Weekly Email - 3-29-13 - Washington DC Travels

This week I took the train down to DC which is a really easy trip.  
Why our country has not embraced high speed rail and better train service is beyond me.  I remember all my train rides in Europe over 20yrs ago and the simplicity and speed was wonderful.  
The trip to DC is effortless and I wish I had more extensive rail options.  Get to Penn Station about 10 mins before the track is announced, show a printed ticket to an agent and walk on.  Pretty much always have two seats to yourself and of course AC plugs at every seat.  Three and a half hours later I'm in the heart of DC and ready to go!
I brought the usual spread of cameras to try to capture an interesting shot with each of them.
The Fujifilm X100S, Fujifilm X-Pro1 and Fujfilm X20.  Each had its place in the day of shooting and DC has no shortage of amazing sites to see.

Weekly Email - 3-22-13 - San Juan

This week I went down to San Juan for a wedding and as usual wasn't quite sure which camera to bring - so I brought a few.

I knew I had to bring my Fujifilm X100s - check.
I felt I should bring my Fujifilm X-E1 with the 14mm and 35mm - for wide angle and speed.
I thought about it then also packed my Canon 5DIII and two lenses where I thought I had a gap - 15mm and 70-200.
Then not wanting to take a chance by the water I brought my Fujifilm XP100 and F800 so I'd have some compact long zoom action.

So here is a very small snippet of what I captured with each of the camera/lens combos.  I'm still editing the pics from the weekend - but these are floating to the top now.
The top X100s group shot was at F/2 - 1/1600th with the EF20 flash - i love that high sync leaf shutter!
The wide angle of the cemetery is with the X-E1 with the 14mm F/11 @ 1/400.
The close up of the headstones with water is the F800 at 20x zoom - 500mm - F/11 @ 1/320.
The Canon images are the fish eye and zoom of the kiss.
Beach flash shots of groom and couple with the X100s.

    

I am an employee of FUJIFILM North America Corporation.

The statements, comments and opinions expressed here represent my own, personal views and are not endorsed by, or affiliated in any way with, FUJIFILM North America Corporation or its affiliates.
bremler@fujifilm.com 
 

Weekly Email - 3-8-13 - Snowy Scene of Truth ??

This week I sent out my weekly email and it was well received I am thrilled to report.  I remember shooting the image and not quite loving it - but then I revisited the image and gave it a few tweaks and fell in love with it.
And then the problems started!
In my original post of the image I stated - 
Whenever the snow hits the city it's always great to watch the transformation the area goes through.

This photo was really as is.  A person with a red umbrella just happened to walk over that bridge while I was looking out across the pond.  Such luck!

Now I didn't choose my words too carefully since I just popped out the image and did a few tweaks to it.  Such as remove the color everywhere except the umbrella, and remove two people - more as practice than a point of deception.

So then I was accused of altering the image since there was no way the umbrella person would have walked there then.  Of course I vigorously asserted that the image was as stated - the person with the umbrella walked by and I shot the image.  But I did remove the color and run a filter on it, and remove two people who to me hardly make a difference, nor are related to the assertion that I placed the red umbrella there.  I am not running a news bureau after all.

What do you think - was my statement accurate?  Did I represent the scene fairly?

You can see the originally raw file in the photoshop camera raw window below.  

Fujifilm X-Pro1 & X-E1 with a Bracket

I was going through some old gear and found my old GA Strobe bracket.  A bracket which was sold around the time the Fujifilm GA645AF cameras were popular in the market.  It was also sold with a ridiculously sized GA strobe (4-AA's).  
The neat thing about this simple bracket was that it had a built in pc plug.  Of course that doesn't help me for the TTL I'd rather be shooting - but it does help get the flash firing.  
Then I got to thinking - what would be the best shooting combo?  So I set out to try a few different options.  I think I'm going with the X-E1 with the EF-20x in commander mode so the flash fires wirelessly by the strobe on the X-E1.  I do also like the video light option, but I'm not sure how practical that is for shooting in say a bar since once you turn that light on people tend to yell at you that it's too bright!~

 Look mom no wires!!

 I could easily go with the EF-20 and plug it into the sync - but then absolutely manual shooting.

I am an employee of FUJIFILM North America Corporation.

The statements, comments and opinions expressed here represent my own, personal views and are not endorsed by, or affiliated in any way with, FUJIFILM North America Corporation or its affiliates.
bremler@fujifilm.com