Cat Bells across Derwentwater

Visible across the lake from Keswick, Cat Bells is probably more photographed than any other peak in the Lakes, but still irresistible. Hope you like these.

1.



2.



3.



4 is Rowling End leading to Causey Pike



and just to show we did get a little higher than the shoreline, two along the ridge from Whiteside to Hopegill Head and Coledale Hause just before we got soaked:

5.



6.



All taken with K-5ii and Pentax 18-135mm. All comments welcome as usual.

Thanks,

Strange place to put a gate and fence

Maybe a homesick farmer from down under?

Excellent shots John, I must get out more instead of wandering round Greenhead park all the time

Harry

stops flooding?

A nice set John. Lovely part of the world. Seeing pictures always makes me want to go. I do think they would benefit from an increase in contrast, and the skies have the detail in to make them a bit more moody (sorry Nigel)

Obvious ones to demonstrate this would be the last 2. I have therefore chosen another. Hope you don't mind. If so, I'll ask for it to be deleted



Also looking at these I see you have shutter speeds of 1/800 sec. Using lower shutter speeds would have allowed a lower ISO

Hi Alan, don't mind at all when people demonstrate what can be done and explain it - all part of the learning curve. I did adjust contrast myself to bring out more sky detail, but could clearly have taken it further. I chose not to because I thought the images were getting very noisy, so reined it in. Your version has certainly got better definition of the hills, making them stand out better as separate from each other. I'll have a go on the original raw files again and see what I can do. Thanks for taking the trouble.
I didn't have a tripod with me for any of these Lakes shots, so thought a faster shutter speed would reduce the danger of camera shake, but maybe overdid that. I'm never sure how slow a shutter speed I can get away with hand-held in a situation like this where I'm forever rushing to catch up with walking companions and not able to take as much time as I might like!

John, without using the in camera stabilsation try to exceed the reciprocal of the focal length on full frame or "effective" focal length on APS-C.

So, at 50mm, try to be faster than 1/50 sec. With our crop cameras the "effective" focal length is 75mm, so try to be faster than 1/75sec.

Incidentally, I might have made the sky even darker, but I'm a bit scared of Nigel

Thanks, Alan - that will clearly make a massive difference to the useable ISO. It goes on the list of things to do next time I'm out with the camera!

Cheers!

I agree with Alan's comments here John, it is a 'must' for good landscapes to use the lowest possible ISO. A tripod is your best friend here, not only to allow 100 ISO to be used, but also to allow the flexibility for other effects, such as long exposures with a 10 stop filter, or an infra-red filter. For moving water I am a big fan of using shutter speeds between 1/4 sec and 1 sec, to retain some detail whilst also giving a sense of the water's movement. This is not possible without a camera support of some sort, preferably a tripod.

The final thing is the ND Grad filter; I would not go on a landscape shoot without mine. It is a massive help to retain balance between the sky and the landscape, particularly on cloudy days.

Your shots here are beautiful and demonstrate a great eye for an image, but are being held back a little by the settings you have chosen.

Regards
David

Well I'm very glad to see people thinking about sky contrasts and mood, and even more pleased that some are scared about it ... Now that's what forum photography sharing is all about

Actually Alan, in your reworking above, I do actually find the cloud shadows perfectly ok, but I still think I would reduce overall contrast in the sky by pulling the whitepoint down, just to reduce the glare of the very bright areas.

It was a bright day Nigel, so I thought I'd show some bright clouds

I know Alan, there's an argument to be made that frankly there's no ' photographic' light helping these shots at all ... This is not to be unkind to the photographer, who has done a good job under difficult circumstances given the limited equipments and tine available, but it means the processing challenges are far higher ... In this type of situation, I would describe it as ' lighting rescue' work, I think attempts at reality portrayal can be set aside in favour of a histogram re-shaping job ... This is the sort of process like auto -levels, but with some more intelligent selective balancing as well, eg here as I said I'd bring the sky highlights down a tad. By this approach we hopefully maximise the quality of brightness tones we've recorded, and may achieve something more akin to the effects of using a physical ND grad as recommended above.

I love number 4. You did a great favour to the mountain, it looks majestic.

Thanks for all comments - very constructive and helpful, giving plenty to think about. Not sure I see myself as the next Derry Brabbs though, so may have to sacrifice some picture quality in order to do the mountain walks with a bit less weight! Hope that's not a sacrilegious thing to say in a Pentax forum! Seriously, I do understand Alan and David's comments in particular and am am grateful for the advice. In fact I'm thinking of going shopping for a ball head to replace my pan-and-tilt one which is very frustrating to use on sloping ground.