We saw the fire on Brač on the horizon so we went as close as we could to get a better view. It’s pretty bad, and apparently on inaccessible terrain so the firemen can’t do anything about it. Also, strong Bura wind is spreading it like crazy.

From Kabal peninsula, Hvar

From Stari Grad ferry port, Hvar

We got a warning when we got close.

I love it when equipment just works. I took the camera and the 85mm f/1.4 Sigma out at midnight in the middle of nowhere and total darkness, focused at the wildfire and got excellent shots at ISO 12800 f/1.4 1/50s. I was thinking, what would be a professional lens choice for this? Probably a 70-200mm f/2.8. It’s like two stops slower than what I took. Sure, you’d have more flexibility in framing, but two stops slower means 1/15s hand-held, which means smoke not being well defined, flames not being sharp, and so on. I saw the pictures in the news today, I thought, why are they all darker, fuzzier and more red? And then it was, oh, they were exposed shorter because that’s the best they could hand-hold.