I have been through this set a couple of times. A fascinating set. I like the entrance detailing.

Old rusty ships make for some interesting pictures. Rust never sleeps.

This street art is really well done. Love the saturated colour.

The X E5 has a nice small form factor, and I think more useful than the fixed lens variant.

I really like the rain effect. I presume you were shooting through glass.

No Sir.

Wait. It's appeared now. How odd.
And if I reload the page it's gone again! See both examples below.

No Exif:-

EXIF:-

I like to shoot in rainy conditions so I like the atmosphere in this.

Deffo. Can't see the point of a fixed lens unless it is to keep the size to an absolute minimum or simple nostalgia.

It was a known issue for a long time. I thought it had been fixed but don't quote me on that.

Nice tones and a lovely softness in this one.

Nice, the composition really draws the eye in. Whether having the subject OOF was your intent or not, it works and the sharp droplets on the glass really add to the mood.

The EXIF seems to come and go as it pleases Alan, even on the same browser and page layout. I couldn't see it at all on my iPad last night, but could see it when first looking at the thread on my Mac today, but now, since adding a couple of posts, I can no longer see it.

Congratulations on the new camera, the X-E5 looks like a nice package, I'd definitely have ordered one if I didn't already have the X-T50.

Nabby Nature

After last weeks post, where I visited Healey Nab and photographed the kestrels having a bit of a disagreement over a meal, but complained that I only had the 70-180 on me that the time, I decided to go back, but this time, packing the 100-400 instead (followed by several days of stiff neck and shoulders).

Of course, upon my arrival at Blue Water, the kestrels were nowhere to be found. Still, I had the place to myself and it was a lovely evening, so I didn't mind hanging around for a bit to see if they would return. They didn't, but I got this nice shot looking across the murky surface of Blue Water towards Black Coppice and Great Hill. The heather was just coming into bloom too. Which was nice.

Slightly disheartened, I left Blue Water and decided to head back through the woods, wondering if I might encounter a deer or maybe even an owl. I didn't. The woods were deadly silent as I noisily trudged my way through the crisp, dry leaves strewn across the gravel paths, if anything had been wandering through the cool undergrowth, it would have heard me coming a mile off and darted off in the opposite direction.

Emerging from the woods, visibility to the West was good, but I was somewhat early for sunset and the prospects for a nice one were, poor, so I decided not to hang around, but I did get this shot of the Mormon Temple with Blackpool Tower in the distance.

So that was it, I'd left The Nab and was now trudging back along the road to the car. As I did, I stopped to lean on a fence and look across one of the fields adjacent to the road. As I did, I noticed something distant swoop down from the sky. Raising the camera to my eye to confirm, yes, it was one of the kestrels.

It was a bit too far away, even with the 100-400, but I took some shots anyway, once I'd disabled the bird detection on the Z8 that seemed keen to focus on anything other than the bird. In fairness to the Z8, it was very tiny in the frame, but I often wonder where the training data was gathered for this AI marvel, as it clearly seems to struggle with any animals I point it at. Anyway, switching to manual focus and finding the correct distance myself, I managed to get this image catching the bird in flight. This is a tiny crop from the 45MP original, so it has been put through Topaz AI to upscale and sharpen it a bit.

Eventually, the kestrel moved even further away and didn't look like it was coming back any time soon, so I set off again along the road. I didn't get very far. In the adjacent field was one of the deer I'd hoped to encounter. Inconsiderately, he was having a mooch around at the far end of the field, but at least that meant he didn't feel the need to bolt immediately upon spotting me, but just stood there, occasionally glancing at me to see what I was up to. What I was up to was cursing the animal AF again as it doesn't seem to know what a deer looks like either and when it did decide to recognise that there was a subject there, it locked focus on the blades of grass just in front of it. So, manual focus again it is then...

I watched him for a while and rattled a ton of shots off, most of them out of focus, but not in an arty way, before deciding to leave him be and return to the car, quite happy that I'd had a few encounters, even if they'd all been miles away.

On the way home, I popped into a local supermarket to grab some food for tea. The supermarket was built on the site of an old mill and, presumably in an attempt to retain some character from our industrial heritage, retained the mill's chimney and incorporated it into the design of the new building (I think it's the only surviving example in a town that was once bursting with mills). As I left the car I heard loud screeching coming from the top of the chimney. These were the cries of a pair of juvenile peregrine falcons that had recently hatched up there, so as I had my camera and long lens in the car, I nipped across the road and took this shot of them. I initially tried shooting handheld, but by this point the light was failing, so as I happened to have my tripod in the car, I dug it out and mounted the camera on that. I didn't have the tripod foot for the lens to hand and used the L-bracket instead, so the setup was still a bit springy due to the 100-400 putting the centre of mass significantly forward. I'm also kind of surprised at how tall that chimney is. I'm literally stood across the road from it, but these guys are still very small in the frame. Bird AF was still having none of it, so I resorted to spot focus instead.

I much prefer action shots with birds of prey in flight and the angle of view and background here is nothing to write home about, but catching these two with the camera was a nice way to end the evening.

Confusing! Is it on the ceiling?

Each to their own David. The Fuji gives that flexibility to go small but make changes in future if need be. Although I admit I sometimes like the discipline involved in only having one lens, it promotes creative thinking.

Firefox or Chrome. Still on Windows 10 here.

Gotcha.