Derwentwater near to sunset. Keswick, the Lake District. Fuji X-T3 and Fuji 16-80 lens.
At the time I didn’t think this image would work. I was certain the conditions were too bright, and the dynamic range of the scene was too high. These were just a couple of the challenges that almost made me not bother taking the image. In the end, I decided to just take the shot and see what I could make of it in post-processing. Boy am I pleased that I did.
If you want to read more about what I learned and see the
starting image, you can read about it in my November newsletter. The newsletter
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The image is of Derwentwater in the Lake District, taken near to the landing stage for the boats at Keswick. I used my Fuji X-T3 with the new Fuji 16-60 lens. I shot this handheld and without filters at ISO160 (the base ISO for the Fuji X-T3). This gave a shutter speed of 1/280” at f/11.0.
Post capture processing was in Capture One for the RAW conversion which allowed me to do a lot of the shadow and highlight recovery. I then used Nik Viveza to improve the light after which I softened the image with a faint blur to the highlights.
This week’s been very busy. I’ve been out on location twice
and have another shoot planned for tomorrow if the torrential rain stops. I
also completed a review of the new PhotoLab 3 RAW converter from DxO ready for when
it launched on Wednesday. Producing a video review to a deadline is always demanding,
especially when you also have a packed diary. Fortunately, I already use
PhotoLab 2 which made the task quite a bit easier.
I must admit to being pleased with this weeks Friday image. Woodland
scenes are my nemesis and I’m never truly happy with the results. This image
which I captured on Wednesday is different and I rather like it. It’s turned
out just as I had imagined it when I took the shot which is always a good
thing.
I shot the image using my Fuji X-T3 and Fuji 10-24 lens at 10mm. The image is tripod mounted as the shutter speed was 7” using an aperture of f/14.0 at ISO160. I used a Kase Polarising filter to remove a lot of surface glare from the water, allowing you see the flow more clearly. This also greatly intensified the colours in the moss and leaves which looked a little washed out without the filter. In addition to the polariser I also used a Kase 0.9 (3 stop) Soft ND graduated filter. This prevented the waterfall and highlight from blowing out in the top part of the frame.
I hope you like the image and have a great weekend.
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Ladybower Reservoir, The Peak District. Fuji X-T3, Fuji 16-80 lens. ISO160, 7.5 seconds at f/11.0.
First, an apology that I didn’t post a Friday image last week. I ended up at my daughters in France. I thought I would be able to post the image from there, but technical problems got in the way of what should have been a simple task. I won’t go into the details because I want to share a different technical issue that a lot of photographers will face.
I shared the above image on my Instagram feed just before I
left for France. In all honesty, the processing was a little rushed so I
thought I would reprocess it again (hopefully better) for this post. That’s when
I discovered my latest technical issue; my graphics tablet won’t work with my
Mac, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
A couple of days back I received a message that my Mac
needed to apply updates. I didn’t think anything more about it and applied
them. This turned out to a major update to the operating system of my main Mac.
The new OS is Catalina and was a huge 8Gb update. It made
lots of changes including how my hard drive was partitioned. It’s also a pure
64bit OS which means any software with a 32bit element won’t work. This was
frustrating enough but then I found I couldn’t run some software that was 64bit.
Instead I now get a message saying that the software supplier needs to work
with Apple to make software compliant and you can’t run it. I don’t know what “compliant”
means but I’ve lost the ability to use some important software as well as
hardware, including my graphics tablet. I find this completely unacceptable.
So, if you have a Mac and you see the message to upgrade, be
careful. As I understand it from reading the many complaints on the internet,
there isn’t an easy way to reverse the upgrade. If you’re running anything but
the latest software and hardware drivers, you will probably find things are immediately
obsolete.
On a lighter note…
Friday Image No.233
I captured this week’s image on my way to shoot the sunrise on Higger Tor in the Peak District. As I passed Ladybower and the trout fishery, I couldn’t resist pulling over. It was still around 20 minutes before sunrise and there was a lovely blue, pink colour to the light. I could also see the very tops of the cloud starting to catch some light and turn pink.
Because the scene is so light with the mist and water reflecting the sky the dynamic range was low, and I didn’t need to use any filters. I did, however, use a tripod and cable release as the shutter speed was 7.5” at ISO160 using f11.0. The lens I used was the new Fuji 16-80mm. Whilst I haven’t used this very much at present, I don’t think I’m that impressed, especially given the price point. Once I’ve used it a little more and made some comparison shots, I will share my thoughts.
I hope you like the image and have a great weekend.
Redwood trees in Whakarewarewa Forest near to Rotorua, New Zealand. Fuji X-T2, 18-135 lens, ISO1600, 1/8″ @ f/7.1.
I’ve had an Instagram account since early 2012 but never really bothered with it. In fact, the only reason I signed up was that I liked some of the filter effects. Recently though I’ve started sharing some of my photos on Instagram and I’m enjoying it more than I thought; you’ll find me on there as lenscraftphotos.
I’ve started to post something most weekdays (unless I’m
snowed under with work), which is a lot better than I ever managed on Flickr. But
what I really like is that it’s prompting me to look through my older photos to
find and reprocess shots I like. This image of sun peeping through the trunks
of redwood trees in Whakarewarewa Forest is a good example.
I shot this handheld with a Fuji X-T2 and Fuji 18-135 lens, which you can read about in my Lenscraft review. It was quite dark in the forest which forced me to shoot at ISO1600 to achieve a 1/8” shutter speed. That’s about the limit of what I could handhold. I also needed the aperture set to f/7.1 and underexposed by 1/3 stop. These settings allowed me to achieve a steady shot with the necessary depth of field.
I hope you like the image and have a great weekend.
Ladybower Reservoir, Peak District. Fuji X-T3, Fuji 55-200mm lens, ISO160, 1/20″ at f/13.0. Kase 0.9 ND Grad (soft) filter on the sky. Tripod mounted.
It’s been a good year for shooting in the Peak District. If
I look back a few years, I almost never ventured into the Peaks. Instead, I
preferred to make a 2 hour drive up the motorway to the Lake District. These
days I would much rather drive 45 minutes to locations like this. Ladybower reservoir.
My original intention in visiting this spot was to shoot the
heather in the evening sun. But as the sun became lower the light on the
distant water and hillside caught my attention. I couldn’t resist popping the 55-200
lens on the Fuji X-T3 and taking a shot.
Peak District Processing Miniseries
If you haven’t already watched these, I’ve now produced two sets
of videos demonstrating my photo editing workflow. Both use images shot in the
Peak District and I’ve now posted these to my website in short articles.
Curbar Edge after sunset, Peak District. Fuji X-T3, Samyang 12mm lens, ISO160, 2.1″ at f/8.0. 0.9 Soft ND Grad filter and tripod.
It’s Friday again and I’ve spent the entire week trying to layout
the print version of my latest book. The desktop publishing software I’m using launched
only recently and I’m hitting quite a few bugs. Given how frustrating this is I
decided to stop to share an image instead.
I shot this last weekend at Curbar Edge in the Peak District
and there are a few points I want to highlight:
This is around 15 minutes after sunset, which is fast becoming my favourite time. The bright white dot in the sky is the moon. There’s something very nice about the light after sunset.
The sun set immediately behind me which dramatically reduced the dynamic range of the scene. Even then I used a 0.9 (3 stop) Soft ND Grad filter on the sky.
The heather in the scene looks great but it’s dead. The reason it appears pink is because of the magenta colour of the light. That’s what happens shortly after sunset when you place the sun behind you.
The key takeaway for me from this image is that it pays to
understand how light changes depending on the time of day and angle. It would
have been all too easy to have stopped shooting after sunset, or even have
faced the wrong direction.
I hope you like the image and have a great weekend.
I did think about using the image above as the Friday image but
decided not to. I cover the above image in the video and wanted to include a
different image here.
Peak District hillside. Fuji X-T3 and 55-200 lens. Click the image to enlarge.
This is from a recent trip to the Peak District. I captured it
around 40 minutes before sunset when the sun was low and the light warm. What I
like, besides the lovely warm light is the contrast between the “colder”
background hill and the “warmer” foreground. It’s also nice the way the solitary
barn in the field acts as a focal point.
In terms of technicalities, I was using the Fuji X-T3 with
the Fuji 55-200 lens set to 86mm. The camera was set to ISO160 which gave a
shutter speed 1/17” at f/13. I could probably have used a wider aperture than
f/13 but I wasn’t really thinking about it at the time. I was more interested
in capturing the light before I lost it. I could see the sun heading for a bank
of hazy cloud on the horizon which damage the crisp direct light you see here.
I mounted the camera on a tripod because the shutter speed
was slow, and I didn’t use any filters. I was shooting at around 90 degrees
from the sun and the shaded hillside wasn’t dark enough to require I use a
filter.
I hope you like the image and have a great weekend.
