Reflections on Buttermere, Lake District

Well there was a stable high pressure system over the UK, a great forecast with some cloud but little if no wind! Reflections came to mind and given an abortive attempt a few weeks ago on this front at Buttermere I thought we would have another go. My Zeiss 21mm was still in Germany getting repaired and broken Lee filters on back order, after my fall in Skye, so I was stuck with my Nikon 16-85mm f3.5-5.6G VR ED AF-S DX Lens for wide angle and Cokin filters. I packed my D7000 but was determined to use my D800 with Nikon 50 / 1.4G or the 70-200 / 2.8 … all best plans.

We stayed at the Bridge Hotel to give easy access to the lake and Mountains. We walked round the lake on the Saturday afternoon and I soon started to get irritated with the D7000 – it was a high contrast situation and the blinkies were going wild and I had to knock the EV down so I switched the 16-85mm to the D800 which automatically shifted into DX mode and the blinkies went away. Initially I was irritated by the severe vignette in the viewfinder, which is not present on liveview but I was walking. After awhile I noticed the thin black line showing the DX frame area in the view finder – all was well and I easily adapted. Unfortunately even the slightest breath of wind create ripples on reasonable size lakes so no reflections.

Got up 0530 for dawn and trotted down the lake – bugger slight breath of wind but nice sky. As it turned out in the next hour the cloud was all to the East – bugger. So mediocre images – plus chromatic aberrations or what thank goodness for Lightroom – come home Zeiss. I was just going to go off for breakfast when the slight breeze ended and within 15 minutes a mirror lake – but no dawn light. I’ll just have to got back.

Spent the day walking up Haystacks which I haven’t done for years – all the tarns where frozen so no reflections – LOL. Also the 16-85mm kept disappointing so only going to show you one image – however what a brilliant day and its a fantastic walk – happy man.

Click icons to see Bridge Hotel and photoshoots – zoom out for Haystacks and tarn