January 2009

January that time of year again when people feel guilty for eating and drinking too much. Despite the recession gym member ship will soar as people pay to work of their guilt. While all over the world photographer’s play with the latest photo related gadgets that Santa has brought.

I am no different, I have a spanking new 5D MK11 in my hands. I have skimmed over the manual and am just beginning to put the camera through its paces. The results so far are pleasing and the HD video mode opens up a number of creative possibilities. Sure there are gremlins. On the web pixel peepers speak about digital noise when taking photographs at ISO levels only a calculator can fathom. But in my experience tripod mounted at ISO100 to 400 at the highest RAW settings the resulting files are stunning. My only concern is where am I going to store all these 120MB 16bit tiff files.

Apart from well meaning New Year resolutions January is also the time of year that usually sees me tuned to every weather forecast going. Be it sourced from an old wives tale or from the national weather service. Thoughts of snowy winter landscapes drive my imagination. Snow in Ireland is rare. When it comes it typically lasts a few hours and you have got to be quick to make the most of it.

Colpe Cross Church (Winter)

So last winter during one of these rare snow events, I scurried down the road to a church in Colpe Cross county Meath to capture a traditional winter landscape.
As a colour picture the image was slightly bland. However when converted to black and white then toned the image takes on a classic wintery feel.

As I type this edition of “In the field” I read on the web that some Irish farmer is predicting a major snow event in two weeks time! Apparently badgers have been spotted heading the wrong way up a hill, and that’s a sure sign of snow!!!
Better get my snow chains ready. Time to put the new 5D MK11 to the test.