So, there ARE more cute characters to collect

Las time I posted a pic of the character below, I posed the question of there being more to find.

Seems there is at least one more, and I DID find it, despite it being well hidden.

In fact, I only found this after heading down a virtually unused path (after spotting it had lighting) to see if it ended at a bridge/underpass, or ended there – it ended.

This the eastern leg of the Forth and Clyde Canal leading from Speirs Wharf, and ends at Pinkston, where there is a watersports centre.

Mooring and shore services are provided here (just out of sight of this pic) but the path, and facilities show little or no sign of use.

The character is on the northern abutment of a bridge over the canal, carrying Craighall Road, where the path ends.

The canal is in the dark area to the right (this was at night).which I left in shadow as it wasn’t the subject.

I have a pic of the same area from 2016, which can’t have been long after it was created There’s no dirt, no overgrown vegetation (actually NO vegetation or anything growing there at all, except grass), and the everything is spotlessly clean.

Today, it looks derelict, abandoned, overgrown unkept, and dirty – sorry, that’s just what I see.

I’ll have to divert here in daylight, and take some more pics.

I did pass recently, but wasn’t even aware of what was down there, so missed the opportunity.

New towpath bird mural near Speirs Wharf – in daylight, at last

While you’ve seen this recently added bird mural on the Forth and Clyde canal towpath a short way from Speirs Wharf, there was a problem (for me at least) of getting there in daylight, so I had to do my usual available light trick, and even let the flash fire, just to get some early shots.

Now that we’ve done the crazy DST thing, I can get there while it’s still light, and caught the view below – still a little awkward though, as the sun was low and just off to the right, behind the subject.

My experience with film and flash in the past may have tainted my opinion, but I’d have to say I’m now fairly impressed with the result below (the pic on the right). Saturation may not be so good, but the colours and detail compare very favourably (to my eyes at least) compared to the available light version, on the left.

The one weird thing is that I set things up for a pic that leans toward contrast/sharpness, although I’ve been told these setting are not really noticeable, but have never checked.

As taken, the daylight pic was very dull, and lacked any real contrast, but responded very well to having these edited, which ended up almost matching the flash.

I would NOT have accepted the unedited version, or used it.

In fact, I find very few pics straight from the camera, and unprocessed, are acceptable.

I’ve developed a workflow, and run everything through it, almost without thinking about it.

Not every pic needs it, but many do, and look dull as delivered from the camera.

And, no, other than things like sharpness, I don’t have any post-processing set up in the camera.

I even saved RAW for a while, as ‘experts’ suggest JPG compression and in camera tweaks (e.g. colour balance) spoil the original, but, as I reported in another post, I did once try examining small areas of JPG and RAW saves, and couldn’t find any differences.

I might rerun that comparison, if I find this dullness effect persists, or becomes a problem.

New towpath bird mural near Speirs Wharf – with added SpongeBob

I got to play some low light games after discovering a new (to me, after an absence) mural near Spears Wharf on the fourth and Clyde canal towpath.

Currently, almost guaranteed to be in the dark when I get there at this time of year, I collected an available light pic of this bird while travelling one way, then stopped for a quick flash on the other.

This was so late in the day I suffered the usual problem, too dark for autofocus (and too far from the big mural for focus assist light too).

Luckily, there’s also a new SpongeBob mural just beside the bird, and it’s white, so I was able to pick up the focus there, and use it for the birb, sorry bird.

It’s intriguing to note just how little needed to be done to this almost black and white image, compared to the colourful bird.

We’ve seen this area before, or at least the wall Bringing a little reality to a ‘Lady of the Forth and Clyde Canal’

It went downhill, hard, after that when Donald J Trump is spraying murals along the Forth and Clyde Canal

The bird came out surprisingly well, I still can’t get used to the half decent colour rendering I get in the dark, and was able to run a comparison between the natural light and flash result.

Both pics have had no sharpening applied, because they contain noise, and I accepted the automatic adjustments and corrections. I usually don’t, and prefer to do this myself, but not when it does a good job.

Given the distance from the wall, I more than a little surprised by the even light coverage of the flash (it’s tiny), although both this and the available light pic chose the maximum ISO available. Having a flat subject also helped.

The big difference being a wide open aperture for the light shot, while the flash was able to close the aperture down, and this seems to have made a noticeable improvement.

All I have to do now is remember to take a normal daylight pic in a few weeks, and see how that compares.

New hazard at Speirs Wharf – GLUE SNIFFERS!

I’ve been cycling the Forth and Clyde Canal towpath for over a year now, and thought I knew most of the hazards – narrow paths under bridges (some only as wide as a bike, and unlit), dog walkers (to be fair, impressed that they nearly hold their dog and stand still while you cycle past), and the most dangerous – people dressed entirely in BLACK at night. That’s almost as irresponsible as the cyclists who wear black clothes and cycle without lights at night!

But, I found a new one last night.

There are a couple of big container like things lying at Speirs Wharf, just after the steep hill past Cowcaddens. They’re covered with assorted graffiti. I’ve stopped there a few times to take pics at night, but might be more careful there in future.

On this most recent nighttime pass, there was a crowd of yoofs in the corner at one of these containers, all out of their heads while sniffing glue!

While I gave them a wide berth, I couldn’t escape the fumes – SERIOUSLY strong stuff. The fumes caught my throat, even though I wasn’t close to them as I passed.

I haven’t had a lungful like that since I spilt some solvents while making up spray paint for cars, and that was enough to make me take more care in future.

I really can’t even conceive of huffing the stuff deliberately – then again, I’ve seen the data sheets.

Glad I was going fairly fast as I passed the containers and approached the hill.

I think I’ll be going faster in future.

Glasgow University – revisit (apparently you can see it during the day as well!)

Arriving at Speirs Wharf in daylight gave me the chance to catch a strange daylight version of the pic in this post from a few days ago.

I wanted this second view anyway, as I’d found it too hard to try to properly the various building seen in the foreground. As this is a fairly long lens shot, it flattens the perspective, making it really difficult to judge depth, and identify anything in aerial views.

I thought I gone back to the same spot I took the first pic from, but must have been wrong, and been a couple of metres to the side. While the main building was easy enough to match when I made the compare version used below, I found it impossible to align closer verticals, such as the motorway lighting column, which is well out of place.

I was so sure I’d stood in the same spot, it was only when I got frustrated with the match I realised I had missed my spot.

Surprises

I was surprised (shocked?) to see how large the variation in linearity/distortion between these two images was – cameras no carry tables of correction to correct for such things in lenses, and I had expected this to mean the two views would be very similar, but found that despite being shot with the same lens/camera (at max zoom, so no variation in that setting), and from what was virtually the same viewpoint, there were significant differences in the non-linearity across the field of view. While this is never going to be noticeable when just eyeballing one image at a time, when one is laid over the other, and reference points are matched, it becomes obvious that some points in-between are most definitely NOT in the same place.

Not so much a surprise, more of an unexpected confirmation, but the effects of light and shadow on building sides, walls, and roofs can dramatically change their appearance, and make them unrecognisable when trying to identify them in other pics of the same areas taken at different times, and make it almost impossible to find them in aerial views, where the lighting may be quite different.

This has made me appreciate how much help being able to use 3D, or just alternative viewing angles (in Google Earth or Street View), can be when trying to track down old/historic buildings can be.

Oh look… You can see Glasgow University

Having taken a night/low light pic/stitched panorama from Speirs Wharf, and been a little disappointed since there wasn’t really anything noteworthy to be seen, at least not when looking south, I later had a walk around the place, hoping to find something better.

I was not disappointed for a second time, and found a fairly attractive view of the lit spire of Glasgow University.

The only problem was its distance, meaning the desired view was a small(ish) part of the best view I could take at full zoom – not really a good idea for a night or low light shot that will need a relatively long exposure. Something further aggravated by my aversion to tripods and desire to work hand held. That said, random supports are NOT off the agenda, and there was a handy wrought iron fence.

Even so, although the camera assured me all was well, when I inspected the eight ‘identical’ pics I took, despite the fence support and vibration reduction, only ONE of them was not rendered useless do to small movements.

If you’re wondering, then no, there isn’t any more detail to be raised from those shadows – this view is AFTER that was done.

Much as I’d like to name the roofs seen in the foreground, other than the Hunterian Gallery part of the university building (the lump in the centre, with some lit windows to its right).

The tall light is probably on the M8, where it meets Great Western Road, but I’m just not sure as I can’t identify what looks like a line of tenement chimneys to the right.

This might merit a reshoot in daylight, to catch the various features in greater detail, and get a fix.