It was a stunningly beautiful January day, the sun was out, there was no biting wind and the temperature wasn’t too bad with the sun blazing down on us. The trail was a long path along the coast, over a set of sand dunes and then back again. A flat, and not too hard 12,000 steps, in the most beautiful landscapes, still showing the signs of the frost we have been having over the last week or so. It was a day to take the photos in my head that I had planned over the week, a chance to do some image stacking and do a couple of panoramas.
Armed with my Fujifilm X-T3, I meant to take along my Olympus E-PL8 with me, but I forgot that! I had my 50-230mm, my 23mm F/1.4 and 56mm F/1.4 lenses, an ND filter and my tripod. As I go into the new year with a new outlook, I knew I wanted to enjoy photography, and the art of experimenting and getting great photos again.
I also knew that I wanted to edit these with Darktable (and use other programs for stacking and panoramas). I am more than happy with the results! Here are the images, and I have spread them out with information about how I achieved the images in question.
Batch 1: These images were edited in Darktable, and then moved across into Gimp for the finishing touches. The first and last images I pictured in my head as soon as I seen the composition appear in my camera.
Batch 2: These images were edited in Darktable only. Images 2 and 6 are 6.5 second long exposures.
Batch 3: These images were stacked in Gimp (made up from 3 images each) and the file was then edited in Darktable.
Batch 4: This one needs to be open full screen to see it in all its glory! Originally 28000 x 3850 in size, I have had to shrink it for the website sadly as it was over the allowed size for image files. This was made up of 8 images combined. I wish you could see how beautiful the full size version is!
I’m really happy with todays results. I didn’t take a huge amount of photos, and there are some that I still haven’t edited, but it was a day of technique and fun. I wish there was a way to get that huge panorama on show, and I’m sure I’ll find a way soon.
Let me know what you think about these!
Until next time!
One Camera One Lens 
I especially love the shots with the blur, like the one – I think – on a golf course. Great shots Mark !
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Thank you Marc. I really knew what I wanted yesterday, and I’m happy with the shots. It’s a shame I can’t share the panorama so you can see the detail!
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These photos are astounding, Mark! Editing photos takes a lot of time and painstaking effort, so the high quality you produced here… I really appreciate your work and feel lucky to see these pics. I esp. like the ones with spaces (I don’t know what they’re called) or the sky and land/stones combinations. I think they should be in a photo exhibit. I could imagine how they’d look when you’re inside a gallery!
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Thank you very much, that is a very nice thing to say and it is very much appreciated. I’m glad you like my work 🙏
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