You May Notice... Fujifilm

You may notice over the next few months that whenever we advertise the Fujifilm X-series cameras - the X-30, X100S or T, The X-PRO1, The X-E2, or the X-T1 - that we carefully refer to the company as Fujifilm. This is deliberate.

Fuji is a name that figures largely in Japanese advertising, which is not surprising as there seems to be a rather large mountain near Tokyo called Fujiyama. It is hard to miss...The use of Fuji as a name extends throughout any number of products - I remember in dentistry that there was a Fuji company that made superb filling and laboratory materials in stylish packaging. I suspect one of my crowns is attached with a Fuji ionomer cement. But they are a different company.

So - Fujifilm has been Fujifilm for a very long time and they have been selling Fujifilm film for as long as I have been in the trade. We have their films in the film fridge right now and they have proved to be stalwarts in colour transparency supply where other manufacturers have fallen by the wayside. I can readily endorse the use of their materials in studio and darkroom as well. They work well, and if you work, that is a very good thing.

So - They want to make sure - and we will be cooperating in this - that you know they are the photographic Fuji people - Fujifilm. Even if you are shooting digital now, they are the same old reliable backup. Yay.

Own An Ona

No need to spill your camera on the ground - Ona is here with the strap you need.

If you have been frustrated with the selection of camera straps available until now - too hard, too plain, covered in brand names, too narrow, etc., etc. - then prepare yourselves for a treat. The Ona company have sent us three new ones from their premium range.

The Presidio style is made in either waxed cotton fabric with leather end attachments or in a much fancier all-leather version. Apparently the leather is tanned by Italians. A valuable point, that.

The Lima style is similar to the Presidio but seems to be in a khaki fabric and a lighter brown leather - presumably for use before 5:00 PM or in tropical climes.

The fittings are top-quality and the straps do sit very well round the neck or on the shoulder - and they definitely add value to your camera.

I shall be reporting on their bags in another post.

Father's Day Plan - For Fathers

I am a father. I had a father. He had a father. We're trained and qualified in fathering - it has been a family business. We know what we are talking about.

I know what I look like*. I know what my father looked like. I know what my grandfather(s) looked like. I have seen the pictures - in the case of my father's picture, I took many of the images during his last 20 years.

What do you look like? When you're gone what will you look like? You'll look like your pictures, that's what you'll look like - you children will see that as you. Wouldn't it be a good idea if what they saw was good-looking?

You're a photographer - you wouldn't be reading this if you weren't. This is not a blog about liverwurst sandwiches. So...since you can take pictures, spend some time between now and Father's Day to take some selfies.

Do it right. Find good light - or make it in your own home studio. Set your camera up on a tripod or camera clamp and either set the self timer mechanism or get a cable or wireless remote release. Shoot some trial shots to get your exposure right, and then start to shoot ones that feature your face.

Look carefully at those shots. If you want your eyes to look better, turn them the right way - if you want your mouth to look good, practise how to hold it. Make a film star of yourself quite deliberately - you are making a record for your children and grand children.

Dress as well as you can - you don't want to be remembered as the old guy wearing the bike lycra covered in advertising or the DEATHMETAL tee shirt. Make yourself look as dignified as you can - you can smile and warm up the image that way. If nothing you own looks good, go buy some damn clothes.

When you have a couple of dozen good shots of you, edit them carefully and print like mad and burn off a half dozen discs. And send the discs to where they will be safe - if some get lost there should at least some that survive, unlike you who won't...and that is the whole point of this exercise...

You will eventually be a visual memory - be a good one, not just a Facebook grab shot.

* Hell on a dry biscuit some days...

The Persian Rug

Persians, so I am informed, weave deliberate mistakes into their rugs. The rugs themselves are quite sturdy and sometimes very colourful. They can be seen in buildings all over the country - nearly every major city has at least one carpet shop closing down and selling these rugs at below cost price. Indeed, some of these shops have been going out of business for years - I suppose it is the sort of failure that you pass down from father to son...

Apart from the business model, the idea of the deliberate mistake in the rug is to demonstrate that the rug maker is human...not divine. This is a charming  philosophical point, although in practical terms, anyone observing the weavers would be unlikely to fall into quite that mistake....

How does it apply to photography? Well, if you were to believe the marketers of some editing programs designed to retouch portraits, imperfection is something to be ruthlessly weeded out. Skins are to be smoothed, noses are to be trimmed and straightened, eyes are to be evened up, and teeth are to be whitened. Otherwise the person depicted would be...would be...ummm. Help me out here. I'm trying to say that the person depicted would be the person depicted.

Okay, I am not decrying a little eye-bag removal for those who have indulged the night before - also, removing roaring red eyes is a kind act. You can whiten teeth a little, but beware of trying to do the sort of thing that suburban shopping centre peroxide and laser clinics do. They are fake professionals and are used to pressure-cooking incisors. Do not attempt it at home on your PC.

I guess what I am saying is please do not try to make Konrad Adenauer look like a Disney princess. If people want to see computer-generated androids there are plenty of movies out these days that do that. Leave your portrait sitter some semblance of their real face and skin. They will be happy enough with it when the Adenauer wrinkles eventually do arrive.

Aww, Come On....

Bag and a bar. Six bucks.

Money goes to the school - digital bag goes into your camera outfit - chocolate goes to your hips.

How good is that?

PS: The strawberry and mint ones come in a two-pack, so you can share. As if you would...

I Saw That - I Read That - I Heard That - I Found That...

The internet is a marvellous invention...apparently by Al Gore...who is warm, globally. I read that on the net on ALGORythyms.com.fj. Great site, if you don't mind the pop-up ads for plumbers in your area.

Anyway, some of you may be reading this right now on the internet. It is also available on the back of pre-packed salads from your local deli. Hint: avoid the Geek Salad. It is not a typo...

Now back to the program. If you read anything on the net it must be true. And you can use this truth to compel people in shops to lower their prices. Doesn't work in the Post Office or  pre-packed salad shop but camera stores are easy. You can also use what you read to give you signpost for what to do with your camera. Just be careful to look along the signpost and then go the other way.

Okay, let's get serious. The forums have given everyone a chance to have an opinion but many of those opinions are not backed up by practical experience. They are the photographic equivalent of race-course touts telling you where to place your bets. If you are inclined to follow their advice, so be it. Just be prepared to look at a lot of departing horses...carrying your money.

Better advice is, make your own decision based upon your own findings. You can bring a memory card here to the shop, clip together an outfit you wish to test, and make a card's full of different shots. Take the images home, look at them n your system - at 100% magnification. See the results for yourself, and formulate your own opinion.

Then act on that opinon. Your eyes can see and your brain can think

Getting To The Point

How often have you sat in the dark at the camera club competition and looked at the perfection on the screen. And then had the judge pick out the one-pixel-wide flaw on the image - this in an image that is the size of a two-car garage - and score it as " can do better ".

Kinda makes you want to pack a pistol, don't it? Or at least throw a double-dark slide through the darkness like a ninja star, in hopes of winging the miserable sod. All your work, and all to no avail...over one pixel.

Well, take heart. This last weekend several members of the staff attended an exhibition of famous photographs of famous people by a famous photographer. And they were wonderful images, and iconic, and masterful, and apparently wouldn't make the cut at any of our local clubs...

One of the chaps said that we might have higher standards now - now that we have a flood of images in the world. These were taken when the photographer had to do a lot more hard work to produce an image. Or maybe the exhibition pictures are of such an emotional and artistic value as to transcend the judgement.

Whatever. I think it just means that the club people are better than they know it when it comes to making the images. All they need is a famous personality to photograph and an picture editor to buy it. And for LOOK, LIFE, SIGNAL, and FILM FLOOZIES magazines to come back onto the news stands....

Heading Picture: Grey Company's Saxon shield wall preparing to receive visitors.

Hot Off the Griddle - Fujifilm's New Zoom Lens Is Here

Open the box! C'mon! C'mon! Open the Box!

Lemme at that new Fujifilm XF 18-135mm R LM OIS WR lens. Never mind the letters behind the name. I can see that it has an internal stabiliser by the switch on the side. I can see the f numbers at the front. I can see the metal mount for the Fuji X-mount.

Lemme at it.

I've got an X-E 2 at home that would suit this perfectly. I've got an X-T 1 that would be perfect for this. I can fit it on my X-Pro 1 and go out and do just everything.

Apparently the WR means it is water resisitant. Well, unless the roof on the studio gives way and it leaks inside this is superfluous for me, but I have met people for whom it would be essential. Like old surf photographers who have X-E1 cameras and want to carry lighter burdens on the beach...or at the hot rod shows...

This would be the killer lens for a wedding - you can adapt to the dim insides of a church with Fuji cameras because they support high ISO's so well. 1250 to 1600 no worries. SO you could either snipe at the bride from a side aisle or go right down the front with the action and still get a wide sweep or the ring exchange without juggling lenses ( or worse - juggling cameras ). The outside for the gardens and the lens would have great resolution for the groups and two-ups.

Also good in a studio or at a people shoot - a one-lens solution for dance shows or closer sports. This is short for birds but fine for beasts. And the Antarctic or Alaskan tourist customer will appreciate the weather sealing - mist and rain should be no problem if this lens is on an X -T 1.

Here's three shots = Long, medium, and close. Look at the detail that Fuji lens gives!

Okay, I'll admit that jpegs shot out the front of the shop and plastered on this blog are not the definitive laboratory test...but if you are a Fuji X system user and can bring your body into the shop...clutching your Fuji camera body...you can test this remarkable optic for yourself. Be warned - you will want to spend money... 

Round The Houses - The Panoramic Experiments

Did goe to take panoramic images yesterday and was greatley amused.

With the prospect of sun and a Sunday I decided to see what the current state of tourist pano might be. I am in the process of lightening up my outfit - courtesy of the Fujifilm series of X cameras - and I wanted to practise up for a trip later in the year.

I'm pretty well settled upon the new Cullmann 622T tripod for my field shots. It is small enough to fit in the roll-around bag and I suspect it will fly with ease. I am coming to grips with the ball head. Kudos the Cullmann for a good quick release mechanism this time.

Okay, I attached the Novoflex Panoramaplatte to the top of the ball head and put the Fujifilm X=E2 on top of that. Out in the little car to the edge of he Canning river. Note: the edge of rivers can be marshy, as the state of my shoes and trousers will attest.

Extend the tripod and center the bubble level on the Novoflex and track left and right to see if I can get what I want. The X-E2 has two settings for "internal" panorama - 120º and 180º that produce long skinny jpegs. Very good jpegs too - I frequently don't bother with RAW with the Fujifilms as their jpegs are so good. As long as I get my exposure right, I can just wipe them off and put them on the plate...

Well, anyway the motion panorama settings need a reasonably high shutter speed to work - you're better shooting at 1/125 - 1/500 as you get crisper images. If you get a hint of vertical banding, drop down a speed. It takes a little practise to swing the camera steadily when you are doing it freehand, but on a tripod it's a doddle.

Okay, next experiment was a group shot of the Grey Company warriors at training. Here I set the shot deliberately to get an even size for all the figures by grouping them in a semicircle around the tripod. The swing of the camera is the same - 120º.

And the last trials involved the river down by Trinity and the trotting ground. Taking care not to run over by cyclists ( always worth setting out the portable mine field when cyclists are about...) I shot the Burswood side using he motion panorama and then using the simple trick of two quick exposures side by side.

This was aided by an obliging  fish-trap that came paddling by - fortunately slow enough that I could capture him and then swivel past him to the casino shot. This is the same sort of thing that the Panomatic is suited to - a series of shots that stitch together in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. You can do 3 or more but I find I am most pleased with the proportions of a two-shot. The screen at the back of the Fujifilm X-2 can be set with a grid overlay that lets you accurately overlap the images. The PS or PSE program then has the best material to work with and avoids artifacts.

The last picture is the trotting ground, and here I learned what to do when the subject height exceeds what the camera lens can see.

I removed the Novoflex turntable from the stack and attached the X-E2 to the QR plate of the ball head. Then I carefully centered the bubble on the TRIPOD's yoke by adjusting the legs. Now the base of the head would act as the vertical pivot point for the shot. I was free to gently tilt the camera up until the clouds that I wanted to feature could be seen.

The X-E2 and the X-100 series have a little green artificial level in their screen that means you can do this tilt but still have the camera swivelling in an even horizontal plane. There will be a little curving of the subject due to the laws of optics but it will be even.

The real advantage of the stitched pano vs the motion pano comes with the increased quality of the jpeg or even RAW that you can put into the files. And you can be creative with lower shutter speeds.

Get out there and spin around until you're dizzy!

The Three-Ring Circus, Or The Wrong Auto-Focus

It is embarrassing to be foolish in my old age. The business of being a sage elder seated upon a mountain is all very well, but I have come to suspect that I am not suited to it. Case in point was this weekend when I stuffed up a photo assignment.

This was not a paying job, thank goodness. It was an annual visit to the Super Model Car Sunday in Malaga to take pictures of the little cars. I love 'em and am always in awe of what the other enthusiasts can come up with in the year's interval. I use the pictures to report on my hrhoa.wordpress.com blog. The hall is brightly lit, but with a weird colour temperature so I tend to prefer off-camera flash to illustrate the paint jobs on the cars.

In past years I rigged up a Nikon D300s, 8-200 lens, SB700, and Stroboframe holder and got brilliant results. But I was hauling 3.8 kilograms of rig around all day and I ain't getting any younger*. I planned to lighten the load to 1.9 kilograms this year by combining my new Fuji X-E2, a Rayqual adapter, a Nikon 28-105 lens, and a Fuji Ef 42 flash.

The old nikon is an AF-D lens with an aperture ring. The Rayqual adapter also has an aperture ring as it can be used with G lenses. As it does not autofocus or auto aperture on the adapter, that was all to be done by hand. The problem with this was that there are 4 rings of doubt there and only a limited number of hands and fingers to actuate them. And the final criteria for the focussing was to be one old right eye.

That eye used to get me into trouble when I was looking through a Nikon F3 film camera -  some of the dance shows I covered with that film system showed bad focussing near the end. The shift to AF was a blessing. Note: My days of potting sepoys with a three-band Enfield are long behind me, but even then I noted that there was less accommodation to the eyesight as I got older. A formed body of mutineers in red was easy to hit but individuals sometimes escaped.

Well, to cut a long story long, about 3/4 of the images from yesterday show me that I was off with my focussing. The colours are gorgeous, and the flash exposure all i could want.
Setting the Fuji to the Astia film simulation mode with a dynamic range of 200% is perfect for bright toys  - but in this case unfortunately it turned out to be fuzzy toys...

I live and learn. I shall buy a 60mm f:2.4 Fujinon macro lens for the camera and be done with it. Shop tests prove to me that it really can do what I should have been doing yesterday.

* Better looking, yes - but not younger.

Who Can You Talk To About Photography? Ten Good Ideas...

We all need to talk to someone. In my house they do it when I am in the john - no end of conversations seem to be vital to the other members of the family whilst one is sitting down. The only way I can think of breaking of this habit is to open the door but this involves some loss of dignity...

For photographers, talking to someone is essential. Around your birthday you talk to the family about how you really, really need the new 12-2500mm zoom lens that has just been announced at Photokina and how much better it will make their lives. Sometimes this works.

Of course there are different divisions of photography and it occurred to me that each one has a different form of conversation:

1. Family photographers talk to the family. Initially in soft sweet words and eventually in parade ground tones.

2. Good portrait photographers talk to their subjects. Bad portrait photographers talk to their assistants.

3. Landscape photographers talk to themselves.

4. Food photographers talk to themselves but in different voices. Sometimes the voices talk back.

5. Sports photographers talk to the St. John's Ambulance  attendants.

6. Fashion photographers talk to the models. Slowly, and with little words.

7. Leica photographers talk to the Almighty. Once, in the morning, to give orders for the day.

8. Camera collectors talk to their cameras.

9. Darkroom workers never talk.

10. Photography Art collectors talk to their brokers.

If you wish to add any to this list please pop it onto our comments section or onto the Facebook page attached to this blog.

Uncle Dick

Forget Forgetting - Carry A Spare In The Boot - With Promaster

No end of people need a tripod for the occasional landscape or group shot, but never want to carry their big studio model with them. They sometimes try to get a tiny travel tripod to attach to their camera bag but are horrified when they see the weight and size equation that this creates.

Overseas travel needs this equation to be solved with very small figures - but that means that the price goes up. That is inescapable - and if you add a further requirement of large lenses or camera bodies you need to go even further up the price scale. Eventually it becomes cheaper to just import the landscape rather than buy the tripod that you need to go photograph it...

If you are only going to be in the city, state, or country and plan to drive your car to the shoot, think about having a really cheap and light tripod in the boot of the car. It will be best suited to mirror-less cameras and it will not have carbon fibre or super complicated head but it will be there when you need it. If your wife drops a bag of superphosphate on it you'll only be out 50 bucks.

We've got good, cheap Promaster Vectra Delux tripods in store right now  for $ 50. Flip-lock legs, central rising column, three-way video head and even a little quick-release plate. You can afford it and you might just need it.

Something for the weekend, Sir?

Rubber Balloons

Those of you who remember the Benny Hill sketch on television that ended up with the punch line " Rubber balloons " may now blush in shame....

The question of rubber arose the other week when the new Nikon D4s was shown here at the shop. The Nikon representative took all of the staff into her confidence about the new features of the camera. The more arcane aspects of predictive double back bounce around tracking focus were a mystery to me - other than realising that the camera makes pictures in focus in spite of the user  - but I did fasten upon one new aspect; Nikon have changed the rubber composition for the grips on this new camera.

Not before time. I use the Nikon D300 and D300s and love them for the images they take and the ease of use that they exhibit...but I hate the grips.

Oh, they are comfortably-shaped and soft and squishy, but that is because they apparently contain a large proportion of silicon in the rubber. They are fastened to the body panels of the camera with double sided sticky tape and while the tape takes to the body it eventually peels off the grips. They flap open under your hand. I've had the D300 ones reset by Ernest but my sweaty fingers will undo them again the the future.

Joy of Joys, Nikon changed the formulation of the  rubber for their new flagship camera. A little less squishy and a lot more likely to stick onto the camera for the foreseeable future. Good boys.

Note: the big Canon cameras don't do this, but their grips are a little harder and thinner. Leica has opted for a bare metal body on their new T, though you can cover it with a clip-on plastic surface case. Fuji, Panasonic, and Olympus seem to be able to stay together pretty well.

Now whether they various manufacturers have opted for well-shaped grips or not is another matter - and the subject of another blog...

Circle The Wagons - Here Come The Native ISO's

The question about natives is...are they friendly natives?

The answer to this question sometimes depends on which side of he conversation you are on. ie. Don't ask General Sheridan and expect a comfortable answer...

In the case of the native ISO of digital cameras, this seems to be fixed around the 160-200 mark. I suspect that it is a characteristic of the actual component and is a function of the composition of the silicon layer and whatever the current state of division thereof. I have discovered that these sensors are manufactured by a very few companies - and in many cases well-known camera companies are using sensors that are manufactured by business rivals.

And they are all perfectly okay with this as each manufacturer takes the sensor and then does different things with the signal - one optimises it for one thing and one for another.

I was apprised of this by reading a book this weekend - " Mastering the Fujifilm X-E1 and X-Pro1 " by Rico Pfirstinger. It is a Rockynook book obtainable at Boffins Bookstore in William Street.

In the chapter that deals with ISO settings it makes the point that the native ISO of the two cameras it deals with is 200, and the camera always takes its picture at this 200 - even if you set it to ISO 1600 or higher. What it is doing to present you with a picture at that higher ISO is underexposing the image and then dealing with that underexposure through software. And apparently doing it very well.

This strikes me as true of all of them, and explains the improved characteristics of each new model of camera from any one manufacturer - they are not adding a new sensor in many cases - just re-writing the mathematics of the signal processing. Then I realised I was not reading carefully enough...

Fujifilm has a different sensor from others - it really does have a different pattern of receptor sites from most of the others, and can benefit users greatly in the way of resolution and clarity. The X-trans sensor may very well be quite different indeed. But I take it that it still looks at the world at 200 ISO and then just shuffles the electrons to get up to a clean 6400.

Who'da thunk it?

The Answer Is Right/Left To Hand

Yesterday I was discussing camera operation with one of our clients - he had just finished a trip to take surfing and landscape shots up through some wild country in the Dutch East Indies.

He was using a couple of the bigger DSLR bodies for his work, and was very successful in his capture - the surfing shots are perfectly timed and the village and lagoon images are wonderful art. All good for him, but he mentioned the difficulty he had in trying to operate a camera while he was travelling on a motorcycle.

The M/C had a throttle on the right handlebar and trying to operate a standard DSLR while controlling the bike sounded like a juggler's nightmare. Lucky he and the cameras are still in one piece. Right-hand operation being the absolute for all cameras now, he was in trouble.

Readers will remember that film Exakta cameras were left-hand operation, but this was a long while ago and a long way away. No-one seems to have been inclined to repeat  the design for the digital era.

Puzzling - the operation of digital cameras is electronic. That means the shot is done with the closing of an electrical switch. It might then cause a lot of electronic commands inside  but it starts with two bits of metal touching because you pushed your forefinger down.

Well, you can push your left forefinger down as well as you can your right one. More particularly, if the little designers in Japan can make a bolt-on camera grip with a trigger that sits on the right of the camera, they can make one for the left hand side as well. All it's gotta do is close that first circuit...

AND WOULDN'T THAT BE A HELLUVA WAY TO GRAB THE CAMERA MARKET AWAY FROM YOUR COMPETITORS?

You could dial into 30% of the population right there and you wouldn't have to redesign the main body. Just make a LHS grip with a switch.

GO, Boys. DO it. And remember that I could use another trip to Japan as a thank-you for the idea...

Moving Light Artillery Into Battery - With The Fuji X-T1

It has often been said that putting a battery grip onto your digital camera will make you look like a professional photographer*. Perhaps, but that is not the best reason for using one.

Think in terms of the ergonomics of the machine. If you want to take a picture in vertical or portrait mode you are going to have to throw your right wrist over the top of the camera and the weight will depend upon your hand. The grip you need to hold the camera against gravity means more muscle pressure and stiffer muscles. Your hand and arm get very tired over an hour of doing this.

If you use a battery grip your hand remains upright and your muscles are more relaxed. You have the other hand free to operate a zoom lens and the whole rig can be held safely all day.

Plus some camera grips accommodate a second battery in there - you get twice as long to shoot before recharging.

This is evident with the new Fuji X-T1 battery grip - we've just gotten them into stock for the Fuji X-T1 cameras and can particularly recommend them to the users of the large 56mm f:1.2 lens. You can pick one up for $ 329.

* You can look like a professional photographer just by getting a bad haircut...much cheaper.

Tiny Studio With Cullmann And Promaster

 For the last year I have been shifting a number of interesting boxes from Cullmann around the shop shelves. The studio support sets come in various sizes - from basic to humongous with every camp known to man - and up to now I have never experimented with them. And normally I try everything that is lying around undisturbed. Ask some day about the container of hydrochloric acid and the pool chlorine...

Any rate, the Flexx Support Set is the one I raided to make the editorial studio. The desk drawer slides backward and provides and edge to attach the camera support. I elected to attach the X-10 camera to it and it is totally solid. Exposures of a second are no problem.

Fortunately the exposures can be shorter than that with an aperture of f:8 to f:16 - the camera runs at ISO 500 now and there is a Cullmann Copter tabletop tripod that acts as a light stand. On top of it is a small Promaster LED 30 light unit. If I can wangle one of the new LEDGO units we'll have even more power and shorter exposures.

None of this lighting is Steve Sint stuff - it will take a little more time to figure out  good main and fill for this tiny area - but the ability to shoot fast and illustrate as soon as an article is written in invaluable.

Anyone who shoots products or tabletop subjects would be well advised to come browse among the Cullmann accessory kits.

Elegance As Part Of the Equation

I have been looking at the pile of cameras in the corner of the studio - from the newest digital ones on top down to the old daguerreotype ones mouldering into mulch at the bottom - and have decided that there is very little beauty in the business when it comes to equipment. For all we go on about the magnificent L..... or the classic design of the N.... or the C.... they are either utilitarian or overblown.

There are space-age constructions from the late 90's, Soviet optical tractors, and a few Disney characters with lenses in their stomachs, but few that could be described as elegant.

Contrast it with the Fuji X-M1 we have been stocking recently. This is a fully-equipped APSC-sensor digital camera with a 16mm-50mm zoom lens, articulated LCD screen, and all the associated bells and whistles incorporated inside it...but have a look at how nicely the Fujifilm designers have encased it.

Leather is always elegant. If it wasn't, cows wouldn't wear it all the time. Cows and French people are elegant and they wear leather a lot. The Fuji you see here has a wonderful body covering like tan leather. It combines perfectly with the silver finish on the rest of the body.

Now some professionals think that they can only use black cameras to create their art...but then some professionals think that they need to dress in dreadful old ratty clothing to express their individuality. I could show you albums of identical ragged professionals...

Wouldn't it be great if some of them got a shave and a new suit of clothes and a good looking camera? You can beat them to it - buy a Fuji X-M1 now.

First Fruits Of The Furniture - The New Fuji Lens - With The Old Fuji Lens

Okay, that could have been clearer, but as long as you have read this far, you might as well continue...

The new editorial desk has been equipped with a seamless scoop to facilitate taking product shots. In the grand tradition of the Hazel Leaf Studio AKA DIY Palace, it is comprised of two sheets of A3+ matt paper and one big piece of mounting board. It wedges into the tabletop of the desk and a tripod holds the Fuji camera to take pictures of the Fuji lens.

The lighting is supplied by the Catch As Catch Can Company, but this will be improved upon. After all, we ARE a camera store...

The subject of the photograph is the latest and nicest of the Fuji X-Mount lenses. 56mm f:1.2. Sharp as on the focus plane and soft as behind it. The ideal companion for X-E2, X-Pro1 and X-T1 if you are gong to be a low-light street photographer or natural-light portrait artist.

Be prepared for a hefty lens - not as weighty as some of the DSLR lenses, but more than some of the other Fuji glass. It is a deliberate lens to use. Be prepared for a real snap as it comes into focus.

The picture of the 56mm is pin sharp itself because it is taken with he Fuji 60mm macro. Almost the same focal length but an entirely different philosophical approach to it - it is a lens that will produce extremely big extremely close images but only opens to f:4 - hence the tripod. But what a magnificent working optic for art copy or collection recording.

Numismatists and philatelists please take notice - A Fuji X-series camera and this lens will make the best images of your possessions that can be done - and you can do them yourself. You've been promising yourself that you will document the collection. Winter is coming - now is the time.

A Conflict Of Disinterests - Camera Choice For The Perplexed

Working at a camera shop is wonderful. You can play with cameras all day.

Working at a camera shop is horrible. You have to play with cameras all day.

Neither of the sentiments above apply if you are a customer. Then being at a camera shop is exciting...but totally confusing. The modern world is presenting you with so many choices and alternatives that you are hard pressed to make a decision. You might want to press the button, but unfortunately Kodak is no longer there to do all the rest.

The keen enthusiast dives into the internet and reads every forum and rumour site there is.  If they are of an (ahem)..."older generation"...they look out CHOICE magazine from the local library and photocopy pages of advice. I can say this because I am of the same generation and go to the library regularly to look at the lingerie magazines. Readers of CHOICE would do well to remember that every public library has a fiction as well as non-fiction section...

Okay, armed with a looseleaf of papers and a mind full of internet camera equipment flame wars, the prospective customer comes in the shop. If they know what they want, see it on the shelf, open their wallet and whack out their credit card, the whole thing is easy. If they present 5 different opinions about 5 different cameras gleaned from other sources, it all starts to look like the battle of Verdun on a wet night.

One of the smartest things that the prospective camera buyer can do is draw up a list for themselves...in their own handwriting...of what they are NOT interested in. If they don't do portraits in the studio they don't need a portrait lens. ie. they don't need an 85mm f:1.4. If they don't want to go out taking landscape shots of the beach they don't need a 10-20 f:3.5 lens. If they are not interested sports shots they don't need a pro-DSLR with 10 fps capability. And so on...This can eliminate a lot of worry.

After the person thinks out what they don't want, they can think what they do want. Family shots, wedding coverage, fungus in the forest at f:4...whatever. Just as long as they are honest with themselves about their core interests.

Finally, they can see if there are any really odd things that would be fun, but not be absolutely necessary. Automatic toast recognition. HDR food baby sunset mode. With star trails. No matter what the customer can think of, they cannot think wider than the Japanese designers, because the Japanese designers drink at lunchtime. The trick with this category of features is not to make them the central point of choice.

Or CHOICE, if it comes to that...