Merry Christmas!

Watching the river flow

One of my favourite occupations is exploring mountain streams. Here on Skye it is possible to follow a river from the sea all the way to its source in just a few hours. This produces literally hundreds of potential photographs. To take full advantage of the opportunities you will need a telephoto lens. I would normally stop down to f22 in order to get a slow shutter speed of around 1/8sec. This of course requires you to carry a tripod. If the light is good, or you have a camera that produces good results at high ISO settings, you can also shoot with a wide aperture in order to freeze the movement of the water. These are the only options I would consider. Intermediate shutter speeds do got give very attractive results. As always composition is very important and the simplest pictures are generally the best.

In praise of the compact

Many landscape photographers are also keen walkers/hikers/trekkers and this creates something of a dilemma. Burdening yourself with a lot of heavy equipment will make the walk less enjoyable and, if you are continually stopping to set up a tripod, you will not be popular with your walking companions. The solution is to use a compact camera that can be carried in a pocket or shoulder bag. With auto-exposure and auto-focus all you have to do is frame and shoot. Modern compacts have a wide range of focal lengths, enabling you to successfully frame the subject whether it is 10 feet away or 10 miles away. To avoid the perennial problem of burnt-out skies, it is advisable to underexpose by something like 2/3 of a stop. Areas of the picture that are too dark can afterwards be corrected using Photoshop.

This was taken on our recent Himalayan trek.