CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

The John Muir Way winds its way across the south of Scotland from Muir's birth place in Dunbar and ends in Helensburgh 133 miles away on the north side of the Clyde, which was the place that Muir family set sail for the United States. We have walked small parts of the John Muir Way, which isn't very difficult as it passes a few hundred metres from the front door of our house in Dunbar, but in September this year we decided to head out to a section of the pathway on the south bank of the Forth River, west of the road and rail bridges. The part of the John Muir Way we decided to walk was from Blackness Castle in the west along the side of the Firth of Forth, past Hopetoun House and onwards towards the beach near South Queensferry which gave a great view of the three bridges. We also had a view across the water towards the naval dockyard of Rosyth, where the new Royal Navy aircraft carriers are being built.  HMS Queen Elizabeth is nearly complete and will sail out ...

On Saturday we headed to Inchcolm island to visit the Abbey and the WWII ruins. However the trip on the Maid of the Forth started from  Hawes Pier in South Queensferry, which is in the shadow of the magnificent Forth Rail Bridge, which towers 110 metres (361ft) over the mooring.  The route of the Maid of the Forth out to Inchcolm is under the bridge so you can get some unrivalled views of the 126 year old structure. The Forth Rail Bridge is a cantilever bridge spanning the Firth of Forth from South and North Queensferry to the east of Edinburgh.  The bridge is considered an iconic structure and a symbol of Scotland, and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July 2015.  Designed by the English engineers Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker construction of the bridge began in 1882 and it was opened on 4 March 1890 by the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII on the death of his mother Queen Victoria in 1901. The bridge has a tota...

Fujifilm X-Pro2 + Fujinon XF18mm f2R L ast weekend we took a trip along the coast to South Queensferry which is situated on the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh in the shadow of the Forth Rail and Road bridges.  The day was overcast so I switched the JPEG film simulation mode on the X-Pro2 to ACROS and set about getting a few images to carry out a further test on this new in camera mono mode. The film simulations on the Fujifilm cameras do react better to contrasty light and ACROS is no different, so playing around with the Highlight and Shadow tone settings I found that the JPEGS that were coming off the camera were pretty good, much better than the previous mono modes I had tried on the X-T1, X-Pro1 or X100. I used the Fujinon XF18mm f2 for the wide angle shots before switching to the XF50-140mm f2.8 for the two shots of the bridge. The JPEGS were imported into Photoshop CC where I tweaked the levels, contrast and brightness before exporting them.  These five s...