CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

Fujifilm GFX50S  + GF32-64mm f4 - 0.5s  @ f22 ISO200 Last Friday I headed north into the Highlands of Scotland to put the Fujifilm GFX50S through it's paces as a landscape camera.  This medium format beast does not disappoint and I spent an enjoyable day in four locations from dawn until late afternoon before heading back to Dunbar. First stop was Rannoch Moor, a favourite haunt of many landscape photographers.  I arrived before dawn and with the misty clouds hugging the mountains and not a breath of wind to ruffle the still waters of the small lochs, I set the camera on the tripod and waited.   The biggest issue I had was the fact the camera was only delivered with one battery and it is only good for around 250 shots, so I had to limit the time the camera was switched on to ensure I had enough power throughout the day.  It certainly reminded me of when I used to shoot with my Bronica ETRSi.  The issue back then was not battery power but...

Over the next few days as 2015 draws to a close I will be posting 10 of my favourite images from the last 12 months and sharing the reasons why that particular image has made it into my top 10 of the year. Let's start with a shot I took back in January on a very snowy Rannoch Moor.  We arrived before dawn and the snow was very deep.  Keeping one eye on the clouds and the horizon in the east I waited for the light to change as the sun appeared above the horizon.  With high winds and fast moving clouds there was no guarantee that the sun would actually appear above the horizon but with all landscape photography you need to be patient and also have a little bit of luck. On this particular morning Lady Luck was on my side as the sun did appear and the light struck the tops of the mountains.  I had the X-Pro1 and Fujinon XF55-200mm ready and captured the fast changing scene as the light changed.  In fact the light only last 30 seconds but I had managed to ca...

While waiting for the sun to come up over the horizon last Sunday I did some long exposure images of the wintery scene on Rannoch Moor. Lochan na h'Achlaise was frozen solid except for a patch where the flow of the river kept the loch from freezing over completely.  I had to tread carefully in the half light (I did take a torch) to make sure I was on land rather than on frozen loch - I didn't want to end up in the loch! On that point I also made sure I was dressed for the conditions. The temperature was down to -4 degrees but factor in the wind and the temperature was more like -10 degrees Celsius!  Plenty of lay ers, with thermals, winter coat and proper walking boots.   You are standing around for a while during these long exposures and you will not want to stop for long if you are cold and miserable. The first two images were taken on the X-T1 with the 14mm f2.8 lens fitted.  The shutter speed was 20 seconds for each shot. The images above was ...

With the weather forecast of a clear day with scattered clouds after recent heavy snowfalls had us heading into the Highlands of Scotland.  We arrived before dawn at Rannoch Moor with deep snow drifts and frozen lochs presenting us with a beautiful wintry scene to photograph. A quick recce to find the best, and safe, vantage point before setting the Fuji X-T1 on the Manfrotto 190 tripod in position facing west away from the sunrise towards the mountains.   While I waited for the sun to appear I captured the shot above on the 35mm f1.4 with a 20 second exposure of scene before the dawn. I then switched to the 10-24mm wide angle zoom to give me a little more flexibility and a Lee 0.6 (2 stop) ND grad in place in preparation for the sunrise.   I put the 56mm f1.2 on the X-Pro1 and then switched to the 55-200mm to give me some extra pulling power once the sun came up.  This allowed me to get some close up shots of the sunlight hitting the ridges of t...

Monochrome is as old as photography itself and it is a genre that I love to indulge in as much as possible.  I always shoot my images in colour, recording the picture in RAW so I can then convert the image in post production, but I always see it in black and white in my minds eye at the time I took the picture.  Some photographers set their cameras to record the image in black and white but I don't. The image at the top of this blog was taken a couple of days before Christmas and the strong contrasts as the sun broke though the clouds made this a perfect candidate for converting to mono using NIK Silver Efex Pro2 software in Photoshop Elements. The image below is of the snow covered Rannoch Moor in the Highlands taken just after sunrise. The following three images were taken this summer on our trip to the Outer Hebrides and while there were plenty of subtle colours in each of the images the conversion to mono has given the pictures something else. ...

One of the things I see a lot of photographers do when presented with a beautiful landscape is to grab the camera and take a picture standing up.  The camera will be either pressed to the photographers face or, more normally these days, with the camera / phone held out in front at arms length.  There is nothing wrong with this way of viewing the world, it's how we see it (ie normally between 5 and 6 feet above the ground), but a different point of view can change a picture dramatically. Rannoch Moor - Nikon D800 - Nikon 17-35mm f2.8 (@17mm) - 2s @ f11 - ISO100 The picture above was taken on Rannoch Moor. The Nikon D800 was attached to the tripod and placed into the water so the camera was almost level with the rocks.  The camera's live view screen was used to compose the shot and the shutter released using a remote cable. A word of warning. Make sure you had something tied to the tripod or camera and to your wrist when putting your gear n...

As a landscape photographer I love being out and about all year round but winter in the Highlands is quite special.  With a dusting of snow the mountain peaks look completely different than they do in the summer and the challenge is to capture this bleak landscape without losing the atmosphere. The following images were taken on Rannoch Moor and in Glen Coe. Images taken on a Nikon D800 or Fujifilm X-Pro1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALL IMAGES ARE THE PROPERTY OF MACLEAN PHOTOGRAPHIC AND CANNOT BE USED FOR ANY PURPOSE WITHOUT PRIO...

Another mono image from Sunday's trip out into the Highlands.  This is a four shot panoramic taken on the Fuji X-Pro1 and 14mm f2.8 lens.  The images were stitched together in PSE11 and then converted to mono using Silver Efex Pro2. Here is the original image in colour to compare - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALL IMAGES ARE THE PROPERTY OF MACLEAN PHOTOGRAPHIC AND CANNOT BE USED FOR ANY PURPOSE WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION If you like what you see on this blog please visit our  Facebook  page and click 'like'

A stop off on the way up to Rannoch Moor allowed me to capture the pre dawn glow over the mountains and Loch Tulla.   This shot required a 9 minute exposure due to the fact it was almost dark when we arrived.  W hile the clouds were showing signs of the sunrise, the glow is actually created by the lights of Glasgow some 60 miles to the south of where we were standing. Because it was so dark I set the Nikon D800 and 17-35mm lens on the tripod and had to focus the lens on infinity.  I could just make out the loch in the viewfinder to compose the shot.  The result was then cropped into a panoramic image in PSE11.  The colours are as they were in the RAW file, just slightly tweaked in post production. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ever...