Monday, December 30, 2013

Fuji X-E1 / Crystal Bridges / Christmastime 2013

Not much post processing save selective cropping and reduction to monochrome (with sliding color filters in Photoshop). Fuji colors are great. I am posting both the B/W reduction and color on several shots for contrast.












 

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Fuji X10 / Crystal Bridges / exterior shots

Nothing special. One interior of Crabby's grill thrown in randomly.














 

Fuji X-E1 35mm f1.4 Crystal Bridges

My son wanted to go to Crystal Bridges while the Stieglitz exhibit was on so we drove up the 30 or so miles to Rogers from Farmington on an outstanding winter day. I took the X-E1 w/ equivalent fast 50mm Fujinon XF lens and an X10 I just re-purchased last week. I used the X-E1 indoors and the X10 outdoors. The shots I'm posting today are just some I reduced to monochrome because I liked the composition and felt monochrome told the story better. I got zero bad shots from the Fuji. I left it at f1.4 and allowed the ISO to automatically adjust if the shutter speed was too slow. I've shot at CB with my X100 in the past and gotten great shots but not as good as these. I also got some unusable ones. Some were my fault, of course but since all of these are great, it compensates for my lack of shooting talent. I assume the X100S is much better but this lens at 1.4 is plainly outstanding glass.





Saturday, December 21, 2013

Panasonic LC1 / Christmas tree 2013

 The DMC-LC1 [and sister Leica Digilux 2] is a classic digital camera with an extraordinary Leica designed summicron lens. These are interior shots on a cold and rainy day. Christmas is four days away. I hope you're ready for Santa.



Got a close up lens filter w/ the camera which can provide bokeh

The nearly 10 year old camera struggles with auto white balance but is easy to set manually from menu.



couple merged shots

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Sony R1 / oh that crazy sky



Sony R1 - Winter Scene

Sony's sensors and Zeiss (licensed) glass make for great HDR shots. The R1 has terrific glass. This shot is three bracketed exposures, @ about 2/3s +&- stop difference, blended in Photoshop and slightly sharpened in Topaz.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Fuji X-E1 / 35mm f1.4 / Christmas Tree Close-up

It just looks to me like all the guys hanging out on the Christmas tree are having a lot of fun. I hope you are too.
Merry Christmas


Saturday, December 14, 2013

Fujifilm XF1 / example photos / free opinion

If I was to coin a term to help describe why anybody would want to shoot with an XF1, it would be Quality Photographic Experience or QPE. The camera, itself, is pocketable (front jeans pocket). It was designed by engineers who understand how a camera should work. Its interface is great. It has a metal body with a nice leatherette cover and a manual zoom lens, unusual for a pocketable camera. It feels good in the hand and is easily adjustable to provide well, a quality photographic experience.

Output from the XF1 is mediocre. Not bad but not really great either. The colors are muted compared to the same film settings on a good camera, the X100. Resolution and well, "photo pop," is not as good as comparable cameras from Nikon (P series), Olympus (XF series) and Canon (S series). You can get decent output from it and you can get meh output from it. Alarmingly great photos are rare. It's at the end of its production schedule so they are being cleared out. If you can get a bargain price, it's a fun camera to shoot with. Where it shines is in its use and operation. Its QPE.

None of the examples were post processed, save a couple of photo merges. They are the good examples.

















I used EXR mode for the cameracide, which I typically shoot for color and white balance testing. The output isn't bad.