Posts in Category: England
8/24/2009
Moor Top
Stone walls and sheep cots, with the Dales rising behind. This was the top of the Moors in this hike, and the snack truck was just behind me (hot tea and some sweet confection, thank you very much!)
Minolta A1 at 28mm equivalent. F5.6 @ 1/200th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Graduated filter effect from the top to bring out detail it the sky and hills. Blackpoint adjustment. Punch and Landscape sharpen presets.
8/23/2009
Grand Falls
The highest of the Falls above Ingleton and a show piece of the Yorkshire Dales. You can see the limits of the camera clearly here. I had to apply a graduated filter effect from the top to darken the sky, and even then could find no real detail. Of course, it was one of those white English skys, on the edged of rain, with no real features.
Still, the falls carries the image.
Minolta A1 at 28mm equivalent. F5.0 @1/200th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
As above, graduated filter effect from the top. Blackpoint adjustment. Fill Light. Punch and Landscape sharpen presets.
8/22/2009
Fall on the Ingelton Water Falls Walk
I can’t remember how many falls they claim for the Ingelton Water Falls Walk, but there are many. You go up one river, across the high moor, and down another river back to the junction where you started. This was one of the more prominent falls on the upward loop. We got there well before the car park opened, and the attendant eventually took pity and let us in early, so we were gloriously alone on the trial. A walk I will certainly remember and treasure forever. By afternoon, when we looked back at the moorland section of this trail from across the valley, it was like a city sidewalk with hikers. (So many people use the trail that two enterprising farmers have allowed snack booths along it were it passes through their land, one tended by foot, carrying everything quite a distance in, and one a truck that daily penetrates the deep cut lanes between stone walls to reach a likely vantage point on the top of the moor.)
Minolta A1 at 28mm equivalent. F2.8 @ 1/20th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Recovery for the highlights in the falls. Blackpoint adjustment. Punch and Landscape sharpen presets.
8/21/2009
Kirkby Longsdale
A small village between the Lakes and the Dales, just outside Yorkshire Dales National Park. Home of Ruskin. Lots of famous views and a bridge. We spent a afternoon there with rain threatening the whole time, but glorious light most of the time. This is a view out over the Longsdale River valley.
Minolta A1 at 28mm equivalent. F7.1 @ 1/400th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Required heavy Recovery in Lightroom for the sky, a touch of Fill Light, and blackpoint adjustment. Punch and Landscape sharpen presets.
8/20/2009
Walls along the Lane, Above Kendal
From the same walk as the shot from yesterday, just a few yards up the lane. Amazing stone walls in this part of England. The rolling hills, the sheep, the colors, and the sky.
Minolta A1, at 28mm equivalent. F7.1 @ 1/400th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Required a graduated filter effect from the top to bring out detail in the sky, and a blackpoint adjustment to intensify the colors, as well as the bulk processing listed yesterday.
8/19/2009
Hills above Kendal, between the Lakes and the Dales
In honor of being in England (where I will not have access to this blog), I will post some images from a trip my wife and took to the Lake Country and Yorkshire Dales in 2005. They were taken with the Minolta A1, perhaps the worst digital camera I have ever used…it had a great lens: 28 to 140mm equivalent as I remember, but the sensor had very limited dynamic range compared to cameras I have owned since. I eventually bought a little 6mp Sony pocket camera and, when I saw the results it produce, stopped carrying the A1 altogether. Eventually there was a recall on the model when the sensors failed. By then my daughter was using the camera, and the sensor failed right after the Sony Minolta deal when service was in limbo. I never did get it fixed.
This is image, on the other hand, is one of my favorites from the camera and the trip. Our first night at a farm house B&B above Kendal at the edge of the Lake District, between the lakes and the dales, we took a walk in the B&B.
Minolta A1, at 70mm equivalent. F7.1 @ 1/400th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
In Lightroom I preprocessed all the images in this set (>200) as a batch, applying the Punch preset (added Clarity and Vibrance), and the Landscape sharpen preset. I then opened individual images for additional processing. On this one I applied some Recovery for the sky, a bit of Fill Light, and slid the blackpoint to the right to intensify all the colors.
From England 2005.