Return to Spurn point

 

In the summer of 2019, I made a journey out to Spurn point near Hull, which is pretty well the closest coastline to where I live. It was a long journey, made early in the morning, in order to catch the sunset, a task I pretty well failed to do.

In retrospect however I did enjoy my time there, but somehow as a photographer, I felt I had left something on the table. I had not really made the best of the opportunity, and felt I really needed to go back.

So this year I decided to go again. Instead of summer, this time it would be autumn, meaning I did not need to get up so early, and hopefully the skies would be more conducive for photography. I also hoped to catch some of the autumn bird migrants making their way from Scandinavia to the east coast. 

Of course this was 2020, so one complication would be that the UK was still under Covid restrictions, and I had to be mindful to ensure I stayed isolated and be aware that there maybe be little in amenities.

For the trip I had a few new pieces of kit. Firstly I had a variable ND filter, which I hoped to use to take long exposure sea shots. I had my new 85mm lens, which I have really fell in love with due to its shallow depth of field and sharpness. Finally, I had got 2nd hand Fuji XT-10 converted to IR. This had replaced my full spectrum A-6000, with the benefit that it could use the batteries and lenses from my XT-2. October is not a great season for IR photography, but I took it along anyway

Go East

The journey itself was uneventful. I am always a little wary of long car journeys early in the morning, but the time ticked by quickly on the motorway journey to Hull, then it was a case of winding my way through the lanes that connect Hull to the point itself. 

I arrived in total darkness, in an empty car park, and I set about getting my kit together. Unlike last time I made sure I had both hat and water on me.

 One decision was whether to take my long 150-400mm lens, or come back for it later. In the end I decided to take it, since if I decided to head on, I would have it with me. Also, I was hoping to see large flocks of knots on the shoreline that often congregate at this time of year creating spectacular patterns in the sky as the wheel about.

As befitting the implicit rules of photography, because I had arrived in plenty of time for sunrise, the sun did not really appear, as I started to walk along the beach.  I decided to head up the beach. Despite the low cloud, it was a remarkable pleasant day for October and it felt as if I had the beach to myself. Despite the lack of spectacular sunrise, there was a bit of colour in the sky above the cloud. I took a few shots along the beach, with the dark sand contrasting the sky, and the rocks jutting out like dinosaurs bones

My main plan was to take some long exposures of the groynes as the tide went out. One of the reasons I had chosen this day, was that high tide would coincide with sunrise.

I had just set up the camera for some long exposure shots when another guy with a camera, ambled up to me, totally ignoring social distancing as I hurriedly backed away. Apparently he was a portrait photographer from Hull, who decided to do pretty well the same as me. Actually we had a nice chat and would bump into each other most of the day. Saying that the beach, this far from the car park was pretty well deserted.

 

 

Although my main intention was taking landscape photo's I also hoped to take some bird photo and as I wandered up the beach line, small flocks of knots flew ahead of me. It was not the large masses that I had hoped such as they got at Snettisham , further down the coast, nor the size I had seen at a previous visit, but still I had a chance to get some movement shots of these fascinating little clockwork birds. I hoped to take more I came back, but as I returned, the flocks seem to have departed meaning these were the only shots I got.

 

 

A seal of approval

Nor was the only wildlife I saw that day. As I travelled down the shoreline I saw what I assumed was a seal carcass, up against the dunes. As I got closer I realised it was in fact alive, and I wondered whether it was injured, but it seemed healthy. I was not really sure what to do in this situation. I always mindful in these situations that such animals are not pets, but wild animals and need to be treated with respect. Nor did I want to stress it out or cause it to panic. As it was we stared at each other for a few minutes, like some adolescent boy coming across a foreign topless sun bather, until we came to an understanding that I was going to respect its personal space, and it would be happy to have a few images.

After a while I moved off, and I spied it shuffling back into the sea, belying any idea of injury. Obviously like me, it had just wanted some beach time, and had now decided the sand was getting a little too crowded and was off to find a quieter spot. For me however it was a fantastic encounter of an animal I had never had the privilege to meet so close.  

 

 

 

Flotsam and Jetsam

One of the things that I had realised from my last trip was that there were lots of small objects around the beach, which were worthy of photographic interest. This time I took more note, and noticed the beach had large amounts of discarded fishing gear, such as nets, lobster pots. While an ecological time bomb and environmental eyesore, the bright colours of the synthetic rope contrasted against the brown hues of the beech. Also, an old fence post, battered in exposure with the North Sea also provided some interesting subjects. I use largely my Viltrox 85mm for this. Since I acquired this lens, it has become a firm favourite, with the ability to create photos with sharp and narrow focus with lovely bokeh proving great for this sort of detail work.

 

 

A kick in the groynes

As usual my target was the lighthouse which stands out at the end of Spurn head. Last time I was annoyed that after walking so far I had not made the final few yards and gone up the lighthouse which is now a visitor centre. This time I made it, only to find it was closed due to the ongoing health crisis. Anyway I sat down to have a quick snack, only to find I had added a little jetsam myself by dropping my plastic water bottle somewhere on the beach. Fortunately it was not as hot as last time, so I was not as struggling, but it was irritating.

 

 

As I started the walk back along the old coast road, I found I was struggling. I have been suffering for a little while with a heel injury (technical name - Plantar Fasciitis or old man foot as I call it). On the beach it had not been a problem, but on the road it was painful, making progress slow. I was also tired, and in truth the road view is not as stimulating as the beach. However, to entertain me an RAF A400M was doing training sweeps over the head and for a while I did a few shots as it flew. 

 

The journey back to Spurn car park always seems to take much longer than the outward journey, so I was pleased when I could leave the coast road and join the beach again. It was full daylight by now, and I sort of assumed that any long exposure would be pointless, but it seemed a good opportunity to try my new variable ND filter. Unfortunately another photographer had exactly the same idea and there was a sort of lazy, casual foot race to cross the uncovered rock pools to the nearest groyne, a race I lost, so I had to move down the beech to a less promising area. 

However, even given that I spent a happy 30 minutes taking shots of the water moving in and out. As is my wont, after a while I got bored with the classic shots and added a little ICM. Pleased with the results I tried the same thing as I walked along the shoreline. Not classic landscape shots, but I really like the results because it implies the movement of the sea

 

Eventually I got back to the car park at 2 o'clock, only to find it jam packed with cars. Spurn is a very popular bird watching spot, and there were groups of twitchers wondering around carrying telescopes the size of small drainpipes. I toyed with the idea of joining them, but I decided I really was not in the mood, so I packed my kit away and went to snaffle a bacon sandwich from the Yorkshire wildlife centre, which despite the pandemic was still open.

With the sandwich and coffee in hand I hobbled off to the coast edge, and sat on a bench to breath in the view. I nodded to an ageing birdwatcher who was scanning the sea line for birds, who then ambled off. Just five minutes later a short eared owl, the 1st I had ever seen in the flesh, swooped into the grass only 10 yards away, before flying off surrounded by an entourage of crows who had taken exception to its presence. 

Of course, I had no camera on me to record this encounter, but it reminded what I love about Spurn head. It is always throwing surprises, usually when  you least expect it.

Reflection

So did I get what I wanted out of this trip? I believe so, certainly more so than my first trip. I am always in awe of people who can rock up to a location, see the shot they need and perfectly execute it.

I have found repeatable I just cannot do that. To get the best out of a location I need to connect to it and I cannot do that in a day. As a part-time photographer one of the frustrations is that I often don't feel I have the time to just sit and judge the character of a scene. Therefore, my images are often too random, tacking a plethora of shots, rather than focusing on the best one.

To revisit a location like this is a luxury and a welcome chance to reflect on a landscape and get the images that truly shows how I see it. I can't wait till the world returns to normality, and I can visit again

 

 

 

 

On the straight and narrow

 

 

One of the complaints my wife has against me is that I never throw anything away. In that I have to say I am guilty as charged. If I can think of any possible use for an object I will try and squirrel it away somewhere for that future legendary time when "it will be useful".

I'm much the same with photographs. I hate deleting them since I always believe  that at some point some magical new technique will turn my otherwise bland, ordinary or simply bad images into world beaters.

In 2018 I set myself a task. I had seen images on a site called  panoramastreetline.com in which they had taken a view of a which consisted of a flat panorama of a high street. I had never seen this sort of perspective or linear panorama  before and I decided to set creating my own version using my local high street as an example.

The high street in question

 

I immediately hit issues. Firstly, my high  street like so many is plagued by cars parking up and down the street. Pretty well all through the day and evening both sides of the streets will have cars blocking my view. 

Secondly the street is narrow, meaning that in order to get the whole building in, including the roofline, I would need either to take images in portrait or have a very wide lens. Taking in portrait would mean I would have to take more shots, a wide angle would mean more distortion. Obviously the  normal method is to get a tilt shift lens. However Fuji do not make one and they are expensive and specialist bits of kit

I would also need to keep the camera relatively parallel to the scene and level. This would mean putting it on a tripod. However I was not happy with the idea of standing in a busy high street  with a tripod, trying to gets shots between passerby's, nor would the pedestrians be happy with me blocking my path.

However I did have some local knowledge, which I hoped would help. Every year the town holds a may market. the high street is shutdown for stalls to to be put up. To do this, the street is shut off and all cars are removed. I realised that if I get there early, before the stalls arrived, i would have a small window of opportunity to take my photos.

Calm before the storm. Setting up for may market

So I set off, one early bank holiday morning and found the street empty apart from people putting up bunting. I quickly set about my task an took a number of overlapping images down both sides of the street. However I was nervous of not getting the shots in time, so I probably was not as careful setting up the shots as I should be.

When I got the images home, I set about creating my linear panorama. I had assumed that I could just throw it at some panorama creating software and viola. However this failed. Basically all panorama software assume you take the images from a fixed point. They could not handle the parallax distortions caused by moving down the street.

The result of auto stiching in panorama software. The results are ...interesting

 

I realized that I would have to stitch them together myself. However even here I failed. I just could not get the images to line up/ After a few days I gave up and moved onto other things

A few months ago I was doing one of those youtube tutorials and I realised what I had been missing. I dug out my 2 year old images, and suddenly it started coming together. The process was tedious, but at last after 2 years I got close to the result I was looking for.

The final results

 

History in the making

 Apart from the important point of proving a point to my wife about not throwing anything away, I am pleases I persevered and created these images. 

Even in two years, the high street has changed. Small towns like mine are under constant pressure from the online giants and 2020 has been particularly tough. I have no doubt that by the end of the year, there will be changes again. 

By creating images that not only show buildings, but also puts them in context, it captures a small snapshot in time of an important part of a community, which future generations will be able to compare.

 More information on how it was processed can be found here

  

 

 

 

 

Looking a gift horse in the mouth

 

In this times of uncertainty, photography has taken a backseat as I deal with the new normal. However nothing lasts forever and how better to recover some enthusiasm than a bit of retail therapy.

Yes guys and gals,  I have bought a new lens. Its one I have had my eye on for a while, and as usual I got it through a  bit of ebay sniping. 

So what new piece of shiny have I bought  and why? Before we go into that lets me just unleash a minor piece of annoyance with my camera make of choice, Fuji.

While generally I am very happy with my Fuji kit, their bitter adherence to a specific philosophy can often be irritating. One of these is their attitude to allowing 3rd party lens manufacturers access to the Fuji X-Mount.

Now don't get me wrong, Fuji makes some very good lenses, which are often not too badly priced. In fact one of the things that 1st attracted me to the mount was the lens range that seemed to punch above its weight. However things have moved on, and while Nikon and Canon with their history have always had a great range of lenses, Sony has rapidly overtaken Fuji, by both filling out their own lens makeup and at the same time opening up their lens mounts to 3rd parties such as Zeiss and Sigma. 

Fuji on the other hand guard their lens protocols avidly meaning that 3rd party lenses manufacturers have not supported the mount, and unless you were happy to have a manual focus mount with no EXIF information, you would have to buy a Fuji lens

I have heard from a number of Fujistas that they they are quite happy with this situation since Fuji lenses are brilliant, optimised for the mount and profit from lens sales are funneled back into keeping the bodies competitive by subsidizing the development costs.

To the former point, I can only say it is bollocks. Firstly it would assume that Zeiss, Sigma, Tamron etc know very little about lens manufacturing, which is  clearly not true and secondly you often see 3rd party manufacturers lens beating the equivalent Nikon, Sony own brand, and there is no reason why, say Sigma, could not do the same for Fuji if given the chance. 

There is also another point. While Fuji lens lineup covers most areas, there are conspicuous gaps. Fuji long zooms like the 150-600mm do not exist. Basically the best you can get is (it has to be said the rather good) 150-400mm, plus a teleconverter if you want to extend it. There is no rectilinear wide angle, tilt shift, etc. Even where lenses do exist, there are some areas where they are over priced  or just poor. Like I said the 150-400mm is a peach of a lens, but it is heavy. Fuji's other mid range zooms, are just not very good and rarely get put on my camera. Same for Fuji macro. There is only one true (1:1) macro lens in the lineup and that costs over a grand. 

3rd party manufacturer support would fill in the gaps of the lineup and provide alternatives that were either different, cheaper or better (or maybe all 3).

As to the argument that the Fuji strategy helps subsidise body costs, there maybe some truth there. However it could also be argued that with the lens lineup looking increasingly poor against there competitors, it is actually hurting Fuji by reducing their market share. 

A glimmer of light

The main thing holding 3rd party lens manufacturers back is that Fuji will not divulge the interface between lens and body, meaning that in order to make auto focus lens someone would have to reverse engineer the protocol, which is not an easy job to get right. The CEO of Sigma has said that they would love to make Fuji lenses, but the lack of protocol transparency has stopped them.

However recently there has been a glimmer of hope in getting 3rd party Fuji lenses and that is from a Chinese company called Viltrox. They have released a number of lenses for X-mount, and surprisingly they all support autofocus and full EXIF information. Best of all, the price points were very attractive compared to their Fuji equivalent.

However there is no point buying a low priced lens, if it does not perform both physically and optically. To be truthful I had my doubts about whether the hype was just too good, and while they say don't look a gift horse in the mouth, I say not only should you look, but also do a full dental check up, blood test  and x-ray too.

However the reviews seemed promising and the price tempting. Not only that, I had a gap in my lens lineup I was itching to fill

85mm is enough for any man

 

Viltrox make 3 lenses at present for the X-Mount. A 23mm 1.4, a 33mm 1.4 and a 85mm 1.8. I already have the Fuji 23mm and 35mm f2, and while an extra stop would be nice, they were not getting enough use to go to the Fuji faster alternative's, nor did they need alternatives.

However one of issues had with  lenses was that the 35mm required me to get close to the subject for good results. Fine for studio portrait work, but not really something I was comfortable for street photography. I wanted something that would allow me step back from the subject, but still allow me to retain the background separation that fast prime would allow. 

The closest lens in the Fuji lineup is the 90mm F2, which retails at about £800, which is a lot for a lens which may only use rarely. The Viltrox 85mm at only £320, but it also has an extra stop at F1.8. OK it may not be  a sharp as the Fuji at that aperture, but at half the price it was hard  to resist. Even better I managed, via fleabay to grab a pristine Mark 2 version for £240. You can buy a lot of extra lenses for that £640 saving.

So was it worth it, or was is £250 down the drain?

Proof in the usage

Size comparison with the Fuji 35mm F2.0 (and a box)

 

I have never really understood unboxing videos, so I won't bore you. Personally I wouldn't really care if lenses came wrapped in a piece of bubble wrap with gaffer tape around it. It is enough to say that teh lens came in a nice box and even came with small bag to put the lens in (or lose as is my want).

The lens itself certainly feels solid and has a lovely lens with a huge 72mm filter mount size. It is also very minimalist with no controls or aperture ring of any type breaking up its lines. Of course the lens has no stabilization, which for a lens this size could create issues on a non-stabilized camera, but the lack of aperture ring is a bit jarring. Fuji cameras are built around the idea of manual controls, and while the front camera dial is quite capable of controlling the lens aperture, it is not as intutive. as the manual version. It also meant that I had to continually check whether the lens was in auto-aperture mode via the viewfinder.

The lens has features large sunshade. Unfortunately this does get in the way of the large manual focus ring and on my version, I found removing it was a bit tough, but hopefully this would get better with wear.

Hocus Pocus/Autofocus

Putting a non Fuji lens on a camera and expect it to autofocus just feels wrong.  But focus it did, and very smoothly too. 

The 1st thing you notice is the minimum focus distance is quite long at 75cm (or 2 1/2 feet in old money), but outside that distance, things work smoothly and snaps onto objects like any other Fuji lens. 

The lens itself is quite heavy, but never made my XT-2 feel particularly unbalanced. It is also quite large, and is probably not something you will carry around all the time, unlike say the 35mm,. However for say street photography where you want a fast focusing  lens that separate the subject from the background without having to get in their face, it will do the job (did I mention it cost £250?)

To test the lens I persuaded my supermodel wife (as in she is a super wife and a wonderful  model for me) to go for a walk around a local path, where she deigned to pose for me. Certainly I had no problems getting clear and sharp results with some nice bokeh and separation.To do this I found I had to step back quite a bit, but that was the whole point.

 I also used the narrow field of view to take images which showed depth of field. In all these the auto focus was smooth and accurate, even face detect worked a treat. Colours came out nicely, and despite the lens not benefiting from Fuji in camera processing, I could see very little distortion. 

My only issue came when I tried to take some pictures of people walking on the street. A number were out of focus, and I can only put this down to that it is large unstabilised lens on a unstabilised body. It is is easy to forget this and let the shutter speed creep down to about 1/125 where camera shake may showing up. 

The lens also made a reasonable nature lens, despite it long minimum distancing. This points to another use of this lens. Combine it with a macro extension such as the MCEX-16 and you have a good value autofocus macro lens for the money

Conclusion

There is very little to hate about this lens, and for the price makes it a bargain that really should be in everyone's kit bag. I cannot compare it with the Fuji 90mm, but it is hard to see how any quality improvement could be anything other than marginal.

Like any prime lens, its usage will be limited, but it does everything it says on the tin, and I can not be more happy with it. If I had one criticism, a aperture dial would of been nice, but this is just nitpicking.

More importantly Viltrox has shown it is quite possible to create valid 3rd party autofocus lens for Fuji. Hopefully other lens manufacturers will start do similar, and the range of available glass for Fuji bodies will increase. This can only be good for the long term survival of the Fuji camera brand.

 
Some sample images...

F2.2 ISO 200

F2.0 ISO 200

F1.8 ISO 200

F2.2 ISO 200

F3.6 ISO 200

F1.8 ISO200

F1.8 ISO 250

F1.8 ISO 200

Taken just as a P-51 Mustang flew over. Not sure this lens makes a great airshow lens, but it does show how sharp it is

 

 

F1.8 ISO 1600