On a Cold and Frosty Morning

Jack frost visited again last night, so I thought I’d try and capture his handiwork.

You’ve got to feel sorry for Fujifilm

At the CES this week Fujifilm revealed their mirrorless system camera with 3 prime lenses and on paper, it does look rather good. Sticking to the retro look that made the X100 one of the most desirable compact cameras of last year is a masterstroke that I cannot believe other manufacturers haven’t cottoned on to yet. Prime lenses, a body that looks like a rangefinder, hybrid viewfinder, and image resolution on a par with a full frame sensor look promising. Indeed the sample images show some nice colour and not so much noise, even if they don’t look too sharp. Already people are talking about the X pro 1 as the poor man’s Leica. (They do like to stick pro at the end of their camera’s don’t they!) People are also talking about potential problems such as the price point and the auto focus issues that came with the X100, but I reckon that people will look back at the X pro 1 as one of those landmark cameras. Retro is the new black, or something like that!!
So why feel sorry for them?
Despite the buzz you’d expect, everyone seems to be talking about Canon and Nikon. The D4 has got opinions divided. (Personally I think it looks like a pretty amazing camera and hints at even cooler things for the D800 and D400) But the big star of this week is Canon’s G1 X. An updated G12 with a bigger sensor. Funny really; you unveil your SLR killer with dials and the whole world would rather talk about an updated compact camera with a bigger sensor.
And if you feel sorry for Fujifilm, then really do have to feel sorry for Kodak. With all the troubles they’re having, they released a few underwhelming compacts that no-one even noticed. It really does suck being Kodak right now.
Despite the big two hogging the limelight, I think Fujifilm will be having the last laugh….for a bit.

Early Morning Leeds

My walk to work has a certain…charm! There are shots there that I’ve been thinking of capturing for a while and decided that the quiet mornings between Christmas and New Year would be the perfect time to take the camera out. I also wanted to capture it on Tmax 3200 and get some nice grain and atmosphere on the images.

Car wash and bus stop

The project was fun and has given birth to a new rule. Rule 25: learn from your mistakes.

Both pictures were taken on a Nikon F301 with Nikon 35-70 AF lens. Not a bad combination, but I learned some valuable lessons. Firstly, it had been over two years since I ran a roll of film through a camera, and I made some rookie mistakes. True, the lighting was bad and with the lens wide open I was really pushing my luck. If I’d thought about it a bit more carefully, I’d have waited until there was a bit more light, or underexposed the film and push processed it to give me an extra stop.

I also learned that my eyes aren’t really up to manually focusing a camera anymore, so I’ll have to get an auto focus body to replace the F301. My last lesson? Centre weighted metering isn’t the same as matrix metering. Funny how you forget these things when you get used to digital.

Anyway, it has taught me a few things, which is always good, and I’ve added a couple of rules to my list for next time…

Rule 26: Shoot Film. Shooting film is not the same as shooting digital. It requires thought and discipline. Something I hadn’t realised I’d put aside with the D90. I need to shoot more film to keep my skills honed. (And because it’s fun to shoot with some of these older cameras.)

Rule 27: Review the basics. I recently heard a story about how Vince Lombardi would often start a new season by showing the players the football and saying, ‘this is a football’. It may seem like sucking eggs, but his record speaks for itself. A photographer is never too experienced, and never too clever to review the basics from time to time. (and I’m neither, so need to remind myself even more!!)

Let’s see if I can do a better job with my next roll.