Autumn on the Hamble

Back in September (2017) I decided I needed a faster lens to cope with the shorter days and darker days of winter, so ordered myself a Canon 50mm f1,8 lens. Whilst I do have some Canon 'L' glass my fastest lens prior to getting this was the Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro (004 model) - I am afraid many of the real fast (f1.4 and f1.2 lenses) are way out of my budget, so at just £80 on Amazon this 50mm lens seemed like a very good deal indeed.

So at the end of September a group of us went for our weekly walkabout, and decided to pop along to the River Hamble to look for Egrets and Kingfishers - alas the latter are very hard to find, but we did see an Egret or two; unfortunately the tide was high so it wasnt ideal to get up close to them.

Having given up I packed up my big lens and put the 50mm lens on in a vain attempt to get a decent landscape shot. It was around 2.30pm and the clouds were starting to build up from the West, so I was pleasantly surprised at how much light this lens was able to capture. This photo was a single shot processed in Photomatix to give a painterly feel and was cropped every so slightly to get rid of some distracting elements on the left hand side, but retain the reeds in the foreground.

This print shows a view South along the River Hamble looking towards Fawley Oil Refinery - you can just see the chimney between the masts of the boat which were mooored along the Hamble River. This view can be found around 400 yards from Universal Marina along the path which leads to Warsash - it is around a 2 mile walk and you will often see dog walkers and other photographers on warmer days and evenings.

You do need to be careful during very high tides as the path has been known to flood, but low tides really are the best time to go if you want to see all manner of wading birds feeding as the mud is exposed and small fish get trapped in the shallows.