Loch Shiel
- Thread starter Grooveski
- Start date
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Hey Guest, Early bird pricing on the Summer Moot (29th July - 10th August) available until April 6th, we'd love you to come. PLEASE CLICK HERE to early bird price and get more information.
I think it's the fact that there are no roads to speak of nearby, Shiel really gives you that wilderness feeling (at least until you reach the bottom end).
Get it done Davy, you won't regret a second of it.
Definitely not a midge free expedition, first night was fine, there was enough wind to keep them at bay, but the next morning was calm and they were out in horde's, literally ! We broke camp as quickly as possible to get out on the water, poor Josh was the last to get off the beach, as he said at the time, "I got your two's share as well"
not funny.We stopped further on for breakfast, it was still calm but the midges were not such a problem, even so I retreated to the water to finish my coffee.
As Josh said the second night was midge free, lovely little beach which I would have gladly stayed another day on.
If fact we didn't see any midges till the last morning in Loch Moidart, it was very calm when I got up, I guess 7:30 and the midges were out in numbers, they thinned down as the wind got up, so we stayed for a good breakfast before setting off.
Meant to say, I'd do it again in a second, it was a magical place, well worth all the aches and pains
Stephen
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Meant to say, I'd do it again in a second, it was a magical place, well worth all the aches and pains
Stephen
Can we have that in writing for next time ?
Only jesting, working on my next pass out already so standby with your diaries
My camera has a setting specifically for them. It shows a bit of your last photo down one side and you line up the next one to match.
It also locks the exposure to the first photo so if you're doing a full 360 it's worth lining up the first one and doing the half-depressed button bit to autofocus then holding the button there and spinning round. Sometimes you'll find the trees or hills are too dark or the brighter areas are washed out when you get to them. If so choose a slightly lighter or darker view as your first image and try it again.
You can take them with cameras that don't have an assist function too, it just takes a little more mental discipline.
Other tips:
Turn on gridlines or a bounding box(if your camera will let you) to help you stay level, the wonkier the assorted horizons are the more you have to crop off the top and bottom of the finished picture.
Wonky horizons make things harder in the stitching software too, they induce waves that are a pain to sort, you're sometimes best taking [a copy of] the images through photoshop and rotating/cropping/saving them first to get them level.
My current camera is set to 50% overlap, my last was locked at 20%. It means 12 pics per rotation instead of 8 but I reckon it's worth it for the ease of leveling the images. I also have two 360s which are missing a few degrees because the canoe was rocking and one bit of forested hilltop can look surprisingly like the next sometimes. I doubt that would have happened if the overlap had been higher.
Stiching software enjoys woods a lot more than lakes.
PTGui walks all over any of the free stitching software(and any of the Pro versions I tried as well). Switching to it was like an electronic breath of fresh air.
If you're trying it and get into any bother feel free to give me a shout.
Muchos gracias, amigo.
I think I need a new camera...
|You just did get it in writing, were do you plan to start?Can we have that in writing for next time ?......
Got to be Moidart somewhere don't you reckon ? Get that one cracked off round to Ailort first, then maybe Morar or up to Maree maybe ?
A couple of my photos, plus some exports from memory map of the route we took.
First day camp
Later on that evening looking down the Loch
The second day, wind had dropped (no sailing), and the clouds came down, at least it had stopped raining.
This is Eileanan Comhlach beside Gaskan, there was a house with people staying, so we moved on, lovely area and woodland though, big old oak beside the water and the woodland was full of wild flowers.
I took a bunch of videos, but they are not that good.
[video=youtube;Hso0AHlbXCQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hso0AHlbXCQ[/video]
First day camp
Later on that evening looking down the Loch
The second day, wind had dropped (no sailing
), and the clouds came down, at least it had stopped raining.
This is Eileanan Comhlach beside Gaskan, there was a house with people staying, so we moved on, lovely area and woodland though, big old oak beside the water and the woodland was full of wild flowers.
I took a bunch of videos, but they are not that good.
[video=youtube;Hso0AHlbXCQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hso0AHlbXCQ[/video]
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Got round to stitching up the full panoramas from the trip. Click pics for bigger images.
Gaskan
Camp 2 everyone seems to be calling it. The nice one.
The remains of St Finans.
Where we stopped for a breather on the headwind stretch.
The castle out on Loch Moidart.
Gaskan
Camp 2 everyone seems to be calling it. The nice one.
The remains of St Finans.
Where we stopped for a breather on the headwind stretch.
The castle out on Loch Moidart.
Mike Tomkies would FREAK if he saw this! The poor guy spent the best part of his life here before things went pair shaped and he was at pains trying to keep his place special and not named in his books for that reason. Yeagh I know the boat trip on the loch tells you when you are on it etc...but this does'nt sit well with me. It shows a real misunderstanding of keeping things subtle/respectful like the way he intended when his "Wilderness" cottage is marked on a map...rant over folks, shaking my head in disbelief again!
We know where you are coming from with that, but it's even on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Tomkies
I don't think that a thread like this, posted mostly among people who appreciated the natural world, is likely to do any more harm that Wiki and boat trips do.
cheers,
M
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Tomkies
I don't think that a thread like this, posted mostly among people who appreciated the natural world, is likely to do any more harm that Wiki and boat trips do.
cheers,
M
