X-T1 Autofocus Test on Puffin Island

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Yesterday we took a Scottish Seabird Centre boat trip out to the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth to photograph some of the 200,000 seabirds that live on the island, including some of the many thousands of Puffins that breed on the Isle of May each year.

 Today Fujifilm launch Firmware Version 4 for the Fujifilm X-T1 and I have been testing a beta version of the new software for Fujifilm that significantly improves the autofocus on the Japanese manufacturers flagship Compact System Camera (CSC).  

 The trip to the Isle of May gave me another opportunity to test the Zone and Wide Tracking Focus on the updated software and photograph these small birds in flight with the XF50-140mm f2.8.

 Atlantic Puffins (Fratercula arctica) are only 32cm (13 inches) long and fly low with their wings beating at 400 times per minute.  They are very difficult to track with the camera because they fly so quickly but there are so many of them on the Isle of May I had plenty of chances to point the X-T1 and start the focus test.  The hit rate was acceptable at around 60%.  Once the AF had locked on it was able to track but I had more success tracking and taking a single shot than using a continuous burst at 8 frames per second.


Once again the flaw in the X-Series system is the lack of a fast long lens, but we know that Fujifilm are working on this. The addition of a 1.4x converter that is already on the roadmap will be welcome news for anyone with the 50-140mm and the new superzoom will also be a great addition to the XF lens line up when it arrives for anyone interested in wildlife photography.  That said, the 50-140mm, and the 55-200mm f3.5/4.8, performed extremely well on the Isle of May.











More images from the Isle of May trip will be posted on tomorrow's blog.

 CLICK HERE for more information on Puffins
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