The busy month of August continued, and seemed to bring with it a significant amount of trips to the land of Wales, with two visits there in as many weeks. Like London before, I had my Fuji X100V with me, as well as the DJI Mavic Pro II, and the 7D MKII with the Sigma 150-600mm lens along for the ride with me.

WALES PT.1

After my earlier posts about looking to downsize my gear for when I travel, I was of course going against my own advice on the first trip to Wales, and was walking to ‘4 waterfalls’, deep in the Brecon Beacons carrying the aforementioned equipment all on my back with me.

After flying the drone over the valley to capture one of the waterfalls, nestled in the trees, I descended into the valley to walk along the river, keen to use the ND filter inbuilt into the x100v.

After getting a couple of pretty bang average images of a yellow wagtail, following it for a while as it flitted around feeding, a dipper flashed across my eyeline and down the river. I immediately gave up on the wagtail to pursue the dipper with the 7D MK II and Sigma 150-600mm in tow.

I finally managed to catch up with it as it bobbed along in the fast flowing river, fishing just under the surface for insect larvae. I really struggled to get a useable image due to the bird constantly diving under the water with its back to me in, stopping only briefly before jumping back into the water to continue fishing. The weight of the camera and lens also contributed to many of the shots not quite catching focus which was really frustrating. in the end I only got two pretty average images but better than nothing I guess. Next time I will use my tripod for hopefully a lot more useable and clean images.

The time came to finally use the in-built 4 stop ND filter that the FujiFilm X100V has incorporated into the fixed lens. This gave me the opportunity to hopefully slow the shutter speed down enough in full sunlight to slow the water down and create the classic waterfall image.

The filter did not disappoint and was so much easier to use than the usual screw on filters or Lee filter system that I had previously employed to make the same sort of image.

WALES PT.2

We took a trip to Rhossili to see the famous sunflowers and walk along the gower peninsula, giving me the chance to fly the drone and get some more coastal images along the way.

LONDON

After a bit of nature time in Wales, it was back to the concrete jungle that is London for a long weekend in the capital. The perfect opportunity to get some photo walks in with the Barbican centre the first area to feel the wrath of the X100V.

The whole of the Barbican is a photographers wet dream, with amazing architecture at every turn. There is even a fantastic conservatory housing over 2000 species of plant to explore, so of course I was running around like a newborn child, wide eyed and over stimulated at all the opportunities around me.

After leaving the photographers wet dream that is the Barbican centre and its surrounding estate, I continued walking around London for the remainder of the afternoon and into the night.

After exploring some new places during the day, the evening was a more familiar sight with the neon nights of Soho. The live view on the X100V was particularly useful for this kind of street photography as I am able to easily view the back screen, and then adjust my settings quick and easily to capture the neon city street lights.

After noticing some shepard fairey (Obey Giant) artwork on oxford street, I decided to camp out in front of them and use the fishing technique to wait for interesting silhouettes of people passing by.

Finally another end of blog wedding congratulations to these two absolute babes, who I had the privilege of photographing their big day.

Again I was able to shoot the whole day on the X100V with some really fantastic results.

I can’t convey enough superlatives to explain how much this camera has changed the game for me over the summer. To put it into some sort of context, I took my full frame Canon 5DMK III with my L series 35mm F1/4 to the wedding, it didn’t leave my bag….

FIN