Went out tonight for some landscapes that I’ve been neglecting for too long. There’s lots of water around recently with all the rain which means for a bit of a speedier creek. I wanted to test the X100s on slow shutter speeds for water effects. It has that sweet, sweet little built in 3 Stop ND filter. I LOVE that feature. It comes in super handy for dragging the shutter into glorious smooshy water. I also had the D800 in tow with my Genus 8 Stop Variable ND Filter. See if you can tell which shots are which. Also, I nearly got attacked by 2 killer beavers. But they let me go unscathed.
Here’s the thing with the FujiFilm X100s camera. Color. It does colour, really, really well. I’m not kidding. It nails colour in a gorgeous richness. My daughter had this amazing little dress on and I knew I had to capture that colour. So I grabbed yonder X100s, a flash on a stand and away we went. The above image was 1/500 f/2.8 ISO 100 via pocket wizard plus x. Every time I pick up that camera, I get stoked about the images that I peel off the card. JPG for crying out loud! I’m thoroughly in love with my beautiful daughter and the camera that forever has frozen these images for me!
My good friend Susan Hill, South East Saskatchewan’s premier wedding photographer, has convinced me to join her in the wedding madness. I’m a self proclaimed non-wedding shooter, but I can handle it when I join the Hill Team. We had an awesome time in Redvers on the weekend, despite the insane weather that required some quick location juggling to get the photos we needed. Josie & Tyler are an awesome couple and they were up for pretty much anything. When we saw the trampoline, both Susan and I immediately knew that awesomeness would soon entail. Josie was a super trooper to put up with our crazy photog ideas! The whole day went extremely well, we made some super images and had a blast doing it. We got to play with some cool lighting setups and put Scott to work on the “Gandalf-Stick”. What could be better? Oh yeah, Susan photobombing the caterer!
I remember watching Steve Huff’s initial impressions of the FujiFilm X100s on YouTube. It was a great video detailing this sweet little camera that I have fallen in love with. The image quality and color is superb, it’s tight compact size make it a dream to travel with. But I remember seeing one heinous thing about the video. Huff had put a nightmarish scratch into the LCD of his brand spanking new everyone-else-is-still-on-a-wait-list camera. That really, really sucks.
Jump to the 2:57 mark and get ready to cry.
It’s not the end of the world, but nobody likes scratching brand new gear, or any gear for that matter. You can’t really fix it so you just have to console yourself in living with it. “It’s Patina!” we say, trying to calm our troubled consciences. “Battle scars and history of where me and said piece o’ gear have been together. Remember that scratch? Got that one in Kuala Lumpur. That ding, got that one Gros Morne National Park! Yep, me and ol’ bessie been through a lot together.” So, sure scratches and dings can be memory collectors. But I’d rather just bring back photos, not scratches and dings. Huff’s video shows exactly how easy it can happen. Chuck a camera in a bag without thinking and viola! Scratches ahoy. Enter Expert Shield.
I got an email from Ed Tyson of Expert Shield UK asking me if I’d like to try their screen protector product on my X100s. I jumped at the chance because hey, who doesn’t like trying new products?! So they swam over to Canada from the UK via Royal Mail and I finally got the chance to check them out. I have had experience with screen protectors in the past. Not for cameras mind you, as all my DSLRs have built in plastic screen covers. But I’ve installed several of them on handheld GPS units. The other products I’ve used worked OK, but installing them wasn’t fun. You had to squirt liquid all over the device to line up the protector and then fight bubbles . . . it was a nightmare. And in the end, I still always had a couple imperfections. So when I got the Expert Shields, I was eager to see how it would go to install them. I’m happy to report, it was quick, painless and it worked like a charm!
I found the instructions were straightforward and easy to follow. The supplied cleaning cloth made getting the screen clean very simple and the application procedure was great. I didn’t even actually touch the Expert Shield as it was sandwiched between two easy to remove cling layers. Take the first layer off, line it up with the screen and stick it down. As I put the protector on, I followed the leading edge with a plastic id card to chase out any bubbles that might get trapped. For the last stage of the application, you simply peel off the top protection layer and you’re done. It worked perfectly and the X100s has some sweet new body armour to help keep it looking spiffy for years to come.
And Expert Shield was kind enough to send me an iPhone 5 and iPod Touch protector too. I installed the iPod protector and it went flawlessly as well. Despite the toughness of glass, my iPod has already got quite a few small scratches on it’s screen – and it lives in my pocket most of the time. I like the very slim form factor and the Expert Shield doesn’t add any bulk like a big case would.
So this concludes Part 1 of my Expert Shield experience. I will do Part 2 in a few months time to see how they stand up to wear and tear and a wee bit of abuse. Thanks again to Ed from Expert Shield for the opportunity, I look forward to seeing how the product holds up.
OK, I’ve lived in the South East corner of Saskatchewan for over 5 years, almost 6, and I only just the other day heard of The Happy Nun. Where have I been!?!? It is the most incredible restaurant I have ever been to in my entire life! From the first step I made through the door, I instantly fell in love. There is such an overwhelming ambience of joy and a glorious welcoming spirit that permeates the whole establishment. It’s in the decor, the staff, the art work, the ambience. It truly is something special. Everyone knows that a good restaurant is hard to find, but so is a great place for entertainment. When the two come together with perfect perichoresis it’s sensational.And that describes the Happy Nun to a tee for it’s not only a restaurant, but it is also a mini centre of performing arts! We had got tickets to see Craig Cardiff live in concert at the Happy Nun. He was tremendous as well, adding to the over arching good times of the night. As the music filled the place, the ambient light levels became saturated with warm, beautiful colour.
And then, dear friends, there’s the food. I’m really not exaggerating when I say that it is the best restaurant food I’ve ever had. It’s all homemade. No propeller pigeon chicken. No industrially baked bread. No typical ‘big business’ restaurant food. I had the beef with mashed potatoes and asparagus. My wife had the orzo and Israeli couscous. Both dishes had incredible flavour and that unmistakable “made by hand with love” feel. There was also a starter salad that was bursting with flavour, not to mention a mushroom zucchini soup that was to die for. And when the soup came out, it was noticeably contained in a hand made pottery bowl. Every last detail has been thought out, including the numerous examples of nun-based decor. And who doesn’t love nuns?! Remember Sister Act?
And, the final book end of the night was driving home, only to look up and see the most incredible display of Northern Lights. The whole sky was illuminated by the dancing green and blue Aurora. Could there be a more perfect end to a great night with great friends, awesome entertainment and the best dining experience you can have in south east Saskatchewan? I think not. And, I will certainly be back!
I’ve often wondered why we call “Grad” Grad and not Prom. I continue to ponder it. I got to go and do some grad shots for a couple of lovely Arcola girls and their families on the 17th. It was a riot and the weather held out giving us some sweet, sweet dramatic skies. I took my trust X100s along for the ride, as well as my D800. With my two favorite cameras in hand we got to make a ton of really exciting images with lots of different looks. Just one note on Sarah’s pink dress – it really is THAT pink. And the guitar, yep, Juliana can totally rock it. It’s not just a prop. Thanks for the fun times girls! You’re amazing! It was awesome to do back to back shoots for such cool friends!
It’s been a long stretch with no bloggin’ so today I decided to catch up a bit. I have been über busy as of late with Grad shoots and funerals, plus and impromptu road trip with my boy. So I haven’t been doing much recreational shooting. But this morning after another glorious rain, conditions were perfect to do some raindrop chasing. The D800. For as much as I LOVE my X100s, I won’t soon part from the full frame glory of 36 glorious mega pixels. The color and quality of the images is really superb. Whilst wandering around the yard, I noticed a nearly microscopic spider. And thankfully, she (we’ll call her Charlotte ) cooperated and I was able to nab a couple of images. There was a slight breeze which really sucks for macro photographers. I was already at IS0 3200 trying to keep a high enough shutter speed to freeze the motion. Tricky business. But super fun! Gotta love Macro.
Bonus Video! BTS of the complete and utter gong show Macro Photography can be in the wind. Or breeze. heheheheh…
I was out on Saturday night partyingplaying poker with the guys getting water in Alameda. I threw the X100s in last minute, anticipating a way cool sunset. Some nice colors started happening. I found a subject, grabbed the camera and realized I had no card in it. #doh #facepalm :roll: Thankfully there’s a wee smidgeon of internal memory available for potential customers to check the images in store morons like me to use. I took an exposure metered for balance and here it is:
Basic STD JPEG ISO 200 f/4 1/125 no corrections WB: Auto
Not too shabby. It’s metered for the sky and the structures go to mostly silhouette. I could meter for the building but then I’d lose the richness of the color of the sky. Or, I could use flash and illuminate the whole terminal. (Well, I could but that would be dumb). So the only other option is HDR, right? Layer several exposures together in software and get the shot. Well, not any more!
One of the other extremely awesome things about the X100s is the ability to take tonal control of the image. You can manually adjust the shadows, highlights, color and sharpness of any image before you take it. So, after reviewing the first one, I decided to hit the ol’ Q button and tweak away. Here’s the next image:
ISO 200 f/4 1/125 Velvia Film Shadow Tone: -1 WB: Auto
This image has got the Velvia Film simulation going plus -1 dialed into shadow tone, decreasing the shadow contrast. Look how much more detail is there from one simple adjustment! It’s awesome! But I wanted to push it one step further and here’s the final image:
ISO 200 f/4 1/125 Velvia Film Highlight Tone: -1 Shadow Tone: -2 Color: +1 Sharpness +1 WB: Fluorescent
There’s even more detail held with no sacrifice of color. I kicked it up a notch in camera. And, by switching to fluorescent white balance, I got a beautiful dusty rose tint to the image. That’s pure awesome!
These images are all straight out of camera JPEGS with exception of watermark and resize for web. The Fuji Rocks the Set. I rest my case.
On Thursday, May 9th we celebrated the Good Lord Jesus’ Ascension back to heaven. And to do so, we had a concert with a couple of Angel voices! Jennifer Jade Kerr and Kelti Malone blessed our congregation in Oxbow with a sweet concert. They are AMAZINGLY talented singer songwriter types. I highly recommend you check ‘em out and buy all their records. As if that wasn’t good enough, we sweetened the whole deal and had an ice cream buffet afterwards. We had a really great turn out with lots of community members attending.
The the girls were kind enough to indulge my photo addiction and do some portraits with the D800. Musicians deserve moody lighting, at least, I think they do. I wanted to try some anyways so here’s what I came up with.
Jennifer Jade Kerr
For Jennifer, I envisioned her glorious red hair and decided that warm tones would be the ticket. I wanted to go with short lighting too for the utmost of flattery. Then I had the idea to put some candles in the bokeh to further play off the red/warm feel of the overall image. I also wanted a bit of guitar in the image, but not to let it dominate the scene. I was pleased because it turned out how I envisioned it.
Kelti Malone
Kelti has a way cool violin! I knew that I wanted to do some edgy stuff with it. So we did a pretty dramatic portrait of Kelti with some way cool profile lighting. And then, we decided to just shoot the violin – because it’s so darn cool!
Here’s some shots from the concert all taken with the FujiFilm X100s.
So I’m really liking the Fuji X100s. Leaf shutters are amazing creations, like hydraulics and GPS. Basically, it allows you to sync a flash at any speed. You don’t have to worry about 1/250 or 1/200. You can rock out at 1/1000s at f/2 in full sunshine and still sync a flash – at 1/8 power!!! It’s crazy! The flash photo options available with this camera are nearly limitless! I took a 1 light setup outside yesterday to try and see how the X100s does in full sunshine. I locked on the internal 3 stop ND filter and was able to underexpose the ambient at ISO 200, 1/1000s at f/2. That’s pure sweetness! In contrast, to do this with a DSLR, you’d need to drop your sync speed to 1/250 and crank your aperture to f/5.6 to get the same exposure (before an ND filter). But the Fuji nails the sweet bokehlicious backgrounds and, I can overpower the sun with a speedlight on 1/8th power!!!!!!! Like, what’s not to love?!
Here’s the results (JPEGs shot in Astia simulation mode)
Also, I nearly got attacked by 2 killer beavers. But they let me go unscathed. 
out loud! I’m thoroughly in love with my beautiful daughter and the camera that forever has frozen these images for me!
We had an awesome time in Redvers on the weekend, despite the insane weather that required some quick location juggling to get the photos we needed. Josie & Tyler are an awesome couple and they were up for pretty much anything. When we saw the trampoline, both Susan and I immediately knew that awesomeness would soon entail. Josie was a super trooper to put up with our crazy photog ideas! 
It’s crazy! The flash photo options available with this camera are nearly limitless! 
