CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

Fujifilm X-T4 + XF10-24mm f4 - Haida 15stop ND + 3 Stop ND Grad - 480 seconds@f8 ISO160 Yesterday I hosted another MacLean Photographic 'Long Exposure Landscapes' workshop at Seacliff beach, a location I tend to take most of my guests to because of the immense variety of images available in a relatively small location. Located a couple of miles east of North Berwick, Seacliff features a small sandy beach looking out towards Bass Rock one mile out in the Firth of Forth.  At this time of year the small island is covered in gannets as up to 150,000 birds call this part of Scotland home from March until October.  We were treated to some fantastic diving displays as the birds fished just off the beach for most of the day. Fujifilm X-T4 + XF50-140mm f2.8 - Haida 15stop ND + 3 Stop ND Grad - 480 seconds @f11 ISO80 On the headland looking west is the ruins of Tantallon Castle, which is still an imposing sight high on the cliffs across the bay.  Just off the bea...

Yesterday I went for a walk on Whitesands beach which a few miles east of Dunbar on the East Lothian coast.  There is a nice view from the west end of this small sand beach across the bay to Barns Ness lighthouse and it is one of my favourite locations for telephoto shots of the lighthouse. The light yesterday evening was very soft and pastel colours.  Fitting the XF100-400mm zoom to the Fujifilm X-T2 I took this shot of the lighthouse, using the short end of the zoom range to frame the image. I over exposed the image slightly to give a Hi Key effect and then I converted the image to black and white in NIK Silver EFEX Pro 2 software in post production after tweaking the RAW image in Lightroom and then Photoshop CC. The image was then cropped 12:5 ratio to give this finished panoramic image. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON TH...

This is a picture from Tyningham beach on the western side of Belhaven Bay looking eastwards towards Dunbar.  The rain was falling on the horizon while dark, foreboding clouds scooted over Dunbar Castle in the distance. The image was taken on the Fujifilm X-T2 with the XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 fitted with the zoom set to 100mm.  The camera was set to Aperture Priority and the exposure was 1/500s @ f4.5 ISO200.

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 was another shot from the morning at Seacliffe yesterday.  We spotted this rock in the surf as the tide was going out and the pristine sand with the swirls around the rock made for the perfect foreground interest looking out across the Firth of Forth to Bass Rock. Using the Fujifilm X-Pro2 and 10-24mm f4 lens set to 19mm (29mm in 35mm terms) I set the camera low down to get as much of the foreground into the shot.  With the aperture set to f11 there is plenty of front to back sharpness in the image. The image was converted to back and white in Nik Silver EFEX Pro2 software and then tweaked in Photoshop to get the finished picture. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you. -------------------------------------------------...

Now that the X-Pro2 has been launched and there have been a raft of blogs, reviews, tests and opinions since the press conference in Tokyo on Friday 15 January.  I have been posting my opinions on the new camera since the press conference based on my experiences using the X-Pro2 in a variety of different photographic situations since receiving the prototype at the end of November. One of the areas where the X-Pro2 is used the most is for landscape photography.  I have taken thousands of images over the past few months and as a landscape photographer this new X-Pro2 is fantastic.  Yesterday evening I walked down onto the rocks below the ruins of Dunbar Castle to shoot some long exposure images of the choppy seas that have been whipped up thanks to the high winds of storm 'Henry' that has swept across Scotland over the past few days. Walking down to the shoreline I set the X-Pro2 onto the Manfrotto 190 tripod, keeping the legs retracted to keep things as stabl...

Last Saturday in Estoril Portugal the sun came up over the town bathing the Portuguese coast in a warm glow.  However on the horizon storm clouds were gathering and by mid morning the winds were howling and the rain was lashing down, which brought a halt to first Free Practice session of the 4 Hours of Estoril (see blog HERE ).  The weather was so bad that a container ship was driven onto the rocks not far from our hotel and had to be towed off by tugs. All landscape photographers know that the light just ahead of a storm front can be quite dramatic as the sun can light objects against a very dark sky. These images were taken at sunrise from the hotel balcony in Estoril using the Fujifilm X-T1 and the 50-140mm fitted with the 1.4x converter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts y...

When out shooting landscapes on a cloudy day I always keep one eye on the sky to see if the sun will break through to create some interesting light on the landscape.  I have got very good at anticipating changes in the light over the years and it is a skill that all landscape photographers acquire over time. On the west coast of Scotland the weather can change very quickly.  Just when it looks like it is time to pack the cameras away and head back home, the clouds can suddenly part or the rain can stop and the scene that 10 minutes earlier was grey and overcast is suddenly transformed. Take these two shots looking out from the northern coast of the Isle of Skye out towards Harris and Lewis.  The wind was blowing the clouds across the scene at a fair rate of knots and the moving clouds would suddenly open up to allow the sunlight through to illuminate part of the seascape. They say 'patience is a virtue', and for landscape photographers this is very true.  S...

The geology in this part of Scotland is amazing and very diverse, a very visual reminder of the volcanic past of East Lothian.  The beach at Skateraw looking west along the coast to Barns Ness is one of my favourite areas to captures the different types of rocks. Near the shoreline is a slab of rock that looks like crazy paving and even has seaweed growing in the cracks, much like our path at home but substitute grass for the seaweed. Now I am not a geologist, I don't know what type of rocks these are or what caused the formation but as a photographer I like the shapes and the textures. So this evening, as the sun was setting in the west, I headed out to Skateraw to take some shots as the tide receded.

Today was a beautiful sunny winters day in East Lothian so we wrapped up warm and headed down to Belhaven Bay for a walk on the sand.  The long 3km beach attracts a lot of surfers and with some good waves on offer Belhaven was busy with people bedecked in wetsuits and carrying surf or body boards. I decided to take the Fujifilm X-T1 fitted with the Fujinon 56mm f1.2 lens on the walk, with the 18mm f2 in my coat pocket if I needed a wide angle lens.  As it happened I decided to keep the 56mm fitted to the camera and set about capturing some of the scenes on the beach as the surfers braved the very cold North Sea. With the tide on the turn the wet sand shimmered in the bright Scottish sun, so I decided to try and use this reflective surface as the surfers walked towards the water. The colour of the water, the bright blue sky and the yellow sand provided a very colourful subject, which I duly captured using the camera's RAW and JPEG mode, with the later set to 'Ve...