The Lemonfool my pic of the day thread

[Itsallaguess]

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Some photos from a trip yesterday, walking up Mickleden Valley in the Langdales before heading higher and taking in Rossett Pike, Angle Tarn, Allen Crags, Esk Pike, and Bow Fell, before heading back down to the Langdale Valley via the Band -






This next one is a panoramic shot taken from Bow Fell, with Scafell and Scafell Pike central, either side of the large Mickledore dip -




Zooming in to Scafell Pike in the centre of the above photo, we can see the huge summit cairn on top of the highest mountain in England, which usually has a small group of people stood or having restful picnics at this time of year -
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As an aside, if anyone has any issues with photo-sizes when trying to embed images in posts on this great long-running thread, where a maximum vertical resolution limit of 1200 pixels might sometimes be a problem, then I've found the free PicResize site linked below to be a simple and quick way to re-size photos for posting here -

PicResize - https://picresize.com/

Steps to fix Lemon Fool photo-resolution limit issue -

1. Upload image to the above PixResize site
2. Under 'Select a new size for your picture', select 'Custom Size'
3. In the 'Height (Optional)' field, enter 1200
4. Change JPEG quality to 'Best'
5. Select 'Resize my picture'
6. Download resized file to local folder location, and use the re-sized photo to embed into Lemon Fool post

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[scotview]

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This next one is a panoramic shot taken from Bow Fell, with Scafell and Scafell Pike central, either side of the large Mickledore dip -



Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Great photos
Do you do your panoramas in camera or do you photo stitch ? if in camera, what camera do you use.
Thanks a lot

[bungeejumper]

Do you do your panoramas in camera or do you photo stitch ? if in camera, what camera do you use.

Our fairly basic old Panasonic Lumix does panoramas very successfully. Part of the wizardry is that it gets the exposure right and then maintains it throughout the whole sweep, resisting the temptation to tinker with it as your lens swings round toward the sun.

It's still harder than it looks to get such a great shot as IAAG has done here. Even the slightest hand-wobble in mid-panorama will chop off more of the sky (or the valley) than you might have wanted, for reasons that I lack the terminology to describe. Great shot, though, IAAG!

BJ

[Itsallaguess]

Great photos

Do you do your panoramas in camera or do you photo stitch ?

If in camera, what camera do you use.

Thanks - if I'm doing anything more than a straight 'up-and-down' hike, I tend to leave my good camera at home and just use my cheap Nokia 3.4 mobile for my photos, which also gets used for GPS and map duties whilst I'm out and about as well, and with yesterday's hike being about 7-hours, and with a heavy-enough pack as things were, I'm glad I made that decision...

The Nokia has got a 'panorama' photo mode, but I've never really been happy with the results, and so I tend to take a very rough series of 'click-and-spin' photos of any proposed panoramic view on the Nokia, which really takes very little effort over and above trying to keep at least some semblance of 'level-ness' as I rotate a few times about my footing.

I can honestly say that for such a rough and ready mountain-top process, the end-results are almost always really impressive.

When I'm back home I just throw them at the free Image Composite Editor (ICE) for Windows, and just let it do it's stuff, with the only manual intervention from me being to crop-down the auto-stitched image to remove any 'stagger' that's been introduced when I've not managed to keep completely 'flat' between clicks, and then I also nudge up the resulting JPG quality to maximum before saving the panoramic JPG file, so the whole process is really quick and simple.

Having just taken a quick look, I can see that I first mentioned the ICE software on this thread linked below from 2019, when as luck would have it, I posted a picture of the very same area as I hiked yesterday, but with the 2019 winter photo looking towards the Mickleden Valley in the centre and The Band just to the left of it -

https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=4836&start=400#p200332

If anyone's interested in the panoramic ICE software, here's a few snapshots showing the simple process to render the Scafell panorama that I posted yesterday -


First thing is to load the individual split pictures into the ICE software -




Clicking 'Next' from the above section will then show the ICE software rendering the individual images and stitching them together automatically -




When the above process has completed, with this one taking about 40 seconds, we're presented with a 'Stitch' screen, where a number of different post-alignment processes can be used to gain different 'panoramic' effects, and I'm usually happy to just leave things on the default 'Cylindrical' option -




After that, we're presented with a 'Crop' section, where we can manually tweak the boxed crop area shown below, taking into account any slight misalignment issues that might now be apparent from the original 'click and spin' multi-picture process never quite being as 'level' as we might like it to have been. This is just a case of dragging the box size and four edges shown below around the composite image, to ensure that the resulting panoramic photo removes all the misalignment 'gaps', and looks 'flat' on all four sides -




Once the appropriate panoramic 'rectangle' has been defined above, it's then just a case of moving to the 'Export' section and upping the JPG quality to 'Superb' or manually entering a '100' quality level, and then hitting the 'Export to disk' option -




The final results of the above process, taking just a few minutes -



Source for all the above images - my own ICE software session.

The Windows ICE software shown above used to be available for free via one of the Microsoft pages, but I see that they've now removed it and have it marked as 'Archived', with no indication of where they've actually archived it to, but luckily someone used the WayBack machine to capture both the 32-bit and 64-bit installer download links before that happened, so here they are if anyone wants to give the above process a go on their own Windows machines -

Image Composite Editor (ICE) v2.0.3 (for 32 bit) - https://web.archive.org/web/20190309221948/https://download.microsoft.com/download/A/7/8/A7804C73-ECDB-4459-BB3E-A7F13C4C5382/ICE-2.0.3-for-32-bit-Windows.msi

Image Composite Editor (ICE) v2.0.3 (for 64 bit) - https://web.archive.org/web/20190223050207/https://download.microsoft.com/download/7/3/9/73918E0B-C146-40FA-B18C-EADF03FEC4BA/ICE-2.0.3-for-64-bit-Windows.msi

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[scotview]

The Windows ICE software shown above used to be available for free via one of the Microsoft pages, but I see that they've now removed it and have it marked as 'Archived', with no indication of where they've actually archived it to, but luckily someone used the WayBack machine to capture both the 32-bit and 64-bit installer download links before that happened, so here they are if anyone wants to give the above process a go on their own Windows machines -

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Thanks for taking the time to post that detailed reply IAAG. I lost the ICE software when moving to windows 10, it was a miss. I've successfully retrieved it using the WayBack link, so thank you for the heads up. It works with Windows 11 too.

I'll take some pano photos and get back into using the Image Composite Editor again. I think consistency of exposure in the photos may still be a minor issue.

Many thanks

[scotview]

Our fairly basic old Panasonic Lumix does panoramas very successfully. Part of the wizardry is that it gets the exposure right and then maintains it throughout the whole sweep, resisting the temptation to tinker with it as your lens swings round toward the sun.
BJ

Thanks for that BJ. I have a Lumix G7 which I use with Canon L lenses. That's a very interesting comment re maintaining the exposure for the whole sweep. I'll have a look at that and do a few tests. Aparently the G7 can do in camera stitching in portrait mode also, so I'll give that a go too.

Many thanks

[scotview]

Photo of a Minke Whale taken in the Moray Firth, this weekend, courtesy of one of my whale watching pals.

[Itsallaguess]

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A photo from 7.30am this morning.

Blea Tarn with the Langdale Pikes central in the far background (Pike of Stickle, Loft Crag, Harrison Stickle, and Pavey Ark), framed further towards us by Rakerigg on the left and Side Pike on the right, which was my intended target for today's hike.

I'm over the moon with this one, as I've never been there when it's been so calm, and the still reflections are probably the best I've ever had from this shot -



Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Tedx]

Colin heads along the coast to the land of the Skink.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/cullen-skink

[Clitheroekid]

Great photos
Do you do your panoramas in camera or do you photo stitch ? if in camera, what camera do you use.
Thanks a lot

That's some impressive results from itsallaguess, but I find the panorama mode on my iPhone is very easy to use and produces results that, whilst hardly masterpieces of photography, are good enough for my needs.

This is one I took in Florence; yes, the canopy on the left is a bit squiffy, but it's amazing how much detail there is in the original when you zoom in:

[AndyPandy]

A week too late, otherwise I could have waved to itsallaguess. I last climbed Scafell Pike about 30 years ago. I will not be doing it in another 30 years, twice is enough. Kudos to the National Trust for the effort it has put in, in those intervening years, making a navigable trail. Didn't get lost this time. Also, last time there was zero visibility so finally I can see the view. Waterfall pics are from a separate jaunt near Ambleside.

Also managed to catch the Hercules fly-past, although didn't know at the time what was going on.

[Tedx]

Another trip into Royal Deeside to our favourite Friday night park up (£10 donation - not mandatory ) because the missus is trying out a bit of a Parkrun Tour with a couple of other folk.

This week, it's Crathes Castle (not Crathie where the Royals go to church, but not far away). The weather was glorious and there are worse settings for a Parkrun







And they're lining up for the start....



After the coffee and cake and a wander around the castle and it's grounds, we headed north and discovered a small coastal village called Rosehearty. (using the excellent Park4night app). It turns out the local boat club bought the old caravan park ground and turned it into a European style camper van Aire - very basic, but only a tenner a night. And the view was not to be sniffed at.



The local hotel (2 minutes away) fed us well at a very reasonable price too, but there were takeaway options if you preferred.

Colin taking in the scenery.



When you get up at 5am, you take a picture

[monabri]

Colin behaving himself now I see!

[doolally]

And the view was not to be sniffed at.

Untreated sewage being discharged into the sea?
doolally

[Tedx]

Tap o Noth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tap_o%27_Noth

A hillfort in Aberdeenshire is one of the largest ancient settlements ever discovered in Scotland, researchers have said.

University of Aberdeen archaeologists say 4,000 people may have lived in more than 800 huts perched high on the Tap O' Noth near Rhynie.

Many had thought it dated from the Bronze or Iron Age.

The team said carbon dating suggested it was likely to be Pictish, dating back as far as the third century AD.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland- ... d-52660032

To be honest, there's not much there apart from a large flat top with piles of stones around the perimeter which were once the walls of the fort. The views over the rolling Aberdeenshire countryside however, make it a very worthwhile short, but steep-ish hike...but it was very breezy at the top!



Looking south towards Bennachie on the left (also a hillfort in it's day) and then in the distance the Munros of Mount Keen and Lochnagar.



Looking north east through the fort walls towards Ben Rinnes in Moray (around 25km away)

[Tedx]

It's very warm at the moment. Too warm for me in fact.

So on Friday, we decided to get away from work sharp-ish and head down the coast. We had plans to stop at one of the many excellent fish n chip emporiums along the way before parking up somewhere that we'd previously scoped out.

So the park up was a very small area at the end of 2 miles of single track road, then another half mile of dirt track. It was then a few hundred yards from the ruins of a castle and about a mile away in the other direction from a fairly secluded beach. There was 3 to 4 other vehicles there, but they were all heading down to the beach for a bit of wildcamping.



Once we got organised, we walked down to the castle for a bit of an exploration, passing by the 'dookit' for the castle (apparently they kept pigeons in there - and up to 700 wild birds still use it)



After checking out the castle, we ambled back, taking the long route back to the van.



The next morning we decided to take our breakfast down to the beach. The path down was a bit sketchy, having been damaged with the heavy rainfall in recent times - but then that limits the kind of folk that are willing to get down there eh?



The beach was stunning. We could have sat there all morning.



....but the plan was for the missus to get a run in along the coast while I took a bit of time to explore the beach and then take all the stuff back up to the van and drive along the coast a bit for coffee.

Her picture looking back



Coffee time on another beach. Note Colin the Caddy basking in the sunshine.



Eventually, I picked the missus up after her run at the mouth of the River Spey and we had more coffee and cake.



And on the way home, we noted the UJ painted RAF Voyager Refueling tanker / Boris's private jet sitting on the pan at the airbase.



So only a night, but so much going on. Thanks for looking!

[Tedx]

Findlater Castle by the way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Findlater_Castle

park4night app - great for finding off beat (and on beat) parkups. Leave no trace.

https://park4night.com/en

Sunnyside Beach

https://www.google.com/maps/@57.695883, ... ?entry=ttu

the village of Cullen - Fish n chips and morning coffee - also superb for ice cream and Cullen Skink (fish soup)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cullen,_Moray

Spey Bay Dolphin Centre

https://dolphincentre.whales.org/

RAF Lossiemouth

https://www.google.com/maps/@57.7080237 ... ?entry=ttu

[Tedx]

Sua Resevoir, north of Barcelona

For decades, the sight of the former village’s Romanic church bell tower peeking from the waters was an easy indication of whether levels were high or low. Today the entire building sits exposed, bone dry, surrounded by scorched mud.





https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features ... premium-uk


A heatwave is sweeping across parts of southern Europe and north-west Africa, with potential record-breaking temperatures in the coming days.

Temperatures are expected to surpass 40C (104F) in parts of Spain, France, Greece, Croatia and Turkey.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66183069

[Tedx]

An earlier scan of Google Earth highlighted 4 potential sites that we had never been to before.

This weekend's bug out out initally saw us stop for dinner in a small town some miles away and then later on in the evening park up in the middle of nowhere with no internet. This was target no.1 on the list and it was perfect.

We ended up by a river next to a church that had closed some years ago. The park up was at the end of a long single track road in a fairly deep hollow, so no through traffic I read that the car park is used by paying fishermen on the nearby river, but there were none around when we got there.



The summer daylight hours are long in Scotland and we had plenty of time for an amble down to the river



.....And then a trek up and down the paths by the shoreline. The paths were as you'd expect as we were quite far up the river. The ropes were very useful on the trickier bits.





There was light drizzle in the air which turned into some quite heavy rain by the time we got back to the van

I had downloaded a movie for offline (Extraction = total mindless garbage) which we watched to the sound of rain dinging off the roof. I'm not really sure if we were allowed to park where we did, so Colin the Caddy was in full stealth mode....apart from the sound of extreme movie violence coming from within :-)

In morning, we went down to the river with our breakfast, before heading home via the sceneic route

[Tedx]

The Reds and Seagull.