Afternoon Visit to Marston Reservoir

I was late in setting off and also not helped by road diversions, and my own carelessness by taking the incorrect exit from a roundabout, which meant a long trip to return and take the correct one! Not the most auspicious start for the trip to Marsworth Reservoir.

I also had to unlock the gate upon arrival, then when I had put the camera and tripod up, then had to clamber over the relocked gate! I had decided to use my lightest tripod as I anticipated a fair trek, and my knees are weak at present; this carbon fibre tripod does not open very wide on the first click, so with a long, heavy lens, it is none too stable, so that hardly helped, but having clambered over, I set off through the woods, and came across a trio of anglers already packing up after a catch-less morning and by now, some dark clouds were blowing in my general direction, and the wind had risen. 

I was soon widening the legs of the tripod, and started shooting, amongst the early activities I spotted was one of the gulls attempting to land on the flimsy branches of a heavily laden tree of berries; I captured its first and failed attempt as well as its next and successful foray. A gull did not strike me as the most likely bird to consider berries, as in its marine habitat I would expect it to be mainly interested in small fish just below the water’s surface, though perhaps I should not be too surprised having watched one of the TV programmes where an underwater photographer had filmed roach feeding off low-hanging berries in a river.

In the main gallery linked from the headline text, there are just the shots where the gull gets its targeted titbit, but here is a link of both the failed and successful attempts upon the berries:- 

<http://www.fntn.co.uk/rodwp/Marsworth-BerryCleverGull>

There is also a further separate gallery, where a young Grebe is equally persistent in its target — the capture and swallowing of its prey, a small tiddler of a fish, and during the period that I was watching it had been making dives every twenty seconds or so, before coming up successfully, and only after I had clicked some three shots did I spot that finally success had rewarded it! That I caught the sequence was as pleasing as it must have been for the Grebeling.

Here is a link to that gallery:-

<http://www.fntn.co.uk/rodwp/Marsworth-YoungGrebeSuccess>

I have just realised that both those sets of images effectively topped and tailed the visit as both were close the beginning and end of my Marsworth trip. Altogether it proved to be a worthwhile trip, despite the wasted time and fuel. Although the Cormorant is not the most loved of birds to inhabit our lakes, I did get some shots of one in flight, Anglers would have different ideas on shooting this species, and it does not involve a camera!

Late January – Brogborough Sun & Wind

          Finally a weekend comes along with wind and sunshine at the lake at Brogborough, and hardy Windsurfers can make the most of what late January has on offer. The really keen ones were on the water by the time I arrived at just after eleven.

          I set up the heavy Gitzo tripod, with the 7D MkII and the Sigma 150-600mm Lens on the gimbal head to the left of the foreshore, so that I was in a position to make the most of any sun that might appear as forecast. What I had not foreseen was just how waterlogged it was, so I changed my shoes for boots with some tread on them! Later I even moved the tripod because as I followed the action I was making a lot of mud from my constant changes of position, when panning. 

          I was not expecting exciting jumping, but was pleasantly surprised by capturing a couple of the sailors lift off from the water. Sam’s dog provided me with rolling activity presumably to have a good scratch! In order not to delay any more from getting the gallery of images up on the blog I will keep my narrative to a minimum as tomorrow is an important day when I pay a visit to Moorfields at Bedford for my initial visit to sort the cataract in my right eye. 

          There are a lot of gallery pages, hopefully covering everyone who was out on the lake, so for those in a hurry I have put a few headliners to whet the appetite.

Brrr! Brogborough – Bitter Winds Favour the Brave

I made time to head for the lake at Brogborough in the hope that the wind might tempt the hardier sailors to venture there to make the most of what windsurfers need most – a stiff breeze. On my arrival however the lake was entirely free of humans, and knowing my time was likely to be spent experiencing windchill at its extreme for a long period, I stayed within my car keeping my body at a reasonable temperature and simply watched, waited and enjoyed the music from Classic FM. Travelling only from Marston Moretaine, meant the engine was barely reaching its operating temperature so I did not kill the engine till there was warm air within.

There were soon signs of activity, so then I gathered the tripod and cameras and put everything together, choosing the 7D MkII and the Tamron 150-600mm lens and mounted it atop the Lensmaster Gimbal head and the Novoflex levelling head on the heavy Gitzo tripod, having learned that the lighter tripods were buffeted by the wind meaning that they were not reliably stable platforms from which to shoot, in particular my carbon fibre tripod had to be weighted down for fear of being literally blown away!

I then grabbed the 5D MkIII and the 35mm f/1.4 to get some shots of the preparations as at this point there was even the occasional sunshine between scudding clouds, but fortunately no rain forecast as the ground was already treacherously sodden and slippery.

The presence of a camera has a beneficial effect here, as it does mean that those hardy souls who are honing their gybing and turn skills and their jumping tend to be within shooting range of the photographer, however, as I have learned, several are unaware that they can often come too close and it becomes well nigh impossible to capture unless you also have a shorter focal length lens within easy reach. Fortunately most of the time I have the coverage at both ends of the range when using either the 100-400mm on the full frame 5D MkIII or the 150-600mm on the 7D MkII.

I consider I was really lucky on this occasion as for most of the time there was a reasonable amount of light and plenty of on-water action to keep me on my toes, though when I was on the jetty, the water several times came up through the slats soaking my jeans and giving me soggy socks, perhaps I should have considered wellies and thick socks rather than my hardwearing shoes.

By the end of the day I was very satisfied with what I had captured; several sequences, the downside being the amount of time that I would be at the computer before being able to post a gallery on my blog.

Another Lucky Day at Brogborough!

I had observed that despite the weather forecasters’ reports of total gloom, the afternoons of late had often brought sporadic sunshine. So it was, that once again, I took a chance and headed for the lake at Brogborough as the other item in the weather bulletin was wind, and I had already noted that in that, they were correct.

When I arrived, there were already a fair number of people setting their boards up, and there was a steady trickle of new arrivals as I got my tripod and gimbal head set up. Looking heavenward, I could already see the glimmerings of a sun behind thinning clouds. These slowly developed into distinct gaps in overall cloud cover and although I started shooting in meagre light, for the rest of the time, the sun appeared and then was swapped for dark clouds , giving me a fair chance of a bit of sparkle to the surfers’ bow waves.

I set up a position where I had at least a chance of sunlight illuminating my subjects and for the first half of my time lakeside there was a steady stream of surfers taking to the water, but not much jumping taking place, but later the situation improved, but they were often in the distance and mostly I was behind them, but every so often I was treated to frontal shots, but several took place when I was following a different person and caught only the tail end of the action. My lack of knowledge as to when someone might attempt to jump did not help my overall statistics, but I was not bereft of luck.

Definitely using the gimbal head this time and with the 150-600mm Tamron lens on the 5D MkIII was a good move, but using the tripod on a slippery slope did have its drawbacks and the wind was doing its best to ensure I had to reset the level of the tripod fairly often.

I was reasonably satisfied with the outcome, but I did still have to rely on cropping in post processing to get a reasonable size of many of the more interesting pictures as much happened in the far distance, making some of the shots look as if the participants were actually running out of space and heading directly for the far shore, such was the foreshortening effect of the long lens and crop combined!

Testing the new 'Boomerang' Plate

Back at the Focus on Imaging Show earlier this year, I tried to find a manufacturer interested in the production of a camera plate that would add functionality to the ease of use a gimbal head when using lenses of around 300mm. My issue was that with very long and heavy lenses these proved really efficient, but the lesser mass of say a 300mm f/4 did not work as well. I reckoned that there was not sufficient leverage from gripping the camera body because of its proximity to the axis of the rotating arm and the centre of gravity of the lens.

Panning was fine using the bulky upright of the gimbal head, it was the vertical movement which was less efficient, to test out my theory I angled a straight bar forward from the camera baseplate and added a pistol grip that was now in line with the centre of gravity of the lens/camera body, and with the added leverage of the pistol grip the balance of effort in both panning and raising or lowering of the lens was more equal resulting in far smoother use of the gimbal head with such a lens.

This morning Calumet came up trumps with a prototype of what I envisaged, and I set out out to test whether it worked by taking my Canon 7D, 300mm f/4 and gimbal head and the newly christened 'Boomerang' plate to the Grand Union Canal near Wilstone, and the gallery of images here is the result.

Obviously I have no idea whether Calumet will produce the plate, but for those photographers who would like to have smooth and controlled movement from the less weighty and shorter focal length telephotos, this plate opens up the world of gimbal heads, and I think it's the way forward – it is far more controlled than a ball head.

I only used the 300mm lens here and was only disappointed that the two kingfishers I spotted that sped like Exocet missiles along the reeds did not return later, which would have been the real test! But I did spot a Muntjack and a mobbing of a mating pair of damselflies by a mating pair of water boatmen!