Tag Archives: peak district

Book

New Book Launch

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This week I have a sense of relief with the launch of my latest book “Landscape Photography: Shoot Like a Pro”. It’s currently available on Lenscraft, Amazon and Google with Apple and others following in a few days.

I’ve invested so much time in writing and then rewriting it, that to have it finished feels like a great victory. Originally, I wanted to launch before Christmas, which slipped to January and then February. Well, the eBook version is now available, and the print edition will follow in a couple of weeks.

The reason for my delaying the launch is that I wasn’t entirely happy I was conveying my ideas well. I suspect this is something of a problem for me as a photographer because I sometimes struggle to create the image I want to.

Sunrise on Higger Tor, The Peak District. See text below for settings.

The image I’m sharing this week is one that I liked initially. It’s shot on the same outing as last week’s image and initially I liked it. Now as I’ve become accustomed to it, I’m finding that I want to improve it. I don’t know how yet, but it needs to change. I usually find putting an image to one side for a few months helps in situations like this, but I still wanted to share it with you today.

For this image, I used the Fuji X-T3 with Fuji 10-24 lens at 11mm. Because the focal length I used was so wide, I closed all the sections of my tripod legs to get low. I then moved in close to the rocks so they would dominate the frame.

Shooting directly into a rising sun required I used a filter. For this shot I chose a 0.9 (3 stop) Kase Reverse ND Grad. The reverse grads have a stronger ND section on the horizon in the centre which I placed over the sun.

The camera was set to ISO160 which is base ISO for the Fuji X-T3. This helps keep the image relatively free from noise which is important when opening the deep shadows in post processing. It also helps maximise the dynamic range of the camera. I used an aperture of f/16.0. This wasn’t to extend the depth of field but rather create the starburst effect around the sun. These settings produced a shutter speed of 0.5 seconds.

I converted the RAW file using Capture One. I love the Highlight and Shadow recovery in the HDR sliders when processing the Fuji RAW files. I still find it hard to believe how much it’s possible to achieve with just these adjustments.

This Weeks YouTube Video

If you haven’t already seen it, my YouTube video this week covers using Lightroom’s Print module to prepare images for sending to a lab for printing. It’s in response to a problem one viewer was having when trying to generate files and upload them.

The video, “Printing Photos to a File with Lightroom Classic CC” is only short but I’ve packed quite a few Lightroom features into it. If you use Lightroom for printing, either to a printer of JPEG, you might find it useful.

Equally, if you have any photo editing problems that you’re struggling with, please let me know. If it’s something that could affect others, I may be able to produce a tutorial.

With that, I’ll stop writing, other than to say have a great weekend.

Landscape Photography

Cold Snap in The Peak District

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Higger Tor Frosty Sunrise, The Peak District
Frosty conditions on Higger Tor, The Peak District. Fuji X-T3 with Fuji 10-24mm lens at 11mm. ISO160, 1.4″ at f/13.0 tripod mounted and 0.9 Soft ND Grad on the sky.

This winter the weather hasn’t been very wintery here. In fact, I think I can count on one hand the number of days that we’ve had a proper frost. Then the other day I saw freezing overnight temperatures forecast and decided to head over to the Peak District to meet a friend.

We met at Higger Tor around 7:15, well before the sun was due to rise. The temperature was down to -3C and as I drove up the frost was clearly visible on the rather slippery road. I’ve always wanted to shoot frosty conditions there, but something has always prevented me.

Initially, we headed up to the far edge of the Tor where we normally shoot. But then we decided the frost didn’t look as good. Further back towards the road the frost was much heavier, covering the rocks and heather and turning them white.

I made my first few shots facing towards where the sun would rise, and I could already see the sky turning orange there. The sky was quite bright in comparison to the foreground rocks, so I used a 0.9 Reverse ND Grad. I thought this would help control the sun as it neared the horizon, without needlessly darkening the rest of the otherwise clear sky.

As I stood and waited for the sun to rise, I turned around to see the image above. The light was beautiful, and the landscape looked soft with thin mist in the valley. I quickly switched my reverse grad filter for a 3 stop soft grad and managed to capture this image.

I hope you like it.

Photoshop Masking Problem

Recently I’ve noticed an increase in the number of photographers on my Masking Courses who are experiencing problems. Typically, they will try to create a mask, or a series of Luminosity Masks and the results are wrong. They follow my advice exactly, but it doesn’t work correctly. What makes this problem even more frustrating is that it appears inconsistent and can start to happen without you making a change.

Following a lot of head scratching and working with a few people, I’ve been able to identify the cause and importantly a solution. If you edit photos in Photoshop and use masks, you need to look out for this happening to you.

To see the problem together with the fix, watch my video “Photoshop Masking – How to Fix this Common Problem”. This really is bizarre and was very difficult to track down.

If you use Photoshop or know someone who does, I hope this helps.

Have a great weekend.

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.

Approach

When Small Changes Make Big Improvements

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Snow-covered Silver Brich at Surprise View, Peak District.

Let me start by saying Happy New Year and welcome back and I hope 2020 proves to be a super successful year for your photography.

I had intended to make this first post of the new year all about photography resolutions, but two things got in the way. First, I’ve been out all day shooting landscapes (which I’ve really enjoyed) and have only just arrived home. Second, I haven’t made any resolutions. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I would much rather just look at my work and try to figure out what I would like to improve and how I can do it.

I think Photography should be a continuous and gradual process of improving. I don’t think you can expect to make large and sudden leaps forward; at least now when you’ve been shooting for a long time. Where I do think you can make large gains is in post-processing. Often, it’s the smallest and most insignificant things that can make a big difference.

For example, I recently watched a video where someone was using a Selective Color adjustment layer in Photoshop to “clean” colours in their image. What they were doing was changing the relationship between the different colours. This works differently to the usual Temp and Tint sliders in the RAW converters and whilst watching this, something just clicked. I thought I never really use that technique, so I tried it out on a few images and loved the results.

Since then I’ve been experimenting with more images using Selective Color and HSL. Today’s image is just one example of where I’ve finally achieved a more natural result that I’m happy with (at least for the time being). Previously the image had too much Cyan, Yellow and Magenta and I couldn’t correct it.

I shot the image back in January 2019 in the Peak District. It’s a couple of hundred meters from the Surprise View Car Park and easy to reach, providing the roads open when it snows. This is a single frame shot on a Fuji X-T2 using a Fuji 16-55 lens. The ISO was 200 (base ISO for the X-T2) giving a shutter speed of ¼” at f/11.0. I had the camera mounted on a tripod and didn’t use any filters. I hope you like the result.

And I almost forgot the first Lenscraft in Focus newsletter of 2020 is out tomorrow.

Have a great weekend.

Approach

The Colour of Atmosphere

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Padley Gorge, the Peak District. Fuji X-T3, 16-80mm lens at 32mm. ISO160, 1.6″ at f/13.0

In last weeks blog post I shared an image together with my thoughts about the direction of landscape photography. I liked the image I shared because it was very natural and could mark a new direction in my work. The post appears to have resonated with a few people who commented positively.

This week I want to share another image that’s a departure from my usual style. As before the colour are strong but not through saturation or strong contrast. In fact, this image doesn’t have a lot of contrast at all because of the mist.

What really struck me when taking this shot is that I was able to clearly imagine the finished image. The conditions were quite dull and there was a lot of blue light from the mist in the trees. But the strongest colour seemed to be the green from all the moss; it was literally glowing. I think it was this combination of blue and green that created the atmosphere which helped fuel my imagination. It feels to have created the perfect atmosphere for these strange and twisted trees.

When I came to process the image, it made me think about how much the colour in an image can affect our perception of the mood. I realise I’m stating the obvious, particularly if you have an artistic background but I think we photographers don’t think about this enough. I for one will be considering the colour palette of my images more in the future. I’ll also be looking for ways to control this during capture and post-processing. It could well be something that I want to develop much more.

The image is a single frame captured two days ago with my Fuji X-T3 and Fuji 16-80 lens. Shot with the camera tripod-mounted at ISO160 with a shutter speed of 1.6” at f/13.0. It was around an hour after sunrise.

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

Friday Image

Changing my Photo Editing Approach

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Curbar Edge winter sunrise, Peak District, UK
Winter sunrise on Curbar Edge, Peak District. Fuji X-T3 with 10-24mm lens. Further details in the blog post.

Over recent years I’ve become increasingly unhappy with my photography. Well it’s really my photo editing that I’m unhappy with. I feel that I’ve somehow become victim to the trend of colourful and overly saturated landscapes. But the more saturation and colour I use, the less I notice it which leads me to increase it further. It’s left me feeling somewhat dissatisfied which is where this week’s photo comes in.

I captured this image on Curbar Edge recently at sunrise. The temperature was cold at -4C (cold for the UK at least) and the sky filled with high, light cloud. On this morning the landscape had a lovely pink/blue tint to it. Initially the sky was strong and intensely colourful, and I shot quite a few images. My natural inclination was to favour those images but after working on them for a while I quickly tired. That’s when  I found I preferred this more subtle image.

This one’s from soon after sunrise when the light from the sun was just catching the foreground rocks and the edge in the distance. There’s something more real about this image that I like, and I think the colours are lovely and subtle. I don’t yet know how this will play out in my photography, but it could mark a change in direction for me.

I shot the image using a Fuji X-T3 with Fuji 10-24 lens set to 10mm. The camera was set to ISO160 using f/14.0 giving a shutter speed of 1.2 seconds. It was tripod mounted and I used a 2 stop Kase ND Grad filter on the sky to balance the exposure with the ground.

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