North Berwick

Back in November I went to North Berwick for the first time.   It's a very pretty little seaside town very near to Edinburgh.   My colleagues and I had a lovely time frollicking on the beach, eating fish and chips and climbing the Law.   The weather was pretty horrible for most of the day, but the dramatic skies did allow me a few good shots.

 I experimented for the first time with my new ND grad filter.   It's a great little filter for landscapes.   One half of it is darker than the other, which means that if you position the divide between dark and light over the  horizon of your shot you can darken the sky.   This is great because often with landscape photos you have to choose between correctly exposing the sky or the land.   The most usual choice is the land, leaving the sky looking washed out and featureless.   But with a graduated filter you can keep the drama and colour in the sky.   Neat trick.   The mounting system is very clever.   Firstly there's a ring which screws into the end of the lens.   You can buy different sizes of rings, meaning than you can use the same filters for all your different size lenses.   Next there's a mount which slots onto the ring.   And finally the filter slots into the mount.   The mount has three slots so different filters can be used in combination.   Very adaptable and clever system. 

Anyway, here are a few of my favorite bad weather photos from North Berwick

                                                                         Rainbow

                                                   Bass Rock.   Gorgeously dramatic skies!