Sunrise at Dunnottar

Posted on 2024-02-13 by spodzone

Sometimes you just have to head up the road to catch the sun rising over the horizon at a favoured castle ruin.

I have photos for sale of Dunnottar Castle over on shiny.photo.

New Toy: Meet the Wobbleometer(TM)

Posted on 2024-02-13 by spodzone

I’ve had my eye on the Raspberry Shake seismometer for a couple of years now. Last week, I finally succumbed and bought both a new Raspberry Pi (just a 4B 2GB RAM – cheap yet more than adequate) and a Shake 1-D.

The 1-D is a simple seismometer, responding only in the up/down direction. Other products are available…

Mine arrived as a kit, that even I was able to stick together in under half an hour (thanks to a youtube video showing what most of the screws and things were for).

I installed and levelled it on the downstairs windowsill and plugged it directly into the main ADSL router – when you’re uploading a hundred samples per second, minimizing latency is essential.

Obviously, being based in mainland Scotland, I don’t expect to see that many significant earthquakes. We get a handful of ~magnitude 2.5 around the country every couple of years if we’re lucky. However, recently YouTube has sent me down a rabbit-hole of geological analyses of goings-on in Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula – the recent sequence of volcanic eruptions alternating with tiny earthquakes as the magma chamber refills.

The very first night, I spotted a magnitude 3.6 quake in Iceland.

Since then, the live data stream has sadly been unavailable for about 5 days, but when it works, the ability to select a quake event and then click on a station and see the station’s raw data really rocks.

There was another magnitude 3.7 earthquake along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge offshore a few miles south-west of Grindavik yesterday. The live-data view is currently working in the mobile app, leading to this analysis – showing the P and S waves propagating from the event.

As monitoring equipment goes, I’m impressed. It’s a wonderful device, very sensitive yet easy to set up and works well. I’ll continue to watch for all quakes nearby and larger ones further afield, if only to be able to say “I saw it” 🙂

Canon vs Fuji: R5 Fail

Posted on 2023-02-09 by spodzone

Last summer, I thought to upgrade from the Fuji X-T4 to the Canon R5.

Sunset beside the Frandy Tree, Glendevon — Sunset by the Frandy Tree

It didn’t last long.

I spent ages poring over specs sheets online, checking image quality, etc.

As a geek interested in various forms of nature photography (closeup, landscape and astrophotography), for over a decade I’ve made a habit of shooting more than one RAW per output image. Whether the scene in front of me benefits from simply average-stacking, HDR, focus-stacking, pixel-shift or panorama, the more data captured at source, the better an image can be produced and the more future-proof it is against further revisiting, potentially years down the line.

Given that I do a lot of my photography during weekend hikes around the countryside, in any given day I’m likely switching between these drive modes on a regular basis as I react to what’s in front of me.

This is where the Canon R5 falls down. For all that the specs suggest it might be a “perfect” camera for landscape, in reality it’s anything but. I found are three areas of major fault that nobody in any “review” seems to have noticed:

The electronic shutter is arbitrarily limited to no longer than 0.5s shutter speed. This renders it impossible to make a focus-stack where the individual frames are any longer than that – so loch-shore landscapes are out. I contacted Canon Support about this and they said they had no plans to fix it.
The 14-bit read-out is only available in burst modes slower than H+; in that mode it drops to 13-bit, potentially making images noisier.
Switching between focus-stacking and exposure-bracketing is a massive pain in the backside. I had to use the My Menu to bring the two drive-modes closer; even so, switching between the two requires entering whichever is enabled, disabling it, going into the other, enabling it and checking the parameters. You can’t store either of these drive modes as an aspect of a custom user mode. If nothing else, it slows me down in the field.
Canon’s attitude – corporate “Big Photo”(TM) – where the EF lens mount is well established, the RF mount is relatively immature and they used patents to stop third-party manufacturers producing RF lenses to protect their profits. Legally fine, but doesn’t sit well with me as playing nice.

I got a few good photos out of it, but the above loomed too large, destroyed my enthusiasm for it – big regret.

So I sold it after only a few months.

Fuji brought out the X-H2 while I wasn’t looking and it is far better suited to my taste.

I know Fuji users tend to like the rangefinder-style exposure controls, but this has sensible PASM controls that allow storing actually useful combinations of settings in my 7 custom modes. (C1 = walk-around aperture-priority starting from f/5.6, auto ISO, colour, AEB; C2 = serious tripod-using landscape in manual mode, base ISO, 1s for long exposures, b&w preview, pixel-shift, …)
40MP is a major leap forward in APS-C sensors. It goes without saying that it’s 14-bit in any drive mode.
In a first for Fuji, it supports pixel-shift
The drive-modes are a button-push away – all of them including in-camera HDR, bracketing, focus-stacking and pixel-shift – and can be saved as part of a custom user mode.
Long exposures are timed up to 15 minutes! No need for Bulb mode!
The more I use the camera, the more I appreciate little things that show how well thought-out it is – memorably, where other cameras – Sony! – have a USB-C slot for power, transfer and remote control, the Fuji X-H2 has the USB-C slot for the first two but remote cable release is a micro-jack socket on the other side of the camera. So for astrophotography on a star-tracker, it’s an absolute beast – external powerbank coming in, shutter triggering automatically and pixel-shift as a form of dithering on 1-minute sub-exposures, it doesn’t get any better.

I don’t normally much care for brand allegiance – I’ll shift from Olympus to Pentax to Fuji to Sony to Fuji to Canon to Fuji if I think they suit me best at a given moment (over many years, I might add!) – but I can’t help notice this is now the third time I’ve come round to Fuji… it’s almost a habit.

Around Comrie

Posted on 2022-04-24 by spodzone

A few years ago I discovered a pleasant gentle walk route around the Water of Ruchill outside Comrie. Almost entirely flat, it follows a loop from the village centre through scrub woodland (ideal shade on a sunny day!) along the side of the river past fields formerly occupied by a Roman fort, down to Cultybraggan PoW camp and back along the main B-road for a bit before taking a detour along a path from a standing stone over fields into the southern end of Dalginross and back along the streets to where it started.

In the town centre, the White Kirk stands out for its architecture with prominent tower and spire. Formerly the parish church, it is now home to a community centre.

Scrub woodland detail: a plethora of small gnarly trees amid a sea of wild garlic. Taken on a stroll around the Water of Ruchill walking route.

One of a handful of standing stones in the West Cowden farm area, hinting at possibly being a stone circle, the cup-marked “Roman Stone” sits beside the B827 south of Comrie.

A striking building with its tower and spire, formerly the parish church but now home to the community centre.

Finally, a drone overview of the whole town – to the north, Dalginross, Comrie, Melville’s Monument and Glen Lednock; to the south, the Highland Boundary Fault runs from Glen Artney in the west right along the field across the road from Cultybraggan through Cowden Loch, Mill of Fortune and Newburgh Wood.

A map of the area, courtesy of the BGS Geoindex:

Sunset, Rhue by Arisaig

Posted on 2021-09-06 by spodzone

I wouldn’t be the only person to favour Scotland’s west coast – its beautiful landscape, impressive geology.

After a day exploring outside and around Mallaig, I stopped at Arisaig to catch the sunset and was not disappointed.

First, a couple of obvious scenes at the end of the road, the low warm light skimming lines of rock

A favoured location – can’t beat a day on the west coast of Scotland, the beautiful landscape, impressive geology. After a day exploring, I stopped at Arisaig to catch the sunset and was not disappointed. This was an easy composition to find, the lines of psammite rock zig-zagging through the vertical frame, all illuminated by the bright warm/orange sunset light from the west.

I flew the drone a little way out over Loch nan Ceall for a more elevated perspective. The light was turning red, catching the rugged hills nearby

The view out west directly toward the setting sun was particularly impressive

The 360º panorama is one of my favourite art-forms: for best results, the optimum workflow is:

choose a location directly above some non-uniform structured area – not just directly above the sea but over a reef, so the panorama can stitch properly
think about the contrast-ratio from brightest to darkest areas of the scene; if the sun is visible, use a narrow aperture (f/10 or thereabouts) so the diffraction-spikes cling closer to the sun; choose an exposure such that the brightest part of the scene is just beginning to overexpose – typically you can recover 2/3EV highlights in post but the shadows get noisy fast and with a direct into-the-sun shot the shadow-side can easily require a 3EV shadow-lift
shoot RAW DNGs and ignore the JPEG
use RawTherapee to convert the JPEGs – apply lens distortion correction and a small amount of tonemapping, maybe even the dynamic-range-reduction module
use Hugin to stitch the panorama: optimize for position, barrel distortion and view but not translation; use equirectangular projection and auto-straighten; ensure the FoV is 360×180º (it may be out by 1, ie 179º); use blended+fused output for noise-reduction, unless it introduces stitching edge artifacts
finish, including toning and noise-reduction/sharpening, in darktable.

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Finally, just as I started the return drive, the sky provided yet more drama to see me on my way:

A selection of the above photos are available on my gallery website as prints, cards, masks and other products: Arisaig on ShinyPhoto.

Mallaig Circular and Loch an Nostarie

Posted on 2021-09-04 by spodzone

On a whim, I spent my August bank holiday out and about exploring a new location: on the far west coast, Mallaig is home to the ferry port connecting to Skye.

Just to the south of the town lies Loch an Nostaire – a lovely shallow loch of clear pure water and indeterminate name etymology: the current spelling is clearly anglicised, although there are no mentions of the more obvious Gaelic Nostaraidh, but rather variations include “Nosaraidh” and “Nossery” according to the 1852 Admiralty Charts. One option is for the name to date back to Old Norse naust, a ship; an alternative derivation might be via Gaelic nòsar, juicy, sappy, white. This would be cognate with nòs, cow’s milk, which sits well with one of the tributary burns being called the Allt a’ Bhainne.

The Mallaig Circular walk leads from Glasnacardoch just off the Rathad nan Eilean inland to the loch, then up between the hills Creag a’Chait and Cruach Mhalaig before descending to Mallaig.

The view down the loch, especially from higher up, is beautiful: to the east the hills of Cruach Clachach and Cruach Bhuidhe are quartzite outcrops forming a backdrop behind an unnamed island on the loch covered with native Scots Pine trees; along the opposite side of the loch runs a prominent ridge where Morar schist pelite changes to psammite.

Classic landscape: small rocky boulders in the foreground, an expanse of grass, and the loch and hills beyond under a clear blue sky.

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Dunning Glen

Posted on 2021-06-07 by spodzone

One of my favoured local woodlands, just a few minutes’ drive from home, is Dunning Glen. Starting from the village, stroll up the road, round the corner and through the small doorway into the woods where trees and rivers play.

There are some steep bits, but plenty of the oak trees in particular have a gnarly character.

Herewith, some photos:

Appreciating shape and form: strong lines of an oak tree.

My favourite from this particular afternoon was this oak – some of its branches having rotted and fallen off:

The latter is available as prints, cards, masks and other products, via my main website: there is a pleasure in the pathless woods.

Early Autumn at Glen Affric

Posted on 2020-11-17 by spodzone

A year without a trip to my Nice Place™ just wouldn’t be a year. It had to be done – in a moment between lockdown and further covid-19 restrictions, I nipped up to Glen Affric for a few hours.

Some intimate landscape views:

Vibrant colours in the soft light, days shortening at the start of autumn, Glen Affric.

I also flew the drone around a bit. Lovely light, getting a better overview of the extent and distribution of the Caledonian Forest, river, mountains and haze into the distance.

Some of my favourite trees – Scots Pines in the Caledonian Forest reserve at Glen Affric, with Loch Affric and Sgurr na Lapaich in the distance.

Some years ago, I had visited the glen in the middle of winter, with temperatures a degree either side of freezing, thawing slightly as the morning progressed. I was struck by a pattern of foam flecks on the water – particularly with a fine layer of ice just millimeters below the surface, over which the foam flowed. It moved so slowly, an abstract pattern messing with my eyes trying to work out how it moved. And I was surprised, because a couple of hundred yards upstream, the river had just travelled over a couple of waterfall cascades – so where did all the energy go? With a little thought, the river changes from wide yet rapid to deep and slower, with a yet deeper central channel in a V-shape.

This time, I flew the drone over the same mouth of the river, looking straight down onto the surface. This perspective makes the patterns of the foam all the more apparent – not just a difference between the central streak flowing faster, but a semi-regular pattern in the pattern against the far bank – indicating submerged boulders.

Foam on the River Affric outflow into Loch Beinn a’Mheadhoin

Unlike previous years’ visits, where I gravitate toward early mornings, this time I had arrived late in the afternoon, with just enough time to fit in a stroll before the light faded.

The light faded.

My favourite trees looked really rather pleasant in softer light, part-silhouetted against the sunset:

Beautiful soft and gentle light – my two most-favourite trees standing on a small rise of glacial moraine, silhouetted against a grey-blue sky.

Then, in conventional fashion, night fell. I’d never been up at the Nice Place to watch that happen before, but it was magical. I stood at the famous viewpoint near the memorial, watching the clouds skimming overhead from the north as the moon rose – with Jupiter and Saturn nearby, and noticed a moon-dog aka paraselene – the first time I’ve seen such a thing, an analogue with a sun-dog during the day.

Moon-dog (paraselene), Saturn and Jupiter

Finally, with night thoroughly underway, I made a photo of the well-known view looking along the length of Loch Affric toward the mountains of Kintail in the west – the landscape bathed in moonlight, all cool blue with the barest hints of structure and even less colour in the otherwise reddy bracken.

The mountains of Kintail from Glen Affric by moonlight

Prints, masks, cards and other products based on images above and others, are available from my ShinyPhoto website: Glen Affric.

In Inverary

Posted on 2019-10-07 by spodzone

This past Saturday was the Word-wide Photo Walk; as has become an occasional habit, I attended the Inverary walk.

There was a trip around the Inverary Jail:

It’s ALIIIVE!! Rather too-closeup detail of a wax model at Inverary Jail.
Winter is coming(TM) Two sides of a barred doorway Inverary Jail, taken on the Worldwide Photo-Walk 2019
What shall we do with this one? Looking back it does seem somewhere between crazy and barbaric, acts that were considered crimes in previous centuries, their understanding and severity fuelled by basic superstition.
Detail of keys on a keyring, Inverary Jailer’s uniform closeup
Black paint, white plaster: original piping for gas lighting installed in 1841. Technologies come and go…
Our illustrious host for the Worldwide Photo Walk in Inverary, 2019 One of the challenges for the group was to take a photo of someone we spoke with on the day.

and around the town front and Castle:

Detail of a fallen leaf amongst stones in the River Ary with Inverary Castle in the distance
An ornate stone bridge over the River Ary in the grounds of Inverary Castle.
An awesome grey stone lump in Gothic Revival style – dating from 1743, replacing an earlier castle of a couple of centuries previous.
Scotland’s last working Clyde Puffer, the Vital Spark of Glasgow, berhted at Inverary harbour.

and early-autumn scenery around Dubh Loch:

The beginnings of autumn: no rich leaf colour yet, but shades of yellow and green (equal parts conifer needles and tree-beard lichen) taken across Dubh Loch.
Small boat parked above the jetty beside the boathouse, Dubh Loch.
A mostly overcast grey end of the day, but with a little subtle direction to the light illuminating the underside of the bridge beautifully.

Some of these are available as prints over on ShinyPhoto.

Lunan Bay

Posted on 2019-09-12 by spodzone

In general, lacking high pointy mountains, Angus always strikes me as one of the less dramatic parts of the country. However, I’ve visited the Lunan Bay area a few times and it makes a good escape for an afternoon.

There’s quite a nice beach…

Pebbles amongst sand
Decaying lump of tree bark on sand
A small floral life-form amongst the pebbles and sand.
Signs on a shed on the weay to Lunan Bay beach
Sweeping leading lines – where the Lunan Water meets the sea
Beach details: dead tree trunks/branches embedded in the sand, pointing at a hut amongst the dunes.

and the ruins of Red Castle stand out stark sandstone against blue skies – ideal with high-flying cirrus cloud in the background.

Pleasantly contrasty light illuminating the castle ruins, against a dramatic cloudy sky.
Pleasantly contrasty light illuminating the castle ruins, against a dramatic cloudy sky.
Quite an impressive ruined castle atop a small hill.
Mouth of the Lunan Water outflow through the beach below Red Castle.

It also looks quite good from the air.

Red Castle, Lunan Bay
Red Castle, Lunan Bay
Floor plans
Lunan Water
Estuary
Red Castle, Lunan Bay

And finally, I’m experimenting with a different art form – composite overlays, controlling visual information by selectively retaining structures. Essence of Lunan in one.

Composite: various aspects of an afternoon spent at Lunan Bay blended together.

Assynt, Day 2: Solus Na Madainn

Posted on 2019-08-21 by spodzone

For the second day of my holiday last Autumn, I got up – again! – at a ludicrously early hour and drove from Tongue round to the Assynt peninsula, to my favourite viewpoint for sunrise.

It was some drive.

All the way from Tongue to Loch Assynt without seeing another car. Bliss.

Take the A838 road (abused as part of the ghastly NC500 coastal route) via Durness at 5am in the pitch black, the wind blowing a gale, rain + windscreen wipers on full speed.

Picture avoiding a herd cows intruding across the road. Avoiding more than 10 deer.

At that surreal pre-caffeinated hour of the morning, seeing a signpost advertising “serving local seafood” makes me picture a restaurant waiter taking a scallop’s order at table.
The music of choice was Arcade Fire Mountains beyond Mountains – a song bemoaning city life with its world so small – a mental image contrasting with my surroundings, passing rural Scourie, pop 132 – the sort of place that takes longer to say the name than drive through.

And so I arrived at Rhicarn – the landscape black, clouds a grey plasma, just a little bit windy…

And the sun rose. Quite spectacularly, casting brilliant crepuscular rays from the horizon and underside edges of clouds.

A brilliant display of crepuscular rays, shadows coming from the edge of a cloud as the sun rose beside Canisp.
Beautiful morning light: crepuscular rays streaming from a cloud edge, illuminating the sides of Suilven and Canisp and the Manse Loch in the foreground.
A thick cloud obscured the freshly risen sun – its edges casting crepuscular rays over the hazy landscape. Autumn at my favoured viewpoint, Rhicarn in Assynt.
A thick cloud obscured the freshly risen sun – its edges casting crepuscular rays over the hazy landscape. Autumn at my favoured viewpoint, Rhicarn in Assynt.
Loch Uidh a’Chliabhain and the Manse Loch in the foreground; beautiful receding layers of mountains in the middle; a stunning dramatic display of crepuscular rays as a cloud obscured the rising sun in the distance. Projection: Rectilinear (0) FOV: 23 x 16 Ev: 11.38
Loch Uidh a’Chliabhain and the Manse Loch in the foreground; beautiful receding layers of mountains in the middle; a stunning dramatic display of crepuscular rays as a cloud obscured the rising sun in the distance. Projection: Rectilinear (0) FOV: 23 x 16 Ev: 11.38

Throughout the sunrise, the light was spectacular – brightly illuminating colourful clouds.

Simple abstract patterns: bright early morning sunlight illuminating clouds a warm yellow/orange.

…and casting a subtle hazy glow over the morning fog across Little Assynt, outlines of hills receding into the mist

As the sun rose, the ground heated just enough for the overnight dew to evaporate into a thick fog, filling the landscape enough to obscure the receding lines of hills into nothing but a bright haze beside the sun. Manse Loch / Loch Uidh a’Chliabhain remains clear, a mile into the foreground.
Iconic Scottish landscape: the Manse Loch and layers of hills and mountains receding into the hazy distance

Perhaps my favourite image from the morning has to be Suilven, the unmistakable mountain on the horizon, catching a subtle patch of oblique sunlight on a flank.

The unmistakable shape of Suilven (Sùilebheinn) catching an oblique beam of warm early morning sunlight.

Once the sun rose, I explored the Falls of Kirkaig outside Inverkirkaig. A nice long walk through lumpy landscape, to a large thundering waterfall.

Undulating landscape; gneiss outcrops amongst the grass and heather beside the path above the River Kirkaig gorge.
An impressive waterfall – 60ft tall and flowing deep and fast into its splash-pool below. It’s also one of the scariest places I’ve been in a landscape; this view is from a small platform area, a steep descent down the left face of the gorge. With my own dog for company there was limited space even to turn around and plant the tripod and camera bag.
As if the river Kirkaig wasn’t full and fast enough in the bottom of the gorge, walking back along the top the clouds were pretty dramatic, the light behind coming through as crepuscular rays above the silhouetted hills.

Returning to above Rhicarn, clouds had flowed in obscuring the mountains on the horizon, so I experimented flying the drone to admire the surrounding landscape.

There’s something about finding a thin strip of old tarmac that obviously used to be a road – it makes a connection with the story and heritage of a location. From researching on Pastmap, it appears there was not much road here at all throughout the 19th century – presumably a cattle drovers’ track or similar. Then the old tarmac was laid, following a circuitous path around the gneiss rock hills. Finally, some time after the 1960s, a new road, now the B869, was laid through it in a boring straight line, the old route relegated to a carpark yet visible and walkable either side of the road.

I suspect at one stage this might have been nothing more than a cattle drover’s track down to the lowlands, maybe up until the early 1900s; up to 1960 the road was just a thin narrow track of tarmac with a couple of moderately sharp twisty turns in. Since then the B869 has been rerouted into a simple and less inspiring straight line and the old road relegated to a path, some of it widened to form a carpark beside the new. The bedrock is mostly Scourian gneiss, metamorphic, formed 2500-4000 million years ago (and therefore amongst the oldest rock to be found on the planet); down the centre of this view is a line of Lewisian metagabbro, gneissose, also metamorphic, formed 541-4000 million years ago. I’m not sure what the large central depression might be – it looks rather like a quarry, although there’s no evidence of anything on the maps.

Behind this scene, on the way to Clachtoll, lies some beautiful Karst landscape (cnoc’n’lochan or knock-and-lochan), formed by underground erosion of softer rock, leading to a classic pattern of rocky knolls interspersed (almost 50-50 by area) with lochs.

The joys of knock-and-lochan Karst landscape: it’s almost all equal parts gneiss rocky outcrops and lochs with roads wending their way through the shapely landscape.

Further along the road lies the Maiden Loch, of which I’ve been very fond since first catching sight of it years ago. That first view was on a sunny afternoon, the sky blue reflecting in the water. I flew the drone over it, to admire the gneiss landscape all the more…

Fantastic scenery: Assynt at its very best. A very windy moment flying the drone above one of my favourite lochs, the Maiden Loch near Clachtoll. The landscape is typical knock-and-lochan Karst formation: shaped by the dissolution of a layer or layers of soluble bedrock, small undulating gneiss hillocks emerge amongst the lochs. In the hazy distance, Suilven cuts its familiar outline on the far horizon.

Some of the above photos are available on my photo gallery website: ShinyPhoto: Assynt

Smirisary

Posted on 2019-08-07 by spodzone

Can’t beat Scotland’s West Coast in summer. Saturday was spent exploring a new place to me, Smirisary in Glenuig, Lochaber.

A beach of large psammite outcrops with lyprophyre dykes

Cracks and sedimentary strata lines in an exposed lump of psammite, Smirisary.
Erosion in action: an exposed lump of psammite (metamorphosed former sandstone) showing lines of strata and cracks, with gentle folding, yet surrounded by stones and boulders where the sea has eroded it away.
Cracks and sedimentary strata lines in an exposed lump of psammite, Smirisary.
A perfect subject for an abstract art: dense close strata layers of psammite (mid/coarse-grained metamorphosed sandstone) tightly packed.

Signs of habitation – old (but possibly still in use) croft/houses just above the shore in amongst the caves

Signs of settlements – Smirisary forms a small cluster of houses down around the shoreline, nestling amongst the rocks.
Evidence of former habitation. Just because the west coast has its culture and traditions does not mean we should refrain calling out an example of litter for what it is in the context of environmental pollution. Discarded metal bath-tub and other crap in a cave-mouth, Smirisary.
A beautiful beach – ideal for a paddle in the shallow seas with Dog – surrounded by rocky cliffs.

Beautiful landscapes – wide vistas via light on the sea out to the islands of Eigg and Rùm on the horizon

Sunlight playing on ferns in the foreground, looking out to the islands of Much, Eigg and Rum with their distinctive mountain outlines on the horizon.
Sky meets sea in an atmospheric haze of glowing light. Very ethereal.
Dramatic light: crepuscular rays emanating from dark clouds over the islands of Eigg and Rum across the water.
A variety of types of cloud billowing gently over the distinctive outlines of Eigg and Rum on the horizon.

And on the way back home we called in at Loch Eilt by the roadside – partly to wash the salt water out of the dog, but also to admire the symmetrical reflections. The midges were out in force, pesky and biting as ever, but the photos were worth it…

Pure green: Scots Pine trees on an island across Loch Eilt. Pleasant clear and pure water. Shame about the hordes of midges – some flying so close to the lens I could see them larger than life on the live-view screen. A combination of long exposures sufficed to remove them, however – this is a combination of HDR (5*±0.7EV) and pixel-shift (4*1px offset) for optimal dynamic range and resolution.
Scots Pine trees on an island across Loch Eilt.Pleasant clear and pure water. Shame about the hordes of midges – some flying so close to the lens I could see them larger than life on the live-view screen. A combination of long exposures sufficed to remove them, however – this is a combination of HDR (5*±0.7EV) and pixel-shift (4*1px offset) for optimal dynamic range and resolution.

Concerning Rocks

Posted on 2019-07-31 by spodzone

Some years ago I had a passing interest in the abstract shapes and forms rocks can take.

Recently I was out on the Aberdeenshire coast hunting photos with a friend, who, being impressed with the rocky coastline, wondered exactly where the Highland Boundary Fault emerged at its most north-eastern extremity.

After a bit of research (particularly exploring using the BGS‘s iGeology app), I tracked it to a small headland, Garron Point, beside the golf club outside Stonehaven.

From the outside it doesn’t look like much, but on closer inspection it is awesome.

There are actually two faults – a small one at the north-eastern end of Craigeven Bay corner with Garron Point, forming a small spur off the Highland Boundary Fault which clips the coastline from the town out to sea.

On the lowland side the bedrock is metabasalt, psammite and pelite (North Esk formation) – metamorphic bedrock formed around 461-485MYa in the Ordovician period. On the highland side is gritty psammite (Glen Lethnot grit formation) – around 541-1000MYa.

The fault itself can be tracked to a matter of a few feet – a view from beside one of the golf greens shows the junction of both faults, with a strip of incredibly deformed grey rock leading away some meters rather like a line of chewing-gum.

Some of the most impressive rock outcrops I know. Toward the top-right of the frame – those cliffs are tall, especially from below! – a small fault runs diagonally down to the spray of water and out the left side; from front to back, a line of deformed pale grey rock only a foot or two wide, twisted like chewing gum, marks the Highland Boundary Fault at its most narrow only metres away from its most north-eastern extremity on land, at Garron Point headland near Stonehaven. The gnarly shapes of psammite (metamorphosed medium-grained grey former sandstone) and micro-basalt are awesome.

Prior to metamorphosis, this used to be sandstone. Now it forms a medium/coarse-grained rock, pale blue-green in colour, along the line of the Highland Boundary Fault.
This boulder marks the intersection of two fault lines; a small one, running diagonally from top-right to bottom-left, and the Highland Boundary Fault, running front to back. The zoom lens has compressed perspective, but for a sense of scale, the foreground rock in the right is maybe 15-20′ away.

My favourite image is an abstract closeup – purply-red microbasalt meeting gritty blue-green psammite in a spray of cracks and marbling lines.

Prints are available on my ShinyPhoto photo gallery: Under Pressure

Perhaps the clearest view into the workings of the Highland Boundary Fault I can think of. On the left, red-purple microbasalt (its fine cuboidal structure putting me in mind of streaky thick bacon); elsewhere the blue-green-grey of psammite and pelite, medium- to fine-grained metamorphosed former sandstones. All jumbled together with fine cracks and lines of marble hinting at the pressures involved.

Summer Evenings

Posted on 2019-07-25 by spodzone

Two photos from a stroll down the road on a warm summer evening

Lovely dark ominous clouds, throwing the bright golden sunlight on crop fields into sharp relief.
A small flock of crows takes off into the sunlight.

Prints of The Leader are available from my photography website, ShinyPhoto.

Loch Rannoch Sunset

Posted on 2019-03-01 by spodzone

A few photos from Sunday afternoon’s explorations around Loch Rannoch.

We walked through the Black Woods; whilst flying the drone near Camghouran I discovered remains of a building – a pile of stones and hints of mounds in the earth possibly in the shape of a former but’n’ben croft? – in a clearing in the forest.

Walking along the path through the woods, one comes across this clearing just off to the south; quite photogenic from ground level, it becomes even more interesting from 100m up in the air as the beautiful pale tree is apparently stuck on the end of a pile of stome rubble, the remains of some kind of building.
The impressively tall fir trees of Camghouran / Croiscraig from above the Black Woods of Rannoch

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Sunset on the shore was beautiful; contrasting deep blue ominous dark blue clouds and vibrant orange sunset across the water.

Beautiful glowing colours: warm yellow, orange and red sunset light contrasting with the thick passing clouds near Camghouran, Loch Rannoch
Beautiful glowing sunset gold and blue colours, near Camghouran, Loch Rannoch
Beautiful glowing sunset gold and blue colours, near Camghouran, Loch Rannoch
Beautiful glowing colours: warm yellow, orange and red sunset light contrasting with the thick passing clouds near Camghouran, Loch Rannoch
Beautiful glowing sunset gold and blue colours, near Camghouran, Loch Rannoch