Category Archives: Equipment

Trail cameras have played a huge role in monitoring wildlife. The ability to leave a camera hidden in the environment has left many a conservationist excited as to what they might see. I too have used trail cameras countless times and it’s like waiting for Christmas morning to find out what walked through the trail. Largely used to monitor wildlife trails or resources such as a watering hole, I have used them up in the canopy. After years of using trail cameras to watch badgers undisturbed at their setts to keeping up with the family fortunes of the local fox family I have branched out. Owls have always fascinated me from a young age. I think that it has been the fact that more often than not you hear them and rarely see them, and when you do it the feeling is incredible. One of the more common species is

It was my birthday recently so I decided to treat myself to a new purpose built camera trap housing. Now you will have seen that I have built my own camera trap housings before but will plans for trips overseas I wanted something that would be assembled in parts, mostly so it would fit in my suitcases ! Many of you will have seen the rise in Camtraptions and are at the forefront of camera trapping technology that is readily available for anyone that wants to have a go at camera trapping. When the housing arrived it was a solid green colour and I had seen on some online forums how people have painted their housing to become camouflaged in the environment. At first I thought about testing the design on my DIY housing but couldn’t resist getting started on the new housing before it went out for its first

Having had fun playing around with the soft box around the garden I headed out to try it out and see how it performed whilst out in the field. I didn’t have any particular subject in mind and to be honest it was just refreshing to get out of the house and go for a walk. My friend Jonathan Barnes had joined and before anyone tell’s me off, yes it was socially distanced. Jonathan has a great interest in trains and mainly focuses on photographing various different trains and today was a bit different for him. We first went to check on an owl box I had put up and it looked as though squirrels had started building a nest, not surprising as we are quite close to town. Yomping 18ft up a tree which was soaked through from last night’s rain was no easy feat but was fun to

Being stuck indoors most of the time means that you are constantly trying to find new subjects to photograph. Whether that’s setting up a bird feeder to attract birds closer to your garden hide or setting up a camera trap to capture the garden’s nocturnal visitors, there are many ways to keep busy. For me one of my new found favourite things to photograph is macro subjects. I love to see the importance of the small things and that’s the magic of using a macro lens. You get to see in detail the things that usually pass us by, it makes us stop in awe of how incredible and diverse the animal or plant kingdom can be. Having previously mentioned my friend Javiar, I dropped him a message about softening the light on my subjects when using flash. He suggested a few soft box options so I thought I would

  Yet again we are plunged back into another lockdown here in the UK ! Having won a set of LEE filters I headed out to a local nature reserve, Thursley Common. This huge expanse of mixed heath and bog plays host to a huge array of wildlife from water-walking spiders to miniature aerial raptors. It sounds like I’m describing a new Jurassic Park film and with deep pools of tannin stained water it can often seem like I’ve been transported to the time of dinosaurs. So I was out testing LEE’s new discovery kit which comprises of their new holder system and a 0.6 ND graduated filter. Now I’m not much a tech person and I was just happy to be out on the heath, getting out of London is always a worth while escape ! Now Thursley has always been a great place and even since I was

After having not been up to much photography due to other commitments, not to mention the Coronavirus lockdown here in the UK, it was nice to get out with the camera. Heading out to spend the day with my old man we went to Climpton Beach. I was raring to go with my Manfrotto ND filters to shoot some slow exposures. After having not shot a lot I was excited to show some new images. Arriving at low tide we walked up and down to seek out a few decent looking spots. First place that looked promising were the jagged rocks that were slowly being drowned by the incoming tide. It was a great place to start and good getting to grips with the filters and fine tuning the settings. As the tide was slowly making it’s way up the beach my attention turned to the groynes which were also

Over the past couple of months I have had the great pleasure of being able to test out Swarovski’s CL Companion 8×30 binoculars. They have been essential in my photography as I have been able to watch wildlife from a distance and predict their behaviour so that I could get a better picture and gain a better understanding of my subject. The first thing you notice about the binoculars is their neat compact size, this is especially important to the wildlife photographer who may be walking over long distances as weight can be such a limiting factor with long lenses and big clunky tripods. And because of their compact design, it means that you can have them on you pretty much all the time and not miss any birds which you may encounter. The small size of the binoculars also helps the binoculars to fit comfortably in your hands without

I have recently been using my Large Dome hide , from my sponsor Wildlife Watching Supplies, to photograph the abundant bird life in my garden.  I thought so highly of it and the result of success I had with the birds was brilliant, I thought I would share a few points as to why you should defiantly invest the money into getting one. The Dome Hide is one of many of Wildlife Watching Supplies products and I can now say why it it such a successful product. To start off with I will talk about the initial setup, I had the visions in my head of having to take forever to put up[ the hide but I couldn’t have been more wrong. This is one of the simplest hides to setup and no extra help was needed at all further more the hide went up in a matter of minutes.

Well when I received the bag, I was pleasantly surprised. To be honest I was expecting a very bulky bag with lots of unnecessary straps and pockets but no, Lowepro have come up with a bag fit for any serious pro photographer(working with a large lens and camera body). The Lowepro Lens trekker is fairly light weight for its size and has plenty of design features to keep your lens safe and sound. For starters the tough outer shell of the bag is made up of tough protective material which can absorb the knocks and bumps from the travelling photographer. The front opening to the bag is more heavily padded but the sides also offer more than adequate protection, and also feature a monopod mounting strap and loop, ideal for the sport or wildlife photographer that needs that extra lens support. Keeping with the outer aspects of the bag, the

Without a shadow of a doubt I’m sure you have all heard of Wildlife watching supplies. Kevin Keatley has enabled us to get that little bit closer to our subjects and I am very pleased to say that I am now sponsored by Wildlife watching supplies. I must thank Kevin for taking the time to send me a few bits and bobs, all of which are bound to help me get some good pictures. One of the items a camera and lens cover is extremely useful and has allowed me to get closer to warier subjects like owl and foxes. Below is a short review and summary of a brilliant product. Firstly I now have two of the covers, one for the 150-400mm F4-5.6 and one for the 400mm F 2.8. Both are very durable pieces of kit that can handle a bit of rough and tumble. They both also

10/10