Half aerial photo, half map - the new Photomap Extreme kicks cartographical butt and we have 20 of them to give away in a simple competition
20 Photomaps To Be Won!
You can buy the Photomap Extreme Peak District sheet for
£9.95 - not cheap, but that paper is genuinely waterproof - but
we have 20 of them to give away in our simple competition - well,
simple that is if you know the Peak. Click here
to enter.
For more information, see the Photomap
web site.
Real World Test
A few weeks ago we told you about a new map of the Peak District
that superimposes accurate OS 1:25,000 data on an aerial photograph
and is printed on waterproof paper.
Since then we've got our mitts on an example and spent the weekend
thrashing across the Peak District using it. If you're used to OS
maps, the Peak District Photomap Extreme is a revelation.
Paths, roads and significant features are marked in in colours
carefully selected to stand out and contours are drawn in over the
land features, just like a map in fact. The big plus, apart from the
fact that it simply looks great, is that the phtotographic nature of
the map makes it much, much easier to relate the contours to the land
and to pick out the general lie of things.
Colourfields...
The Kinder Plateau, for example, is strikingly different from the
surrounding, greener slopes. You can pick out areas of bleached white
rocky ground, follow individual water courses and groughs and relate
colours on the map to colours on the ground. At one point, as an
experiment, I homed in on a trig point by sticking to the
brown-coloured soil - honest.
It's not perfect and you'd be daft not to use it in conjunction
with a conventional map. For example, there's no distinction made
between footpaths and bridleways, there are some missing tracks - a
rather neat mountain bike downhill through Hagg Farm for example -
and although there are small grid square crosses to aid compass use,
in pratice it's very hard to see them.
Those should be sorted out for the next Photomap Extreme, which is
the Snowdon area, but even with the odd flaw, we loved this map for
opening our eyes a little wider and for being a fascinating new way
of looking at a familiar area.
Last but not least, the waterproof paper actually works - read it
in the bath or navigate in showers - unlike the water-resistant paper
used by, say, Harveys.
20 Photomaps To Be Won!
You can buy the Photomap Extreme Peak District sheet for
£9.95 - not cheap, but that paper is genuinely waterproof - but
we have 20 of them to give away in our simple competition - well,
simple that is if you know the Peak. Click here
to enter.
For more information, see the Photomap
web site.
