Trig Point Sunset
A landscape photography blog by Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire based landscape photographer Rob Thorley Photography.
For those that follow along to my ramblings, you’ll know that for one I spend quite a bit of time at The Roaches, and for two . . . I haven’t had much luck around the trig point. Well tonight I must have had my lucky pants on . . . Not wanting to get you too excited, what I mean is I didn’t get battered by the wind for a change.
I parked at Roach End and made my way up top to the trig point hoping to get a decent sunset. Whilst there may be an air of familiarity when I say “plan A didn’t happen”, it probably worked in my favour to be on plan B. I wasn’t aware that they’d been carrying out work around the trig point to repair the path. This meant there were a number of large white bags of ballast dotted around the trig point, which basically scuppered plan A.
I debated on what to do for a few minutes before coming up with the idea of trying the inbuilt “Focus Shift Shooting” on the Z7ii. There was plenty of foreground to be had just past the trig point. I thought I could make that foreground prominent, shoot towards the sun, and try to get some sun stars as well. Any focus stacking I’d done previously had been nothing more than the mantra of focus on the foreground, midground and background, and that was pretty much all. Having spent the cash on the camera I suppose it’s a little daft not to embrace, and use it’s technology.
I’m pleased to say that using Focus Shift Shooting is intuitive, and very easy. What isn’t quite as intuitive is dialling in what step size you want to use, and the number of shots to take. I tried a few different step sizes, and number of shots, but to be honest on the back of the camera, and with my eyesight I was none the wiser.
I did some further reading, and testing a while later at home to better understand what potentially works best for what. I used a pound coin to come up with some macro settings, and the back garden to come up with some landscape settings. A bit of YouTube, and internet surfing reaffirmed I was in the ballpark, with what others were suggesting worked.
Anyway, back to tonight. I was pleased with how the evening went. If the clouds had caught that would have been the icing on the cake, but all in all, the light was nice. I’d had fun, learnt a bit more about my camera, and I came away with a number of images that I was pleased with.
You can view more images from The Roaches, and my gallery of other Peak District locations.
