BrogLake Windsurfers Return

          Brogborough Lake has lacked the life of past seasons due to the Corona Virus situation, so to visit in sunshine and wind, was an opportunity not to be missed. As I approached the lake’s Windsurfers Car Park, I did wonder whether it was even open, however, as I turned right in the entrance, I was relieved to find there was a fair number of cars, and numerous people; some already in their wetsuits and, as I parked up by the trees ahead of me, I caught a quick glimpse of one sailor on the Lake!

          I had worried unnecessarily. I felt as relaxed as all those who were chatting in small groups by many of the cars. Instead of hastily getting my camera ready, I locked the car and headed for the water’s edge to see just how much activity was on the water — less than five I surmised, so now I did return and remove the soft cover of the camera, and turned the dial from its high ISO set from l the grassy area, and then went down to the water’s edge to be as low as possible to make the sails look taller in the next shots I envisaged taking.

           Right on cue, one Surfer headed straight towards me and was so close I clipped the very top of his mast. That was so keen for someone to head for me, he just had to make the Headline picture! In my haste to try to make up for my recent issues with getting these images up in good time, I seem eminently capable of making other mistakes as well. I spotted one too late to resolve, please forgive me.

Bedford River Great Ouse Visit

After a spell without wind, the Lake at Brogborough was not enticing excitement on water, so the need to be out prompted me to visit the banks of the River Great Ouse in Bedford, and see what activity was to be found there, for me to capture.
Fortunately finding a place to park was not difficult, and from there I was able to walk by the river in less than a minute. I noted two small jetties that I presumed were for Anglers, but this seemed to be a small lake detached from the river as there was a vast amount of green algae covering a fair part of this pool, so I made my way to the far more busy river bank and was soon fully absorbed in recording the nature of life on and by the river. It was very apparent that far more people were desperately trying to return to normality and break free from the restrictions imposed by Covid.
It was pleasantly warm, but the sun which graced the earlier part of my day, soon retreated to spend more time behind the cover of clouds, but fortunately it did not prevent me from capturing the spirit of the day as life began to show signs of returning to the earlier norm, and the season showed evidence of the journey towards Autumn.
The images from my venture, capture the atmosphere I encountered whilst I was out with my camera. The camera to which I refer is the small LUMIX FZ10002; it is small, and has a zoom lens, which covers a surprising range, which I sometimes augment further by screwing on some small dioptre close-up lenses to allow me to move even closer on small insects, or flower heads.
It did not take long for me to find subjects for my camera, the first being Swans, with their new families of Cygnets, and it was interesting that one small area, close to the water had become a bird toilet — I have no idea whether this spot has always drawn the swans to this area, or that the restrictions imposed by Covid have simply kept the area free of human interference and allowed the swans to takeover this particular spot.
I spent some time at this area as the various birds felt safe; I found one spot where some four pigeons just stayed unmoving among a patch of weeds and daisies, quite unperturbed by my closeness, as if observing a Siesta! The cygnets and a lone swan close by the riverbank either were preening if awake, or dozing eyes-closed; the scene was somewhat surreal, but  I took advantage of the unmoving pigeons and captured images of both groups.
Whilst I was by the river many of the Sculls came only so far then turned around and afforded me some subjects, and I learned later this was as far as they were able to go, so this was the area that those craft tended to turn around. This I learned from a charming young lady whom I had recorded using this spot for just this purpose and later met up with her on the towpath.
Obviously this section of the river was the place to be, for I heard violent flapping of wings resounding from the water coming from the area by the nearby bridge. As the Swan came into view, I was able to capture several shots of its takeoff, and these feature in the associated gallery of images from that afternoon, and I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time.
There is something majestic about Swans; if you had never seen a Swan, and were asked: could a bird as large as this fly with elegance, a bird on water that seemed the epitome of grace and serenity, your answer might well be: "No!" — However, although takeoff required brute force and was noisy, the sheer power and will, allows this bird to prove you wrong. I hope that the few images I managed to capture are testimony to the power and beauty of this bird that has Royal protection and patronage. This does not excuse their abysmal toilet etiquette!
My walk along the river was not confined to just one side, I also crossed to the other bank which allowed me to witness the protective behaviour of a rook who had found some pieces of bread, and encountered a Mallard who made a failed attempt to steal them, but despite the size disparity, the rook prevailed!
This day's gallery ended with my salute to the architectural elegance of the white bridge with its avian group taking their advantage of the commanding views from its height above the river.

Brogborough Lake – Windy – Hardy Few

I headed for the lake at Brogborough in the hope that the wind and a few signs of sun might attract a few windsurfers onto the water. Upon arrival it was very far from crowded; compared to a good day of wind and sun on a Friday, it would not be much of an exaggeration to say the car park was deserted. But undeterred I headed for the clubhouse. Inside there was the sound of animated conversation, but no one in the main entrance area, so I headed for that corner from which the sounds of voices came – the reason for the gathering in that smaller room was soon very evident as in the corner was a roaring stove and the gathering there were enjoying its warmth and chatting animatedly.

I joined them there for a short while before venturing out to my car and began assembling my camera and tripod as there was one sailor on the lake and talk inside of others due out soon. Since originally it had been my intention of trying out my newly acquired Benbo tripod, one of whose unique features being the ability for its legs to be immersed in water safely, before I set up my more conventional tripod, I pulled this from my car and brought it in to show off its equally unusual ability of being locked into any position by the application of a single lever. I pointed out its corollary, that undoing the selfsame lock could equally, result in a total collapse with everything flopping to the ground, so one’s camera kit was somewhat compromised if care was not taken!

On this occasion I was unable to use it in anger as the means of camera attachment is solely by a 1/4in Whitworth, not the heavier professional standard 3/8th in Whitworth and all my various heads were of this larger size, and the small conversion adaptors failed to lock correctly due to their depth. This is a great shame and had been assured of these adaptors being usable, which I found not to be the case, regrettably at a cost, in using one to check it out, the overtightening had resulted in it becoming jammed and in attempting to use a screwdriver to extract it, it simply sheared! So for the present much as I wish to use that tripod, I can see myself having to either persuade the manufacturers to provide a means of using the larger standard screw thread, or returning it, which would be a shame.

Soon I had the camera mounted on my Gitzo with the gimbal head and the Sigma 150-600mm down on the jetty, so I was clear of any intervening bushes and moderately low. By now there were three windsurfers on the lake and not long after, Sam was taking to the water with a different hydrofoil board than I had seen him on before, so I was about to see how the pairing performed in the somewhat gusty wind that prevailed. It was not long before he was up and clear of the surface, though not always parallel to the water, and there were geese on the lake close to shore who had probably been enjoying the lack of human activity over the last few weeks; the sight of Sam riding high spooked them and they lacked Air Traffic Control for they headed directly across his bows, missing collision by a couple of wing-feather width! Something to which, I was not only a witness, but was fortunate enough to even capture!

By way of confirmation that the geese were not aware of windsurfing activity on this lake they were spooked a little later for a second time and also a cormorant  took off from the lake and headed elsewhere, which probably the local fish community were more than happy to watch, as these birds very often maim the fish they seek without successfully catching them to devour, much to the annoyance of any anglers.

Unusually, on this occasion, there are many near duplicate images, but the numbers I had edited neatly filled the gallery pages, so I saved much time by not culling as many as I would normally for the sake of speed in getting them up onto the blog.

Sigma 150-600mm Lens Test at Brogborough

Given the opportunity to check out the Sigma version of this exceedingly useful focal Range, I set out early for the Brogborough Windesurfers’ Lake, and duly set it up on the Heavy Gitzo tripod; it was at this point I realised that since it is designated the ‘Sports’ version, it was designed for being counter-balanced by a camera body with a battery pack, so since I was using my 7D MkII, when fully racked out to 600mm, I was not completely balanced on the gimbal head, I was lacking that expected weight. My current Arca Swiss Bars  were just that bit short, but it was not a deal breaker, but worthwhile learning!

I already knew that my Digital Holster was not going to hold this lens on my camera body, where the Tamron was just a neat tight fit and yet still very compact and a reasonable weight.

I knew from the lack of sufficient wind, I was not going to capture any jumpers, but found that the day was given over to the ‘Sea Vets Club’ and there were to be a series of races around a course marked out by buoys (I later learned from Barry Rivett, that these buoys had been dragged quite a good distance from where he had placed them earlier that morning!)

I set up the tripod and lens and was able to take a few shots of the non-racers who were on the water when I arrived. I certainly noticed that the weight meant that generally this was beneficial in terms of stability, and had the wind been as strong as the recent visit by  ‘Doris’ it would have definitely been less affected than the lighter Tamron lens. Purely incidentally the sturdy metal and rubber-covered lenshood was quicker to attach than the plastic one from Tamron, and gave more security.

I was investigating whether the lens would give me better quality of sharpness over the Tamron, and handholding it to shoot low-flying red kites at Westcott near Aylesbury, it certainly seemed that it was likely, but the extra weight and my general unsteadiness proved that this was not ideal when handheld; really the minimum would be to use a monopod, whereas I can hold the Tamron for reasonably lengthy periods satisfactorily, when necessary. Shooting the windsurfers was always going to be from a tripod, and the Gitzo gives a really firm platform.

What do I look for when testing a lens like this? Well, the windsurfers provide me a really good idea of how a lens performs by how highlight detail in the foam and spray that is inherent in such images is recorded, and how much or little I have to adjust to make this convincing. It will always be difficult on a dull day, but a well-performing lens will still make the wake and waves realistic with a small amount of careful tweaking of exposure. I was luck this Saturday, that the sun was often out, and I feel this lens does just have the edge, but it is a close run. It is really solidly built and it is far heavier, but since I want the ultimate quality, I feel I need to find the wherewithal to make this purchase.

For the Gallery of shots taken from the boat on the water

Click Here

Once I had shot enough images to judge the quality I could expect of the Sigma long lens, the opportunity to go out in the boat and take shots of the racing surfers at close range and from the water, I packed up the long lens and grabbed my 5D MkIII with the new 24-70mm f/4 lens to put myself in the picture from an often moving boat for lower angle shots. The boat was pilotted by an accomplished windsurfer who also happens to be a photographer, so he was able to place me in good positions without proving to be  hazard to the racers, yet close enough to get interesting shots, and get wet! My trousers were thoroughly soaked, but only in one shot did I see two obvious blurred blobs from water splashes! My camera, when at speed and rushing headlong into waves, was held aloft with my right hand and the strap was often wrapped around my left!

Some of the time I did have some sunshine and from a good direction, but not all the while, but the shots have a different feel when taken closer and from a lower level than when ashore, and having a knowledgable pilot certainly helps.

I hope I might get another chance, but only if I have my waterproofs on! It was a thoroughly enjoyable time, and I do now have good idea of how the Sigma performs, which was the point of the visit, but I also know that the 24-70mm f/4 is very competent for close-quarters work, but I did often hanker for my trust 24-105mm for the extra length when out out on the water.