As is our way, we were in a rush, tonight we were heading to Thors cave in the Manifold Valley. We had arranged to meet James Pedlar from jamespictures.co.uk which we were both very much looking forward to. We didn't have the time to get inside the cave so decided to shoot it from a field opposite the opening. The weather was pleasant but the skies were clear, not ideal conditions but at least it was nice to be in. We were having such a good time talking with James that I wasn't concentrating on what I was doing, I attached the 70-200 lens to the camera and set the shot up. Mistake number 1 was that I must have accidentally switched the camera on when putting it in my bag so I had less than 10% battery left for the evening. Mistake number 2 was that I didn't deactivate the VR (vibration reduction) on the lens. This is a problem when the camera is on a tripod because the lens is still trying to stabilise when it's already stabilised, this resulted in all of the photos being ever so slightly out of focus.
We will have to put this on the ever-increasing list of locations to return to if we have the time. Whilst the evening might have been a bit dull and disappointing photographically, it had still been a very enjoyable one. Another new friendship had been solidified with James and arrangements put in place to meet up at another location where it wouldn't be such a rush.