As the weather had forecast fog and mist this morning, I set my alarm to get up in time to catch it. As there was very little near home, I decided to head out into the Peak District and visit Padley Gorge.

There was plenty of fog and mist on the journey there, and plenty during the walk from the car to the location, but when I got into the gorge the mist was pretty much non-existent. I guess some microclimate effect was in force because the mist was still visible when I looked up towards the road.

Some fog an mist would have come in handy not only to add atmosphere to my pictures, but also to hide some of the other photographers. And, boy, were there a lot of them. I’ve never seen the place so busy with other people with cameras. Pretty much every direction I looked would reveal someone with a camera, a tripod, or both – often wearing a vivid red waterproof jacket too!

I can’t really complain as I was there doing exactly the same thing, but it did mean that care was required to avoid getting one (or more!) of them into my shots.

While I had my XA3 in the bag, the morning ended up being a digital-only affair, shooting with my Nikon D810 – the camera I bought for scanning my film negatives, but also with the bonus of being a good camera for other uses too, despite it being released 14 years ago. I don’t think I did the best job with it, if I’m honest – I need more practice with it – but I was able to get a few pictures I’m happy with, including the ones in this post.

Nikon D810 & Nikkor 24-120mm f/4 ED VR

Taken on 31 October 2026