Cloghan Oil Terminal Long Exposure

It is hardly the most likely title to have alongside landscape photography but I finally found Cloghan Point. I finally have my travel kit sorted into the most portable lightweight system possible.

Switching to the X-Pro1 for much of my landscape photography I invested in the Thinktank 5 and my last remaining struggle was finding a lightweight tripod to compliment the system. The quest ended with the brilliant Vanguard Nivelo ultra light, ultra affordable tripod system. You can see just how small and compact the tripod is in the photo below.

I headed out with the X-Pro1 with 18mm and 35mm lenses and my photography companion brought along the X100. The aim was to photograph Cloghan Oil Terminal for some long light long exposure captures.

Our first port of call was a walk towards Whitehead lighthouse to capture some Belfast Lough long exposures with the new tripod.

It was great to finally have the freedom to travel light. The Vanguard tripod is a great travel system for the X-Pro1. It is quick to erect and versatile in terms of hight and adjustment flexibility.

It is really easy it level the tripod and although there isn’t actually a specific tripod head the tripod is well designed to allow the same amount of adjustment you would expect with a professional head system.

After about a dozen photos I changed from the 18mm lens to the 35mm (50mm equivalent). Normally I would have considered this too tight for long exposures but given how far the lighthouse was from our vantage point the 35mm made more sense.

Leaving Whitehead we had another go at finding the Cloghan jetty. Accidentally stumbling into a secure area and at the point of giving up we sought the advice of a passer by who lived on the private road down to the sea front.

Following them down we finally made it to the Cloghan point shore line.

I had the X-Pro1 set up for long exposures so used the X100 to grab a few stills of the area. It was an eerie place to be, miles from the road there was a deadly silence as we walked through the beach debris past a rotting sea port. (Photo below was taken with the X100).

Venturing around the coast we made it to under the Jetty. There was almost an equal amount of washed up debris than there was rocks and shells I felt it was somewhere I wanted to be for very long.

Admiring the ultimate sharpness I stuck with the 35mm for the long exposure photos. The new tripod served me well on the uneven setting of the a rocky shore line which was a challenge given each of the long exposures was a minimum of 30 seconds.

If you own the X-Pro1 or X100 the Vanguard Nivelo is a brilliant portable companion.

If you want to learn how to capture long exposure then check out “How to take long exposure photos on the X-Pro1

To learn more about long exposure photography check out the long exposure ebook.