Severnside

A While ago I posted one of my personal favorite imaged I took last year down on the banks of the River Severn at Goldcliff, near Newport South Wales

That prompted me to think that I have never put a selection of the pictures I have from this fine piece of coast on the website so I have finally made a start on doing just that and I have created a new gallery on my website of pictures from the banks of the River Severn

It's never that clear to me what I should think of as banks of the River Severn. Clearly when you can see right across to the English side it's still a river, but it's also tidal and therefore an estuary rather than strictly being a river.

Recently I see a lot of definitions stating that the River ends at the Second Severn Crossing Bridge, but it must have had a start and end before that bridge was built.

The next section is called the Severn Estuary which take us The Severn Estuary is said to extend to a line from Lavernock Point (south of Cardiff) to Sand Point near Weston-super-Mare. so I think I can still call those pictures Severnside (which is a good job as the one above is taken in that section.

Then we come to the section which is referred to as the Bristol Channel which in my mind is a very strange name for the section which is increasingly further from Bristol so what do I call pictures like this from Southerndown?

Luckily the old name for the Bristol Channel was the Severn Sea and in welsh it is still named: Môr Hafren, meaning 'Severn Sea' so I think it's quite reasonable for me to put those in the Severnside section as well when I get a minute

As to Pictures of Tenby, well these are also contained within the strict definition of the Severn Sea as I will call it, but for me these deserve a section all of their own

Learning a new Lens

Back in November I was pleased to take delivery of an Olympus 7-14mm super wide angle lens


I had been able to test one at one of the Olympus e-group meetings in South Wales a few years ago, but had not been able to afford one until recently so I was really pleased to get this in perfect condition from a member of the e-group who was downsizing at a significant reduction to the list price


It's a beast of a lens with a domed front element and a real case of "mind your feet" if you point it downwards, especially in portrait mode


With poor weather and work commitments I've not had the time to play lens properly until this weekend when we went to Southerndown on the River Severn to look at the Jurassic Lias cliffs (geology note!)


I've still got some practising to do to get the hang of what levels of distortion are going to be acceptable in a picture (some is inevitable with close items and this lens) but I an happy with these as a first real use


I would have liked to be further back from the cliff for this one, but the tide was too far in

 The pebbles on the right are a little too distorted for my liking, but it's fun to be able to get down and close to the ground

Of these three this is my favourite one, in the corner where the gryphaea can be found and looking back towards the main area of cliffs

Geological Note

These cliffs are Jurassic in age. that's about 190 Million years old in this case. They are known as Lias from the German for layers and are layered limestone's and shale's which contain marine fossils telling us they were laid down under the sea Gryphaea mentioned above is a type of fossil oyster that grows in a very curved manner and is often referred to as "Devils Toe Nails" because they look like the toes of gargoyles