Devil's Dyke, Newmarket

It seems that Ann Miles has beaten me to posting some pictures from today's rather damp RPS Nature Group outing to Devil's Dyke.  We managed about an hour and a half before the heavens opened, at which point we all trudged back to the car for an early lunch.

This was my first chance to play with two new toys: a 5DmkIII body and a 100/2.8L macro lens.  Not the easiest of conditions (it was blowing quite a lot as well as raining) but definitely a reasonable test for the new equipment.  The pictures aren't great by any means, but I'm astonished by the high-ISO behaviour of the new camera body: all these images were taken at ISO 1250 or thereabouts in order to try and stop motion blur.  Very impressive performance, and the new lens is razor sharp too.

A wet Bank Holiday in April

Half a dozen intrepid souls set out to try and photograph some nature in Waresley Wood. Despite protestations from one of our number that "there was no rain for 50 miles on the radar pictures", this information clearly hadn't reached the clouds which were (just as clearly) precipitating all over us! In the end we gave up trying to find perfect specimens of flowers, and - rather bedraggled - agreed that rain should stop play.

On the way back I found two examples of homo photographicus, a rare and usually shy species, which is often attracted out into the open on Bank Holidays and when it's raining (the two usually going together, of course).



This is our happy band, heading back to the relative warmth and dry of the car park. Note the new four-legged recruit, who didn't seem in the slightest bit worried by the damp environment!