Mid-November. The romanticised version would be that, as a serious photographer, I headed out with my camera for a twilight photo shoot. The unromantic truth is that I was doing household chores and took a car load of smelly garden waste to a local rubbish tip. On the return leg I decided on a whim to park up at the North Cliffe Wood Nature Reserve to take a quick walk as the sun was setting armed with my iPhone and my always-in-the-car tripod.

Experimenting with various low light settings and frozen fingers (due to being unprepared for this impromptu stroll) I had far too many failures. But here are three of my favourites. 

Nerd section (The techy stuff): All images taken with the iPhone 13 Pro. Captures are RAW DNG files via the Halide Camera app and post-processed via Lightroom Classic and where appropriate Topaz DeNoise / Sharpen.
Evening at North Cliffe Wood

The ultra wide lens on the iPhone is less than perfect at the edges but still useful to grab a good foreground shot. Also, the wind was strong giving blur to the grasses and trees in a slowish shutter speed, a balanced setting to avoid high ISO noise. There was noise but Topaz made a good job of removing it and sharpening the image. At the same time the improved range masking in Lightroom meant I didn’t need to do much outside that software. The same is true of the next two images.

I knew there were amazing examples of fungi to be found here, having seen other superb shots from others online, but with the light failing fast and no torch other than the one on the phone I grabbed the first I could find before heading home. I hope you like them.

Fungi taken in North Cliffe Wood at twilight – natural light, tripod.