CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

Lake Como is full of beautiful churches with each town and village boasting at least two or three.  There were also some isolated churches on the hillsides above the lake but none were as remote as this little church perched on the side of the mountain above Griante. Looking from below on the lake from the hire boat there was no visible road up to the church and it appeared the only way up was to climb.  We didn't attempt this and viewed the beautiful building from below. Images taken on a Fujifilm X-T1 with a 18mm or 55-200mm f3.5/4.8 lens -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY CLICKING THE GOOGLE ADVERTS It doesn't cost you anything to click on an advert but we get a small fee for every click thru from Google and this helps support this blog - thank you for helping ---------------------------------------------------------------------------...

One of the functions on the Fujifilm X-T1 that I have been meaning to try out, but hadn't found the time until this morning, was the 'Interval Timer Shooting' to produce a timelapse video. I headed down to the bridge at Belhaven Bay at High Tide and set the camera to shoot an image every 10 second for 180 shots to capture the receding tide around the bridge. As the tide went out people were able use the bridge to access the beach on the far side.  I did three sets of 180 shots to produce the following video on the Fujinon XF35mm and XF55-200mm f3.5/4.8 lenses. I found the   'Interval Timer Shooting' function very easy to use.  I did set the camera to shoot Fine JPEG only (I usually shoot JPEG + RAW) as the number of images that were going to be produced during the sequence was going to exceed the capacity of the 16mb card if I shot RAW files. I am now going to use the  'Interval Timer Shooting' function to record some other areas around Du...

When presented with a well hackneyed scene, such as the Trocadero and the Eiffel Tower in Paris, I try to find a different way to show the same area.  This sometimes leads to me going out on a limb and  looking for abstract images in the area.  The one thing about shooting the Eiffel Tower at night is the colours of the lights reflected in different surfaces and here are some shots I took on Wednesday night last week. The streets are cobbled around the Trocadero and the wet stones reflect the car headlights and the glow from the Eiffel Tower Reflections in the fountains in the Jardin du Trocadero Reflection in the water at the base of the Jardin du Trocadero Reflection in a puddle Images taken on a Fujifilm X-Pro1 and either a Fujinon 14mm f2.8 or Fujinon 55-200 f3.5/4.8 lens.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY CLICKING THE GOOGLE...

What happens when your subject you are trying to photograph is just that little bit too far away for the lens you have on your camera?  Do you - a) Not take the shot? b) Curse the fact that you don't have that longer lens and not take the shot? c) Go out and buy that £9000 600mm f4 lens to get the shot? d) Take the shot and see what you can do in post production? Well if you answered d) then give yourself a gold star.  If you answered a) or b) then I have to ask 'why not?' the only thing you've done is wasted a frame or two, which at worst, you will delete.  If you answered c) I will just think 'lucky person to have the money to go out and do that.  however I can recommend a good chiropractor which you will need after lugging that heavy bit of kit around. Now all joking aside, it is always best to get the image right in the camera, BUT the beauty of digital photography is there are plenty of ways to improve a photograph in post production.   I lo...

It finally stopped raining so after a late dinner we headed down to the Trocadero to get some night shots of the Eiffel Tower and try out the image stabilisation on the Fujinon 55-200 lens to see how low I could take the shutter speed before camera shake crept in - very, very impressive and more on this on Saturday's blog. Here are some of the shots from an hour walking down by the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadero. All images taken on the Fujifilm X-Pro1 and either the Fujinon 14mm f2.8 or 55-200mm f3.5/f4.8  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY CLICKING THE GOOGLE ADVERTS It doesn't cost you anything to click on an advert but we get a small fee for every click thru from Google and this helps support this blog - thank you for helping -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...

The Perfect Travel Kit: My current Fujifilm outfit and it all fits in the Tamrac Aria 6 Messenger Bag I recently took delivery of a Fujinon 55-200 f3.5/f4.8 telephoto zoom for my X-Pro1.  I will be testing it out over the next few days and reporting back on my findings.  I have already had a version of this lens on a short term loan in Bahrain ( CLICK HERE ), so it will hold no surprises for me I'm sure and the 200mm will add that extra pulling power the 60mm f2.4 prime lens lacks. However with my ever growing collection of Fujifilm gear I started asking myself where I was going with this and decided to remind myself of the reasons for purchasing that X100 back in 2012.   The short answer was the small size, coupled with fantastic image and build quality.  I wanted a small camera that gave me the same quality as my Nikon DSLRs and lenses without having to lug a big backpack full of metal and glass. This ethos took me through to October 2013 and was th...

Here are some of shots taken on the grid for the final FIA World Endurance Championship of the 2013 season in Bahrain.  All of these images are taken on the Fujinon XF 55-200 f3.5/f4.8 on the final day testing this telephoto zoom lens.  Moving around the grid with the X-Pro1 fitted with the 55-200mm I was able to capture images from further away and this allowed me to get an essence of the atmosphere during the build up to the race.  Bagpipes in Bahrain on St Andrew's Day Pipe Band Sousaphone Pipe and Drum Major 2013 GT Drivers World Champion Gianmaria 'Jimmy' Bruni Gridgirl Stephane Sarrazin, 6 Hours of Bahrain winner for Toyota Giancarlo Fisichella  The helmet of Kamui Kobayashi waits for its owner  Watching you - watching me ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY CLICKING THE GOOGLE ADVERTS I...

This weekend in Bahrain I have the Fujifilm XF 55-200mm F3.5-4.8 R LM OIS telephoto zoom on test and I have been walking around the paddock taking some test shots for a review I am preparing to be published on this blog next week. As part of this review I headed out this evening to take some shots trackside as the sun was setting.  I have to say I am impressed how the camera and lens combination handled the difficult conditions.  The AF was snappy and, with the camera set to aperture priority, the exposures were excellent.  I had to push the ISO to 800 to get a fast enough shutter with the slower maximum aperture but the X-Pro1 handles this relatively low ISO extremely well. Here are four of the shots I took this evening. Images taken on a Fujifilm X-Pro1 and Fujifilm XF 55-200mm F3.5-4.8 R LM OIS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...