Near Full Moon

The fun of having a 600 mm. lens equiv. in a modestly sized and affordable package.  Even 600 mm. needs a crop to about one quarter size.

More From Writing On Stone

Writing On Stone 2017

Fuji GFX 50s, 35 mm. lens, f11, ISO 100

Sony RX10iii

 Early Spring - not a lot of green yet.  Shot at 60 mm. which with a 2.8X crop factor is equiv. to about 175 mm., ISO 250, 1/500 at f4. this will print very nicely to 13X19.  A fun camera to use, and with results I can be happy with. Yesterday I shot with the Fuji GFX, today with the Rx10iii - horses for courses. For best assessment of the crop, click on it to see at 100%

Jets

 

From the Military Museums, Calgary

 

 

 

Vancouver

I'm not a street photographer but then, this wasn't the street. Camera is Sony RX10iii, purchased as an all-in-one travel camera. ISO 4000. Haven't printed it yet though 'grain' pattern isn't objectionable and sharpness is excellent. Sure had fun. A heavy and fairly large camera, but nice to operate.

 OK, now I've had a chance to print the image and I'm most impressed. I reduced noise a little in Lightroom and it makes a very good 13X19.

More Experience with Fuji GFX

First, understand where I'm coming from - 99% of my work is on tripod, 99% of my subjects only move in the wind, not by themselves, and image quality is important to me and sometimes I'm required to make big prints. My standard for quality printing is 300 pixels per inch which even with 51.4 MP is only28 inches on the long side, not that huge a print. Of course larger prints get viewed from further away so really big prints look just fine thank you.

All cameras have flaws - that's what makes deciding on what to buy so difficult, and of course, if we wait long enough, something better will come along, often just after you purchase the camera of your dreams.

The Pentax 645 has been my working camera for the last three years and it has worked very well, mostly. Shutter shake limited the use of long lenses, sp. the 200 and 300.

Fuji electronic first curtain fixes this entirely.

I used it in live view almost all the time, and the lcd does tilt upwards, but not when the camera is vertical.

Between the rotating viewfinder (unique to the GFX, and the tilt and swinging LCD, the Fuji is fantastic.

IN using live view, I need to magnify - that's easy, but I also often need to do a focus blend, and that often involves the nearest part of the subject at one of the image edges. Getting the magnified spot to the corner is painfully slow, and once it gets moving, it likes to continue drifting past where you wanted to stop if it isn't exactly on the edge.

the Fuji GFX is much faster to move focus spot, uses either the joy stick (great) or double touch to magnify - awesome. This makes taking every photograph easier.

I can't comment on autofocus as I have no native lenses yet - not even sure I'll rush into getting any. The Pentax lenses are remarkably good, and even the 35 that I had some concerns about is better than most good zooms.

The Pentax sometimes lied about exposure, the histogram not reflecting reality - a but in the firmware I suspect, no such issue with the Fuji and swiping to bring up the histogram is so nice so my exposures are noticeably more accurate.

Of course, reviewing images on a camera with a good touch screen is great, and checking focus by quickly enlarging and moving round the image very helpful.

For the work I do, the camera is great, with no significant flaws. That might not be your mileage.

I wouldn't try to photograph the dog at the off-leash park with it - and for the amount I'd save on not buying a full set of Fuji lenses, I could easily afford almost any other sports oriented camera for those tasks.

Battery life is excellent. So far, I've never even got close to losing power though eventually I'll get a back up battery to be safe.

What are the problems with using the Pentax lenses - well, I don't miss auto focus - as I always used them in manual mode on the Pentax anyway. I do miss the camera not recording the focal length of the lens as I need that information when stitching. Fortunately I usually remember, and am looking at the voice recording facility of the camera to jog my memory.

People make a lot of the shallow depth of field of larger than full frame formats. That's true, but the difference in magnification between full frame 35 and the Fuji GFX isn't that much and so far hasn't been an issue - I focus blend where I did before.

More Ships Screw

 

I think I prefer the upper image in colour, the lower in black and white (the image from the last post)

Ships Screw - Military Museums Calgary

ZFuji GFX 50s, 200 mm. lens, two image stitch.

Bomber Museum Nanton

 

 

Fotodiox Pentax 645 to Fuji G Mount Adapter

First I got my camera, no lenses available, but I have a full set of Pentax lenses and Fotodiox announced availability of their adapter at the same time. I ordered one, picked up my camera, and waited. It took about a week which is not unreasonable crossing international borders and clearing customs.

When the adapter arrived, I was delighted to note that the shoe has the necessary grooves for Arca Swiss clamps - very handy for my lighter tripods.

The shoe was slightly loose on the body of the adapter (hollow tube) with lens mounts. I tightened them but noticed that after one day, the screws were loose again, and this was all that is holding the camera and lens to the tripod (though the shoe). I was concerned.

I used some loctite on the screws and that seemed to help, but did notice some vibration through the shoe and to the lens and camera body. I planned to use a block of wood to fill the gap between the L shaped shoe and the tube of the adapter.

Over the weekend I cleaned up the garage and got access to my tools so today I made a suitable block in maple and epoxied it into place. I got a tiny bit of epoxy on the lens release lever and wiped it off and all seemed to be well.

After 10 minutes I couldn't budge the release lever - I really didn't think the small amount of epoxy I got on it would cause problems as it was entirely external, but nothing budged the lever.

I elected to remove the lens mount ring (four small phillips screws), and that went smoothly and I was able to take the ring off.

I couldn't believe how much epoxy got into and around the long arm of the release lever, well away from where I was working - seems that the epoxy used to hold in the wooden block wicked in between the ring and the tube and then around the lever. It hadn't been the tiny amount I spilled.

A lot of scraping and I was able to get the lever working just fine again thank you, and went to remount the lens ring. Of the 4 screws, 3 had stripped - I can only think that in pushing downwards to get the phillips screwdriver to grip the small screws, this damaged the aluminium - sigh.

SO now I've removed the ring, inspected it and see that there is a fairly large bearing surface between tube and ring, and that the springs located around the ring are inboard of where any glue would go. So, with little to lose, and the lens going to fall of the tube taking the ring with it, I elected to glue and bolt the ring.

I cleaned the ring with alcohol to improve bonding, made up some more epoxy and carefully replaced the ring. I dipped each of the four wiped bolts into epoxy and then screwed down the ring (as best I could with the stripped threads in the tube), and the adapter is now sitting with a wine bottle weight on the lens making sure I don't create a maligned lens ring. Oh, yes, and the lens release lever is working just fine now thank you and has some electricians tape over it so light can't enter the tube and onto the sensor.

Don't know if I can ever fully trust the adapter from here on out, but think I will try to locate some bigger bolts, after all this thing has to hold my 300 mm. lens off of it. Fortunately the 300 is a f5.6 lens and is quite light for what it is.

Rink Melting

Fuji GFX, 75 mm. Pentax on Fotodiox adapter. Nothing exciting, just a chance to get out.

Hoops in Sepia

Took the colour image and opened the shadows on the left, darkened the highlighted steel band in the foreground, used layers, solid colour layer, blending set to colour, and toned down and I think I like this more than the colour image.

With my retirement from family practice (doing two days a week mental health), my office closed and I brought home the white boards and magnets I had used to display images in the exam rooms. Found a spot in the kitchen to mount the colour version of this, which then led to the conversion. Lot to be said for seeing your work day after day.

Riverbottom

Fuji GFX, 120, Pentax 120 macro. I now have the angle viewfinder attachment. It's nice, but perhaps not essential. I was working fine using the hoodman loupe for viewing in bright sunlight, and it does get in the way a bit, and sticks out well beyond the back of the camera - a mixed blessing - no nose prints on the lcd screen, but a tad awkward in the camera bag.

I'll make use of it, but might suggest you hold off on this expensive accessory unless you know you need it.

Elbow Falls Wall

Fuji GFX 50s, 120 mm. Pentax macro, 5 images to average the water, Akvis Enhancer to bring out the textures of the rock wall, slightly toned.

Liking A Camera - the Fuji GFX 50s

DPReview has just published an article saying, in essence, hold on, medium format isn't all it's claimed to be, and perhaps you should consider sticking with a smaller format. They point out things like depth of field and availability of much faster lenses in full frame vs. medium format, and comparative resolution and noise to conclude there isn't much advantage.

I come at the decision to the Fuji from the other direction. I was already shooting medium format after having worked with the Nikon D800e. I much preferred the work flow and camera operation of the Pentax. I detested live view focus stopped down, and never could forgive Nikon for their backwards threaded lenses and rear caps. You'll note that this has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the image, which is excellent.

But, how well a camera works in hand is very important to a working photographer. The more you use the camera, the more workflow and intuitiveness become of primary importance vs. a 10% or even 20% difference in absolute noise or resolution.

I'm finding the Fuji remarkably comfortable to use. The magnified view by pressing the rear dial falls exactly to where I want it. I found out this morning that I can make self timer stay on after turning the camera off - well done giving me a choice. Also, I'd been using the rear dial or fingering the screen to magnify made images in playback to check focus - turns out that again, a press of the rear dial goes straight to full magnified view, and back - so again I have a choice - do I want to zoom in on an image or jump to max. for checking focus.

The quick menu has a button on the rear grip, and although there are complaints on the net about accidentally pressing it - that has not been a problem for me and I much prefer this access combined with the touch screen for changing settings.

This, combined with the electronic first curtain, and the tilting lcd when in vertical framing makes this the best camera I have used so far. That the images are of superb quality using my Pentax lenses makes the whole thing fly.

Blur Tool In Photoshop

Photoshop has a  number of blur tools available, and while the example above takes things pretty far, used more subtly the tools can be very helpful.

I find that field blur (in Blur Gallery) within the Filters Menu is the most natural look, also giving me some control over where the blur is most strongly applied.

That said, I always duplicate the image layer and apply blurring to the copy layer, then apply a black or white mask (usually black) and then paint back in the degree of effect exactly where I want it.

Occasionally, field blur will produce an unatractive blur and adding some gaussian blur will lower the contrast of the blurred area.

Very occasionally I'll blur the entire image, then paint back in sharpness as I did here with the face of the brass figure.

By the way, the image of the barrel hoops used just a tad of field blur in the upper left and right corners. The area was already out of focus but still a bit distracting and I helped it a long a tad. That's the kind of subtle blur that I think is more useful more often and subtle enough to not disturb.

Elbow Canyon

Fuji GFX 50s More Impressions

I almost returned the Fuji, thinking that something like the A7Rii would be almost the same quality with a lot more versatility, but wandering around the back yard taking snaps, I couldn't believe how easy the camera was to use with a manual focus lens that didn't even have the f stops connected or automatic. The back dial falls right to thumb and pressing immediately goes into magnified view for quick and accurate focus, aided with focus peaking if you want. I've had focus peaking before but this was better, more accurate, more selective, more useful.

I was out today, making a series of vertical images on tripod, and having the LCD tilt while the camera is vertical is so darn nice. The 300 is so much sharper on the Fuji, presumably because of the electronic first curtain.


I do find it annoying that the self timer cancels when the camera is turned of or turns itself off - but a remote would solve that problem and be better anyway.

From wandering around the back yard - have been meaning to shoot these hoops for a year now.

Big Hill Springs Road

Ice formations had almost all gone and what was left didn't photograph well. This image I saw on the road into the park.