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.......at least on paper. Park Cameras believe that they will have stock by April. I will be going to 'Focus on Imaging' at the NEC in March and it will be interesting to see whether any will be for sale there.

As was widely predicted by the Nikon rumour mill, the D800 is not really a replacement for the D700. It's more of a D3X replacement. This is a shame because the D700 is quite a competent camera for shooting hockey and I have shot quite a lot using mine as a back-up to my D3. Unfortunately the frame rate on the new D800 is hobbled by the fact that the processing power has been invested in the extraordinary number of megapixels - 36.3 - which makes it a less than ideal buy for hockey. (I will add a little proviso to that at the end.) One pundit is claiming that the D800 is the best camera that Nikon has ever made and I'm not going to argue with that. I just ask the same question - will it do what my current D700 will do?

If Nikon stick with just the two FX cameras in its range, the D4 and D800, it looks as if they will price enthusiasts out of the FX market. Whatever the D800 price eventually stablises at, it is likely to be well over £2000. Despite being touted as a pro camera, I've always suspected that more D700s are bought by enthusiasts than professionals, and perhaps Nikon ought to be aware of that. There is likely to be less money around for the launch of the D800 than there was for the launch of the D700.

Just a small note on frame rates. Four frames per second sounds pathetic compared with the D3, which I think is rated at nine frames per second. However, I often find that when I look at a series of images I have shot in burst mode, the first one in the sequence is the best. Perhaps these high frame rates just make us lazy?

......without what? Well, as a traveling hockey photographer I don't know how I ever managed before Google Maps.

As I sit in my hotel room in Denmark, I've had a chance to reflect how important it has been to me. Take for instance the journey from the ferry to the railway station when I arrived in Denmark. Not only was I able to plot a route and get a time for how long the walk would take, but by using the street view in Google Maps, I was able to memorise the route. As a result I had a faultless walk, which resulted in me getting an earlier train than I expected, although I did arrive in time to buy a seat reservation in a carriage that wasn't actually on the train. I am glad that the conductor was as baffled as I was! In Slagelse itself, I might have ignored the footpath that diverted left from the main road, and added an extra kilometre to my journey. Google maps showed that at the end of the path there was a tunnel under the road which led straight to the venue.

I think the first time I used the street view on Google Maps was to get an idea what the approaches to Lille Hockey Club in France looked like. Without the opportunity to study the scene, I am convinced I would have driven past several times without seeing it.

So my New Year tip is, if you are going somewhere strange, whether on foot or by car, take a few minutes examining your route on Google Maps. It could save you a fortune in petrol or avoid sore feet.

I'll make a quick mention of the D4 at the end of this, but first I'd like to mention an interesting problem I experienced recently.

About a year ago I started including a small torch in my camera bag. This was as a result of having the floodlight go out on me as I was packing my camera bag after a match. As you can imagine, the torch has stayed their unused ever since. It's a bit like carrying an umbrella. If you carry one it never seems to rain. But it did come in useful a few days ago.

Last week I went to the new Hockey Museum Archive at the request of one of the trustees. They were trying to get some of the photographs and pictures in the collection onto their web site. They had tried photographing them themselves with a compact camera but found that the pictures that were framed behind glass could not be copied in this fashion. The reflection of the flash was spoiling the image. Now this is not an insumountable problem if you have pro flash available. Simply point the flash slightly back from vertical and there is no reflection. Simples, as a well known meerkat would say.

I had not known quite what to expect when I went to the museum but the choice of locations for shooting the pictures was a well lit room, where the light was being supplied by daylight, and another well-lit room where the light was artificial. Now, I'm not an expert on picture framing but I do believe that the best frames are those that use a special non-reflective glass. It soon became apparent that only a few of the pictures had that sort of glass. In most cases I could quite clearly see the refection of myself and all around me even before I pressed the shutter button.

Unfortunately, it was not practical to turn off the lights (or the sun for that matter) and all I could find to carry out the shoot was an unlit corridor which, by an amazing stroke of luck, had a hook on the wall as well! The problem was that it was too dark to actually see what I was shooting. I found the only solution to the problem was to hold the torch between my teeth so I could located the image, and then turn it off before shooting.

What I should have done is taken a tripod with me and shot on manual focus, but I will know for next time. However, it just goes to prove that a small torch can have a useful place in a camera bag.

I WILL BRIEFLY MENTION THE D4, which Nikon has now officially announced. As I feared, the price is eye-watering - in the region of £4700. In the current climate it will be interesting to see how many rush out to buy it. The specs look good, although not a spectacular improvement on the D3. What will be of particular interest to sports shooters will be how good the ISO is. The D3 will shoot up to about 5000 ISO without any serious noise issues, which is miraculous in itself. My first pro DLSR, from about 2005, would leave horendous noise even at 800 ISO. Shooting indoor hockey or matches under floodlights is possible with the D3, but it would be nice to own a camera where shooting in broad daylight and in a dim sports hall were realy no different. Early rumours about a possible D800 suggest that it is more likely to be a replacement for the very expensive D3X, than for the D700, which is likely to mean that the D800 is not going to be a poor man's D4, either in terms of price or suitability for sports shooting. I suspect that my D3 and D700 will have to see me through to retirement.

As the Nikon rumour mill grinds on, so do the rumours that their next range of pro cameras will have both a Compact Flash and Secure Digital card slots. The D3 has two CF slots but some of the other cameras in the Nikon line up have slots for either card. Of course the SD card seems to be the most popular card for compact cameras.

Personally I think putting slots for both types of cards in a pro camera is a big mistake, particularly if you are a sports shooter. Wearing my TalkHockeyRadio hat, we use SD cards in most of our recorders, where they are generally fine, but have come across the occasionally snag.

1. SIZE. One of the benefits of the SD card is its size. But ever tried changing cards in the pouring rain outdoors on a freezing February afternoon? CF cards are a nice size to quickly grab and install. An SD card is far too much of a fiddle to change quickly and safely.

2. EXPOSED CONTACTS: The SD card has them but the CF does not. Would you believe that I have managed to bend a terminal on a SD card when a loose thread from my glove got caught under a contact. I've also exerienced problems with the recorders where a 'No Card' message has come up and its been necessary to remove the card and clean the terminals. I've never had this problem with a CF card. Whilst I would happily slip a CF card into my pocket, I wouldn't chance it with an SD card.

I'm also not sure what the rationale would be for having both card slots on a pro camera. I have a considerable investment in CF cards, and I suppose most pro photographers have. Why would I want to go out and buy a load of SD cards just to put in the second slot?

I've never really got over my boyhood love of steam trains and, I suppose, if it had not been for hockey being such a great passion I might still be a 64 year old train spotter. So when I got the opportunity to do a shoot from the footplate of a steam engine on the Bluebell Railway I was really....well, chuffed!

The shoot was going to throw up some real issues. Fortunately No 1638 had a relatively open cab and part of the run was in daylight. I started out with a Nikon 20 mm lens on my camera and, after some experimenting, I more or less stuck with it. I does not entirely fill the whole cab but it came very close. Thank goodness for Nikon FX cameras! It was interesting that I took one zoom lens with me but found that it was a bit prone to flare when the firebox door was open. Most of the shots that were not taken with the 20 mm were taken with a wonderful cheapo Nikon 50 mm.

Quite apart from issues with the light, I am usually shooting moving objects whilst stationery. Here I was moving quite a bit myself. No matter how smooth the ride might be in the carriages, it's quite different on the loco. For this reason I selected a relatively high ISO (2000)and could not see any real benefits in cranking it up further. Working in a confined space with low shutter speeds for some of the time, meant that I had some depth of field issues occasionally, but overall I am quite pleased with the results.

It was a relatively dull day and it did not take long to discover that I would need some flash assist. A combination of flat dull surfaces did not promise much in the way of good shots,and I had visions of the driver and fireman being dreadully over exposed, but I pulled out the catchlight card and pointed the flash skyward. I had also promised the driver not to point the flash directly in his face. I think I got the balance just about right.

The most challenging shot was going through I tunnel. I was told to duck under the cab roof to avoid water dripping from the ceiling. This meant holding on to the roof for dear life. Looking back towards the train, the engine smoke being illuminated by the carriage lights was amazing. Unfortunately, because of the need to stop myself falling into the firebox (when I first got on board I was told "This bit is very hot and this bit is very dirty") I could not get a proper grip on my camera.

All in all, an amazing experience. I only hope they ask me back!

.....only the wrong clothes.

I don't know who first coined that expression but it is so true, and for the hockey photographer it is a very important subject. If you've seen my images from Mulheim you will have seen that the weather was really foul. What is not so apparent was the temperature drop that took place over the course of a couple of days. It was not far below 20c in Southern England when I set out, but it had fallen to 4c when I reached the Ruhr Valley.

I've written something here before about protecting your camera, but what about protecting yourself? People apply various tests to spot the difference between the professional and the amateur, but in my view fleeing the pitch at the first sign of rain is a sign that you are not very serious about what you are doing. And it is unecessary too. Have the right gear with you and you can shoot through a hailstorm.

There are two things you should try to get hold of. One is a pair lightweight waterproof overtrousers that you can slip into your camera bag. It is possible to buy some that will fold up really small, but they tend to be slightly more expensive, although worth it. Secondly, get yourself a lightweight rain jacket - again, one that can be folded up. These will see you through most of the year and the jacket will keep the cold off your arms if the weather is unseasonally cold in the Spring, Summer, or Autumn. Make sure both of these items are available whilst you are out on the pitch. Quite obviously, don't put them back in your camera bag wet!! If you have an outside pocket to your camera bag, that's great, but make sure any dampness cannot soak through into the camera compartments.

Always take some sort of headgear with you. It will keep the sun off your head, and there is nothing more miserable than getting rain falling on an uncovered head.

The above is what I consider is the basic stuff, but a lot of hockey is shot during some of the coldest weather of the year, so lets look at some of the stuff to keep us warm. Fingerless gloves are a real boom. Camera bodies and monopods can get amazingly cold in February and it will transfer itself into your fingers. I recently acquired some golfing gloves, which appear great. They also have the facility to insert warm packs inside them, although I have not tried that yet.

One of my greatest finds on the clothing front was the discovery of showproof thermal trousers. These are a bit heavy to wear (and I wear braces with mine for addtional comfort) but they realy do keep your legs warm. Long socks can also help in very cold weather. Many shops don't seem to stock these anymore, but they are available on-line.

The standard advice that more thin layers are better than one thick layer seems very sound. In the coldest of weather I usually wear a vest, with a polo shirt and a thin fleece over the top. Over that goes a warm and waterproof coat. The interesting thing is that none of these items are that expensive. Although you can spend several hundred pounds on clothing, the coat that kept me warm and dry in Mulheim cost me £20.

After having seen The Killing on TV I had a hankering to visit Denmark. I'm not talking about the rather poor copy of The Killing made in America, but the original Danish version with sub-titles. As luck would have it, England's women are taking part in the European Indoor Trophy in Slagelse in January, so I'm off to Denmark in the New Year and I'm really looking forward to it.

Now, as you can imagine, lugging my photography kit around Europe can be a bit of a burden. When all of it's packed into a roller bag, including the MacBook, it is a hefty weight. Fortunately, Easyjet does not have a weight limit on hand baggage, although many airlines do. Norwegian, for instance, has a 10 kilogram limit. For indoors I can dispense with the long lens. The 70-200 VR is good indoors, if there is decent light, and I have a couple of faster primes I can use if I get desperate. Overall the weight is a bit less and I can get it all in a camera rucksack. But, as an experiment I recently packed all my indoor stuff into the rucksack and it came to, er.....11 kilograms.

Getting to Denmark is proving a real challenge. There are no daytime flights to Copenhagen with Easyjet on the day I wish to travel out and there is a long train ride from Copenhagen to Slagelse, which would mean that I would arrive there in the middle of the night. The ferry from Harwich is very attractive but it only operates every two days. I would have to spend an extra day in Denmark before returning, which is not really convenient. There are other airlines that fly to Copenhagen, including Norwegian. Of course, they never weigh your hand baggage do they? Well, yes they do. I was hanging around a check-in area once when I saw a traveler being asked to put his hand baggage on the conveyor and next thing I noticed was him repacking all his bags. I have been haunted by that image every since. My insurance does not cover me for my camera equipment carried in the hold, which is some sort of indictment on the honesty of baggage handlers around the world.

The solution has proved to be to travel out by ferry and return by Easyjet on an evening flight. I've never booked a one-way flight with an airline before and traveling in the reverse direction created some interesting scenarios, such as the default currency being in Kroner, and you have to wade through pages about hotels and car hire in London.

Getting back to The Killing, our friends on the Continent are producing some first-rate crime series these days which make the American imports look plain silly. I can highly recommend the French series Spiral, which is returning to our TVs soon, as is another series of The Killing. Although the plots are sometimes a bit daft, I love the original Swedish version of Wallander. Some people don't like sub titles, but even with my limited Swedish, Danish and French, you can still spot the odd translation gaff, like the sub title reference in Spiral to the Crown Court. I thought France was a republic?

There has been a lot of speculation that Nikon would be bringing out successors to their D3 and D700 cameras in 2011. In fact there was a bit of a 'leak' earlier in the year when Amazon started listing a handbook for a new Nikon camera that still has not appeared. There is little doubt that both Nikon pro cameras are getting a little long in the tooth and that they had planned to replace either one or both by August this year. Obviously, recent events in Japan have knocked back that date. Although Nikon has production facilities abroad, they have traditionally produced their pro cameras in Japan.

Whilst some people are getting into a froth and impatient about the delay, I have to say that I am not. Already owning two top professional cameras which might become obsolete overnight and cost £6000 or more to replace is not exactly an exciting prospect. However, just a couple of thoughts. Last year I was sitting next to a German professional photographer who had come out onto the pitch without a CF card in his camera. I lent him one of mine and was surprised to find that it had been formatted for a D2H when it was returned to me later. Clearly there are a lot of pro photographers who are still a generation behind what we have at the moment and are probably producing great images.

Does new always mean better? I don't like digital compact cameras much but my wife takes great images with them and is using two of my cast offs. I have bought her newer cameras but she feels she is getting better shots with the old ones and I agree with her. One is a Fuji 2 megapixel compact and the other is a 4 megapixel Olympus. At the end of the day, you can have all the gadgets and gizmos in the world but the bottom line is, will it take great pictures? That said, the Nikon D4 when it appears (although it is suggested that Nikon skip to D5 or use a completely different name) will be an awesome camera and I will want one!

Anyone who saw the European Championships on TV, or has seen my images on this site, will know that we had a lot of rain in Monchengladbach. Indeed, at the end of the Women’s Final we had a downpour on a scale that I almost expected the four horseman of the apocalypse to ride onto the pitch.

Now, I’m fairly relaxed about getting wet, but my camera equipment is another matter. I lost a lot of good shots immediately after the final (and I was not alone in that respect) in having to get my camera bag off the pitch. It has a waterproof cover I can put over it, but it was not water coming downwards that was my problem. The pitch was flooding fast. But I was able to get out onto the pitch again and keep snapping.

I have a number of strategies for keeping my camera kit dry which it might be useful to share. The problem, as I see it, is dealing with the expected, the unexpected and the maybe.

Under the ‘expected’ heading I would include those days when you just know it is going to rain and you have room in your bag for some proper waterproof cover for your camera and lens. This gear is expensive it’s true, but a pro body and a decent long lens is going to set you back in the region of eight grand, so it’s a small price to pay. My main issue with them, however, is their sheer bulkiness and how difficult they are to put on in a hurry. The latter is not my experience by the way. It’s what I often witness pitch side. I have my own way of dealing with a sudden downpour.

In the ‘maybe’ category, it may be useful to have a pack of those cheap and cheerful plastic camera covers. Op Tech make them and you can get them as cheap as chips from Amazon. They are relatively compact and you can usually find room for them in even the most packed camera bag. I don’t know whether they are meant to be disposable, but I treat them as such. One plus point with them is that they can sit on the camera end of the lens, ready to be pulled over lens and camera when the rain starts. Do be careful in sunny weather though. I once went camping and borrowed a black jerry can with a clear plastic cover over it, and very good it was at heating water. Presumably you don’t want to cook your black camera by the same method!

I’ve left the best tip until last. I got this one from Peter Luck, who at one time was one of the most prolific photographers of hockey in the UK. You’ve gone out on the pitch in brilliant sunshine but the rain clouds have appeared from nowhere and it starts to pour. Getting your raincover out of your bag (if you’ve got it with you) and onto the camera could mean both your camera and the contents of your bag getting wet – so reach for your trusty.........trouser leg! This is not just any trouser leg. If you’ve got an old pair of waterproof trousers, cut one leg of them and tuck it into your camera bag. You will be surprised just how effective it will be at keeping the rain off your camera and lens.

I don't know whether I am unique amongst hockey photographers but I have a real lens hood issue. They are very expensive and very easy to lose.

A couple of years ago I was shooting at the Wagener Stadium in Amsterdam when I noticed that the very hot weather was making one of my lens hoods expand so that it was no longer a tight fit on the lens. The inevitable happened, and somewhere between the pitch and the media centre I lost the hood. I think it cost about £30 to replace.

The lens hood on the Nikon 70-200 f2,8 is supposed to lock into place, but recently I heard the familiar sound of plastic bouncing off concrete as it dropped off for the second time in the day. I was using two cameras at the time and had the lens attached to my D700 which was hanging around my waist on the Black Rapid strap. I had been working mostly on grass that afternoon but, as luck would have it, both times it came off it was on a hard surface where I heard it hit the deck. On a previous occasions when this happened I was at Wembley Arena, where a group of people coming down a flight of stairs knocked the lens hood off. The hood fell several flights before reaching the bottom and I had to go back and retrieve it.

Big pro lenses seem to suffer from lens hood issues as well. Several owners of Nikon 400mm lenses only have half the lens hood fitted - they've broken the other half and don't want to fork out the huge price for a replacement. The securing nut on my 300mm f2.8 became detached two months ago and the replacement for the nut was over £20 (inc post).

As anyone who gets involved in sports photography will find, nothing connected with pro kit is ever cheap.

I promised in one of my earlier postings to give an early opinion of the Black Rapid camera strap. You may recall that I purchased this after dropping one of my camera bodies.

Basically the product is a long strap which you wear on the shoulder and across the body. The camera is fitted to it by means of a attachment that screws into the tripod socket under the camera. The camera is not fixed to a single point on the strap and can run free up and down, making it a possible to get your camera quickly up to your eye to grab a shot.

Overall it works quite well but, like any product, it does have some drawbacks. I found that the shoulder pad tended to slip down the strap and off my shoulder, and carrying a pro camera with a 70-200 lens on it is quite a weight, which will start to hurt without the shoulder pad in place. I have also noticed that it is easy to lose a lens hood with the camera hanging loosely by your side, but I have lost a fair number from being knocked off in crowds using conventional straps. My biggest complaint is its price - approx 51 quid. It may be a quality product, but at the end of the day it's still only a camera strap.

Would I recommend it? If you habitually carry two cameras - yes. Seated pitchside behind a long lens sometimes creates a problem of getting hold of a shorter lens quickly. I was in Paris a few season's back when another photographer had a £1800 lens wrecked by a hockey ball as it lay on the ground next to him. Point made I think.

My few days in Amsterdam are over and I'm back in my studio having just unpacked.

Something happened whilst I was in Amsterdam which got me thinking. On Saturday morning the photographers were asked to submit two 'outstanding' photographs from each of the two tournaments, and these were to be shown on the big screens in the stadium between matches. At this stage I had only one day's worth of images to offer and there was a distinct lack of action images that would fire up the imagination. I found a couple of good, crisp, action shots, but that word 'outstanding' suggests the pictures should be something special. However, I did have one shot which I wondered whether I could knock into shape with Lightroom. A Dutch player had lost his stick and I caught him in an act of frustration as he found himself 'in possession' without a stick to make anything of it. The images was taken in fading light at the end of the day, and if I say that it looked like Mr Orange in Orangeland you might get the picture. I managed to improve the image a lot, but the 'organgeness' never quite disappeared. I submitted it with some trepidation and was surprised to find that it was one of the first to go up on the screen, ahead of several photographers who are better than I am, so I was quite pleased but a little surprised. I asked one of my very experienced professional friends for a candid view of the image. He made no comment about the colour (and perhaps he had experienced the same problem) but he did ask me which 'f' number I had used. I did not have to check it out because I knew. I had my x2 teleconverter on at the time, so it would have been f5.6. It was a polite comment on my depth of field, and on reflection the action did not stand out as sharply as perhaps it might. So what does that tell you? I was worried about the colour and not the depth of field, whilst my friend was worried about the depth of field and not the colour. I presume the image was chosen by someone who is not a photographer and they just chose it because, well - they liked it! Perhaps I need to worry less about technical perfection and just try to take interesting pictures.

In my previous posting I mentioned that I had damaged one of my camera bodies and was waiting to hear from the insurers.

Although I don't have the cheque in my hand yet, my insurers have emailed me to tell me that they are going to settle the claim. The slight shock was the amount of the excess. In the small print of the policy I discovered that the excess is doubled for losses abroad. It made me realise that if someone walked off with my entire camera bag whilst I was shooting abroad, I would have to find over £2500 out of my own pocket!

It's hard to work out the economics of camera insurance. I pay approximately 50% more for my camera insurance than I do for my car insurance. This particular claim will pay me out less than a year's premium. A few years back I managed to write off my car for which I was paid a fraction under £8,000. My car insurance is roughly £200 per year, so I managed to blow 40 years worth of premiums in one accident!

A word about Fixation UK, who mended my damaged camera. I have heard various pros and cons about taking your kit to Nikon or using Fixation. One pro photographer I know described Fixation as being slightly arrogant. Well, I actually inserted the word 'slightly' and I must admit that I have found their customer interface to be a bit mixed. However, I gave Fixation the go ahead to mend my camera on the Thursday and it was ready for delivery or collection the following Tuesday. Not bad. I've also had a second hand D3 and some lenses off them and have found their prices competitive. A 300mm f2.8 lens from them went wrong about two weeks after I bought it, but they put it right with no quibble. The parts needed took some time to source and I wish they had kept me informed. But my view is, unless they do something to let me down, I'm in the Fixation camp at the moment.

Whilst a bronze for the guys and a silver for the gals was a good result in the EuroHockey finals, it was a bad weekend for me.

I love the Dutch, but they sometimes seem to be quite myopic if you are carrying a heavy load, like two camera bodies, three lenses, a monopod, a folding stool and a wheelie camera bag! I had a close call at the KO16 in Bloemendaal over Easter when I was waiting at the bottom of the stairs to go up to the media centre. There were people standing on the stairs chatting who had not noticed me and so I had come to a halt. Whilst I was standing there I was nearly sent flying by a Bloemedaal player making his way back to the changing rooms at speed - he was not a happy man as they had just been knocked out - and it was a close call that none of my kit was damaged.

My luck ran out in Wassenaar a couple of weeks back when two people barged past me in a crowd and knocked one of my camera bodies to the ground. That has cost me a cool £530 to repair. Most of that is insured but my first impressions of the claims procedure is that the insurers are operating on a very slow shutter. I had the camera repaired by Fixation before the claims form even arrived. The outcome of the claim may make an interesting posting. Keep watching this space.

I have since purchased one of the hugely expensive Black Rapid camera straps and I may post something on here about that when I've had a chance to test it out.

It's off to Amsterdam for the last three days of the Women's Champions Trophy soon.