Eilean Donan Castle

Earlier in the week I was going on about people's comfort zone. Well I was back in mine today on the side of a hill on Skye and it wasn't at all comfortable. Gales and driving rain, which was really heavy at times, made it feel utterly miserable. My normally reliable water proofs were creaking at the seams and at the point of the heaviest rain I could feel that ominous first trickles of cold water forcing their way through seams and flaps.

Driving home I had the thought of stopping at the castle to try and get a blip. It was getting quite dull by early evening and the gusts were still very strong. I took the wee tripod, which is probably out its comfort zone with the SLR, and when I looked through the view finder I could actually see the image vibrating in the wind.

Our survey tripods are very heavy and solid. A theodolite or GPS base station must be supported without any movement for many hours at a time. It surprises me that there appears to be no commercially available adapters to stick a camera fitting head on to the 5/8 inch whitworth mounting of a survey tripod. As well as strength and weight each leg base takes the form of a metal spike with a foot peg and the user can force each leg firmly in to the ground. Once set up like this a small hippo can lean against the tripod and it will hardly move. I feel the photographic world is poorly served (and over charged) by comparison.

Survey tripod; idea for low inspiration blip day.