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...

Panning is a great technique for giving the impression of speed, which is very useful when photographing race cars.  The usual technique is to set the camera shutter speed to around 1/125 or 1/60 and move the camera with the car to keep the subject sharp and blur the background.  At this sort of shutter speed the hit rate is about one picture in every two. Sometimes though it is good to drop the shutter speed down to 1/30 or 1/15, but it is harder to get a 'keeper', the hit rate dropping to 1-in-5 to 1-in-10. However when it does work the effect is more dramatic. Using a shutter speed below 1/15 is pretty extreme but using a wide angle lens helps to keep the subject smaller in the frame and sharpness isn't so critical.  It is also good to have parts of the subject blurred as well.  Now on a sunny day it can be difficult to get the shutter speed slow enough, especially if the lowest ISO setting is 200 like it is on the Fujifilm X-T1 (for RAW images). ...

An early start to beat the weather heading towards Skye had us walking along the cliff tops on the north end of the island.  With high winds and sunshine that occassionally showed through the fast moving clouds the conditions were perfect for a long exposure landscape. Using the stack as a focal point, I fitted the Fujinon 10-24mm with the Lee 'Big Stopper' 10x ND filter, giving an exposure of 210 seconds at f20 (iso200). The second shot was taken further along the cliff with the camera facing north, the stack now a lot closer and framed by the two sections of cliff.  The exposure was now 180s at f11 (iso200). Both images were transferred to my iPad via the Fujifilm App and tweaked in Snapseed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - than...

Textures and strong sunlight can make for some interesting photography and this was the case yesterday afternoon as we headed back to East Midlands airport to catch my flight back to Edinburgh.  A field of barley on a hillside near to village of Wilson on the Leicestershire / Derbyshire border was being lit by the low evening sun behind a copse of trees while a breeze kept making the barley move in patterns. Using the Fujifilm X-T1 and the 56mm f1.2 or 35mm f1.4 I set about capturing a selection of images.   I also used the Lee 10x ND 'big stopper' filter to slow the shutter speed down to around 1/10 second to capture some of the movement caused by the wind. Here are some of the images ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you. ---...

Last week at the first race of the 2015 season at Silverstone was a bit 'full on' but this was to be expected as I have worked in motorsport for many years and every year it is the same.  Now we have the first race of the year under our belt then the rest should be a bit easier.   Since I got back to Dunbar on Monday I have been working on the post race information and also preparing for the next race in Belgium on the 2nd May.  So yesterday evening, with the sun shining, I downed tools and grabbed the camera bag for a much needed walk on the beach at Seacliffe. The evening light was wonderful with the low sun behind Tantallon Castle throwing deep shadows mixed in with golden light hitting Bass Rock just off the coast in the Firth of Forth. I set the X-T1 to take long exposure images as the sun slowly set to my left and while I waited I just sat taking in the view and watching the Gannets fish in the sea.  Sometimes you have to just slow down and app...

Photography is nothing without light.  In fact photography is derived from the Greek  phōs  "light"  and  graphé  "representation by means of lines" or "drawing".  These two words  together meaning "drawing with light". For landscape photography light is everything and while an image can be planned in advance to some extent, the light is down to the weather on the day you choose to go out to get the planned image.   Landscape photographers have to a patient lot and I will sometimes wait for hours for the right light or pack up without shooting a single frame if the light doesn't come right. So what is the right light?  I hear you ask.  Well it depends on what you are shooting and the type of image you wish to create.  Light is the key ingredient, it shapes the subject, adds texture and creates the mood. For me bright blue skies unbroken by cloud are a complete turn off but for some photographers this is their ideal...