The View From Burbage Edge South

I was out earlier this week again with my camera. This time, I was up at Burbage Edge South, hoping to photograph more heather in the Peak District landscape.

Burbage Edge South isn’t anything like as popular with people as Higger Tor and Stanage Edge. This is good, as having ventured up to Owler Tor last Friday night, the place was crawling with people. There was someone on top of almost every rock and a lot of beer bottles being left behind. In contrast, Burbage Edge was deserted, with just a few runners passing occasionally.

I like Burbage Edge as a location, but it isn’t the easiest to photograph. Compositions are the real problem here. There’s plenty of foreground and a great scenic view, but little interest in the midground to carry the eye through the frame.

When I arrived, the light was harsh, and I was struggling to find any compositions that worked. There was a nice hazy light for a while, but it was a little too bright as the sun was quite high. Here’s a shot taken using my iPhone that I processed to give it a retro feel.

This should give you an idea of the landscape and weather conditions.

At this point, I was quite confident there would be a fantastic sunset. But as the sun dipped, rain rolled in, rain that was nowhere to be seen on any of the weather forecasts.

While the rain was heavy, it lasted only about 15 minutes and cleared just as the sun was setting on the horizon. This gave me just enough time to dash to a nearby composition I had spotted earlier in the evening to take this next shot.

This was captured using my Fuji XT5 camera with a Fuji 16-80 lens at 16mm. The exposure time is 1/3 second at f7.1 and ISO125, and I had a 3-stop soft ND grad filter on the sky. If you look at the heather in the bottom left of the frame, you can see how much it’s moving in the wind, even at a 1/3-second exposure.

Like most of my wide-angle shots, I was trying to get nice and low so that the foreground heather would appear larger in the frame.

Shortly after, I took the next shot from the same location but looking in a different direction.

This was also taken using the Fuji XT5 but with a 10-24 lens at 10mm. The exposure time is also 1/3 second at f/8.0 and ISO125. While this was only taken 7 minutes later, you can see how quickly the strong wind had dispersed the thick clouds. Only a few minutes later, the clouds and the light were gone.

I hope you like the photos and have a great weekend.