The Fuji X Files

As a wedding/portrait photographer, I spend a lot of time shooting at wide open apertures. My favorite two lenses for the APS-C digital cameras are the 50mm f1.8 and the 85mm f1.8 - generally shot either wide open or at around f2.8. Even with a 'fast' lens that goes from f2 to f2.8, I know that the Fuji X10 isn't going to give me the creamy smooth 'bokeh' I'm used to from my prime lenses on the D90. But can it get close? I took my ever-patient model/daughter Emily out to the Brunner Mine Site to test the X10's portrait abilities. Bokeh at 112mm @ f2.8 ISO 100 To help the Fuji X10 focus, I switched to 'Face Detection' and checked the lcd on the back for the first few minutes just to make sure the focus was tracking on Emily's face correctly. It was, so I then switched to my normal 'info' mode on the lcd and let the camera do all the work. With the camera at f2.8, zoomed all the way out to 112mm, the resulting 'bokeh' ca...

Weekends are busy around the Lorimer household, with chores, gardens and lawns to keep up with. We've had an amazingly long, dry, hot summer here in New Zealand, and the warm weather continues - but I've been itching to get out with the Fuji X10 and have a 'play'.  I finally got my chance late yesterday (Sunday) afternoon, so I headed to a local mining site to start to get to grips with my new camera. Brunner was the site of a major mining disaster on the Coast last century, and is well worth the visit. Lots of old relics and cool industrial objects to photograph. What I really wanted to test at the start was the X10's sharpness as a landscape camera, because I'd taken a few quick photos earlier and had been slightly disappointed with the results. The whole middle section seemed slightly 'unsharp' to me, surprisingly given that is where the focus point should be at its sharpest? So first off, a few landscape shots.... The new bridge at the Brunner ...

Without wanting to tell you all how to 'suck eggs' (as the saying goes), what follows is a brief description of how I have initially set up the Fuji X10 for shooting. Of course the usual caveats apply - this is my shooting style, my output decisions, my workflow... blah, blah, blah. You get the idea. So what follows, for what it's worth, should be taken with a grain of salt. But it might help some who are setting their camera up for the first time, at least as a starting point into developing their own shooting style? Shooting info on the back on the X10 First, I always shoot in 'A' - Aperture priority. Why? It's a throwback from shooting on film and with DSLR's I suppose - but I think in apertures (specifically for control over depth of field - 'dof'). Now I'm aware that due to the smaller sensor in the X10 (which, although large for a 'point-and-shoot', is still relatively small compared to the APS-C sized sensors in a DSL...