Jump to content

London and day trips


paul

Recommended Posts

H all,

 

Headed ro London next week for a business trip. Will have one day of walking around and prob a couple of day trips out of the city.

 

Will be shooting the xt1

 

Option 1: 27, 14, 56

Option 2: 18-135, 35/1.4

 

Thoughts suggestions

Edited by paul
Link to post
Share on other sites

The one focal length lens approach can be refreshing but a tad constrictive.

 

If one has never been to a place and wants to shoot as many as possible images without feeling that the lens choice constricts one performance one needs to broaden that and the best way to do it is to have a zoom.

 

The 18-135, although being a very large and heavy lens, would certainly be my choice.

 

Personally, unless I have a more than good reason to take a lens such as the 35mm 1.4 ( what is that you are going for sure do that would require you to use this lens? Theater? Concert?) I wouldn’t bother and keep it limited to the 18-135.

Link to post
Share on other sites

The wider portrait lens with the 35mm I get completely but I don’t understand it in the other functions and the 1.4 is not an aperture that it has many uses “ at night”.

 

This is where mirrorless photography deeply differs from reflex one.

 

With a reflex camera you view the picture, as projected from the lens onto the prism for composition purposes at the highest aperture ( so the 1.4 is very useful) but then shoot at the value that you need for depth of field, but with a mirroless camera the image is an amplified one (in terms of luminosity), it is the same as shooting with a videocamera, if you shoot at a completely dark scene, at some point, you will get an amplified, noisy image even at the maximum aperture ( which will have limited depth of field).

 

I rely on the superb ability of Fuji mirrorless to shoot with ISO values which were simply to be dreaming about in the film era.

 

Have a nice trip.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I've been to London lately. If you want to take all the usual tourist shots around the Thames (City, Tower, Southwark, Lambeth and Westminster), I'd recommend to take at least the widest wide-angle lens you have.
 
I took my Samyang 12/2, the XF 27/2.8 and the XF55-200. The 12mm was definitely my most used lens, followed by the 27mm for buildings that were further away or when I wanted details. I used the long zoom mainly for squirrels and birds in the parks, once when two apache helicopters flew low over the Thames and a few times to compress stuff, like making the london eye big in the background while shooting through st. james' park, and such. Next time, I'd leave the long lens at home.
Now, back home, I wish I would have had the XF 10-24/4. That would have been the only lens I needed, and it would have made switching lenses unnecessary.
 
About the 35 for interior shots:
Taking pictures was prohibited in almost every church I was in. I think my only church interior shots from the whole trip are from the Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Bath (which is gorgeous, by the way). However, even if you find a church where you can take pictures, you wouldn't want to take them at f/1.4, because everything except what you focused on would get blurry, and I think you wouldn't want to take them with a 35mm lens, because of the narrow field of view.

 

About the 35 for portraits:

When you're in London and want to do portraiture, why would you choose a wide aperture? If you want to blur the hell out of the background, no one will ever know that it was taken in London.

 

About the 35 for night shots:

Better take a tripod and do long exposures (or put the camera on one of the many ledges and rails around the city). There's lots of colorful light in the skyline and the buildings close to the Thames. Depth of field is your friend in landscape and cityscape.

 

 

tl;dr

I'd recommend the 10-24/4. If you only have the lenses you listed in the OP, I'd take the 14 and the 27 and have a nice, lightweight kit for a relaxed trip.

Edited by quincy
Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Similar Content

  • Posts

    • so if i'm shooting uncompressed 16-bit RAW files it takes a significant amount of time to write to card. Got the high end UHS II cards, and this does not happen with burst shooting, only single frame shots. what setting am i missing that causes this to happen?
    • The Tentacle Sync Timecode tool is the one I tried. I couldn't get it to work. But that is probably my fault, not the software. I seemed to get a file, but I couldn't turn it into anything meaningful. 
    • I am glad to read you are able to get this up and running. Pretty much as long as you connect the camera and turn it on and wait a few moments for the computer to register the connection, you can then use Image Capture (which actually is a very decent program with a lot of options for transferring images from cameras to the computer) or Lightroom or other programs to move the images to your library. There are some drawbacks; connecting to the computer while it is in sleep mode will waste your time, the connection will not get recognized— you will have to unplug the camera, wake the computer and start over. Trying to connect while the screen saver is running may work, it may not, often not. If the computer goes into screen saver mode while the camera is connected and sitting idle, it usually stays connected when coming back out of screen saver, but if the computer mputer goes into sleep mode, the connection gets dropped and you have to unplug it and start over. I suggested having the camera turned off while connecting, this is to lower the possibility of static electricity discharges frying either the camera or the computer or both. A lot of times you can connect while the camera is turned on, but not always, sometimes you have to unplug, turn it off, reconnect and turn it back on. A lot of this comes from Apple’s approaches towards keeping USB devices from hijacking your computer, some is just hubris and some is from the vagaries of chance. p.s. Your laptop should be able to connect to the camera.
    • Hi Chas, I am just fallen into the rabbit hole of investigating how to upgrade my X-T4's video sound... Loving the idea of time code sync, I am now quite concerned that the X-T4 doesn't support it, although I have already seen different statements on the net, like here:  https://youtu.be/xja27RmvbhE?si=hIch3Tu_MH_pWSBH&t=571 I have to admit, this guy's "explanation" gets quite confusing in his further discourse ...:) BUT, as you wrote that you use Tentacle Sync for Windows!, did you also try with their windows-only software "Time Code Tool" which you find here?: https://tentaclesync.com/timecode-tool   Would love to here if you found a workaround with the XT4 Best, Simon
    • It occurred sometime when I focus. It is not silent 
×
×
  • Create New...