Yorkshire Waterfalls!

So on Friday some of us were heading to the Peak District for climbing, but I decided to leave earlier and nip past the Yorkshire Dales to hunt down some waterfalls... Having set off at 9am I wasn't at Richmond till 1530, but that wasn't a huge problem as the light was still too bright for slow shutter speeds.

I built a Google map list of waterfalls I wanted to track down and I did my best to manage as many as possible in a short time.

Richmond Falls was a bit of a wash out, very impressive to look at but darn near impossible to photograph at 1530/1600 on a summer's day. Only when zoomed in could I reduce the shutter speed enough.Ooooh this would be a good time for an expensive dark filter!

F36 1/3s 63mm

But while I like this picture, it doesn't help show the mighty nature of the waterfall! Which is impressively wide, although short.

F22 1/3 15mm

It goes out to that wall too, but the only rocks to stand on in front were too far away for a good photo. I also made it out to that wall on the right of the picture, but it's impossible to see the main fall there.

Anyway, so mindful of time i raced back up the hill and jumped back in the car and headed on to Orgate Force (that's not my picture). But honestly, I couldn't find it - well more to the point I couldn't find anywhere of parking the car within a few miles so after a while of trying to walk up stream... So I cut my losses and went on to a place with no name. Where I found these:

 After this I went for a walk down stream in search of the next, and while I could hear one I couldn't find a way down to it... which bummed me out a little. But I found myself in a field full of rabbits, which was good too.

I'll most definitely be going back, I only managed a fraction of my list as they take a surprisingly long time to track down, frame up and then photograph. It clearly needs to be at least a week, but I'm not sure Bex could be dragged around Yorkshire for a whole week of my hobby.

Disneyland - Paris.

Normally when you go on rides at a theme park they insist you leave bags on the platform while going around. I've been to a few theme parks in my time, I wouldn't ever take my best camera gear out to leave laying around unattended... so I packed my old 400D and 15-55mm + 50mm lens for this trip.

It really shouldn't be a shock, but the French have a complete lack of health and safety - you can carry whatever you like on the rides... This made me a little miffed I was having to use such a rubbish camera. However this didn't detract from the magic of the venue, it's hard not to smile like a mindless idiot when at Disney.

That's right, we had to queue for this shot! We nearly the only adults in the queue without children. Needless to say, I didn't take this shot personally - a confused park worker did, my French isn't really good enough to explain the purpose of a prime lens... but she seemed annoyed it couldn't zoom out.

 

The decorations were up, which made a very cheesy affair even cheesier.

There are two things my 400D can do very well, blur pictures and endure roller coasters (the last point was a recent lesson). With this in mind I used my tripod and set about trying to capture some motion blur and long exposure views.

Clearly we didn't got just to take pictures, it was B's birthday and somehow she'd managed a childhood without visiting. I'm glad I had my camera, I'd like to thank B for letting me stop to take pictures while she was chasing characters for hugs.

While the grand Canyon is a lot more impressive, the fact this was built just for a run away train ride impressed me!

I probably shouldn't complain too much about my 400D, it's sturdy, reliable and provided me with years of faultless use... given enough light and a good bit of glass it performs perfectly.