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Fujifilm X-T4 + XF10-24mm f4 - Haida 15stop ND + 3 Stop ND Grad - 480 seconds@f8 ISO160 Yesterday I hosted another MacLean Photographic 'Long Exposure Landscapes' workshop at Seacliff beach, a location I tend to take most of my guests to because of the immense variety of images available in a relatively small location. Located a couple of miles east of North Berwick, Seacliff features a small sandy beach looking out towards Bass Rock one mile out in the Firth of Forth.  At this time of year the small island is covered in gannets as up to 150,000 birds call this part of Scotland home from March until October.  We were treated to some fantastic diving displays as the birds fished just off the beach for most of the day. Fujifilm X-T4 + XF50-140mm f2.8 - Haida 15stop ND + 3 Stop ND Grad - 480 seconds @f11 ISO80 On the headland looking west is the ruins of Tantallon Castle, which is still an imposing sight high on the cliffs across the bay.  Just off the bea...

I had another opportunity to visit one of my favourite locations here on the East Lothian coast and that is the small sandy beach at Seacliff. The beach is reached via a private road (there is a £3 charge to access the road)  and it leads down to the car park behind the cove.  As you look out in front Bass Rock is right in front, to the left is the Gegan and the tiny harbour and to the right is St Baldred's Cross, which is the outer marker for the Firth of Forth. Once you get onto the beach you can look across and see the ruins of Tantallon Castle on the cliff top. The reason for the visit was to allow a fellow photographer the opportunity test the X-T2 and XF100-400mm on his favourite genre - wildlife.  So we headed to the cliffs by the Gegan to take some shots of the Fulmars that are starting to set up home in the cliffs. All images shot on the Fujifilm X-Pro2 with a XF10-24mm f4 or Fujifilm X-T2 with a XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 ...

The beauty of living in East Lothian is being able to photograph the scenery in all weathers.  While I love a beautiful sunrise as much as the next landscape photographer, you can't beat a good stormy day with lots of drama to get the creative juices flowing. Take this image for example.  This shot was taken on the Fujifilm X-Pro2 and the XF100-400mm telephoto to compress the perspective, making Bass Rock appear to be a lot closer to my position in Belhaven than it actually is, which is about 7 miles away.  All I had to do was wait for someone to walk into the frame to give the image a focal point. The picture was converted to monochrome from the RAW file in NIK Silver EFEX Pro2 software using a customised preset that I have set up.   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts yo...

I started this review of my ten favourite images of 2016 with an image from Japan and it is fitting that my favourite shot of the year was also taken on my last day on my trip in October a few hours before I boarded a flight back to the UK via Qatar. This image was taken on the X-T2 and the Samyang 8mm f2.8 fisheye lens of one of the many stones in the grounds of the  Naritasan Shinshoji Temple.   Using a low angle below the stone, I took the shot upwards using the ultra wide angle lens to get a different view of the subject surrounded by the trees. CLICK HERE to view the blog   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...

Traprain Law From the beach at Winterfield looking west along the coast across Belhaven Bay there are three distinctive landmarks.  Two are the hills at Traprain and North Berwick, known as Laws.  The lowland Scot definition of a Law is a conical hill that rises out of the landscape. Both Traprain and North Berwick were sites of ancient forts due to their elevation above the landscapes and North Berwick Law was also used as a lookout post in the Napoleonic Wars and also as recently as World War II. Bass Rock needs no introduction to the regulars readers of this blog and if the Bass was on land then it too would probably be described as a Law.  The fact that Traprain Law, North Berwick Law and Bass Rock are in a rough line north to south is also an interesting fact and probably has much to do with the ancient geology of this region of Scotland. These images were taken from the edge of Belhaven Bay with the Fujifilm X-T2 and XF100-400mm lens. Bass Rock N...

Last month I decided to upgrade my trusty Samsung S5 to the new iPhone 6S plus.  In 2012 I had an iPhone 4S. While I wasn't a fan of the phone itself or the operating system, I did like the camera and the images it produced ( CLICK HERE for the feature).   Fast forward four years and I am now back to Apple for my phone.  One of the main reasons is the ability to link to my iPad and iMac and also the size of the iPhone 6S Plus makes it great for traveling with - it's almost a mini iPad. Anyway the camera is a big step up from the iPhone 4S and my Samsung S5 and I have been playing with the different settings for both stills and video.   I have found the panoramic function really useful as it is really easy to use and the results are great. Here are a selection of panoramic images taken on the iPhone 6S Plus ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...

While on Bass Rock on Tuesday I shot some video clips as well as stills during my three hours on the island.  I shot the video using both my X-T2 and X-Pro2, plus I used my new iPhone 6S Plus.  While the X-T2 and iPhone are both capable of shooting 4K, I shot the video clips in 1080P to keep the consistency across the three devices. The clips were edited in iMovie. The music was obtained from freemusicarchive.org and is a track entitled 'Surface Tension' by a group called 'A Ninja Slob Drew Me'. Here is the short video which gives anyone who has never visited Bass Rock a good idea of the natural spectacle that we have here in East Lothian and why people from all over the world travel here just to witness the gannets of Bass Rock. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on th...

The main advantage of the Fujifilm X-T2 is the new continuous autofocus system that the brand new camera has.  I have used it extensively over the past three months on motorsport subjects and I also ran a test on the Isle of May a few weeks ago, follow focusing the small and agile Atlantic Puffins in flight around the island. Last Tuesday I was able to further test the Continuous AF on on the X-T2 by photographing the Gannets flying around Bass Rock.  Now Gannets are much larger and are easier to track than the small Puffins, but because there are so many birds in a relatively small area, following these seabirds presented several challenges for the X-T2. Now the X-T2 has a customised AF-C function where you can select one of five presets in the menu and also have a sixth custom function where you can override the presets if you wish.   Camera Settings For the birds on Bass Rock I used two different settings.  Set 5 which is for erratically...