Good morning to everyone wherever you are in the world.

Wormsmeat is having some problems with his recent operation, and has asked me to step in for a couple of weeks. Let's hope he gets this problem sorted quickly, an we all wish him a speedy and perfect recovery.

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Carrara

I was down this way for work on Friday, and when I finished, I visited the Duomo in Carrara, as the weather was not too good, and the Marble quarries up in the mountains were shrouded in damp fog. Actually, I am finding that cloudy days are good for Architectural photography, as I do not have to deal with the sun being in the wrong place, and other buildings casting shadows.

This Cathedral is the only church in Italy constructed with solid marble blocks, rather than faced stone. Immagine the cost of building this building today? It suffers from that black mould that seems to like marble. The Architecture is a mix of Romanesque and Gothic.

I tried out my new Nikon Z8 for the first time. The button driven bracketing for HDR sets, is very nicely implemented on this camera. The viewfinder level is a small step back from the Z7 as the lines are very faint. I was able to use my tripod with geared head, as the place was deserted and nobody seemed to mind.

I have had a cold for almost two weeks, and I had to help move my mother to a nursing facility.

In January, six of the members of my camera club took a trip to Disney, rode around on the free transportation, and took photos at the hotels. The only cost was the gas to get out there and a reasonably priced lunch at The Polynesian Hotel.

My favorite of these is the interior of the church followed what I believe is the exterior of the church.

Beach anyone?

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Great White Frozen North has been bombarded by lots of snow recently, up to half a meter (20 inches) and freezing temperatures (-20C or -4F). The view of the beach is a relief, however we have to wait few more weeks for the arrival of Spring...

Superb shots, as usual, but I really like this incredibly intricate wheel...

Grand indeed. Very prominent.

An Evening On The Moors

The planet is now getting back into a position in space where there's enough time for me to get up onto the moors after work for a couple of hours before it goes dark, which is very considerate of it. Even the weather has played ball over the past few days, so one night this week I was quite eager to gather my kit together and begin the lengthy trudge up the steep tarmac of Well Lane to reach Withnell moor.

As I puffed and panted my way up the tree lined, single carriageway road, I spotted a path just inside the adjacent woods to my right, so I haphazardly struggled hopped over the low fence separating the lane from the woods and finished the remainder of the ascent in the leafy glades of the woods, hoping the soft soil beneath my feet would help to stave off the gradually building shin splints emerging from my shins. Spoiler alert, it didn't, but it was a much nicer environment than the lane itself, so I didn't mind.

After exploring the woods for a bit, I eventually emerged back onto the lane and headed across the fields to Ratten Clough, before making my way across Withnell moor.

Kit for this outing was the Nikon Z8 + 24-70 f/2.8S. I'd also brought the Nikkor 100-400 f/4.5-5.6S along for the ride and this got some good use towards the end of the walk. Processed from individual raw files in Capture One Pro 23.

Bent Over Backwards

This poor tree has presumably fallen victim to the various storms we've had lately.

Following The Trail

This path runs alongside Well Lane, but stays just inside the woods, until it reaches the Hatch Brook waterfall, at which point it suddenly vanishes, presumably lost to some historic deadfall, not to mention the sheer drop at the waterfall, but from the point the path disappears you can't see that.

More Casualties

I'm not sure how long this one's been down, but as it's alongside the lane, it's likely been taken out by the gales that swept through over the past few months.

Onto The Moors

This is actually the point where Hatch Brook leaves the moors and disappears beneath Well Lane to reappear in the woods before tumbling down its steep and rocky waterfall.

Whittles Plantation

Often, a cluster of mature trees on these moors is an indication of the former location of a moorland farm and these are no exception, although the farm ruins themselves are out of shot and way off to the left.

Ratten Clough

At the top of Well Lane stands the ruins of Ratten Clough. The most complete of the moorland ruins, possibly because it was the most recent to be abandoned (in the 1950s I think). The fence surrounding it has recently been renewed and it's also been blessed with one of those massive information lectern things, which has been cloned out here as, like all of the others that popped up over the past year or two, it really detracts from the look of the place. Anyway, signage rant aside, by the time I reached this spot, the sun was quite low on the largely clear horizon, so the adjacent tree was casting some fine shadows on the walls of the ruin.

Shades of Ratten Clough

I was really drawn to the bold shadows cast on the ruin and spent a little time trying various locations and compositions. I was short for time as I had plans to be on another part of the moors and I was restricted by being on the wrong side of the fence, so this is the best I came up with, actually leaning against one of the fence posts to fit as much of the wall and tree in as I could without foreground obstructions.

Leaving Ratten Clough

At this point I left Ratten Clough and struck out across the open moor. The previous picture was taken beside the gate on the right hand edge of this one. At the location I'm stood here, there's a thoroughly un-maintained and quite complicated multi-way stile, that you really take your life in your hands climbing over.

Cocker's Folly From Withnell Moor

These trees stand tall along the edge of the moor and mark the location of Cocker's Folly, another lost farm on these moors. Looking beyond them to the horizon, you can see the massive rig that's been parked in the Wirrall estuary for some time now. Nice to get some use from the 100-400, it doesn't get enough love from me because it is rather heavy.

Owl Be Seeing You

This is the reason I brought the 100-400 along. I've seen this owl hunting on the moors before and a couple of years ago discovered the general location of its nest, so I've been meaning to deliberately get up there properly equipped to photograph it. The last time I tried was with the X-H2 and a suitably long lens, but that suffered from really haphazard AF, struggling in low light. Surely the Z8+100-400 would be way better? Well, sort of.

I seriously undermined myself, but reaching my intended location close the nesting area too late. I actually spotted the owl setting off on its nightly rounds when I was still on the far side of the moor. So I missed an excellent opportunity to be in a much better location. After that, it was a case of taking shots whenever it popped its head above the horizon, which was infrequently and too far away for the 100-400 to really deliver its best results.

Also, by this time the light was really beginning to fade. I had the camera set to manual shutter speed at 1/400s and the lens wide open, with auto ISO taking up the slack. This led to some severely high ISO's (25600 anyone?), but that would have been okay if I'd been closer.

The worst thing was the subject detect AI, it was really indecisive about locking on to the bird, often just throwing the lens completely out of focus. In fairness, the owl is well camouflaged for its environment, quite far away and it was getting dark, so just locking on at all was a bit of a bonus, but I've had similar issue trying to photograph Kestrels that were just sat there, right in front of me, filling a large portion of the frame and the camera would just completely ignore them, so I've yet to get to the bottom of that. In the end I gave up trying to use subject detect and switched to wide area C-AF, which seemed a much more reliable approach.

Definitely still more experimentation to do on the bird AF front.

Death From The Skies

It looks like some mouse is about to have a really bad day here, but in the end it didn't swoop down as it looked like it was about to do.

I did try running these through Topaz to cut the noise, but I think it's just made it a bit smudgy, even with the strength turned right down, so I think I prefer the version straight out of C1P.

Some fantastic scenery you are showing us.
Thank you for your great effort to document this fabulous land which surround you.
My fave...

North Face

...of the wall.

I like the first shot the best in this set. But I would have corrected the verticals.

A long story but basically this.

In the long, distant past, I shot performing arts photography professionally with film cameras, and with fast prime lenses. For dance, I needed to shoot lots of 36 exposure films, sometimes 15 rolls, for a dress rehearsal, and I needed access to three lenses at any one time. To avoid finding myself with a camera where the film had finished at a key moment, or to avoid having the wrong lens on the camera, I had three bodies. It makes photography so smooth that I retained the habit, of having at least two bodies. Lens changing can be a huge distraction. So basically habit.

Secondly, I have F mount lenses that are not available in Z mount. The D850 is the last in the long line of F mount Nikons that I have used. Up until now, the D850 is a much better camera, when used on a tripod, compared to my Z7, which in turn is much better hand held and for hiking. It is more button driven and the cable release is a far better design. I also avoid lens adapters. Not for nothing has the D850 been described as the best DSLR ever made. I have just acquired a Z8, which has removed a lot of the Z7 handicaps. It is pretty close to the D850 in the usability stakes.

Thirdly, because I can. When I want to do some architecture seriously, I trundle my gear around in a sort of carry on suitcase for cameras. I can take a lot of lenses, and my heavy tripod clips onto one side. I bought it after my hernia opp, to avoid carrying weights for long periods. It has replaced my Billingham bags and is incredibly practical. When I carry just a couple of cameras and lenses, I use a hiking rucksack

Fourthly, because I spend more than is sensible on camera gear, even though most of it is bought second hand. But sometimes I just carry a single camera with a superzoom.

These old walls are very photogenic, I think you pulled it off best, with the first shot. Maybe they might be worth another set ,with that rare Scottish occurrence called sunshine, to bring out some contrast.

An interesting read as usual. These two are my picks from this set.

I too hate those bloody information panels that visually pollute almost every monument and place of outstanding beauty. Surly they are redundant when I can look things up on my phone, or at least could be made less obtrusive.

What a wonderful building! The west facade is quite different from anything I've encountered in Italy. That rose window looks like an old fashioned lace doily 😀

I enlarged the view of the glasses and it struck me they could provide material for some interesting abstracts.

Love this! The little pops of colour are hopeful.

Shadows always make for interesting images, and this is no exception.
The barn owl is a great bonus, just to watch.