First Snow of the Autumn in the Cairngorms

The first of the big autumn storms arrived two days ago, bringing rain at lower levels along with fierce winds. I never caught a glimpse of the mountains but a brief report on the Mountaineering Council of Scotland website described a light dusting of snow on Cairn Gorm and Braeriach. Yesterday the storm raged on, making the drive south to give a talk at the East Perthshire Walking Festival difficult at times as the wind tried to blow the car off the road and lorries sent huge waves of spray lashing across the windscreen. Again I didn’t see the hills. Those who were on them reported extreme conditions. In a comment on my October 2 AWalk In the Early Autumn Woods post Mike Fae Dundee said he had to crawl the last 100 metres to the summit of Bynack More, so strong was the wind. The Cairngorm Weather Station recorded a gust of 105mph in the middle of the day.

Today was calmer with sunshine to the east of the cloud-shrouded mountains. I spent the afternoon outside cutting firewood. I can see the Cairngorms from my garden and several times the clouds rose above the summits revealing a coating of snow on their flanks. The snow doesn’t look very thick but more big storms bringing more snow are forecast for later in the week. It’s time to change my thinking about the hills and to prepare for cold and snow and wintery conditions.

Photo info: Fresh snow on Cairn Gorm and Bynack More, viewed across Strathspey. Canon EOS 450D, Canon EF-S 55-250 IS@250mm, 1/800 @ f16, ISO 400, raw file converted to JPEG in Lightroom 2.4.

On & Off the Trail: November TGO

In the November TGO, just published, my backpacking column is about the pleasures of hiking off trail. In the gear section I review base layers, just in time for the winter, and a Furtech jacket and trousers, also good for cold weather. Also in this issue is a very interesting piece on making your own gear by John Manning that includes an interview with Colin Ibbotson and his homemade ultralight gear (see my post for July 14 – Ultralight in the Cairngorms). A page is devoted to Colin’s unique Skins pack. Also on gear Eddy Meechan looks at bivy bag/tarp combinations in his Lighten Up column, Judy Armstrong reviews multi-tools and Clive Tully worries about whether we might lose GPS signals in the next few years. Away from gear there are interesting looking articles (I’ve read none of them yet) on epic hill runner Lizzy Hawker, who holds the record for running from Everest Base Camp to Kathmandu – just over 3 days!, by Ed Douglas; an attempt on the Greater Cuillin Traverse, endearingly entitled Nutters on the Cuillin; a return to Stanage Edge; Tony Howard and Di Taylor exploring Jordan; Cameron McNeish on Ben Loyal and a plea to save the wildcat by Peter Cairns.

Photo info: Off trail in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. Ricoh RDC-5000. 1/180@f13. Interestingly, one of the pictures used to illustrate my backpacking column was taken with the same 2.3mp camera on the same trip. It’s only a 729kb image but looks okay printed at 12x7cm though it definitely has a more artificial “digital” look than the two accompanying 4 and 5mb images taken with a DSLR.

A Walk In The Early Autumn Woods

October has arrived with dark skies and rain. Autumn is firmly here now and summer feels long gone. The woods are slowly changing colour, the birches with swathes of yellowing leaves, the rowans red and orange. So far the changes are subtle and the colours mostly faded and understated. How they will turn is always something I await with keen anticipation. Will this year be one of great sweeps of brilliant colour or one of a slow washing away of summer’s greenness? Will the autumn gales strip the leaves before their full potential glory appears? Some years the gold of the birches dominates, in others the red of the rowan. Then there are the wild cherries, just beginning to show red hints, and the aspen, last to come into leaf in the spring and still green as if summer still reigns. The larches too show little sign of the changes to come. On open slopes the bracken is brown and golden and beginning to die back, creating easy walking instead of a thrash through the dense high ferns. The woods are quiet. Little stirs. Even the pheasants choose to run and hide in the undergrowth at my approach rather than explode noisily into the air. A flock of tits – another sign of autumn – piped shrilly as they explored a birch grove then were gone. A lone buzzard flapped lazily from its watch post on a tall pine and sailed effortlessly over the glen. Leaves, blown down in recent gales, carpet the paths and the only sound is the gentle swish as my shoes brush through them. There is a feeling of expectation, a hush before winter arrives. But the next gales are forecast to arrive soon.

Photo info: Rowan colours. Canon EOS 450D, Canon EF-S 18-55 IS@55mm, 1/20 @ f5.6, ISO 400, raw file converted to JPEG in Lightroom 2.4.

Munros Talk at East Perthshire Walking Festival

This Saturday (October 3) I am giving an illustrated talk on my summer long walk over the Munros and Tops at the East Perthshire Walking Festival. The talk is at the Royal Hotel in Blairgowrie and starts at 8pm. Admission is £3. This will be a traditional slide show – yes, projected film not digital images – as my walk took place in pre-digital times and I haven’t had the time, money or desire to digitise the photos of the walk. If you’re in the area please come along and say hello. I’ll be available for questions and conversation afterwards and will have some books for sale.

Photo info: The Munros of Knoydart, photographed on the TGO Challenge in May this year. Canon EOS 450D, Canon EF-S 18-55 IS@29mm, 1/250 @ f8, ISO 200, raw file converted to JPEG in Lightroom 2.4.

Ricoh GRD III review

View over Strath Nethy to Bynack More from the slopes of Cairn Gorm. 1/640@f5.6. ISO 64. Raw file converted to JPEG in Lightroom 2.


View over Strathspey to the Cromdale Hills. 1/1000@f.5.6. ISO 800. Raw file converted to JPEG in Lightroom 2.

The GRDIII has now had a fair bit of use since my initial comments on the camera (see post for August 14). Other new cameras have appeared too, most noticeably the Panasonic GF1. Using the camera over the last month – in places varying from the Cairngorms to Edinburgh - has been a pleasure but the image quality, especially at high ISOs, is a drawback. Taking pictures with the GRDIII is a wonderful experience. Viewing them on the computer afterwards raises some questions.

The GRD III has a tiny sensor and in common with other small sensor cameras at high ISOs there is more noise than in cameras with bigger sensors and even at low ISOs results aren’t quite as detailed. I compared raw images from the GRD III and the Sigma DP1, which also has a fixed 28mm lens but a much larger sensor (subscribers to Backpacking Light.com can see my DP1 review here). At every ISO speed the DP1 images are sharper and more detailed. This becomes more noticeable the higher the ISO. At ISO 64 and 100 there is virtually no noise in the GRDIII images, they are just slightly coarser looking than those from the DP1. By 200 ISO noise is visible and by 400 it’s prominent. At 800 it’s intrusive. At 800 ISO the DP1 images are cleaner and less noisy than the GRD III ones at 400 ISO. For good results ISO 64 and 100 are best with the GRDIII. This is a criticism of all small sensor compacts of course and not specifically the GRD III. It must be said though that the DP1 images are noticeably higher quality. Ironically, the DP1 is a far inferior camera otherwise, awkward to use and with several poorly designed features. A DP1 size sensor in a GRD body would be a wonderful camera!

The big attraction of the GR series for hill walking and backpacking is the light weight and small size combined with high image quality for a small sensor camera. However the DP1 is only slightly bigger and heavier.

The GRD III is as easy to use as the original GRD with most settings accessible without having to delve into menus with a series of button presses. The main controls are a dial on the top of the hand grip and a rocker switch on the back of the camera. The first controls the aperture, the second the shutter speed, with a bar on the screen showing how changing them alters the exposure. There’s also a menu button the back surrounded by four arrow buttons, one of which switches the macro option on and off and one controls manual focus. When viewing images the arrows are used to scroll through them. Also on the back is a button that switches from live screen to image display, a combined self timer/delete button and a display button that varies what can be seen on the screen. With all options visible the screen shows all the information you could require, including live histogram, battery life, number of shots left on the memory card, ISO, shooting mode and, depending on the mode, aperture and shutter speed. New here is an electronic level, which is very useful for ensuring lakes and seas are level and not pouring out of the picture! The live histogram is very useful too – I use this as my main guide to exposure, which is usually set on manual. So you don’t have to go into the menus for all other controls four of them can be chosen to appear on the screen when the rocker switch is pressed. I selected ISO, White Balance, Image Quality and Focus for these. The screen itself is clear and sharp though as with every screen I’ve used it can be hard to see in bright sunshine. Ricoh offer an optional viewfinder – the GV2 - and I recommend this, although it is expensive at £95. Apart from being able to see what you are photographing clearly, using the viewfinder also means you can have the camera to your eye with your elbows tucked in at your sides, which is better for stability than holding the camera in front of you.

A new feature on the GRD III is the Dynamic Range Double Shot mode, first introduced by Ricoh on the CX cameras. With this the camera takes two shots at different exposures and combines them, gaining greater dynamic range (the range of brightness that can be recorded) than is possible with a single shot. When the sky is really bright and the land dark this is a useful feature. However you need steady hands and a high shutter speed to use it handheld. Ricoh advises a tripod. Also, it only works with JPEG not raw images. Test results with the DR feature shows that it does make a difference but not enough in my opinion to justify carrying a tripod.

The GRD III uses tiny SD or SDHC memory cards, which weigh a mere 2 grams each. A 4GB card will hold 204 raw images and 957 fine JPEG images. One problem with the original GRD was that it took many seconds to write images to the card (it’s surprising how long 13 seconds seems when you’re waiting to take another picture). With the GRD III even raw images only take a couple of seconds.

Power comes from a rechargeable battery. Ricoh say that fully charged it should last for around 370 images. That accords with my usage though I haven’t used the camera in cold conditions. Batteries weigh 26 grams so spares could easily be carried with little weight penalty.

The GRD III is not a point and shoot. It’s designed for the photographer who like control over their camera. For walkers who want this it’s worth considering, especially as image quality is good for a small sensor camera. However it is expensive at around £530 and there are alternatives that have larger sensors like the DP1 and the newer DP2 with 40mm equivalent lens and the micro-four thirds cameras with interchangeable lenses such as the Olympus E-P1 and Panasonic GF1. All these will produce higher quality images than the GRD III. When the original GRD appeared it was arguably the best digital compact, both in terms of ergonomics and image quality. The GRD III still leads with the first of these but no longer with the second.

Specifications

Pixels: 10 million
Sensor: 1/1.7 inch CCD
Lens: 6mm – 35mm equivalent 28mm
Screen: 6x4.5cm – 920,000 dots
Shutter: 180 seconds to 1/2000 second
Aperture: F1.9 to F9
ISO: 64, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600
Exposure modes: Auto, Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter
Priority, 4 Scene, 3 My Settings
Metering: multi, spot, centre weighted
Focusing: multi auto, spot auto, snap, manual
Image Quality: Raw (DNG), JPEG normal, JPEG fine
Memory: SD/SDHC card
Battery: 3.7v rechargeable or 2 AAA alkaline/NiMH
Size: 10.9x6.1x3.1cms
Weight: 216 grams with battery and memory card

The First Hills of Autumn

Hoping to catch the last of the sunny weather of mid-September, the first settled spell since June, I headed out to the hills at the end of last week. Not having been there for a few years I went to the big hills that rise dramatically above the West Highland Railway as it starts the crossing of Rannoch Moor. Arriving late I walked along the track by the Water of Tulla in the dark. There was no moon and bright stars shone in the black sky. I needed a headlamp to avoid the holes and rocks on the rough track. Shining the light across the surrounding moorland I caught many pairs of bright eyes staring back at me, followed by the sound of animals moving away. Then came the guttural roaring of a rutting red deer stag, one of the thrilling sounds of a Highland autumn and the first I’ve heard this year. The air was chilly and every so often a band of damp mist drifted over me, making the beam of light from the headlamp bounce back at me and the world look hazy and unsharp. By the time I reached the little bothy where I would spend the rest of that night the mist had dampened my clothing. But the stars spoke of clear skies and sunshine.

It was not to be however and I woke to a grey day with a high sweep of cloud covering the sky. A chill wind swept down the glen. There were hints of yellow and red in the leaves of the trees lining the Water of Tulla and the rowans were heavy with red berries. I climbed hillsides of purple heather and grasses fading to pale yellow and red. On the tops the wind was bitter and I wore a warm hat and gloves for the first time in many months. The summits came and went in the clouds, giving brief views over the watery expanse of Rannoch Moor and of the dark shapes of other hills hanging in the moving air. I camped just below a col in the shelter of a small knoll. Or at least it was sheltered with only the occasional gust of wind when I pitched the tent, just as the first rain began to fall. In the early hours of morning I was woken by the wind shaking the tent. I dozed on and off until dawn, listening to the rain increasing in strength and feeling the wind moving the tent against me. Back on the col I felt the full force of the wind with gusts that were hard to walk against. I climbed one quick summit then decided the weather was too bad to be worth continuing. I was back at camp in an hour and heading down the hill half an hour after that. The first storms of autumn had arrived. On the descent I met a few parties of day walkers heading up, all clad in waterproofs and warm clothing. “Rain’s supposed to get heavier”, said the first. “Supposed to clear up this afternoon”, said the second. “Why does it always rain?”, said the third. I sloshed down the muddy trench of a path and drove north across an invisible Rannoch Moor, just grey sheets of rain sweeping over the road all that was in sight. Summer is over.

Photo info: A wet and windy camp below Beinn an Dothaidh. Canon EOS 450D, Canon EF-S 18-55 IS@20mm, 1/40 @ f5.6, ISO 400, raw file converted to JPEG in Lightroom 2.4.

Continental Divide Trail on Rohantime

Twenty-four years ago I spent nearly six months hiking 3,100 miles from Canada to Mexico on the Continental Divide Trail, a wonderful wilderness adventure through the Rocky Mountains. Back then the CDT was a trail in name only with few signs and no waymarks. There were guidebooks with suggested routes to the northern sections but none for the southern 1,000 miles. In places there were long cross-country sections, at others road walks, though the latter were mostly quite brief. This made the walk exciting and challenging. That hike was supported by the outdoor clothing company Rohan, whose owners were good friends, and I wore Rohan’s then radical polycotton synthetic insulated clothing throughout the trip. A longer piece I wrote about the CDT and the clothing has just been published on Rohantime.

Photo info: In the Rocky Mountains, Montana on the Continental Divide Trail, 1985. Pentax MX, Tamron 35-70 lens, Kodachrome 64. Scan adjusted in Lightroom 2.5.