Photographing Gannets in Flight with X-Pro2 and 100-400mm

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The annual migration of Gannets to Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth has been described as one of the natural wonders of the world.  150,000 Northern Gannets nest on the lump of rock sticking out of the Firth and is a spectacle we can see from the end of our road here in Dunbar everyday during the spring through to the autumn.

 Yesterday evening I head out to Seacliff beach which is the closest point to The Bass with many of the Gannets feeding in the waters just off the beach.  I stood on top of the Gegan, a small outcrop of rock looking right out to Bass Rock. The Gannets were flying past me at eye level or even below and I set about capturing some images of the birds in flight using the Fujifilm X-Pro2 and XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 lens.


The Gannet might be a big bird but it can move extremely quickly.  Even shooting down on the birds from my rocky perch, the AF proved to be more than up for the challenge of photographing the birds in flight against a busy background of chopping seas or bright blue sky.  

 A busy background can sometimes confuse the autofocus and cause it to lose the lock on the subject.  This did happen on a couple of occasions but it wasn't anything to worry about and the AF performed a lot better than I expected it to in the conditions.

 I had the X-Pro2 set on AF-C, Zone focusing, 8fps drive and manual exposure of 1/1000s @ f6.4 ISO800.

 All images were shot on the X-Pro2 and XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 lens.






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