Ifield Church

Had a 15 mile bike ride around the local roads today. Stopped of at Ifield church.

Evening Walk

Got out for an evening walk today. also dug out my IR camera. First shot was really weird, but somehow I liked it.

Day 6 (I think) and the relaxing gets deeper.

After all the excitement of yesterday. (Not! but that is why we are on Symi) Today was a beach day and time on the sun loungers.

But first it was another fantastic sunrise.

What really surprised me was how fast the sun is moving around the horizon from day to day. 

I knew that at this time of year, around the equinoxes, the length of day and the position of the sun is moving at its fastest rate, but rarely having the good fortune to have the time to watch the sun come up on several days from the same location, the speed of change was very noticeable.

Anyway I think I did go back to bed for some more sleep before the walk down to Pedi.

The beach of choice for the day was Agia Marina. 

Now I am aware that people generally either love or hate Agia Marina. Mostly because it is the most developed beach on Symi. 

I have a slight dislike of the beach but that is purely personal between me and the beach, or rather the Gecko that lives on the beach that caused me to put my back out, when I tried to bend down to take a picture of it last year!

V loves the beach as it reminds her of the Lido of her youth, all white paint and concrete and a slight whiff of luxury and the exotic. 

I must admit that 'luxury' and 'exotic' are not always associated with Prestatyn but there you are.

It did give some nice pictures.

So after a day on the longer it was boat back to Pedi and a chance for a couple more pictures before heading of for a night on the town.

Day 2. First full day on Symi.

As always on the first day of a holiday we were up and out relatively early. The weather was beautiful, with a hot sun and a slight breeze.

This year V wanted to do more walking than last year, so we started by walking up through the lanes and steps that make up the 'streets' of Horio.

One of the targets for the trip was a walk up to the Castro with its church on the top. As no maps exist of Horio and all it's maze of paths, we were lucky to find arrows painted on the walls indicating the route to the Castro. We followed these and sooner than we expected we came out to the church on the top of the Castro.

We wandered around and were treated by a magnificent view of the harbour, made all the more special by the cruise ship, Club Med 2, lying off Nimborio.

After some time resting and taking pictures we set off back down to the meet up with the tour rep. As we came down we got a great view down the Pedi valley towards the sea.

After the meet up we went back to our apartment and packed the bag for the walk down to the beach at Pedi. As you come down to the pier you have the choice of turning left and right. Go left and after 100 yds there are about 6 sun brollies and some loungers these are free to use. If you go right the loungers and brollies are charged for.

After a swim and a lounge we walked back up to the apartment.

We had a rest and in the evening we walked down the Kalistrata to look for somewhere to eat.

It was a shot like this that I ran into the main problem regarding the compromise I had made with my choice of camera. With my 'big' camera I could increase the ISO gain and with its faster lenses I could have shot had held much longer than I did. But I knew this was the compromise I had made.

Alloway Old Kirk

Some Infra Red images from Tam O'Shanters Church At Alloway, Ayrshire.

Infra Red

Years ago I had a Nikon D70 converted to be sensitive to Infra Red light. I bought a conversion kit from  Lifepixel and had Myles Whitehead, who is the camera technician who looks after my cameras, do the conversion.

The camera has not had the focus system adjusted to correct the point of focus for IR light, but with careful technique that is not a problem.

The results are very different to a colour camera and I go through spells of using the camera mixed in with long gaps when it sits in my camera case.

Over the last week I got the camera out and started to enjoy using it again.