The Working Life Of the Fujifilm EF X-500

No, I don't mean how long it will continue to work - goodness, if you treat a flash right you can get decades out of it. Exercise it regularly and don't drop it off a cliff...

I mean... how does the performance of the new Fujifilm EF X-500 stack up in a working situation - where you have to use it to satisfy the client...rather than your desire to fiddle with new gear. Let's go out on different jobs:

1. The Event.

The party, ball, graduation, awards ceremony, etc. The grip and grin, speeches at 8:00, 2000-shot corporate gig where you stay sober and everyone else doesn't. The you-get-paid-if-anyone-buys-a-picture job.

Well, you are going to need to shoot those 2000 shots consistently - well-exposed if you can, but at least all the same. The last thing in the world that you want to do is sit there pushing sliders on a computer later. If they are going to be similar poses and groups you can probably trust the TTL to give you a good run off the faces and clothing - formal males suits are going to have similar reflectance and even the ball gowns tend to be alike. If you are going to do the Mardi Gras resign yourself to having the exposure system overwhelmed every now and then.

The TTL can be skewed, however, if needed...say a situation with high-reflectance stage costumes in a great many of the shots. Dive into the page button and then the +/_ exposure compensation button. twist the control wheel for up to 5 stops plus or minus output. This is vastly better than the Fujifilm EF-42 flash that only allowed + or - 1.5 stops. The fact that the X-500 does in in one dial turn vs the the 8 button presses and 20 seconds waiting time of the older flash is really significant.

Likewise the recycling time - I count 2.5 seconds on fresh batteries from a full manual dump to recharged. The EF-42 could barely manage in 6-8 seconds. Some events are very much run and gun and if your flash is not ready almost instantly for a follow-up shot, you either have to talk like a parrot to keep the subjects still for that 8 seconds or lose them entirely.

2. The Wedding.

This is like a corporate event but with a CEO in a white dress ready to explode if anything goes awry. You can multiply the pressure as much as you like - pressure to shoot far too many pictures, to be everywhere at the same time, and to do things as fast as possible. Plus the pressure to have multiple sets of equipment ready to go at a moment's notice. In that respect the new flash is a bit more expensive than the old one, but weddings are not the time to skimp.

Will you get a chance to use the multiple flash capability of the X-500? You have three groups at your disposal from the main X-500 control panel - they can be manual, TTL, or a percentage TTL that you can alter as you go on. The big group, the bridal waltz, the speeches, the formals - they all lend themselves to the studio-lighting approach of multiple groups.

As a wedding pro you will have also worked out how flash modifiers and stands can be used in these situations. You do get a flash foot with the EF X-500, of course, but you need to match it to some suitable stands. You also need an assistant, but then you knew that after your first wedding...

3. The Grande Portraite.

Funny how the mighty all want to look good, but grant portrait photographers tiny little windows of opportunity to actually do the job...Time is money is power is prestige...

Well, if you are going to play their game, play it fast. Main and fill and as many flattering shots as you can suggest in your 15 minutes with His Moneyship or Her Publicityship. The Mag Mod flash attachments may well help, as will the facility for multiple groups of lights. The fact that these are speed-lights with no extra battery packs is a blessing - less to haul in and out. The rapidity of recharge and of control changes is also vital when you are dealing with people who have decided that they have so much money and power that they need not be patient...

4. The School/ Santa/ Sports Carnival Portraits.

These are easy - just work out your main/fill multiple group setup in advance, sandbag the stands down, and take your medication. It will all be over in 6-8 hours. The fact that you can expect about 600 full-bore TTL shots out of a set of lithium batteries us a good thing - it will go down to about 150 with regular alkalines. If you plan to do your Santa photos from an armoured emplacement you may be able to arrange for a 6V power feed and the auxiliary plug of the Ef X-500 will allow you to shoot an unlimited number.

Note: there is a thermal protection circuit in the Ef X-500 that will shut it down if you have been shooting far too much far too fast. It will come on again when the temperature goes down.

5. The Advertising Business.

Well, as the sky is the limit for ideas, ( but rarely paid at stratospheric prices...), you can use a brace of EF X-500's for a lot of stuff. They have the sort of manual power control that dials down to 1/512th of full power, so that they can be used for tiny little multiple flashes. If your camera will do it, you can shoot multiple shots in a fraction of a second for stroboscopic effects. You can stop peak action at high shutter speeds - again if you are using the X-T2 or X-Pro2.

On a good day you can get a picture at 1/4000 of a second and capture a frame of art directors midway between changing their minds.

6. The Science Lab.

Here's where those tiny slices of light are the most use - scientists are always trying to take pictures of little specimens or delicate surfaces that wash out under stronger light. Three of them with TTL/ group are controllable and precise and a lot less of an impost on the department's budget than trying to do the same thing with studio flashes or portable battery and head kits.

Field workers can break these a lot less than they could a suitcase full of heads and batteries. And electricity in the sticks is more likely to be available in AA form than mains power.

7. The Real Estate Business

Hello 3:00 AM again...well, if you need to light up an interior there is nothing better than three speed lights and some Mag Mod Domes. The EF X-500 so equipped and hidden round corners and behind furniture is the answer for making pokey dark interiors look livable. You can group control them to balance the result and you can put dedicated gels into the mag Mod holders to try to match whatever the dawn or dusk is trying to do.

Try everything. If the images don't work there is always tomorrow and the owner of the place won't mind keeping everything off the tabletops for another day...

Walk Round The New Nikon Lens

Just when you thought there was nothing new on the shelf to write about...the ordering department brings down a new Nikon DX lens.

DX is the smaller-frame Nikon DSLR format - so in the current flurry of FX cameras and lenses it might be thought to be missed out. Not by Nikon - they have a remarkably large range of DX-sized lenses to match their cameras and photographers need to remember their advantages.

It is wrong to compare apples to oranges but everyone does on the internet before they come here so I might as well do it too I have owned apples, I now shoot on oranges. I have shot for many years on pears and still retain an complete watermelon outfit in my studio.

Right now, DSLR cameras are faster at sports shooting than mirrorless. Sad, but true, and if you need to capture peak of action exactly right each time with individual shots you will have a better chance on a DSLR. I know - I have to box clever to do things with my mirror-less system that I formerly gave no thought to. Score one for Nikon DSLR.

In comparison to FX, DX uses less memory. Less processing power, time, and bad language. Score two for Nikon DX.

If you need depth of field, DX delivers more than FX does. Score three for Nikon DX.

If you need light weight, Nikon DX scores over Nikon FX. But it is about the same as mirror-less. Score a draw.

Okay - now the pitch. Nikon have a new medium-range DX lens - 16mm to 80mm. Now it has a max aperture of 2.8-4 so you get double the amount of light. It is solidly-built and functions very smoothly with any of the DX cameras. I should think it a perfect match to the D7200.

In stock right now. Here's a look.

Wide and Fast - Fujifilm 16 f:1.4

There are more ways in this world to go fast and wide than buying a Maserati...Fujifilm have just introduced one; the Fujifilm 16mm f:1.4 prime lens.

It follows precisely the style elements of Fujifilm X lenses - metal construction, smooth focusing ring, precise click stops for the aperture, and fast focusing.

It has the addition facility - shared with the 14mm and 23mm lenses  -of snapping the focus ring out of automatic focus into a mechanical manual focus. Wonderful for studio shooting, particularly if you have activated the focus peaking on your X-series camera and can watch the plane of focus "walk"over your subjects.

The real forté of this lens is the wide aperture - f:1.4 - which means it is perfect for interiors. The real estate photographer using the Fujfilm X system could make this lens their primary optic - it will render straight lines straight and give the breadth of vision that sells houses - even pokey little ones...

I can also see it capturing the magnificence of a cathedral interior during a wedding - or trailing out to all the seaside landscape points that fascinate Western Australians.

In store-now.

Curing The Group Portrait Blues - With DXO

We all love doing group portraits. Not.

Whether it is an undisciplined family group at a party, an overly-disciplined regimental portrait, or just wedding guests gathered around the wreckage, the shoot can be difficult to do, and the results patchy.

The family party is composed of people who will not obey - the relatives and children. They will be difficult to marshal into one area, will insist on changing places continuously to gain precedence, and will never ALL be looking in the same direction.

The regiment or ship's company CAN be compelled to sit or stand in order - correctly - and can be ordered to all look toward the camera with no-one making Indian feather fingers. But you won't be the one doing the ordering. For that you need the senior warrant officer. Contact him early on, do as he says, and he will deliver the goods.

The wedding group includes the bride and groom and their parents - who are paying you to be there. Put them in the center, expose so that they look good, and let their relatives fall as they may.

All this said, there is one problem if you have a large group to photograph that spreads wide in front of your lens - you will be forced by the geometry to use a wide-angle lens and that in turn will force you by the nature of optics to get distorted faces on the outer edges. Faces that started out round end up flattened like pumpkins. Grins become maniacal.

If you can get the group to curve round you like the horns of a buffalo, you can reduce this. If not, try getting one of the DxO Viewpoint 2 programs - you can plunk it into a number of Adobe photoshop programs - both regular CS. PSE, and LR, as well as Aperture 3.

It will perfectly correct the distorted faces at the edge of the frame without narrowing to ones in the middle. If you have jiggered up architectural shots it will straighten and correct the distortion. You'd be surprised just how much better this makes even studio shots when you are using extreme wides but have let you camera deviate from the horizontal ever so little...