This is from a print of my friend, Sarah. It was originally shot with a camera that just made square photographs. It turns out that squares are the format that's seems best to me for making the kinds of portraits I like to construct and, also the kinds of portraits that I like to look at. I blame Irving Penn and Richard Avedon for their strong influence when it comes to formats. My one push of non-compliance with their work is that I never learned to enjoy the 8x10 format with the same enthusiasm.
I can set the Fuji cameras to shoot squares and when I look at the EVF or the LCD I end up composing in the square with a beautiful field of black framing the image.
The Pentax K1 I recently bought also allows me to set a square crop. If I use live view I see the crop in the same fashion that I do on the Fuji cameras but if I use the OVF I see a strong square made by thick lines overlaying the 3:2 ratio finder. While that's not as elegant as looking through the Fuji EVF, I'm happy to have the guidelines. The more restrictions I can add to my composing the happier I am with the end results.
I made some square portraits yesterday. Not quite dialed in just yet; not ready for public sharing, but a nice twinge of nostalgic resonance.
on a different topic: I seem always to talk about cameras I've just bought or have circled back to use with more frequency and this gives the appearance that all cameras are incoming and that none ever leave the fold. Since I subtracted a camera and a lens yesterday from my inventory I thought I'd mention it here.
I hadn't intended, really, to get rid of anything in the moment but I have a photographer friend who was flirting with the idea of adding a small, Fuji camera to his equipment selection. He shoots mostly architecture and has a Leica S2 and also a Nikon D850 and D810 but he likes to travel with his wife just for fun and has become dis-infatuated with carrying heavy cameras around in places like Santa Fe or Carmel.
We've talked about some of the advantages of the Fuji cameras and lenses over the past few months and he narrowed down the travel cameras he was interested in to the just the little Fuji X-E3 and the 18-55mm f2.8-4.0 zoom. I had one that I liked but once I brought the two X-Pro2s into the mix my embrace of the X-E3 loosened up a bit. My friend also pointed out that I had many duplications in the Fuji system and, with ownership (and near constant use) of the 16-55mm f2.8, I really didn't need the pixie zoom as well.
He dropped by yesterday with the pretense of just wanting to handle the camera and lens and, well, one thing led to another which led to him leaving with both. I think he'll like that small system for travel and I actually like having some extra space in the equipment cabinet. But all empty space wants to be filled...it's almost inevitable.
Just wanted to let you know that we let one go. Not for the first time. Won't be the last time.
Bottom line? The finders on the X-Pro2s are more compelling. I'm happy to trade smaller size and weight for user effectiveness. YMMV.
2 comments:
One of the things I like a lot about my Panasonic Lumix m4/3 cameras is the native 4/3 aspect ratio for portraits. 1:1 also has great attractions. Cameras now have so many pixels and so much resolution there's absolutely no reason you can't use a typical 3:2 and crop, but for some reason that doesn't seem to work as well...probably has something to do with composition as you work, fitting the model to the frame. On the shot above, I thought you got a wonderful *sense* of grain, without there actually being any grain. I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new Nikon Z 85mm f1.8, which Nikon is more-or-less claiming to be the world's best portrait lens. (But what else would they claim?)
JC
Love the use of playback then down-arrow to access /modify the last shot. The Cropping option allows in-cam crops at 1:1 4:3 and 16:9 at several 'zoom' levels. And after every jpeg-only shot: the option to press AEL to save a raw image. Very efficient use of card space.
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