As mentioned in my previous entry, we went off to Plymouth to visit The National Marine Aquarium.

Now, the place is pretty big and boasts (literally) that it has the biggest tank in the UK and the deepest in Europe. I was expecting a mind blowing experience on a par with the Science Museum in London.

The facilities were fine but despite its grandure in some ways it was nowhere as good as the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay that we visited the day before yesterday. For a start, there was very little documentaton about the species in the tanks. What there was usually didn’t tally with what you saw. The tanks themselves, although larger, we less impressive as you did seem to get as close to the fish. Also, the cafĂ© was pretty poor and would better suit a small railway station than a national tourist facility.

Anyway, it did pose an interesting challenge for low light action photography and showed up the real problems with this for my cameras. The Canon Digital IXUS II was basically a non-starter. I managed to get a number of decent pictures with the Fuji Finepix 602Zoom but only in the better lit tanks. The camera has far too much shutter lag as well as poor low light ability due to both the sensor and the relatively small lens size.

After leaving the aquarium we crossed over a swing bridge onto the road which skirts the old barbican. We then took a stroll along the seafront almost as far as the Hoe before returning.

The nice weather made the day really. It’s a pitty that there were so many poor drivers on the road to spoil the journeys to and from Plymouth though.