Sunset at Shieldaig

Sunset at Shieldaig (Canon EOS 5D Mark II, EF 24-105mm f/4L IS lens at 24mm, ISO 320, 1/30 sec at f/16, Zomei ND8 soft grad filter, Handheld)

Last night there was a fantastic sunset at Shieldaig in Wester Ross.  The great colours were to a large extent due to the presence of a lot of smoke in the sky as a result of various hill fires in the area, in this case at Diabaig.  I used my Zomei ND8 soft grad filter to allow me to capture more of the detail in the foreground.

The last time I took a sunset shot at Shieldaig was back in 1987 on a road trip with my best mate and I recall getting horrendously bitten by midges then.  Some things don't change as it was pretty fierce last night.

I also took the following shot using the tripod and a longer exposure to smooth out the ripples on the water, just to see how to worked.  In truth it made little difference as the water was pretty smooth anyway, but worth a try.

Sunset at Shieldaig (Canon EOS 5D Mark II, EF 24-105mm f/4L IS lens at 65mm, ISO 100, 1/5 sec at f/22, Zomei ND8 soft grad filter, Tripod)