Annual Wildlife Photography Weekend Coming Up; This Year It Will Be A "Shootout" Between the Fujifilm X-T3 With The 100-400mm lens And The Olympus E-M1 Mark II With The 300mm f/4 PRO Lens

Tundra Swans (click to enlarge)
Nikon D810, Tamron 150-600mm f/4.5-6.3 lens @ 600mm; 1/1600th sec. @ f/11; ISO 400

This weekend marks my 11th consecutive year that my friends and I have met at the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge on Assateague Island on Virginia's Eastern Shore to photograph wildlife, tell "lies" and share some good meals.  It is always a really good time.

This year, I will be taking both my Fujifilm X-T3 (X-T2 as a backup) and mainly using my new Fujifilm 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens, without and with, the Fujifilm 1.4x tele-converter.  I'm anxious to find out if the X-T3 locks on and tracks wading birds as well as birds in flight better then did the X-T2.

I will also be taking my Olympus E-M1 Mark II along (Pen-F as a backup) with my Olympus 300mm f/4 PRO lens, also without and with, the Olympus 1.4x tele-converter.  I suspect, due to the 300mm lens being a fixed focal length, I will also be using the Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 lens, again without and with, the same Olympus 1.4x tele-converter.

My plan is to use both prolifically in all situations so I can get a sense of which may be the better setup for future wildlife outings.  

A few of the famous "wild ponies" grazing at sunset in Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge (click to enlarge)
Nikon D700, 70-200mm f/2.8 G lens + 1..4x tele-converter @ 270mm; 1/ 400th sec. @ f/11; ISO 200

However, there are a couple of differences in the cameras to consider.  

First, since the 300mm lens is an f/4 lens, when adding the 1.4x tele-converter, that only brings down the maximum aperture to f/5.6, which is a 1 stop advantage over attaching the 1.4x tele-converter to the Fujifilm lens.  That is an advantage when focusing.  That being said, the X-T3 should focus at a maximum aperture of f/8, as stated by Fujifilm.  However, it may be that when I need the extra focal length, out to a full frame field of view of 840mm, the Olympus, being that 1 stop faster, may focus better and keep locked on more efficiently.

Second, the X-T3 has extensive controls for photographing all sorts of moving subjects.  In fact, there are three different types of settings one can use in various combinations to tailor continuous autofocus to the type of subject you anticipate photographing.  Fujifilm supplies 4 presets and one additional setting which is configurable by the user.  That versatility, if understood and utilized correctly, may give the X-T3 an advantage.  The E-M1 Mark II is at somewhat of a disadvantage (I would suspect but it may not prove to be true) in that the only setting is a sliding scale which tells the camera how long and persistent to lock on to a subject before the autofocus jumps to another subject.  These are really handy features which can increase your "hit rate" for successful images that I won't go into more extensively here.  If you want better explanations of these features, they are available on the web in many places.

I think it will be fun and interesting to see how things work out over the wide variety of subjects I normally photograph on these types of weekends.  I should have something more to say about it next week.

Join me over at Instagram @dennisamook or my website, www.dennismook.com. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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