There is a bit of a story regarding the photographic equipment I currently use.
In my late teens I “inherited” my father’s old Pentax S1 SLR camera and standard 55mm lens, along with a 110mm Zeiss telephoto lens (the one that needs the aperture to be closed manually after focusing); all this in lieu of a return flight to Switzerland. On arriving at varsity a few months later, a fellow student offered to sell me his Pentax Spotmatic II, complete with a Pentax Takumar 300mm f4 telephoto lens and a 2x extender. Thus my obsession was born.
The advent of digital photography has had a massive impact on my photographic experience. Being a bit of a (stubborn) traditionalist, I was quite late converting from analog photography. However, once I got my first Pentax K100 DSLR in 2008 I was hooked. Instead of spending all my money on slide film, I was now able to invest in increasingly better quality photographic “toys”.
I firmly believe that in order to produce exceptional images, one must use the best available equipment. I currently use the Canon EOS R3 and Canon EOS 1Dx Mk II bodies for my wildlife photographs. Silvia rides “shotgun” for me with a Canon EOS 5D Mk IV in case I mess up (which is quite often as you will no doubt find out when I get around to recounting some of my stories in the news page).
I use only Canon lenses. The EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM with EF 1.4x III Extender is my current lens combination of choice for wildlife. I have just started testing the RF 100-400 f/5.6-8 IS USM with my EOS R3. My first impressions are very positive and I'm waiting impatiently for the RF 1.4x Extender to optimize the reach.
Silvia also uses the EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM Lens and EF 1.4x III Extender combination with the EOS 5D Mk iv.
The other Canon lenses in my bag are the EF 16-35 f/4L IS USM and EF 24-105 f/4L IS USM.
I am a photographer, not a digital artist. All the images I publish are unmanipulated, other than for the usual lighting and colour corrections, gentle sharpening, essential cropping and the ubiquitous dust and spot removal using DxO’s PhotoLab 6 raw conversion software. I don’t subscribe to the use of Photoshop, preferring to keep the integrity of my images intact.
Jo Fankhauser
