CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

A business meeting in Paris provided me with the opportunity to visit the Louvre for a couple of hours while I waited for my train to Le Mans.  This gave another opportunity to test out the capabilities of the Fujifilm X100 I recently purchased and I came armed with a Manfrotto travel tripod to try some slow exposure photography.   My meeting was at the FIA in the Place de la Concorde, which is perfectly placed for a walk to the Louvre Museum, which was next on my list of various places to visit in Paris having been to the Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, Montmartre and Notre Dame on previous business trips.   The weather was very grey and overcast so I walked past the famous glass pyramid checking out the various options for when the lights came on after dusk.  While walking around I walked over to the Pont des Arts, a footbridge over the Seine leading towards the Institut de France.  With plenty of people walking over the bridge and admiring the vi...

I have a confession - I love eBay.  I use the world's favourite auction website to buy and sell photographic gear and I have never (yet) been caught out or paid too much for something. However sometimes an item is too good to be true and this week I have a prime example of this. Grantham Cemetery a great place to test the newly purchased wide angle conversion lens I have fallen in love with my newly purchased Fuji X100 pro spec compact camera and the images it produces are so sharp from the 23mm f2 Fujinon lens that they rival the shots I get from my full frame Nikon D700 DSLR and pro lenses.  However I do love wide angle images, my favourite combination with the Nikon is my 17-35mm f2.8 wide angle zoom.  So when I found out that Fuji have produced a Wide Angle Conversion Lens (WCL-X100) that makes the 35mm f2 (equivalent) lens a 28mm f2 lens without any loss in quality I thought that was the answer to my dreams.  At £249 i...

Here in the UK we celebrate the 5th of November which was the foiling of the 'Gunpowder Plot' of 1605 when some Catholics tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament along with the Protestant King James I of England (James VI of Scotland) who was due to open the parliament on the 5th November.  The bonfire and fireworks - the traditional 5th of November display in England For many years it was the law in England to celebrate the failed plot as a victory over the Catholics and while the reasons for the 5th of November are sometimes forgotten the tradition of letting off fireworks in early November continues to this day.  The 5th of November is also known as 'Guy Fawkes Night', after Guido Fawkes the unfortunate conspirator who was caught red handed under the Houses of Parliament with the barrels of gunpowder.  His fate was to suffer the traditional traitors death and his death is celebrated with the burning of an effergy on the bonfire, though this t...

This week we headed north to Berwick for an overnight stop in England's most northern town.  Berwick on Tweed is a wonderful place with a rich history that can be seen in the medieval fortifications that still surround the town.  Seaweed on the beach near the pier in Berwick on Tweed A beautiful sunset had us heading down to the pier at the mouth of the River Tweed and I decided that a return trip was worth the effort of braving an early start in the biting northerly wind that had air temperatures hovering just above freezing.  However I was rewarded with a stunning sunrise that has me looking for opportunities while the light lasted.   I decided to use the Lee 'Big Stopper' 10x ND filter to smooth the sea and let the clouds smudge a little as they scuded across the sky.  While the Nikon D700 was attached to the tripod completing the 2-minute exposures, I started to look for other opportunities with my Fujifilm X100 while I waited.  There...

My Fujifilm X100 Black Limited Edition - no. 506 of 10,000 units available worldwide Fujifilm X100 Black Limited Edition For the past eight weeks I have been busy working in Brazil, Bahrain, Japan and China and this has left little time to update the blog, so many apologies for the break. Just before the last event in Shanghai I decided to invest in a high end compact camera as I didn't want to take my Nikon D700 and associated pro lenses into the country.  China has strict controls over media visas and a J2 visa in your passport means you have to apply for a J2 media visa on all subsequent visits to the country.  As my job for the FIA World Endurance Championship is as the Media Delegate for the series, I qualify for a F (Business) visa and I didn't want my pro camera equipment to cause me any issues on arrival in the country. I had investigate many options for a compact professional camera, including the Nikon V1 system range, but ...

Florence is the capital city of Tuscany and is famous for its history. A centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time,Florence is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has been called the Athens of the Middle Ages. A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family, and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1870 the city was also the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy. We decided that Florence was the 'must see' city on our trip to Tuscany and elected to take the train from Poggibonsi rather than drive.    First stop was the Ponte Vecchio, the medeval bridge that spans the Arno river and still has shops on it. After a short icecream break we walked to the Palazzo Pitti before heading back over the Ponte Vecchio to grab an al fressco lunch just off the Piazza Signoria.     After lunch it was a short walk up t...