FUJIFILM X-T1 (230mm, f/6.7, 1/140 sec, ISO200)

Another one from Arizona. This time from the Sonora Desert Museum. No museum but a desert zoo. Sounds like a great opportunity to take some animal portraits.

But when it has over 40 degrees Celsius most animals are just hiding somewhere in the shade. So no cougar or black bear – just a lizard and a prairie dog. Not exactly what I have hoped for. The super cheap Fuji XC 50-230 OIS surprised me once again. It’s a solid performer and a steal if you get it in one of the two lens camera kits. If I make Fuji my one and only camera system I would replace it with a faster tele zoom lens though. It’s fine for landscapes but I would like to have less busy backgrounds in the animal portraits. But again it is a good lens for landscapes where you stop down to f8 or f11 most of the time.

FUJIFILM X-T1 (230mm, f/6.7, 1/125 sec, ISO400)
FUJIFILM X-T1 (230mm, f/8, 1/125 sec, ISO500)
FUJIFILM X-T1 (230mm, f/8, 1/125 sec, ISO500)
FUJIFILM X-T1 (230mm, f/8, 1/220 sec, ISO200)
FUJIFILM X-Pro1 (18mm, f/7.1, 1/900 sec, ISO200)

I love the picture above. It was so dry and hot that they had to water the cactuses. It also perfectly illustrates the size of the plants.

There were hardly any visitors. August is clearly off-season for Arizona and most parts of the South West and its easy to see why. It’s extremely hot and uncomfortable. But in this year we had no other choice since my wife needed to be back to work in September. It has some advantages too. The whole area is much quieter and hotel rooms are cheap and easy to get.

We just learned about the North American Monsoon that can bring a lot of rain in the otherwise dry South West but even though it is called Monsoon we did not experience anything close to what I associate with that term. Even though we saw some dramatic clouds it stayed dry throughout most of our vacation.

FUJIFILM X-Pro1 (18mm, f/8, 1/750 sec, ISO200)