Field Craft

Most equipment advice is written for still air and firm ground, and Britain supplies neither. A tripod planted in blanket peat keeps sinking for the length of the exposure. A square filter holder on an exposed ridge is a sail bolted to the front of the camera. Wet sand turns briefly liquid around a vibrating leg, and salt dries invisible on a front element and shows up at home. None of that is a reason to carry less; it is a reason to carry different things and to plant them differently.

These entries deal with method rather than product. They set out what actually moves and why, the two stage planting that stops a horizon drifting, the shutter speeds to jump over in gusty wind, and the small habits that keep glass usable through a long day on a hill or a beach. Where a technique also has a safety consequence, and on the coast most of them do, that is stated with the technique rather than in a footnote.