Cader Idris

Hi,

I thought I'd take some time out last weekend and drive up to Snowdonia in Wales and climb Cader Idris. Not being a great athlete it took more than few hours to get to the first peak.

Anyhow, here's a couple of shots taken on the 5D with EF24-70 and some grads to show how breath-taking some of the views are.



Six portrait frames at 24mm stitched using PTGui



Single frame shot at 24mm.

John,

Is the climb just hard walking or climbing from rock to rock?

This is a pleasure to look at. What wonderful color and detail. I am very impressed with the dimensionality of the pictures. Did you do blending of exposures too or these are single shots?

I'd imagine there were plenty of other subjects closer at hand. The rocks seem very interesting with a surprising array of colors and then the maroon colored flowers (is that heather? hmm, well that's supposed to be purple!)

Is that water used for recreation or as a reservoir? Also while you were up there, were raptors patrolling?

Asher

John,

WoW!
Loave the colors and the perspective. Shows what one can do in midday lighting. One minor point, the lower right corner of the first image is a bit distracting with the bright stone peeking into the frame.

-Nat

Asher,

The round trip is ~7 miles, I'd say it was like climbing stairs, a quite steep clamber in places and just uphill in others. To the hardened mountaineer, its probably a stroll in the park, but I was shattered by the first peak. My 16yr old lad made me look like an old man )

The images were auto blended in PTGui, all shots were manually exposed the same before adding the ND grad. I punched the colours a bit in CS3 and did some tonal contrast adjustments. The heather is pretty much the right colour, if a bit saturated.

No raptors, I'm afraid, in fact I didn't see much bird life at all.

The lake is Tal-y-llyn Lake and is a glacial ribbon lake formed by massive landslip. Not much activity on it, but there's a small jetty just visible on the left.

Nat,

Well spotted, yes it was 12:15. I think midday shots can work if one uses the clouds to add shadow dimension (just sit an wait). I agree the stone on the right is distracting, I think i'll crop it out (plenty of pixels to play with).

Glad you liked them, I find landscapes quite challenging and could do with some of Georg's magic!

John

John_Nevill said:

....... I agree the stone on the right is distracting, I think i'll crop it out (plenty of pixels to play with)...

Click to expand...

Oh no, do not crop it straight away, try burning and desaturating it first. If it doesn't work, you can always crop. BTW, I am certain that the second image will be smashing in B&W if you do a careful conversion on it and play with localised toning to make shadows a bit stronger.

Cheers,

John,

Well captured. The depth and color is very appealing. Stiching is something I left to my
granny. What a loss!

Regards.

wooow its looks crazy...

what was the shutter speed?!