Yorkshire Wildlife Park with a FujiFilm X-E4
On Friday I went to Yorkshire Wildlife Park to attend a photography workshop run by Going Digital. It ran from around 10:30am until after 6, and apart from a lunch break and an initial discussion, we were out in groups all day photographing animals.
It’s a lovely place. It doesn’t feel like an old fashioned zoo - it feels very open with well thought out sight lines to the animals.
At the end of the day, we were next to the lion enclosure for feeding time. One of the park staff was telling us about the lions and it was very clear that the animals get a lot of care and love.
This is a small selection of photographs having gone through my photographs. I may well share more in future after I’ve spent more time looking at the hundreds of photos I took during the day.
I’ve been using a FujiFilm X-E4 for a while and it’s quite a minimal camera in terms of design and buttons. I’ve gradually customized it so that functions I care about are easy to get to.
Button Setup
Most FujiFilm cameras have aperture on the lenses and top dials for shutter speed and exposure compensation - and that’s what is on top of the X-E4.
AEL/AFL button set to Focus mode (Single point, Zone, etc…)
Top function button set to show histogram on/off
Swipe down on the LCD brings up ISO settings - a note below about that.
Swipe right - Photometry - metering - so Spot / Centre Weighted etc…
Swipe up - Focus mode - Single/Continuous/Manual - a note about this below.
Swipe left - film simulations - but I default to the standard Provia for most situations. The black and white images are switched to Acros.
ISO
I don’t like having to change ISO all of the time as light changes - especially when going in out of shaded areas. If I know what I’m trying to achieve is a minimum shutter speed and an ideal ISO, then I can set Auto ISO with some rules.
Most of this day was set to a default sensitivity of ISO 160, a minimum shutter speed of 1/320 and a maximum sensitivity of 3200.
When I wanted a faster shutter speed, I just picked that on the dial, and let the AutoISO rules pick up that difference.
This made operating the camera really quick for me.
Focus Mode
I relied on single point focus for most of the day. Zone was useful when tracking moving animals - but even then spot focus is still fast enough when they’re not moving erratically.
The X-E4 doesn’t have a dedicated Single/Continuous/Manual button, so I have this assigned to a screen swipe.
I do use it to switch between single and continuous - but the way I have manual focus set up is to allow me to just start using the focus ring on a lens - and it switches to manual once that starts moving. It also turns on focus peaking.
If I half-press the shutter button again, the previous autofocus mode kicks back in.
Final thoughts about the X-E4
A lot of reviews mentioned that the lack of buttons meant that the X-E4 had gone too far in minimal design to be useful. I’ve actually found that there’s enough customizability for me to be able to get on with using the camera without having to resort to wading through menus.
When I first got the camera, this was initially a struggle. I remember a number of days out with the camera where I missed being able to pick the metering on a dial like on an X-T camera - or flick the focus switch like on pretty much every other camera. But, on each trip, I identified what I needed and assigned it to a customization option and the camera became as easy for me to use as my older cameras.
You do develop muscle memory with any camera - this one just took me a few extra days at the start!
