The Lake District in Autumn

For a number of years now I have always wanted to visit the Lake District in the Autumn

For a number of years now I have always wanted to visit the Lake District in the Autumn, so last year I was fortunate enough to go up there for a week, in early November with some of my photography buddies.

It also gave me an opportunity to test out a new Fujifilm lens, the 16-80 F4 as a general "Carry Around Lens". For most of the early morning, long exposure shots I used the Nikon Z7 and the superb 14-30 F4 and 24-70 F4 combination. My filter system was the NISI V6 100mm and a Benro Mach 3 tripod.

Although the weather was quite wet and dull we did have a couple of good sunrises and a lovely misty sunset at Elterwater; which combined with the Autumnal colours was stunning. The photo below was taken with the Fuji XT3 and 16-80 F4 and a 3 stop Medium Grad with a CPL. I just love this focal range as its just so flexible and quite often in these situations you have little time to set up and change lenses. You also have to factor in the change of filter adaptor ring. Wish Nikon had one in the S range for the Z7; hopefully this will be out in 2021 as it’s on their lens map. In the meantime the Fuji APS-C version will do just fine. This zoom range was a firm favourite of mine in the days when I owned the Nikon D800 and D3 series. There has been quite a lot of discussion on Social Media and criticism of the 16-80 F4 but I have had no issues whatsoever. Having owned the 16-55 F2.8 it's clearly not quite up to the standard of that lens but is beautifully weather sealed, has superb 6 stop IBIS (lost many shots off the tripod with the 16-55 due to camera shake) and in my view the focal range more than makes up for it. All the images from the Fuji I post processed in Capture One 20 (a beta version at the time)

Elterwater, Cumbria in the Lake District Fuji XT3, 16-80 F4

However, the main bulk of my images whilst on this trip were shot with the Nikon Z7, a camera I’m loving more and more. The image taken below was at Keswick with the 24-70 F4. Although this is classed as a kit lens I am more than happy with the results; even wide open at F4. Looking forward to the Nikkor 24-120 F4S version for the Z series.

The colours at this time of the year are just magnificent; in many cases when using a Circular Polariser I had to dial back the saturation as it looked “unreal”. Towards the end of our weeks stay the trees were just starting to shed their leaves so the timing of our visit was just about perfect.

To do justice to the Lakes you need to give yourself far more than a week so that you can fully scout locations and hopefully have a few days of decent weather, although the Lake District does tend to look beautiful in any weather conditions.

#Lake District #Fuji XT3 #Fuji 16-80F4 #Nikon Z7 #NISI Filters #Elterwater #Autumn