I began my roadtrip in the south east of the UK at Folkestone in Kent.  I have friends living there I could visit and the hotels were cheap.   Folkestone is also good for walks and landscape photography with some dramatic coastline heading to the Warren and the Kent and North downs as a great backdrop.

Winter Weather

The weather was still blustery and the forecast foreboding but headed out one morning from the Leas where my hotel was situated down to the Folkestone Harbour arm and pier.  Initially I was just snapping some compositions with my mobile.  I had my DLSR with me for the first time since I visited Friston forest in East Sussex last September.

Its quite a bit of effort to get the DLSR out and setup especially with the constant threat of a downpour any moment.  It would need to be a special composition for that to happen.  In the meantime, I was happy to snap with my mobile phone camera.

Towards the Warren

After exploring Folkestone harbour arm and its little beach sunny sands I made my way towards the Warren and the more remote cliffs and coastline.  It was here I was inspired to get out and setup my DLSR, the first time in ages.

Walking along the England Coast Path and looking out to East Wear Bay I was initially just handholding my camera.  F/8,  I think is my lens sweet spot.  1/50 sec was fast enough shutter speed with image stabilisation switched on.

Infinity Focus

Again focusing on infinity or the furthest cliffs has kept everything acceptably sharp from foreground to background.  Even focusing on infinity say at 1000 meters away using F/8 and 18mm focal length means everything from 2.13 meters until infinity will be sharp.  The nearest foreground interest is approximately that distance or a bit more.

I made it down to the coast at Folkestone around East Wear Bay.  Not the most beautiful coastline.  The sun was making an occasional appearance providing some spot lighting on the cliffs in the background.

Long Exposure Photography

I decided to experiment with some long exposure photography using a 6 stop ND filter.  The fast moving sea water has motion blurred but not the clouds.  Ideally I would have used a polariser as well as the ND filter, but my cokin filter holder is difficult to setup with more than one filter.  Using more than one filter and small apertures noticeably softens the image sharpness. I need to invest in a ten stop filter for daytime long exposure photography.

pebbles 0.4 sec, F/16, ISO 100, 15mm

I am not overly pleased with these images due to the weather and location. Although I spent alot of time here practising my landscape photography technique and getting back in the swing.

Not long after as I made my way back up the cliff face towards the Warren and the heavens opened up.  Time to bail out and head back into Folkestone.  But I had blown the dust off my DLSR and was out walking again.