It was nice weather on Saturday..

which leads to us taking a long walk. Actually not a long long one, as it was just over the hills from Lodge Moor to Hathersage, a walk of about 9km.
From the flat to Lodge Moor its a 10min bus ride towards peak district. Which was our starting point, and before you reach Hathersage you both pass Redmires reservoir and Stanage Edge.
As usual I was looking and listening for the wildlife, but during this time of year it is rather 'dead' and so it was that day too.
At the Stanage Edge it was rather windy, but with +10C in air it didn't matter that much, and along the edge its self, there was a lot of hikers and climbers.
Due to the wind and the exposure of the location it was here you could clearly see the victims that the latest storms had claimed.
From the Stanage Edge its just straight downwards to Hathersage which was our final stop. As the weather was really nice, we enjoyed tea in the sunshine and the pleasant warmth of spring.

The pics is taken with Nikon 3Ds and Nikon 50mm 1.8D lens.
                                                                        

Early Morning at Stanage Edge

 I took the 5:30am bus to the Lodge Moor one of the mornings last week, and from there walked to  Stanage Edge in darkness. A walk of about 5km. Why did I do this you may ask yourself? :) Well, the best light tends to be at sunrise or sunset, and that day I wanted to have sunrise. Was hoping also for the fog and autumn colors in the forest down in Hathersage valley. But once there, no autumn colors or fog! A bit dissapointed, as I was there only a week earlier and the colors were still there. Anyhow, while waiting for the sun to rise, some mist was created around the edges. Got a bit happier. 
This was still a bit of a challenge as I was using a graduated filter to get the exposure correct. Without it the sky would get over-exposed, but it kept foging up. Between each picture I needed to clean it. The battle continued for a while. 
As it was a bit windy, I needed to hold down the tripod while taking the pictures too :)) You can hear, this was one of my more exciting photo sessions :)

The best, it did NOT rain.

An evening at Stanage edge

For couple of days ago, I was in search of heather again. But this time I biked up to Stanage Edge 8km one way, uphill :) and then I walked along the ridge of Stanage Edge to find places where there could be some good photo opportunities.
But unfortunately it was not as good as I had imagined, but on the way back to the bike, I tried to take pictures of the sunset, it was a fantastic light that was hard to capture with the camera, even though I had an ND 0.9 Hard graduated filter.
But it was probably too weak also for the streak between the ground and the sky was a little overexposed, but it is good practice for the upcoming U.S. trip.
Today I'll ride up to Stanage Edge again but I'll try to shoot birds instead can be fun to vary a bit :)

Bank holiday Monday

On Monday (bank holiday here in UK) me and my wife went off for a 18km hike that began in Logde Moor and then towards Redmires Reservoirs and then a side trip to Stanage Edge and back.
The weather was fantastic, 17C and a lovely warm sun, and it seemed almost the whole of Sheffield was at Stanage Edge. I have never seen so many climbers there, like yesterday.

During the walk, we managed to see a bit more unusual birds as Dotterel, but I had only the wide angle lens on so there was no pictures taken. Another unusual bird, Ring Ouzel, I was looking for didn't make an appearance as there were so many climbers on their nesting place. There are signs saying you should avoid climbing at some spots, but people do not seem to care :((
The poor fellows are probably very stressed, but this amount of people is very very unusual.

Anyhow, I have swapped my old 10-24mm wide angle lens that I could only use on D90 (crop camera) to a 16-35mm f4 suitable for a the 3Ds (full frame), and I'm incredibly happy with it.
Have only had time to try it twice but compared to the last one this is So much better. This might be also due to a change to Nikon 3Ds which is a professional camera and can handle different lighting better.
So now I've completely switched over to full-frame and can avoid carrying two cameras with me.
Here you have some photos from Stanage Edge..

Trying to take off but a strong wind make him

to fly in to the stonewall, he was not injured :))

Logde moor to Hathersage

As it was such a lovely morning, off we went for a walk through the Peak District NP. This time we took a path from Logde moor past the Redmires Reservoirs, Stanage Edge and ended up in Hathersage. Took the opportunity to look for water voles and any new coming birds, but only black headed gulls and ducks were there.
The walk along the Stanage Edge is always awesome and today full of rock climbers. Amazing how they can climb on some seemingly impossible walls. After that it was straight down to Hathersage for coffee and bus home.
Until today I thought that the distance was 6km but according to Mr Google Maps it's 9, which didnt matter as it was perfectly easy and short as my periosteum hurts.

Stanage  edge, rock formations

Rock climbers, Stanage edge

I liked the colours on these rock walls

Landscape in the mist

A few days ago, I was off to Stanage Edge, in hope of fog in the valley. During some previous hikes the scenery has been amazingly wonderful.
I got there a little later in the day because I wanted to try and shoot the sunset, otherwise if I get there in the morning I know I can't be bothered to remain there until sunset.
The fog then, it was in place and was as a lid over the valley. I had the zoom on, with which I can both take compact landscape pics but also later on take out the detailes. I really like these pics, especially the feeling that the landscape is close by even if in the real life you see for miles and miles (swedish mile ;)) )
The expectation that at the sunset the sun would light up the fog with its warm beams did not fulfill, but you can not have everything :))

Camera equipment used: D90 with nikon 200-400 f4 lens and the 10-24mm f3,5

Hike from Moscar to Hathersage

Yesterday me and my wife went on a little hike that started in a village called Moscar and lies along the A57 road when driving towards the lady bower from sheffield.
Then we continued to go by Stanage Edge which is 4-5km long, and is also popular with climbers. For some time ago in some areas they Quarried rock from the mountain to make grind stones, and some can still be seen on the hillside-carved, but never removed.
I think the stone is some sort of sandstone.
From here you have incredible views, but unfortunately the light was pretty hard so it's not easy to get good pictures.
But we could not complain about the weather windless, sunny and about 15 C, and we also had a little frost on the shadow side in the morning when we came to Moscar.
After about 3km we turned off Stanage Edge to take us down to Hathersage and the last bit was mostly through woodland mixed with pastures. The stretch we went took 3hours but we walked slowly, enjoying the weather and took many photo breaks. The funny thing was when we got home around 15  the weather changed and it was suddenly very foggy and it also continues today : ((

Photo equipment i used: Nikon 3Ds, nikon 24-70mm f2,8 lens with pol filter and nd grad hard edge.
click on the pictures to enlarge them!

In the beginning of the hike

From stanage edge towards hathersage

Stanage edge towards high neb 458m above sea level

Stanage edge

wood lands

Path up to stanage edge from hathersage

Highland cattle

 

Stanage Edge (Peak District)

Last night, despite the bad weather, I decided to take me to Stanage Edge again to try to shoot the ring ouzel. The weather forecast showed that it could be sunny in the evening. Took the bus today, and then went the last 5 km walking to the site, it took an hour in the pouring rain and fog: ( But when a was at Stanage edge so it stopped raining, but the fog remained.
Could see a slight improvement in the sky but it was short-lived. Took out the camera from the bag, today I had the D90 and 200-400mm f4 lens. Took that  kompinationen because it givs 300-600mm f4, and this is not entirely wrong when you're shooting animals and birds. But unfortunately, so is the D90 completely useless when u haft to have high Iso. I took the pictures today at ISO 1000 which is not so much for today's cameras, but with the D90 then the images are noisy.
Found ring ouzel directly but they were not quite where I expected, so now I was doing some climbing after steep slopes to access the birds, which was not so fun. Because the rain made ​​everything slippery. 
But some pictures I managed to get anyway even if they're not super. The image I was after, was that the bird would be in a place with low grass which was wet by the rain and because of that the foreground and background should get very nice water droplets Bokeh and then some last glimts of sun to that. That would be a dream picture. ;) maybe next time then.

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Ring ouzel/ringtrast

Ring ouzel

Ring Ouzel

Ring ouzel

Foggy Stanage Edge

Low clouds

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