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stevezphoto

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Everything posted by stevezphoto

  1. Yes, focus is tricky. For the shots with trees I use a flashlight to put enough light on the subject to use focus peaking. I am a new at this so I also did focus bracketing once I was close to then pick the best one.
  2. I have the 35, so I don't feel the need for the 27 as they are pretty close. The WR 23 is of more interest as far as filling the gap between super wide and normal. Yes, shooting with the 14 in MF mode, that is a solid idea, thanks!
  3. I read a review post from a guy who specifically does astrophotography and he was very happy with the results. So for that purpose I am fairly convinced. But since astro would just be an occasional subject, I am interested in more general usage.
  4. How about the image quality? You are happy with the results of the 12 vs the 14?
  5. I've been happily shooting travel/landscape photography with the Fuji 14 for a couple years now. As I live out of a backpack or small suitcase most of the time, size and weight of gear is extremely important to me. The 14 has been a great lens, small, light, pretty wide, excellent edge to edge sharpness, without much vignette or distortion. I do find that for long exposure city night shots it tends to have undesirable flare from bright street lights which has annoyed me at times. I went to Hawaii and did some astrophotography that I was pretty pumped about. But, the 14 isn't wide enough, which led me to looking at the Samyang/Rokinon 12mm. I would also appreciate the f2 for an extra stop of light. I think for astrophotography it is a no brainer ... but I don't really shot that type of work all that much, only when I'm in a place that is good for it, which isn't often. So I am wondering about the comparison between the two lenses for the rest of my uses, travel and landscape. I am wondering if I would be happy replacing the 14 for the 12 on a travel trip. For landscape work the lack of AF is no problem, but I do street photography sometimes and haven't ever been forced to learn to zone focus for moving shots. So I'm not totally comfortable with the idea of giving up my AF, but I am considering it. I am also wondering about real world optical performance comparisons between the two, if any of you guys have both lenses. Cheers, Steve Z
  6. I am a little surprised that the 14 2.8 hasn't entered in the discussion at all ;-) I personally use the 14, as size and weight is my primary concern for travel. If you want small and light, it's a spectacular lens. If you want to shoot portraits at night, then you want the 16. For landscapes and nightscapes I generally want larger DOF, so I don't use f/1.4 pretty much ever, I just use a tripod. I wouldn't choose the least wide lens unless I really wanted the bokeh. But then again even when I had a 24 1.4 Nikon, it's too wide for an attractive portrait so really I used the 35 1.4 (which would be the Fuji 23) If you don't mind the size and weight than the 10-24 will give you the convenience of the zoom and the benefit of 10mm. Although don't expect a zoom lens to perform as well as a prime in edge to edge sharpness and vignetting at the extreme ends of the zoom. I looked at getting the 10-24, but decided I probably wouldn't be happy with certain optical compromises. I get around the lack of wide angle of the 14mm by doing panoramic composites. That being said, I'm now interested in the Rokinon 12mm Cheers
  7. Picture or the photoshop ... it's obviously not an either or situation. It's been said and shown many time how many of the great photographs were dodged and burned etc in the film darkroom. They weren't "straight from the lab". I love the act of shooting photography. I do that for me. I don't need to publish for my own enjoyment. I do that for other people. And I have found in this day an age, that you gotta at least do some Lightroom boosting to get a pulse on social media. People are desensitized to what the real world looks like in an image. Even camera phones boost the JPGs pretty hard, and then you have IG filters. As experienced photographers here, we can see the difference between an overcooked image and one that is tastefully enhanced. The general masses do not have this eye. They need to be knocked over the head to be wowed. I'm not advocating a race to the extreme, but I'm not going to hate on those doing the full HDRs etc either. It has taken me many years to gradually bring up the saturation levels of my images to where they are now. In the past I wanted to try to keep things more "realistic" ... but I eventually push it more and more. And people seem to enjoy my stuff more and more. So, whatever. If I am doing a wall print I would surely edit differently. But for the web, I generally do a faux-HDR look using LR. Lightroom is my personal limited. I rarely use photoshop, and have no interest in learning the fantasy techniques of the Russians on 500px. As far as the shadows goes up and what I can do with a gradient filter, that's as far as I do. Usually ;-) Don't hate the player, hate the game. haha ~Steve Z
  8. Gangnam Style, Seoul, Korea
  9. When the sea is pissed off A couple weeks ago on the North Shore of Kauai.
  10. I recently did a 2 year trip around the world. I spend most of the time in Asia and Europe. So many images, so I'll just pick a random one... This is a Theyyam festival in Kerala, India. There is a huge calendar of them at certain times of the year. This is a boy, who is symbolizing a female god. It's quite an intense performance. These guys are professional and this is their work to do these festivals.
  11. An inspiring set Xing! This is the first time I have seen landscape photos from Tibet, that are different than the usual culture shots. Interesting to note, that you are able to get around the requirement for having a guide, so you are able to get your own shots. How many days did you spend to get all the shots you are showing?
  12. No worries about the quality. For travel, I laugh at people still carrying around DSLR gear, thinking "those poor people with those heavy packs!"
  13. I have so many sunsets I don't know where to start :-) This one is Amsterdam last July.
  14. These shots were my first attempts at doing real astrophotography. I was super inspired by the super dark skies up at 11000 feet on the volcano. The 14 was a little limiting however. I'm now looking at the Rokinon 12mm f2 for next time. The extra stop would be useful as well as the extra width. It was really hard to get the trees and much of the Milky Way in the shot with only a 21mm equivalent focal length. Oh, BTW, the shot that appears to be a sunset ... it isn't. When have you seen the stars above a sunset? ;-) ;-)
  15. Focus stacking is what is used when you want to make star trails. For pinpoint stars, you just need to 1) shoot high iso 2) shoot wide open with fast glass 3) post process for noise. I did my first stint of astrophotography last month in Hawaii. I used the XT-1 and the 14 2.8. Shots are at ISO6400, f2.8, 15 or 20 sec. Any more than 20seconds and the stars start to trail too much. I think with the 12mm you might be able to get away with 30s but I haven't tried it. ISO6400 isn't ideal, you have to push the noise processing, but LR gets the job done. Looking forward to getting another stop with the XT-2!
  16. Hello everyone. I'm an experienced Fuji user but just came across this forum and thought that I would check it out. I used to be a wedding/portrait photographer (I was on the DWF forum for many years) ... but 2.5 years ago I left by business, sold all my stuff, and set out to travel the world. I roamed internationally for 2 years. For the last six months I've been in the States but haven't really landed anywhere. I started shooting Fuji with the X100 while I was still using Nikon for weddings. Eventually I got an X-E1, then an X-M1, and a couple of the early primes. I have always loved the Fuji concept, and have been happy that eventually the system has grown out of some of it's early limitations, and continues to expand and grow. I sold all the DSLR stuff and headed out on the world tour with X-E1/X-M1 14/35/60/55-200 kit. After the first year, I upgraded to two X-T1s and just the 14/35. My camera kit was only 4.5 lb. I did miss the 55-200 but I was counting pounds in my backpack at the time! Now I am back in the states, and doing a lot of computer time publishing and editing all the shots from the last two years. I'm just starting to get my travel website going, it has a long way to go! So in between working I follow Fuji Rumors always drooling over new gear, and found my way here! Looking forward to sharing photos, rumors, and tech info! Cheers, Steve Z www.stevezphotography.com
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