Feature:-

Coastal Paths

Living on an island kingdom, we have the luxury of a large amount of coastline, and no point within the UK is very far from the coast, and in many cases in several directions. This gives us as photographers the opportunity to get coastal views, wildlife and far more.  The British Isles is made up of over 6,000 islands, and if you include the length of the total coastline of all of these we have an enormous amount of opportunities.

This week we look at coastal walks, looking at long distance coastal paths, and heritage coasts, as well as a range of coastal photographic related topics. In addition we are looking in more detail at a part of our coastline, using route guides, introduced a short while back for the first time.

We are also introducing this week a new section, 'Walks', this will include many more coastal walks, as well as long distance and other walks around the UK. The objective is to eventually have route guides for most of these. This section will contain a  growing number of listings, and articles plus links to route and location guides.

On the listing front we have available now a List of Heritage Coasts ,   a List of Long Distance Coastal Paths, a List of National Trails that includes 3 Long  Distance Coastal Paths, and a List of National Trust defined coastal walks, where information is available.  We have at an advanced development stage, but not yet available,  a very large list of walks, including very many shorter coastal paths, so far this list has 879 entries. As with other listings that are a part of this resource site, these have links to other information elsewhere on the right of the listing and where the titles on the left are linked, they link to location or route guides within this website.

Articles this week includes Overview of Heritage Coasts and Coastal Paths ,  covering the overall topic. Time planning for coastal photography , this includes both a look at the many variables and aspects to consider but information on other sources that may help, and links to these. One of these resources is a file we have available that can be printed out to make your own sun compass to work out the time of sunrise, sunset and height of the sun throughout the year.  Coastal Lenses is an article looking at some ways to get more from lenses, and considering how they may be used to offer different perspectives, Filters for Coastal Photography looks at which filter may be of help for coastal photography, and the effects they have.

Taking our equipment near sand and sea water is of course a concern and we look at how to overcome this in Coastal Water and sand proofing .

We start to cover the coast by having route guides that take us around the coast of the south west and the south of England this includes the South West Coastal Path –  a long path from Minehead to Poole Harbour; the  Dorset Coast Path overlaps with this  covering from  Lyme Regis to Sandbanks; the Bournemouth Coast Path covers from  Swanage to Lymington, and The Solent Way  continues this from Lymington to Emsworth  on the Hampshire/Sussex border.  We also have a route guide to the circular coastal walk around the Isle of Wight. Previously we produced a location guide for the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path prior to the route guides being developed.

Nikon has announced a new version on CaptureNX. This new version, CaptureNX2, is not a free update but available as a paid upgrade or new product. They have priced the upgrade by changing the US dollar price from a dollar to a pound and adding VAT, so we pay well over twice what the Americans do. The USA price of the upgrade is $69,(£35) the UK price is £79.99. I haven't yet worked out the Hong Kong price. So where should we buy our upgrade from? Its surprising the UK Dealers put up with this, they must lose a fair percentage of their sales through this unfair pricing, they have invested in stock but so many of their would be customers are having to shop outside the UK to get items at sensible prices. Its on sale from the 20th of this month, the full product price here is £129.99 ($180 in the USA). A 60 day trial version is available now, and works on computers that are also running the existing CaptureNX (CNX) version. We have it working and we like it, it does not have some of the facilities we were hoping for but has others we were not expecting, its faster running as well as  allowing some editing to be able to be done easier and quicker, it can use more fully two screens, and has the equivalent of a healing brush, but no clone tool. Next week we will have an article giving a more detailed explanation of what is new, how good it is and more. 1 TO 1 CNX2 training will be available from the 20th from Camera Images, who are also offering a half day (short) upgrade course for those moving from CNX to CNX2.

Nikon have also made available a new version of ViewNX (FREE), this lines up with the new CapureNX2, with a similar look, feel and like CNX2 can make use of two screens if you have them. We have this running here, and it looks good, more on this as well next week.

Photography Skills have announced that they will be running a new stream of 1 to 1 courses, under the Introduction to Digital Photography title to get people up towards the level of utilising the current stream of courses that are Masterclass 'beyond the basics', for those with a good operation ability of their cameras already. These courses are suitable for people with any make of camera. The details are not yet on their website but should be shortly.

Photo Kkills who have been running introductory courses will shortly drop these, sending all those who enquire to Photography Skills.

Photo Skills are working with Photographers-Resource to develop 2 online structured learning training courses, one covering digital photography and the second editing with Photoshop, with sections coming out monthly starting soon. There will be no cost for this.  To run alongside this they are organising 4 optional low cost practical events a years, allowing those who choose this route to see equipment, and gain practical experience, ask questions etc. Structured learning is possible with computer and internet training, but difficult to build into books and can't be done with groups. You may remember some years back a very successful project called Home Tutor that taught very many people very successfully to get into micro computers and programming, before it all became so large and more complex. The architect of the Home Tutor system is involved in the development of the structured learning programme and should allow this course to have many of the same benefits. With structured leaning you have constant new information, reinforcement but also supplementary explanations and information when necessary. A course of this type when being developed is a little like a maze, but with sign posted paths, you take shortcuts where you don't need to find out more and can take the longer route where you want to learn more. In this newsletter next week we will give more information on this, and when this is to start.

• Overview of Heritage Coasts and Coastal Paths

• What you can photograph/see on Coastal Paths

• Time planning for coastal photography

• Coastal Lenses

• Coastal Water and sand proofing

• Filters for Coastal Photography

• List of Heritage Coasts (32)

• List of Long Distance Coastal Paths

• Very large list in development of all walks including very many shorter coastal paths (879)

• List of National Trails (includes 3 LD Coastal Paths)

• List of National Trust Coastal Walks

• Walks Topic Index

• South West Coastal Path – Minehead–Poole Harbour

• Dorset Coast Path – Lyme Regis-Sandbanks

• Bournemouth Coast Path - Swanage-Lymington

• The Solent Way – Lymington-Emsworth (Hampshire/Sussex border)

• Isle of Wight Coastal Path – circular covering the whole island

• Pembrokeshire Coastal Path – previous location guide  

Most of the Help Pages introduced last week coming off location pages are now working, but a few still have to be completed.