Some more tests of the Fuji X-T20 in low light conditions.
Summer has the worst daytime light for photography with harsh shadows and washed-out pale tones; however I love the night sky with its permanent twilight (at this latitude) giving cobalt blue sky with hints of the sun’s warmth just below the horizon.
Plus it’s more comfortable than winter astrophotography 😉
Three studies in cloud structure – nature’s abstract patterns and a tiny blob of light of a hamlet across Strathearn:
Continuing the anthropocene-influence theme, glorious blue, red and pale clouds in an orange-tinged sky against a tiny pylon breaking the horizon:
Driving up the M90 past Stirling there is a little mound of a hillock at Craigforth, opposite Cambusbarron, which I thought might afford a nice view of the city at dusk.
In practice the mound is owned by a large insurance company with lots of restricted access by road, so I found Scout Head hill a couple of miles down the A811 near Gargunnock.
The snow was nearly a foot deep in parts so it took 1.5hr to walk 3 miles, uphill and down, to say nothing of 1.5hr making photos off the top.
The light was totally awesome. As expected, the hill’s shadow crept across the landscape, chasing the warm sunlight up the Wallace Monument and Stirling Castle, leaving Dumyat as the sky turned pink/purple/blue in the Earth’s Shadow.
I made a little timelapse video:
Beautiful winter landscape; the shadow moved its way across the landscape, with the last light making its way over the Wallace Monument and Stirling Castle before heading up Dumyat
I flew the drone away from the camera location and made an HDR panorama of Stirling from the air:
The last of the warm light – foreground partially cleared forestry in the shadow of Scout Head hill – contrasting with light on Craigforth, the Wallace Monument and Stirling Castle with Dumyat in the background.
Walking back down the hill in the cold twilight, the mountains of the Trossachs were glowing with white snow against the cobalt blue sky.
(I loved that light so much, I’ve made it available as a framed print via RedBubble already.)
The Forth is just a wee river this far west, but it still gave rise to a cloud of mist obscuring the view of local farms:
It’s only a wee river at this point, but the Forth gave off a large cloud of mist after dusk, obscuring the local farms.
And finishing up with the mankind-vs-nature theme, the Wallace Monument and orange streetlights of Stirling made a great contrast against the blue sky:
A mixture of lighting: vibrant orange tones of Stirling contrasting with the cobalt blue night sky above.
That was 2017-06-20, that was. A beautiful blue sky with white fluffy wispy cirrus cloud catching the setting sun…
…followed by a noctilucent cloud display around 1am:
NLCs are the highest-flying clouds, occurring at altitudes up to 80km where the next highest type (cumulonimbus) only reaches 12km and most are lower still. Most typically they resemble a fine silver filigree of ice-cold pale blue, although more complex forms have been seen. First maybe-seen in 1885, they only really came to prominence since the 1980s, as a canary for changes in the upper atmosphere linked to climate change.
As I stood and watched the display, a patch of silver mist formed over Strathearn and made its way west along the A85 toward Crieff, so I made a little timelapse video – 17 minutes’ data compressed into 1:
