These are both nice. I'm looking forward to seeing the results of you upcoming trip.

Not sure about the faded look, but the aspect ratio works well.

Looks like an interesting place.

It's amazing how these little gems turn up hidden away under such unassuming buildings.

And Mist Came

I've got this week off work and I plan to take at least one trip up to The Lakes during this time, weather permitting of course.

I've been watching the weather around Great Mell Fell, which looked like it was going to be foggy again today, but, assuming the fog turned out to be more than just imaginary (as it did last weekend), it appeared it would be accompanied with moderately high winds, which are not what you really want when taking photographs in a dimly lit woods.

So, as I lazed around in bed this morning, trying to convince myself that getting up was a good idea even though I technically didn't need to, I happened to look at the local forecasts and discovered that Brinscall was going to be foggy until around 10:00ish, which would be amazing as I can count the number of times I've seen fog in Brinscall woods on one finger.

This was certainly going to be an easier forecast to test than the Great Mell Fell one as Brinscall is about 4 miles away, compared to the 80 miles of dreary motorway driving required to reach Great Mell Fell from here, so I threw some clothes on and jumped into the car (well obviously I didn't actually jump into the car, I'm old now, my days of jumping into cars are long behind me, but it sounds better than painfully creaked into the car. Anyway, I digress...) and headed out to Brinscall, arriving at the woods by 8:40.

As you head down the main road into Brinscall, you can see the steeply rising ground which leads up to the moors on the far side of the valley and is home to Brinscall Woods. This was indeed disappearing into some pretty thick looking fog, so things were definitely looking up.

My plan (such as it was) was to spend a bit of time around the lower part of Hatch Brook where I'd been a couple of weeks ago at sunset, but when I entered that part of the woods the visibility was perfect and thoroughly lacking in any hint of mist whatsoever. Onto plan B then and tripod in hand, I began to make my way up the steep, slippery, fallen tree laden path that leads up the hill from this part of Hatch Brook and deeper into the woods.

As I gained altitude, I encountered brief pockets of thin mist, almost hints really, but certainly nothing that stuck around long enough to enhance my pictures. Eventually I arrived at the main track that bisects the woods into lower and higher parts. From here I still wasn't wrapped in any significant quantities of mist, but I was beginning to tantalising evidence of it lurking higher up on the far side of the track.

1. A Hint of Mist

The track runs horizontally behind the tree, just below the halfway mark of this picture. I was thoroughly impressed by the roots on this tree, so it was getting photographed anyway, but you can see the clarity falling off into the distance. I'd reached the edge of the mist.

2. A Fallen Tree

As I wandered deeper into the woods, I encountered these fallen trees.

3. A Different Perspective

Moving past the tree in the foreground gave this view.

4. More Fallen Trees

You've got to be reasonably agile to get through this woods it seems.

5. The Fog's Getting Thicker

As I continued to follow the path, the fog was definitely getting more dense.

6. Can't See The Woods For The Trees

Well, it's more to do with the fog really.

7. Silhouettes

At this point I was pretty close to the upper edge of the woods. Beyond here just lies miles of rolling (and apparently very foggy) moorland.

8. Legs

In this image, my anthropomorphising(?) mind can't help but see legs for tall, Ent like tree creatures striding across the frame from right to left, with their upper bodies out of shot above the top of the frame.

9. Medusa

I get a definite Medusa vibe from this old Beech tree that stands at the upper edges of the Leigh Place ruin. Here it looks to be trapped in a spiky prison by the trees in the foreground.

10. Up Close and Mildly Terrifying

Getting in a bit closer, that's something straight out of an H.P. Lovecraft story that is. Well, if the branches were writhing tentacles it would be.

11. Top Of The Place

Looking on old OS maps, this leaf covered stretch is shown as a short rectangular area leading off the main track at Leigh Place. Presumably it functioned as some sort of drive way.

12. Purest Green

There's some vivid looking stuff growing on these trees. It's not like regular moss, more like mold.

13. Edgy Pines

This path runs up the last stretch of the Southern edge of the woods, leading to the highest point. There would be rolling moorland off the right hand side of the frame, or at least, there would be if it wasn't foggy.

14. Marsden's Farm

This is the ruin of Marsden's Farm. This stands alone on the Southern edge of the woods. For some peculiar reason, when it was demolished the South facing gable end was left standing and remains standing to this day (they knew how to build a solid farmhouse in Brinscall back in the day). The building would have been a long, thin rectangular affair, running from the standing ruin up towards where I was stood with the camera. In its day, the farm would have been stood on open moorland, the woods came along later and consumed it what remained of it.

Epilogue

The fog was forecast to last until 10:00, but nearly four hours after I set foot in the woods it was still reliably scattering light all over the place and had been joined by its old mate, drizzle. I ended up throwing in the towel at this point, because I was exhausted and getting rather hungry. Surprisingly it turns out, carrying a tripod up and down hills is really hard work. The medium format camera and lenses probably aren't helping much either.

All images were taken on a tripod with the Fujifilm GFX100S + GF32-64 lens. I didn't use a CPL, because, like an idiot, I forgot to pack it (in fact, at this point in time I don't actually know where it is. It was last seen in my trouser pocket after yesterday's walk, so I hope it's not in the washing machine, erm...). In spite of that, they remained reasonably well saturated and not particularly marred by reflection on the damp surfaces of leaves, bark and rocks. They were processed from individual raw files in Capture One Pro 23.

Leicas are good but only Leica I will probably buy is Q2/Q3, I dont think that I can live w/o AF :)

There are really interesting.

Both of your shots are very nice and congrats for new cameras :)

I admire your dedication , open shots are really nice but the first one is my pick.

Here is the winner and I am afraid it is not you :) Congrats to your wife

Yes like others said, Batman Batman, nice shot indeed.

I'd entirely dismissed digital medium format as too expensive and unnecessary for my purposes and besides, I was very happy with the Z7. However, during a discussion with a friend about cameras, the topic of medium format came up and this planted some sort of seed, that got me looking at used GFX50S/SII's, which are quite affordable now. Fujifilm had a recent sale on with really big discounts on bodies and lenses and I came ever so close to buying a brand new GFX50SII, but managed to stop myself after comparing samples from one against my Z7 and not really seeing any significant difference.

I then made the mistake of looking at used GFX100S bodies and came to the conclusion that I would see an IQ advantage from one of those compared to the Z7 and, perhaps, it was enough of an advantage to justify the manageable, but not inconsiderate used price, which eventually led to me buying a used one along with the cheapest lens I could find (a used 35-70).

When I first got it, I did some side by side testing against the Z7 and came away quite disappointed as, in most circumstances, I couldn't tell a difference between the images. Despite double the resolution, there wasn't any significant improvement in detail. I concluded this was due to lenses as my Nikon 24-70 f/2.8S is a top end stunningly sharp zoom lens with terrific microcontrast and corner to corner sharpness, while my copy of the 35-70 is just okay, so it probably was undermining what the camera was capable of. I've subsequently purchased the 32-64 f/4.0 and this seems to be better, although I've not done a side by side with the Nikon since that first one, but I do find myself getting quite excited by the amount of detail it pulls out in full res images.

What does seem to be better with the GFX100S is colour and dynamic range, however this is very subjective and difficult to prove without side by side comparisons, but the ability to recover deeper shadows without the image falling apart seems to be a step up from the already impressive Z7 and the ability to differentiate colours seems stronger, which really comes across when I'm editing and selectively tweaking colours.

The camera is not significantly bigger or noticeably heavier than the Z7 (225g between them apparently), but the zoom lenses are bulky, heavy and have surprisingly limited focal ranges for their size. To cover the equivalent focal length of my 24-70 I'd need both the 32-64 and 45-100, both of which have slightly slower apertures too, so although the camera and a single lens isn't too much to carry, a useful kit for landscape work does start to get a bit heavy and cumbersome (that 100-200mm lens is no fun to carry around either and is only equivalent to 79-158mm in full frame terms). The other thing I'm finding is that for best results I really need to use a tripod, which is another thing to carry. That's not to say the IBIS isn't excellent, it is, possibly better than that in the Z7 in my hands, but to really get the best from those 102MP, technique needs to be really good and if you want equivalent DOF to full frame, you need to stop down a bit more (f/8 becomes f/10 for example), so you often end up dealing with slower shutter speeds.

This may sound like I'm complaining or disappointed, but in all honesty I'm not. I'm really enjoying using the camera and I think sometimes I'm getting terrific results from it, particularly in woodland and low lying landscape scenarios, which is what it excels at. I'm keeping the Z7 for situations where I need to travel a bit more lightly though, such as bigger mountains (bigger is a bit of relative term, as I can't handle particularly big mountains anymore due to my heart condition) or situations where a long telephoto might be required, such as wildlife photography.

That turned out to be a longer response than I was expecting, sorry about that.

I really liked the first one. And yes The candelabra ( I have learnt a new word today) is every similar to ones I have seen in many mosques.

You are going to make me buy a macro lens. As always a very impressive shot.

I keep telling myself that, but my lower back disagrees ;-)

I've been having so much fun with the Fuji since I got it, the Nikon's probably feeling a bit neglected. I've just been discussing a trip part way up the Old Man of Coniston with a friend. The Old Man is a 2,600ft mountain in the English Lake District that I've been to the top of a number of times, but it's unlikely I can manage that these days, so for this trip we're just planning to go up as far as the quarries, which should be a pitiful more manageable 800ft of ascent, so I'll probably bring the Nikon along for that expedition to lighten the load. I might even slum it with the 24-200 for a really lightweight kit as that 24-70 f/2.8S is not a light lens either.