Sometimes the best camera . . .

There's a saying that "the best camera is the one that you have with you". This simply means that to capture an image, you don't necessarily have to use your state of the art DSLR, compact or bridge camera. Whatever you have to hand at that moment will suffice.

This was brought home to me recently when I decided on a whim, to take a few pictures at the nearby Teufelsschlucht (Devil's Gorge).

My aim was to capture a few shots of the waterfall using various shutter speeds to use as source material for some of my photography classes.

I parked nearby and, because of the slippery track down to the gorge, I decided to travel with the bare minimum of gear. Namely my new Fujifilm X-H1, a Fujinon 10-24 wide-angle lens and my trusty Benbo tripod.

Setting off down the track, I was pleased not to be carrying a selection of lenses and bodies with me but when I got to the waterfall I discovered a problem. The waterfall had all but dried up! Hmmm.

I tried a few experimental shots of the trickle of water running down the rock face but it was hardly inspiring. I decided to go back to the car and as I,turned around to make my way out of the gorge, something in my peripheral vision alerted me to the fact that something seemed "out of place". It was a frog. Clinging to the moss which covered the rock face. He (or she?) was poised motionless. Probably waiting for me to leave.

I decided to make the best of an otherwise lost chance. I wanted to take some closeups of the reptile but only had my superwide zoom lens with me: the Fujinon 10-24 f4. This is roughly the equivalent of my Canon 16-35 lens which I use for interiors. I would have preferred to have a macro lens but that was in the car and I really didn't want to trek all the way back to fetch one.

The wonderful Fujinon 10-24 f4 zoom

I re-positioned my Benbo tripod as slowly and as carefully as I could because I didn't want to frighten him off. Using the lens at the 10mm focal length meant that I would have had to get uncomfortably close which I wasn't keen on doing in case it frightened the frog. It would also have made more of the background seem in focus (one of the traits of a wide angle lens) and my aim was to try and isolate the frog and the background as much as I could. 

I chose instead to  shoot at the 24mm end (roughly equivalent to a 38mm lens on full format) and choose a wide aperture to try and render the background as unsharp as possible while still being recognisable as a gorge.

Here is the camera in position. You can see the last remnants of the waterfall in the background.

The Benbo is an extremely versatile tripod and able to get into the most awkward positions.

I am still relatively new to the Fuji system and it took a little bit of messing around to get the exact settings I wanted, but one thing for which I was grateful was the tilting screen. Normally, with the Canon, I'd have to contort myself into being able to see through the viewfinder. With the X-H1 I simply tilted the screen!

Tilting monitor

After a bit of positioning and repositioning, I selected aperture priority mode using f4. With 200 ISO this gave me a shutter speed of 1/4 sec. Such a slow speed wasn't a problem because the frog was obligingly still!

Several pics in both vertical and horizontal mode and this pic (above) was my favourite.

So. As I wrote at the beginning, the best camera for capturing something is the one that you have with you at the time. If I had only had my mobile phone with me, I would have used that. A super wide zoom is not the ideal lens for close-up nature photographs but it was all that I had with me.

Thanks for reading. Have you taken pics with gear that isn't normally used or recommended for a particular subject? Leave a comment and tell me about it. 

Tom