This Week On The Nab
This set is the culmination of a couple of afternoons spent on Healey Nab over the past week.
After realising that the OM1's subject recognition and tracking seems to be a lot better than the Z8's (at least in my tests so far), I've been tending to carry the OM1+100-400 f/5.0-6.3 (the original version of this lens that doesn't do Sync-IS) for photographing wildlife along with the Z8+24-70 f/2.8S for landscape/woodland duties.
I'm still debating how well this OM1 combination compares in terms of quality to using the native 100-400 lens I have for the Z8, I suspect the Z lens is a little superior, it certainly cost a lot more, but it's bigger and heavier, but the amount of heavy cropping I often end up applying to animal photos taken with the Z8 wipes out much of the advantage the larger sensor might have, so I don't think there's much in it in that sense, but having the 2nd camera with me is so much more compact and convenient than lens swaps. The Z8 still seems to be the better tool for landscape duties though.
Anyway, onto the pictures...
Wintry afternoon side light glancing the trees in Nab Wood.
The top of Healey Nab is broadly flat and covered with a lot of scrubby bush, but scattered around the occasional nice birch tree can be found.
The highest point on Healey Nab is Grey Heights and here you'll find the imaginatively named Grey Heights Wood. Near the centre of the wood a number of trees have been uprooted by recent storms. Judging by the stumps around the campfire, I suspect several have also been sacrificed on the altar of wild camping too.
I've been quite lucky with roe deer encounters just recently. It's difficult to get close without disturbing them or scaring them off, although on a number of occasions I've been following trails through the woods and almost walked into them, much to our mutual shock which typically ends up with them bolting before I can even switch the camera on.
In the case of this set, I'd spotted them slowly moving through the scrubby brush from a distance, given away by the combination of movement and their one serious camouflage failure, so I attempted to get a bit closer without being spotted. Of course, they very quickly spotted me, I don't think being 6ft tall really helps in this matter. However I managed to grab this shot of a doe creeping through the woods before they'd twigged I was there.
Frustratingly, she stopped behind strands of grass, the OM1 subject detection's one weakness. Often, in these circumstances it'll just fail to see the subject at all and not even bother trying to focus on the grass, other times it will detect the subject but focus on the grass either. It's all a bit weird and unreliable (still better than what the Z8 seems to do though), so in these cases I've taken to switching the lens into manual focus which works reasonably well as the focal plane is generally not changing that much as they walk across my path. Having one of the two front buttons on the body mapped to a zoomed in view really helps with this too.
And here's what she's looking at, a buck galloping towards her.
It wasn't long before my attempts to reposition myself and get a better view gave me away. At least I've stopped giving my location away by talking to myself. Mostly.
He's refusing to ignore me and act naturally.
Soon the light was really beginning to fade, so I took a few more shots of the woodland and landscape.
As the sun sets, only the distant hills of Black and White Coppice are catching direct light in this shot looking across Brown Blue Water which is in shade.
I haven't had a lot of luck photographing Kestrels just lately. I've not managed to catch them hunting in their usual locations, although on several occasions I've spotted them hunting a few fields away. On this evening as I made my way back to car I caught a brief flash of brown flitting through the sky and alighting on a nearby(ish) branch, staying there just long enough for me to grab this shot.
As the sun set, the opposing side of the sky took on a purple hue. This is looking across Black Coppice towards Great Hill, which has its own private cloud sat upon it. Not much of a view from up there on this night I suspect. The view from Drinkwater's Farm (the trees to the left of the hill) would have been a bit more interesting.
One final shot looking in the opposite direction towards the sun as it sets behind Nab Wood.
