Sailing on a Flat Tide

Early this morning, it being Saturday, I went into town to get hold of the Irish Times newspaper. It's a "must have" on the first day of the weekend, containing as it does, several special sections and plenty of arts news. Always a good leisurely read.

Around to the harbour to see what was going on and found a lone yacht heading out to sea. The water was pretty flat but I wanted to experiment with a new toy which arrived just the other day. I decided to splash out on a variable neutral density filter and this is just the second brief introductory run with it. Handling very much like a polarising filter, the outer glass is rotated to give between zero and about 8.5 stops of light reduction. I have discovered so far, that it is not at its best on a wide angle lens and appears to work better from about 30mm upward on my EOS. On wide angles the density is uneven across the frame. Darker in the centre and lighter on both sides. If anybody is tempted I hasten to add that the branded filters come at anywhere from £80 up. I got mine from 7dayshop.com for £19.99.

I'm looking forward to getting the hang of it before the Venice trip. Might bag a shot or two of bobbing gondolas, all blurry and mysterious.