Warkworth to Amble, Northumberland

We drove north to Amble, under grey skies most of the way. The weather forecast did not lie however, it was cold but bright in this part of Northumberland. Our walk went from Amble to Warkworth and return, along the course of the river Coquet.

I had forgotten the wealth of wildbirds that you see in this part of the world. There were eider duck in the harbour, a heron fishing along the river bank, the cry of a curlew, and oystercatchers above.

Carol spotted a seal catching a fish in the river.

Warkworth Castle

The river Coquet, with a mirror smooth surface

Last of the winter sun for the day at Amble marina

Sony NEX 6 Pentax 28 f3.5 K and 35mm f2 lenses

Newcastle upon Tyne Panorama

I had seen the opportunity for this shot earlier in the year, but then the sun was too low in the sky to illuminate enough of the middle distance.

I had taken a few test shots and decided that the best strategy was to stitch a series of vertical format images together. I have a good solid Manfrotto tripod with both pistol grip ball and pan and tilt heads, but this journey was by bicycle and I selected instead my aged and lightweight Velbon unit. I normally use it to support a flashgun for product shots, it's not in the same league as the Manfrotto, but neither is it too heavy to carry on a bike!

As always with panoramas, I used manual exposure to help ensure even tones across the image and, on this occasion, shot using a 2 second time delay. From memory I think 5 photos were stitched together to produce the panorama.

I would have liked to have included more of the High Level bridge, to the left, but it is obscured by trees from this viewpoint.

The original is 9642 x 4953 pixels, giving a print 32 inches long at the optimum 300 dpi printing  resolution, but, for practical purposes and sensible viewing distance, it would print probably more than double that size.

Actual pixels crop, just a touch of CA but good definition

Sony NEX 6 Samsung Schneider D-Xenogon (Pentax) 35mm f2