CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

Fujifilm X-T2 + XF10-24mm f4 + Manfrotto 190 Tripod (Zoom 10mm) - 105s @ f4 ISO200 Yesterday evening I walked across the road to the cliffs above Belhaven Bay near my home in Dunbar to see if I could spot the Aurora Borealis which had made a brief appearance two nights earlier.  I have a mobile phone app (Aurora Watch) that gives me updates and alerts me to the possibility of activity in the night sky. Unfortunately the Aurora didn't make an appearance over the northern sky but with a bright moon and fast moving clouds, I wasn't going to let the scene go to waste. Fixing the X-T2 and XF10-24mm to the Manfrotto tripod I set about recording a set of long exposures of the crashing waves below the cliffs and scudding clouds overhead.   The glow on the horizon to the west of the cliffs is the lights of Edinburgh, which is 25-miles away as the crows fly (or owls at that time of night!). With the moon going in and out as the clouds moved across the sc...

I have to admit that as a photographer who spends a lot of time on the move I have yet to find the perfect camera bag, but I may have come very close with the Manfrotto Professional Backpack 50.   A camera bag is a considered purchase and something that shouldn't be skimped on.  Why spend thousands of hard earned pounds on a camera system and the protect it with a cheap bag - it doesn't make sense to me. For the past five years I have used a Lowepro 350AW Pro Runner backpack which has been a great all round carrying system. I originally bought it for my Nikon DSLR outfit and when I switched exclusively to Fujifilm in 2014 I continued to use the Lowepro.  However it was starting to show its age with some of the plastic couplings breaking or becoming detached, so I started the search for a new bag. Because I take a lot of flights - I've taken 84 flights in 2016 - the bag has to fit in with the most stringent of carry on rules for the major carriers.  I t...

I recently bought a Manfrotto Professional MP-BP-50BB camera backpack from Calumet in Edinburgh to replace my Lowepro Pro Runner backpack that I have owned since 2011.  I have two more long haul trips to China and Bahrain and then I will be producing a full review of this new bag that offers me a number of significant advantages as a frequent flyer over the Lowepro.   Manfrotto were running a promotion for a free PIXI EVO Mini Tripod during the month of September and so I duly sent off to claim it. The package arrived while I was in Japan and I had the first opportunity to test it out in the Highlands of Scotland yesterday.  Now regular readers of this blog will know I rate my Manfrotto 190XPro4 tripod very highly and this goes everywhere with me on my landscape expeditions.  When traveling I also have a Manfrotto Compact MKC3-H01 tripod which goes in my hold luggage and has been with me around the globe since 2012.   While the 190X will go quite low ...

The weather here in East Lothian has been glorious over the past week, it is almost as if summer has finally decided to make a late appearance just before winter hits Scotland.  I'm a 'glass-is-half-full' type of guy so have made the most of this beautiful weather. The last two nights I have been taking the short walk over to Winterfield Golf Course to catch the light after the sun has dipped below the horizon to the west.  Because the tide has been high at sunset the light hitting the surface of the water has contrasted nicely with the beach and the land and the images have been very monochrome.  Monochrome is usually associated with black and white images but in this instance I use it in the context of 'one colour'. The Belhaven footbridge provided a very nicely foreground subject for the images of the bay, and, as usual, there were a lot of people down there taking images of the bridge.   With the Fujifilm X-T1 and the XF50-140mm f2.8 fitted to the Man...

As a professional photographer I place some extra demands on the equipment I use.  While I try to take the best care I can with the cameras and accessories i own, the amount of use the gear receives inevitably leads to some wear and tear and, sometimes, to breakages. The one part of my equipment that does get a lot of abuse is my tripod.  My current tripod is the Manfrotto MT190XPRO4 that I bought last summer ( CLICK HERE to see blog).  The Manfrotto has been all over the world with me and while i regularly check it over and service the catches and levers to keep it in top condition, parts do wear out or, in the case, get lost.   In January I was photographing in the deep snow in Glen Coe and two of the rubber feet became detached from the end of the legs and were lost in the snow.  I have only just got around to finding replacements and the process was very quick and painless using Manfrotto's own parts service here in the UK. I went to the Manfrott...