Tag Archives: higger tor

Landscape Photography

Better Panorama Stitching

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Higgor Tor Panorama at sunrise, Peak District
Higger Tor sunrise in the Peak District National Park. Fuji XT3 with 16-80 lens. See below for full details.

It’s Friday again and I want to share another image from a recent trip.

Last week I shared a shot from Burbage Edge in the Peak District, looking back to Higger Tor. I shot the image at the end of the day, but this image was from earlier that morning on Higger Tor.

Ordinarily, I like to get to the edge of the Tor, in amongst the rocks. This time I decided to walk around a little more which is when I noticed the sun coming up behind this rock formation. I realised that if I timed it right, I could create a starburst effect with the sun.

This was much easier said than done. The lens I used was the Fuji 16-80 with a 3 stop soft ND Grad filter. I attached this to a Fuji XT3 body mounted on a tripod before stopping the aperture down to f/18.0 (you need a small aperture to create the starburst). Now I just needed to line up the camera on the tripod and that was the hard part.

I just couldn’t seem to line everything up to create the starburst with a good exposure. I kept trying and each time I thought I had it, the effect vanished. The sun then started to fade as the fast-moving clouds came in and I started to panic. I thought I wasn’t going to get the shot.

Finally, everything came together, and I managed two frames. It was only when I came to process the images that I realised in my excitement, I hadn’t set the camera to manual exposure. I left it on Aperture Priority and the second image was a stop brighter than the first. One image was a 0.6-second exposure whilst the other was 0.3-seconds (both at ISO160). Fortunately, I was able to manually adjust the image in the RAW converter before stitching.

You can see the two starting images as well as how I stitched them, in my latest YouTube videos. One demonstrates the processing in Adobe Photoshop and the other in Affinity Photo. Both videos include the RAW processing in Capture One 20 before the stitching.

Panorama Stitching in Photoshop

Panorama Stitching in Affinity Photo

I hope you like the image and video. Have a great weekend.

video

Landscape Photography Advice from 4 Images

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When I posted last week’s photo, I mentioned that I had been out all day and only just arrived home. This week I want to share an image from last week’s trip.

Higger Tor and Carl Wark from Burbage Edge in the Peak District.
Higger Tor and Carl Wark from Burbage Edge in the Peak District.

I often shoot from Higger Tor in the Peak District. It’s a great location, partly because of the interesting rocks but also because you have an unobscured view of the sun all day. Unfortunately, when I shoot from Higger Tor you can’t appreciate what it looks like because you don’t see it from a distance. That’s why I like today’s photo.

I shot this image from Burbage Edge and Higger Tor is the right-hand hill of the two in the mid-distance. The other hill to the left is Carl Wark, which is another great location to shoot Higger Tor (in the right conditions).

The other reason that I wanted to share this photo is that it’s one of four images in my latest YouTube video. In the video I share four of my images, including this one, to make important points about landscape photography. I also include a few other tips which could help anyone wanting to shoot better landscapes. Here’s the link to watch the video (https://youtu.be/QmFFPLpC3mU). It’s a little different to my usual photo editing demonstration but I hope you still like it.

As for the photo in this post, I shot it with my Fuji X-T3 and Fuji 16-80 lens. A few people have asked about my thoughts on this lens, so I’ve written a real-life lens review after 4 months of using it. The ISO for the shot was set to ISO160 which is the base ISO for this camera. At f/13.0 this produced a shutter speed of 1/9”. I mounted the camera on a tripod and used a 2 stop Kase Hard ND Grad on the sky. If you’re wondering why the light is so nice, you’ll need to watch the video.

I hope you like the image, enjoy the video and have a great weekend.

Landscape Photography

Sunrise at Higger Tor

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Rocks on Higger Tor at sunrise, The Peak District. Fuji X-T3. See text for technical details/settings.

Yesterday morning I managed to drag myself out of bed at 05:00am and drove over to the Peak District. I had been watching the weather for weeks waiting for the right conditions. It had been warm during the day but then the temperature was forecast to drop overnight, with only thin cloud cover and no wind for the next morning. The conditions were perfect for Landscape Photography and all being well there would  be mist/fog in the Peak District.

As I drove past Ladybower on my way to Higger Tor I ran into a few fog banks. I could also see the mist rising off the surface of the reservoir. As I passed the fishery, the high cloud was turning pink and reflecting on the calm surface of the water. I decided to stop and shoot a couple of frames, but I’ll save that for another time once I’ve processed them properly.

When I arrived at Higger Tor, the sunrise was in full swing and unfortunately, I think I missed the best of it having stopped at Ladybower. This shot was my second frame, the first being a reference shot to check the camera setup. As the sun was now just above the horizon and starting to catch the ground, I found this position where I could capture the light on the rocks and still retain a good sky.

Capturing a good shot was relatively easy as the sun wasn’t in the frame, but I still needed to use a ND Grad filter on the sky. Without it the ground and rocks just became too dark. I also took the opportunity to shoot the image with exposure bracketing. This would give me 5 frames from which I could select the best exposure to work with and if necessary, do some exposure blending.

In the end, the best image was a single exposure without any exposure compensation. This had a nice sky, but the rocks were a little too dark. I was able to correct this during my RAW conversion in Capture One. I’m now a huge fan of Capture One for processing the Fuji RAW files and swear by it.

Following RAW conversion, I applied additional adjustment using the Nik Collection and a little Dodging and Burning in Photoshop.

I shot the image using a Fuji X-T3 and the newly released Fuji 16-80 lens. This gives a focal range of 24-120 in full frame terms which is very useful. I like the lens and have a few observations to make in a future article. I had the camera set to ISO160 which is the base ISO. The aperture was f/11.0 which gave a shutter speed of 0.7”. I had the camera mounted on a tripod for this and used a Kase 0.6 (2 stop) hard ND grad on the sky.

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

Digital Photography, Friday Image

Friday Image No. 104

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Sony A7r + 16-35mm Lens. ISO50 f/18.0, 1/3". 0.6 ND Grad + Polarising filter.
Sony A7r + 16-35mm Lens. ISO50 f/18.0, 1/3″. 0.6 ND Grad + Polarising filter.

Although I love a good sunrise or sunset, it’s not my favourite light to photograph. I actually much prefer a low warm sun that provides a lovely warm side light. If you couple that with flowering heather and vibrant green ferns blowing in a breeze you have my perfect scene. Whilst I struggled a little for composition with this image I loved being on location.

Have great weekend and watch out for more on the RAW processing/Fuji problems. I have some interesting findings to share.

Friday Image

Friday Image No.103

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Higger Tor. Sony A7R + Canon 16-35mm lens. ISO50, f/18.0, 1/4". Tripod mounted with 0.6ND Grad and Polarising filter.
Higger Tor. Sony A7R + Canon 16-35mm lens. ISO50, f/18.0, 1/4″. Tripod mounted with 0.6ND Grad and Polarising filter.

This week I want to share an image from last weekend. A friend offered to meet me at Higger Tor to get a few morning shots. I have never been to Higger Tor before although it’s on an hour’s drive from my house. When I arrived there was only his car and someone camping at the side of the road.

The weather for once was on our side and I thought the location was amazing. I can’t believe that I don’t shoot in the Peak District more often. It seems to be much under rated and we don’t see enough images from the area. I suspect this is because they aren’t quite as dramatic as many other locations.

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