AHA! Digital Black and white. I found a cool site that made me smile so big. Shoving Tri-X into my Fuji X-100V. For free.

A convenient model happened by....

 I was catching up on my Fuji lore when I happened upon a YouTube channel hosted by Omar Gonzales. He's a Fuji user and he grabbed my attention with a headline that read something like: "Loading Film into the Fuji Xpro3." I dived right in. Omar seems like a smart guy even if he does go on a little long and a little slower than I'd like, but the gist of his video was that there is a site dedicated to making film profiles for Fuji cameras that mimic classic films we used to cherish. 

The site is: Fujixweekly.com and if you are a Fuji shooter it's like Christmas morning. I immediately started scrolling around to see if they had a profile for my favorite film of all time: Kodak's Tri-X. Yes. They do. It's right here: https://fujixweekly.com/2020/06/18/fujifilm-x100v-film-simulation-recipe-kodak-tri-x-400/

The recipe includes shadow, clarity, chrome, WB tweaks and much more. I won't lay it out here because you should reward Fujixweekly.com for their fine work by paying them the visit. 

I sat down on the couch with my laptop open to the Tri-X page and dutifully changed all the parameters as suggested. There are about 12 steps so it's nothing cripplingly difficult. While there are many, many profiles to chose from they are divided into sensor types in the Fuji family. The reason is that Fuji keeps adding more and more controllable parameters with each new generation of sensor and processing.

The profiles I'm most interested in are the ones that are tweaked for the current 26 megapixel sensor cameras since that's what I'm shooting with right now. All the profiles can be used across the Fuji line but older cameras won't have things like color chrome effect available.

Some of you have questioned me about why I have both a chrome and a black X-100V camera. My rote answer is that one should never go on a trip or a job without a back-up camera, and I'd take that a step further and say no one should venture out without a back-up camera that operates in exactly the same way and which takes the same battery, the same filters and the same memory cards. Hence two copies of the X-100V, differentiated by color.

Now I have a new answer. The black camera is for Tri-X/Monochrome photography while the chrome body is dedicated to color. When the black one is in my hand I'll know I'm about to start shooting my new, digital Tri-X camera. When it's the chrome body I'll know I'm about to start shooting color slide film. Easy to remember and no struggle to juggle settings on the fly. 

I might need to tweak a bit (or I might not...) but here are some of the test shots I took this morning while walking over to the state capitol building to see if anyone was there fomenting trouble and trying to tip our nation into facism and white nationalism. I am happy to report that there were only a few tourists on Segways in front of the fence, snapping pix. All clear downtown. Here are the pix:

click to make the images big, big, big.

The "Peter Lindbergh" book that Mike Johnston recommended over on his blog. I'll stick in a link with my review.

Caution! This book weighs about seven pounds.

It's 483 pages of photos. 

And it's good. 

 Mike Johnston at the Online Photographer Blog wrote about the publication of Peter Lindbergh's huge retrospective (post humous) book of photographs here:  MJ's Getting His Fashion Groove On. He had featured an image of Lindbergh's office or home about a week ago and then he came across the new book at Amazon. Mike opted to cut a few corners and order the smaller, paperback edition of the book but being ever cavalier about all things financial I just started hemorrhaging money and placed an order for the full Monte. The large, ponderous, heavy and beautifully printed hard back version. It was still a relative bargain while on sale for only $50 and change. 

I got it yesterday, pulled up a comfortable chair, turned on the good light, poured a glass of the nice wine, and spent an hour going through the book. I'll go back again and again since there is so much here. Nearly all of the images are printed full page or as double trucks and the paper they are printed on is thick and beautiful. I've always been a big fan of Peter Lindbergh and this book is a wonderful addition to my collection of superstar photographer monographs. Taschen Publishing did a great job with this book!

Will you like the images? I don't know. The book had me when Lindbergh combined Kate Moss and Rome. Almost everything is in dark, moody but lovely black and white. I'm glad I ordered the book but I've got to distance myself from MJ's site or I'll soon go bankrupt. Too many good suggestions....

Since he is to blame, if you are a big Peter Lindbergh Photographer fan and want to order the book I'd suggest using the link above to go over to Mike Johnston's site and order from his links. You won't pay anymore for the book. You'll help Mike stay on the keyboard. And I don't offer links to Amazon or B&H anyway. 

So many beautiful people. So much photography.

Big fun with nicely printed paper. Enjoy. 

It was beyond time to get out of town and chill out somewhere else. So I did. I don't want to surprise you but I took a camera along for the ride.

 

I'm spending way too much time in my office. I blame the lockdown. I blame the economic conditions, but really, I just blame myself for not being more proactive with my time. I woke up bored this morning and that's never good. I skipped my usual swim practice and slept in till nine. That's a bad sign. So, after breakfast I grabbed a black Fuji X-100V and an extra battery and pointed the car West. 

My first stop was Johnson City, birthplace of a great president, Lyndon Baines Johnson. Man, he got a ton of work done and bills passed for a one term president. Just an amazing amount of very good legislation. I've done a lot of research about his life and career (we produced two plays about LBJ at Zach Theatre) and I'm sure most people don't know that he pushed through 87 major pieces of legislation and got 84 bills passed, which gives him the record with a 96% success rate. And most of the bills didn't do anything to destroy the middle class or raise taxes on less affluent people. In fact, it was almost a golden age for fairness. 

Johnson City is still small but its proximity to Austin means it's growing up and offering more sophisticated visitor amenities. There are several very decent restaurants, a science museum and a lot of art galleries and wine tasting rooms. The architecture all around town is classic Depression Era Texas Modest. With some buildings featuring embossed tin ceilings and layers and layers of styles. It's also home to a sometimes client of ours: The Pedernales Electric Cooperative. 

I made some photos of LBJ's boyhood home, a location which further reminded me that at one point in our country's history a person could rise up from a middle, middle class, rural childhood to become president of the United States of America. It's fun. And you can walk right up and touch the house, if that's what you are into. I touched it with my camera. Then I headed over to Blanco, Texas which is about 10 miles South along Hwy. 281. 

Blanco has a nice state park with a river that runs through it but I was more interested in the old courthouse. It's now a visitor center, and a charming young woman named Riley welcomed me and gave me some local perspective. I'd shot stills for a movie production that used this courthouse as a location for three or four days. That was about 25 years ago. Since then the location has been used by a number of other feature films. In fact, it's the go to place in Texas if you want to do a period courtroom scene but can't afford tens of thousands of dollars in location fees. It was fun to see the space again. I'll chalk the visit down to scouting for one of the law firms we provide photos and video to. They'll love it.

One great find today was a new coffee shop in Johnson City. That was the one thing that kept the town from getting an "A" from me as a destination; no good, local coffee. Now the Johnson City Coffee Company is going full steam (intended...) and serving great coffees and pastries. I sampled their medium roast, drip coffee along with a lemon, blueberry scone, freshly drizzled with fresh, thick creme. Delicious and well done. 

So funny though, when I walked up and ordered the woman at the counter said, "I recognize your voice. Did you used to swim in the Masters at Western Hills Athletic Club?" I said that I did and she said, "I thought so. I'm Nancy. I used to swim with you all there." I remembered her in flash. So hard to be sociable these days with everyone hidden behind masks.... Nancy and her family own the new coffee shop. They'll do well. She was always a disciplined swimmer.

I'm thrilled with the new shop. Finally, a way station between Austin and Fredericksburg, Texas (or Marble Falls) with great coffee, a good rest room and a wide selection of above average pastries. Better than the fare at Starbucks and located in exactly the right spot. Well, at least for everyone driving through the hot spots in Central Texas. 

The camera I took was the Fuji X-100V. The black one. It had fewer than 100 shutter actuations on it when I left. Now it has 396. I set its white balance to the little "sun" icon and kept it there all day. I tried to stick with f8 for most stuff but I did bounce around on apertures when I went into the courthouse. And when I photographed the big ceramic deer. I find the image files to be wonderful; especially when I use the Astia Soft setting in full sun. All good there. Now a recommended camera. At least, it's recommended for me.

Blanco Courthouse Interior. 

Blanco Courthouse, exterior. 

Vast amounts of outside seating at the Johnson City Coffee Company.  Maybe bring a chair in case it gets crowded. Bring two chairs if you are traveling with a spouse. Or fight over one chair. 

Whatever.

Hate to get out of your car? They've got a drive through on the other side.

This is a detail of a building I found just outside of Johnson City. 

It's like a super-modern Quonset Hut but beautifully designed. 

I had to pull in and walk around it a couple of times. The next 

few frames are different angles and magnifications. 

Courthouse in Johnson City. 

who wants to pay for premium electricity?

What do you get if you pay extra?

Gate to the LBJ boyhood house. High security, yes?

The observant among you will notice that I finally got a haircut. 

Belinda tells me I look meaner with short hair....

Some observations after having walked around for a few weeks with a fixed, 35mm lens camera.

I stopped by the edge of the pedestrian bridge to watch dogs

and their people in this dog park. It's a popular spot for canines and their 

charges at the end of the day. As I was standing with my camera this particular 

dog seemed to notice that I was unsupervised and took it upon herself

to come over and keep me company. She sniffed me and then sat down

on the wall next to me and waiting until I finished looking at the action.

I said "Goodbye" and she nodded and trotted right back to her 

pet human. It was... comforting.

I think I finally figured out why I fought so hard against adapting the Fuji X-100V in one of its prior incarnations. They all seemed a bit tinny and thin when I handled them and the human/camera interface always seemed a kind of clunky and counter-intuitive. But I've decided all of that changed with the current model of the camera. It feels solid and well built. It's nicer to hold and shoot with. And at 26 megapixels, instead of 12 or 16, I actually feel comfortable enough cropping the frame to get a bit closer to a 40 mm angle of view. 

The thing is, my first "real" camera, bought with my hard-earned money, was the Canon Canonet G-III QL (the QL stood for "quick load") and it was a camera that quickly became about as transparent as a camera could be. I bought mine in 1976 and I still have it right here. It's about as solid as I imagine a camera could be, and the 40mm f1.7 lens on the front of it was sharp and at the same time voluptuous. I shot prodigious amounts of black and white film through that little camera and focusing with a bright line rangefinder was as natural as walking. I learned everything I ever needed to know about photography with that camera in my hands, or nearby. 

It's still here in the studio long after a raft of M series Leica cameras and lenses have come and gone. It's my "reference standard" for what a good, all around, affordable street shooting camera should be. I took it to Europe in 1978 for a multi-month backpacking trip and the only bother was replacing the PX 625 battery that powered the meter and made auto exposure (shutter priority) available. But the camera was and is fully functional without its battery; you just have to know how to estimate exposures in your head. And, as to "build quality" it is still fully functional today, forty four years after I bought it brand new from Capitol Camera, here in Austin. Sad though. The camera is still here but one of my favorite cameras stores is long gone.

Subconsciously, I guess I just kept making a comparison between the older Canon rangefinder, film camera and all the previous generations of X100 cameras from Fuji and the Fujis always came out on the losing end of the comparison. I never thought about my affinity for the Canonet until yesterday when I was looking for an old Nikon F camera body in the "film" drawer and stumbled back across it. In an instant I realized why I have always been uninterested in the Fujis. They had a lens that was just a bit too wide for me at the time and a sensor that was just too low res to consider cropping tight portraits at 50mm, 60mm and 70mm. It's different now. The crop is no big deal with the right sensor. I frame tight and a bit of crop adds up to "just right."

I've also found, when looking through the photos I've been taking in the last few weeks that I'm finally learning to come to grips with the 35mm focal length as it is. While I think Fuji "should" have made this line of cameras with a 40mm lens instead I get that I'm a bit of an outlier where focal length choices are concerned. But the camera is wearing my focal length prejudice down; bit by bit. Frame by frame.

One of the things I'm enjoying with the X-100V is that the lens, when used as I like to use it, is wonderfully sharp and holds up well with a bit of cropping. The images that are cropped to a 40 or 50mm frame don't seem degraded or less technically sound to me. 

On another note, I thought after having used EVFs for such a long time now that I would be most comfortable framing and shooting with the EVF engaged but that's not how things have shaken out. I've been using the OVF with the bright frame lines almost exclusively and I love it. There is an emotional connection to the rangefinder aesthetic that I find comfortable and, for me, saturated with a nostalgic and lovely remembering of my first embrace of photography. Can't explain it better than that but every peek through the bright line finder takes me right back to my time first photographing the people who have been most important in my life. 

I haven't begun to dive into the depths of the X-100V's capabilities; I like using the camera in much the same way I used my old Canonet, but I am lowering myself into its clutches the way one sinks slowly and carefully into a really hot bath. I love the Astia profile for color shooting and I've tweaked the Acros profile to get black and white images I like. I have the important controls set up to the buttons that make sense. I can quickly click the ND filter in and out. The aperture ring around the lens is exactly where it should be.

I bought a small, canvas Domke camera bag last week. I was looking for a small bag and I found this one lightly used at Precision Camera (with which I have no affiliate relationship, all cash goes in only one direction...). It's just the right size to hold one black and one chrome X-100V camera, with their metal lens hoods attached, along with a couple of extra batteries and a little box that contains the original lens rings and lens caps. I can hardly wait to do at a trip somewhere to make photographs with just the "twins" and nothing else. Seems like the perfect cameras for exploring the world. 

All of a sudden I'm not concentrating on small details but I'm actually 

enjoying taking in wider landscapes. Even if they are desolate and cluttered.

I'm not sure why but I'm currently fixated with any sort of back light. 

I was just a little disappointed not to get enough lens flare on this one.

I guess that's the trade off. A better lens cheats you out of 

tasty abberations. I guess a couple fingerprints on the front 

element would fix that right up....