CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

Fujifilm X-T4 + XF10-24mm f4 - Haida M10 1.8 ND + Red Diamond 0.9 ND Grad 1 second @ f11 ISO80 Last week I ran my first Black and White Landscape workshop of the year.  Like many businesses the Covid19 pandemic caused me a bit of a headache and I had to put my photo workshops on hold for three months.  The clients who had already booked workshops were offered a refund but I was happy when they said they would be OK to postpone and wait until I could rearrange the bookings with them.  The first workshop was a 1-2-1 with a client who was returning for her second one day MacLean Photographic workshop.  Fujifilm X-T4 + XF50-140mm f2.8 - Haida M10 1.8 ND 1/6s @ f8 ISO250 The workshop was held at Barns Ness and Tyningham, demonstrating the techniques on how to 'see' a landscape in black and white and expose the image accordingly.  This something I have learnt from experience and I now endeavour to teach my clients during the one day workshop. The...

My favourite time of the day to shoot landscapes is dawn, I just love being out in the fresh air and watching the sun rise above the horizon.  At this time of year in Scotland sunrise is round 4:25am, which means a very early start to get in position. Luckily, I have plenty of beautiful locations to visit here in my home town of Dunbar and Barns Ness Lighthouse, which is only five miles from my front door, ranks as one of the very best. So I checked the weather forecast, set my alarm for 3am and packed my camera gear ready for a very early start. Luckily the forecast was correct with high clouds and the potential for a fiery sunrise so I got in the car and head out to Barns Ness to set up. I was trying out a brand new tripod on this photoshoot, a recently purchased 3 Legged Thing Punks Billy carbon fibre tripod.  This was replacing my sturdy, but weighty, Manfrotto 055 aluminium tripod, with an option ball grip head.  The 'Billy' was almost the same height...

In a new series of features I will be focusing on some of the areas I take guests of the MacLean Photographic workshops, starting with Barns Ness Lighthouse. Barns Ness is located a couple of miles to the east of Dunbar.  The area features two sandy beaches, one at White Sands and the other sweeping around the bay to the east of the lighthouse towards Torness Power Station. The lighthouse was built in the early 1900s, with the light going operational in October 1901.  It was built, like many of the lighthouses in Scotland, by a member of the family of lighthouse engineers, David A Stevenson, cousin to the author Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island).  The lighthouse at Barns Ness was deactivated in 2005. For more information on MacLean Photographic workshops please visit the MacLean Photographic website HERE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLE...

Over the winter I am working on some new videos to promote the 2018 MacLean Photographic Workshops.  As part of this I have decided to include some aerial shots of the locations where the workshops will take place. One of the locations is Barn Ness Lighthouse so I filmed during my first test flight of the DJI Mavic Pro I have to get these aerial shots. Barns Ness Lighthouse from Fujifilm X Adventure on Vimeo . I will now be taking the drone to several of the locations around East Lothian and The Scottish Borders to get the shots I need to produce the new promotional videos. For more information on the 2018 MacLean Photographic Workshops visit the new website at www.macleanphotographic.com   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support thi...

The X100 line of cameras has a special place in my heart as it was the original X100 that I bought in 2012 that started me on my Fujifilm journey.  I currently shoot with the third generation of the camera, an X100T, which compliments my X-T2 and X-Pro2 perfectly.   When Fujifilm announced the new X100F (F for fourth apparently - T is for third) I was interested to see what improvements Fujifilm could make to this already superb camera. Fujifilm decided to leave a few things alone and quite rightly in my book.  The Fujinon 23mm f2 lens is the same as the previous three generations of the X100, with its built in leaf shutter for silent operation and flash sync at all shutter speed.  The hybrid viewfinder, which was a unique feature at the launch of the original camera, also remains largely unchanged but with a much better EVF.   The overall size of the camera stays pretty much the same as the 'T' despite accommodating the larger WP-126 battery inst...