Clear Skies Before Dawn
The weather hasn't been all that great this week, leading to very little photography during my daily walks, all with the exception of one morning when the wind was still and the skies were clear, so I chanced getting up in time to catch the sunrise, which, while pleasant, turned out to be not particularly dramatic as clear skies are not your friend for this kind of photography. Even the oft present deer seemed to be taking the day off, as too were the various birds of prey that hunt in the area, so despite lugging the Z8 and 100-400 f/4.5-5.6S around for all of the wildlife encounters that didn't happen, I ended up with just a small bunch of reasonable twilight landscape shots taken handheld with the Z7+14-30 f/4S and some unimpressive tree studies that aren't worth sharing.
As mentioned above, on this particular day I was experimenting with carrying the Z8 and Z7 on these early morning walks. For the last couple of weeks I've just carried the Z8 and swapped lenses, but the number of shots I've missed with this approach has been kind of annoying, so as the Z7 has been sat unused in my camera cabinet since I got the Z8 I figured it might make a practical 2nd camera for landscape duties, allowing me to dedicate the faster Z8 to wildlife subjects. This seemed to work quite well and with the collapsible f/4 lenses it didn't add much weight, although bulk is a problem as they won't both fit in my camera bag together and as I had no spare PD lugs at the time I had to settle for using the Z7 without a strap and leaving it in the bag and only taking it out when needed.
Using them together, it's surprising how much of an improvement the Z8 is over the Z7 in terms of general usability (speed, responsiveness, control layout) and it still irks me that the Z7 can't display a histogram and horizon level at the same time, something really handy for landscape photography that was fixed on the Z8, although that camera loses negative only bracketing (the only kind of bracketing I generally use) for some unfathomable reason, so it's a case of swings and roundabouts and probably a dangerous looking climbing frame too.
The Dawn Cometh
This is taken on the track leading up to The Nab, looking across to Rivington where the sun was expected to make an appearance in about 30 minutes (EXIF times are all way out on these images as the camera hasn't been used in an age and I forgot to reset its internal RTC).
A Country Track
Looking back down the same track (sunrise behind me). The hill in the background is (for the most part) White Coppice.
Blue Water
Taken from the rocky outcrop that overlooks Blue Water while waiting for a sunrise that never really got into gear. Note that I've deliberately left these images on the dark side to retain the mood from the day and avoid crushing the subtle tones in the sky, surprisingly there's not a lot of latitude in the brighter tones before they hit over-saturation. I would have liked to use a polariser here to drop some of the reflection on the rocks and damp foliage, but at 1/10th of a second handheld it's already pushing the limits of what I can manage to hold steady without blocking more light out.
