Play Date: Fuji X-Pro1

If one were to review my postings on the Fuji X-Pro1, you might think that I'd become a fanboy of this "vintage" digital camera. However, I don't take it out very often, perhaps because owning them is more fun that actually shooting them. This may be the reason why so few of my photos, working or otherwise, were created by this particular body style. This is a screen shot of the ad for the first X-Pro1 I purchased a few years ago. The transition from the E series camera was simple, as I had already acquired enough Fuji lenses to fill out a well stocked camera bag. I remember feeling that I now had a "big boy" camera, one that allowed to me to enter a parallel version of the Red Dot Universe. I saw myself waxing eloquent on how this (relative) upstart company successfully challenged the Leica orthodoxy. More important was my newfound ability to play the rangefinder game within the confines of a normal, hobbyist's budget. In my mind I was rubbing shoulders with the legendary Leica shooters like Cartier-Bresson, Gary Winogrand, Eugene Smith, and of course, Shawn Terry. 

Shawn and I got together for lunch in Half Moon Bay, and as is our practice, had an impromptu photo session using the back streets of the town as our subject. I brought my first Fuji X-Pro1 with a  wide angle16mm 2.8 lens, similar to the 17mm 1.4 TTartisns lens I frequently carry. The weather was cloudy and cold, and the lighting not particularly appealing. While searching for images to capture, our conversation turned to the finer points of exposure, composition, and lens selection. In spite of this overabundance of inspiration, I resorted to photographing this cable box cover with its detailed Coastside Water District logo prominently displayed.

Our wanderings took us to a Portuguese Catholic cemetery. This photo was monochromatic to start with, made bleaker by the overcast sky. The bright plastic flowers provided the only actual color in the image. Oddly enough, the majority of graves were decorated with flowers, as you might expect to see flags on Memorial Day. The image was purposely vignetted for effect.

There is a feeling of cohesion found in small towns, and the community art reflects it. Murals like this on just off of Main Street seem to draw together commonalities of the residents while avoiding the potential morass of "secular politics" championing one viewpoint or another based on party influence. The overcast sky really muted to this colorful mural. I attempted to restore some semblance of its actually appearance in post production.

This particular photo shows  Shawn evaluating the composition for a photo of an sculpture on an multi-use building. Meanwhile, I unsuccessfully attempted to make a flower closeup without the benefit of a waist-level viewing option. By accident, the auto focus chose the more viable subject (Shawn) over my intended target (the flower), a level of control I surrendered to the camera when I mounted a autofocused prime lens on the camera. It's funny how quickly I had misplaced the skillset I worked so hard on developing when using manually focused lenses. I might have had better luck if I had shifted to manual and used focus peaking to help me isolate the flower's plane of focus. But I didn't, an oversight I will give some serious thought to. The overexposure? I forgot to re-set the exposure compensation factor. Oops.

More X-Pro1 samples will certainly follow, but probably not with this particular lens. I suspect things will be getting back to "normal" shortly.

Cold Turkey - Return To The Fuji

Having returned to my favored Fuji and its 17mm lens, I struggled to get back into the fully manual mode. Focusing took a little longer, and the with the wide angle prime lens, struggled harder to find interesting subjects suited to its singular focal length. Sunrise was just a few minutes before his photo was taken, and I'm sure I've made this photo before. Oh well, it's a start.

After the luxury of tight compositions made possibly by the zoom-lenses P7700, I was struggling to compose in the vast expanse forced by the limitations of the prime 17mm lens. I was drawn to the two distinct areas of lightness against the relative early morning darkness. But when your hungry for new subjects, it doesn't take much.

Somebody had the imagination to see a monster's face in this growth on the side of this tree.

This image was included because it took me a full minute to realized these were three white-bearded gnomes looking skyward. 

Getting back to the whole manual focus ethos will be harder than I thought.

More Time With The Nikon P7700

This is the second day of using the Nikon P7700 on my morning walks. I'm starting to think this would be the better "outdoor" camera. It brings a lot more to the game than my P7000, which has its own quirks, probably due to the dead internal battery. When I was in Red Bluff, I realized I never used the optical viewfinder, so the lack of one in the P7700 is really becoming a moot point. It will require more care in transport because, unlike the P7000, it doesn't  "batten down the hatches" when it's turned off. 

You never know what finds it way to the street these days. Whether it's airborne flotsam from an uncovered trashcan or a deliberate sidewalk art installation (I use that term loosely), they often have a story to tell, even if its one of my own creation. This appears to be a notepad made for somebody who misses somebody else very much.

One adjustment I needed to make was in the framing.  The P7700 doesn't have the 1.5x aspect ratio of the Fuji. Instead, it uses the 4/3 proportions of the Micro Four Thirds cameras. To the bad, it's neither 8 X 10 or 8 X 12, two formats I am more familiar with. Oh well, be understanding when you notice that the images are cropped to the more traditional 8 X 10 print. (I checked the specifications on the Fuji X10, and it too has a Four Thirds aspect ratio).

I've walked down this street dozens of time, but this morning, I was perplexed: Where was the rest of the snake? It took a while, but I concluded the snake was actually crawling into the house. Having a built in zoom lens made it easy to get the framing I wanted.

This motorcycle engine was lit by sunlight bounding off of a light-colored building behind me. This gave the housing a broad, almost glowing highlight with plenty of shadow detail. I converted the image to black and white using the the Remove Color function, a quick way to get that monochrome effect. 

It hadn't occurred to me that the engine was inherently monochromatic, but if you look at the thumbnail at the right, there wasn't that much color to begin with. The black and white conversion brings out the highlights better than the original.

I'm still fascinated when an object and its shadow are so different on a two-dimensional format. You'll probably recognize this as a street sign. Or not.

This Study In Turquois is a pop-up fence on  Irving Street. It shows the color as a highlight, a middle tone, and in shadow.

I noticed the light behind this gate decoration, and by zooming in as tightly as I could, I was able to transform the lamp into a glowing orange orb.  

Things wind up on the sidewalk for any number of reasons. In some neighborhoods, micro playgrounds have been created where children can play while their parents watch from nearby benches. I seriously doubt anybody would put this little play structure near a busy intersection, but you never know.

Believe it or not, I've been trying to make this image for years. If you look at the thumbnail at the right (side view), you can see that the photo was made while looking up, and into, the flower itself. Unlike the Fuji cameras I currently own, the Nikon's screen is fully reticulated, making this upshot easy to accomplish.

I am warming up to the P7700 more and more and missing the optical viewfinder less and less. However, I have noticed a difference in how I approach my photography. The rangefinder-esque layout of the Fuji X-E1 allowed me to watch my subject with my left eye while focusing and composing with the right. When using the P7700, I felt a certain disconnect when I was not looking directly at my subject. Holding this camera at arm's length essentially breaks that connection, removing me from the intimacy I've enjoyed using the Fuji. The experience pits looking through the camera at the subject (Fuji) against looking at a camera that is pointing at your subject (Nikon). I believe this to be a real shortcoming, something that distances me from the image or mood I'm trying to capture. But in this case, the Nikon's purpose is the make simple "snaps", not consciousness-raising, socially relevant documents of our time. 

Sea (or see) trials aren't finished yet.

My Nikon P7700 Revisited

Nikon P7000

Last weekend I was in Red Bluff and brought my Nikon P7000 in case I wanted to make some "snaps". I liked it for its ability to synchronize flash at nearly all shutter speeds, a convenient but indifferent zoom lens, and its compact form factor. When stored, the lens retracts into the body and metal blinds close to protect the lens, a definite advantage for a camera destined to be carried in a pocket. It also has an eye-level view finder of sorts, something I always considered a plus. Add to this image stabilization, and the camera should be something quite useful.

My P7000 was a customer return from a major big-box electronics chain and sold at a deeply discounted price. I soon discovered that its internal battery, the one that keeps the clock going and the custom settings saved, had apparently died, and now I must reset the date and all of my shooting preferences whenever I change the battery. It also appears that the default setting is "No Flash", which means some additional adjustments whenever I want to use an external speedlight. Using the camera can quickly become a study in frustration. But for the price I paid, it was a great deal - of grief.

Nikon P7700

Rather than looking for a used Fujifilm X10 to buy, I decided to see if my Nikon P7700 could overcome some of the quirks of my older P7000. Its form factor is a little deeper than the P7000, as additional features such as a reticulating LCD screen added to the bulk. The camera was carried as a backup for my Nikon DSLR system when I thought I might need to take advantage of its ability to synchronize flash at nearly all speeds. It made several photos that I later submitted for publication, but those images were better known for their "darkness defying" lighting qualities. I decided to stuff this camera in my pocket and take it for a test drive. In addition, it took up far less space than a D70 and provided greater resolution to boot. So for old time's sake, it went into my pocket for my morning walk.

The built-in flash was used to brighten the fire hydrant slightly. I was intrigued by the strength of the morning shadows and the texture provided by the rust.

Morning light, funneled through the gaps in the cityscape, often acts like a spotlight, isolating any objects caught in its path. The colors are a little flat when the light strikes the subject head on, as it did here. Had I not cropped the image as I did, my own shadow would have appeared in the foreground.

This is the only shot that could not have been made with the P7000. The articulated LCD allowed me to compose the image while the camera was held overhead in the "Hail Mary" position, and the zoom lens allowed me to alter the subject to background perspective with a longer focal length lens and a longer shooting distance. I don't think it's my imagination, but this camera's lens seems to be sharper than the one on the older P7000.

I had to crop this image because the barrel distortion of the lens was too distracting. There may be a distortion correction feature hiding in the camera's shooting menu - I just haven't looked. Incidentally, the building is actually white, but warmed by the morning light.

I've walked past this fence on 9th Avenue dozens of times, but this morning is the first time I noticed it, along with the Santa Hat sitting neatly on one of the slats.

I'll play with the camera a while longer. It probably deserves a neck strap.

Red Bluff 2022

Spent the weekend on a ranch in Red Bluff, a cattle town near the California Oregon border. I never carry a top-tier camera system, mostly because the environment might not be too kind to fragile electronics. 

In spite of its lack of coverage, I carried my cell phone, which I used for the first and second photos. I make no excuses for the odd (to my eyes) color rendition. In spite of that, I hope you get some idea of just how vast the landscape can be.

The roads are not paved in some areas, and the going can be rough in some stretches. They seem to stretch from sunrise to sunset, metaphorically. It rained the day before. and we were actually see  tiny wild flowers making their first appearances.

These two photos was taken with a Nikon P7000. This was the original  homestead for this 3,000 acre ranch.  It lacked electricity (the solar panels were damaged by vandals) and potable tap water. In other words, it was an indoor camp with a real bathroom. It was cold this weekend, and we relied on a modern iteration of a wood burning stove to stay warm. It generated enough heat for the sleeping portion of the house, although it required re-stoking midway through the evening. 

I was playing with using a small flash to light my foreground subject while attempting to maintain the rich colors of the twilight sky. The Nikon P7000's quirkiness is starting to get to me. I am seriously considering getting a higher-end point and shoot for times like this when I photograph in hostile (camera-wise) environments. I'm feeling that life's too short to put up with equipment that just makes you angry.