Author: steve

Email from FR tonight, one person I know has added a photo.  Nice, wonder if she’s still into muff?

Anyway, it says Why not add yourself to these places?

• Mitie Property Services, Birmingham

There’s a fairly good reason not to.  I’ve never fucking worked for them.  Also ‘These places’ to me with my limited English would indicate plural.

Anyway, updated the profile on FR.

Maybe I should deal with the Facebook email.  Maybe not as it’s shite.

The internet is awash with people fed up with Canon, some pros selling up and moving entirely to Nikon.

Afterall it’s been an odd year or so for Canon. The pro 1D MkIII had some flaws (mainly focusing – mine was returned with build issues and the fact it kept failing on my working lenses). The 1DS MkIII has noise and the odd one has a wonky horizon. And Canon really didn’t handle the PR job very well. Despite the world knowing the faults they just carried on regardless. To top it all Nikon released the D3, which by all accounts is a superb bit of kit.

Now 1st July approaches with Nikon poised to release a 5D priced FX body (D10, D400, D700 – delete as applicable). Some are heralding it as the end of Canon. Once Nikon release this everyone will drop Canon like a shitty stick.

There’s no doubt with this potential model Nikon have the stolen the technical edge in this current iteration of cameras and lenses (the Nikon 14-24 is meant to be the dogs bollocks, better than the new Canon EF14mm MkII – plus it’s cheaper). Nikon will further build on the success of the D3 with the 24mp D3X (though with will be interesting as Canon have found increasing the pixel density adds noise – Eos 1DS MkIII).

So am I ditching Canon?

No, my current kit still does what I want it do. I’m happy for Nikon to produce this kit. It’ll make Canon sit up and get their fingers out of their arse and concentrate on what matters most.

The next body (well apart from the 1000D) should be the 5D replacement, whatever it’s called (5D MkII, 7D…….). This should be interesting, mainly to see if anything has been learnt from the last year. It’s been rumoured for a while, nothing concrete has come out. So maybe it’s gone through more testing than previous models. Lets wait and see, if they don’t learn the recent lessons then maybe when the time comes for me to upgrade then I’ll move on.

But as I said earlier I’m happy to stay.

So it has been a nice couple of weeks off. Hot from my walking trip up to Helvellyn we headed southwards to the seaside for a bit of Camping. Though the sounds of the beach at Durdle Door are now a memory.

So as you can see it was quiet warm (actually the days where fine, just the evenings went a little chilly).

The nice bottle of Red I took helped the evening pass….

I was going to do a wine review, but I couldn’t be bothered. Anyway I didn’t have a decent glass. Was drinking this from a free Coke glass I got from the motorway services.

So a good time was had, we did come home a day early as the wind was picking up in the evening. Plus Rachel was missing Jazz 🙁

So time for a couple of me pics

Me at Durdle Door……

Me at Portland Bill

(and actually I haven’t updated anything for a while)

Holiday time, spending 2 weeks not in the office. Which is nice. Anyway, so I had plans for a bit of Aircraft Photography at the Bwlch (Wales), however despite it being really nice weather it seems the RAF has deserted LFA7 for this week. Which to be honest is a bit of a pisser, still I’m up for a walk somewhere.

Being a novice at this walking lark I bought the ‘Wainwrights TV Walks’ book, mainly cos I’ve seen the TV show with Julia Bradbury. As I intend to do more walking my camera kit will be much much lighter. After all for landscape I really do not need the 300mm nor the second body. So a 5D, 15mm, 17-40, 24-105, 50mm is all I really need. The rest of the backpack can be dedicated to food and clothes. Though sort of tempted to take the tripod, but that’s probably not required as I doubt I’d get much chance for slow shutters with harsh light at the moment.

So the kit is ready, but where do I go. I’ve got all the regional maps for the lakes, but really don’t want to take on something I can’t handle.

First in the book is Helvellyn, it looks a nice climb, 2,700 feet in 5 miles. Very popular, which might indicate it’s a bit more accessible to fell walking noobs like me. Downside is it looks a pain in the arse to get too from the M6. So that kinda knackers most on the OL5 map (and probably 4 as well). Pity I liked the sound of this one.

The next location: Far Eastern Fells, sound more promising

High Street, mmm again looks too far away. But is it? Probably not. After all when I visit Wast Water that is the other side of the lakes from where I start, so this and Helvellyn are probably easier to get to than Scafell.

Looking at the map, suddenly Helvellyn and High Street are achievable, High Street is closer to Shap which in turn is much close to the M6. So two of the apparent distant walks are quite easy to get to. My usual trip to Scafell, takes me through Ambleside up the Wyrnose and Hardknott Pass. This part of the journey is normally about as long as the previous part from Birmingham. The advantage for Helvellyn is rather than going to Ambleside I can just turn at Windermere. Patterdale is about 5-6 miles away so could probably get there in about half hour! (from Windermere)

Of the two so far High Street looks the shorter walk, approx 3 miles. Also from Hartsop it’s 3 3/4 miles. So heading towards Patterdale now gives me 2 options.

Next location is the Central Fells, again looking at the map they are all within a close proximity to each other. Still this is probably too far westerly for my trip.

Still plenty more of Lakeland to explore, but at the moment I’ll still a couple of possible locations. Now I must remember to buy a flask.

Decision, mmm well if I made one that that would mean changing the title of the post. Stay tuned