Fuji X-T1 'wet review' at Songkran in Hong Kong

We are now about 3 weeks into our shooting experience with the Fuji X-T1 and a new challenge arose....water!

Now we all know the Fuji X-T1 is 'weather resistant'...but what does that really mean?  Quite honestly, I have no idea, is it waterproof, shower proof, dust proof....in my experience weather sealing is temperamental at best, some cameras are almost waterproof, others fail after one drop of rain goes into the top of the shutter (yes, exactly that happened to my first M9 much to my non-amusement).

Just before I explain more, I would like any readers specifically looking for X-T1 information to be aware we have recently written a fairly comprehensive review on the Fuji X-T1 camera that we have been shooting around Asia for the past few weeks, a link to that blog post can be found at this link, that will also be repeated at the end of this post for reference

Please note: All images in this blog post are unprocessed JPEGS direct from camera, which was set on 'Velvia' mode as I remember, as many people are asking to see direct from camera images.

So, I was invited after a few beers by some friends to accompany them to the Thai New Year festival in Kowloon City Hong Kong, to see the 'Songkran' festival, or water festival as some may know it.  A detailed wikidpedia description of this event can be seen at this link.

I hadn't been before to this event, neither in Thailand nor Hong Kong and had no idea what to expect....I thought it would be a low key event with a bit of water being thrown and I didn't actually consider that it may be a camera destroying trip.....was it?...You'lll have to read on to find out....haha.

Preparing myself for the event

I had a hangover, so my preparations were quite simple....drink a fresh coconut on arrival.  Check, thats my prep done.  I was quickly adorned with some flower necklace and some talc splattered on my face and a few bottles of waters shoved down my back....right...i was quickly sober, and ready for action!

Weather proofing the camera....

Also, my technical preparation for this event was somewhat lacking, i opted for the Mark 1 plastic bag approach, zip lock food bag, with a small hole torn in the front to poke the lens through, the bag was just resting over the lens.  I figured the camera was going to get trashed so there wasn't much I could do with what I had to hand...it was a bit of a gamble with the lenses as they are definately not weather sealed and I was planning on using at least 3 of them (14mm, 23mm and 56mm), all of which are expensive lenses....I'm quite sure my hangover was forcing me to make a careless decision not to waterproof cover the lenses better, but I was more interested in getting in amongst the action and getting some shots to be honest, that's usually the way with me.

I could already see some water fights going on close-by to where I was, with no idea of the mass of people that was around the corner all ready to soak me....I could see little troops of people with water guns marching towards a gathering point...it kinda reminded me of deploying with a camera in the Army (there were far less coconuts or wet-tshirt wearing women in Basra though), this was definitely going to be much more fun.

It wasn't long before I was drenched in water from passers by and locals preparing for the event, somebody threw some flowers round my neck, covered my face in talc and already the camera was covered in water.  I was starting to wonder if this was a good idea...lol.

"If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough" - Quote by Robert Capa (acclaimed war photographer)

So I saw a rather large problem with photographing this event in my usual style....basically I knew to get the type of images I wanted, I would have to work at very wide angles (typically 21mm, 28mm range for full frame camera), I know for a fact to get the most dynamic images I need to be in close.  The problem with that is for this event there was no shortage of people (literally thousands of them) with water guns, hosepipes, buckets full of ice water or any other water distributing device that had no mission other than to soak you as you came close....so I was a little concerned about the new Fuji X-T1 and more specifically the lenses (that are NOT weather sealed).

Anyway, here's a selection of images taken right in the middle of the action at the main parade event at the start of the festival in Kowloon City, these are all taken on either 14mm, 23mm or 56mm lenses from Fuji, are direct from camera JPEGs and i was just using my tshirt (what was left of it) to try and wipe off water blobs on the front of the lens, so any out of focus blobs are caused by the front elements being covered in water.

After the main event in the square the crowd started to move en-masse around the streets of Kowloon City, getting continuoulsy soaked by all manner of methods from every possible direction.  I took a time out for 2 minutes to check the camera, I realised at this point that when I had been wiping down the camera rigorously with my t-shirt I had inadvertently somehow switched off RAW, and was only shooting JPEGS....I figured this wouldn't matter too much and actually made this blog post easier, as I just took the files directly from lightroom to here without processing them at all.  I found as the afternoon went on, and with backlit situations around some of the streets, the RAW files would have been more useful as there would have been more opportunity to pull back highlights in some situations, but these JPEGS are more than acceptable in my view.  Here's some more shots as the parade moved around the streets.

So, as the parade was drawing to a close, I checked out the camera again, it was looking  worse than it was, as the X-T1 was covered in lumps of talc, lots of water and the bag I had put over the lens was ripped to shreds.....however, it appeared to be still working normally.  I was worried about the lenses, I had been changing lenses throughout the 2 hours I had been there, so there was a fear that water had got inside (although I was very careful when changing lenses, ensuring I was well protected from any flying water), but nevertheless...fingers crossed, everything seemed fine so far.  The last street I just took a few more images of a little girl that was fast becoming a star attraction as she was standing on her Dad's shoulders dressed in a mini-firemans outfit, throwing buckets of water at the police that were trying to disperse the crowds....highly entertaining :-)

Here are a few closeup shots I took of the camera just so you can see it was quite covered in talc, water and condensation had built up inside the viewfinder....I have lost one or two cameras to water damage before, so was slightly concerned, but nevertheless The Fuji X-T1 stood well up to the challenge of this event, and event without any weather sealed lens, it did a great job, close up, soaking wet, in some harsh light, really I couldn't have asked a camera to do any more than it did.

Conclusion

My conclusion is simple, the Fuji X-T1 yet again has impressed me with its ability to shoot in a fast paced, harsh condition event.  I definately couldn't shoot my Leica cameras here due to weather sealing not being up to par, and basically they are much slower, more methodical cameras for me.

I took the camera home afterwards, gave everything a good wipe down with a damp cloth then dried it off.  Everything is working perfectly (Now 4 days later...and still fine), not gritiness when turning dials, no problems with lenses or condensation, its as good as new, so for sure its passed it weather sealing test for me!

I could have easily used my 5D Mark III I'm sure, but I like to keep that big boy wrapped up at the office for commercial projects only, I don't use any of my Canon gear for my personal shooting or photography workshops abroad, thats just for commercial use, big cameras impress clients for some reason, so we keep the big stuff for that ;-)

Again, as per my original blog post which is linked here as full review of the Fuji X-T1, I can only really say good things about it, if you are looking to buy in to the Fuji system, now is the time, this is easily their best yet, well done Fuji, finally its hit the nail on the head for this format.

Keep in Touch with us

I have a public facebook page if you would like to stay in touch and see regular updates of my images, that can be seen here.  Please 'Like' the page to get regular updates.

If you wish to find out more about my photography business 'F8 Photography' please check out our website, we regularly run photography workshop in Hong Kong, Cambodia and India currently and have been doing this for several years and those events can be seen under the 'workshops' tab at our website.

There is also a link at the top left of this blog post to subscribe to our blog updates if you wish.

We also do commercial photography and videography all over Asia, please keep in touch and we hope to see you around Hong Kong or somewhere else on our adventures.

After spending 18 years in the British Army, Gary left the Army in 2007 after serving with the Combat Camera Teams all over the world and moved to Asia to set up F8 Photography from which he now conducts all his photography endeavours.  You will NEVER see Gary anywhere without a camera....

Thanks for reading.

Heres the link again for reference to my original posting on the review of the Fuji X-T1 camera.  Please share both of these links and spread the word.

Fuji X-T1 review in Hong Kong, Korea & Cambodia

Update (17th April 2014): we have now written a second review on the Fuji X-T1, specifically related to weather sealing when shooting the Thai New Year water festival...you can see that here at this link. I don’t write many camera reviews, so I apologise in advance if I miss out key features or concerns people have with this camera.  My aim here is to given my honest opinions about the things I have discovered about this system in the last 3 weeks using it, this is definitely not a technical review.

I travel a great deal with my photography business around Asia and I feel this qualifies me to have an opinion that may be useful to others who are considering this system as a travel rig.  I feel camera is worthy of mention for many reasons, hence I’m writing this first thoughts style ‘review’.

For those that can't be bothered to read my blurb and just want to cut to a quick conclusion, I'll say this straight out: The camera is fantastic in almost every sense, great image quality, very user friendly experience, best EVF by far, autofocus can still be a little laggy in low light, but apart from that, there ain't much wrong with it.  Now first here's my first few images shot with this camera, followed by my review:

THE CAMERA BODY

I love the look of the camera, its the perfect size for a travel camera for me, un-obtrusive, light, weather sealed (unfortunately none of the current lenses are as at April 2014 as far as I know), but at least I can shoot it in the rain and not worry too much...

The finish of the camera is great, feels like knurled leather, so its 'grippy' when holding it, something I didnt like about the Sony A7, which felt almost 'slippy' in my hand due to its glossy finish.  This feels better to me, similar to the Ricoh GR in the sense that it won't slip out of your hand.  It also has a good built in grip (this can be improved with the addition of either the battery grip or standard grip, both optional accessories from Fuji.

The only thing I don't like so far about the body is the SD card door, it seems to open itself quite often, loose fitting design, and is very flimsy in quality, feels like that will be soon snapped off the way i use my cameras....so thats a bit of a failing in my view...they've worked so hard to get most things very very right, then put on a flimsy SD card door that you open and close every time you shoot to get to the card, not a dealbreaker, just a little annoying, so much effort into other areas, why not make this stronger and more durable...

LENSES

Its already well documented that the lenses from the Fuji X-Series are all pretty damn good, I would go as far as to say most of them that I have used are SPECTACULAR.  The lenses I am using on this system are 14mm, 18mm, 23mm, 35mm and 56mm equivalent to roughly 21mm, 28mm, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm.  That covers everything I would ever need.  My favourites so far are the 14mm for close up street photography, the 18mm for 'normal' street, the 23mm for environmental portraits, the 35mm for general photography and the 56mm for portraiture and isolating subjects in the street....As you can tell from that statment which started as 'my favourites so far'....ALL of them are my favourites, I have enjoyed using each and every one of them for my own reasons and I will post some images here below sampling each lens which should help clarify how they fit into my compositional eye differently each time.

SO, WHICH LENSES DO I REALLY NEED?

If you just want to keep it very simple, I would say the 35mm 1.4 (equivalent to 50mm) is a great start off lens for general purpose usage if you don't usually get very close to your subjects (by close i mean touching close..lol)....the 18mm is also great and very small (these 2 are also the cheapest of the lot, so not a bad starting point for a portrait lens and a wider street use lens), that said, the 56mm is sublime, probably the best lens I have ever used for portraiture, especially on a 'non full frame rig', amazing quality in every sense, the 14mm is unmissable if you are wide angle street shooter (with its clutch allowing you to quickly manual focus also)...and the 23mm (35mm equivalent, is great, although larger and heavier, probably that would be my choice if someone said you could only have 1 lens.

IMAGE QUALITY

I am not a massive fan of shooting JPEGS, I like RAW. I was able to get hold of a pre-release version of Adobe Lightroom 5.4 which supports the Fuji RAW files including allowing you to use the camera profiles (Astia, Provia, Velvia, Pro Neg, etc, etc) directly onto your RAW files.  This was a very very cool addition to the RAW workflow.  Rumour has it that LR 5.4 also has a different way of dealing with the Fuji RAW files in the sense that they are better quality than previously available in Lightroom.  I think this is true, before I found Fuji files to look 'smudgy', I don't see that with these files, they are very very very good, and I haven't once looked at anything below ISO3200 and thought 'its nowhere near as good as my Leica', its all good, so anyone looking at this camera worried about whether the IQ is good enough, my advice is: Yes, it most certainly is good enough...For example, I made 15 A3+ prints the other day, 8 from the Fuji XT1, the other 5 from my Leica M240, i showed 4 different professional photographers the images, they all guessed wrong as to which cameras produced which files, testament to the Fuji, once a file is shot on a good lens and processed, its not so easy to tell them apart from higher end cameras, in fact, I would say extremely difficult...apart from the fact that the Fuji colour is better than any other camera on the market....which brings us onto the next point...

COLOUR

Spectacular, I have shot this camera in Hong Kong in artificial light, same in Korea, then in Cambodia in harsh light and amazing sunsets, and I can honestly say, I can't remember having even once touched the custom white balance tool in Lightroom to fix white balance, its delivered literally perfect white balance in every situation...something I have become quite unfamiliar with using Leica cameras in recent years, the Fuji is simply astounding at getting white balance and colour bang on, straight out of the box.  That paired with the ability to use the Fuji colour profiles for Velvia, Astia, Pro Neg, etc is really a very, very cool thing in my view, post processing has never been so easy for the colour files.

56mm. Direct from camera RAW with Velvia mode for strong vibrant colours throughout.

23mm. Direct from RAW with Astia for a softer more natural colour look.

BLACK AND WHITE

I've been very happy with my black and white results from this camera, I'm not a big fan of the custom profiles in this regard (B&W red filter, Green filter and Yellow filter), simply because I prefer to process my files much more harshly in this regard, more grit and grain, the RAW files are basically too clean (as is normal for all cameras), so i still prefer to pull them over to Silver Efex Pro 2 to get the look I want.

I have made a video tutorial on how I do my black and white with the X-T1 and any other camera for that matter, which includes flattening the image even more before going across the SEP2, the video link for that workflow is here:

https://vimeo.com/91315679

GIMMICK MODES AND PANORAMIC MODE

The camera has quite a few 'toy' modes, I won't go on about them, i don't use them, things like 'remove all colour except red', fake tilt shift, fake HDR, etc.  I just tried it a few times, for fun with your friends, maybe...for serious photographers, doesn't need to be there...

The panoramic feature is something quite cool thats been there since the XPro1 though, if you need a quick stitched JPEG that is very easy to do, this one i shot on a moving boat with the 56mm in almost darkness and it came out just like this, can't complain with that feature.

SHOOTING EXPERIENCE

As far as shooting the camera goes, I love it.  I find the autofocus to be absolutely fine in good light, more than fast enough (not as fast as some full frame cameras or the OMD EM-1, but definately more than fast enough for most things (except sport - in fact if you want this camera for sports photography, stop reading now, and go and buy an OMD EM-1 or a D4s, its useless at tracking very fast moving subjects - I tried and failed badly shooting a basketball match and a soccer match, useless continuous AF for that....for someone walking or cycling down the street that you want to shoot however, its more than adequate.

Metering is also very good with the Fuji, i shot in many situation where the light was difficult or backlit, and the meter generally coped well, and the exposure compensation dial is right there at your fingertips should you need it (and its stiffer than on previous Fujis so not easy to accidentally knock), as is the AEL button easily to hand to lock exposure.  I have had absolutely no issues with getting the right exposures with this camera.

HOW FAR CAN I GO WITH ISO?

I would say I have no issues shooting anything up to ISO6400 with this camera.  Above that its not great, certainly useable, but I have also had no need to go above 6400 and i do shoot quite a lot in low light so for me its no problem for this camera at all.  The only thing that suffers in low light is the autofocus becomes a little laggy (a continuing Fuji curse), nevertheless I do believe its still quite a lot better than all the other existing Fuji cameras out there as at April 2014.

MANUAL LENSES AND MANUAL FOCUS

A fair few people I know from the Leica crowd have been asking me how the camera performs with Leica or M mount lenses.  I have only tried a few lenses on there, the Leica 50mm 1.4 Summilux ASPH, the Voigtlander 50mm 1.5 ASPH, the old Canon 85mm 1.9 LTM and a Leica 35mm Summicron 7 elements.  All of the lenses I have tried have worked perfectly well.  The various modes for manual focus are EXCELLENT, you have focus peaking in a variety of different colours and strengths (red low/high for example), you have split prism focussing ability (my personal favourite with manual glass), you can zoom in for focus assist at the tap of a bottom should you require a zoomed image to focus if you have vision like a mole (do not underestimate the EVF in this camera, its like watching your first 42" plasma screen TV if you have come from EVFs that were developed a year or so ago...it really is a positive experience using this EVF (and as I've mentioned before, i used to HATE EVFs...this has changed everything.  There is even another mode where you can have 2 images showing at once, your main view and a magnified smaller view of your focus point, all very cool, and you can't help but think whoever developed these features is really thinking about the photographer and what they want.  Here's just a few samples from M Mount lenses with the Fuji...basically it just works with these lenses, it works well!

WIFI EXPERIENCE (CAMERA REMOTE SHOOTING AND PLAYBACK)

This is nothing short of spectacular experience on my iphone and ipad, i can connect instantly to the camera with one push of the wifi button, the app is very fast and responsive, for either downloading JPEGS to the phone/ipad (you must be shooting in RAW+JPEG to do this, it won't work with just RAW), so i can quickly send files to people I've just photographed or upload/email, etc.

The remote shooting part of the app functions perfectly, you can just connect by one press of the wifi button and then you have live view on the phone/ipad and can just use that to touch the screen and focus, change settings, looks, aperture etc, shoot stills/video, whatever you want, all without touching your camera, just works, and its the first wifi app that I've personally used that does work as it should.

BATTERY LIFE

The weakest link of the camera.  I carry 4 batteries around with me, if you use the camera a lot, you will need a minimum of 2 batteries for a days shooting (that would be a bare minimum in my view, but I do shoot a lot), if you want to use the wifi app, be prepared for mega consumption of battery....I would recommend to any travel photographers to carry at least 3 fully charged batteries with you to ensure you don't miss any shots, it seems to show the full battery bar, then 1 bar less then all red, once red, you have about 10-15 shots and its gone....so for me the battery life is crap, don't quote me on this, but I think (not 100% sure) its the same battery as the X-Pro1 and XE-1, etc, with far more processing power and much better EVF, its normal that its going to suck up way more power, so i hope they either release some higher capacity battery or do something in the firmware that at least gives you a better warning...I also tried a third party battery, that was twice as bad as the Fuji ones, so at least try to stick with Fuji batteries if you can.

PRO’S

-Best EVF I've ever used (in fact the only one I like). - Fast shooting rate (8fps or so, more than fast enough) - Love all the options for manual focus (assist zoom, peaking, split prism) - Weight - the camera is light, as are the lenses (less 23mm and 56mm) so its great for travel, small, light and unobtrusive. - Styling, the dials on top look good, they feel good, Fuji are much better at styling their cameras than Nikon or Sony.

CONS

- SD card door flimsy quality and easily knocked open, very prone to breaking I think. - Battery life is pretty crap (need at least 2 batteries for a long days shooting). - rear dial buttons are a little small and inset, so people with sausage fingers might find that annoying, no problem, just a minor glitch.

CONCLUSION AND FINAL THOUGHTS

So, I think that just about sums it up for me, I'm a very happy teddy bear when I use this camera, I can honestly say its 'fun' to use, fast, responsive, feels good in the hand and apart from the minor gripes that I have outlined above, its easily my favourite mirrorless autofocus camera to date.  Some people will be confused as to why I preferred this over the Sony A7, thats a no-brainer to me, its not just about image quality - I agree the Sony is better IQ for sure, however, the ergonomics of the Sony are junk, the sound of the shutter on the A7 is useless for close up street shooters who want to be quiet, discreet and unobtrusive, the menu systems in the Sony are confusing (I'm easily confused by the way...), and the complete lack of available lenses (the 2 that are available are good of course), makes the decision between these two cameras an easy one for me, the Fuji is simply a complete system option, much like the 4/3 systems that are on offer, although I believe the APS-C sensor is the way forward for these size cameras, everything is in proportion, lenses, body, etc, etc, and not enough lack of quality from full frame for it to be an issue.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED SYSTEM, EASILY THE BEST MIRRORLESS CAMERA OF 2014 (SO FAR FOR ME)

If you want to stay in touch, join one of our photography workshops in Hong Kong, Cambodia, India or elsewhere, keep track of our images, or even just to say 'hi' please check us out at the following link on our public facebook page:

www.facebook.com/garytysonphotographer

or at my commercial website:

www.f8photography.com.hk

Thanks for taking the time to read my opinion.

Gary Tyson

Update (17th April 2014): we have now written a second review on the Fuji X-T1, specifically related to weather sealing when shooting the Thai New Year water festival...you can see that here at this link.

VIDEO: How we process black and white with the Fuji X-T1

A few people have been asking me how i process my black and white RAW files from the new Fuji X-T1 camera. I use Lightroom and Silver Efex Pro 2 to do this, and I have made a short video that goes into detail of how I process my files to get my own look.

Please see the video below, I hope its useful for people seeking out some ways to get a constant look with their black and white process, just tweak to your liking and save your presets and you can have your images edited in seconds in 1 or 2 clicks.

http://vimeo.com/f8photography/fujixt1bw

My 'day off' between workshops with the Fuji X100s

We have just finished the Phnom Penh workshop yesterday afternoon which was a great success. One team member left, and two more arrived this morning to head south with us for the next workshop so we are now a merry band of 8 photographers heading down to the seaside.

Today was supposed to be a day off or 'admin' day....but of course none of us could resist the chance to do more shooting, so we had some prints made from the previous days shoots and took them to the temple and the Muslim village to hand them out and make use of our time shooting again.

As it was supposed to be a day off, i didn't do much teaching and guidance and opted to just go for a walk and take only my X100s and leave the Leicas behind for a few hours.

I have had the X100s a while now, but never use it, I always bring it with the Leicas and it ends up staying in the bag...In hindsight this is a silly mistake, its one or the other, no point carrying double the gear...I teach the others to bring smaller cameras and not to be overloaded with kit...then bring 3 cameras myself...kind of defeating the object....lol.

So, refreshingly, i headed out for a walk with just the X100s slung over my shoulder and nothing else.

These images are the first time i have used this camera properly in 2 months....I can honestly say I'm so far very very happy....I was considering selling it a few weeks ago due to non-usage and now I realise that would be a mistake, it has excellent image quality and when i need a low light colour camera (the Leica M9 is useless for that), then this will be the one I turn too.

I'm not into talking about all the technical features and details of cameras, I don't believe in that, any camera you give me is just a tool....im only interested in the 'feeling' that comes across in the image once developed...I have zero interest in the size of the camera/lens/etc, as too many times i've seen the most expensive cameras in the hands of fools and the cheapest cameras in the hands of geniuses...Usually the quote rings true 'all the gear...means no idea'.....  So next time you think to carry 3 cameras or the biggest most expensive cameras you can afford...think twice....remember....the most important thing in photography is your minds eye....the camera is just a box that captures that vision, without that vision, any camera is useless to you.

Here's a few images I shot this afternoon.  Tomorrow we head South, I will try and use it more each day and see how I get along.

A baby sleeps calmly in the afternoon lightLady in doorway allows me to shoot her as she relaxes away from the outdoor heatHiding from the cows that charged down the street towards the kidsFine tuning his fishing nets for the next time he's out on the Mekong riverChildren at a local school inside a monastery

If you wish to see other images and blog posts from this trip and other Cambodia trips you can see a selection by clicking here.

Thanks for taking the time to visit our blog, if you like our blog and website, please ‘like’ us on our public Facebook page and share this story with your friends with the Facebook and twitter links below.  You can also subscribe to our blog here.

F8 Photography provides commercial photography and photography and video training workshops, more details can be found via the ‘courses and workshops’ link and upcoming events via the front page of our website.

GUEST POST: Terese - Cambodia Workshop

Note:  This post is written and all photos by Terese Chan (less portraits of Terese) who travelled to Cambodia with us.  Terese shot with the Fuji XPro1 throughout the workshop.  These are her thoughts.

(the author - Terese, posing for a lighting demo during the workshop in Phnom Penh)

I've been on and off looking for photography courses in Hong Kong for over a year, most of them I found were formal classroom teaching or commercial wedding shooting…  Honestly, as a design-trained person I perceived they are boring, stiff and too commercial…and then I found F8 Photograpy (www.f8photography.com.hk).  I was stunned by Gary's works, especially the street photos and immediately joined his workshop without hesitation even though I had never met him in Hong Kong.

(A girl playing hide and seek, Fuji X-pro1 35mm ISO 200 F1.8 1/550s)

We met in Cambodia on the first day, all of us got our gear to click on and go! It seems that we had bad luck with heavy showers on the first day but we were lucky though as Gary took us to a good location and we ran into so many lovely warm faces. I had a tough time to avoid getting my camera wet, and yet I didn't want to miss any captures….it was challenging and great fun!

(Terese (left) and Susan still smiling despite the torrential rain...)

(A praying sweet heart, Fuji X-pro1 35mm ISO 1000 F1.4 1/150s)

(Lady under the shelter, Fuji X-pro1 35mm ISO 3200 F2.2 1/110s)

(A girl, Fuji X-pro1 60mm ISO 200 F4 1/45s)

(A boy, Fuji X-pro1 35mm ISO 1000 F2.4 1/52s)

I really enjoyed the total immersion in the environment, it was effective to learn in such a good and relaxing atmosphere with great people. The learning schedule might be intense, but for me the process was fun with all the happy and kind participants, they really made my trip!  All the laughter and sharing made the course fruitful and complete! :)

Note from Gary from F8 Photography:  Terese classed herself as a 'newbie' photographer when she arrived on the workshop.  Having heard that I expected to see 'beginner' images at the end of day 1, but this was not the case, Terese absorbed all the information we gave her about using different lenses and viewpoints to improve her composition techniques, she embraced her camera (Fuji XPro1) which can be slow with autfocus at times, and she got on with all the training, always smiling.  My view on her work that she produced was that it was outstanding, like the other clients we took on the workshop, they all worked together and pushed each others standards higher throughout, which benefited everyone immensely and raised the self-pressure level.  I think working in that style is a good thing, and I know Terese will agree that the images she produced on this workshop were some of, if not her best photographs she has taken to date.  I am aware that Terese is very busy working for Cathay Pacific and it is not easy for her to get time off work, so we want to say thanks for making the time to join us, we hope you reaped the benefits of the workshop, your images certainly tell that story.  Well done Terese, great work, and look forward to taking you the next travel photography expedition :-)  

Here are more of Terese's images from the workshop:

(Terese seemed to be REALLY enjoying the workshop!)

(Gary from F8 helping Terese set up the Fuji XPro1 after installing the new autofocus firmware)

(Sisters, Fuji X-pro1 35mm ISO 200 F1.4 1/680s)

(A boy who peeps, Fuji X-pro1 35mm ISO 200 F2.5 1/220s)

(The boys in a temple, Fuji X-pro1 35mm ISO 1000 F2 1/2900s)

(A smiley face, Fuji X-pro1 35mm ISO 200 F2 1/180s)

We have other posts from the workshop attendees as well as behind the scenes shots and video coming soon.  Please stay tuned for that, you can now ‘search’ the blog on the left side of this post to find subject posts easily, try typing ‘cambodia’ to find all our posts from there if you wish to read more.

Thanks for taking the time to visit our blog, if you like our blog and website, please ‘like’ us on our public Facebook page or on the ‘LIKE’ box to the right side of this blog.  You can share this story with your friends with the Facebook and twitter links below or on the left side of this blog.  You can also subscribe to our blog via the RSS link below or on the right of this post.

F8 Photography provides commercial photography and photography and video training workshops, more details can be found via the ‘courses and workshops’ link and upcoming events via the front page of our website.

Street Photography with Fuji XPro1

NOTE:  All images shot on Fuji XPro1 and Fujinon 35mm 1.4 lens with autofocus only.

We've had our hands on the Fuji XPro1 for about a week now, and starting to get used to it and its nuances. Yesterday myself and a few friends met up in Soho and headed over to Temple Street in Kowloon which is a great little area for street photography with vibrant buzzing markets and even more vibrant characters around the place.

After a short trip on the ferry across the harbour, we walked up Canton Road, which has a lot of the big brand shops and is always full of characters, a great area to warm up before hitting the markets further into Kowloon.  You can always be sure to see hundreds of mainland tourists spending their fortunes around here on designer brands.

This was the first full day of shooting the XPro1 in this environement for me, and using only the 35mm 1.4 Fujinon lens in full autofocus mode (I believe the manual focus with the fuji lenses is totally useless as its fly by wire only), which means there is no tactile connection between you and camera/lens...its way too slow.  If using manual focus with other lenses such as the Leica lenses, its brilliant, I don't know why they insists on developing a fly by wire manual focus system, it really is completely unusable in my opinion unless you use it exclusively for 'zone focussing'.

So, I decided to shoot everything with autofocus.  There has been much debate about the AF capabilities of this camera in light of the X100 problems.  I can say this....yes, its not perfect, however, it is pretty fast (if the camera is kept awake) and it nailed 95 percent of my shots without a problem.

I shoot very fast when in the streets, so normally i use zone focussing, so using AF was almost a step back for me, however, I think this environment was the perfect test for this camera, as I believe many people are looking at the Fuji as a viable street photography/travel photography replacement for their DSLR or even as an alternative to the Leica M system such as M8/M9.

I shot everything in RAW, converted via the Fuji software supplied with the camera, then edited in Lightroom 4 using VSCO film presets set to Kodak Portra 400 for all images other than the black and white conversion using Niksoft Silver Efex Pro 2.

A quick note on the VSCO film presets - If you are looking for a good film emulation preset for lightroom, then look no further, these really are good, I have hundreds of presets and I keep going back to these ones, I believe they are the most realistc set available, and I am eagerly awaiting a specialist set from the for Leica and who knows maybe a Fuji specific set also, as they tweak camera calibration settings in RAW also, not just basic adjustments, they have camera specific versions for Canon and Nikon already, as well as a generic set for other cameras for now, and they have promised to release Leica specific profiles, which I hope to get my hands on as soon as possible.

The markets around Temple street - as you can see from these pictures have a diverse mix of characters.  Although its probably classed as a 'tourist friendly' area, there are still a lot of things going on behind the scenes here, with triad activity and in particular prostitution clearly visible on the streets even in the middle of the day.  Any photographer visiting this area should be aware that most of these girls will react quite adversely if photographed....some are friendly of course and don't seem to mind....however, if unsure, then my advice would be just stay well away from shooting anyone you think may react negatively.

I noticed many muslim girls around the markets when we were shooting, so approached them to ask permission to take their picture as they were wearing some great colours.  All of them were more than happy to be photographed.

The Autofocus on the Fuji had no problem at any stage with shooting a diverse mix of subjects, and as the image below shows, shooting into the sun, (sometimes difficult for autofocus), there was again no problems with the performance.

Two of the young ladies accompanying us on this 'photo walk' were Becky and Cheryl, both previous attendees of the street photography workshop, Becky was keen on shooting her 5DII using zone focussing to get her shots, whilst Cheryl preferred to use her new Canon S100 (I think that's what it was), for speedy and discreet street shooting.

This gentleman below was a great subject I thought, he was just squatted on the road, laughing continuously, and was more than happy to be photographed.  I noticed on closer look that he had a cigarrete in one hand and 3 spares in the other!!! Thats what I call chain smoking!.

The only lens that I used during this trip was the Fujinon 35mm 1.4, which so far I must say is a great lens (as long as not using manual focus - way too slow), normally I shoot much wider for street photography and closer to my subjects, but this seemed to work well on this day for me.   I keep emphasising about the autofocus - and again you can see from the image above, quicky focussing on the cigarretes on the bottom left corner of the frame, it had no problem locking on and giving me the desired focus point.

The total time we were in the markets was only about 2 hours, and I found the camera consistently delivered the results I needed.  I have tried this camera with a Leica M mount adaptor and the 35mm F2 ASPH lens also, and the results were quite spectacular, very clean and sharp images, very easy to focus using the EVF its really great with an M mount lens for this, my wish would be that it had 'focus peaking' similar to the NEX-7, then there would be no need for me to zoom in to fine tune focus using the rear dial, especially with wide lenses as its a bit harder to fine tune the focus than with a longer focal length lens.

This fantastic gentleman was more than happy to let me take his portrait and yet again the fast performance of the Fuji XPro1 had no issues nailing the shot for me.  Something else I have noticed is that the metering system of the camera seems to overexpose about half a stop most of the time...I consistently left the camera set to -1 or -2/3 to get more accurate exposures, but this is not a problem for me, I just think it takes a little bit of practice, figure out where all the buttons are (there are a lot on this camera that are easy to press by accident...) then it will be fine.  It's just like any other camera tool, we need a bit of time learning our way round it, and then there won't be any issues.

Overall I am very pleased with this camera when using it for street photography.  Being a similar size to my Leica M9, the feel was quite similar and I believe its a perfect size for this style of photography.  People aren't really intimidated by a camera this size compared to a DSLR with a big zoom lens, its ultra light (maybe feels even a little too light for me - again i'm comparing the the tank like construction of the Leica which many won't like).

So my final thoughts are as follows:

Recommended for street photography - A BIG YES.

Recommended to switch if you already have a Leica M9 - personally NO, but I think many will....

Recommended for manual focus with Fuji lenses - NO WAY!

Recommended for manual focus with M lenses - YES, REALLY WORKS GREAT.

Recommended for anyone wishing to switch from DSLR or looking for travel photography camera - YES YES YES.

So, I won't be swapping it for my Leica just yet....but I can still highly recommend the camera, its ergonomically great, looks the part, and I personally haven't had any serious issues with autofocus.

I have another blog post using this camera at night with a 50mm 0.85 lens from SLR Magic, if interested to see the image from that, please click here.

Thanks for taking the time to visit our blog, if you like our blog and website, please ‘like’ us on our public Facebook page and share this story with your friends with the Facebook and twitter links below.  You can also subscribe to our blog via the RSS link below.

F8 Photography provides commercial photography and training across Asia, with workshops on Street Photography and other photography and video training courses, more details can be found via the ‘courses and workshops’ link and upcoming events via the front page of our website.

EXCLUSIVE: SLR MAGIC 50mm 0.95 on M9/XPro1

(Watch seller - Kowloon - Fuji XPro1, JPEG FINE) UPDATE:  I made some comments about the white balance on the Fuji not being so great later in this post - I retract that statement as I had the camera set to VELVIA mode, so the colours are naturally boosted, making skintones much yellower than the M9...an unfair comparison, so please disregard anything about colours in the post for now, updated images coming soon with ASTIA/PROVIA film settings and RAW once available.

Its arrived!  The SLR Magic 50mm 0.95 'stealth' edition lens...one of only a few in the world available for testing....and we are lucky enough to be one of the chosen few to put it through its paces.  Unfortunately the M mount version of this lens (featured here) is not available to the public yet, so you will have to wait a few more months to get one, the initial pre-order batch for end of July has already sold out.  I think September 2012 is the next batch so get your pre-orders in quick if you are interested!

Another toy that happened to come along with it was the Kipon M adaptor for the Fuji XPro 1, so we have the exclusive opportunity to be able to show some of the first ever images (if not the first) with this combination.

Effectively on the Fuji (1x5 crop), the hyperprime becomes a 75mm 0.95 lens, great for portraits!..

(My friend Kelly helping out with the lens tests - Fuji XPro1, JPEG FINE)

The shots on this blog post were all taken on day 1, have tested the lens here in Hong Kong on a rainy night only for only about 2 hours, the images will all tell you underneath which camera was used and all are shot wide open at 0.95.  The images shot on the Fuji XPro 1 were in Vivid (Velvia) mode in JPEG FINE setting as we are still awaiting RAW conversion update for Lightroom 4, so is difficult to compare with the excellent RAW files coming out of the M9.

(passer by, Kowloon - Leica M9, processed from RAW)

With the Fuji, there is no focus confirmation, but there is the zoom button which allows very easy focus confirmation at extreme magnification...if anything it zooms too much for my liking.  Personally I found it a lot easier to use just the EVF (i normally hate EVF viewfinders) to focus it and found I could do it quickly and accurately most of the time, even wide open was easier than I thought....this gives a slight advantage over the M9, as with that of course it is always manual rangefinder focus with available light...which is fine during daylight, but much more difficult in low light, the EVF on the Fuji brightened up the scene and made it relatively simple to nail the focus.

(shy laughter, Canton road - Leica M9 processed from RAW)

I noticed Steve Huff did a review yesterday using the lens in bright sunshine with an ND filter, link here, I will be taking his advice and trying something similar myself, although unfortunately the current Hong Kong weather has little requirement for ND filters...its dark by 3pm with this crappy weather! :-(  Maybe in a few days I can get a few images up on the blog with that setup, I have only generally used ND filters either for video work with the 5DII, or with flash to shoot wide open during daylight...perhaps I will try the same with this lens :-)

(shopping, Fuji XPro1 JPEG FINE)

So, heres some more images for now showing both cameras output with the lens.  I must state again as before in all my reviews that I am a 'user' not an analyst, so i don't care much for technical jargon, I just want nice sharp images full of 'pop' coming out the other end of the camera, and both M9 and Fuji are doing that without any hitch whatsoever, I am excited to see the RAW files from the Fuji, as the JPEGs are already amazing....i think in all honesty I am still a slave to Leica though....theres just something magical about what comes out of that camera for me...maybe its the time, effort and money I've invested in the Leica system that hypnotises  me...I have used many many different cameras over the years...but like most M9 users we all agree that when it hits the target...there is nothing quite like it.

(mainland tourists in Nathan Road - Fuji XPro1 JPEG FINE)

(outside Chunking Mansions - Fuji XPro1 JPEG FINE)

(crossing the road - Leica M9 processed from RAW)

(middle of the road - Fuji XPro1 JPEG FINE)

(makeup - Leica M9 processed from RAW)

(man in street - Fuji XPro1 JPEG FINE)

(My friend Kelly again, in the subway - Leica M9 processed from RAW)

(lady in the street - Fuji XPro1 JPEG FINE)

(Kelly full length - Leica M9 processed from RAW)

(lady daydreaming - Leica M9 processed from RAW)

My main observation so far between the two has been colours....of course as stated before, its very difficult to compare RAW files with JPEGS.....so I'm not going to dwell on it just yet....more tests to come as soon as I can get RAW access from the Fuji.

You can clearly see from these samples that the colours on the Leica M9 are far better, much more natural and muted and representative of the natural light when out shooting, the Fuji images are excellent, just need the white balance tweaked for each one (I haven't touched white balance on any of these samples).

Anyway, hopefully this will show anyone that is interest in either combination of camera that they are both very very capable of producing excellent results with this lens, and I am very excited to try more shots, especially during daytime also with the ND filter.

Thanks for taking the time to visit our blog, if you like our blog and website, please ‘like’ us on our public Facebook page and share this story with your friends with the Facebook and twitter links below.  You can also subscribe to our blog via the RSS link below.

F8 Photography provides commercial photography and training across Asia, with workshops on Street Photography and other photography and video training courses, more details can be found via the ‘courses and workshops’ link and upcoming events via the front page of our website.

My first thoughts...Fuji XPro1

(35mm lens, ISO 6400, 1/250th F1.4) I have been back in Hong Kong only a day, and I get a phone call from one of my suppliers....the Fuji XPro1 kit is here....come and collect it and take it for a test drive...of course, like the obedient little boy that I am....i quickly agreed and darted across the river to Kowloon to collect it.

Now something has been tickling my mind...last week I had my best week ever with the Leica M9....totally restored my faith in the beast....however I know the Fuji was on the horizon, and although I don't consider it a direct competitor with the Leica, I have to admit I was scared in case the results from it were so good that I started to question my investment in the Leica gear at some point.

Now I must stress again that I am not a technical wizard nor a scientist of any form....I simply use the camera I have in my hand to attain the best images I can....and the only thing that limits me with the Leica is the ISO..thats it, and even then its mainly because i LOVE to shoot in almost darkness or extremely low light and have found the ISO performance questionable in certain situations.  That will soon be rectified as I will be testing the SLR Magic 50mm 0.95 lens from next week, so will be able to shoot bats in a cave without light i think :-)

Anway, I just wanted to post a few images that I shot tonight and share a few quick thoughts on the Fuji XPro1 having used it on the streets of Hong Kong for only 3 hours.

(35mm lens, ISO 3200, 1/800th F1.4)

Camera settings will be posted under each image, however I will not post full size images for one reason....i dont know how to do it and keep the blog size images at same time! I'm an wordpress idiot when it comes to that, so if anyone can share how to do that on my blog I will happily share links to full size files for them should they want to see them.

My initial thoughts were as follows:

Pros:  perfect body size, amazingly sharp lenses with great maximum apertures, looks super cool (one guy i shot even shouted 'waahhhh LEICA!' after I took his pic, so the Fuji has no problem demanding street cred already as people are thinking its a retro Leica :-), extremely good high ISO performance...shooting in the dark at ISO 25600 and nailing sharp images!

Cons:  Autofocus missed a handful of shots initially...i have almost rectified that problem already by turning on some other autofocus settings that seem to help...I think a bit of practice is needed then it will be fine.  After an hours fiddling around, I was able to shoot in a bar with literally no light, where I could not read the label on my beer and get perfectly sharp focus 9 times out of 10...so i guess its just a bit of practice, time will tell, I've heard many complaints about the X100 focus....so i was expecting problems, but nothing dramatic has occured, simple fine tuning and it seems to be pretty much there already.

Here are tonight's quick snapshots, please bear in mind these are purely test shots for me to try and familiarise myself with the camera in low light...testing focus and high ISO performance.

Following shots all on the 35mm 1.4 (equivalent approx to a 50mm on full frame) 

(no post processsing or adjustments, simply camera JPEGS here)

(Rocco the Leica slave,  1/350th F1.4, ISO 6400)

(Taxi,  1/1000th F1.4, ISO 3200)

(Woman texting,  1/150th F1.4, ISO 3200)

(Happy Couple,  1/350th F1.4, ISO 3200)

(Caught me peeking,  1/105th F1.6, ISO 3200)

The following few pictures were all taken on the 60mm 2.4 lens (again, no post processsing or adjustments, simply camera JPEGS here)

(dinner time,  1/110th F2.4, ISO 5000)

(inside computer centre,  1/500th F2.4, ISO 5000)

The following images were shot in a very very dark bar, i cranked up the ISO straight to the maximum ISO 25600.....heres the results...again, no noise reduction, or post production whatsoever, these are straight from camera.

(35mm lens, ISO 25600, 1/450th, F1.4)(35mm lens, ISO 25600, 1/340th, F1.4)(60mm lens ISO 25600, 1/120th, F2.4)(60mm lens, ISO 25600, 1/170th, F2.4)

Although these images have been shrunk down for blog sizing, hopefully there is enough information to show the quality at least to give an idea...basically as I said already, there is a total lack of noise anywhere at any ISO....I shoot normally Canon 5D Mk II, Canon 7D or Leica M9 and this Fuji blows them all out of the water in a nano-second with regards high ISO performance...if this is the future of cameras to come with this kind of high ISO performance, then I might as well sell my flash units, as I won't be using them much anymore!

I have to say, apart from the tiny niggles with the autofocus I had at the start of the night, overall I am extremely impressed....I ain't selling my Leica gear, its a very different feeling for me shooting a rangefinder over an autofocus camera...but for sure this new Fuji is going to be getting a serious workout over the coming weeks.

My initial advice to anyone who is looking for a lightweight alternative to DSLR where image quality is paramount, or a less expensive alternative to Leica for street or travel photography...I think this camera could very easily fill that gap.

Please bear in mind that I have not tested any other cameras that could be considered competiton....this is just my gut feeling as a photographer who shoots a lot of images on a day to day basis in a variety of situations.

Thanks for taking the time to visit our blog, if you like our blog and website, please ‘like’ us on our public Facebook page and share this story with your friends with the Facebook and twitter links below.  You can also subscribe to our blog via the RSS link below.

F8 Photography provides commercial photography and training across Asia, with workshops on Street Photography and other photography and video training courses, more details can be found via the ‘courses and workshops’ link and upcoming events via the front page of our website.