Review of the Year Part 1 - January

Thought it was a good time to start a look back on the first year of our blog and pick out some of the highlights and maybe in an extended 12 days of Christmas theme we will look at each month in turn from now until we have reached the twelfth night, so you will be spared a summary each day as we will as usual continue to put new stuff in between these.

Just before I start on January, I thought that was a good post of Dave's yesterday and will add my own views later in the week with a few images to illustrate the point.

It is probably worth a quick recap about why the blog came about.

Here was our first post back in December last year as one of the trial posts, little did we know that we would be here with this  a year later.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I guess judging from the number of views and visitors we get it is worth doing, but would appreciate your comments as always.

We started off with themes on kit reviews, Here is Dave's. Started a series on Long lens work.

I covered off a trip report on Short Eared Owls and Dave went for a pee, or Pea Island more correctly.

We covered off come techniques on metering and also making the most of the moment and working with the light - probably my favourite images in January in that post from Dave.

We also talked about various bits of software and hardware covering off bags, tripods, and mobile back up options.

Finally, a theme I have visited more than once, and will continue to bang this particular drum when relevant is that our Subject is more important than the Photo.

If you only click on one of the above links in detail, I would encourage this one as it affects all of our reputations as wildlife photographers.

But I do hope you have stroll through the archives that I have put here - maybe there is something useful you missed first time round.

Back later in the week with some views on the Be Honest post and some more real live user feedback from a wildlife photography perspective on the Canon 7D and its AF performance for birds in flight  - that old bete noir for us folk that spent money on the 1Dmk3.

Stats for Jan were 3617 page visits, 537 visitors from 32 countries

Martin