CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

Living on the Scottish coast in Dunbar I have plenty of opportunities to go for a walk and take in the scenery.  I usually have a camera bag over my shoulder with a camera and a couple of lenses ready to take an image should the opportunity arise. This evening I had to go the bank and the post office so walked there and back, taking the coastal path back home.  The sun was low in the sky as it inevitably is at this time of year, but the resulting light was perfect to capture some images of the scene looking back towards Dunbar Castle and the harbour entrance. Both images were taken on the Fujifilm X-T2 and the XF16mm f1.4 Fujinon lens that I will be testing in the Highlands of Scotland this weekend. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - th...

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...

Two weeks ago I received a Fujinon XF18-135mm f3.5/5.6 and a XF18-55mm f2.8/4 to do a comparison on which is the best kit lens for the X Series.  This is a question that I wanted to answer as I had been asked several times over the last few months this very question by readers of this blog and followers on social media.   I  have the superb XF16-55mm f2.8 professional zoom lens but with a Recommended Retail Price (RRP) tag of £959 this lens is quite pricey for most photographers. I did a first initial test of the XF18-135mm R LM OIS WR on the 10th January ( CLICK HERE to see this test) and last weekend I conducted a test of the shorter XF18-55mm R LM OIS with a walk out along the East Lothian coast at Yellowcraig near North Berwick. First of all, perhaps understandably, the XF18-55mm is a lot smaller and compact than the 18-135mm (and a lot smaller than the f2.8 standard zoom) and it has a maximum aperture of f2.8 to f4 compared to f3.5 to f5.6.  ...

A snapshot of the stats page at 11:00 on Sunday 22 January 2017 2016 was the best year so far for page views on the MacLean Photographic blog, passing 500,000 views last year in November and increasing the overall viewership by 44%.  2016 also saw two significant miles stones passed.  In January the new monthly record became 70,000 and in March the all time history passed 1 million and by the end of the year the total had risen to 1,416,440. In 2016 the total number of page views weer 557,923 compared to 385,750 in 2015 with fewer stories posted (214 in 2016 to 287 in 2015) The daily average in 2016 was 1524 per day and the average total per blog was 2607 compared to 1057 / 1344 in 2015. The next target is to reach the 1.5 million mark, which, as of today, the total currently stands at 1.44 million. In 2017 I will be posting more features on Fujifilm cameras and lenses, with one big review each month.  This month I am preparing a review of the Fujinon kit zoo...

No8 Sophie Olivia jumps the last but one fence from home Fujifilm X-T2 + XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 - 1/500 @ f5.6 ISO2000 (zoom 211mm) New Year Resolutions, we all have made them - get fit, lose weight, no alcohol for a month - but, like many others, I usually fall off that particular wagon quite quickly, usually in the first month.  Well I decided in 2017 to set myself a challenge that I wouldn't fail at so easily.  My challenge is to shoot sports that I haven't done before but also to shoot as a spectator and not on a media pass.  This is hard for me as for the past 25 years I have shot various sports, but mainly motor sport, from the privileged access afforded me by media accreditation.  I wanted to find out the difficulties faced by amateur / enthusiast photographers who attend these sporting events. There are times when a media pass is necessary and that is usually at the big events.  I've shot international rugby and there is no way yo...