New Video Chit-Chat: Fujifilm X-T1, X-Pro 1, EF-X20 flash and a Green Canoe

Here's my latest YouTube video and my first video with a guest, even though he's not a photographer by trade. Kurt Dahle is a drummer for a pretty cool indie band (he's very shy about his band so I won't mention it here for his sake), but he's also a huge camera nerd like me. I bumped into him while I was reviewing some cameras a few months back (Leica T and Fujifilm X-E2), and we got along really well. I decided to invite him on my latest video since he picked up the pretty sweet EF-X20 flash unit for his Fujifilm X-Pro 1. I also complain about Fuji burying the flash compensation feature in the menus, which would be a quick firmware fix (please fix this Fuji!). The video is mostly just me and Kurt chit-chatting about nothing, as it was hard keeping this video on track. Even still, I'll have Kurt (and maybe his bandmates) back for more videos since we had such fun shooting it. Camera girl was all smiles while shooting this video, which is a good sign. She usually looks confused when it's just me nerding out on camera details. Enjoy the video and happy shooting!

Street Photography 101: How to Take Street Photos versus Stealing Photos

Fuji X-100S. 1/1300th sec F/4 @ ISO 800. Walking man in a hat and poster girl in a hat both giving me a glare. Subject out of focus due to wrong aperture setting. 

There are many ways street photographers can get great images. The romantic ideal is to walk around randomly and find the exact moment where subject and background come together serendipitously. This works about 10% of the time (or less), at least for me. Exact place, exact time, all by accident. Don't get me wrong, I still try and get these completely spontaneous shots all the time, and if I'm lucky, I'll get a couple after shooting all day. If I may suggest another way of getting a good shot, where one element is not by accident. I like to call the 'National Geographic' shot. NG photographers must get portraits of people within the context of their environment, as they merge the portrait with landscape or cityscape photography, very much like a street photographer. Once they arrive at their location, they immediately start scoping out great backdrops for their upcoming portraits. These types of images rarely happen by accident. What's the best way to get these types of images?

Review: Fuji X-Pro 1 (ver 3.0) & 14mm F2.8

14mm F/2.8, 1/500th sec F/9 @ ISO 800. Shooting sports with wide angle lens and scale focus

It seemed unlikely a few years ago that Fujifilm would join Leica in the world of digital ILC (interchangeable lens camera) rangefinders. Many manufacturers have dabbled in rangefinders in the past, but since the 1980's, most have decided to leave it to Leica to rule as king in this category and move on to SLRs, point and shoots.and other mixed categories. In recent years, many manufacturers have decided to create rangefinder-ish cameras with electronic viewfinders (EVF) in the ILC market, but many still prefer having a real optical viewfinder (OVF). That's why many offer the ability to mount an external OVF via the flash hotshoe; although there's no ability to see any exposure info, no focus, or parallax correction. 

Fuji's move into the digital rangefinder market (I know technically it's not a true rangefinder, but read below in comments for further discussion) has had such an impact, we forget that this system is still pretty new. Fuji's first digital ILC rangefinder-like camera was the X-Pro 1 back in March of 2012. This X-mount system doesn't feel like it's just over a year old, with 4 camera bodies, 8 lenses (3 more on its way), and lots of after-market support. Like any new system, the X-Pro 1 had some issues when it first came out, but most weren't too critical...but some were. Leica had 60 years to refine and define their M-mount cameras and lenses, so I think Fuji has done pretty well for 18 months. Much of the improvements were a matter of firmware updates and not hardware changes, as the X series cameras and lenses are pretty solid. Fuji's latest firmware update 3.0 for the flagship X-Pro 1 is suppose to be one the most significant updates thus far, and I had the pleasure of testing it out with the super awesome 14mm F/2.8 lens, as well as the 18mm F/2. Let's see how this camera and lenses performed.

Upcoming Review: Fuji X-Pro 1 with 14mm

Fuji X-Pro 1 with 14mm F2.8 lens. 1/1000 sec F/11 @ ISO 1600, manual mode, zone focus

A few weeks ago Fujifilm Canada asked if I wanted to test the X-Pro-1 with the updated firmware 3.0. The main improvements are faster autofocus speeds and the inclusion of focus peaking. I said sure, but I asked for the 14mm F2.8 lens, as well as the 18mm F/2 lens. The irony is that these aren't the best lenses to test the improvements of the new 3.0 firmware, but the improvements were noticeable. The full details will be in my upcoming review. 

What I did really enjoy was using the 14mm lens. It's amazing, and I want to do a separate review of just the lens on its own. At 21mm equivalent, it's great for street photography. At first I thought it would be too wide, since I would have to be that much closer to the subject to capture their essence. However, as the above image shows,  the wide angle lens really brings in the surrounding environment as well as focusing on the main subject. The trick is to bring the subject in closer than usual (compared to 28 or 35mm lens) and make sure the surrounding is interesting as well.

I'll try to get my review up in a few days, but until then, keep checking back for more images. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter and Instagram, and don't forget to comment or if you have any questions. I have a few more cool cameras that I'm reviewing now, but I'll keep that a secret...happy shooting!

Now Posted: Full Review of the Fuji X-Pro 1