Photo of the week - May 7, 2013

Chris Masterson (playing with Steve Earle) at the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville, PA. May 3, 2013. Fuji X-Pro1 @ 3200 ISO with a 60mm lens @ f/2.4. Processed with Aperture and Snapseed (Mac version). See more pictures from this show here.

Photo of the week - April 30, 2013

Aimee Mann at the World Cafe at the Queen in Wilmington, DE. April 24, 2013. Fuji X-Pro1 @ 3200 ISO with a Nikon 135mm DC lens @ f/2 (Novoflex Nikon to Fuji adapter). Processed with Aperture and Snapseed (Mac version). See more from this show here.

Aimee Mann @ The World Cafe Live at the Queen

I had my first opportunity to try out my Fuji X-Pro1 with a Nikon lens (using a Novoflex adapter) last night at the Aimee Mann show in Wilmington. I originally bought the adapter because I wanted to use my Nikon 10.5mm fisheye with the X-Pro1, but I haven't had the opportunity to do so yet. Given that we had balcony seats, I took my Nikon 135mm DC f/2 lens (rather than the Fuji 60mm that I used at the David Bromberg Quartet show last month) for the extra reach and large aperture. The downside to this lens, at least when attached to the Fuji, is that it's manual focus only. I was worried that it would be hard to get images that were in focus, but it ended up being okay. Sure, it's not as easy to manually focus as with my FM3A, but it's certainly more than useable. I hit focus about half the time, which doesn't seem to be so bad given the circumstances (i.e., long lens, large aperture, moving target, handheld from my seat). While it's certainly a bulkier lens than you'd usually want to use regularly on a small-bodied camera like the X-Pro1, it wasn't too unwieldy.

This has me thinking more about the just-announced 55-200mm Fuji zoom. I wonder how it would have autofocused in these conditions (especially in the low light)? At 200mm it's 2.5 stops slower than my 135mm, but with stabalization it should be fine in reducing camera shake, although there would still be motion blur. If Fuji released a telephoto prime (somewhere between 135mm and 200mm) at f/2 or f/2.8, I'd be all over it as an awesome lens for concert photography.

Things I'm waiting (impatiently) for...

1. Summer vacation. That's a no-brainer.

2. A trip to Europe; either Barcelona or the UK. Unfortunately, that might not be the same as #1 above. We had a trip to London and Edinburgh planned a few summers ago, but at the last minute our flight got canceled due to the Icelandic volcano ash cloud. Come to think of it, put Iceland on the "to go" list too.

3. Fuji's forthcoming 10-24mm f/4 lens. The recently released 14mm f/2.8 is tempting, but I'd be willing to trade one stop for the zoom range of the 10-24mm, especially given the impressive high ISO performance of the X-Pro1. I'm moderately tempted by the 55-200mm lens that is also on the roadmap; I'm not sure how much it would get used, but I can imagine it would come in handy once in a while. The other planned lenses are interesting too (23mm f/1.4, 27mm f/2.8, and 56mm f/1.4 f/1.2), but I'm not sure if I'll have a need for any of them, and the 18-55mm zoom looks like a nice kit lens, but I'm not interested in it with the primes that I currently have. Update: broke down and got the 14mm and 55-200mm lenses, but still want the 10-24mm! Update 2: I'm committing to the Fuji X system for my primary shooting. I got the X-E1 with 18-55mm kit lens when it went on clearance, and along the way have picked up the 27mm, 56mm, and 10-24mm lenses.

4. The backordered GateKeeper straps from F-Stop, to enhance the flexibility of the Kenti pack that I just got. Update 1: still no GateKeepers, but I've added a Loka pack and found an alternative to the Gatekeepers that should suffice in the meantime. Update 2: Gatekeepers have landed. Still waiting on the rain cover for my Loka...It's been almost 6 months.

5. The next iPad ("iPad 5"). I somehow put a small crack on the screen of my iPad (not in the viewable area, but annoying nonetheless), and rather than pay to get it fixed, I'm waiting for the new model. Hopefully it's spring 2013, not fall. Update: The iPad Air was announced in October 2013. I'll be queuing up to get one, unless I decide to downsize to the new Retina Mini instead...

Photo of the week - February 19, 2013

At the Saint Louis Cemetery #1 in New Orleans. Fuji X-Pro1 with 35mm lens @ f/1.4. Processed with Snapseed (Mac version).

Photo of the week - February 12, 2013

At the Saint Louis Cemetery #1 in New Orleans. Fuji X-Pro1 with 35mm lens @ f/8. Processed with Snapseed (Mac version).

Photo of the week - February 5, 2013

Marie Laveau's tomb at the Saint Louis Cemetery #1 in New Orleans. Fuji X-Pro1 with 35mm lens @ f/8. Processed with Snapseed (Mac version).

Photo of the week - January 29, 2013

Murals in the Mission District of San Francisco. Fuji X-Pro1 with 35mm lens @ f/2. Processed with Snapseed on an iPad.

Photo of the week - January 22, 2013

At the El Sur Ranch (Highway 1, side of the road). Fuji X-Pro1 with 60mm lens @ f/2.8, processed with Snapseed on a iPad.

Photo of the week - January 8, 2013

At the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Fuji X-Pro1 with 35mm lens @ f/1.4, processed with Snapseed on an iPad.

Photo of the week - November 6, 2012

At Longwood Gardens. Fuji X-Pro1 with 60mm macro lens. Processed with Snapseed on an iPad.

Photo of the week - October 30, 2012

At Longwood Gardens. Fuji X-Pro1 with 60mm macro lens. Processed with Snapseed on an iPad.

Photo of the week - August 21, 2012

Giacometti's Walking Man II and Picasso's Nude Under a Pine Tree at the Art Institute of Chicago. Fuji X-Pro1 with 35mm lens. Processed with Snapseed on an iPad.

Photo of the week - August 14, 2012

Millennium Park, Chicago. Fuji X-Pro1 with 35mm lens. Processed with Snapseed on an iPad.

Fuji X-Pro1

A pretty cool new camera platform... If I wasn't already invested in the Nikon system and didn't have an X100, I might consider jumping into this.

The draw here, of course, is that it's an interchangeable lens system. But it's not as compact as the X100, and I'm finding I really like the X100's 23mm (~35mm equivalent) field of view.