UK June 2011 – Day 19. This might have been my favorite photo of the entire holiday,

but the autofocus didn’t work properly so it’s a bit blurred. I’ve now worked out what the problem is, see the very end of this post for my conclusions.

We were up early and elected to postpone breakfast so could get far away from the midges. We broke the tent down in record time, threw it in the car and drove off, stopping to make coffee, eat breakfast and take pictures at the side of the A832 beside Loch Tollaidh, just outside Poolewe.

Driving through Poolewe looking for a public loo Ginger noticed St Maelrubha’s – a Scottish Episcopal Church. We checked the time and realised we could make the service. Leaving the near by car park, I drove off on the wrong side of the road without realising it – until an on-coming car on my side of the road reminded me – Oops! We managed to get ourselves changed and a bit poshed up in the car parked outside the church. Off we went to join the small but enthusiastic congregation for the service, which was quite familiar, informal and very nice. We were made to feel most welcome and took up the invite for coffee and cakes afterwards.

After church our plan for the day was to find a remote camping spot somewhere North of Ullapool and to get there by driving up the coast road as much as possible. We had hardly left Poolewe when the views over Loch Ewe and then Gruinard Bay forced us to stop, get out and climb the hills to take pictures. In today’s picture we are perched on top of 400 foot high cliff overlooking Gruinard Bay. The only way to get an idea of the scale of this view is to zoom in on one of the in-focus pictures and look for the coach by the beach. Distances in Scotland can be very deceiving, with what looks like a small rock a short distance away turning into a boulder the size of a house much further off.

The scenery enroute to our camping area was spectacular though we didn’t stop very often to take pictures, it was all getting a bit too much. After driving around entranced, we finally stopped by the side of an Loch and set up camp. We spent the evening watching the light play over the distant hills and mountains. Superb.

Today’s extras

Nikon D7000 Autofocus Issues

I’ve now completed some Internet detective work and discovered what the autofocus problem is. It only happens when I use the remote shutter control (quite a feat in today’s picture where I used the remote at a distance of over 50 feet). Sometimes the camera will focus sometimes it won’t. My D40X exhibited the same problem and I was very disappointed to find the same issue with the D7000. My investigations discovered that you mustn’t focus the camera before you take a picture using the remote. If you do it won’t focus when you use the remote. That’s a bit difficult as you sometimes need to focus the camera to see what’s in the viewfinder! This of course contrary to what it says in the D40X manual, and the D7000 manual remains suspiciously quiet on the subject. Darn. I now get round this problem by setting the camera up, and then turning it off and on before using the remote to take a picture.

Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.