Miners Tack Snowdon 4 th Feb 2019

Its early on a Monday morning,   I have driven down to Snowdonia again to take a walk along the Snowdon Miners track.  Driving up towards Pen-y-pass the light is looking very good with blue sky and thick cloud over the top of Snowdons peak, so a quick drive down to the view point carpark for a short drone flight.
It seems quite windy even this low , so I make this a very short 8 minute flight to get a couple of panorama images.

                                                  Looking into the Snowdon Horseshoe.

                                                                            a phone shot

                                                                  9 frame drone panorama

                Now to drive up to the Pen-y-pass car park, and pay the extortionate £10 to park!
Taking the Miners track out of the car park ,which is a nice easy walk along to the Llyn Lydaw lakes which is the location I want to fly today, there is a nice ruined building which should look good from the air, But  as I walk along this path the wind is increasing substantially and could well ruin my plan!

                                           There is not much snow left unfortunately.

                                   I have reached the lake ,   it is blowing a gale up here now.

The edge of the right hand lake is frozen over with some snow cover , so I shoot this image with the canon 5dsr

As I walk around the lake there is a large waterfall coming down from below Crib Goch, and more importantly it is sheltered from the worst of the wind so I can get the drone up for a few images.

                                                                            Llyn Lydaw

Now for the waterfall, I have put a nd16 filter on to block light entering the camera to slow the shutter speed down, so I can experiment with longer exposures to blur the water


                        This is a 5 frame Vertorama  shot at f8  and 1/6 th second exposure.

                                                            crop from above image

The wind is too strong to fly out over the lake to get shots of the ruins today unfortunately, so I will carry on walking a bit further to see what its like round the corner heading towards Glaslyn.

                                         This rock face is covered in a thick layer of ice!

 Much more snow on the path as I get higher,  the cloud is closing in over the summit so I wont carry on any further today.

                             Back down at the lake, a shot of the ruins , best I can do  today.

Walking back round the lake and crossing the causeway between the lakes I have stopped to look back up at Crib Goch, the sun has broken through the clouds and illuminating the ground in front of me.    so a couple of quick handheld dslr images.

Time to head back to the car , The cloud base has lowered considerably over the summit and is heading this way.

But ahead of me, the sun is lighting up the landscape and as I have come around the corner the wind is not so bad, so I will risk a short flight to get an image or two.

                                           
                                                            This is a four image merge.

And as I walk back to the car park the sun is illuminating Capel Curig in the distance ,   using the 100-400mm L lens I managed this image.

Aerial images of Snowdonia winter 2017/18

I have now been flying my DJI Phantom 4 pro drone for just over a year now ,   really enjoying the different perspective you get from shooting above the landscape as opposed to normal .  I have been looking forward to shooting some snow covered mountains and eventually Snowdonia got what i had been waiting for.   so here are a selection of my favourite images from the winter.

         Starting off in Ogwen valley, looking at the Glyders and Y-Garn, 2 frame panorama

                                                           Llyn Ogwen panoramas

                                 

The maximum height we are legally allowed to fly in uk  is 400 ft above ground level ,  i have found between 80 and 250 ft produces the best combination of height and viewing angle to give the best compositions.      If  i want an image that appears to be shot from a much higher altitude i can shoot multiple frames and merge together to give that impression.  an example will be later in this blog.

I stopped off at Capel Curig on my way towards Snowdon and walked up to the viewpoint , it was quite breezy but i had no trouble with the phantom .

                                                 5 image panorama stitched in Ptgui

                                   Looking towards the Snowdon horseshoe in the distance.

Moving on to Llynnau Mymbyr and as i walked to the viewpoint i instantly knew i was going to get some superb images,  having seen topdown shots of snow covered trees in the past that was one of the images i wanted to get.

Firstly just after take off  , i took an image at low level similar composition i would shoot with my dslr ,   but i couldnt get to this shooting spot to use the normal camera on a tripod.

                                 Up over the lake, getting great reflections in the water.

Now across the lake to shoot above the snow covered trees.

                      

                              Looking down the lake towards Snowdon in the background.

                             A vertical panorama , combined 6 frames in ptgui program for this one.

                 The sun was just starting to illuminate the tree tops as i shot this topdown image.

                                                   Looking back towards Capel Curig.

Now onto a couple of different days shooting  on Snowdon ,     walking along the Pyg track to get some height.

A multi frame topdown merge to appear to be shot from very high up  , this is Llyn Glasslyn with the small streams entering on the shore.

                        6 frame panorama merge looking over the lake Llyn Llydaw

                       A Six frame vertical panorama to finish looking at Snowdon over Llyn Glasslyn

                                           All images shot with dji phantom 4 pro + drone.

Mollsters Mountain Yr Wyddfa june 10th 2013

Another mountain to be climbed today , Mollster has been wanting to go climbing again  ...the weather forecast was looking good ish!   so Mt Snowdon seemed a good idea for today.
 Snowdon is in the snowdonia national park in North Wales , at 1085m  (3,560 ft ) it is Wales and British isles highest peak outside Scotland.
Parking up at Pen-y-pass car park £10 rip off!!!!!!!   i can see loads blue sky at present, but looks a bit misty up near the summit.  We are taking the Pyg track up to the summit, and will descend down the miners track.

We have started walking , blue sky and quite warm for a change. heading up towards Crib Goch.  here is the valley looking down to Llanberis where the rack and pinion railway starts from.

Having reached the top of the path where it splits to go up Crib , we take the left path where we can now see Llyn Llydaw and Snowdon itself. The white path that you can see is the Miners track that goes around Llyn Llydaw down in the valley.

                                                What,Why & How did a chair get up here??????????

 We are getting great views from up here , Heading towards the Glaslyn view point now at the top of this path on the right that winds up the mountain side.

            We have made good progress up the track you can see on the left side of below image.

Don't know where all the blue sky has gone :(  Glaslyn is below us now and we are very near to the top now.

At the top ridge , the rail track makes a good diagonal across this image. i can hear a train coming, wonder what Mollster will think of it :D

                                                 She is trying to chase the train   haha

                             Admiring the awesome view from just below the summit.

                                                         Beautiful pose Molly.

                              Mollster has reached the Summit of Snowdon   YAY!

                              What a shame the cloud and mist has covered up all the views!

           its turned quite chilly up here as the cloud builds, good job  i brought a fleece :)

           The summit cafe/railway station, its really busy up here, walkers are having to wait  to get in !

        Sun light breaking though the clouds painting the valleys with light while Mollster poses :)

           

                                                         A nice Molly portrait :)

       The track back down to Glaslyn is behind Molly and goes down around the lakes in the distance.

 A Stunning view from the summit, sea gulls are having a great time and Molly is watching them :)

                        Looking behind the mist and low cloud has rolled in, very atmospheric !

         The sun is painting light on the fabulous landscape ,a good view of the lakes Glaslyn at bottom of image and Llyn Llydaw near the centre. the white path halfway up the image is where we have just walked, and the lower path down to Glaslyn is our way down.

                                                             Molly is posing :)      as usual!

                                We are heading down now after a nice half hour rest.

this is near the top of the steep path down to meet the miners track at Glaslyn , it is quite loose under foot!  but Molly having 4 paw drive its not a problem   hehe

 

                     

                                 "are we going down there Dad? "  Molly is thinking

       Yes Mollster, that is Glaslyn , you might paddle if you pick up the courage  lol

having reached the Glaslyn Molly is actually paddling, but only ankle deep !   the water is stunningly clear and the sun is lighting up the far side , wonderfull view

                                                        My favorite image of the day

walking back to the car park, i stop to watch the welsh mountain goats on the hill side before ending the day .its been a superb 7 hour walk today

                                                          the end of another super walk.

                                             all images shot with canon 5d mk2 & 17-40 L