Watches I own or have owned...

When you have dogs, especially Springers, walks are compulsory. Sometimes in fact, when its a particularly grotty day, its only the mad Springer spaniels and their owners that you see out!

Today was not too bad, overcast, cold and with a light drizzle just enough to warrant waterproof trousers. I had been meaning to get some outdoors shots of the Explorer 214270 for a while and had been waiting for some sunshine over the weekend. But having reached Sunday afternoon with no sign of it, I decided to make do with what I had.



I went to one of our standard walks, near the top of Cheddar Gorge. The Gorge was still technically shut after the flooding last week and there are still some loose rocks falling now and then, but like many others I risked it, enjoying the 'rule breaking' feeling as I drove around the 'Road Closed' barriers and headed up, dodging the odd rock in the carriageway and a couple of frozen puddles.

The walk starts in a lay-by and initially follows a farm track up onto the south side of the Gorge past an area called 'Totty Pot', named after a local pot hole that leads down into some of the lesser visited caverns under the Mendips - I stayed firmly above ground, thank you very much.

It's nearly two weeks in for me and the Explorer and since I received the watch it's had practically exclusive time on the wrist. It is a very comfortable watch to wear and the 39mm size is just prefect for my wrist. It certainly does not feel large and the subtle, simple yet elegant aesthetic is still very pleasing to the eye.



I stopped at a few likely looking places for a few photos of the Explorer and played around with the manual settings on the G10, I'm getting a little more confident recently and often play around with f-stop settings and different ISO and shutter speeds on the same shot to compare results when I get home. The dogs do their own thing while I am fiddling, although I have to watch the younger dog, (Willow) as she has a tendency to come flying over out of nowhere right into me, which can be a little daunting when I'm balancing an expensive watch on a bit of rock to take a picture!

After a few mins of sniffing around, the older dog, (Kalli) comes and lies down in front of me and gives me the stare. All dog owners should know that stare - it says, 'You're here to take me for a walk - not to take more bloody pictures of your damn watch'.



Willow then vented her frustration by rolling in a particularly foul smelling fox deposit, so I snapped a final shot of that wonderful clasp and pocketed the camera, remembered, (this time!) to slip the watch back on and headed off to find a water trough to dunk her in.



At the far end of the walk you get to the top of the Gorge overlooking Cheddar to the west and Sedgemoor to the south. These views are wonderful, in the near distance Glastonbury Tor rises out of the Moor looking all mysterious and on a good day its possible to see right over the Bristol Channel to South Wales and the black mountains, and as far south as Exmoor.

Today though is overcast, grey and murky and not worth trying to take any pictures. A final few pics attempting to get a feel of the view in the background are taken, but only one is really usable when I get home.



It's getting dark now and I'm balancing both the watch and the camera on dry stone walling to compensate for the long exposure needed, there will be an accident soon if I don't pack up and head for home.

When I get home my pictures seem quite grainy, but I mustn't forget that it was pretty dim and most were taken at 200 ISO, (and a couple at 400) with reasonably long exposures.

I'm totally new to post processing and still getting to grips with the most basic things, but Gimp has some nice auto settings to get the white balance adjusted and I've started using the 'healing tool' to take out the odd dust speck and finger smear etc. I've also been trying out the 'Sharpen' and 'Unsharp mask' filters as recommended by Duncan in his beginners photo guide, but the results are variable and inconsistent, so much more practice, (and trial and error) is needed. I'm definitely doing something not quite right, but I'm yet to work out exactly what it is.