the real bonuses this weekend were finding a Little bunting in the communal garden and seeing a flock of 64 Chinese goshawks migrating over the house. They were very, very high so this shot with the new Canon and a mere 400mm lens is no more than a record shot.




I suspect these birds were from Po Toi, where a major influx had been sighted by Geoff Welch earlier this week or they may just have been a smaller, later flock. Either way, it was sheer coincidence that I happened to be outside at the time and spotted, first, one, then two, then three then the big flock coming together over Shan Liu.

And if you can't tell one bunting from another, this is the Little bunting.



So even when the skies are grey we can still put on a happy face.