Still The Same
One of the wettest, most miserable January, February and March that I can remember meant 2024 didn’t exactly get off to a good start. Even with a new camera upgrade, I was lacking the inspiration required to get and put the new camera through its paces. Luckily a trip at the end of March as the weather finally began to look up meant I could take out the new camera to try and finally kick start this year.
Before my March trip however, I did manage to use the new camera on the foxes.
The new mammal and bird detection on this camera is like some kind of magic so I am really excited for what this can do in the future. The 40mp sensor also meant I can finally get the 1x4 adapter off of my camera giving much sharper results when cropped in without resolution loss. I am still sceptical of the 100-400mm lens so this may well be swapped out at some point, but for now this was a good improvement after so many missed shots from the XT-4 with the 100-400mm and teleconverter combination.
There was also a revisit to a wedding venue I had been too in 2016 which gave me a little opportunity to crack out the new Fujifilm XT-5 in a more normal photography situation. As before I was just a guest, so kept well out of the way of the actual photographers so only took a few images across the day, having said that, it was a good test of the new camera.
He bloody loved that coconut.
The meat and potato’s of this blog post however was a trip at the end of March. Kicking off with some street and architecture images taken around Poznan while the rain (for once this year) stayed away. This gave me the rejuvenation I needed to get 2024 going properly.
Along with some street photography, I was finally able to give the new camera a run out with some wildlife photography which was the real reason for the upgrade from the XT-4.
I had seen an Instagram account who had a rule that they wouldn’t use a shutter speed lower than 1600th of a second even if it meant under exposing the image. So I went about trying this method out. I do get the feeling that unless you have lovely bright conditions this is not a perfect rule and that she is shooting with an expensive F2.8 lens, but the method itself makes sense. I will be trying to remember this from now on when photographing wildlife to see if this makes a big difference or not. Maybe it’s time I get that F2.8 lens….
As well as my amphibian toad friends, the area along the shoreline was alive with common lizards. Without a dedicated macro lens I had to take a few steps back with the 100-400mm lens, but still managed to get some great shots of the lizards in the leaf litter they called home.
I think the fact I was further away from them, with the longer lens helped with getting more images as they were happy to sit and watch me from that distance, rather than disappearing into the leaves.
I also had the opportunity to photograph white storks which was another chance to see the XT-5 bird tracking feature on full display. I was blown away at how well it tracked the Birds Eye even from distance meaning almost all of the images were coming out tac sharp. I was also able to make a final assessment on the 1x4 teleconverter which when attached gave slightly soft images again.
Finally for this post, a species I was not expecting to see in the middle of the lake.
Sat proud as punch on a log, basking in the last of the days sunshine a red eared slider. A terrapin species endemic to North America and certainly not a lake in Poland. This one would have been a pet that has been left here to fend for itself. Luckily these little guys are pretty hardy so it looks like it’s made itself at home here.
FIN
