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Last weekend the family trooped off to the coast – the cove to be more accurate, at Lulworth in Dorset. It’s an absolutely beautiful location and the weather was fantastic. We met up with a bunch of my wife Sam’s colleagues, many of which are keen photographers.

Gathering in the car park I looked at all the cameras around me and decided to rebel. There wasn’t a longer focal length than 24mm on display, so I swapped the 24-70 f/2.8 on my D700 for another good landscape lens – the AF-S 70-200 f/2.8.

What do you mean, I hear you ask? My logic was firstly that I didn’t want to come away with the same shots as everyone else. This meant a resolution that I wouldn’t take a shot of Durdle Door as well. Does that make me a bad man? Secondly I knew that there would lots of interesting areas of detail around the cove and buildings which would be fun to look for. The zoom lens should suit this down to a tee, as well as a few of my favourite people shots!

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D700, 70-200mm at 200mm, 1/400 at f/8, ISO 200

The stacks of fish containers by the boats caught my eye with the contrasting colours and lines. I tried some shots close by with buoys and the angles of the boats themselves but they didn’t really come out how I thought they would.

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D700, 70-200mm at 200mm, 1/200 at f/8, ISO 200

There’s a walled pond just up from Lulworth Cove and I spent far too long tracking these little fellows! The predictive autofocus worked really well while panning on a monopod. The wall that protects the pond makes it difficult to get a good low angle, so the longer focal length is needed to shoot from a narrower angle. I liked this shot with the symmetry of the duckling’s bow wave!

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D700, 70-200mm at 86mm, 1/320 at f/8, ISO 200

I love my people shots. It helps when you’ve got great subjects like the lovely Caitlin and her Dad as subjects. I don’t even mind the split contrast in the sunlight, I love the carefree joy of the two year old and adoring look from Dad. Wait till she brings boys home Julian!


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D700, 70-200mm at 78mm, 1/160 at f/20, ISO 200

And just to show that you can take a landscape shot with a longer lens – as you’re more selective it forces you (hopefully!) to tighten the composition a little. As I didn’t have a polariser with me I applied a half stop grad on the sky to reign it in.

So there you have it. Lulworth Cove without a shot of Durdle Door. I might have to go back with a wide angle lens, but don’t tell anyone…