Fatboy Slim - shot on Fuji XH2s

I write this article as we are about to enter October and the weather has decidedly turned autumnal. Rewind the clock back a few months and I was at Sheffield Tramlines at the end of July. I had been a few times before, firstly as a fan and secondly as an "unofficial" tag-a-long creator with a friend who managed to get me front and backstage to help with doing some photo and video work.

This year however, I managed to successfully apply as one of the official photographers for the festival. I work mainly as a portrait shooter, so the chance to mix it up really appeals to me. I really enjoyed taking the photos last time, so it was a great chance to learn from last years mistakes and try to take some better photos. My weapon of choice was the Fuji XH2s + the legendary Fuji red badge 50-140mm f 2.8. At this stage I already had my GFX100ii, but did not want to bring it to the crazy world of music festivals. It's a very expensive camera system, plus I don't have a zoom for it. I've used the Fuji XH2s and the 50-140mm before so knew how to work that combo well.

The XH2s is built for speed, both for photos and video, and paired with this red badge lens and you are onto a winner, especially in fast paced environments like music festivals. I mentioned in my last article how this lens makes up for some of the limitations of the crop sensor in the XH2s, it's quite a sharp piece of glass. I would not say it turns my XH2s into a full frame or large format killer but it does help to close the gap somewhat.

Overall, I was fairly happy with how the images came out. The XF zoom did it's job, auto focus was quite good (despite what the Fujifilm haters say), my hit rate was easy in the 90% range if not even higher. The overall weight and balance of the camera/lens combo was also quite reasonable. We only had around 5 minutes or so to shoot, it was around 9pm or so, it was still quite light. I would have loved to taken more photos when the lights dropped so we could get some good shots of the lights on stage etc, but I also wanted to enjoy the show as well. I prefer quality over quantity, I just do not have the time to cull a million photos so I tried to focus on composition and framing etc rather than spraying and praying.

The 50-140mm retains a constant aperture throughout the zoom range, I was keeping the lens at f2.8 most of the time in order to keep my ISO from getting too high. Even at f2.8, the lens is still quite sharp. Would I bring this combo next time? I'm not too sure actually, I saw some of the photos other colleagues got with their full frame cameras and there is a difference. I know some people dismiss the whole APSC vs full frame debate, but for me I was never truly satisfied with my XH2s photos and videos, hence the need to upgrade to the GFX100ii.

I think next time, I would be tempted to bring the GFX with me to Tramlines. Whilst I was fairly happy with the photos, these days I mainly use the XH2s just as a video camera with the GFX100ii doing almost all my photo and video work. I know that fast paced world of music festivals might not be the first thing that comes to mind when using a large format camera but after using it for almost 6 months, I feel it could keep up. The only issue? I am not aware of a fast auto focus telephoto/zoom lens on the GFX system. I do have the GF55mm f1.7, and I think that would work well for some of the smaller stages, but for the bigger stages, I do feel a zoom would be needed.

I suppose this where the versatility of other systems like Sony come into play with their huge lens eco system. Horses for courses I guess. Overall though, not a bad set of images. FatBoy Slim, for me, was the highlight of the festival. What a great show he put on, and it was a real buzz being front stage in front of thousands of fans to capture it. Let's see what happens next year!