Travel-X: “Think carefully before making a shot!” or how to explore Iceland with just the 35 + X-T1 (by Kamenev Dmitry)

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photo of Dettifoss – the most powerful waterfall in Europe

guest post by Kamenev Dmitry

I’m a lucky owner of [shoplink 21553]X-T1[/shoplink] from Russia and several days ago I’d been traveling in Iceland with friends. It is a country where every photographer (even the worst one with an old mobile phone camera) can feel like a superprofi.

Only two years ago I owned [shoplink 16850]5Dmk2[/shoplink] with EF 24-70/2.8 and a full kit of accessories for wedding photography – it was my little hobby (I’m far from profi). But suddenly I’d got a lack of free time for my hobby and decided to sell everything, because my DSLR was gathering dust on the shelf due to its size and weight.. But I couldn’t stop taking photos and bought [shoplink 15293 ebay]Fuji X100[/shoplink], which I think is really a great camera. I’ve owned X100 for 2 years and everything was good but I felt a great lack of lens change ability… So when I heard rumors about X-T1 I already knew what I would buy next.

And here it is Iceland! Real challenge for new Fuji… with only [shoplink 12889]XF35/1.4[/shoplink]. I was ready to chew my hands off because several weeks ago I’ve sold my [shoplink 12887]XF18-55 lens[/shoplink]. No, XF35 is an excellent lens but it’s about crime to go to Iceland without wide and zoom lenses. It was my first and the most serious mistake. Next time I hope I’ll have XF 16-55 f/2.8.

But 35mm is better than no lenses and such fix is very strict lens and makes you think very carefully before you make a shot.

The second mistake – I took only one battery. I charged it every night but its 250-300 frames capacity was extremely insufficient for me during the all day. So it made me think twice before making a shot. Next time I’ll take at least 2 batteries.

And the final mistake – memory card. I thought that 32GB card would be enough for me. No, it would not! I had to delete several photos to shoot some more. So it made me think thrice before shooting.

And now I can say that it was challenge not only for my camera but for me. As for X-T1 – now I like it much more: its weather sealed body helped me to shoot near waterfalls and during heavy rain; its lightweight allowed me to climb over hills and mountains and so on.

As a result of my trip here are some of my most favorite shots. By the way, some of them were taken out of the car while moving!

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“Does anyone else have experience with the Aquapack 451 or other underwater solutions with a Fuji X camera?”

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IMAGE: Fuji X-M1, Fuji 14mm f/2.8, and the Aquapac 451 in the local river of my neighborhood here in Nuuk, Greenland after a couple of days of heavy rain. 1/1250sec, f/7.1, ISO 800.

shared at the FR-facebook photostream (feel free to keep up sharing and voting the images)

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FR-reader Mads Pihl asked for an advice (via FR-facebook), and I hope the X-shooter community here on Fujirumors can help. Here is his question:

I got the Aquapac after hearing about Czech photographer Paul Schlemmer’s experience with this cheap underwater soft “house” [admin: read the article here)], and I picked up a cheap X-M1 as it seems a lot easier to get into the aquapac than the X-E2 and X-T1.

The goal is to put it to more serious use on a field assignment in North Greenland this summer, but for now I am just playing around in the water around my house.

Does anyone else have experience with this or other underwater solutions with a Fuji X camera?

Cheers,

Mads
Northbound Photo (website500px)

Aquapack 451

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Coming Early September: Nissin i40 Flash for Fujifilm X-series (TIPA awarded as Best Portable Lighting System)

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Hi all,

as you may remember, a forum member at dpreview said that the small and powerful Nissin i40 for Fujifilm X cameras will be available in October. Well, according to a FR-source, it will happen earlier.

The actual availability date will be various between countries, but the first lot of flashes will be in stock at authorized dealers around early September

The Nissin i40 is a new great super compact powerful and flexible flash with ergonomics of the Fujifilm EF-X20. It recently won the TIPA Award 2014 for the“Best Portable Lighting System”.

“The small (3.35 x 2.4 x 3.35 inches) and lightweight (203g, without battery and soft box) Nissin i40 is available in models dedicated (TTL) to Canon, Nikon, Sony, Four thirds and Fujifilm models, and can cover a lens angle of view from 24-105mm, with additional coverage to 16mm with the supplied diffuser. The Guide Number is 40 at the 105mm setting (meters/ISO 100) and 27 at 35mm. An innovative LED illuminator sits where smaller fill flash modules were in the past, and the light can be used for both still and video recording with 9 steps of output. The i40 offers rear, front curtain and high-speed sync, wireless slave and can be swivelled up to 180 degrees right and left and 90 degrees vertical.”

I wish you a great weekend,
facebook, google+, RSS-feed and twitter

P.S.: if you click the “READ MORE” button, you’ll see a list with all the rumors spread in 2014 arranged by reliability. You’ll also be able to check what turned out to be correct and what was wrong this year.

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AF-tracking comparison: X-T1 with XF 18-135 and XF 55-200 vs 5DMKIII and Canon 70-200mm F2.8 II

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image courtesy: bencherryphotos

Ben Cherry (website) tested the AF-tracking of the X-T1 with [shoplink 12892]XF 55-200[/shoplink] and a prototype XF 18-135mm WR vs the action combo [shoplink 13457]Canon 5D Mark III[/shoplink] with the $2,500 Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM Telephoto Zoom Lens.

The subject is a dog running full speed towards the X-T1 or 5dMkIII. The results? Ben says: “So how did the X-T1 and the latest telephoto lenses hold up against the ultimate action combo? Well I have to say I am extremely impressed by the results. So much so I’m not sure whether people can tell the difference.” Consider that Ben did NOT enable the HIGH PERFORMANCE mode, which makes AF faster.

But Ben doesn’t reveal which test series was shot with which lens.

In fact he just launced this contest: “Guess which is which – If you have twitter then tweet your answer with #2fujis1canon. At the end of the week I will reveal the answer. Remember the three options are: 70-200 (canon), 55-200 (fuji) and 18-135 (prototype, fuji). Allocate one lens to option 1, 2 and 3.”

So start tweeting ;-)

For those who do not use twitter, here is a poll for you. Check out the 3 AF-tracking series at bencherryphotos and then feel free to come back and vote the poll.

NOTE: To anyone out there, who wants to make such comparisons. It happens that reviewers do not enable the “HIGH PERFORMANCE” mode on their X-series camera. If you do such a test, you must enable it, as it will considerably improve the AF-performance of the camera… btw, every X-shooter should use it. You’ll drain a bit more battery life, but it’s worth the extra performance. It’s one of the many many tips and tricks Rico shared in his brand new X-E2 book here (German Version at dpunkt here).

UDPATE: Here are the resutls: Lens 1 – Fujifilm 18-135mm prototype / Lens 2 – Canon 70-200mm / Lens 3 – Fujifilm 55-200mm: “To conclude – For me the 5D3 is still the daddy, it instantly finds the subjects and tracks accurately. Whereas the X-T1 can sometimes take a while to find the subject but once it has, it will track very well, hitting the subject the vast majority of the time. Once there are greater auto focus zones on the X-T1, like the 5D3, then I think the tracking capabilities will vastly improve. To bring it back to dogs, the 5D3 is like my springer spaniel, it is just happy to be out running around and will respond to any call I give no matter what. While the X-T1 is like my labrador, loyal as anything but if you want it to respond to a call quickly then an obvious treat is required (though the high performance setting would have improved its responsiveness)!”

How should I handle rumors?

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