Smoking On Fifth Avenue

The weather is changing, Spring is coming. I feel it in my bones, and I'm jonesing to get out and shoot without being restricted with ten layers of clothing. Saturday looks to be in the low 50's! So I have to make room in my blog library of images for the new stuff that's coming up.

I shot this with the X-T1 and the 14mm lens. It's a great combination for street shooting in New York.
Smoking on Fifth Avenue:

A Non-Photography Post

This past Saturday I happened to be near the Museum of Modern Art in midtown Manhattan. For this past week the museum has been having a members' preview of a new show that opens to the public on Saturday, March 8th entitled Gauguin: Metamorphoses. Being a member, I decided to stop in to see the preview, what a wonderful way to warm my body and soul. Gauguin is one of my two favorite artists (the other is Pierre Bonnard). The show is centered around his work in mediums other than oils, although there are a number of stunning oil paintings from which he borrowed motifs and figures for his other work. Prints at different stages of production are sequenced along with the woodblocks from which they are pressed, stunning wood sculptures, ceramic sculptures, oil transfers .... the man was an obsessive worker. His output was prodigious.

Since it was Saturday the gallery was quite crowded, even though it was members previews I didn't have a chance to see all the work on exhibit. I was in the neighborhood again on Wednesday and went back to see the exhibit again and confirm that my original impression was valid. The work was more stunning the second time I saw it.

I grabbed this shot on the corner of Fifth Ave and 53rd street, near the museum. There was a brisk wind and the person in the center was struggling to get that cigarette fired up. Just when I lifted the camera to get the shot, the girl next to him turned her back to me and nailed the composition.

More On The Fuji X-T1

I have some important events to photograph coming up in the next few months and I want to be as comfortable as possible shooting with the Fuji X-T1. There's new functionality and an entirely different feel handling the camera in contrast to my X-Pro1. And I need to be comfortable switching from one to the other. I'm hoping to use the 14mm lens on the X-T1, and the 18-55mm zoom on the X-Pro1.

I've been out shooting quite a bit this past week and had a scary but very enlightening moment. The X-T1 is small and light, but it's built tough. I have a Black Rapid wrist strap attached to the camera with a screw bracket that fastens to the tripod mount thread of the bottom plate. I'd grown quite secure with the wrist strap, and at one point needed to get something out of my pocket, so I just let go of the camera. Unfortunately the bracket had loosened and become unscrewed from the bottom plate. OUCH! A tenth of a second after I let go of the camera and I didn't feel it catch with the wrist strap I heard a clunk as the camera hit the sidewalk. When I looked it over, the only scars were a tiny abrasion on the edge of the bottom plate, and a dent and large scratch on the lens shade. This was not the plastic Fuji lens shade supplied with the 23mm lens. I had replaced that with a smaller but sturdier  metal lens shade, made in China, which I found on Amazon. The takeaway lesson: Always, and forever, use a lens shade (and for that matter a sturdy filter also) - they're cheap. The lens is expensive.

On Saturday I set out to try the face recognition function of the XT1. It was a new function for me, but I could definitely understand its usefulness. In theory when in autofocus mode the photographer composes the scene in the viewfinder and the camera hunts the scene to detect a face. If it finds one, the electronics set the focus and exposure for that focus point and the camera fires the shutter. Better yet, after the face is acquired, if it is moving through the frame the camera will track it. Sounds great, but for my shooting on the street it's way too slow finding the appropriate face. I missed many shots, but stuck with it to get some feel for how it worked. When I switched back to my standard autofocus mode of locking on focus and recomposing, my success rate improved dramatically. But I haven't given up on it yet. I need a lot more practice. Guess I'll just have to get out more and play with my toys.

I was happy with two shots I captured on Saturday. Both on Fifth Avenue.  The first was in the afternoon light of a bright sun and dark shadows. The camera performed like a champ (the photographer too):

After spending a few hours at the Museum of Modern Art where I attended a members' preview of a new - spectacular - Gauguin show, I went out on the street again to work in the early evening light and happened to catch a shot of actor Michael Kouri. Once again, the camera and photographer performed flawlessly (ahem):

Fujifilm X-T1 - My First Outing

I love taking pictures with my X-Pro1. When I went out with the XT1 today I had a twinge of a feeling that I was being unfaithful. As I walked around New York this afternoon I began to understand that this is a totally different camera, and I need a lot of practice to get a handle on it. I guess I'll have to spend many dedicated hours on the street learning to use the XT1. Poor me! While there are many similarities between the XP1 and the XT1, there are some very basic differences.

Firstly, the viewfinder. One of the things that really lit my fire with the XP1 was using the optical viewfinder - so reminiscent of shooting with my Leica M6 rangefinder. I like seeing the frame lines and what's happening outside of them. Using the OVF was so refreshing after my initial years using Nikon DSLRs. I thought using the electronic viewfinder would be similar to the through-the-lens image of the D700. Not so. Seeing the actual live scene, whether through the OVF or through the lens and reflected by the internal mirror of the DSLR is just not the same as digital electronic image rendered from the sensor. It's actually like watching a miniature television inside the camera. And there is a tiny lag time. The experience is not bad, it's just something I have to get used to and learn to work with.

Secondly, the size. The XT1 is considerably smaller than the XP1. I like that a lot. As I was out shooting this afternoon I used a wrist strap and held the camera at my side with the tips of my fingers.  And when I wanted a shot, bringing the camera up to my eye and firing off with one hand (using autofocus) felt natural and smooth. And very fast. Which brings me to .....

Thirdly, the focussing. The response is very different from the XP1. The XT1 feels zippy, and very quiet.

Fourthly, all the new options provided by the advanced technology. I have much to learn: face recognition, wifi connectivity with the iPhone app, the tiltable LCD, phase detection focussing, and on and on ...... More than playing music, more than shooting images, I love learning new stuff. This camera is challenging me to get out of my comfort zone and experiment .... and to learn to accept failure when I goof up a new function or technique.

Here's some images right out of the camera with little or no processing. Speaking of which: Lightroom 5.3 will not recognize the RAW format of this camera, however the new Adobe DNG converter will. It's necessary to first put the XT1's RAF files through the DNG converter before importing them into Lightroom, at least until Adobe releases Lightroom 5.4.

I stopped into B&H Photo before taking my walk, I needed another camera bag (to add to my current collection) so I could carry my three workhorse Fuji lenses, the XT1 and the XP1. And I wanted to let David Brommer and Gabriel Biederman fondle and drool over the XT1 (which they were kind enough to do) David took this shot of Gabe and yours truly:

Then it was out onto Fifth Avenue. I tried to experiment with face detection, and that proved to be an abysmal failure (got some learning to do there) so I just switched back to my standard settings and played around with shooting through the electronic viewfinder:

The one experiment that was successful: I set the camera to fire on 'continuous-high' and set the focus mode on 'continuous'. As the E train rolled into the station at full speed I started firing to test the XT1's predictive focus functionality, with the aperture set at f1.4 to keep the depth of field at a minimum. I was aiming at the red E on the top of the car. The camera's response was quite impressive:

Uptown Couple .... Downtown Dude

This past Monday I had the good fortune to participate in a presentation, along with two fellow photographers, at B&H Photo in New York City. I've been attending classes at their Event Space for about ten years, ever since I began to shoot digitally, and it was very satisfying to be recognized by the presenters and asked to show my images there.

I received a confirmation that my new Fuji X-T1 was shipped out today, and I should receive it on Monday. I'm hoping to get out in the afternoon to give it a test run (before I read the instruction manual ;-)) and head into Manhattan on Tuesday for a trial by fire.

Here's a couple of shots I caught this past week.

Girls Are Beautiful

Just a play on Garry Winogrand's title opus Women Are Beautiful, a classic in the paean of photo books. The blockbuster Winogrand retrospective show that started in San Francisco will be opening at the National Gallery in Washington, DC in March, and later this year at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City.

Photo Thievery

I suppose it's inevitable on the internet. Perverted bloggers and other trolls think they have the right to appropriate anyone's work whenever it suits them. And to top it off, attribute quotes to the supposed 'contributing' photographer.

Here's the dastardly thief's work . I just discovered today. I suppose he thinks that if he gives my site a plug I should be grateful. I'm not.

Now that I'm done grousing about it, here's a couple of images I shot on a very cold day in New York.
I'm betting there's more to come (cold, that is).