New Year's Day climbing Doan Mountain in the Mournes

For the last decade each new year’s day saw a trip into Northern Ireland’s Mourne Mountains. Normally it involved an early start climbing Slieve Donard to witness new year sunrise, this year was different. 2019 was a slower more relaxed excursion to the top of Doan mountain in the central Mournes.

The mild weather was seasonably uncharacteristic for January. The rich winter sun bathed the valley in golden light which was great for capturing silhouettes of the other climbers the summit.

Doan Mountain, the mournes, Northern Ireland

Unfortunately it was too windy (and busy) to take the Mavic Air into the sky but can view footage from a previous visit here : Doan Mountain drone footage. The 24-70mm f/4 is a my go-to lens for the mountains as it offers the ability to capture the landscape as well as being able to capture people and portraits.

It’s interesting getting back to shooting with a full frame camera again. I still have my Fujifilm 100F for everyday documentary photography but for the mountains it’s full frame all thanks to the Sony A7iii. The combination of the Sony A7iii and 24-70mm f/4 lens is remarkably light and portable with the digital viewfinder being perfect for shooting into the sun.

Doan Gallery

The colours straight out of the camera are true although I am still getting used to the RAW files versus the JPG. Nine times of ten the JPG files are perfect with just a little reduction to the saturation. The RAW files offer fantastic dynamic range and I am slowly building up a collection of Lightroom preset for working with the A7iii files.

Two days later and I was back for an early start to avoid other climbers it was time to a 2019 visit with the drone to capture one of my favourite mountains.

The aim is to climb a mountain every month for 2019. So far January has been a success.