I am no entirely sure how we managed to get invited to the 21 Gun Salute at Hillsborough Castle to celebrate the Queen’s official birthday but we did. It was a remarkable opportunity and it seemed only fitting to extend the invite to my X-Pro1 and 35mm lens.

Gun salutes are customarily fired, both on shore and at sea, as a sign of respect or welcome they mark special occasions on certain days of the year, many of them with Royal associations.

Today’s salute at Hillsborough Castle in County Down was to mark the Queen’s official birthday and following a week of solid rain it was thankfully a remarkably dry day.

The ground moved with each thundering shot and I tried to time the X-Pro1 to the second of the ‘fire’ command. You can click on the images for a larger view on flickr.

The Royal 21 Gun Salute was an experience we won’t quickly forget. I think this was a perfect opportunity to employ the subtleties of the X-Pro1 camera whilst still being able to retain image quality.