CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

The Oxcars lighthouse in the Firth of Forth is situated in the shipping channel between the islands of Inchcolm  and Inchmickery to guide ships safely up the Forth river towards Rosyth, Grangemouth and the oil and gas terminals closer to the islands. The lighthouse was built in 1886 by Thomas and David Stevenson and became the first automated lighthouse in Scotland when the two lighthouse keepers were withdrawn in 1894.   The light was operated using gas delivered weekly from Granton Gasworks on the mainland and controlled by a clockwork timer to turn the light as required. An attending boatman delivered the gas and wound up the timer each week. The images here were taken from the Maid of the Forth during the trip to Inchcolm last Saturday.  The shot at the top of the page was taken during the trip to the island and is looking east down the coast towards East Lothian. The second shot was taken on the trip back and shows the Port of Leith in the background...

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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...

The Royal Yacht Britannia was home to Her Majesty The Queen and the Royal Family for over 40 years, sailing over 1,000,000 miles around the world.  Now berthed in Leith at Ocean Terminal, members of the public can discover the heart and soul of this most special of Royal residences. We have been meaning to visit Britannia ever since we moved north of the border last year and on a beautiful sunny day last Sunday we final got around to booking some tickets to have a look around. Launched in 1953 it is like stepping back in time as most of the fixtures are still very much of that time.  The steam turbine engines completed 1,000,000 miles during the 44 years Britannia was in service and the telephones and other electrical fittings look very dated. However Britannia was perhaps the most famous ship in the world, crossing the globe as a floating home for HM The Queen and the Royal Family as they acted as ambassadors for the United Kingdom.   Tickets prices are a pre...

The 'Desi Braveheart' Dancers - image shot at 3200 ISO Last weekend we visited the Edinburgh Mela, an international music, dance and arts festival celebrating its 20th year.   There were three stages where musicians and dances from all over the world came to perform and while the stages were lit, the lighting was going to be a challenge for the X-T1 with the 55-200mm f3.5/4.8 telephoto that I was going to have to use to get some close up shots of the artists.  I did take the 35mm f1.4, which would've given me a 3.5 stop advantage over the f4.8 at the 200mm end of the zoom but I wasn't able to get close enough to the stage to use the shorter lens.   Of course the 55-200mm has Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) but this only helps if the subject is static or slow moving.  I've handheld a shot of the Eiffel Tower at night using 1/8s with this lens and got a perfectly sharp image, but 1/8s is no good with dancers as they will appear blurred even with OIS enabled...