Anything to do with Warhammer 40k after being into it for decades, even playing competitively, going to the big info dump events, weekly gaming with friends, etc.

I still have all my models, tens of thousands of points in multiple armies, just lost all desire to play with the newer rulesets as they became too simplified and even more focused on buffing the latest new shiny models stats. Plus latest models are often very limited poses, sure the overall detail is up but the scope for personalization is way down without major work.

Then due to infighting the Horus Heresy line of rules and models got intentionally road blocked after Blighs death, which I had been relying on as a more crunchy outlet and to protect my investment in my models.

Oh, and they started the long road to sunset normal Marine models, which when you have over 50k points of marines you collected and painted over the past 35 years stings more than a little.

For the company its been an enormous success, sales are hugely up, so I don’t begrudge them too much after the mismanagement of Kirby post LotR.

Lol, wish I thought of that

Bonus shot of the second one in flight

Oh I remember that one, I really liked that one.

For something so bright and colourful they can be quite good at hiding when they want to

Thank you! They will sit when they feel safe, they make great models when they do with lots of great poses, by far one of our most photogenic birds in the UK.

You did well to catch it at all during open flight, they one quick bird.

If you can find where its favorite perches are then you will have more success getting it. There will be one more hidden close to its diving perch that it uses to check out if the area is ok, then the actual diving perch.

It likes to take its time scoping out the fish before committing to a dive, they do a sort of sideways lean looking down with each eye. A bit like this:

Lovely photos of a very pretty chicken.

If you into photography and chickens I highly recommend this book, some amazing photos of some rarer chickens: https://www.accartbooks.com/uk/book/feathered-elegance/

Wow thats fast, would love that sort of performance, must make actionshots so much easier. XT50 is like 50ms, its fine as long as you don’t go faster than 4000/s so you can still use the mechanical shutter, but 8fps is super painful

Thats lovely.

I just feel mine isnt consistent, especially at lower speeds, its definitely more consistent with it off.

I would kill for that amount of reach, would be able to get some of the birds they pick up on the proper scopes that the twitchers use.

Cannot beat a large prime if you got the pockets for it, but I dont. To replace my Tamron I would want both the 200mm and the 500mm, thats about £5k used.

I am waiting for the XH3s to be launched then the 2s will drop even more and that will be my next purchase. The XH2s actually has an electronic shutter worth using due to its very low readout time, and its burst mode is 40 fps without cropping.

Whats the next size up from the 100-400mm for you? X Mount doesnt have anything bigger than 600mm native without a teleconverter, so stuck at 900mm full frame, and I wouldnt get that lens as its only slightly longer and very slightly sharper than mine, but its also slower at the top end, f8 vs f6.7.

I would rather get the 500mm prime, now that is a big step up in quality. Its significantly lighter than the Tamron, at 1.3kg but I would be still pushing 1.7kg for body and lens. 0.9kg is mental for that much of reach, I would be stepping down to my 17-40mm to get to that little.

I would really want 1000mm native, which is possible with that lens and the teleconverter. Much of our reserves are off limits to humans to protect the birds so you are always at a big distance. Only about 8% of England is publicly accessible, we just do not get the same access to close up to wildlife.

I binned IBIS, I felt it was impacting sharpness and causing haloing on my Fuji. I shoot fast enough that its not really needed most of the time, and when I shoot slow its normally on a tripod or I rely on OIS thats in most of my lenses.

Yeah I got lucky as he was moving around so much and he eventually went into a good spot rather than deep shade. Was hard to get the exposure right without crushing and blowing out the low and highlights, he was pitch black in the raw before I edited it.

For the money I paid its been fantastic, I paid half what a used Fuji 150-600mm would cost, for a brand new grey import. Only thing I do not like is that its heavy (about 1.9kg by itself) and it doesnt support teleconverters. Both are a side effect of it being a full frame lens that Tamron repurposed for APS-C. z

How much reach you got? I want more than I have already, if only mine would support a teleconverter.

Yeah, ours is one of the most vocal garden/small woodland birds going, and the most numerous, I think a lot of other birds seem to rely on its alarm calls as an early warning.

The US one looks so different, pretty in a different way.

Hes humble bragging I guess, he knows how pretty he is

Thank you!

mfw