mbird

These last shots were all taken on the walk back to the car, which we parked up in the Pinewoods beach car park. I kept stopping to take shots and the walk took us nearly an hour asa consequence! I find something very photogenic about boats beached at low tide. Maybe it's just me..... This last shot shows the amount of Samphire that is springing up all over the place. We picked a few shoots to have as a veggie with our bbq, which work very nicely when steamed with a little butter. "Poor-mans-asparagus" it may be, but we like it!

Last weekend saw us meeting my brother and his family, up from Essex, for a camping weekend to North Norfolk. Unfortunatley, the weather we booked didn't arrive, so we ended up with a howling force 5 (which broke my 3.6m kite and dragged all 16 st of me half way across Holkham beach ) and rain Saturday morning. Luckily it cleared up for the afternoon and evening, so it wasn't a complete wash-out. I only got a few snaps I consider worth posting, so here they are: The first one was a scene I spotted through a gap in the hedge on the way along the coast road towards Brancaster. I had to turn round and come back to try to get a shot, but unfortunately the sun refused to play ball. We braved the strong winds and threatening sky to take a brisk stroll onto Holkham beach Eventually the sun did come out and we headed to Wells for some chips and the boys did a spot of crabbing. Difficult to believe it's the same day weatherwise!

If you have tent or caravan there are a couple of places very nearby. Failing that I suspect the nearest hotel would be the Swan in Horning (5 min taxi ride) unless there are any B&B's in Ludham. I'll keep my eyes open next time I am there.

My wife had a good hour or so at Womack water on Sunday, with some decent Roach and Perch. Then she hooked into something very big, which didn't want to give up, I can only guess it was a big Bream. Whilst her 4m pole and tackle held together okay, the elastic couldn't take it and snapped after a few minutes. She was very calm about it all ...... NOT !

Have a great time Lou 2 weeks afloat sounds like heaven to me at the moment

Thanks Guys. Your help is appreciated as always

Sorry to harp on about this Bruce, but would that be "evaluative" metering in Canon parlance (see attached scan from my user manual)?

Excellent advice Bruce, I thought it was a bit of a palava. What metering method would you generally go for? I would assume an average setting work better than centre weighted average?

You are right Simon, though I have only tried it a couple of times (once on the shots of the Bluebells in Salhouse Broad woods you may remember earlier this year). Assuming the scene is bright at the top (eg sky), as you slide the grad filter down, you can see the exposure being altered on the screen such that the darker foreground becomes brighter to compensate for the filter effect on the sky. It's a bit like when using a video camera and you pan around from a darker to lighter view, where you can see the camera's exposure adjustments taking place.

I'll bring them down the Bell tomorrow night if you like. Hi Jonzo, I started with the Cokin P series to try out using grads etc. The system is much more affordable, but I found (as Bruce predicted) that some of the ND grads gave an odd magenta cast to the scene if used in multiples. Individually they seemed fine, but when I needed more filtering it all went a bit odd. They are still a great tool though, but I flogged mine on ebay to help fund the Lee system. The other advantage with the Lee filters is their size, allowing you to slide the graduation point right down to the bottom of the frame if you need to, which I think is more akin to the Cokin Z series, each filter being 100x150mm. I'm still trying to get the hang of using the grads properly, following reading an article in one of the mags by a landscape tog. The basic principle seemed to be to line up the shot (camera on tripod), then angle the camera down until the bright area was out of the frame. Set exposure to manual, and adjust aperture and shutter speed to get the correct meter reading. Then he would recompose the frame, which obviously reintroduces the bright area into the picture, and causes the meter reading to go to high. Without altering any of the exposure settings, he then slid down the grad filter until the meter reading was back to correct exposure. My biggest problem is trying to determine when to use the 0.3, 0.6 or 0.9 filters, as my eyes are still not experienced enough to suss this!

A million squids

If you go for something like the Lee system though, Simon, you can use it on any size lenses you have just by getting a different (relatively cheap) adaptor ring for each size. I've only got 4 weeks now to find the funds for my polariser ........!

Duly noted Thanks

You are right Smellyloo, which is one of the reasons I have started adding the copyright notice in the corner of the photos I upload here and on Flickr. This is done automatically for me in Lightroom whenever I export jpg pics, though I do turn it off for pictures I get printed. Publishers should know better in that (I think I am right in saying) the photographer retains the copyright for the picture irrespective of where it is posted. I think it is basically theft to reproduce any image without the photographers permission, even if you download it from a forum such as this. Mind you, I'd still love to see a piccy of mine in print

Well done on the move Bruce. We're soon to be coming up to out 11th anniversary of our move to Norfolk, and though the first couple of years were a bit odd for us, with a very young child and leaving all the family behind, it became easier with every passig week. My parents moved up 6 years ago too, and now we wouldn't live anywhere else as being only 15 mins from the boat and 3 mins from the broads is amazing. By coincindence, we are camping in N Norfolk this weekend coming, and intend to explore the creeks and saltmarshes around Brancaster in our canoe, so the 50D will be afloat again (sorry Simon, I know you think it's cruel ). Fingers crossed for good weather

Hi Pete, That's just the problem for me, in that most of my internet requirements are to email quite large drawing files back and forth, normally 1-2 Mb. On dial-up speeds that just isn't practical at the moment. Orange and T-Mobile seem to have the most purple splotches in the Norther Broads area, but it looks like being able to work from the boat for a few days at a time is still a little way off yet

Wow, I'd be soooo chuffed to have one of my photos on display like that! Well done Clive and C.Ricko for using it too!

I'll have to look out for that. It's a bit clumsy (assuming I am using it right) as it seems to try to anticpate where you want the clone taken from, rather than you specifying where the clone original is first. I daresay Bruce would correct me on that if there is an alternative way of doing it, but I haven't seen him on here for quite a while now Whatever the personal preferences, it's still a stunning shot. I think Smelly may have taken my comments as a critique rather than a personal observation, and if it come over that way, I apologise. I'm the last person to critique other peoples work

Don't take it personally Smelly, that's just Simons sense of humour, but with a login like that and no real name in your signature toilets had to come in to it somewhere

Me too Mowjo. I have been looking to get a mobile dongle, so when the kids are on their school holidays we can spend more time on the boat, but I can still work (being self employed that is quite important!). I have heard, though, that on the Broads broadband simply isn't reliable at the moment. Can anyone shed any light on this?

Couldn't agree more Smelly, and hence my use of the phrase "Just my personal preference", as Simon has quite rightly commented above. I wasn't trying to show how it should be done at all, just stating a few tricks I have found whilst playing with images that may or may not be someone elses cup of tea You can clone in LR too Simon I don't have Photoshop as it's far too complicated for what I need to do.

All I mean is moving the camera to the left, so the bow of the boat is more in the middle of the picture. That way the whole boat seems to be "coming into" the picture rather than "on it's way out" of the frame. I seem to remember Bruce mentioning something about this on the first photo walk we did at Salhouse with the boats o nthe Broad. The same principle often works for static subjects too though. With regard to pp of B&W images, I don't know if it is the right sort of workflow or not, but I will usually make a virtual copy in LR, then apply greyscale and fiddle with the settings to achieve the reult I want. I pay no attention to the colour image at all, as very often the colour picture doesn't seem to have enough contrast. Often I now take images with the sole intention of them being B&W, but I find it very hard to visualise this when taking the shot. I really hope you don't mind, but I spent 30 seconds in LR with one of your images. I think it is such a strong image to start with it warrants a little tweak. The changes are very subtle, and purely down to personal preference. All I've done is added a grad filter to the sky to reduce the exposure a little, and another one coming up from the bottom of the frame to increase the clarity. Then I adjusted white balance a little, and the result has slightly more contrast. If it was my image I would also clone out the steetlight in the background, and the little metal ring on the gunwhale. Please tell me to mind my own business if you want to

That vulture is just great, I love his expression!

Lovely shots Simon. I love the B&W effect when applied to decayed type subjects. Did you try framing the boats so they are the other side of the pictures, such that they point into the frame rather than leading your eye out of it? Just my personal preference, but that could make the images even more dramatic. When I did the B&W shots of the rock gig, I found that by playing with the white balance slider in LR on B&W shots can make massive differences to the contrast effect, giving the photos a completely different feel ans even separating the subject from the background more. Might be worth experimenting and see what the results come out like

I had a dose of heat-stroke once in Greece, and I sympathise Dan. It doesn't last long, but you definately need to keep those fluids up