GFX Blue Hour

Reading the forums, plenty of people were lamenting the fact that medium format photography exaggerates the flaws in your photography technique.  Plenty suggesting that street photography was a no no! But I went the other way. Since acquiring the GFX 50R, 90% of my shooting had been handheld in the streets.

There were a couple of occasions where the tripod was used - the shoot at KLCC and Masjid Jamek to be exact. But the great majority of the time, I treated the beast just like my other setup, just point and click. 

Of course on occasions the snaps may be soft with movement artefacts from unsteady hands. But in the middle of the day, things were pretty straightforward. As long as I can get shutter speeds fast than 1/125 sec, I am pretty happy with what I had most of the time.

So, I took the GFX on a couple of occasions during blue hour and by taking things slowly, I managed to get decent shots. The relatively small size of the camera helped a lot I was sure. So was bumping up the ISO, accepting some degree of graining and noise. 

The main challenge I have at the moment was sorting out my technique when taking photos indoors. I don’t really fancy using a strobe system - never been good at that. Forums pointed out how good the GFX system were at still life and portrait of course, but doing those tend to take a lot of setup and effort. 

I am going to stick to what I normally do, and slowly expand first into low-light tripod-based photography, snapping landmarks around KL. So, plenty of things to explore in the coming months ...

A Wider Medium

After a few weeks of waiting, I finally got hold of the lens which was the reason why I bought the GFX system in the first place. The GF 23 mm f4. And this beauty translate to 18 mm in full frame speak - identical to the angles I got from the old 18mm f2.8 Zeiss Batis on my Alpha 7R. I have always loved wide angle street photography, and this lens just brought everything together.

As with the other lenses on the Fuji GFX line-up, sharpness was never an issue. But I was taken aback by the resolving power of this one. Rarely do I get to enjoy such sharpness on any wide-angle lens. This lens is exceptional in that department.

A lot of reviews were crying out for a faster aperture. But for me, f4 is a reasonable compromise. As it is, it was already hefty. Imagine the engineering needed should this come with a wider aperture? It might be twice its size and twice as heavy.

I only had a single opportunity to take this lens for a spin. Still learning it limitations while understanding which aspect which will make this lens shine. Stop it down to f11, and I was in dreamland - providing there is enough light ...

More photos to come on this lens in the future. The next couple of weeks would be a busy one but I will definitely be bringing it to Penang in a couple of weeks time when I have a short break planned ...

The New Zoom

For the last few months, I have been stricter on my Thursdays. That's the only day when I have no clinics, and I have decided to devote the day for 'me' time. Yes, there were the occasional lunch meetings, or even worse, the ones which started at 5pm, but I would try to keep those to the minimum. I also tried to keep distractions to the minimum on those days and would stay away from the hospital as much as I could.

I was lucky last Thursday, when I was able to have lunch with Anita as well as took a new zoom I got last weekend for a bit of a spin.

It was a Fujinon on the X-T1 and I have been waiting for this lens for a good part of a year. The original announcement was made at the beginning of 2014 about a new pro-level standard zoom for the Fuji X-series. So, I ordered one in and was contacted by my usual dealer last week. It was the Fujinon XF 16-55mm 1:2.8. And it was a monster.

A much bigger lens than I thought, which was a surprise as it didn't carry an image stabilising motor on it. Using it on the X-T1 took some getting use to, and I had high hopes for the output.

It focused amazingly fast and accurately, and the results out opened was pretty sharp. But I had a problem. Since the beginning of the year, my main system had been the Sony A7 mark with Leica lenses. They were primes of course, and once you used the Leicas, nothing else came near them in terms of sharpness.

Although I understood the quality and the convenience of autofocus, the X-T1 with the new zoom was not the most mobile of setup. It was like carrying my EOS 7D with the 17-55 f2.8 zoom all over again. Although I must be honest, that the results from the Fujinon in terms of colour rendition and sharpness were much better.

I may take the combo for another spin this weekend, but my initial impression was somewhat flat. I was expecting a bit more. Maybe the Leica lens were poison! I am willing to give it another go though, and hopefully find a bit more joy. I will be posting more on the Fuji and Sony comparisons later ....

3 Months On

After 3 months with the X-pro1, the camera had definitely grew on me. At the beginning, it was a stunner of a camera in the hand. And as a user of the X100, I was surprised as to how bulky it felt in the hand compared to the svelte-like little sister. The shutter movement was also a surprised, as I was used to the silent X100, which employed a leaf shutter. 

Let's talk about three strong points for the X-pro1. 

First, the quality of the jpeg. What came out from the sensor was something I was not expecting. Yes, I knew it would be good, but not as good as I thought it was going to be. The lack of low-pass filter, made possible by the X-trans sensor configuration appeared to sharpen the results. The jpeg coming out from the card only needed minor tweaking. I have yet to use the RAW data as I use Aperture for my post work. Apple has yet to release a RAW converter for the camera. I found that using the RAW files with the X100 only added to a headache as the jpeg engine on the cameras were already top notch. Coupled with the amazing prime lens that Fuji released, we had a clear winner as far as sharp images were concerned.

Halloween Time

Second, the white balance. As mentioned, one of the reason of using RAW was to get the white balance right. Shooting RAW allowed for more latitude as far as exposure and white balance were concerned. But still, too many choices in post just led to longer time spent processing, which in the end might not add to the quality of the results. With the X-pro1, the white balance, especially the skin tone were very much film-like. This was not surprising since Fuji made their mark as innovators in print films. My old favorites were Reala and Velvia. Natural reasons for me to be drawn to the palette of the jpegs. And the results from the X-pro1 seemed better compared to the X100 as far as white balance were concerned. 

Restricting the discussion to three points could never do justice to this beautiful camera. So, for the final section, I would like to discuss about the gamble Fuji took in leasing a new camera system with a propriety mount. Fuji called this the X-mount. And the primes - three of them, the 18mm f2.0, 35mm f1.4 and 60mm f2.4 - available on the day of the launch were of a high quality. 

I own both the 18mm and 35mm. Every time I go out, I was torn between the two as to which one I should have attached to the body. Over the years, I have always been drawn to the 50mm focal length. And the 35mm provided that. Add that to the wide aperture, you really get shallow depth-of-field when you snap using this lens. Some time a bit too shallow. Using primes also made you think before you shoot, and often let you feet do the work when composing. 

The inimitable Cap Ayam

The X-pro1 was not exactly a small investment on my part. But it had been a joy to use, and certainly fulfilled my needs. I wished that it could be smaller, with a slightly smarter focussing mechanism, but you can't have everything. I was sure that some software tweak may improve the focussing. If you were looking for a premium quality compact system camera, the X-pro1 is a good bet.