This is the view of the railway bridges over the Clyde into Central Station from the “Glasgow Bridge”.

This is from a similar viewpoint, but a telephoto image to pick out the silhouettes of the railway pylons. The damp wall of the bridge works well in the low glancing light.

Same again here. Look at the sunbeam below the bridges; amazing.

I would like my thanks to be noted for the birds who performed so wonderfully in this image.

I’m not so sure about this one, the wall splits it a little too centrally although the bus adds context and reality.

Two black and white bridge details exploiting the soft, low contrast light.

They say the best camera you have is the one you have with you. The S95 was a better than basic choice for me, this cyclist’s camera phone was his best available choice.

I have bought a new camera! Everyone I know has said to me ” how can you possibly need another camera”? My photographic friend Shirley understood perfectly well when I told her. She said in a burst of great wisdom, you can’t have too many cameras. How right she is:-)

In actual fact, despite having two DSLR’s I only have one compact camera and that is the very desirable Panasonic LX3 about which I have blogged before. It really is a great camera with a great lens. The trouble is I have discovered that it is an awkward size. It is ideal for going for a walk with it over your shoulder, or even in a large coat pocket; it would never fit in an inside jacket pocket or even a shirt pocket. This means I can’t really use it as a compact in the true sense and so I needed just that, a compact.

I have no great faith in tiny compacts to take great pictures as they have tiny sensors and often overambitious lenses full of compromises. They can never deliver control over DOF due again to their pinkienail sized sensors, but a compromise had to be made. I wanted small, simple, decent lens quality and reasonably fast response, (I once had a Nikon S210 and it was too slow to respond to the shutter button for my taste). The compromise I settled on was the Canon Ixus 100. I really wanted a wider angle lens, but most reviews said the obvious rival, the Panasonic fx40 delivered softer pictures due to an overambitious wide lens. So, I’ll only occasionally use my compact, but it’ll be great to have one small enough to be with me at all times. A good compromise I think.

Yesterday was a case in point, I cycled to Largs and the Clyde coast, travelling light with just a cycle jersey and its back pockets for my raincape, phone and wallet. The ixus was so small as to be barely noticed in a corner of one of these pockets. Just for fun, here’s what it can do. “better than a slap across the back of the knees with a wet Glasgow Herald” as a friend of mine was fond of saying.

My beloved Carbon Trek that uncomplainingly carries my 1/10th of a ton around. (no really!) Largs behind.

The beach near Skelmorlie looking back downriver towards Arran again.

The UK can have no more beautiful river estuary than the Clyde.

Often I drive past this wonderful view of the Clyde and Argyll with its rough landscape. This week I couldn’t resist stopping and taking this view with my ever present LX3. I braced it on a fencepost to steady it for this view. The foreground is a cemetery. the large crane marks the docks where the QE2 and other ocean liners berth, and the peninsula opposite is the Rosneath peninsula. I used to work in a school near this spot and my classroom looked out over this view; how lucky was I?

My lunch today was by the Clyde in Dunoon where I was working. The wind was strong enough to rock my car around and the waves were crashing all along the promenade. I wanted to take a picture but it was impossible to stand anywhere on the promenade without getting soaked. I cheated by driving my car to line up with this beach access stairway and rolled down the window. I still got large amounts of salt water in the car. I only had my work Canon G7 in the glove compartment, so no Raw files available, jpeg only. I used the flash to try and make the water sparkle; I then pushed the processing to make it a little surreal and oversharp.

Just a bit of fun in wet and wild Scotland in January. I hope you feel sorry for me having to get on the ferry to cross the Clyde a little while later!