Brrrrr .... And another test

Once again, jonesing to get out and shoot in spite of the very cold temps in NYC today. And I needed more work with the new 50-140mm f2.8 lens. I'm hoping to take three zooms with me this Spring on my trip to Israel: the 10-24mm  f4, the new (still to be released) 16-55mm f2.8, and the long zoom.  They're all large lenses compared with the other Fuji zoom and fixed focal lengths, but relative to the huge Nikon lenses and body I used to shlep, this kit is easily handled.

Using the optical image stabilization on the long lens makes shooting at relatively slow shutter speeds very magageable, even with my old shaky hands. These were all shot at 140mm ( 210mm equiv) and 1/125 sec. shutter speed:

Shot with my favorite (at least till the new 16-55mm comes out) lens, the 10-24mm zoom:

As I walked down Fifth Avenue, there was something special about the light and reflections from the store windows that made this shot seem to glow:

A Heat Wave

Stuck indoors for over a week until the temperature hit 30°F today in NYC. So I packed up my camera bag and took a walk on Fifth avenue.

During my downtime I took the opportunity to try to understand how the Dynamic Range adjustment on the Fuji X-T1 affects exposure range. Most of the other effects adjustments will affect only the jpegs that are generated by the camera processor. But Dynamic Range determines how the sensor registers tonal ranges, so it affects RAW images also. There is a significant difference between DR100 and DR400 in how tones are mapped by the sensor. I need to play more with the functionality to get comfortable with it.

I shot the whole time with the 50-140mm lens. It's a focal range that I'm not at all comfortable using, so it's going to take quite a bit of practice. I need to 'see' images happening quite a bit farther away from me than I'm used to. And I need to be a bit more patient and steady when I shoot. Quite a few of the images I shot today were slightly blurred because I was too quick in moving the camera after I pushed the shutter. Since I use the optical image stabilization, which works quite well with this lens, even though the image is frozen, if the shutter speed is slow - like 1/30 or slower - the camera still has to be kept steady. It's one of the three lenses I expect to be taking to Israel in the Spring, and even though it will probably be the least used of the three, I need to be completely comfortable with it.

My best shot of the day - with the flattened perspective and the very limited scenic area around the subject, it's quite a bit different from my usual street shots: