Weather and Equipment

I love to go my walks and try not to let the weather put me off.  It is a very rare day when I wouldn’t brave the elements.  One trouble to be very careful of, is keeping the camera dry. 

Rain is one thing that we can depend on putting in appearance quite often in Scotland!  I ruined and had to send away, one of my cameras, to get fixed, by using it in very wet weather, where water got inside the camera.  A lesson that taught me to be much more careful.

I make sure that I have comfy, waterproof boots.  They can be difficult to find.  I have had a number of pairs that have said waterproof but don’t turn out to be that.  The next thing I make sure of, is that I have is a cosy, waterproof jacket.  For the summer, it is still handy to carry a light waterproof jacket that can be stored away in my small rucksack.  For that time of year, I carry my small rucksack, usually with a picnic, a couple of bottles of water and 2 waterproof fold away shopping bags which are very handy to sit on.  It is surprising, even on the warmest of days, how damp can seep in when sitting on the ground.  For my camera bag, I just use a sturdy, waterproof “bum bag” which I can attach around my waist and forget about when walking and use as a bit of support when carrying the camera around my neck.

I purposely just use a bridge camera as I always walk and don’t want to be carrying around different lenses and equipment.  For my purposes, my bridge camera does very well.  I can get a good quality, large canvas print made of my photos that were taken on my bridge camera, so that is all that I need.

I tend not to use a tripod and just rest the camera on a surface to keep it still if needed.  I do have a tripod and use it occasionally, for example when taking photos of the ospreys, as I am not allowed to get too near them.  The more zoom used, the more the likelihood of the camera shaking and not being such a good quality picture.

Currently I have a Canon SX70 bridge camera which does an excellent job for me and has an excellent zoom on it.  In the past I have had earlier models of the Canon bridge cameras and before that Fujifilm cameras all of which I loved.