Sunset over Dartmoor National Park
Yesterday, I shared an image I took on New Year’s Day at Dartmoor National Park. Despite having lived in this country for most of my life, I am ashamed to say this was my first visit to the Park. I will be back!
Haytor, Dartmoor
We hiked to two of the many rocky outcrops, known as ‘tors’, Haytor and Hound Tor, the latter thought to be the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes adventure, The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Hound Tor, Dartmoor
I left my trusty Canon 5Diii at home and took instead the Sony NEX-7 I was testing. A compact system camera packing a whopping 24 megapixel sensor, it is a fraction of the size and weight of my DSLR and made a far less demanding hiking companion. But there are compromises, both in terms of ease of use and image quality. Although you cannot see at this size, these images, all taken at ISO 400 are far noisier than my DSLR would have taken. More tomorrow.
Focused Moments 
Very nice images…and Dartmoor looks like a wonderful place to hike. 🙂
It is! But waterproof footwear is a must. My Timberland hikers are rather old, worn in to perfect comfort, so I wanted to wear them. But it turns out their waterproofing is worn in too. Wet feet on a day hike in January: not so good!
Hmm…yes, I can imagine that footwear can contribute or detract from one’s pleasure out there in the sogginess…. 😉
Definitely can’t see the noise at this size. But the images are beautiful. The clouds and colors are so lovely.
Thanks. We were lucky with the weather that day!
I love that top photo and how the “chimney stacks” seem to have smoke coming out of them.. was that deliberate? .. Noice adds atmosphere ! though I cannot see it..
Thanks, Helen. No, that’s just how the scene turned out. Nice of the sky to co-operate like that. :). Hmm, I agree that film noise adds atmosphere, sometimes, but digital noise is mostly just ugly, especially in landscape work, in my opinion.
I’ve been working in Adobe Camera Raw (a component of Photoshop) to find a balance between detail (which implies some noise) and smoothness (which implies some loss of sharpness). One approach I use is to open a RAW file normally and also with heavy noise reduction; use the two versions as layers in a single file; then use a layer mask so I can select places to retain noise as the price of desired sharpness, while reducing noise in other places (most often a blue sky).
Hi I use exactly the same method! One of my requirements for the new camera will be RAW. I could not imagine reverting to jpeg after all these years of working in ACR. Thanks for your visit. Much appreciated. Rachael
Sent from my iPhone
On the literary side, I’ll add that when I was young I gradually worked my way through all the Sherlock Holmes novels and stories. I remember my reluctance to read the last story because after that there would never be another one.
Oh, I can see it, Rachael. We recently watched a PBS adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles – I shudder just thinking about that episode, and the location was much like what you photographed.