Two Women

Last Monday, as I was walking from Penn Station to Bryant Park,  I stopped at a crosswalk to wait for the signal to change. When I turned to look around me, I saw this woman standing just behind me with a very contemplative look on her face. She was about seven feet from me when I shot this. When I'm in auto mode with the XP1 I tend to shoot horizontal (landscape orientation) compositions. In this situation it worked out well because the scene behind her gives the feeling of depth and mood. But I have to get as comfortable shooting vertically as well. That doesn't come naturally yet, but I've just had a little over two weeks to practice with the camera. The XP1 handles wide exposure latitudes nicely, and holds image detail extraordinarily well in bright highlights and deep shadows. The ISO for both these shots was 400, which I tend to use as my native ISO (I always shot Fuji Neopan 400 film). Some minor noise reduction was applied but the details were so strong that they held up well.

I shot the second photo from my waist with very similar settings to the first image. The image is a nice counterpoint to the first, the woman's attention is directed towards the lens of the camera (not at my face) to see if she could detect if I was taking a picture of her. The XP1 with the 18mm f2 lens is virtually silent unless your ear is right up next to the camera, and the lens is very small. So with the lens hood in place there was no way she could know that I had taken her photograph. It's a great camera for streettogs.