Hodge Close Quarry the Lakes Oct 22 nd

Today I am going up to the Lakes again,   Hodge Close Quarry in the Langdale area is my destination as I have never been before.  The route looks fairly simple to get to anyhow, not far from Tilberthwaite .   The weather forecast is looking ok for the morning, a bit iffy for the afternoon though.
After a trouble free drive up the m6 and through Langdale I have arrived in the car park,  it looks really interesting here , autumn colours starting to turn and a bit of blue sky although a tad windy!


Time to get the drone up first , and straight out towards the Tilberthwaite Fells in the distance , I think!
                                                   a 9 frame panorama to start with.

      Topdown over a disused Quarry , the piles of stone in strips clearly visible, similar to just in front of me stretching out like fingers.

                   Now for a multi image panorama showing the above image in its entirety.

               Topdown of the Quarry buldings , nice side lighting at the moment from the rising sun.

      A 9 frame Vertorama showing the buildings and another large Quarry in the middle of image.

           Bringing the drone back now, and from behind me to show the Hodge Close Quarry in its                                surroundings, a 7 frame Vertorama. I will take a look around there later today.

                                                   Topdown with light on the tree tops.

Time to go walking , I will follow the path down into the valley and towards the large quarry shown in some of the earlier images.  Hopefully I will get to Cathedral caves in Little Langdale.

                                Another small quarry, plenty of danger signs around this one.

After a good walk I have eventually found my way to the large quarry , the light is really nice on these trees.

Now to walk around this quarry to get over to the opposite side of the ridge to Cathedral caves.

                                                       Cathedral Cave, magnificent!

Little Langdale has a beautiful old pack horse bridge, "Slater bridge" and it must be very close to where I am , according to google maps. A short walk and I can see it, and its just started to rain!  where did that come from  Doh!     B&W conversion is the only option here.

                 A long exposure using the Lee big stopper, a 10 stop nd filter  on my 17-40L
                                                                    115 seconds  f14

                     and 61 seconds f8 as a comparison,   could not choose which I like best.

                         Time to head back to Hodge Close Quarry now...…………
I have walked around the top of the Quarry ,  looking across to Wetherlam and the Old man of Coniston  behind.   I think!
4 frames merged  5dsr. The drizzle has stopped and blue sky approaching so I will get the drone up for a couple more images of this Quarry now.

                              A Topdown multi image shot showing the entire Quarry.

                                                And now a couple more Vertorama images.

It is clouding over again rapidly and the wind has really picked up so I think its time to head home after a fabulous day in the Lakes.

Llanberis and Caernarfon Oct 14 - 15

This weekend we have decided to visit Snowdonia ,  We can park the van in the middle car park at Llyn Padarn  near Llanberis.  It just happens to be very close to the famous "Lone Tree" so if I can get up in time, a sunrise photo shoot is planned.

Arriving midday and parked up we have taken a walk to see the lone tree,  unfortunately with all the heavy rain recently it is completely flooded and I cannot get near to it,   But the drone can...…..


                                                    The famous Llanberis lone tree.

                                 A multi image Vertorama really shows off the sun lit tree.

I have flown over to the opposite side of the lake to quickly take a couple of images of the country park area.

                                                                                 Topdown

                                         A multi image Vertorama  , Padarn country park.

                                           A 9 frame panorama looking towards Nant Peris.

Time to take the dogs for a walk now before it gets dark, and plan tomorrow. the weather forecast is looking great with light winds and blue sky, so may get a nice sunrise.

Monday morning and I am up early at 7 am , well for me it is!    Sunrise is in 20 minutes so a quick walk around to find the water levels have receded overnight and I can just about get to the tree, and finding a couple of other photographers already there.    Setting up my canon 5dsr , 17- 40L lens with a Lee little stopper and a 0.6 soft nd grad , we await to see if the cloud will light up.   Unfortunately the cloud is a bit too thick for the sun to break though at the critical time , but we eventually got a small amount of colour and mist forming across the lakes surface.  Perfect , almost .


                                                                    30 seconds  f14

       Time to get the drone up before the mist burns off, the sky is clearing fast so it wont be long.

                                                               A low level drone image.

                                                           Topdown over the Lone Tree.

The mist has actually increased , its looking really atmospheric now.  time to get the camera out again
                                                               a quick phone shot first...…..

                      I managed to get the Swan with water dripping from its beak in this image.

The warm sun is now lighting up the mist and its disappearing fast, this will be the last image for this morning,  back to the van for breakfast now.

Its a beautiful sunny morning now , and we are going to try to find Ceunant Mawr waterfall which is somewhere behind the Snowdon mountain railway station.
Walking under the railway bridge just as a train goes past, just caught it  lol

Found it!   but I wanted to be on the path along the river, we have climbed all the way up here for nothing!  Arghhhhhh

                                                           No train coming...………

Back down the hill and along the path we missed  under the bridge, which nicely frames an autumn coloured tree.

This path follows the river all the way to the main waterfall,  Chester is on lead as he might jump in and the water if very fast moving after all the recent rain.

The light is really nice, the waterfall is quite a distance ahead but at this spot I can frame it between the trees and the fern that is lit up with the sun coming through the trees.
Using 100-400mm lens to foreshorten the composition, the waterfall appears much closer than it actually is.   I have shot a long exposure frame for the water and merged together four frames to handle all the highlights and shadows with different focal points.

Time to walk back now, I haven't been able to shoot the actual waterfall as the spray is constantly hitting the lens, so its back down to the lake and then to Caernarfon for the late afternoon and hopefully a decent sunset , but with no cloud at the moment that is doubtful.

           
We have parked along the Aber foreshore rd and walked back to the castle at Caernarfon, taking a good look around the harbour and a few possible sunset locations.
Leaving Jan in the van ,I have walked back to shoot the sunset, its a bit windy now but will get the drone up to see what I can shoot. Standing on the gravel beach just on the corner opposite the castle and the low setting sun is starting to illuminate the walls in lovely warm light , pity there is no cloud in the sky tonight.

                                      5 frame Vertorama, with the sun just catching the trees.

                       
                                     9 frame panorama, the walls lit up with the low sun.

I have flown around the corner up to see if I can shoot the van at sunset, and there is actually good colour in the distance.    and the van is clearly visible .

After that short flight the sun has now set and I have shot a 2 frame panorama on the 5dsr, only a slight pink colour to the sky.

                                   The harbour after sundown, some nice colour now.

The end of another weekend away...…………..

Lake District Derwentwater Oct 7 2018

It is Saturday evening, I have got home from work and with the van already packed and ready to go we are driving straight up to the lakes , heading to Great wood on  Derwentwater .   I checked on the highways website for roadworks on the a66 , they are closed east bound but open west bound until 8pm so we should be ok.   The matrix signs on the m6 were saying the same so we continued past junction 36 and heading up to j40,  the next matrix sign said a66 closed BOTH directions!!!!   wtf!

Cutting a very long story short, after driving around clueless on different diversions going nowhere,  I found a route from j41 that went through back roads to come out at Mungrisdale , which is an area I know a bit , its only a couple minutes to get back on the Keswick road from there,  good job this van is not too big.

        Eventually we have parked up and I get the camera out to shoot a couple of astro shots.

                                                  5dsr    f4 , 25 secs  iso 2400

The following morning I have got up early to try shoot a sunrise over Derwentwater with the drone,  its just too cloudy but will try anyhow as the wind is forecast to get very strong later today so this may well be my only chance to fly.

                                                     Chester doesn't merge in very well  !

                                       Which way should we go?     straight on I think...…

Up with the Drone,   its not the weather I had hoped for, but I can try and get a couple of images.

                                                                   9 frame panorama

Taking a look at the small island, named St Herberts island   .   I have noticed the blue/green algae blooms around the island and  out across the calm surface.

                 Taking the drone down low for a closer look...…………..

                                            Topdown directly over the patterns on the surface.
           There are warning signs around the lake warning of this algae as it is poisonous to dogs.

                    It makes for a good abstract with the algae and cloud reflections in the image.

                                              A 2 frame merge over the end of the island.

                           7 frame Vertorama from 400ft clearly showing the algae formations.

                         18 frames merged together for this topdown view of the entire island.

                   Time to land now having used two batteries, a walk to Ashness bridge now.
              Mollster crossing a wooden bridge, not her favourite to walk over it has to be said.

                                       We are heading to Ashness bridge ,  which way Jan?
                                                and I haven't brought my camera.  Doh!

                           Ashness Bridge, one of the most photographed views in the Lakes.

                                                        Think Mollster likes it ………….

                                         Nice to see a glimmer of sun on the fells behind.

                                                                     Jan snapped me  haha

Time to go back to the van now for lunch, then wait to see what the weather does.  forecast is for heavy rain and gale force winds.
As predicted , Its been chucking it down all afternoon,  but has cleared up enough to walk down to the lake.

       Its wild down here , blowing a gale and raining again.   We are almost getting blown over!

                                                                    Back to the van now....

The following morning we are driving back through the lakes,  and decided to stop of at Grasmere on the way.
Parking up in the layby below Helm Crag,  a walk through the village and maybe around part of the lake.

                                     Autumn is approaching fast,  trees are colouring up now .

                  The sun is breaking through the thick cloud now and again, lighting up the fells.

                                                        The sun illuminating Helm Crag.

               A lovely view through a garden looking towards Helm Crag still with the sun on it.

 Time to head back to the van for lunch now, and then home.  After two last shots with the long lens as the light rakes across the fellside trees.

Where will we go next then ?