Month: February 2014

If I was to carry only one camera and one lens what lens would I want?

Its a question I have asked myself quite often recently.  I often go out with the Leica M4 or M8 over my shoulder with nothing else except for a spare battery in my pocket.  I usually find myself with the 35mm, which on the full frame M4 is the classic 35mm field of view, on the M8 its closer to the classic 50mm being a 47mm field of view.

If I am travelling light with the Nikon V1 I have the small pancake 10mm which equates to a 28mm field of view.

There is a lot to be said for going out with just a single camera and single focal length, its an excellent training exercise and makes you work harder for the composition rather then just standing still and zooming.

Currently my favourite is the 35mm, its not too wide to distort and works well as a good all round standard lens.  Looking at compacts I keep wanting a 35mm field of view but most of the good ones tend to be 28mm unless you get one with a zoom and then the zoom is often too slow.

What lens would you have if you could have only one?

Compromise and use a zoom? Or what focal length if a prime?

I had the good fortune to be able to have a go with the new Fuji X-T1 yesterday thanks to Chris Bennett.

There is a lot of hype about this camera, but it was the viewfinder I was particularly interested in.  Some EVF’s are acceptable others less so.  The one in this camera is the best I have ever used, simple as that.  Its big and bright and unlike most did not drop frames when the light levels dropped.

I still prefer optical viewfinders but this is a technical tour de force of electronic viewfinders.  I was particularly impressed with its size, clarity and the split screen option to assist manual focusing.  Also simple things like the information rotating with the camera, simple but why has no other camera manufacture thought of this.

So what about the rest of the camera well its what the Nikon DF should have been, great manual controls which are very well thought out.  If I had any criticism it would be the D pad on the back, its slightly too small and the buttons are less then positive.

I look forward to seeing this kind of EVF in an up coming upgraded X100s this could be an ultimate compact camera or in an X Pro1, it would make a great spare body for us Leica users.

If you are old fashioned like me then you will hate modern compacts.  Composing on the back screen is no way to use a camera, with the camera braced to your face and either an optical or EVF you can focus and compose better and use a slower shutter speed if necessary.

I have yet to use the Fuji X T1 but that promises to be the best EVF yet.  I still feel that an optical finder is the best and we are still two to three years away from an EVF that can match an optical finder.

So, if you want a decent camera with an optical finder what are your options.  Well surprisingly  you do not have many.  In the small sensor department there is the Canon G16 and G1X and of course the little Fuji X20.  These are good compacts but still small sensor compacts, what if you want better image quality.  Well there is the Leica M, the Leica Monochrom and the Leica ME, these cameras are £4k plus but are true range finders and full 35mm frame.  Focusing a range finder is not for everyone and takes skill and lots of regular practice.

Well the only other option is the Fuji X range with there DX X Trans sensors and there are only two models with optical viewfinders the fixed lens X100s and the Fuji X Pro1.

I loved the X100 idea when the prototype was announced but it had a few issues, these were fixed with the X100s but they also introduced a new issue; the X Trans Sensor.

Like the Leica’s and also cameras like the Nikon D800E, the Fuji’s have no antialias filter meaning stunning sharpness.  The problem has been the new sensor does not have a standard 4 x 4 Bayor array but a new Fuji designed 6 x 6 array.  This has taken RAW software developers a lot of time to sort out but it looks like it may finally be sorted.

If your interested about reading the issues with the new array check out the Chromasoft Blog.

Capture one and the soon to be released Adobe Lightroom v5.4 may have fixed these issues.

 

As I have talked about in my blog, I am still looking out for the perfect travel compact.  Something that can be carried without noticing and kept in my motorcycle tank bag.

The options I have looked at is keeping my current choice the Nikon V1, switching to the smaller Panasonic LF1 or Fuji X20, or a the Nikon Coolpix A or Ricoh GR.  Now the first two are small but have viewfinders, the second two have better image quality but no viewfinder.

Until now I have dismissed the larger Fuji’s due to the colour bleed issues with the X Trans Sensor but if its true and Adobe have fixed this then its another option for me.

While a Fuji X100s or the Fuji X Pro1 is about as big as my Leica M8, I would feel better about it getting chucked around in a motorcycle tank bag due to the lower cost.  The X Pro1 also has the option of acting as a second body for my Leica using Leica glass.  Something I have been researching with the Sony A7 and A7R, but the Fuji may be a better option due to the DX sensor and being less likely to suffer from colour drift in the corners.

So Fuji how about a fast 35mm f/2 or f/1.4 equivalent pancake lens with a real manual aperture ring for the X Pro1?

Living in Lincolnshire close to Lincoln, one is blessed by being close to some of the best medieval architecture in Europe if not the world.

Being a member of English Heritage and the National Trust one gets free entry into some of the finest buildings and landscapes this fair land has to offer.

I have on several occasions visited the old Bishop’s Palace in Lincoln, its now mostly a ruin but worth a visit.  A few years ago I took my Digital SLR and a heavy tripod and took some photographs of the oldest part of the buildings.  Being careful I captured the best quality image I could.

Now the image I had in my mind and could half see was of this ruined chamber with beams of light flooding in.

The camera captured none of this, the emotion and majesty was mostly in my mind created from the image the eye captured and was nothing like what the camera captured.

Over the last few few years my skill with Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop has grown and the image I took a couple of years ago, I keep revisiting, re-editing the raw file, trying to capture the image I have in my memory that the camera was unable to capture.

I may be proud and boastful but I feel I am a master of Adobe Lightroom V1 to V3 I knew it as well as anyone and now I am getting that way again with Adobe Lightroom V4 and now V5.  The raw development engine changed a lot and my techniques have had to change too.

With the monster that is Adobe Photoshop I am less skilled but often its only with a good knowledge of layers and curves that one truly masters that product.  I would say that I am now an advanced amateur in Adobe Photoshop at least with, layers and curves, which is a tiny part of the huge product that is Photoshop.

With these new skills I again this weekend went back to the original raw file I took those few years ago and re-edited it from scratch.

With my new skills its now much closer to my original vision and memory.

While not perfect I will share it with you, it looks better as a print but it is certainly approaching what I had in mind that day.

I have a number of long term projects underway, one of them involves a near monthly visit to Lincoln Cathedral.

While there in the winter time you get beams of coloured light flood across the cathedral its something I feel I need to explorer some more.

This month there were dramatic red beams of light flooding across the Cathedral floor.

I first saw light pattens like these and other more complex ones a few years ago and this led to the dramatic image below.

Winter often produces poor weather and dull days, if you have any buildings with stain glass windows and the low sun comes out, pay a visit and try to capture the amazing light that can sometimes illuminat these buildings.

This week most of major camera manufacturers seem to have announced new models.

One of the most curious recent announcements (ignoring the Hasselblad rebadged Sony’s) is the Sigma announcement whether it works I don’t know but you can read about it at the usual review sites and here at gearophile.com.