Although I walk around a lot, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t been for a walk in the woods for some time. Summer in New York’s lower Hudson valley is extremely hot and humid. And when it’s not hot and humid it rains. I don’t like to go out in this kind of weather. However, it’s now Autumn, the temperatures are much lower and we’re going through a dry patch at the moment. So, off I went for what turned out to be a 2.5 hour walk in the woods.

I’d hoped that the leaves had changed by now but, unfortunately only a few of them had. This was the first of the disappointments I encountered:

The second was my choice of camera – A Sony RX10 IV. I’d used it before, but mostly in fairly bright sunlight – and it did a great job. However, I discovered that it’s not all that good in the woods. Light in woodland tends to be very bright in some patches, and extremely dark in others. Unfortunately, the one-inch sensor in this didn’t have enough dynamic range to cope with this. I tried to bracket shots so that I could blend them together when I processed them, but unfortunately this doesn’t work well when things (in this case leaves) are moving around, in this case in the wind. Still, even though the pictures as not as good as I would have liked them to be, I think they’re good enough for sharing online e.g. on this blog, on social media etc.

The third was my choice of footware. I recently bought a new pair of shoes and was breaking them in. It was probably not such a good idea to do this during a fairly long (for me) walk. Soon after I finished the walk my feet and legs started to hurt.

Still, I had a great time and intend to do more – assuming the weather holds and my feet/legs improve.

Taken with a Sony RX10 IV