Fujifilm X-T1 Snaps World Wildlife Photography Image of the Year – Animal Portraits Award

image courtesy: Peter Delaney – peterdelaneyphotography
Fujifilm X-T1; 50–140mm lens at 140mm; 1/75 sec at f2.8 (–1.3 e/v); ISO 3200

World Wildlife Photography Award

Hm… this must be fake news, because everybody knows that only full frame cameras can be used for Pro work…

… and yet, here is today’s story ;)

The wildlife photography award of the year is the benchmark for wildlife photography. And this year, one of the winning images has been snapped with by Peter Delaney with his Fujifilm X-T1 and XF50-140 in extremely difficult conditions: in the rainforest with very dim and tricky light.

The image called “Contemplation” won the “animal portraits” award, which the organizers of the award call “our most popular category every year“.

“Peter had spent a long, difficult morning tracking chimpanzees through dense undergrowth. ‘Photographing in a rainforest with dim light and splashes of sunlight means your exposure settings are forever changing,’ he says. Keeping his camera at its optimum ISO setting meant a slow shutter speed, so it was hard to keep a sharp focus without a tripod. The troop of 250 chimpanzees had spent the morning high in the canopy. Totti, named after an Italian footballer, is a favourite with the rangers, but perhaps not the ladies. After trying everything to entice a female to join him on the ground – posturing, gesturing and calling seductively – he gave up and flopped onto the forest floor.”

To know more about the image and also see the other stunning images, check out nhm.ac.uk. You can also find the whole list of winning images at theguardian and bbc.com.

The whole award was trasmitted in live stream and is now available on youtube. It’s worth every second, but here on FujiRumors I will highlight only the parts that are relevant for Peter Delaney’s image.

Minute 1:28:47 here: discussion about the image + interview with Peter after he won the award. I like the adivce Peter gave to wildlife photographers to take better images. “Practice, practice, practice. And keep looking at the work of other artists, be it in sculputre, in painture… it doesn’t matter what the medium is. Keep looking at art, and eventually everything begins to sink in and then you recognize a great image, when it happens.”

Minute 43:41 here: award speech of Peter Delaney

Congratulations Peter from me and the entire FujiRumors community.

And thanks to the FR-reader for passing us the news :)

Fujifilm X series cameras…

• won the world wildlife photography award (story here)
• made the cover of the TIME magazine (story here)
• won the World Photography Arts&Culture Award 2015 (story here)
• won the First Prize of the World Press Photo Category “Stories (stroy here)
• made the front page of the Wall Street Journal (story here)
• were good enough for God’s work (story here)
• captured America’s most hated man (story here)
• distracted a French presidential candidate during his interview (story here)
• and more…