West Wales and Skomer Island meet photos: look in here!!

[theMusicMan]

Hi All

Well, we're back safe and sound from our expedition to the extreme end of the West Welsh Wilderness, that of Little Haven and Skomer Island. I had a great time, and hope that Mike & Susan, John & Teresa, and Richard had a great time too.

I said I'd start a thread where we could 'group' our photos of the meeting - and this is it.

We started our photo sessions around the gorgeous natural harbour of Solva, moving east towards Newgale, Nolton Haven and ending up in Little Haven which is around where we all stayed. The Saturday of course, was reserved for Skomer Island. The weather was simply gorgeous; the sun was strong and it was very hot for us all day on the Friday, and we had high level fair weather cloud for most of Saturday on the island, leading to some cracking photo conditions.

I will post a few images later, hoping that the others will join me when they are ready. Keep an eye out...

[theMusicMan]

Re: West Wales and Skomer Island meet photos: look in here!!

I have posted these elsewhere, but I thought I should also include them here for those who haven't ventured into the Skomer thread.

I shall start off with some images from Skomer.


Puffin in flight, with Sand Eels:
Taken on a Nikon D700 that was lent to me for an hour by a very kind gentleman from Qatar. He offered - without my asking - for me to use the D700 to fill a card with!! I was grateful to him for this as I had never used one before. The scene through the viewfinder is incredible... so clear and large. The performance in 'Aperture Priority' was excellent, and I had lot's of keepers. I did miss the range of the E3 though; the lens attached was a Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8, and though images are sharp and clear, the range is not good at all. Having said that... I was very impressed.



Another Puffin, with Sand Eels:
Taken with my E3 and the awesome 70-300mm lens. Maybe lacks the full frame performance of the D700, but is still an impressive lens and camera combination nonetheless capable of capturing some super images. Taken at 'the Wick'.



Fulmar over the Ocean:
Taken on the most West point/edge of Skomer Island as we sat down for some eats! It is a fairly high point on the cliff above the ocean, and many species fly past this spot. There were Choughs, Great Black Backed Gulls, Lesser Black Backed Gulls, Fulmar (pictured), Common Gulls, Kittiwakes, Guillemots, Razorbills, Jackdaws; as well as many smaller species of birds. I waited for a Fulmar to fly past such that it was over some surf and thus a little clearer in the viewfinder and resulting image.... and managed to get this shot after a few attempts.



Jackdaw, eyeing up my sandwiches!
These hardy little birds are not afraid to come up close in an attempt to persuade you to supply them with some morsels of food. This chap or chappess was eyeing up my dinner!!



Great Black Backed Gull, devouring an unfortunate Manx Shearwater:
This shot was taken with an unusual lens: not sure of the make or model, but Richard kindly lent me his legacy 500mm lens for a few minutes, and for this shot, I coupled it with the EC14 giving a focal length of 700mm. The shot was taken hand held, looking out to a small colony of Puffins. I watched as the Great Black Backed Gull caught this unfortunate Manx Shearwater as it appeared at its burrow - and proceeded to devour it alive!! yuk! Great Black Backed Gulls are differentiated from Lesser Black Backed Gulls in the main by (1) their huge size and (2) by their pink legs (LBB's have yellow legs).


I'll post a few more Skomer images later, as well as a link to a slideshow of my fav images from there over the weekend. I will then post up some of my Seascape and Sunset images from the previous day.

Hope you enjoy, and I hope the others who accompanied me on this trip post some of their shots too, you'll get fed up with mine!!

[stevednp3]

Re: West Wales and Skomer Island meet photos: look in here!!

Great shots John, that first shot is truly amazing, what a capture, shame it was taken on a nikon Dont turn to the dark side

[sapper]

Re: West Wales and Skomer Island meet photos: look in here!!

Crakin' images John! I must get out there!

[theMusicMan]

Re: West Wales and Skomer Island meet photos: look in here!!

Thanks Steve and Dave.

Here's one I just finished processing, taken when I arrived in Solva Harbour on the Friday morning.

Solva Harbour

[David Gethin]

Re: West Wales and Skomer Island meet photos: look in here!!

Great Black Backed Gull, devouring an unfortunate Manx Shearwater:
This shot was taken with an unusual lens: not sure of the make or model, but Richard kindly lent me his legacy 500mm lens for a few minutes, and for this shot, I coupled it with the EC14 giving a focal length of 700mm. The shot was taken hand held, looking out to a small colony of Puffins.

Coupled with the 2.0x crop, this is equivalent to a 1400mm lens in 35mm terms!! Hand held What's the highest focal length setting on the IS? I don't suppose it would register 700mm

Is that not just incredible... if ever there was a paparazzi combination this must surely be it.

Although I much prefer John's use of the 7-14mm lens

[theMusicMan]

Re: West Wales and Skomer Island meet photos: look in here!!

Coupled with the 2.0x crop, this is equivalent to a 1400mm lens in 35mm terms!! Hand held What's the highest focal length setting on the IS? I don't suppose it would register 700mm

Is that not just incredible... if ever there was a paparazzi combination this must surely be it.

Although I much prefer John's use of the 7-14mm lens

When you use a legacy lens i.e. one that doesn't communicate its focal length to the camera, there is a setting on the rear that allows you to enter the focal length of the lens you are using. I wasn't astute enough to remember this on Saturday, and my manual setting in the IS is set at 50mm - for my only legacy lens, the OM 50mm f1.8. So, I guess the resulting shot could have been a lot better had I remembered to set the manual focal length for IS to 700mm

Glad you like my use of the 7-14mm, Dave. Of those that I have, it is by far, my totally favorite lens.

[David Gethin]

Re: West Wales and Skomer Island meet photos: look in here!!

I just checked my E-30 and you can manually set the focal length for IS between 8mm and 1000mm. Whether it makes any real empirical difference I don't know.

[benvendetta]

Re: West Wales and Skomer Island meet photos: look in here!!

John, that first image is superb! But I think it needs rather less space in front of the bird. Oh, and it looks better left to right (IMO).

[PaulE]

Re: West Wales and Skomer Island meet photos: look in here!!

The Fulmar is the pick of the bunch for me, it couldn't have been easy especially with the 70-300. Having missed out last weekend, my uncle and I have just provisionally arranged a couple of days in Pembrokshire this weekend (weather permitting) and a trip to Skomer is on the cards for Saturday. After last year we're both pretty keen on getting some BIF shots and if we end up with anything as good as your fulmar or indeed the puffin in 1 we'll be happy

[theMusicMan]

Re: West Wales and Skomer Island meet photos: look in here!!

The Fulmar is the pick of the bunch for me, it couldn't have been easy especially with the 70-300. Having missed out last weekend, my uncle and I have just provisionally arranged a couple of days in Pembrokshire this weekend (weather permitting) and a trip to Skomer is on the cards for Saturday. After last year we're both pretty keen on getting some BIF shots and if we end up with anything as good as your fulmar or indeed the puffin in 1 we'll be happy

Thanks Paul.

If you are off there on Saturday, be sure to get there early... like 08:15 at the latest, to ensure you will get across.

[PaulE]

Re: West Wales and Skomer Island meet photos: look in here!!

Thanks Paul.

If you are off there on Saturday, be sure to get there early... like 08:15 at the latest, to ensure you will get across.

Yes, we sort of guessed around the 8am mark to make sure - the plan at the moment is to get down Friday evening and stay in the camper in the area so we're there in plenty of time the following morning and avoid a really early start in the process - having said that we were there the very same Saturday last year and got there for 8ish and were comfortably on the first boat - I doubt we'd be that lucky again though.

We did notice that they now have a ticket system for the landing fee - which makes a bit of sense but it struck us that the ferry could use it to make sure you are on the correct return boat - do you happen to know if that is the case or is it still a bit flexable as to which boat you could return on?

[theMusicMan]

Re: West Wales and Skomer Island meet photos: look in here!!

...do you happen to know if that is the case or is it still a bit flexable as to which boat you could return on?

Sort of flexible. We all managed to get on the first crossing last Saturday after arriving at Martins Haven at 08:00 and queuing until 08:45 when the new 'burger van' type ticket office opened on the ramp down to the beach to sell us our landing fees. We were then advised to get either the 3:00 or 3:30 boat back across.

Not so sure this system works as well because people can queue and purchase any number of landing passes - it's not first come first served, it's first come buys as many as they need.

[PaulE]

Re: West Wales and Skomer Island meet photos: look in here!!

Sort of flexible. We all managed to get on the first crossing last Saturday after arriving at Martins Haven at 08:00 and queuing until 08:45 when the new 'burger van' type ticket office opened on the ramp down to the beach to sell us our landing fees. We were then advised to get either the 3:00 or 3:30 boat back across.

Not so sure this system works as well because people can queue and purchase any number of landing passes - it's not first come first served, it's first come buys as many as they need.

Thanks John, that clearly isn't fair. I'd be raging if I missed out due to one ignorant fool keeping tickets back for his late buddies. We had the same be back here for the 3.00pm boat I think it was last year but we weren't quite and it obviously didn't matter anyway - we thought perhaps the new ticket system might be used / abused to enforce the times somewhat, glad to see the ferry boat sticking with the old habits.

Was there any sign of the owls? we never seen them last year but apparantly they were out and about according to the warden (or one of the helpers) doing the introduction.

[theMusicMan]

Re: West Wales and Skomer Island meet photos: look in here!!

Was there any sign of the owls? we never seen them last year but apparantly they were out and about according to the warden (or one of the helpers) doing the introduction.

Yes, I saw the Short Eared Owl from a distance, not quite close enough for a good shot, and the Little Owls were visible on the walls and rocks adjacent to the Farmhouse.

Didn't manage any good close up shots, but here's a taster...

Little Owl as I spotted him/her


Little Owl giving me the eye!!



Short Eared Owl - in the distance, hence arty farty shot!!