CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

'The best lens for landscapes is a wide angle', how many times has this advice been given?  I give it myself and on the whole I agree with this, but this is not a hard fact.  Any lens is good for landscapes and a medium to long telephoto lens is also very useful and I use my 55-200mm (80-300mm equivalent) on almost every photography trip.  A telephoto lens isolates elements of the landscape and it also compresses the perspective, bringing items in the composition closer together.  For example in the shot at the top of this page of Barns Ness lighthouse, Bass Rock can be seen to the left of the lighthouse.  In this shot it looks like The Bass is just beyond the headland when in fact it is a few miles away out in the Firth of Forth.   This 'stacking' of the different elements is highlighted when the light is slightly behind the subject as in the shot below of Lismore Lighthouse in the Sound of Mull. The lighthouse is dark, the shoreline in the middle ...

2014 was the first full year we have lived and worked in East Lothian and I have put together a video slide show with some the photographic highlights from this part of Scotland.  Some of the images, like this shot of the Dunbar Lifeboat, are previously unpublished. The video lasts 7 minutes and I have used three tracks featuring guitar solos by artists Jason Shaw and Gillicuddy which area available to download on the Free Music Archive website. Here is the video and we hope you enjoy this photographic tour of East Lothian.   Don't forget you can book a Photography Workshop or Tour in East Lothian with MacLean Photographic HERE

A couple of weeks ago I posted some pictures of some sea glass that we had picked up on some of our beach combing trips on the beaches near to our home in Dunbar.  There are plenty of other interesting things that we have found - shells, driftwood and some old iron items that have come from boats or from the many World War II installations that are on this coast. During the Second World War the threat of invasion was felt all around the UK, including the North Sea coast of Scotland.  With the naval base at Rosyth up the coast near Edinburgh, installations were built all along the East Lothian and Fife coasts, many of which are still visible today.   These macro photographs are of a piece of old iron that is probably the top of a metal post that was used to hold rolls of barbed wire.  It is corroded pretty badly but this makes it more interesting to photograph, which I did using the Fuji X-T1 and the XF60mm f2.4 macro.   Lighting was provided by the Niss...

A walk at low tide had me heading down to the beach at Winterfield to get a shot of the Club House through the gap between the cliff and the short stack of rock.  This beach is only accessible at low tide as the sea comes right up to the base of the cliffs. I decided to use one lens on the Fujifilm X-T1 and that choice was the superb Fujinon 14mm f2.8.  This wide angle lens has been getting a lot more use of late even though I have the 10-24mm f4 ultra wide zoom in the camera bag.  There is something quite special about this wide prime lens and I find  the 21mm equivalent field of view to be spot on for my landscape work. A well as sweeping landscapes the 14mm is also good for getting down low and filling the frame with some foreground interest.   The images were converted to mono in post processing but I took the picture with a black and white image in mind.  I prefer to see the images in colour in the viewfinder and convert the image in...

On May 27 2014 I reported that this blog had received 250,000 views since it began in 2011.  Today on the 24 January 2015, just 242 days later, this blog has received and additional 250,000 views, making a total of half a million views since February 2011.  The average over the past 242 days is 1033 views per day.  Total views  2011  -  1,976 2012  -  22,050 2013  -  143,278 2014  -  305,490 I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has taken the time to visit, read the features and view the images that I choose to post.  Please remember to visit the advertisers on these pages.  It doesn't cost you anything to click on an advert but we get a small payment every time you visit a website - thank you.

On our last two trips into the Highlands of Scotland we have had some close encounters with Robins.  While taking pictures of Kilburn Castle this Robin came and sat on the fence next to the car obviously looking for a bite to eat. I was able to capture a few images on the X-Pro1 and the 55-200mm lens. The Robins below were taken on the Fujifilm X-T1 and 60mm f2.4 while sitting next to Loch Achray in the Trossachs National Park.  The two Robins seemed completely immune to my presence as I sat and took shots on the short telephoto lens. The European Robin (Erithacus rubecula), is a small insectivorous passerine bird. Around 12.5–14.0 cm (5.0–5.5 in) in length, the male and female are similar in colouration, with an orange breast and face lined with grey, brown upperparts and a whitish belly. It is found across Europe, east to Western Siberia and south to North Africa; it is sedentary in most of its range except the far north. -------------------------...

Looking down Glen Coe towards The Three Sisters The final destination on our Highland photo trip was the depths of Glen Coe.  We hadn't planned to stop in the Glen, instead we were heading back to Rannoch Moor, but the light hitting the Three Sisters as we traveled up the A82 between the steep sides of the mountains had us changing our plans quite rapidly. The main problem we had was trying to find somewhere to park the car near where we wanted to be as the Glen was very busy with walkers, people sledging and, of course, other photographers.  We lucked in when we spotted a parking space near to a good spot. The view was back down the Glen towards The Three Sisters with some foreground interest provided by some snow covered boulders and an old stone bridge.  The Three Sisters Trying to find a suitable location to set up the tripod proved to be interesting as the snow was very deep, up to 24 inches / 60cm in places, which made walking very tiring. Skis or s...

After lunch in Ballachulish we headed east along Loch Leven towards Glencoe village before turning left onto the B863 to Kinlochleven.   Kinlochleven sits at the mouth of the River Leven that flows into the loch of the same name and the B863 runs the length of the loch on both the south and north shores. We spent around 30 minutes looking for a vantage point  to get a view down the loch towards the bridge at North Ballachulish but we couldn't find a good location.  So we headed back to the south side and set up on a small hill overlooking Loch Leven with a good view of the snow covered 742 metre Pap of Glencoe (Sgorr na Ciche) on the left and Beinn na Caillich, the 764 metre high peak on the right. Beinn na Caillich Pap of Glencoe (Sgorr na Ciche) With the sun heading towards the horizon we packed up and headed into Glen Coe to capture the sunset that was looking very promising.  This will be the subject of the final blog from our first photo trip ...

While waiting for the sun to come up over the horizon last Sunday I did some long exposure images of the wintery scene on Rannoch Moor. Lochan na h'Achlaise was frozen solid except for a patch where the flow of the river kept the loch from freezing over completely.  I had to tread carefully in the half light (I did take a torch) to make sure I was on land rather than on frozen loch - I didn't want to end up in the loch! On that point I also made sure I was dressed for the conditions. The temperature was down to -4 degrees but factor in the wind and the temperature was more like -10 degrees Celsius!  Plenty of lay ers, with thermals, winter coat and proper walking boots.   You are standing around for a while during these long exposures and you will not want to stop for long if you are cold and miserable. The first two images were taken on the X-T1 with the 14mm f2.8 lens fitted.  The shutter speed was 20 seconds for each shot. The images above was ...

After leaving Rannoch Moor we headed south again on the A82 to Bridge of Orchy before turning right on the B8074 down Glen Orchy.  This single track road runs parallel with the River Orchy as it passes down the glen with steep mountain ridges on either side.  Lower down the woods cover the slopes but further up the trees give way to open mountain tops which were covered in snow. The contrast between the dark green trees and the snow topped mountains made for some great patterns to photograph. The River Orchy drops down through a series of rapids and waterfalls and we stopped a couple of times to get some images.  However, because the winter sun was is low in the sky at this time of year, the sunlight didn't reach the bottom of Glen Orchy so the light was a little flat.  We also came across a herd of cows in a snowy field, some Highland cattle and some of another breed that I couldn't identify. At the bottom of Glen Orchy ...