Activity: Hands off!

Week 4 saw me leading a Year 8 Adventure Activities Trip to Dartmoor.  Opportunities to detour via anything stained glass in nature, with 50 teenaged children, were few.  However, for the trip I ditched my EOS-1D X MkII and travelled with the (relatively) diminutive Canon PowerShot G3 X in an effort to fulfil at least a small part of the Week 4 activity brief.

With the boys in the safe hands of a team of instructors, and having fulfilled the bread and butter photographic obligations for the school, I had the opportunity to appreciate the immediate surrounds.  Stepping just 10m back from the noise and bustle of 50 teenaged children enjoying rock climbing and abseiling on the Dewerstone near Shaugh Prior on the edge of Dartmoor, the sound soon dropped off leaving me enveloped in the beauty and tranquillity of the woodland.

Even on a bright sunny day, the woodland floor can be surprisingly dark, but shafts of sunlight penetrate the canopy to highlight the details of the native ferns.  This provided me with the chance to experiment with the macro settings on my point-and-shoot camera.  Although I was constantly wishing that I had travelled with my DSLR, the Canon G3 X coped pleasingly well, limited only (I suspect) by my lack of familiarity with its controls… that said, in the gentle breeze that was constantly playing with the plant life, it was a nightmare trying to focus on the tip of a frond!