Rutland Rock Star

To clear out the cobwebs on Jan 2nd we visited The Rockblok rock climbing centre at Rutland Water’s Whitwell centre. Devon did three laps of the sky circuit and went up and down the climbing wall a couple of times. He was his element:

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 82mm, 1/250 sec at f 5, ISO 400, hand held no flash. For this quick trip I used the Nikon 18-200 VR superzoom, which is a perfect all-round lens for a family day out. Devon loved the harness and wants to go back to Rockblok every day now.

Here’s the big wall with part of the sky circuit on the right. Spot the 8 yr old making his first ever ascent: 

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 18mm, 1/250 sec at f 8, ISO 200, hand held no flash.

In the pic below, note that Devon’s wearing no gloves. Given it was very cold (3 degrees), he did pretty well to get up and down the wall twice before announcing that he’d lost all feeling in his fingers:

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 112mm, 1/400 sec at f 8, ISO 200, hand held no flash. Like most photographers I live in pursuit of nice crisp pictures, and for a relatively budget ’superzoom’ lens, the Nikon 18-200 really delivers. At the start we had some lovely light and the above tack-sharp photo needed nothing other than a quick sharpen in Paint Shop Pro.

This one almost has a studio-like quality:

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 65mm, 1/320 sec at f 5, ISO 200, hand held no flash. Paint Shop Pro has a nifty (and simple to use) ‘Clarify’ function which I often use to give a quick injection of character to photographs. You can produce much more refined results using Levels in Photoshop, or by adding some HDR in Photomatix for example, but cheap and cheerful old Paint Shop Pro is great for ‘quick fixes’, especially if you’re producing images for the web.

It wasn’t all plain sailing for Devon up on the ropes:

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 150mm, 1/100 sec at f 5.6, ISO 640, hand held no flash. Here’s an example of that ‘Clarify’ command at work.  By this time we’d got him a pair of gloves…

Just in case you thought it all looks too easy, here’s how high it was:

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 18mm, 1/1600 sec at f 4, ISO 200, hand held no flash. Up there with Devon is the excellent Rockblok instructor, Richard. You buy a certain amount of time, and Richard had told us most young kids get around twice within the time, but sometimes they manage a third. Devon, bless him, managed three easily and would have gone for thirty three, but by that time his Grandad John, Grandma Bev and mum Marie had begun to ‘chelp’ about how cold it was. His faithful Andydad, on the other hand, was itching for a go himself… so next time it’ll be Man and Boy up there.

Devon gives us hell most holiday days, which consist of regular portions of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, Drake & Josh, The Wizards Of Waverly Place and (although he doesn’t admit to it), a whole lot of Hannah Montana. That, and man-sized portions of PlayStation 3 (we’re into Little Big Planet now). So it was great to get outside for some real activity at Rockblok. He absolutely loved it: 

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 65mm, 1/1000 sec at f 5, ISO 200, hand held no flash. This is a close crop from Lap One of the sky circuit. Note the difference in confidence levels in the picture below, which is from Lap Three – by which time he was spending some quality time scuttling along using the pulley, feet hanging in space, and to hell with ropes (which are, after all, for kids…):

 Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 135mm, 1/1000 sec at f 5.6, ISO 800, hand held no flash. I’d switched to spot metering by this time, and was exposing for his face. It had grown more dull, and we’d lost the blue sky.

Here’s the main man simply swinging around:

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 150mm, 1/1000 sec at f 5.6, ISO 800, hand held no flash. 

It was a great half hour for Devon, and good practice for me

Here he is afterwards with his new-found mate, Richard.

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 35mm, 1/500 sec at f 4.2, ISO 800, hand held no flash.

So now we can add Rock Climbing to Hip Hop, Karate, Guitar Lessons, Football Practice and Golf Lessons… One day, he might actually finish something