After 6397 days without rain ---- it finally rained. Some. Not enough to cancel a midday walk. With a camera.... (hyperbole alert). Photographing with the GFX 50Sii as a 35mm camera....

 

Does the Fuji camera make me look fat?

It rained earlier this morning. And then, as Paul and I sat outside drinking coffee this afternoon, and talking about his pre-order of the Fuji GFX 30mm Shift lens, it started raining again. Real rain. Not heavy rain but good rain. And it was good.

In the middle of the day things were dry and warm and it was a perfect time to be out on the street with a camera in my hands. Since my job last week I've really been warming up to the new Fuji camera. Seems like the one I've been picking up all the time for casual photography. Today I set it up to use it like a 35mm camera. I changed the aspect ratio to 3:2 and put the 50mm f3.5 lens in the mount. I set the camera to make raw files and headed over to South Congress Ave. to see what it looks like before the Gen Z crowd gets up and makes their way over to the restaurants, coffee shops and cafés. 

The magic thing for me is that the whole time I was strolling north and then south on the Ave. the temperature never crested 90°. I shoulda brought a sweater. 

Paul and I had a long discussion about the different Fuji G cameras. I guess it only makes sense since they now have more than a handful and most of the do different things. While some might like the idea of the phase detect AF in the GFX100S, and now the GFX100mk2, I'm happy with the contrast detect AF in the 50Sii. and, after post producing about a thousand files from the camera last week, I'm joyous NOT to have a 100 megapixel camera. I mean, how big do you really need to go with those images? Especially when you consider that they'll mostly end up on the web...

So far the GFX50Sii is the "sweet spot" of new medium format cameras for me. I wish the menus were more Leica-like but I'm getting used to them and I've got a little cheat sheet on my phone that tells me things like where the ISO control is and how to turn off the preview in manual when I use flash. But the camera itself seems rugged and robust. The EVF is nice, as is the rear screen. I've actually even used the tilt screen feature while shooting a job and that made the work just a bit easier. 

But the bottom line is that if you are shooting Raw files you'll end up with big, juicy, detail-rich and wide dynamic range files that you can mess with till the cows come home and not ever really see the files fall apart and break. And that's about all I need out of Raw files. 

I had no compelling reason to be out walking today. No pressing camera tests to do. No new lenses to put through their paces. I just didn't want to miss the most welcome change we've had in the Texas weather in months. I wanted to see gray clouds and feel random raindrops.

My new (to me) Leica M240 is arriving tomorrow. I've been doing housecleaning to make space for the new arrival. I'd like for it to feel welcome. I pulled out the three lenses I envision using with the new camera and placed them in a nice row on the top of my desk. They are all native M mount lenses. No adapters needed. Two are Carl Zeiss lenses (28 and 35) and one is the Voigtlander 50mm APO-Lanthar. I have high hopes for all three. They sure look cute. I'm also thrilled to remember that the camera is coming with a second battery as well. The battery life is the first thing I'll check. I want to be sure to order a couple of new ones if the current ones are aging out.... Since it's an older camera the batteries are probably cheap as dirt. Let me check....   Nope. They are Leica batteries and Leica only. No Watson or Wasabi substitutes. New, the batteries are $215 each on B&H's site. Ouch. Hope the existing batteries are flawless...

Oh look! It's started to rain again. How exciting!!!

A few last thoughts about my two day shoot last week. It's the first time in a while that I really got into the flow while photographing on a job. With a camera set to manual and a custom white balance plugged in all that remains is keeping an eye on the meter and the slowest shutter speed, and then staying on target. I am not shy about shooting a lot of frames. In fact, it drives me a little crazy when I watch other shooters treat each digital frame like it's a golden Kodachrome slide with all the attendant costs and particularities. Carefully nursing each shot. What? Did they only invest in 16 GB SD cards? Are they editing their final images on an iPhone 4S? 

When photographing people hard at work on a complicated dish their faces range from tense to happy to tongue-between-teeth in concentration. Every frame is a bit different and there is no right or wrong frame. No objective target to hit. So, if you've got the time and the card space it makes sense to try for variations and different angles. You might like one; your art director might like the other. 

Why would you stop before you have what you imagine would be the very, very best frame. As my swim coaches all say, "Finish Strong." Keep shooting until you know  you have the best you can do. 

Another observation from the  shoot: I was able to compare files made under the same lighting and the same conditions between the Leica SL2 mated with the 24-90mm lens and the Fuji 50Sii mated with the 35-70mm f4.5-5.6 lens. While the Fuji looked like it had more dynamic range; more detail in highlights, less blocked up shadows, the Leica felt sharper, grittier and more in the moment. Neither one was ultimately better than the other but I think the Fuji files are more malleable. More changeable. And, in the end maybe a better choice for advertising work. But with a little huffing and puffing in post production I'm sure you could make the files from both cameras more or less interchangeable. In other words, the Fuji doesn't spank the SL2 in any obvious way. Unless you are desperate for maximum possible dynamic range. But that's way down on my list of attributes needed to make good photos. 

nice cream shop.

and more coffee. always more coffee.

Blog note: We won't be changing our core direction here at VSL. Even though there is less interest across the web in all things photography it's really the only topic I want to write about.  Sure, I might talk about a swim from time to time but I'm trying to keep the content focused on what I originally set out to include. That would be content about photography, about the advertising industry as it relates to photography and.....my life as a photographer. 

We don't have Patreon benefactors. We don't accept advertising. We don't include affiliate links. We won't bore you with our doctor's latest diagnosis, or our crazy aunt's foibles. Won't trot out our University degrees. Won't participate in credential oneupmanship. If you want to know about our work just look at the pictures. If you want to know about our process just read the type. 

Why don't we try and monetize the blog? Because we don't need to... and we think it's better that way.

the M240 arrives tomorrow. Be prepared to look at some M photos and read about my experiences getting reacquainted with the system. 

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