CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

Sale Sharks Hooker Rob Webber with the ball Fujifilm X-T2 + XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 - 1/1250s @ f5.6 ISO6400 (zoom 180mm) Yesterday I travelled down to Manchester to shoot my first Aviva Premiership rugby match when Sale Sharks were at home to championship leaders Wasps at the invitation of photographer Tim Williams.   The reason for my visit was to shoot some images for an upcoming feature for Fujifilm UK but it was also an opportunity to compare premiership level rugby with the three Scotland internationals I have shot at Murrayfield. I have had to keep back the images I have selected for the rugby feature but here are a few images from the game that Sale won 34-28 in a gruelling game of rugby. Next Saturday I will be back at Murrayfield photographing the third round match of the RBS Six Nations - Scotland v Wales. UPDATE: Images from this game have been used in the first part of a series of sports features on the Fujifilm blog HERE Sale Sharks Back Row TJ...

Landscape photography is mostly about planning to be in the right location and waiting for the right light.  However sometimes you just 'luck in' and this happened to me yesterday on the shore of Loch Fyne in the Highlands of Scotland. We were traveling back up the A82 to Inveraray when it started to rain.  The village has a small harbour so we decided to stop and wait for the rain to clear through.  As I was parking the car the light suddenly changed and a full rainbow appeared above the anchorage, highlighted by the dark rain clouds further up the loch. I grabbed the X-Pro2 with the Samyang 8mm fisheye to get the full arch rainbow.  I then had time to switch to the 50-140mm to get a closer shot of the rainbow hitting the sailing vessel moored up and then the 18mm f2 to get a different viewpoint before the rain stopped and the rainbow disappeared. It was a beautiful sight and one that I was in the right place at the right time to capture - pure luck!! ...

As a landscape photographer I am often asked what do I do when the clouds gather and it starts to rain?  Well I certainly don't pack up and go home if that is what you are thinking.  Up here in Scotland the weather can change very quickly and it is not impossible to have all four seasons in one day up here. Now on my wall at home we have a small plaque and it says, "life is not about sheltering from the storm, it is learning to dance in the rain!"  Well this applies to photography as well and if the weather is not going quite to plan, then it is time to switch to Plan B or even Plan C. When it is raining and the sky is overcast I go looking for natural shapes and colours, usually a copse or forest.  We found these silver birch trees on the side of a loch up in Sutherland and the muted orange and yellow colours of the bracken highlighted the silver branches and the green lichen. Using the X-T2 and the XF50-140mm f2.8 lens I captured a variety of images, u...

About eight months ago I decided to buy the diminutive Samyang 8mm f2.8 fisheye for the annual trip to Le Mans.  This lens is small and light and has a field of view of 180 degrees.  It is a manual focus lens but focusing only starts at one metre so I tend to leave the focus ring on infinity, stop down to f5.6 or f8 and not worry about it. This little lens allows me to get pictures from some very tight places or take an extreme wide view that you can't normally get, even with the Fujinon 10-24mm set at 10mm. Now if you want a wider view some photographers will say 'take a few steps backwards and then shoot'.  But there are some situations where you can't do that. The shot at the top of the page is a good example.  2016 European Le Mans Series LMP3 Drivers Champion Alex Brundle was getting strapped into the Ligier-Nissan for the final race of the season at Estoril in Portugal.  I took the shot through the other door into the cockpit.  The working a...

The Three Widest Fujinon Prime Lenses 14mm f2.8 - 16mm f1.4 - 18mm f2 You often see on Fujifilm forums and groups questions about which wide angle lenses are the best for landscapes and travel and I see a lot of different answers from people of varying expertise.  It is really down to the individual photographer to identify what they want to shoot and the best lens for them.   For me I love to have an ultra wide lens, so  my favourite wide angle lens in my camera bag is the Fujinon XF10-24mm f4, which goes with me everywhere because of its flexibility and relative compact size.  I also have the XF18mm f2 prime, which was one of the four primes I bought with my X-Pro1 back in 2013, which is one of my favourite primes for having on the camera when I am travelling due to its small size and fast f2 aperture. The Three Widest Fujinon Prime Lenses 14mm f2.8 - 16mm f1.4 - 18mm f2 The widest field of view prime lens that Fujifilm produce for the X Series is the ...