Birds and Combines | North Dakota

So on Monday I had a job shooting video of some awesome farmers harvesting one of their crops, but before that my friend/co-worker Brad and I decided to go out a bit earlier and see what birds we could find with our new camera gear! He is almost done with switching from Canon to Fujifilm and was using his Fujifilm X-T1 and 100-400, and I was using my brand new Fujifilm X-T2(!) and my 100-400 + 1.4x teleconverter. Really impressed with the tracking performance on that combination, from my memory it gives my Nikon D4s + 200-500 a run for its money in the AF department. Yes, there were some situations where the Nikon might have been a bit better, but I still came away very happy with my images, and my arms didn't hurt as much since my Fuji setup was probably half the weight of my Nikon one!

Therefore all of these photos were taken with my Fujifilm X-T2 (without booster grip, I hadn't gotten it yet) and my 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 + 1.4x teleconverter. 

​Also, I have no idea what any of these birds are called, I just like taking photos of whatever I can find. 

The main reason I have been using my Fuji gear so much more lately is because of the size/weight savings. Yes, the X-T2 + 100-400 isn't really that much less than a lot of other setups you could get, but it is a lot less than the setup I have been using, so it is advantageous to me!

Anyways, We basically drove around for a bit stopping near some rocks, then stopping at most of the little ponds near the road that we could. I took something like 600 photos total for the day, so I will just post some of the best photos here. This guy was pretty photogenic, just hanging out like 40 feet out into the water, fairly unconcerned with me crashing through the plants to try to get low to the water. That was nice of him. 

Once we were through with driving on roads, Brad took his boss big red pickup (named Clifford) through a field and we found this awesome lake with cattails that we had to "wade" through. They gave us a pretty decent amount of cover to get a bit closer to the birds on the lake, and I definitely got some of my favorite shots from the day out there. It was a beautiful day for it, too. Grey, cloudy, a bit cold but not too cold. It was just refreshing outside. 

This guy really was the star of the show for me. I got probably 250 photos of him circling and diving and just being unconcerned with 2 guys walking around his lake. I did miss a few shots of him while tracking with my camera as he flew over the crazy repeating pattern of the trees behind him, which I think would trick most cameras (and it definitely made it difficult for me to follow him.)

Bird feet. The X-T2 actually tracked basically right to the edge of the frame, something my D4s cannot do, and that was awesome. I just couldn't keep up with how fast this guy was flying around me, I'm sure if I could have kept him in the frame longer the camera would have kept up. 

And here is Brad being slightly appropriately dressed for the occasion. I was wearing dark beige, so I wasn't exactly camouflaged...

Next we headed over to do our actual job, taking video of Brad's dad and some other guys harvesting one of their fields with their combines. Really cool, I haven't been around them in a while, and I got some really great video of them (with either the Canon C100 MK II from the office with a 24-70 f/4L or even with my X-T2 and 100-400 in 4K!) The 4K video out of the camera is amazing, and I am really impressed with how freakishly stable the 100-400 is handheld at 400mm (or 680mm equivalent with the X-T2s 1.7x crop in 4K.) I'll make another quick post with some clips from that in the next couple days, probably. Onto the harvest photos!

We had a really great time, I'm really happy with what I got, and keep an eye out for the 4K video clip compilation I'm going to be making soon!

Thanks!

​Kevin