Fuji X-T1 Thoughts & Samples

Trip: We're driving to Montreal, then driving to Wisconsin to drop off our dog at my wife's folks' place. He'll stay there for the month while we carry on. After WI, though, it's all bromptons-on-the-train until we have to fly from the end of the run back to WI. Then we drive the dog back to Boston. So for the majority of it, we'll be hopping off a train, unfolding the bikes, tossing the panniers onto the bikes, the girl will climb up onto her little saddle mounted in front of mine, and off we'll go to whatever AirBnB we've booked to stay in. During the 2-5 days we spend in each spot, we'll be riding the route/s we've planned to show for each city, making notes on the route, and shooting images for it. Also we'll be making contacts with future route ambassadors for that city, hotel owners (revenue model depends in part on them), brewery owners, bike shop owners, and local bike advocate groupy types.

Ray: There's basically no reason to ever sell a Brompton as far as I can tell, though I'm glad people do... both ours were bought used off Craigslist (Texas and Minneapolis - good thing they fold up small and light for shipping!). I love the green. Both ours are boring black, but both also got tricked out by their previous zealot owners. Both came with generator front hubs for permanent battery-free lights, quick disconnect bag mounts and a total of 4(!) bags to choose from, and somehow both have the titanium forks and swing arms to save weight. And the kid seat mount bar thing... just happened to come with the second one. And a tool kit that hides in the frame, and spare tubes, and a top-shelf NYC u-lock, and and and. Gotta love buying someone's well-sorted kit at a discount.

Lenses: Right now I'm struggling little bit with the X-T1. I think I'm a primes kinda guy, but in practice I keep swapping between the 14 and the 35 like crazy. I probably should've gotten the 23, because I know and love that length, but I thought "no I have the X100 for that." Meanwhile, I'm basically trying to get the 14 and the 35 to BE the X100. I still see in that length, new lenses be damned. So the idea of the 27 being a little longer than what I expect (but not too much longer), and being so physically small, seems like a home run. These are expensive decisions to dither over. Meanwhile in the mail here comes a 56 1.2... I'm thinking I need to take a week, lock one prime onto it, go shoot every day at lunch, and rewire my brain into seeing new lengths better.

Sounds like a great trip. Perfect way to use Bromptons too - no long tours on 'em but perfect for getting around an area once you're there. I've read of people doing huge tours on them but I can't seem to handle more than 10-15 miles at a time on them - even when I was in prime riding shape. But I love tooling around towns on mine. Mine has the bag mount on front, but I only ever got around to buying one bag for it. No other fancy doo-dads, but I did swap out the bars when I got it for flat bars because I liked a slightly more aggressive position. At this point in my dotage, I'd probably be real happy to have the original bars back on it. And of course you have to have a Books on it!

Good luck with lenses. I was going back and forth between the 14 and 23 a lot when I was out in the Bay Area, but I'd usually just stick one on and shoot with it for a couple of hours and then switch to the other and use IT for a couple of hours - so not a lot of switching back and forth...

-Ray
 
Good luck with lenses. I was going back and forth between the 14 and 23 a lot when I was out in the Bay Area, but I'd usually just stick one on and shoot with it for a couple of hours and then switch to the other and use IT for a couple of hours - so not a lot of switching back and forth...

This whole reach-into-bag-swap-lens phenominon is pretty new to me. Each time it still feels like a delay in the process. I'm trying to either do it less, or get better at it, or just get used to it.

Think I'm going out at lunch to Harvard Square with the 35, and Nothing But The 35. Force myself to see things with it.
 
This whole reach-into-bag-swap-lens phenominon is pretty new to me. Each time it still feels like a delay in the process. I'm trying to either do it less, or get better at it, or just get used to it.

Think I'm going out at lunch to Harvard Square with the 35, and Nothing But The 35. Force myself to see things with it.

Good luck! I tried that a number of times with various 50mm equivalent lenses over the years. It's all I shot with as a kid (because it's about all there was) and I was fine with it then. But recent attempts have been fruitless and I've finally given up on myself with that focal length. I just seem to be photographically blind in that area - it's my Bermuda Triangle focal length where images just disappear. A 35 equivalent like the 23 is as close to "neutral" as I can handle and even that's a little long for me most of the time. But there are obviously a LOT of people who love that 50mm equivalent territory and I hope you can make it work for you - it's an awfully nice lens!

-Ray
 
Last night when I got home, I thought "ok dammit, right now, the pug is in intersting light. Pick up that X-T1 and try to make a good picture like you could with the X100." And I actually used both, but I forgot to bring in the X100 so I can upload the pics from it to compare yet. But here's what I did with the 14 on the T... all 3 are SOOC:

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I am happy with these. Now I need to stop having 7 wildly different presets, so I can figure out what settings are working and what aren't. Like in Hvd Square yesterday, I stood on a corner in bright afternoon light, just shooting "stuff" so I could chimp, tweak, and re-try. Right out of the gate I was blowing highlights with everything set to neutral. And I could tell even from the tiny jpgs... things looked "overcooked" a little. I went in and softened up both the highlights and shadows, and the photo was MUCH better. So now I have to see if that's a universal thing, or just for bright sunlight.
 
I know this is a Fuji thread, but since I brought up the "selfie" issue a few pages back, I'll just post one fun picture I took with the help of the tiltable LCD of the NEX 5T coupled with a Rokinon fish eye 8mm, which I eneded up buying. I believe it would be very difficult to get a picture like this with other options like the Wifi one suggested here and which I had already tried. It is just a fun picture of course (well, photography is to have fun as well, I guess hehehe) where I played a little bit with PP (need to improve on PP, don't like how my face ended up, but this may be my own genetic problem...), but the framing is completely OOC. While not a remarkable framing, it is quite OK for its purposes and I doubt I could have achieved it without the LCD and have my own private silly little fun!

If it is improper to post a Nex photo here, please let me know, I'll take out. Cheers!

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I can imagine how a screen that tilted all the way around might be nice. I've very quickly come to take the X-T1's tiltable screen for granted, as I discovered when I took the X100 out all day Saturday. Suddenly it seemed... slow. Limited. I know it isn't really either of those things, and I did manage some good shots with it. But suddenly I missed things like a tilting rear screen...
 
I can imagine how a screen that tilted all the way around might be nice. I've very quickly come to take the X-T1's tiltable screen for granted, as I discovered when I took the X100 out all day Saturday. Suddenly it seemed... slow. Limited. I know it isn't really either of those things, and I did manage some good shots with it. But suddenly I missed things like a tilting rear screen...

Yup, that's the danger of adding a brand new camera alongside an older one that you are otherwise perfectly happy with. The only way I find to keep the love with the older camera (assuming that my intent is not to sell it) is to forget about what it doesn't do compared to the new one and instead just concentrate on what it does do. That's the reason why my Panasonic GH1 has hung on alongside my Olympus E-M5 for two years and counting.
 
It's funny, they do render things VERY differently for cameras with the same size sensor, made by the same company. Well, "very" to me. Like I almost always shot the X100 at -1/3 EV, sometimes more, and it looked "right." I'm finding that with the X-T1 it's often the opposite. With even grey lighting, it looks best to my eye with the EV boosted a third or two... the subjects come out great and the background melts even further. So they don't behave the same way, and each has a niche or two that the other sensor style doesn't do as well with. In bright harsh sunlight, I'm having a much easier time with X100 files than I am with the XT stuff.
 
It's funny, they do render things VERY differently for cameras with the same size sensor, made by the same company. Well, "very" to me. Like I almost always shot the X100 at -1/3 EV, sometimes more, and it looked "right." I'm finding that with the X-T1 it's often the opposite. With even grey lighting, it looks best to my eye with the EV boosted a third or two... the subjects come out great and the background melts even further. So they don't behave the same way, and each has a niche or two that the other sensor style doesn't do as well with. In bright harsh sunlight, I'm having a much easier time with X100 files than I am with the XT stuff.

Actually I'm finding that I have to boost the exposure on the X-T1 aswell =/

I think it's a damn good product, Fujifilm have finally nailed it although I really want them to work on their video mode :(

the ISO dial is a bit stiff and the shot lever is a bit looser so when I'm on single shot, I tend to move it by accident when I want to change ISO and I don't see getting use to that any time soon gah.
 
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