33 News 7

Sorry for the wait everyone! Months just seem to fly by and before you know it you're shopping for Christmas.......aaarh, that dreaded C word!!

It was a good, productive spring spending nearly all my time on the marshes (my 2nd home). Visits were generally made at sunrise and late evening when both the light and activity are at their best. Much of the photography was done from the car and on the odd occasion from one of my small wooden hides. In mid June I overnighted in a hide hoping for a good sunrise and shots of avocets. I didn't get much sleep as both redshank and avocet were nesting nearby and are notoriously noisy! However the sunrise more than made up for it and I spent 2 frantic hours before the sun was too high and the quality of light was lost. Overall it wasn't a particularly successful year on Elmley in terms of breeding. Avocet and lapwing numbers were down and the subsequent long dry summer put paid to any photography on remaining pools.

On the equipment front, I have now gone completely digital. I guess it was the thought of having to shell out many thousands of pounds of new gear and the resulting eye strain through spending many an hour infront of the pc. Anyhow needs must since my primary agent FLPA will now only accept digital media since over 70% of all their sales is now done via their website. I would have to be stupid to continue using slide. So the film cameras got sold and a Nikon D2x came in as well as a 300mm f2.8 AFS VR with 1.7x and 2x tele-converters. I have had little experience with this set-up but I am continually astonished at the quality and the speed of the focus. Only yesterday evening (October 5th) I was on the marshes looking over one of the pools when a skein of greylags flew toward me. I had the camera set onto continuous servo and 5 out of the 6 were pin sharp. Something I would never have managed with the 500mm f4 manual focus. My real goal this autumn and winter is to get some decent images of short eared owl in flight. I have many images of them simply sitting on a post but nothing really special of them doing what they do best....hunting in the evening over a North Kent Marsh. Finger's crossed!