Hope valley & Hathersage

[drmarkf]

I enjoyed a couple of days earlier this week in Derbyshire.

Wednesday morning found me climbing in to the grey cloud base on Mam Tor before dawn in a freezing 35mph wind. I almost gave up and returned to the B&B for a Full English, but fortunately I persisted because suddenly this happened:

Hope valley2 by drmarkf, on Flickr

Hope valley sunbeams by drmarkf, on Flickr

Hope cement works by drmarkf, on Flickr

On Thursday I saw a much less startling dawn on Higger Tor, but the gritstone textures came up well in the post-dawn light:

Higger Tor1bw1 by drmarkf, on Flickr

All are 5-shot 2-stop HDRs with HDR eFex: nos. 1, 2 and 4 are with the 7-14 f2.8 and no. 3 with the 40-150 f2.8.

I've turned down the saturation in no. 1 because I don't think anyone would believe what it actually looked like!

[Imageryone]

Having lived in the fens for many years, I can believe you , Mark. One of the great things about the whole Olympus system is the ability to capture colour.

[drmarkf]

Looking again at no. 1 makes me think I've now turned the colour down a tad too far, and the sky has gone muddy. I'll go for something intermediate.

[Lee]

A nice set you've got there from a lovely part of the country. Even the cement works somehow seems to blend in with its surroundings.
I'll await the retouched image with interest.

[Ralph Harwood]

It looks like you had some great light up on Mam Tor! When I went a couple of weeks ago the cloud was pretty persistent, with only the occasional shafts of light breaking through. I was a few miles to the north of you on Wednesday in the Yorkshire dales - the light was pretty good up there too! Thanks for posting these images,

Cheers,

Ralph.

[Wee man]

No. 4 stands out for me great light in them all but the tree shadows and the smoke around the works really makes it special.

[OM USer]

#1 is a rare shot, but I also like #3.

[Loup Garou]

The Cement Works one with those tree shadows is superb. Almost surreal.

[mstphoto]

A lovely set Mark
The Cement Works is my top image as well

Not overly processed HDRs either which is good
When shooting HDR landscapes, I tend to blend in a "normal" sky to make it less HDR-like as, IMHO, HDR skies look don't look all that great.
Yours aren't all that bad though.
Lately, I've been using the Lightroom "Merge to HDR" function.
I find this gives a nice natural look.

Mike

[drmarkf]

Originally Posted by mstphoto

Not overly processed HDRs either which is good
When shooting HDR landscapes, I tend to blend in a "normal" sky to make it less HDR-like as, IMHO, HDR skies look don't look all that great.
Yours aren't all that bad though.
Lately, I've been using the Lightroom "Merge to HDR" function.
I find this gives a nice natural look.

Mike

Many thanks.
Yes, I always say I'm an HDR photographer who hates HDR. Several people in our club speak highly of the natural effects you can get with LR blending, but I reckon it is also perfectly possible to get this in HDR eFex by judicious use of sliders and avoiding almost all the presets.

The tele shot of the cement works does actually have quite a lot of detail extraction and tone compression by my usual standards, but I did that because the original looked slightly surreal to begin with.

These days with Oly's excellent bracketing capabilities and huge, cheap SD cards one might as well take HDR series when shooting landscape since you don't lose anything much and when contrast is high your options are greatly enhanced.

[mstphoto]

I only wish the E-M1's HDR setting included 1 stop increments as well as 2 stop.
Sometimes I find 2 stops are too much.
I suppose I could always set up a Fn button for 1 stop bracketing

Mike

[drmarkf]

So, is this OTT?
It is much more like the scene felt to me at the time, although I admit to being potentially influenced by the impact of the transition from cold, grey twilight just beforehand.
Hope valley2 3 by drmarkf, on Flickr

[Phill D]

Wow what a beautiful set of images. As the others said #1 & 3 are superb. The revised #1 is as you say looking a little bit OTT but it really does stand out and printed large I bet it would be truly stunning. You are definitely making me feel guilty as I've been promising myself I'd go up there and take some shots for ages and just haven't been out much lately. Now I'm sure of what I've been missing. Thanks for the kick up the backside

[Ralph Harwood]

Hi there Mark!

Number 1 revised looks pretty much the same as the light I saw over Pendle hill driving north on Wednesday morning - I would have been 30 miles or so north west at that point, but the colours really were that vivid where I was. Unfortunately I was on the M6 so I couldn't pull over to get a shot.

A great image from a great set!

Cheers,

Ralph.

[Otto]

Excellent set of pics Mark. I didn't think they were HDR until you mentioned it - which is a good sign. I think the revised no.1 is perhaps a bit OTT for me too but it's certainly eye-catching. The effect makes it look more like a painting than a photo, with a fair degree of positive input from the artist; as such it probably evokes a greater emotional response from the viewer. Great stuff, anyway!