Dec wk 2

Thursday & Friday, 08/09 December 2016

Balmy Weather

The very mild spell of weather for December continued on Thursday and Friday as, each day, the temperature made it into the low teens in Centigrade or low fifties in Fahrenheit terms each day. Not that either of them were particularly nice days as although it was mild it was dull and cloudy.

We did a little bit of local train chasing on Thursday. The dull weather didn't make ideal conditions for photography. Sue managed a couple of decent shots but I'm not sure what happened to my video. It was mostly blurred and grainy and consigned to the cutting room floor.

46233 The Duchess of Sutherland heads North to York with The York Yuletide Express

There's another couple of special trains heading to York over the weekend so I'm hoping to fit in another video attempt.

Can You Have Too Many Cameras

Several years ago my main camera was a Nikon D3200 with a Nikon 18-55mm lens. I was perfectly happy with this camera until my photographic requirements moved on.

Nikon D3200 18-55mm lens

I'd moved onto the Nikon D3200 from a simple point and shoot camera as well as moving more into digital photography. By this time I was uploading videos to YouTube and adding a few photos to Flickr! I was also giving much more thought to the photos that I was using in my blog posts. Any adjustments to images using image editing software was at an absolute minimum though. It wasn't too much different from having them developed except that now they came ready developed when they were downloaded from the camera and there was no waiting involved.

Dent Head Viaduct Nikon D3200 18-55mm lens

I'll blame the RSPB for a change in my requirements as we decided to join the Society and visit some of their reserves around the country. For general landscape photography my D3200 was fine and I'd no issues with the quality of the images I got from it. However, trying to photograph birds with a 55mm lens isn't going to work unless the birds are unusually close. I decided that a zoom lens was need and didn't give much thought to anything else other than needing a fairly high powered zoom lens.

I added a Sigma 50-500mm zoom lens.

Sigma 50-500mm zoom lens

It takes some good pictures if you can manage to hold the camera steady. The lens weighs in at a whopping 2.040kg or 4.5 lbs. I took it with me on any visits where I thought a 500mm lens would be useful.

RSPB Old Moor Nikon D3200 Sigma 50-500mm zoom lens

It wasn't something I carried about on the off chance of catching a suitable scenario. I looked around on the Internet and came across super zoom bridge cameras. One of these might be just what I was looking for. I was back to carrying around one camera that had a lens to suit all my requirements. The Panasonic FZ 1000 weighs in at 0.870kg (1.92 lbs) compared to 2.6kg (5.7 lbs) for the Nikon D3200 with its 50-500mm zoom lens attached.

My Panasonic FZ1000 and its zoom lens ranging from 25mm to 400mm, for me, covered all eventualities.

Panasonic Lumix FZ 1000 with 25-400mm zoom lens

Panasonic FZ 1000 - Harlow Carr July 2015

I began to take more video and I began to look around to see if other cameras would be more suited to my needs. I decided to upgrade if that's the correct term to a Panasonic GH4 mainly for its 4k and general video recording qualities. It doesn't get any rave reviews for its still image qualities but so far I've no complaints.

Panasonic GH4 with 14-140mm zoom lens

It came with a downside though. Unlike the FZ1000 the GH4 has an interchangeable lens and having discovered that the 14mm-140mm zoom didn't entirely meet my requirements I added a 100-300mm zoom lens to my kit. For comparison purposes my GH4 with 100-300mm zoom lens weighs in at 1.14kg or 2.5lbs not too bad for carrying around.

Panasonic GH4 with 100-300mm zoom lens

I had rather unwittingly returned to my old problem of which lens to use. I am now able to carry both GH4 lenses around with me but it's more a question of having the right one on the camera at the right time. If I'm walking around a nature reserve then more than likely I need to have my long zoom lens attached to the camera. I then might see a nice landscape view of the reserve which needs a wide angle lens and I have to stop and change over lenses.

Clumber Park Panasonic GH4 with 100-300mm zoom lens

Thorp Perrow Arboretum Panasonic GH4 with 14-140 mm zoom lens

Not too much hassle in summer but on a bitterly cold winter's day not ideal. I started to get around this problem by using my camera phone to take any landscape type shots. Camera phones can take pretty good images and I was happy with the results I was getting. I've now discovered that my Nikon D3200 with its 18-55mm lens will fit in my camera bag with my Panasonic GH4 and lenses. Perhaps I'll manage to carry them all around with me on some occasions but that mighty hefty 50-500mm lens will be staying at home.

Saturday, 10 December 2016

Good and Bad Subjects

Saturday continued the spell of mild and dull weather. We're still waiting for a decent sunny day this month.

We had a trip out to do a little bit of steam train chasing on Saturday morning. At my chosen location there should have been two steam hauled special charter trains, both heading for York, passing by within half an hour of one another. As it happened one of them was running over two hours late so once the first had passed we headed for Potteric Carr nature reserve.

We seem to be having a bit of bad luck when we visit nature reserves as the birds have developed a habit of staying well out of reach of our camera lenses. It was no different on our visit to Potteric Carr. I took to photographing a couple of rats helping themselves to some easy food under the bird feeders.

The undoubted stars of our visit were the Highland cattle.

By the middle of the afternoon it was beginning to drizzle. It was also getting very dark making any more photography a bit tricky.

Sunday, 11 December 2016

It's Turned Colder

Sunday was another dull and mild day although it didn't feel that mild outside in a strong breeze.

Temperature Record 10-12 December 2016

Overnight Sunday into Monday has seen the mild December temperature take a bit of a nosedive down to more normal temperatures for the time of year.

I thought I'd post my only bird picture from our visit to Potteric Carr on Saturday. It's a Shoveller but even this was a long distance from where the photograph was taken.

My camera lens was on full zoom which is 300mm and the image of the duck has been cropped from the full size image as shown below.

Maybe next time something will be in better camera range.

If you are interested an album of photographs of our visit to Potteric Carr can be found here.

Monday & Tuesday, 12/13 December 2016

Don't Like It!

Monday and Tuesday continued the mild spell of weather for December. There seems to me to be a tendency to judge the weather by the temperature only. Personally I don't like this sort of weather even though it's mild for early winter.

It stays cloudy and dull all day never getting properly light. We've had some light spells of rain over the last few days but not much. Even so the ground never dries up and last summer's leaves remain wet and soggy as they decay waiting to be removed to the compost heap .

Temperature & Rainfall Records 11-13 December 2016

I'd like some brighter weather now with a little bit of sunshine even if it turns a little bit colder. Mild to me doesn't necessarily mean nice weather.

Wednesday, 14 December 2016

For One Day Only

Complaining about the lack of sunshine worked for once and Wednesday was a lovely day for December. With hardly any breeze and some lengthy spells of sunshine it felt very pleasant.

Temperature and Solar Radiation Records for 09-15 December 2016

It's difficult to measure how many hours of sunshine we get each day. My weather station does this my measuring the amount of solar radiation falling on a sensor. However, in December, with the sun almost at its lowest position in the sky even on a sunny day there's not a lot of difference between the values on a dull day (Tuesday) compared to a sunny day (Wednesday). I've added the yearly chart for solar radiation for 2016 to compare the values throughout the year.

High Solar Radiation Values for 2016

Thursday 15 December 2016 is the earliest sunset time of the year and from tomorrow it becomes later even though our hours of daylight continue to decrease until 21 December.

Sunrise & Sunset Times for Wakefield (http://www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/wakefield)

The above table shows the sunrise and sunset time for Wakefield. As you can see the differences in daylight hours each day are very small but the days will be lengthening from 21 December even if the worst of the winter weather in January and February maybe still to come.

Disclaimer

This weather site is operated as an amateur weather station site and should not be used as official data. I make every effort to ensure my data is as accurate as possible but I cannot guarantee that the data meets the requirements of the Meteorological Office or other professional weather monitoring organisations.