Astbury's Adventures in Photography

I've recently had a new Fujifilm X-T4 camera, acquired as the silver body-only option. Having previously had the X-T1 this post is to evaluate what I liked about the original X-T1, the reasons for buying again with the newer X-T4 and to outline some of the steps involved in making the transition. The X-T1 design is about 6 years old, I've had mine for about 5 years, quite a long time in the life of a digital camera. In this time it has been fault free, had several firmware updates and continues to deliver good photographs. The retro styling may not be to everyone's taste but I like it and more importantly it gives simple quick access to the main controls (ISO/shutter/aperture/exp comp) without resort to menus. The camera is relatively small and light, ideal when I don't want the size and weight of a full frame DSLR, for example when out walking. At 16mp the resolution has been enough to produce a large print if the image is not cropped too much. Jpegs are usually very g...

My plan was to take some photographs of the pet (dog) graves in the gardens at Hopetoun House. I wanted to shoot the small headstones from a low position so chose a Fuji X-T1 for the job as this is the only camera I have with a flip out rear screen which makes shooting at odd angles and positions easier. Light levels were likely to be low in the location beneath a canopy of trees and so I was thinking of using a flash to illuminate the subject and also to help with contrast, giving a light drop off for the background. I'd be shooting from close up so the little Fuji EF-X8 shoe mount flash seemed ideal (guide number of 8, metres, ISO 100). However when I came to start I could not get the flash to fire. I ran through a number of menu options and the obvious turn the camera on and off etc but it wouldn't play ball. So I was forced to rethink the shot, ambient light, higher ISO and a wide aperture (luckily I was using a prime lens, the Fuji XF 27mm f2.8). At f3.6 I was getting en...