FUJINON XF400mmF4.5 R LM OIS WR x Ian Dawson
Photographer Ian Dawson tests the new FUJINON XF400mmF4.5 R LM OIS WR in Zambia
With a background in photojournalism, Ian Dawson has always been drawn to a story. His photography has since taken him to some of the planet’s most remote and fragile environments. Whether photographing wildlife, landscapes or the people who live alongside them, Ian’s portfolio is united less by subject than by a curiosity to explore.
“It’s a question I get asked a lot: ‘What kind of photographer are you?’” Ian reflects. “I always say I’m just a photographer. If something presents itself in front of my camera, then I’ll take a picture of it. I’ll flit around from subject to subject.”
“People will say: ‘Why don’t you specialise?’ But how can you? How can you specialise when something wonderful is happening in front of you? Whether it’s something visually quite simple or something you’ve never seen before, how can you go: ‘I don’t do that, I’m not going to take that picture’?
“Why limit yourself? Why limit the possibilities of your career and the excitement you get from that?”
Visual Storytelling
“Sometimes my work is very considered – created using a tripod, all of that,” Ian notes. “But other times it’s quite fast and loose, and that links back to when I was a photojournalist. We’d be dumped into any situation. You would have to travel light, and you’d have to be nimble in terms of understanding where you’d been dropped, finding your subject and making images in challenging conditions. I still get a thrill from that.”
Does Ian’s background in photojournalism influence the lens through which he now photographs the natural world? “It’s now more documentary than journalistic, I would say,” he answers. “As a photographer, I’ve made some difficult pictures over the years, including those that certainly won’t end up on anyone’s wall. Some of them didn’t even end up in newspapers because they were too difficult.”
Ian explains that while he won’t shy away from creating images that confront the viewer, his work in the world of conservation needs to strike a fine balance.
“In conservation, it’s often about making something that is quite attractive on the surface, which engages people and gets them on board. Then they may start to realise there are certain messages within this image or in the accompanying text that explain a difficult situation.
“It’s an interesting conversation – you’ve got to get people through the door, so do you show them the raw truth of something, or intimate at it?”
South Luangwa National Park
“My colleague Sue Flood and I have been working together for the past five or six years,” Ian explains. “We have a company together; part of what we do is go out and create our own work. We also take guests on photography trips to lesser-known parts of the world.
“We’ve been going to Zambia for many years now, so we know it intimately. It’s a quieter part of the world – there will be literally six to eight of us out in the middle of the bush. We look at photography skills, but we also look in depth at the unique species – animals you only get in the South Luangwa National Park.”
“It’s the most populous area for leopards in Africa. There are endemic species, like Thornicroft’s giraffe, that you will only see there, and it’s got such a variety of terrain. It’s just consistently good,” he remarks.
“We work with local guides and organisations to educate people about nature in this corner of Africa. These are the true experts – people who have spent their entire life there are such a huge and vital part of what we do. We’ve got really good connections there – good friends, good naturalists, good charities we work with.”
“It’s more than just a destination. It’s a place we support and work with and know intimately.”
FUJINON XF400mmF4.5 R LM OIS WR
Ian was joined in the Zambian bush by a team from Fujifilm, who presented him with the new FUJINON XF400mmF4.5 R LM OIS WR to test.
“They arrived on Sunday afternoon, and we had until Tuesday afternoon, so it was literally two days,” he explains. “It was a high-risk strategy, but it paid off.”
“Leaving the lodge early on Monday morning, a wonderful leopard came out of the undergrowth within the first ten minutes. We had about 20 minutes with her, and the light was just beautiful – that morning light filtering through the trees. It was a spectacular start to the day, and it only got better.”
Ian has been an X Series user since the FUJIFILM X-T1, and he has long favored the small form factor and tactility of this line of cameras and lenses – particularly for his work in the field.
“It’s almost like having a pair of shoes that fit really well,” he says. “I use the FUJIFILM X-H2 now, and it’s just right for what I do. It’s never failed me, from working at -35°C in Antarctica to 35°C in the humidity of Papua New Guinea. It just works.”
“This was my first time with FUJINON XF400mmF4.5 R LM OIS WR. I have the FUJINON XF150-600mmF5.6-8 R LM OIS WR, which I use as standard, so using a fixed lens at this focal length was very interesting.”
“One of the exercises I set myself every now and then is to take a lens I don’t get out very often and deliberately use just that for a day. It makes you think and compose differently. It can be challenging initially, but it’s making you work, developing new visual muscles. FUJINON XF400mmF4.5 R LM OIS WR made me look differently, and I came up with results that I might not have accomplished with my zooms.”
Portability and Stability
“When you’re just below the equator, the lights come up at six o’clock in the morning, and the lights go out at six o’clock in the evening,” says Ian. “At dusk, the light drops rapidly. The extra few stops of light you get with this prime lens made such a massive difference in those conditions.”
“There’s a beautiful shallow depth-of-field as well, more so than with my zoom lenses that have narrower apertures. You often have confusing backgrounds with lots of shrubbery. So, to simplify things and get that lovely bokeh effect was beautiful.
“The rendering of the lens– the clarity of it – is great as well. Looking through the viewfinder, it felt like somebody had just cleaned the windows, it’s so vivid and bright.”
Lightweight at only 1,245g, FUJINON XF400mmF4.5 R LM OIS WR is well suited to the reactive nature of wildlife photography.
“It’s a bit like working in a crowd as a photojournalist,” he says. “It can be chaotic and there are many things going on. It’s the same thing, to an extent, in the bush. You never know when something is going to appear – at what point and from which direction.”
“This is lighter than FUJINON XF150-600mmF5.6-8 R LM OIS WR, and it’s more compact. Any weight saved is a bonus if you’re carrying something and bringing it up to your eye all day.”
A powerful Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) system also provides up to 5.5 stops of compensation, helping to attain crisp images while working handheld.
“We work out of vehicles,” notes Ian. “They have a canopy on top and open sides, so you’ve got that panoramic view. It gives you the room to sweep from side to side. If you were on a fixed point with a tripod, you could miss things.
“You need that facility to move and reframe quickly from one side to the other. We’ve even had animals pass under the vehicle while it’s been stationary, so you need to be flexible.”
An experienced and versatile photographer, Ian has a deep understanding of his craft and embraces the indefinable qualities of a truly transporting image.
“I need to know the technicalities of things to achieve certain results,” he says. “But it’s not the minutiae of the details that excites me – it’s the final image, seeing the message it conveys and how it makes people feel. I can’t dictate how a photo makes people feel, it’s for them to discover.”
“A big part of using FUJINON XF400mmF4.5 R LM OIS WR was this intangible feeling of the final frame, with that shallow depth-of-field and vivid reproduction of colors. You want to be able to convey the mood of a situation you’re in. Your viewer won’t be there to experience it, but you always hope that it is conveyed through your image.”
