Irish trip

As I've said earlier, the past few months have been exceedingly busy and I was very happy to have a few days with the family during the Easter holidays. We escaped to Ireland. As our plan was to walk as much as possible, I didn't want to schlepp a lot of gear. So I took the newly acquired XPan with me plus the three lenses.

Our destination was Dingle peninsula: the very westernmost point of the European continent. There is nothing else but ocean between that spot and Newfoundland on the other side. Our basis was an excellent B&B very close to Dingle, with a very friendly hostess. The weather was typically Irish: very windy, with a succession of showers and clear spells. Excellent for taking photographs and for walking. We spent three days walking, covering altogether just under 50 km along the Dingle Way.

As I was very tired and just happy to empty my head for a few days, I wasn't too hung up about taking pictures. I just let it happen. The XPan was an excellent travelling fellow, light enough to keep on hand at all times. The 30mm lens almost didn't leave the camera. As said, the viewfinder is such a pleasure to look through. The interesting thing is that one always has the possibility to compare the 30mm and 45mm perspectives and I almost always decided in favour of the wide angle. My fears that the 30mm plus center filter would be too slow for handheld work, proved to be unfounded. I used Fuji Neopan 400 throughout and only had problems at the very first day when a very gloomy start of the day and the desire the maximise dof forced me to push the film to 1200 asa (1.5 stop).

I came home with around 50 negatives. After development I selected 12 for scanning and printing. A very good score! Proof that the XPan fits my eye very well indeed. Proof also of the fact that being relaxed and not too deliberately focused helps at times to get the most of a trip.

The picture above was taken on the first day (XPan, 30mm lens, 1/15s, Fuji Neopan 400 at 1200 asa). We were on the trail very early (unintentionally so as I forgot to synchronise my gsm alarm with Irish time), starting out from Ventry, near Dingle. The path follows the fine beach around Ventry harbour for quite a while. A little over halfway we were not quite sure to follow a little trail inland. We decided to explore the option - which proved to be erroneous - and serendipitously hit upon a very picturesque burial ground, totally overgrown with a whole bunch of eroded tombstones. I just spent 20 minutes taking pictures, but I could have easily spent a few hours more. I was grateful for the opportunity anyhow, as we normally wouldn't have come across it ...