Weyhill (VI)

A year ago we had Easter temperatures nudging mid-twenties centigrade and higher, and [quite a few] people in the sea. Today apparently the best we could hope for was 5 or 6 degrees centigrade, which would be about freezing in the open air. Which of course meant that it was time to dust off the 7D and go point it at some raptors at Weyhill.

A few changes to this year’s flying display, with some welcome additions, though unfortunately I found my experimentation with the camera probably wasted more shots than I would have liked. The best of the bunch seemed to come out at 800 ISO, which is why this selection looks a little grainy, but the fault was the user, not the kit [as always].

I had a couple of objectives for this visit… First, I wanted to experiment with centre-spot focus control with the aim of persuading the camera not to resolve distant foliage with precise detail, but to stay with the subject. That was more successful than I would have hoped for. Second, I wante to see if I could balance the “trinity” – the “ISO” sensitivity of the sensor, the shutter speed and the aperture, to get clear effect. In these examples I reckon that I over-played the ISO sensitivity – shutter releases were all in the range of 1/2000th to 1/2500th of a second, aperture was dialled in at around f8.0 or so, and the ISO, at 800, was probably too far. I reckon that I could have dropped the ISO to say 640, trimmed the shutter speed down towards 1/1250th or so and still got good results.

Still, I don’t go expecting perfect, I go expecting to learn – and I think today was an OK day in that regard.