Category Archives: Scouts

Due to my dodgy back I’m not actually camping at the Scout Skills Camp, choosing instead to sleep in a proper comfortable bed. Helpfully they also thought I was on holiday this weekend and not able to attend, so I’m not really needed.

I popped out this afternoon to give the Canon G9 a proper work out, and ended up leaving the 30D in the boot of the car untouched.

Whilst the 30D can take far superior photographs, in these conditions the G9 was the better camera to use. It fits in a pocket, and the resulting photographs are more than adequate for what I need.

Last night was the second of our two visits to the fire station. After a quick test they did a demonstration drill for us,

then let the scouts loose with the hoses.

Great fun was had by all, even though some of them were rather wet by the end of the evening.

It was another outing for the Sigma 28/1.8 lens, which I’m very impressed with. Most of the photos were taken at ISO3200, f1.8, and -1EV just to get somewhere near a hand-holdable shutter speed. Luckily Noise Ninja can do wonders with the resulting pictures to clean them up.

More photos.

Friday night saw the first part of our biennial trip to the local fire station so that the scouts can do their fire safety badge. It also gave me a chance to play with another new toy, a Sigma 28/1.8 lens. If I’d known that I’d need a new laptop, I wouldn’t have bought the lens, but such is life. On the 30D, the 28mm lens works out at the equivalent of 45mm which is pretty much a “normal” lens.

Whilst we were there, they did a demonstration of what happens if you put water onto a chip pan fire which was very impressive and slightly scary, they didn’t take much persuading to repeat the demonstration a few more times.

More photos.

This weekend I was at Avon Scout Network’s Intense, a camp and activity weekend for Network Scouts. Not only was I on photography duty, but I was also helping run the security for the bar and ensuing camp fire, the downside of this was not getting to bed until 3:30 in the morning, then having to be up again a few hours later.

Saturday was activity day, I ended up spending a lot of it hanging around and practicing my meagre archery skills.

Sunday was the piano bash, two hours of violence and destruction, great fun to watch, no doubt even more fun to participate in.

Photos from the weekend.

The first Scout camp took place on the 1st August 1907, so to commemorate the event scouts all over the world had a Sunrise Ceremony. The Avon one was on Weston Super Mare beach front, with promise renewal ceremonies at 8am, 11:30am, and 4pm, each with a live linkup with another ceremony. 8am was with a group near Lake Ontario, Canada, 11:30 with a group in Avon, near Perth, Australia, and 4pm was back with the Canadians again.

The weather was absolutely fantastic, I’ve actually come back with sunburn which is a nice feeling after all the recent rain.

The official Scout blurb is here: http://www.scouts.org.uk/sunrise/