I have not posted on this page in quite a while. That is not to say I have not been using the hell out of my X100. I own and have owned a slew of digital and film cameras. This is the best of them all. It is easy to carry, has beautiful colors and black and whites. I can shoot anywhere without being noticed.
I carried the X100V as a travel companion on a trip to Milwaukee to see my brother Joe. I dabbled on the carry side between a wrist strap and a slim Peak Design strap. Both worked great. Here are a few images from the trip. There are two great Irish bands from the Milwaukee Irish festival, a shot from the sky ride at the festival, and a portrait of my beautiful wife, a photo of the oldest known Harley called “Number One” from the Milwaukee Harley Museum and lastly, a portrait of my brother Joe. The Blue Moon is in the background of Joe’s portrait. The flash for Joe’s shot was dialed down in manual to 1/16th power and worked well. I tried shooting some video but lacking experience I think I muffed that up. This camera is very versatile. For carry I used a small shoulder bag from Boundary Supply, and paired the Fuji with my Contax T2.
Today, August 4, 2024, we spent the day at the famed Bailey’s Beach Club in Newport. The day was generally overcast with flat storm approaching skies, and occasionally a peak of the sun. Because of the marked haze across the ocean, I decided to use the polarizing filter from the neat and small Nisi Filter system made specifically for the X100 series. To attach it, the lens ring is removed and the fllter mount screws on in its place. The kit contains three different ND filters and a polarizer. When I loaded the images, it was clear I should have stacked a grad ND filter on also. Hence, I cropped most of the images to de-emphasize the bland sky. I tried fiddling with the sky using a Lightroom feature that I am not fond of, the de-hazing tool. It makes the colors in the sky too dark and the clouds too extreme. It did work ok on the shot of the cabanas and in the two Art of Photography presets described below – I dropped the clarity and texture after applying de-hazing to reduce the extreme effect. Lightroom’s masking tool for sky was also of no help, it is giving me fits. I employ the mask but the program adapts the entire image rather than just the mask. I must be using it wrong. Maybe some day I will learn to use the quixotic layers feature in Photoshop or Capture One. On two images I used aLightroom preset from the Art of Photography creator. The suite of presets from Art of Photography is excellent. The one I used is called “Latique Dreams”. I will put a caption below those images. I underexposed the images for the most part, hoping to capture the sea’s bashing its force against the rock formations. Then I brought the shadows up in Lightroom – the X100V preserved great shadow detail, and then added just.a touch of warming to the RAW images containing rock formations These images demonstrate the quality of the X100V’s lens. Having once been a user of Fuji interchangeable lens cameras, I was never a fan of how the sensor renders a blue sky – and to this day the sky rendered from the X100V always needs tweaking to my taste.
I have not posted on this page in quite some time. That is not to say I have not been using this wonderful camera. It remains the camera I turn to on strolls, at functions, for seascapes, for long exposures and all other manner of things from daily life. I have outfitted it with a great ebony grip purchased on Amazon. I will post a picture of it here in the next day or so. Coupled with a wrist strap, it makes the camera extremely easy to hold. This camera just rocks. I have no desire to upgrade to the newest and greatest model, the X100F will suit my needs and tastes for many years to come. The following images of the murals, just a few of which abound around Providence, and the Providence Waterfront were shot in the last two nights. A tip, remember to turn off the ND filter after you use it! The setting remains on even after you turn off the camera. I was having a devilish time getting good auto and manual focus on mural night until I figured out the problem after shooting or attempting to shoot about 10 images.
October 31, 2021
August 2021
New York City, May 2021
