Weekly Email 11-11-11 Shake and a Smile

Living in a neighborhood for many years you get to know some of the familiar faces and characters in the area.
One of the guys who hundreds if not thousands know is Melville the shake guy.  He works in Lifethyme - one of the local grocery stores and has quite a following.
Melville always has a cheery attitude and makes your shake with a smile.  Check him out sometime.

The image was tweaked using Topaz imaging software since I felt the abstract look and the colors of the scene add flavor.

The B&W shot is Mickey who is one of the local delivery guys.  He's been chugging along on his bike for more than a decade in all weather!

Then the last is Tom Sachs who I've known since the baby stroller days in Central Park.  Bumped into him at O Cafe in the hood, and with the X10 in hand made a quick shot and tweak.  Always helpful to have the camera with you!  See Tom's latest show at -Tom Sachs @ Sperone Gallery

Fujifilm X10 - 28mm at 1/60 @ F/2.0 ISO 250
Fujifilm X10 - 112mm at 1/220 @ F/2.8  ISO 200
Fujifilm X10 - 28mm at 1/170 @ F/2.5 ISO 800

Fujifilm X10 NYC Marathon

I brought the X10 to shoot at the NYC Marathon yesterday.  Some basic shots around the track area on the west side, from ISO 100-800.


I think this video shows a good overview of the X10 and its main features. A solid camera!

Make it Dramatic by Looking the Other Way

It would not be reasonable to suggest that anyone would miss the obvious sunset scene here - but it reminds me that you should always look around when you are shooting since sometimes the best action may be behind you. 
Here are a couple shots with the X10 of the same scene facing different east west directions.

Weekly Email 11-4-11 Frozen in Flight

This week as I walked down the street a bunch of pigeons took flight and I whipped the camera up to catch them in flight.  I think this shot is interesting with the various positions the birds are in as well as the lighting. 
I thought about the image last week in which I liked the black and white version and decided to take a look at this one in both formats.  I think I lean to the color version here.

I decided to see how many ways I could tweak the image and I posted five different versions for your viewing pleasure!

Fujifilm X10 - ISO 500 - F/3.6 @ 1/4000th

Fujifilm X10 ISO Range

The X10 is looking great through the ISO range.  Performance is right where I'd expect and quite usable for some of the high ISO's.  Here is the scale from 100-200-400-800-1600-3200-4000-5000-6400-12800.
All settings were left as standard in camera.

Fujifilm X10 21 Frame Burst

Today I did some shooting at high ISO and low ISO as well as some high-speed and super macro images. The files here are full res so you can click through and view or download. The ISO 1000 shots look good. Check out the Empire State at 100 and 1000.
The 21 frame burst is at the bottom as a quick video.

ISO 1000 1/90 @ F/4.0

Super Macro - ISO 100 @ F/11

ISO 1000

ISO 1000

ISO 100

ISO 1000

ISO 1000

ISO 500

Aperture 2.0

Aperture 11

Weekly Email - 10-28-11 Frozen Street Moment

As I reviewed the images from the week I kept coming back to this one.
As I looked around the scene I saw so many activities and possible thoughts from a busy NYC street that I thought I'd share it.

One item that really catches my eye is the dog and baby sorta staring at each other among the chaos since they are eye level.
There's a guy sitting on a phone booth.
A guy reading emails.
A woman carrying a portfolio.
A guy on a bike.
A sorta homeless guy with the backpack.

Does the image speak to you differently in color over black and white?

Fujifilm X10 at ISO 200 1/400 @ F/2.8

Fujifilm X10 Camera @ 10FPS

My first day with the new Fujifilm X10 was an exciting one, as expected. The camera is another photographic tool I've really waited for. A compact point-n-shoot camera with great image quality and an extremely fast release time. I'm not referring to the frames per second in the video below - the release time for AF and shutter release is really fantastic! The camera has all the usual modes of operation and in later posts and I'm sure all over the web the details on all the features will be put out in the reviews.
There are several high-speed shooting modes and the 10fps mode does drop the file size down from 12M to to approx 6M which is still respectable for street shooting at close range since I'm not sure what I'll use the 10fps for.  The write time for a 17 frame burst in about 2 seconds is approximately 9 seconds.  This will depend on card speed of course (class 10).
The feel of the manual zoom lens (28-112 f/2.0-2.8) and the fast camera ready from off time is a nice new twist on camera design. The all black body makes me think about an all black X100. For now they are easy to tell apart in my camera bag and the bag is now lighter than ever without any loss in quality.
I've added some large images here.  These are not from a final production unit, which I'll have tomorrow.  They are only jpegs straight export from Aperture with almost no adjustments.  Not hiding anything.  The soda cans are in the scene at 28 & 112mm.  You can read the weblink on the bottom of the can pretty good at 200ISO.
Click to see full size.  
With the Photo Plus show this week in NYC I haven't had enough time to shoot and the rain has made it tougher. 
I'm posting a bunch of party pics with the X10 on my FB page.  There are 75 images and 65 are shot at ISO 800.  A few at 1250, 640, 400 and 200. 
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150455348124505.419100.745489504&type=1&l=25a211d8c9
Update 10-30-11 - I got my production model X10 so will hit the town today and see what I can come up with on the streets.  The camera will be a big hit - I can feel it.
Took a nice walk with the X10 and got some random shots to show the overall look of the camera.  I'm happy with the performance and still have to put it through its high ISO paces.  These images are straight from the camera jpegs.