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owlcavestudios

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  1. Like
    owlcavestudios got a reaction from mzzyhmd in Sunsets (Open Thread)   
    Sunset Over Union Terminal by Kyle Hunt, on Flickr
  2. Like
    owlcavestudios got a reaction from Sonntagsknipser in Sunsets (Open Thread)   
    Sunset Over Union Terminal by Kyle Hunt, on Flickr
  3. Like
    owlcavestudios reacted to milandro in Chance of a new firmware update for X100T?   
    It is very easy to feel left out when everyone else receives goodies, it activates parts of our conscience which are deeply rooted in our primate’s brain.
     
    This has been lately studied and reported at length in several scientific and non scientific publication.
     
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236702/Fascinating-experiment-shows-monkeys-bananas-unequal-pay.html
     
    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_monkeyfairness.html
     
    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v425/n6955/abs/nature01963.html
     
    So we have a natural sense of justice and fairness and perhaps of entitlement which gets us excited and ( and I quote the scientific magazine Nature) “ Negative reactions may occur when expectations are violated"
     
    This was evident with the X-E2 and the lack of updates until the update came. We will probably never know the whole and true story of that but I am convinced that it wasn’t planned originally and the only the “ Vox Populi” in the form of disappointed customers moved Fuji to commercially driven compassion.
     
    So would the X100S or T ever get any goodies? Maybe, but maybe not.
     
    There is really no way to know that, one thing is for sure, there seems to be less vocal disappointment about this. There is no real reason why a camera like the X100T wouldn’t get many of the same features now presented on the X-T10 and X-E2 and X-E2S other than by precise design.
     
    However I fully understand delmundo’s point of view. There is nothing that can’t be done with any camera without upgrade that couldn’t be done at the moment one bought it.
     
    So, technically, there is no reason to not use any of the cameras which haven’t been upgraded.
     
    Psychologically though, things are different. 
     
    Remember that phrase used by Nature magazine? “ Negative Reactions may occur when expectations are violated”.
     
    I suppose that we all have to accept the fact that one day we will all have a perfectly working camera that isn’t at par with the newest model, but which will always, until it crumbles in our hands, be able to perform the exact same way it did when we bought it.
  4. Like
    owlcavestudios got a reaction from beattie1 in Sunsets (Open Thread)   
    Sunset Over Union Terminal by Kyle Hunt, on Flickr
  5. Like
    owlcavestudios got a reaction from CRAusmus in My favorite camera bag is...   
    I'll throw in a vote for the CosySpeed Camslinger 160 for carrying around a small kit.  I can fit my X100T plus the WCL adapter and a few memory cards and batteries in mine.  I won this bag from a giveaway mentioned by Fuji Rumours last year, and didn't expect to like it at all.  After using it for a couple days, it has now become my go-to camera bag.  I like the fact that it sits on your waist, instead of hanging on your shoulders.  I can carry it much longer than a shoulder bag.  And it is pretty compact, so it is easy to hide if you're trying to keep a low profile on the street or somewhere else.
     
    They are also doing a crowd funding campaign to make a new version of the bag, with a slightly larger main pocket and a couple external side pockets.  I think I'll probably jump on the black one, as its even more discrete than my gray one.  The bag I have is really high quality and can take a lot of wear and tear without showing it.
     
    Here is the link to their campaign for the new bag.
     
    https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/camslinger-streetomatic-street-photography-bag#/story
  6. Like
    owlcavestudios reacted to milandro in I'm intrigued   
    after you 
  7. Like
    owlcavestudios reacted to Tom H. in I'm intrigued   
    Just paint your X-T10 pink and yellow and add some Hello Kitty stickers and it will be non-threatening too...
  8. Like
    owlcavestudios got a reaction from Fraustbyte in Rocky Nook Book   
    You can download a digital copy directly from Rocky Nook now.  But yeah, as far as the hard copy goes, you're right.  Looks like it won't be shipping til later.
  9. Like
    owlcavestudios got a reaction from flysurfer in Raw vs. JPeg   
    Thanks graflex and flysurfer!
     
    I think this all makes sense to me now.
  10. Like
    owlcavestudios got a reaction from CRAusmus in Buy & Sell?   
    This is how most other forums I belong to operate. The buyer specifies where in the world he/she is willing to ship, and that's that. If a seller outside those specified areas really wants to try, and the seller is ok with it too, it will be up to buyer to decide if paying the crazy shipping charges is worth it.
     
    But most cases, buyers stick to sellers that will ship to them.
     
    Start the post title with where you are willing to ship, like WW for worldwide, EU, US, etc?
  11. Like
    owlcavestudios reacted to aceflibble in IQ of Zooms vs Primes   
    Bokeh quality is, by its very definition, entirely subjective, as is contrast. Sharpness isn't, which is why I typically conclude with a comment on sharpness alone. I think it's important that everybody tries to remember that image quality is, mostly, down to interpretation.
    Back in the day (and still, in some circles) you had loads of people arguing about Fuji film vs Kodak film. You'd often talk to some wedding photographer who would swear their Kodak film was categorically, technically better than a Fuji film they had tried, when really the Fuji film they had selected simply wasn't as suitable for that particular task as the Kodak film they were used to. Or maybe they just preferred the warmer colours of the Kodak film, or maybe they liked that there was more grain, or less grain, or whatever.
    Point is, with any piece of equipment, everybody is going to have different definitions of what is good or bad. Sharpness—plain resolving power—really is the only thing you can actually compare, and even that can be confused by microcontrast. And of course, some people will complain that a lens is "too" sharp!
     
     
     
    This is incorrect and a common mistake. You need to understand that pixel pitch and resolution are two different things. When you cram, for sake of argument, 18mp into a crop sensor, the pixel pitch is much higher than if you make an 18mp 35mm sensor. This greatly magnifies the qualities of the lens. You'll get more detail out of a lens which resolves well, but at the same time, any tiny flaws in that lens will become far more obvious.
     
    Now, if you're making a lens specifically for crop sensors, you design that lens with this tighter pixel pitch in mind You don't just take a full frame lens and cut the corners off. You know you don't need to use as much glass, so you can afford to make the glass you do use as good as possible. You generally don't worry about achiving the highest resolving power, because the cropped 'magnification' is kind of zooming the lens in closer for you anyway, and instead you just make sure that every possible flaw is as well-controlled as you can make it. A moderately sharp lens with no aberration looks like it resolves far more detail with better microcontrast than a higher-resolving lens with fringing all over the place.
    Conversely, if you're making a lens for 35mm sensors—as most primes and premium zooms are—you know you're dealing with a much more relaxed pixel pitch. You spend less time worrying about controlling flaws and more time on the overall quality. You're also trying to stretch the quality over a larger piece of glass.
    Higher-resolution full frame sensors are bridging the gap a little, because they obviously get more out of a lens—both good and bad—than older 35mm sensors do, but they still don't have quite such a tight pixel pitch was the higher-reoslution crop sensors. So, to use my earlier example again, the 5D mark II (21mp 35mm) shows up some flaws, but it's something like the 760D (24mp APS-C) which will really magnify and exaggerate the clarity, or lack thereof.
     
    Now, all that said, the fact of the matter is that very, very few companies bother to actually make really good lenses for crop sensors. The thought is that crop sensors go in cheap, low-end cameras and the people buying them won't want to invest in higher-quality and more expensive lenses. This is really the main reason that Sigma 18-35 zoom stands out so much. It's not that zooms overall are as good as or better than primes, it's more just that Sigma actually bothered to put some effort into making a premium crop sensor lens and that's a bit of a novelty.
     
    This is where it becomes a very tricky subject to talk about with Fuji users, because Fuji are more or less the only company out there who are making multiple high-quality lenses specific to crop sensors. Look at the 60mm, for example, and the resolving power that has. Look at how sharp that is. It's a tiny piece of glass, 39mm at the filter thread, it's dirt cheap and it's a semi-macro, high-resolving portrait lens which is "too sharp" for most portaits! To get the same results from a full frame lens from another manufacturer, you need to be looking at the top-of-the-line stuff; I used to match it with the Canon 100mm f/2.8L Macro and that costs over twice what the Fuji 60mm does. Fuji's 18-55 zoom is actually sharper at the 18mm end than the 18mm prime is, but that's really because Fuji went out of their way to provide a 'kit' zoom which far exceeds the standards people expect from such lenses.
     
    So this is really the wrong place and the wrong crowd to be comparing zooms vs primes. As Fuji users, we're used to zooms which are sharper than primes and cheap, light and small primes on crop sensors which are as sharp and as faultless as the very top red-band and gold-band lenses on the largest full frame sensors. We're spoilt because Fuji have designed all of their lenses to be as technically good as possible when paired with a crop sensor. There aren't any Fuji lenses which have soft haze, two stops of vignetting and six pixels of aberration in the middle of the frame. Us Fuji users are not the people who should be worrying about which type of lens is best. Fuji users don't need to worry about that. I used to use Canon and Mamiya and I used to have to weigh up primes vs zooms, quality vs flexibility, and I mainted a separate kit of lenses for my crop bodies (APS-C and 6x4.5 digital) as I did for my full frame bodies (35mm and 6x7 film). Then I ditched it all and picked up Fuji because I can buy whichever lenses and I know they're all equally good.
     
    Maybe we'll come back to this subject when the X-Pro2 is out, if it indeed does have a 24mp sensor, or if that rumour of a 1.3x crop sensor Fuji is true. That will be the time to start measuring the primes vs the zooms. Even then, you're not going to see that much of a difference, I suspect. For now, just rest assure that no matter which lenses you buy for your Fuji, they're going to be fine.
  12. Like
    owlcavestudios got a reaction from JuergenK in Sunsets (Open Thread)   
    Sunset Over Union Terminal by Kyle Hunt, on Flickr
  13. Like
    owlcavestudios reacted to citral in Lens: XF14mm or XF16mm or XF16-55... hard question...   
    Ok let's put it in another way : you already have a 14mm. 16mm would not be _that_ different to really justify both.
     
    On the other hand, 14mm and 18mm are different enough to justify it. One is ultra-wide, the other one only wide, kind of usual wide. Wide enough to zone-focus very easily, not too extremely wide that you must be 30cm off the face of a stranger to shoot it.
     
    Now normally I'd say don't bother with the 18 and get the 18-55mm instead, the difference between f/2 and f/2.8 is really not that big when you add OIS to the equation BUT for street photography, if we mean the same thing, that is among other things shooting people fast because you see an interresting pattern / composition / light / behaviour / face / whatever without looking like a voyeur, the form factor of the 18mm helps a lot, plus you can hide your cam in a normal pocket to remain very discrete and just take it out and shoot quick when needed.
     
    If by "street photography" you mean something else like shooting, duh, random people randomly walking in random streets without a real reason and converting to B&W to look like it's "street photography" then whatever.
  14. Like
    owlcavestudios reacted in Lightroom 6 improvements?   
    I agree with Rico that one can get good RAW conversion results with Lightroom, and one can do that quite quickly and easily. The question was asked, "How do you actually do that?", and Rico responded with the right answer: "I depends on the image". But I'll give you my approach as a starter to think about. First let me say that when I compare a Fuji JPEG, and the corresponding RAW images in Lightroom CC and Iridient Developer (the latest trial version), I generally get the results that a lot of others have seen; namely, the JPEG is the best, followed by Iridient and then by LR. The LR image is less clear in the details, to summarize the problem in  a few words. 
     
    My procedure for getting good final images in LR is to begin by slightly pre-sharpening the image right after importing, but before I do any other manipulation. That was what I was taught  almost from the beginning of my digital photography.  I think LR gives somewhat soft RAW conversions because it has not yet done any (or at least not much) pre-sharpening. I suspect that the Fuji RAW-to-JPEG in-camera converter and Iridient Developer do more sharpening right at the get-go.
     
    I usually start my LR work flow by going to Nik Software's Sharpener Pro 3 (RAW Presharpener). This is part of a collection of Nik image manipulation applications, and is accessible from within LR as a plug-in. More often than not I just use the Nik default values and get an image that is virtually indistinguishable from the JPEG. Sometimes a little LR manipulation is necessary too. The most common is a little vibrance to match the JPEG. After that, one is free to make any "improvements" that might be desired, especially slight changes in  exposure, contrast and color balance. This is probably what Rico meant when he said there was no fixed formula. But, as I said, just the pre-sharpening and a bit of vibrance seems to get me to the quality seen in the JPEG image. The use of slight changes in contrast, color balance and exposure might depend on what style of JPEG you are trying to match (i.e. Velvia, Provia, etc). I haven't experimented with that.
     
    I'm not trying to sell Nik software or any other software for that matter. But I am trying to "sell" pre-sharpening. It is entirely possible that the pre-sharpening can be done using LR or Photoshop without extra plug-ins or applications. I remember reading about two years ago that Photoshop's sharpening was now as good as any of the specialist applications. It's just that Nik is what I have and so it has become part of my procedure. If you are going to buy some extra software, you might want to think about what would be the best use of your money. The Nik Software collection comes with a lot of other useful applications, like color-to-B&W conversion, noise reduction, color effects, and also a very good final-step output sharpener. You have to trade that off against the purchase of software that just does RAW conversion, albeit more automatically than LR. You also have to ask how important it is to have a RAW image that looks like a specific Fuji film simulation, as compared to an equally sharp image with pleasing colors that may not be an exact match, but will be an excellent starting-off point for your usual LR work flow. 
  15. Like
    owlcavestudios got a reaction from aiko in X100S FW updates.   
    Not a $1000+ camera (regardless if its got a fixed lense or not)!  All the $200-300 cameras out there, sure, those are consumable.  I understand what you mean though, but its sad if camera makers view what I would consider a pro-level camera consumable.  Not all of us are professionals and can afford to buy new cameras every couple years.  I own an X100T, and that cost me a significant amount of my income, so I intend to make it last as long as I possibly can!
     
     
    Fair enough, and I understand the business decisions that might drive that, but I would hope Fuji would maintain their history of listening to the voice of the users and continually updating the functionality of their products based on that feedback.  
     
    I look at it this way:  I bought a new car and paid for the GPS to be built it.  My mistake, should have gone with a 3rd party GPS, but I wanted the integration and convenience.  It sucked.  The manufacturer built the GPS and immediately stopped releasing firmware updates for it to focus on next year's model.  I feel like I have been abandoned with no hope for any improvement without shelling out more money (read: won't ever support the company again).  
     
    Granted we're talking about a camera maker that makes already awesome products that need little improvement.  However, I would rather Fuji stop releasing new models (and I don't mean evolutions of existing models like X100 to S to T), and re-route those resources back into focusing on the already awesome family of cameras they make.  Things like releasing hardware evolutions of existing cameras (X100, S, T, etc), as well as releasing firmware evolutions for existing products.  I don't think they need to keep major firmware upgrades coming for many years to come, but I feel like we should be able to reasonably expect one major firmware upgrade in a camera's future before giving up on it.  I own an X100T, but the new autofocus stuff that the XT-1 is getting is really making me jealous.  I know that functionality could be ported over to other models, and I hope that it eventually does.  This is why I buy Fuji.  I won't buy other manufacturer's cameras, because the vast majority of them adopt the philosophy of releasing a camera, and that is all you get.  Want an upgrade or new features?  Pay us more $$$.  Fuji has, so far, allowed us to get more mileage from our cameras by releasing significant features via firmware.  This type of support creates serious customer loyalty, so it won't hurt their sales b/c I hold off on buying the newest model for a couple more years, and just ride out a new firmware upgrade till then.  Honestly, I'd be fine if they had to charge a reasonable amount for those major firmware upgrades.  I mean free is always best, but NO firmware upgrades at all is way worse.
     
    Having said all this, I love Fuji, my next camera will be Fuji, my X100T is perfectly adequate to me as is.  I really do hope you X100S users get the major firmware upgrade you all deserve.
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