HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

YES! A few hours late, as it is now three hours into Boxing Day.

But I hope you find this image both beautiful - and spiritual, if that is your thing.

Forecast for Boxing Day is rain. And the clear, frosty starry skies clouding over by 1 or 2 a.m. So, as I said in my Lockerley Church Blip the other day, you have to shoot when them stars do shine!

I've not been out to this viewpoint since last winter, at least for a Blip. In summer, the reeds and grasses grow very high and you can't see the river at all and only just the Cathedral. This viewpoint also features the rather majestic outline of Wiltshire's oldest alder tree. And a ribbon of mist had settled above the watermeadows.

It was a heavy frost out there. And dark. No moon and minimal light pollution. Even when your eyes had adjusted to the levels, it was still too dark to see the path I was on. So, was extremely glad to have my new mega bright LED torch. The path is often muddy and with roots from trees to slip on. You wouldn't end up in the river if you did fall over, but...

So, please do accept this as a kind of belated Christmas Wish to you ALL.

I did shoot all the other shots at 30 seconds, which left the stars still, but had to up the iso and widen the aperture a lot. At f8, this Nikkor D 17-35mm f2.8 lens is as sharp as you'll probably ever get a zoom lens to be but the corresponding exposure for iso 200 was about 400 seconds. (about 7 minutes)

I also christened the new heavy duty 3 way pan/tilt tripod head that I had had to buy. The Slik tripod legs I bought last year were an emergency cheap alternative after my old Manfrotto carbon fibre failed, on just one, unreplaceable joint. The Slik legs were fine but the head was the bog standard that comes with it. It was OK with wideangle lenses, even on the heavier full-frame D700, but when out capturing Bath Abbey in the wind and rain the other day with a proper telephoto, I could literally see the image jump about in the viewfinder! So, even though this new head is much bigger and heavier, it still is of manageable weight on the tripod, to carry around on short walks. The old head would have sufficed on this shoot tonight but it was just nice to have the reassurance of decent kit that is made for the job, not merely a compromise able to cope with it.

When I returned home, the entire set of signs and barriers that the Gas Board had put up on the pavement had been strewn down my steps, with much of it on my doormat. Such nice Christmassy gestures of goodwill round our way...