CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

One of the features on the new GoPro Hero 8 Black that I have been using around my home town of Dunbar is the Time-lapse feature that includes Timewarp 2.0, also known as Hyperlapse. This feature allows me to shoot stabilised 4K time-lapse video while on the move, with a choice of two focal lengths, wide and linear, as well.  It also allows me to slow the recording to normal speed with a tap of the screen and then return to the Timewarp with a second tap.  The effect is amazing! The Time-lapse function is easy to select on the Hero 8, it is selected by swiping the touch screen to the right. Timewarp is selected in the sub menu on the back and this can be altered to suit your requirements and saved as a preset.  The resolution can be set to 4K or 1080P for 16:9 format and two setting for 4:3 of 2.7K and 1440P. You can set the speed of the recording, with 2x, 5x, 15x and 30x options available.  The 2x will give 30 seconds of footage from 60 seconds of re...

The cars lined up at the first corner - Fujifilm X-T2 + XF50-140mm f2.8 The FIA World Endurance Championship 2017 season is now underway after two days of track running at Monza in Italy for the Official Preseason Test, The Prologue. Part of the proceedings is to take two special images, one of the group of static cars showing the size of the 2017 grid and the second is the car to car racking shots.   Both of these official images were taken by fellow X Photographer John Rourke and I rigged a GoPro Hero 5 Session and GoPro Hero 5 Black to record a timelapse video of the proceedings for the official website of the FIA . The video above was of the group shot at the first corner at Monza.  Fujifilm X-T2 + XF16-55mm f2.8 The car to car tracking shots took place on Saturday lunchtime after the morning session was concluded and my job was to organise the cars at the end of the pitlane and brief the drivers on the procedures to follow.  Once John wa...

On the final day before track action begins at an FIA World Endurance Championship event all of the cars must go through rigourous technical checks to make sure each competitor is competing within the sporting and technical regulations. The process usually takes around 40 minutes to complete but I decided to produce a timelapse video for the official FIA and FIA WEC websites and social media feeds showing the process in just 90 seconds. Setting the Fujifilm X-T2 and 16-55mm f2.8 lens on the Manfrotto tripod I set the interval timer to record one image every two seconds and shot 1200 images to produce this short video. The camera was set to record just JPEG images in 16:9 format instead of 3:2 so it matched the format of a TV screen. After all of the images were taken they were downloaded in Lightroom and then processed through Sony Movie Studio Platinum.  The frame rate was set to 15 frames per second. The music was obtained from www.freemusicarchive.org and the trac...

On the second day of visiting Nikko National Park in Japan the morning started off very misty and grey ( see Misty Pier image on Thursday's blog ).  We moved along the north shore of Lake Chuzenji and we suddenly saw some breaks in the clouds covering the lake.  We came across a beach with a car park so pulled over quickly and unpacked the camera gear. I noticed the clouds hugging the tree line on the mountains on the opposite shore so set the X-T2 up to record a timelapse video of the scene.  I used the XF50-140mm f2.8 or the XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 telephoto zoom Fujinon lenses. Using the Interval Timer Shooting function I set the camera to record one JPEG (Fine) image every 3 seconds and took a sequence of approximately 200 images before recomposing the image.  The result was a set of images that I could use to show the movement of the clouds in a timelapse video. The individual images were combined with the frame rate of 10 frames per second in Windows Mov...

Using the X-T1s Interval Timer function I took over 600 images of the LMP2 cars going through scrutineering using the XF16-55mm f2.8 lens fitted to the Fujifilm flagship camera.  I then put them together in Microsoft Movie Maker to produce a short 50-second timelapse video, which can be viewed here - 4 Hours of Estoril - Scrutineering Timelapse por ELMS The video was then uploaded to the official ELMS Dailymotion channel and also on the ELMS Facebook page, where it received over 70 shares in just a few hours. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALL IMAGES ARE THE PROPERTY OF MACLEAN PHOTOGRAPHIC AND CANNOT BE USED ...

The paddock set up for the European Le Mans Series or the World Endurance Championship is planned down to the last millimetre and the result is an impressively neat paddock that looks as professional as the teams that take part in either championship. The trucks are brought into the paddock in a specific order and they then park up to unload the cars and materials.  The fronts of the trucks have to be aligned exactly so that they line up down the paddock. I set up my X-T1 with the 10-24mm wide angle zoom to record 1400 images with one shot every 5 seconds over a two hour period, using the X-T1s inbuilt Interval Timer Shooting function, to record the set up at the Circuit Paul Ricard last week.  The camera was set to 16:9 format (instead of 3:2 for still images) and to record the images in JPEG Fine rather than RAW + JPEG I normally shoot. The images were then put together in Windows Movie Maker with the transition time between frames set at 0.05 seconds or ...

On Monday evening I headed down to Belhaven Bay to photograph the sunset and I posted some images on my return HERE .  Prior to the sun setting I took approximately 1200 images on the X-T1 using the cameras Interval Timer Function.  I set the camera to take one image every 3 seconds and set the tripod with the X-T1, which was fitted with the 56mm f1.2 lens, facing across the bay towards North Berwick Law on the opposite side. After the sequence of shots were recorded and downloaded, I used Windows Movie Maker to produce the 1 minute video below at 20 frames per second.   I added the music, which is 'Wonder Cycle' by Chris Zabriskie, to the video.  The music is available at FreeMusicArchive.org

Like millions of other people across the UK and parts of Europe I went out to witness the partial solar eclipse yesterday morning.  Luckily the skies over Eat Lothian were clear and so we got a great view as the moon passed across the face of the sun, covering 96% of the surface. I set the X-T1 up on the tripod to record a series of images that I then used to produce a short timelapse video.  Because I didn't have a celestial drive for the tripod the camera was static as the sun and moon passed through the sky so I had to reset the position of the camera on several occasions during this sequence, but you can clearly see the moon eclipsing the sun. It was certainly a great experience and by 10am it was all over for another few years, the last one being in 1999 prior to this one. Images taken on a Fujifilm X-T1 + 55-200mm f3.5/4.8 lens ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...

On Thursday I headed down to Barns Ness Lighthouse in the late afternoon.  A weather front was heading towards the coast and the strong wind was pushing the clouds across the sky at a fair rate of knots. After taking some long exposure shots on the X-T1 and 10-24mm f4 lens using a shutter speed of 80 seconds to blur the clouds and the water in the rock pool in the foreground. I then switched the camera to Interval Timer Schedule mode to start a sequence of shots to produce a timelapse video.  The image size was changed from 3:2 to 16:9 so the final video would be in the correct format. I then moved the camera to four different locations around the lighthouse to produce this video. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you. -----------------...

Over the past few months I have been posting some different timelapse videos in around my home town of Dunbar.  The videos include the sunrise at Barns Ness Lighthouse, East Beach, Dunbar Harbour, Belhaven Bridge and sunset at Belhaven Bay and I have put all of these different elements together to produce a timelapse video called 'Tranquil Dunbar'. The video is made up of over 1200 separate images shot on the Fujifilm X-T1 over the summer and put together in Windows Live Movie Maker to produce this one minute forty-seven second video. The soundtrack is called 'Cylinder 6' by US composer Chris Zabriskie and is available on the website Free Music Archive   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you. -----------------------------------------...

The preparations for the 6 Hours of Shanghai continue and yesterday afternoon the competitors in the LMGTE Pro and LMGTE Am classes underwent technical scrutineering.   This is where all of the cars are checked for weight and measurements to be sure that the cars comply with the regulations before they go out on track in the first Free Practice session of the weekend today. The first team to present their cars for the technical checks after lunch were the four cars from Aston Martin Racing, with the nr97 Vantage V8 of Stefan Mucke and Darren Turner, the partnership that has won the 6 Hours of Shanghai in 2012 and 2013, first on the scales. 500 individual images were shot to produce the video, with the Fujifilm X-T1 set to JPEG Fine and 16:9 format in the shoot menu. The lens used was the XF10-24mm f4R OIS wide angle zoom.  Aston Martin Racing Going Through Technical... by fiawec More information and live timing of the track sessions can be found on the ...

Yesterday I arrived in China for the next round of the FIA World Endurance Championship at the impressive Shanghai International Circuit.  This will be my fourth visit to China for a racing event and the fifth race I have run the FIA Media Office.  The first was in 2011 when we raced at Ordos in Inner Mongolia and then in Beijing with the FIA GT1 World Championship and then for the past three years we have visited Shanghai with the FIA WEC. On arrival in Shanghai yesterday morning, after a long 11 hour flight from Paris, I grabbed a quick shower and changed into my WEC uniform at the hotel before heading to the track.    Monday is the day the teams unload the containers of all their equipment they will need this weekend.  This is a big job as hundreds of tonnes of equipment are unloaded and unpacked.  I wanted to get a sense of this frantic activity in the paddock and so I set up the X-T1 to record a short timelapse video of the unloading proc...