Buachaille Etive Mor and The Cuillins

Not the easiest mountain to pronounce, Buachaille Etive Mor or the buckle as it is known in some walking mags. It is near Glen Coe and normally has a decent covering of snow on it but more often than not, a few low clouds I imagine. This was taken at sunrise at about 3.30. A common composition has a few waterfalls in it but I didn't like it as there is a small tree that slightly obscures the mountain. The exif for this was ISO100, 16mm, f/16, 0.6 second. The next shot was also in Scotland, this time on the isle of Skye and is a rugged mountain range known as the Cuillins, we walked up one of these a few hours after this was taken, it was a little grueling to say the least, not aided by the fact that it was one of the hottest days ever recorded on the wee island. Spectacular views at the top though but quite difficult to get a shot in the midday sun. This one from the bottom uses the bridge near the Sligachan hotel for a bit of foreground interest. The exif is ISO100 at 28mm, f/8 for 30 seconds, I used the 10 stop neutral density to try and get some movement in the clouds, didn't really need it in the end.

Four Trees

I was struggling for a decent composition this evening, probably because I spent most of it chatting to a fellow photographer when I should have been scouting out locations! Anyway I usually do lone trees but there wasn't really enough space between these to isolate one tree so I got a bunch of them against a fairly impressive sunset.

Lens flare was a bit of a problem as it always is when the sun is in shot but I got rid of most of it in post, I should have really removed the polariser as it was doing nothing facing the sun, it'd have been one less dirt and dust catching barrier between the scene and the sensor! I used a soft Lee 3 stop grad as the sky was a crucial part but I didn't want the land completely silhouetted. The exif stuff is ISO100, f/16 for 1/3 sec at 16mm although I am going to make a conscious effort to use a slightly narrower focal length in future, say 24ish mm, it's tough when I like to include so much sky!

More Beach Photography

Two more beaches from Harris, these probably count as the same beach but one is a little bit hidden. They aren't short of white beaches and blue seas up there, unless you go to the east side and then it's rocks and more rocks, the change in landscape over such a short distance has to be seen to be believed. The fist shot was another with the 10 stop ND filter and a 90 second exposure at f/11 (ISO100) one of the key things I learnt whilst doing this was to stand and position your shadow over the camera and tripod, this gets rid of any glare from the sun. I'd always read about shielding the sun but my hand always ended up in the shot. If I'm not behind the camera I may as well make myself useful and stand at the side! This technique cannot be done in the second photo as the sun is in shot, producing the glare, it can be removed in post but I wanted to keep it in on this one. Nothing overly tricky with this one, ISO100 16mm, f/16 for 1/3 sec. I had a 3 stop soft grad to make the sky play ball and tried to compose so the lines (rocks, sand etc) lead to the sun.

Panoramas from Glen Coe

These ones are coming out of the camera thick and fast! We spent a day travelling around the famous photographic locations around Glen Coe in Scotland such as Rannoch moor, BuachailleEtive Mor and the actual glen itself, a great drive and the weather was fantastic, in fact it was probably a bit too nice for photos, certainly at midday when the sun was high. As all the locations are relatively close together I could go back and forth between them which was good, especially at late afternoon/sunset.


The first shot was at the 3 sisters and is a panoramic stitch of about 7 vertical shots taken at 35mm, I've started zooming in more for panoramas if I can. There is an export to panorama function in Lightroom which is pretty good (it takes them straight into photoshop and does the business) but for these panoramas I used a program called PTGui, it allows you to move the horizon about which is handy when you do a panorama without a tripod, or in my case with a tripod but with a bent horizon, as mentioned, this was my first outing with a ball head so I needed to get used to it.

The next panorama is of Glen Coe, it has to be one of the prettiest places in Britain. Again a stitch of about 6 photos, I had to go to 16mm with this one as those mountains are pretty big!

Cropped Landscapes

A couple more from the Scotland trip. I have put these two together as I have cropped them to an aspect ratio of 2:1 as opposed to my usual 3:2. This gives a more wide screen format and is useful when there isn't a great deal going on at the top and bottom of the frame. The first shot was a sunrise near Brogaig on Skye, I got up thinking it would be amazing and only took 3 frames before the clouds moved up and got me, so had to go read my book in the car in the hope they would clear, they didn't. Taken at 35mm, f/16 for 6 seconds (ISO100).


The second is on a beach in Harris at Husinish using the slightly unruly 10 stop filter to smooth out the sea, not that it needed a great deal of smoothing. It was taken at 16mm, f/16 for 30 seconds at ISO200, I could have done ISO100 for 60 seconds to get a similar exposure with a little more movement but that would have meant going into bulb mode and getting the cable release out etc, I was there at midday so these were just snapshots really. I think the semi panoramic layout works quite well for these though, I guess I just have a bit of a dislike for the older 5x4 ratio that is almost a square!

Isle of Harris

I have recently been on a trip to the Isle of Harris of the north west coast of Scotland to do a few landscapes. We were very lucky with the weather all week and hopefully I got some decent shots. I've barely begun processing them but I thought I'd put a couple up now and others as and when I finish with them. I was in a long exposure mood so a lot of them have the associated cloud and water movement. These two were near where we camped on the western side of the island. We also stopped in Glen Coe and Skye for a few nights so I'll put some of those up soon too. It was my first time using a ball head tripod, I usually have a 3 way but this is a great bit of kit, as long as you remember to lock it down, I forgot once or twice which was almost quite an expensive mistake! I think both of these were taken on Bulb mode with a shutter release cable at f/11 for 90 seconds (ISO100).