Long Exposures on Derwent Water with the Fuji X-T1

This blog post is about some images taken last May in the Lake District – my first chance to try out the Fuji X-T1 for some long exposure photography. An evening shooting images on the shores of Derwent Water in the UK Lake District is right up there with any photographic experience in the world – stunning scenery, and some good pubs for when the shoot is over.

All the images in this post were taken with the Fuji X-T1, XF 18-55mm lens, remote shutter cord and a Lee Big Stopper, combined with some ND grads when required. For my tripod set-up I was using a Giottos MTL8350B with a Manfrotto 410 geared head.

A quick word about the Manfrotto 410 head. I love this tripod head. Yes it’s heavy, but when weight isn’t an issue a geared head gives you such precision in setting your camera. No fiddling with ball-heads that slip when you tighten them, or refuse to move then suddenly give. This geared head just works. If you’ve never tried one for landscape photography then I’d recommend trying one when you get the chance.

With this being my first time using the X-T1 for long exposures, I was really pleased with how easy it was to set-up. If using the Lee Big Stopper (a 10-stop filter) I always set-up any grads first, look at the exposure, and then use the card provided by Lee to give the exposure time with the Big Stopper in place. The LCD screen on the back proved perfect for zooming in and checking focus, and for when the tripod was low having an articulated screen was an added bonus. An extra surprise was the timer that appeared on the LCD when I tripped the shutter.

These are my favourite images from the evening, followed by a little bit about the post-processing.

Derwent Water Boats, The Lake District

Derwent Water and Derwent Isle, The Lake District

Derwent Jetty and Skiddaw, The Lake District

Derwent Water and Catbells, The Lake District

As per all my work at the moment, these images were processed in Lightroom. I still hope for some improvement in XTrans processing in Lightroom CC and Adobe have now indicated that this is something that they’re working on, but with careful tuning I’m quite happy with the results as they stand. I think I’m fairly particular about my prints and on my favoured Hahnemuhle rag paper these will print quite happily up to 24″ x 16″.  The Lee Big Stopper can affect the white balance, so I started with any adjustments I wanted to make to this, followed by tweaking of the overall exposure. I normally then work in a fairly iterative manner, gradually tweaking the photo to where I want it to be.

Landscape photography for me isn’t about replicating the exact colours and tones of the scene, it’s about trying to convey the feelings and emotions that you experience when you’re stood in front of these magnificent landscapes, bathed in glorious, calm, or dramatic light. With this in mind I’m loving the flexibility that the XTrans raw files offer, and they just seem to have a nice intangible ‘feel’ to them.

Thanks for looking,

Andrew