Trialling new equipment at Ingleton
Given the great weather (for walking, if not for photography) Charlotte and I drove over to Ingleton to scout out the top of Twistleton Scar. I also wanted to try out some new gear I’ve acquired, namely a Gitzo tripod and a Pentax Digital Spotmeter (with my V50-Zone mod).
We arrived at about 2.30pm and with a little bit of out of fitness huffing and puffing we got to the top and looked around. There are only a few trees around the top (a lot less than you’d think given that nearly every picture up here has one or more in) so it’s lone tree syndrome by default I’m afraid. There is, however, a fantastic variety of limestone pavement, ranging from very flat planes to sharp clints and deep grikes (clints being the solid bits and grikes being the gaps).
A very niceley positioned tree gave me the opportunity to compose limestone foreground with a rounded edge into the tree and then Ingleton peak in the background. Unfortunately the lighting only really left black and white as an option. One to come back for though.
As we walked further over the top of Twistleton, the sun started setting and a wonderful golden glow highlighted the tops of the clints. In one particular section, the clients were rounded and shaped like lobes of a brain or coral reefs. This became the picture you see above. I did take a large format shot but the sun was dropping so fast that I think I missed getting the golden highlights. The Spotmeter was wonderful to use and the V50-Zone sticker made working out exposure a lot easier.
The new tripod is definitely a lot more stable than my old Velbon but the steel spikes have one disadvantage (although it might be an advantage in disguise). It is more difficult to position the legs with the spikes fitted because of you don’t have the spike at right angles (or with 10 or 20 degrees of a right angle) to the rock it’s resting on, it does stand a chance of slipping. So getting a sturdy position for the tripod takes a moment longer. However, I have the feeling that the ‘stickiness’ of the rubber feet has been hiding precarious tripod leg placement. The rubber, if positioned improperly, is probably slipping slowly; wheras with the spike, this slipping is obvious. I’ll have to carry on checking this. The extra length of the legs came in useful pretty much immediatly. I wanted to stand on a rock to get some height but there were no places equally high to place the legs; in the past I would have given up but the shot was simple with the extra extension.
