Bible Black...

I have lived in Cumbria all of my life and yesterday, given there was to be an afternoons respite in the constant tipping it down scenario, I decided to go on a bit of a Photo Jaunt, mainly because I've bin stuck indoors the last two weeks, due to the A: The Weather and B: The pain from my Hallux Rigidus (arthritic big toe that now won't bend!)and a torn Meniscus in the opposing knee. Good Aren't I?
Anyway got out to Ambleside and did the short hop or is it hobble to Loughrigg and back via the terrace of the same name, as I said before I have lived here all of my life but in all of that time I have never seen clouds as black as those I witnessed yesterday...
Now then the little conundrum here, I have a new toy, a 2 stop ND grad and I find it a bit heavy handed, a one stop almost pointless with a modern DSLR like a K5 or K3 but it is only in use in one of these shots, yes the clouds were really that black!

Nice.

Great light on the last one

I've booked a week with the family in the lakes over easter... and this sort of stuff really whets my appetite.

Very good Jules, love the light and viewpoints here. The grad has certainly done its stuff there. I think the balance is right on the first one - but on the the other two it looks like the filter has covered the whole lot ... They look a bit underexposed to me, even 0.5 to 0.7 of a stop more on the ground would do it.

You may be suprised Neil.
like I said the grad was only used on one shot,
The conditions are displayed fairly accurately I think but of course you only have my word here!

I like these Jules. Makes me want to be there

What grad have you bought. Hard/soft. Lee/hitech?

Always used Hi-Tec Alan, I find the quality of the filters more consistent than Lee and more resistant to scratching and scuffing, I also have some SRB Gritun circular ones which I use far more because the quality is superb and they are much less of a Faff frankly...
Not keen on hard grads, I can never get the transition right.
Loving my circular soft two stopper but a hard version would be pretty much useless on a screw mount.

Love the last one jules.

image one id crop the sky down and image two id crop out some of the foreground.

Like them all with #3 being my favorite

Thanks Jules. I think I like the first one best. The clouds are fabulous.

Another super set, #3 gets my best vote.

And there's the thing Alan the only one that used the grad was shot 1, It looks the least likely of the three on the face of it but there it is!
The lighter spot to the middle extreme right next to the Snow capped peak burned out without the grad unless I underexposed it massively...

Shot 2, the light really was that patchy, Shot 3 is a crop obviously but pretty much covers the only area of the frame that was actually light, the clouds seemed to suck in all the light, so black they were almost solid.

Nice

Nicely done then Jules