#sonyalphamirrorless

My wife and I decided to head over there yesterday afternoon, having not walked it before and hankering after blowing off the Cobwebs.

The coastline is one of Chalk cliffs, some sections being 100ft+ in height.

It's an exposed and often wild part of the Yorkshire Coastline, with secluded bays, only accessible from the sea by boat, or a climb down with some specialist equipment if you're that way inclined.

The area here is designated a Nature Reserve and is home to several mammalian species and sea birds. We missed the Puffins nesting by a month or so, as they nest and raise a single 'Puffling', here each year between May and July.

I said I'd come back next year for the Puffin season and hire a 200-400mm lens for one of my cameras and set my stall out to grab some close ups of them.

Today I was running with the Sony a6300, a 90mm f/2.8 Macro lens and i also took a super compact 7Artisans 25mm f/1.8 fully manual lens, due to it being so small i could pop it in a pocket.

The Macro lens gave me 135mm full frame equivalent, due to the crop factor of the camera. I could have really done with a 300mm equivalent focal length as a minimum to be fair, but it was the longest lens I have to hand. It just wasn't even near good enough to grab shots of the birds nesting in the cliffs.

It did however allow me to grab the odd macro shot, such as this abstract one i shot here.

It's a good focal length for the odd portrait as well, although it gives a lot of compression. The lens was a Tamron 90mm 1:1 macro designed for EF (Canon) fit bodies. So i used a Sigma MC11 lens converter. I'll be honest, it was hit and miss with the focus at times, as it would simply stop communicating with the camera and I'd have to take out the camera battery and re-insert and switch back on a few times over the course of the day. It was workable though and at times i found myself switching to manual focus and using peak focusing and the focus zoom on the Sony (which is brilliant BTW and I've yet to see another system match the Sonys, although Fujifilm are close on the X series bodies).

I have to admit that I've not used the little Sony for several months, as I've fallen for Fujifilm and so have been shooting them 90% of the time. It is a great little camera though and way more powerful than it's compact size suggests. Aimee took the shots of me on her Google Pixel 6 phone.

The wind started to pick up a fair bit a couple of miles along the coast and the sun was dipping towards the Horizon, so we decided to turn about and head back the way we came, stopping for a picnic on a picnic bench/table set up (of which several are dotted about here and there) when we were almost back to the Flamborough Head Lighthouse car park.

We decided we would hang on a bit more into blue hour, so we headed down to the nature hide there and saw some seals on the beach, grabbed a few shots then headed back to the car for me to set up my camera and tripod for some shots of the Lighthouse when it was switched on.

We had a great day and I'd recommend it.

As always, the Sony performed really well and these lighthouse shots were taken using the 7Artisans 25mm lens. It's a great little lens that and for the money (£80 ish) it's an absolute steal. It's completely manual, but I love that about it, and it can produce super sharp images. I highly recommend it.

I am sometimes asked about what bag and kit I'm carrying if shown in images.

If you're interested, this rucksack here is a Swedish Army LK35 pack. It's been modified by the addition of the Swedish Army Webbing pouches being sewn onto the sides. It has a steel tubular frame, which allows the load to be centralised and I have a Viper waist belt attached as well, another modification. I've added a couple of small molle pouches to that belt also, so i can carry spare batteries, a mic for video, compass, multitool, etc etc.

This is a great pack for everything outdoors. I wouldn't use it in town, it's too military looking, but anywhere in the outdoors, it's brilliant.

They're hard to comeby now, and you could be paying £150+ for a good one and I've seen them going for in excess of £300!

This one was made in 1988! By a company called Haglofs, a Swedish outdoor company who had the contract to make the packs for the Swedish Army between around 1980 and 2000. Comfiest and most practical pack I've ever used.

Anyway. I'll sign off for now, but if you have any questions about the location, my kit, any photography or editing techniques i use, please do ask. I'm not one of those photographers that won't share techniques .

All the best and speak again soon.

Regards,

Neil.