8/13/13 – Treat Yourself to Cancer
A brick wall I pass every day on my commute to and from work, in Concord, Mich.
Love that, even after it’s been hacked, it hasn’t been fixed.
My Two Weeks With A Fuji X100
Renting a camera is the perfect way to try before you buy. It’s also the perfect way just to try – and that’s why I rented a Fuji X100 for two weeks. Just to try.
I see other photographers that I admire doing fantastic work with the Fuji system, and speaking its praise as the Next Big Thing. Being a Canon guy, it was tempting to see what all the fuss is about.
I also rented it because I was covering a wedding for two co-workers, and thought it would be fun to take it to their destination ceremony in Petoskey, Mich.
There, it performed very well. I had to make sure to keep it on a setting that worked for whatever situation I was in, but from there I just pointed, framed, and shot.
The things this camera can do with mixed light situations, dynamic lighting, and low light is spectacular. And sharpness? Just perfect.
There were times when I felt lost. That feeling probably comes from knowing my Canons so well. I also like having things like ISO and white balance ready at a button push. Too often, with the X100, I had to dive into the menu system to switch up the settings.
I’ve read that people use the X100 as a slower device. Take your time, adjust your settings, frame your shot, click. So maybe throwing it into a fast-paced wedding situation wasn’t entirely fair.
For those instances where I could take my time, it was perfect. The size, too, made it a handy carry-around camera. It’s a throw-it-in-the-front-seat-of-my-car camera – a walk-around-the-neighborhood camera. And it was light enough to feel like a regular accessory to the day.
The film modes are fun (like the Velvia setting above), but were an extra step in the process. I found taking the RAW files and adjusting them was more my style.
At first, I blanched at the idea of using the Electronic Viewfinder. But the rangefinder-style Optical Viewfinder missed focus points just enough to get pretty annoying, so I switched as time went on fairly easily.
Switching to Macro Mode, however, to get those close shots was not easy. I never quite got the hang of it, and would often forget which mode I was in and shoot in the wrong mode.
The picture files? Glorious to work with. Plenty of flexibility to lift shadows or pull back highlights – again, especially in those mixed lighting situations. Skies, especially, were lovely. For a lot of my shots, using the VSCO Film Fuji profiles worked well.
All in all, using the Fuji X100 really was like shooting with a film camera. The photo files had personality, and flexibility, and were a lot of fun to play around with.
The camera itself was an adjustment. I feel like, with more time, I’d get used to its particular quirks. Maybe not.
But sometimes it was nice to set the setting and not touch them, and just worry about making nice photos.
8/12/13 – Sweet Corn
This time of year is both happy and sad. Happy because, hey, it’s still technically summer.
But it’s sad because it’s the Sunday of summer – the last little bit before fall starts creeping in. Nothing says this more than harvest time, especially this cool summer in Michigan that feels like half-fall anyway.
Fall is a lot of people’s favorite season, but not mine. The crops, though. Man, I’ll take those all autumn long.
Michigan is known mainly for its cherries, apples, and blueberries, but we’re lucky in that a lot of crops grow well here. Peaches, melons, corn.
“You can tell it’s a Michigan [insert crop here],” my family used to say. “They don’t grow these like they do in Michigan.”
I’m not positive that’s true. But I do know that everything tastes pretty darned good this time of year.
8/11/13 – Slow Strangle
Never realized this rope was tied around my dying apple tree in the backyard. Hm.
Also, this one was edited in Aperture for old time’s sake. Do most of my editing/culling in Lightroom, and export to Aperture for management.
8/9/13 – Antenna To Nothing
Lots of abandoned goodness in Albion, Mich. Took a little drive Friday afternoon during lunch and spotted a row of buildings that looked like they used to be thriving businesses.
But no longer.
8/7/13 – Hosed-Down Horse
It’s county fair time here in Jackson County.
Despite some thunderstorms, the fair went on – muggy, sticky, and steamy.
For a horse, that means bath time, obviously.
8/6/13 – Nest
This is the stuff nightmares are made of.
Bald-faced hornet nest. Huge. Hanging.
To keep a safe distance, I stuck with the EF 85mm f/1.8 for this one.
Darkroom Woodshed, or How VSCO Beats the Film Companies At Their Own Game
VSCO Film recently released their newest set of film emulation presets, a lovely set of slide film reproductions that model classic Fuji, Agfa, and Kodak positive film.
And while the digital version of those classic films doesn’t exactly mimick the original, it’s enough to feed into the back-to-our-roots photographic trends that Instagram, Hipstamatic, and VSCO itself kick-started. Pros, amateurs, iPhoneographers – a lot of us are using film-style presets these days.
That got me thinking: why does it take a company like VSCO to come out with these film simulations? Why the hell didn’t Fuji, Kodak, and Ilford – with their diminishing film stocks and questionable financial future – come out with this kind of product?
Why leave it to a digital competitor to develop a copy of your signature films?
No, VSCO-style simulations won’t keep New York cities humming with manufacturing, but they could’ve helped film companies ease into the digital realm.
I take it that Fuji is doing okay with its new X-Series cameras. They’re supplementing their film business with a great series of cameras – cameras that, yes, are simulating Fuji films like Velvia and Astia.
But Ilford? Kodak? Agfa? How are they doing in this modern photographic age? Are they comfortable with staying a hyper-niche product for hobbyists and the declining number of professional photographers who still use film?
Why not say, “Hey, no one knows our film better than we do. We’ll help photographers simulate our classic films with a set of presets that we can sell for real money.”
It used to be that film stock, with quality glass, was how you achieved a certain look. Velvia was different from Portra was different from Polaroid. Now, in the digital age, it’s a combination of camera, software, lens, and (for those who use them) presets.
For film companies, their role in that process should be in the software/presets realm.
“Great photo!” an imaginary film company representative says. “Now make it look how you want it to look with our specially-engineered family of film simulations.”
Instead, companies like VSCO swoop in with the right mixture of finesse and quality and eat the film companies’ lunch. They also offer options for today’s photo enthusiast: desktop and mobile software.
Kodak? Their mobile app offerings look like a messy discount aisle in a dimly-lit drug store: nothing but apps for purchasing film(!) and printing photos (that last one is pretty handy – at least they’re encouraging people to keep printing photos).
Fuji is at least doing a bit better in this space. But still. Why keep those X-Series film simulation modes exclusive on the cameras? Why not make a few bucks selling a mobile camera app with those simulations, and beat VSCO at its own game?
I love Camera Noir and Hueless for my iPhone. But where is the Ilford app?
Don’t get me wrong. There are tons of photo filter apps – more than one could ever want or use. But shouldn’t the film companies be in this space and doing it better than anyone? Shouldn’t they have been here first, for crying out loud?
Developing software and apps doesn’t replace the film business. I get that. But what else are the film companies going to do? Wait it out like some passing phase?
When the world switches, you switch with it. As it stands, disrupting upstarts like VSCO are taking the film companies out to the darkroom woodshed.
(Photos courtesy Bryan Costin, with my “VSCO” addition, and Kevin Dooley on Flickr)