I could just make out the outline of Errisbeg in the darkness as I approached Roundstone, and when I parked I started to doubt my own plans. My intention was to climb Errisbeg in the twilight in the hope that I may get high enough to get a shot of Dog's Bay and Gurteen Bay as the dawn broke. But it was only just getting light and the mountain looks far more formidable  when you're looking up at it than it does on the map. Having recently borrowed a digital luggage scale I knew that my fully laden camera bag weighs nearly 11.5kg so I left the tripod and one camera body in the car to

After the usual false starts and frustrations around this time of year I finally got up early one morning and headed out with my new camera. I wasn't going far, just 20 minutes west to Spiddal. I had planned to get a long exposure of the pier under an overcast sky, but when I arrived at the location during the blue hour, before I'd even parked the car I could see that I wasn't going to be able to get the shot that I was after as I'd neglected to notice that street lights run the length of the pier. The lights would create several blown-out orbs in the image. The desire to try out my new