CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

It may be a bit of a photography cliche but I love Robins ( Erithacus rubecula)  foraging for food in the snow. It is the stuff of Christmas cards! We have a bird table in the garden which we have kept stock up with seed over the winter.  With the recent winter storms lashing the UK we have had plenty of our feathered friends in the garden looking for something to eat. I set up the camera in the house over looking the garden and waited for a Robin to appear in the right spot and I didn't have to wait for long.  I used the Fujifilm X-H1 fitted with the XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 plus the 1.4x converter to give me some extra pulling power. For more information on the Robin  ( Erithacus rubecula)   CLICK HERE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are hel...

Football is undeniably the world’s favourite sport as it is watched and played in every corner of the globe. The English Premier League is the most-watched sports league in the world. The premiership is shown on TV in 212 territories with a potential audience of 4.7 billion people. All the major news outlets cover the matches each weekend on TV and in print, with revenues generated accordingly. This popularity has filtered down to the lower professional leagues as well. This has made media passes highly sought after and the prospect of amateur sports photographers getting decent pictures from the spectator areas in the all seater stadiums almost impossible, even if you were allowed to take a camera and telephoto lens into the ground in the first place. Shooting Sport as a Spectator Part 10 - Football from MacLean Photographic on Vimeo . However there is an alternative for the aspiring football photographer and this is going along to your local non-league club. The ac...

On our travels in Hakone we went along the coast south of Tokyo to visit the island of Enoshima.  As it was a holiday in Japan the island was jam packed with visitors so we decided to stay on the mainland and sit on the beach at Kamakura to watch the Black-Eared Kites ( Milvus lineatus). These medium sized raptors are fairly common along the coast of Japan and they are opportunists, having worked out that snatching food from an unsuspecting human is far easier than catching rodents or small birds.  They are to Japan what seagulls are to us in the UK, just far more interesting to watch. While we sat on the beach about a dozen 'Tobi' as they are known in Japan were soaring above us watching for an unsuspecting human to swoop down on and snatch their lunch.  This happened several times we are there but the kites were so quick I wasn't able to catch an image. We sat shooting the birds using the X-T2 with the 100-400mm and 50-140mm zooms For more on the Blac...

Japan is famous for its hot springs and volcanic activity.  Only last week Tokyo was hit by an earthquake but this happens so often the Japanese don't worry about minor events.  On Monday we went down to Hakone and took a trip up the Hakone Ropeway (Cable Car) to Owakudani station to see the volcanic venting on the top of the mountain.  The drifting steam look like white clouds but the rotten egg smell certainly made sure that you knew this wasn't anything so benign. The volcanic activity in the area has increased in recent weeks and while the cable car was still in operation, the paths further up the mountain were closed due to the danger.  Shooting from the viewing areas at Owakudani Station with the X-T2 and XF100-400mm I was still able to get some good shots of the rising plumes of steam. On the otherside of the mountain an area of volcanic activity had destroyed part of the forest, uprooting trees and killing the plants in the area....

A few weeks ago Fujifilm published the eighth episode in the series of features I am writing and filming on shooting different sports from a spectators point of view.  This series has been well received by the readers of the Fujifilm blog and on social media and it has been really interesting for me as a sports photographer to explore different sports without the benefit of a media pass. I have been pleasantly surprised how good the access is at the sports that have been featured so far and by the fact that at some a media pass wouldn't have provided me with any better access than I got as a spectator. Part 8 was on the Scottish X Country Mountain Bike Racing series.  Unlike the previous seven sports in this series, I haven't shot this sport before, so it was a bit of a learning curve.  But it turned out to be a great day out in the forests of Dumfries and Galloway. I am now planning another four features which will feature some winter sports over the coming mo...

Richard Lietz - no91 Porsche 911 RSR  Fujifilm X-T2 + XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 (zoom 400mm) - 1/2000s @ f5.6 ISO200 Today is race day here at the Circuit of The Americas in Texas, which is hosting round 6 of the FIA World Endurance Championship.  The race will begin at 12h00 local time, which is 18h00 in the UK. The most iconic landmark on the circuit is the observation tower, which stands 251 feet / 77 metres above the track and gives a panoramic view of the circuit and the Texas countryside.  At Turn 10 on the track the cars crest a small rise in the track and by moving down the fenceline you can place the top of the tower in the shot behind the car.   The image at the top of the page was taken during Free Practice 3 at 10h30 on Friday morning, while the shot below was taken at the same point but at 17h15 on Thursday afternoon during Free Practice 2.   no51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE - Alessandro Pier Guidi / no36 Signatech Alpin...

Fujifilm X-T2 + XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 - 1/125s @ f7.1 ISO200 - focal length 386mm This weekend I am in Mexico City with the FIA World Endurance Championship and I went trackside at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez to get some shots during the two 90-minute Free Practice sessions. The images were shot on an X-T2 with either the XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 zoom lens, XF50-140mm f2.8 or the XF50mm f2 prime. The 6 Hours of Mexico will be shown live on the FIAWEC App and website.  More details at www.fiawec.com  Fujifilm X-T2  + XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 - 1/60s  @ f7.1 ISO100 - focal length 203mm Fujifilm X-T2 + XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 - 1/800s @ f5.6 ISO640 - focal length 400mm Fujifilm X-T2 + XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 - 1/800s @ f5 ISO640 - focal length 261mm Fujifilm X-T2 + XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 - 1/800s @ f5.6 ISO640 - focal length 400mm Fujifilm X-T2 + XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 - 1/800s @ f5.6 ISO640 - focal...