If you are a student at the University of Bath looking for a good place to swim on a hot day Warleigh weir is what you are looking for. About a 30 minute downhill walk from campus (more back) the weir is a popular spot on a hot day. I recommend you go during the work week to avoid the masses; on a hot day it can get very busy. The water is deepest at the very end of the weir wall, where you can jump and dive into the water.

The weir is surprisingly warm and the water seems very clean, perfect for swimming.

More information can be found here: http://www.publicearth.com/places/swimming-areas/warleigh-weir

Photography info:

• All shot on Canon 400D
• Nikon nikkor 35mm Prime lens F2.8 AI
• ISO hovering around 100-200
• F-Stop varies from F2.8-5.6
• All hand held manual focus
• Shot raw and processed in Adobe PS CS5

This is the first time I have really tried shooting in raw, I have used it occasionally before for important shots, but have usually shot Jpeg because of the space saving; but now I have decided that shooting everything in raw is really worth it. The latitude of the images is really improved and you can recover so much more detail from each shot, much more forgiving. Looks like I am going to need to invest in some more CF cards.

When I got to the weir my friends had already been swimming and the place was empty, so I got a few shots before I jumped in. One or two aren’t quite in focus, shooting with low aperture lenses isn’t very forgiving and on small sensor cameras (less than full frame) I find it hard to see enough detail for critical focus. It is often also difficult to tell whether something is in focus on the relatively low resolution screen of the 400D.

Anyway here are some pictures from a visit last Monday (Click to enlarge) :