frankinfuji

Kharkiv Metro
EX2 / 14 mm 

Curiosity
 
Must have been some really weird creature swimming in there, the three of them rarely have a common interest   
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

I fear it is now only the age of foolishness and the season of darkness.
 
Nice image, but I worry about the ominous clouds on the horizons of London and Paris.
 
"Without religion, we'd have good people doing good things, and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." Stephen Weinburg

I live in Thailand, and don't have a water-resistant body, and my X-E2 and C-M1 have survived use thoughout several monsoons by using simple rain protection. (and my next body will probably be WR). A good, waterproof over the shoulder bag is useful, and don't carry too much stuff because of the heat and to make it easier using very crowded public transport. You are goung at the end of the monsoon season, so rain will not be too common anyway.
 
Theft is not a huge risk, but theft of camera bags by motorcycle theives does happen in tourist and business areas, hence the over-shoulder bag worn diagonally.
 
There's a lot to photograph here, but with the exception of in the national parks, most of it is close range (tuk tuks, busy markets, people, monkeys, families on motocycles, more people, temples.... and everything is on the move, so I wouldn't bother with the old non-autofocus, long lenses.
 
Backgrounds to shots will be messy (untidy buildings, street signs, endless tangles of overhead wires), so a wide aperture to blur backgrounds will be handy.
 
My most used lens is my 20mm f2.8, long enough to capture what I want without being too 'in your face' and just wide enough aperture for some subject isolation. I use the 35 f1.4 and 60 f2,4 when I want a bit more isolation or a longer lens, and the 1.4 for night shots.
 
- Most things happen at night in Bangkok.
 
It's the tropics, so light is overhead and harsh, and the 'golden hour' last 15 minutes. But there's lots of shade, and the locals never sit in tbe sun, so don't worry about excess light.
 
Have fun, smile a lot, never get angry with people, carry a copy of your passport and don't rent a motorcycle!

USB interface has +5V DC for powering peripheral devices and chargers. When for a battery charging needs more than 5V, then the USB-charger has built-in step-up converter.  
I have a USB charger for Fuji battery, got it from ebay for several bucks, it's small and works OK. See picture.
Charging from USB takes a little more time.

Md: Tatyana
X-T2, 50-140
    http://constantine.red

Micro contrast has nothing to do with colour. A lens with high micro contrast can distinguish between increasingly small variations of tone at high frequencies. It is about resolution, which is not the same as sharpness. An image can look sharp but have low resolution. All lenses are optical compromises. A lens with high macro contrast and low micro contrast can appear sharp despite not being able to resolve fine detail. A lens built for high micro contrast can show fine detail but can produce dull and lifeless looking images. In practise a lens designer has to balance these two qualities together with many other lens characteristics. Leica and Minolta, who worked closely together for a while in the pre-af era, made low macro contrast lenses that could resolve fine detail and had a lovely subtle tonal reproduction. What the designers did was to boost the MTF figures at finer than 60 cycles at the expense of the 10-30 cycle range. A decade ago David Kilpatrick wrote a very illuminating article called "Historical Perspective on Minolta Lens Design Philosophy". I have a hard copy of this but I don't know if it can still be found online. In it he discusses some of this together with coating decisions made to help give contrast and colour consistency (lens colour was much more important in film days for obvious reasons).
 
Nowadays with exotic glasses, aspherical elements and design methods that were not available in the 70s and 80s, lenses can be made with less compromise but differences are still there. A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to attend a factory tour at Cooke optics in Leicester. Their hand built lenses are used for many feature films and TV dramas and are famed for the "Cooke Look". It's difficult to explain but involves smooth tonal transitions and beautiful bokeh. Interestingly they told me that they are able to design for the look in the design software. If you have to ask how much they cost you can't afford one! The TV companies mostly hire them. The feature film people have such big budgets that they are not a significant cost to them. Have a look at their website, it's quite interesting. www.cookeoptics.com

Sometimes I think I should only stick to shooting Classic Chrome. I'm getting more and more into it. This is SOOC. My wife eating baozi
 

X-PRO1 with 35mm f1.4
 

The X-Pro is excellent, but it's just too large for me - I like to have my camera most days.  The X-T2 is a great camera - but why does it need to look like a 'mock DSLR'?  It's like one of the new VW Beetles that has the engine in the front - it's a fake DSLR with a pretend prism.
 
Sony did the same with the 7 series.
 
An X-E3 would be perfection.

Light looks good to me. Soft enough for flattering portraits, good angle, nice catchlights. Simple, plain background.
 
The results from using this set up should be effective, although you may want to experiment with different set ups and backgrounds, simply because this style has been over-used by professional photographers?

Scenes from daily life in Myanmar @ Yangon Circular Railway.
 
Take me somewhere out there, he said. A man watching through the window in the train. One loop in this city train takes about three hours to complete, which is a nice way to see the 
outskirts of the city of Yangon.
 
Equipment: Fujifilm XT-2 + Fuji XF16mm f1.4 
 
www.josecarpin.com
 
Yangon Circular Railway by Jose  Carpin, en Flickr

It works.
 
 

http:\\constantine.red

The string is a pain, even on a fixed lens camera. I often found that it got entangled with camera strap. 
I've decided to but flat aftermarket lens caps; 99p on eBay!

First time I asked a stranger if I could photograph him.  I met him on a forest trail and got to visiting with him.  Interesting man with a fascinating past.  Fuji x100s.  Some edits just to my liking in Lightroom CC.
 

EX2  with the magic 35 mm F 1.4

Fujifilm X-T2 + Fujinon 56/1.2
 
DSCF5344 by Kirill Sokolov, on Flickr
 
DSCF5313 by Kirill Sokolov, on Flickr

Thank you for all the great advice, much appreciated.
 
We are going for 2 weeks, one on Koh Chang and one in Chaing Mai, so a fairly wide subject choice. I would expect Koh Chang to be mostly scenic/beach and exploration type shots and Chaing Mai, street, temples etc with a bid of wildlife sanctuary thrown in.
 
I have the smaller Billingham Hadley and thats my limit of gear so the suggestions of 2-3 lenses is bang on, I might take the little EF-X20 flash.
 
The old glass is now not on the list, quite right frankinfuji so all will be fuji glass. My fav at the minute is the   23, 35 f2 or f1.4 and 18-55. 
 
Warwick, do you have the 50mm f2, i have the 56 f1.2 and love it. But dont want to take it to Thailand, its precious.

I live in Thailand, and don't have a water-resistant body, and my X-E2 and C-M1 have survived use thoughout several monsoons by using simple rain protection. (and my next body will probably be WR). A good, waterproof over the shoulder bag is useful, and don't carry too much stuff because of the heat and to make it easier using very crowded public transport. You are goung at the end of the monsoon season, so rain will not be too common anyway.
 
Theft is not a huge risk, but theft of camera bags by motorcycle theives does happen in tourist and business areas, hence the over-shoulder bag worn diagonally.
 
There's a lot to photograph here, but with the exception of in the national parks, most of it is close range (tuk tuks, busy markets, people, monkeys, families on motocycles, more people, temples.... and everything is on the move, so I wouldn't bother with the old non-autofocus, long lenses.
 
Backgrounds to shots will be messy (untidy buildings, street signs, endless tangles of overhead wires), so a wide aperture to blur backgrounds will be handy.
 
My most used lens is my 20mm f2.8, long enough to capture what I want without being too 'in your face' and just wide enough aperture for some subject isolation. I use the 35 f1.4 and 60 f2,4 when I want a bit more isolation or a longer lens, and the 1.4 for night shots.
 
- Most things happen at night in Bangkok.
 
It's the tropics, so light is overhead and harsh, and the 'golden hour' last 15 minutes. But there's lots of shade, and the locals never sit in tbe sun, so don't worry about excess light.
 
Have fun, smile a lot, never get angry with people, carry a copy of your passport and don't rent a motorcycle!

In Victorian England ( or the equivalent of these times in any other country) much literature was actually written with references to the “ poor relations”, often making fun of those who had richer relatives which often were burdened with some form of support or other for these less than representatives members of their kin.
 
Often times the “ poor relations” were themselves required to “ keep up the appearances” by their rich relations in order not to bring shame on the family as a whole.
 
So they were, for example given old clothes by their rich family members, to be worn at family and public functions and often were asked to accompany their rich relations at their country house and perform some duties of servitude in return for the lodgings which they received.
 
Apparently also the Fuji family of lenses has some relations and, although with some reluctance, some of the Fuji-users might have acquired some of those but won’t admit it in public.
 
I am going to do the unthinkable and admit I own one of these poor relations,the humble, though honorable, XC 50-230mm f 4.5.-6.7.
 
I don’t use the longer lenses of any camera system all that much but there are occasions in which the picture calls for a longer lens that the 60mm.
 
At the time when I bought this lens Fuji didn’t offer much in that department ( and still doesn’t) other than the more expensive and marginally more luminous 55-200mm.
 
Several people had bought this lens in a cheap kit together with the fuji X system other poor relation, the XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 and the entry level cameras X-A1 or X-M1 and decided to rid themselves of the longer lens of the two.
 
I managed to acquire one new copy for €200 which is as cheap as inexpensive fried potatoes.
 
50mm f9 1/450
 
 
 
 
 

The first two are taken with the 56mm f/1.2, the second three are taken with the 90mm f/2.0. 
 

 
XP-2, 56 1.2
 

 
XP-2, 56 1.2
 

 
XP-2, 90 2.0
 

 
XP-2, 90 2.0
 

 
XP-2, 90 2.0
 

An old man in Bhaktapur, Nepal.   Portraying the serenity scale 1:1 Fuji XT-1 + XF35mm f1.4 www.josecarpin.com   Scenes from daily life by Jose  Carpin, en Flickr