CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

This afternoon I was in North Berwick conducting a 1-to-1 workshop with one of my long term clients who wanted to learn more about Long Exposure photography for an upcoming European trip. We went over to North Berwick for a few hours to try out some of the techniques we had been discussing.  With a sea mist hanging around just off the East Lothian coast we headed down to the Old Pier.  Luckily the tide was high and the marker was surrounded by the swirling seas of the Firth of Forth. A two minute exposure provided me with this very pleasing image of the marker surrounded by water.  The image was taken on a Fujifilm X-T2 and XF16-55mm f2.8 lens fitted with a Lee Big Stopper and 0.9 ND Grad filter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this b...

Fujifilm X-T2 + XF16-55mm f2.8 - 250s @ f16 ISO200 This evening I headed along the East Lothian coast to Tyningham and the River Tyne Estuary at the western end of Belhaven Bay. The rock formations at the end of Belhaven are amazing and on checking the Tide Timetable I noticed that High Tide almost coincided with sunset, so I grabbed the camera bag and tripod to do some long exposure images on the shore line. Setting the camera and lens on the tripod I composed the image to include the rocky fore shore and some of the brightly coloured sky with fast moving clouds.  The four to six minute exposure time resulted in plenty of movement in the sea and the sky. Each of the the images were taken on the Fujifilm X-T2 and the 16-55mm f2.8 fitted with a Lee 0.9 soft ND Grad and the Lee 10x ND 'Big Stopper'.  Fujifilm X-T2 + XF16-55mm f2.8 - 361s @ f16 ISO200 Fujifilm X-T2 + XF16-55mm f2.8 - 291s @ f8 ISO200   ---------------------...

This evening the sky looked very promising for a beautiful sunset so I headed over to Barns Ness Lighthouse to see if I could get a colourful shot of one of my favourite locations as the sun went down behind me. I set the X-T2 and the 100-400mm on the Manfrotto tripod across the bay on the west end of Whitesands beach and put the Lee 'Big Stopper' and 0.9 ND Grad on the lens. I did a series of shots but this one was taken using a long 10 minute exposure, 5 minutes each side of the sunset time of 18h45.     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALL IMAGES ARE THE PROPERTY OF MACLEAN PHOTOGRAPHIC AND CA...

For the third stop on Sunday's Long Exposure Landscape workshop we went out to Seacliff to take some long exposure images towards Tantallon Castle and Bass Rock. By late afternoon the wind had really picked up speed and we were pretty exposed on the headland looking out towards Bass Rock.  We had to set out tripods close to the ground to stop the wind from moving the cameras during the 120 second shutter speeds we were using. I set my camera facing Tantallon Castle, with the X-Pro2 and the 10-24mm f4, while I took 'normal' shots on the X-T2 + 50-140mm f2.8 as the sun broke through the clouds. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------...

Yesterday I conducted my latest Long Exposure Landscapes workshop and one of the places we visited was St Helen's Chapel up the coast from Dunbar.  This is a ruined church that was abandoned in the late18th century.  It is a very atmospheric place with ruined walls and upturned grave markers. Using the X-Pro2 and 10-24mm f4 lens fitted with the Lee Big Stopper and Lee 0.9 ND Grad, I produced some images to demonstrate the techniques I was teaching.  Here are three of the shots from yesterday. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALL IMAGES ARE THE PROPERTY OF MACLEAN PHOTOGRAPHIC...

One of my favourite spots for photography is the beach at Seacliffe just along the East Lothian coast from our base in Dunbar. Seacliffe is one of the closest points to Bass Rock and at this time of year is a great spot to watch the thousands of Gannets swirling above the rock or diving into the Firth of Forth to catch their fish supper. With one eye on the tide I clambered out onto the rocks to capture some long exposures as the waves crashed against the rocky shoreline. Using the Fujifilm X-Pro2 and the XF10-24mm f4 Fujinon lens fitted with a Lee 10x ND 'Big Stopper' and a 0.9 ND soft grad filters, all strapped to the Manfrotto tripod, I captured this image with an exposure of 131 seconds @ f16 ISO100. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this...

The combination of high tide, a choppy sea and beautiful evening light had me grabbing the camera bag and tripod and I headed down to Belhaven Bay, just a short 5 minute walk from my front door. This shot was taken on the Fujifilm X-Pro2 fitted with the XF16-55mm f2.8, a Lee 0.9 ND Soft Grad and Lee 10x 'Big Stopper' ND filters.  The camera was placed on a Manfrotto 190 tripod and the image composed with bridge in the bottom left hand corner and the tripod raised so the top of the bridge was clear of the dark background. The final exposure time was 251 seconds at f8 with the ISO set at 200. The final image is more or less as it came out of the camera except for tweaks to the exposure, contrast and clarity in Photoshop. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping ...

I carried out a track inspection this morning looking at the new Red Zones (restricted areas for photographer access) that have been installed ahead of this weekend's World Endurance Championship race at Spa-Francorchamps. While I was there I took the opportunity to grab some moody low level shots of the track and the kerbs using the X-T1 and the 10-24mm f4 Fujinon.  With the sun poking through the cloudy sky I used a Lee 0.9ND soft grad filter to balance the exposure. Here are some of the shots from around the 7km circuit at Spa-Francorchamps.

Continuing my exploration of the hills around Dunbar looking for new photographic locations I travelled up from the village of Spott along the road to Woodhall and Elmscleugh.   The road drops drop to a ford crossing the Woodhall Burn and as you climb the hill on the far side there is a nice shot across the small glen with the old farmhouse at The Brunt perched on the opposite side. I stopped the car and walked up the hill to get the best position.  Luckily the sun was still high enough to light the burn and not cause too many deep shadows in the image. The X-T1 was fitted with the 10-24mm f4 lens, with a focal length of 17mm for this shot.  I had a Lee 0.9 ND Soft Grad fitted to help hold the brightly lit sky back three stops.  The final image was converted to mono using Silver Efex Pro2.  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADV...