On my way to the Barton Hills, I passed Deacon and the Pegsdon Hills and for my second weekend in the east of England decided to return to this part of the Chiltern Hills in Bedfordshire.

Pegsdon Hills Map

Studying OS Maps online of the Pegsdon Hills the plan was first to walk to the summit of Deacon Hill and check the views.

From Deacon make my way across the Pegsdon Hills and through the Hoo Bit nature reserve following the Lilley Hoo.  Then to follow the Chiltern way across to the Knocking Hoe nature reserve.

Deacon Hill to Pegsdon Hills

Was up early for this walk 6AM, there is free parking just out of Hitchin on the B655 at the foot of Deacon Hill.  It was a bit cold, cloudy and windy, but the forecast was for better weather later.  With these type of conditions you can get some dramatic lighting.

Great views from the top of Deacon Hill of the Bedfordshire countryside but not always make for a good landscape photograph, the dull lighting was not helping.  With the early morning low light,  I could not use my tripod either as it was on the top of the Pegsdon hills that I realised I had lost a screw the week before, so just handholding.  With low light and handholding your camera, it can be necessary to open up you aperture an extra stop or two and raise your ISO to get fast enough shutter speed.

There were red kites circling above Deacon Hill, tried changing my settings to get some wildlife shots but too far away with only my 15-70mm lens.

As the morning progressed the sun made a few brief appearances providing some dramatic spot lighting revealing texture on the escarpments of the Pegsdon chalk hills.

The Chiltern Way

Down Lilley Hoo and then along the Chiltern way, heading towards Knocking Hoe was a pleasant walk and good to fill my lungs with fresh air.   The sky was breaking up revealing blue skies and dramatic white clouds.

The patterns of the late winter naked trees made good focal points to focus handholding my camera.  But the visual weight of the above shots goes to the dramatic white clouds drifting behind in the background.

Handholding

With the freeform style of handholding your camera you always take more shots, experiment with more compositions.  Another good source of images is using the telephoto end of your lens, capturing intimate detail of the landscape compressing the distances.

Handholding a DLSR and its not easy to use liveview or even see it in daylight.  Using the viewfinder I miss the Histogram and it can be difficult to gauge the correct exposure, maybe taking a few test shots then using exposure compensation.  For a sharp photo generally your shutter speed needs to be equal or greater than your lens focal length.  If using image stabilisation this can be reduced.  As the light changes you should regularly check your ISO and aperture maybe lowing if your shutter speed is really high for a correct exposure.

Knocking Hoe Hills

The final leg of my walk was the last outcrop of the Chilterns and Pegsdon hills known as the Knocking Hoe nature reserve.

At Knocking Hoe it was now midday, high contrast and very windy as I sat down with a hot coffee from my flask and admire the views.  I really like the above shot of the view out over Knocking Hoe and the Bedfordshire countryside.  Its the spotlight on the green field that really adds interest, the detail in the foreground deadwood and the unusual white clouds above all add visual weight to the landscape photograph of this area.

Good walk over the Pegsdon Hills in Bedfordshire.  Was enjoying the outdoors over the Chilterns and this part of eastern England.  A lot more to discover in the coming weeks.