The angel statue at Welford Road Cemetery that has been drawing me back for years. Fujifilm X-H1 and 56mm f1.2 .
It had been a few years since I was last at Leicester’s Welford Road Cemetery, it would certainly have been before the first Covid-19 lockdown in the UK. The place is only about 2 miles from home but I just hadn’t been feeling like visiting. I had suffered multiple bereavements in 2020 so maybe part of it was feeling like I’d had enough of funereal stuff for a while. But also it was a place I’d visited quite often anyway as it was close to home.
I headed down there on Saturday morning and took my Fujifilm X-H1 and the full kit of lenses because I just “grabbed the kit bag”. I ended up only using one lens (how often does that happen?), the 56mm f1.2 .
It’s a lens which is ideal for portrait photography. 56mm on the cropped X series sensors works out to 84mm equivalent field of view, great for some head and shoulders shots and the f1.2 aperture can produce some excellent subject separation.
I only stayed for a little while, stuck around my favourite area and only shot my favourite angel and one other. I need to go back later in the day when the sun will be shining more towards her face.
A few more shots from Saturday morning below. I wasn’t feeling too inspired to experiment, too much on my mind maybe. Everything processed using a mixture of Adobe Lightroom, DXO Photolab and DXO Nik Collection.
“That Angel” with surrounding wild flowers. These old cemeteries can be a haven for wildlife. Shot at f1.2 to increase background blur. I deliberately underexposed a bit, it was a very bright morning and I wanted a slightly darker feel – it helps to bring out the colours of the flowers too.I remember when she still had that finger, lost it a few years ago now.Angel statue at Leicester’s Welford Road Cemetery.The only other statue I shot on Saturday. I was seeing the tree in the background as a dark halo around her head.
In my last post I wrote about my joy of shooting with my Fujifilm X100T. I have since then been out and about using it a bit more and appreciating this quirky little beast for what it is – a highly capable compact camera.
Earlier this evening I was just checking over some camera settings and noticed that there was a (minor) firmware update from 8 years ago which I hadn’t applied. Whilst noodling around online I thought I’d check out pricing for the current latest iteration of this camera, the X100V. Not that I’m in the market for a replacement, I was just curious.
WEX were showing the X100V at £1,349 which I believe is around the RRP, but out of stock. So I took a look on Amazon and very nearly choked on my tea when I saw it listed at £4,510.
Amazon UK listing for X100V
£4,510 for an X100V?
You could buy the medium format (Fuji are now calling it “large format”) Fuji GFX 100S for £4,799. Ok, you’d need to add a lens to that… but seriously?
Apparently the X100V has been trending on TikTok after somebody raved about it on that platform. Just goes to show what a powerful platform that is, not that I’d want to go near it.
The X100V is a lovely little camera and it has a few features I would appreciate but you would have to have way more money than sense to pay £4,500 for one.
Come to that my X100T (two generations older) is also a lovely little camera and I’ll continue to shoot with it and enjoy it. Hopefully I’ll have more photos taken with it to share here soon.
Rick and Warren. Fujifilm X-Pro2, 90mm f2. 1/125 at f2, ISO 6400.
I’m very aware that it has been a couple of months since I posted anything here. Yes, it has been a busy couple of months and thankfully some of that has been photography busy.
This photo of Rick and Warren was taken during the interval at a charity gig I recently attended at The Donkey on Welford Road, Leicester. I was there to support the good cause of the night and also to support my friends on stage : Bellatones.
I still have loads of photos to work my way through from that night which was over a week ago now but this one stood out from the pack for me when I was browsing through to see what I had captured that night.
The vast majority of my photos were of the musicians on stage, that was what I had intended to shoot after all. But at the interval I got chatting outside with Warren (the landlord at The Donkey) and Rick and his good lady, Caroline. It was Caroline who told me that it was “Rick with a silent P” so I do hope he doesn’t mind me using that as the title of this post.
We had a bit of friendly banter during which time Rick, Warren and Caroline got talking about my photography and I snapped one of Rick and Warren together at their request.
It can often be tricky to judge the technical qualities of a photo from the tiny screen on the back of a camera but this one looked pretty good and after showing it to the subjects I ended up being persuaded to take quite a few more of Rick, Warren, Caroline and various of their friends.
It was dark out there.
I had been shooting the acts on stage at ISO 3200 but for these shots I was nabbing outside the venue I had to crank it up a notch to ISO 6400. I’ve always been wary of shooting at high ISO with any camera I’ve owned but I tend to think that it’s better to get something that may have some noise but is free of camera shake so these days I tend to just go with the flow and pump up that ISO as necessary.
And I was not disappointed.
Shot at 1/125, f2 on the X-Pro2 with the excellent Fujinon 90mm lens at ISO 6400. I was even able to focus using auto-focus without any trouble. The only lighting was provided by a string of light bulbs set along the top of the wall about 10 to 15 feet to my left as I shot.
Would this photo have been any better if I’d used my so called “full frame” EOS-6D? I doubt it. I don’t like the term “full frame”. If you mean 35mm sensor then say 35mm sensor. “Full frame” is meaningless – what is full? 2.25 inch square is bigger than a 35mm frame size so how can 35mm be “full”? How about 4×5 inch sheet film? How about 8×10 inch? That makes 135 film (35mm) look tiny. Where do you stop? (I tend to agree with Zak Arias’ point of view on this as expressed wonderfully here).
The best camera is the one you have with you – whether it has a 35mm sensor, an APS-C sensor, Micro Four Thirds or a phone’s camera. You just have to get out there and shoot with it.
Old John, Bradgate Park, Leicestershire. 30 seconds at f16, ISO 200. Fujinon 35mm f2.
This morning the sun was shining and as I ate my breakfast it looked like a great day to get out and take some photos. However I was suffering from my usual problem – not knowing where to go.
I had just about made up my mind to head into town and wander around aimlessly for a while when I got an SMS from my sister and during the exchange of messages she suggested I head out to Old John, a very well known Leicestershire landmark situated in Bradgate Park.
By the time I actually got in the car the clouds had blanketed just about all of the sky. But this was fine, I had my tripod and my 10 stop ND filter with me (Cokin Nuances) so I decided during the drive that I would try taking some long exposures.
Old John, Bradgate Park, Leicestershire. One of a handful of shots I took that weren’t long exposures today. 1/35 at f11, ISO 200, Fujinon 10-24mm.
As I set up my tripod for the first time I was soon regretting not having thought to bring gloves with me. It wasn’t long before I was fumbling with the controls of the camera and shoving my hands in my pockets did little to remedy this.
I stayed around the vicinity of the Old John tower for a couple of hours getting steadily more refrigerated before deciding that I’d done enough and that what I really needed was a huge mug of tea.
As I sat processing my photos in Lightroom and sipping my tea at home, I discovered that the sensors of both my X-Pro2 and my XT-1 really could do with a very thorough clean. Dust spots show up way more at smaller apertures and I tend to use smaller apertures when I’m shooting long exposures.
It’s maybe the one downside of interchangeable lens mirrorless cameras that I can think of – more sensor dust. There’s no mirror so there’s nothing to stop dust falling right onto your sensor. I had given both bodies a good dust out using a rocket blower before heading out. Maybe it’s time I dug out the swabs I bought but have never used?
This is the reason I have used my X100T for most of my Fujifilm based long exposure work in the past. The X100 range are mirrorless but the lens is fixed so there’s no lens swapping opportunity for dust to get inside. But sometimes you just want to shoot some long exposures at different focal lengths so it’s time to suck up the dust.
A bit closer up. 28 seconds at f11, ISO 200. Fujinon 18mm f2.
The “handle” of the “tankard”. 28 seconds at f11, ISO 200. Fujinon 18mm f2.
Just over a year ago I wrote about using a then new piece of software called Iridient X-Transformer which dramatically improved my results when processing photos from my Fujifilm X System cameras.
Back in January 2017 Iridient X-Transformer was in beta testing but the results were impressive enough for me to purchase the software right away.
Since then I have been using X-Transformer on a photo by photo basis where I think it will be of most benefit to the image.
I’m now beginning to think that I should just run all my Fuji photos through X-Transformer regardless. Why? Have a look at the screen shot below. This is one small section of a photo I took in York back in November, looking along Micklegate from Micklegate Bar. It’s not a great photo, I didn’t bother to process it at the time and I’m just using it as an example here. Click on it to see it at 100% or I doubt you’ll be able to see what I’m talking about and particularly look at the lettering on the red “shop to let” sign, but also at the brickwork and the little Christmas tree.
Small section of a photo viewed in Lightroom’s compare loupe. Click to see at full size.
Which looks better / sharper / clearer / better defined to you? The image on the left or the image on the right?
To my eyes the version on the left is the clear (and clearer!) winner. No surprise then that the version on the left is the .dng file processed through X-Transformer whereas the version on the right is the default .raf imported by Lightroom.
I was originally planning to run all of my Fuji photos through X-Transformer as I stated in that original blog post but then I noticed how much more disk space the .dng file took up compared with the .raf file. In the case of the example shown the .raf file is 24.4MB, the .dng is 66.7MB. This photo was shot using my X-Pro2 and I use a (losslessly) compressed raw format so the .dng version is always going to be much larger as that compression is removed during the process of converting to .dng.
I am now thinking that it would better to accept the greater file size and just process everything I shoot on a Fuji camera (99% of my photography) through X-Transformer. I likely wouldn’t have used it to process this photo as I wouldn’t have viewed it as containing lots of intricate details – just a normal (and rather dull and uninteresting) street scene.
The difference is clear so I think it’s time for another change to my workflow. Process everything through X-Transformer before importing into Lightroom and I might as well stop using that compressed Fuji raw format on my X-Pro2 as there will be no benefit if converting to .dng anyway. Yes, the photos will take up more space but that might be a good incentive for me to be more ruthless with my “pruning” during the editing process.
I dont think this is “pixel peeping”. I think that Lightroom’s de-mosaicing of Fuji raw images is substandard and I’m not getting the full benefit of the image quality my Fuji cameras are capable of providing.
Adobe should be doing way better than this. I pay a subscription to use Lightroom, it’s not “cheap”. X-Transformer currently costs just £23.75 and is produced by a small, independent software developer. I do wish they produced their full Iridient Developer package for Windows, I’d be highly likely to switch from Lightroom.
I have considered and tried using Capture One and again the results are way better than Lightroom but at the moment I would rather not spend hundreds of pounds on new software and I don’t know how many hours learning to use it. I know Lightroom pretty well and get along with it fine, if I pre-process my photos with X-Transformer I can then just carry on as normal with Lightroom. I just wish to heck that Adobe would do something about its treatment of Fuji files. Good job Iridient are there to step in where Adobe fall short.
Two Faced, Midland Street, Leicester. I couldn’t get to the other side of the fence so I made use of it in this composition. I did consider focussing “through” the fence but felt that being able to see it enhanced the grungy, urban feel.
Today I took a stroll around Leicester with my X100T for two or three hours. The light was flat and dull so I decided that I would go in search of some colour in the form of street art.
I walk by a few eye catching examples on my way home from work each night so I knew which part of town I was aiming for – the “Cultural Quarter” near the Phoenix Arts Centre and The Curve Theatre. However I decided to park up near Victoria Park which is probably a mile or so away from my target area. That way I could wander down New Walk (a Georgian pedestrian path and much favoured location for the offices of solicitors and financial advisors) and nab photos of anything else that took my fancy on the way (and also I knew that particular car park is free to use on Sundays).
New Walk archway.
When daylight hours start to get a bit longer I can see myself walking in and out from home but that would add another couple of hours onto the round trip. The light was gloomy enough as it was today without the sun setting on me whilst I was out.
Along New Walk I had to pass New Walk Museum which currently has an Anne Frank exhibition running so I decided on the spur of the moment to pop inside and take a look (very well worth the visit). Last year they installed a new curved stairway leading up to the first floor of the museum so I stopped to grab a quick snap of that. Believe it or not even looking over the side to take this photo triggered my height issues so I didn’t really explore many angles.
New Walk Museum staircase.
I then continued on to Leicester’s Cultural Quarter and I wasn’t disappointed by the street art to be found. I knew of a few pieces already but there was more hidden away within car parks and around corners I wouldn’t have thought to turn unless I was specifically searching. A few of my favourites are to be found below along with the photo which I used at the top of this post. Many of these works (if not all) were painted in May of 2017 during a “Bring The Paint” festival.
LCB – this is the site of the old Leicester City Bus / Leicester City Transport depot on Rutland Street. I think this portrait is stunning.
“All you see is crime in the city”, Midland Street opposite Phoenix Arts. I used the fence to create an “imprisoned” feel and it was the best angle I could find anyway due to some parked trucks.
Old lady trimming the crust of a pie. Colton Street. I was sadly very limited here as the gates were locked and although there might be other ways through to the yard where this painting is located I couldn’t find them.
Bring the paint! The name of the festival which produced all this art. Corner of Southampton Street and Morledge Street.
Boogie! Less colourful than some but I loved the look anyway. Within car park at corner of Southampton Street and Morledge Street.
A Leicester Tiger… Maybe…? Within car park at corner of Southampton Street and Morledge Street.
View through a hole in the fence into a car park which had been extensively painted (including the two previous images which were on a wall out of shot to the right inside). Southampton Street,
Caged Bird, St. George Street, opposite what was the Leicester Mercury building. I walk by here every night on my way home from work so this one I knew about. Beyond the fence is a car park which I could have walked into but I decided to use the fence in my composition rather than shoot around it or over it.
Sound House, Southampton Street. A music venue I walk by every night on my way home but despite my following of the local music scene around Leicester, I’ve never been inside. I seem to remember that this building was also painted up like this during the “Bring The Paint” festival last year. I love the look – the tsunami pattern seems appropriate for somewhere where (sound) waves are generated.
I really do like having all this colour around. British streets are often so drab and dull when compared to the colourful scenes to be found elsewhere in Europe. A bit of colour like this really can give a place a lift and put a smile on your face. Well, it puts one on my face anyway.
Following this I started to head back to where I was parked and as I approached the car park I remembered that I had long intended to take a look at Evington Footway, a Victorian pedestrian pathway near to where I was parked. It’s dingy and feels rather like it would be a prime place to get mugged to be quite honest, although I spotted some CCTV cameras and maybe it would feel better on a bright sunny day. The thing is I like dark, narrow alleys, aesthetically speaking and of course those are the very places where Nefarious Acts take place. I have to say that as I walked down this footpath and met people coming the other way I felt that people might be expecting trouble from me rather than vice versa, being the rather large chap that I am.
Evington Footway.
Evington Footway.
To sum up I had a good afternoon photo walk without having to go far from home. The experience was enhanced by “travelling light”. The Fujifilm X100T is simply my favourite camera ever. Small, light, discrete and very capable. I’ve used it on several city breaks because I don’t have to bother lugging around several lenses. A 35mm equivalent prime f2 lens is ideal for city / street work and it can be simply stuffed into a general purpose shoulder bag or even a coat pocket when not in use. I also enjoy using Fuji’s hybrid viewfinders, switching from optical to electronic and back again depending upon the circumstances. I love getting a live exposure preview right in the viewfinder including whichever film simulation mode I have selected. Today I had this set to black and white with a red filter as I knew that anything other than the street art I would most likely be shooing in black and white anyway due to the general lack of light. Even though I was only shooting in raw mode (so full colour capture) the camera still honours the black and white “film” selection in the viewfinder which can be helpful.
Coffee Yard at night. York, November 2017. Fujifilm X-Pro2, Fujinon 18mm f2.
Following my previous post here I realised that I hadn’t posted anything since September and that towards the end of the post I said that I needed to get out and shoot more.
It’s not that I haven’t been getting out to shoot at all, more that I’ve not been particularly excited by my results. Much of the time it’s the same old places that I’ve visited how many times before and I’m finding nothing new to see, not feeling inspired.
Also maybe I just need to blog about my photography more, even if I’m not doing anything fantastic.
I’ve been a paying member of Flickr for a very long time now and I barely use it these days. Every now and again I realise that I’ve not uploaded any photos there for a while so I add a few but I increasingly wonder why. I find it’s rare that I obtain any kind of useful feedback there. Maybe it would be better to put extra effort into my blogging instead? As a case in point I recently once again had a photo featured in “Explore” and the views and favourites went ballistic on that photo for a couple of days. I really don’t know why. It was one of my regular shots of my favourite angel at Welford Road Cemetery. I’ve taken an awful lot of very similar shots and I would also say an awful lot of much better shots, so why this one? It really wasn’t anything special (below).
I did enjoy a few days in York during November and in particular was drawn to shooting the narrow lanes and alleys after dark. I felt these scenes were quite striking when the cobbles were wet, reflecting more light into the street. I think I need to do more night time street photography.
I also spent quite a bit of time messing around with long exposures during the autumn but I’ve yet to shoot anything that I’m particularly pleased with. I think I still have a lot to learn about which scenes make the most compelling long exposures.
After not shooting with my Canon kit for a good 18 months to two years I have tried to take it out and about with me recently. On the whole I found it a reminder of why I’d not really used it for so long. Yes, it’s bigger and heavier than my Fuji kit but there are other aspects which make me prefer shooting with the Fuji bodies. Shooting with a DSLR again I found that I really missed the “live preview” of the Fuji viewfinder. Yes, I know I could pop the DSLR into “live view” but I generally don’t like composing a photo on the screen (sometimes I will use that method if the camera is on a tripod, but never hand held). Having a live view of the final exposure is something I’ve got very used to and I think it’s particularly useful when shooting under more tricky lighting conditions.
And that is about where I am with my photography as we head into 2018. I want to play more with long exposures and I want to spend more time shooting with a single body and lens. During my recent trip to York the Fujinon 18mm was pretty well a permanent feature on my X-Pro2 and I think I enjoyed myself all the more as I wasn’t always thinking about which lens to use.
Field of corn, Aurora Nebraska. Phone snap. (this was taken from the shuttle bus as it left the viewing event after totality. The weird lighting is a combination of tinted windows and the fact that the eclipse is ongoing – the sun gradually being uncovered following totality – at the point I took this the sun was a crescent again).
Corn. Mile after mile of corn. I had been to The Cornhusker State previously but it had been 23 years before and at an earlier time in the year when the corn was less apparent in the fields.
After our concerns about “carmageddon” on the roads due to crazy eclipse crowds we actually had a very smooth journey from Thornton, Colorado to Hastings, Nebraska. We had a hotel room booked for the night before the eclipse and the plan was then to continue on the little way to the town of Aurora next day to watch the action – or if carmageddon occurred we would most likely stay put at Hastings.
After the dry air of Colorado the humidity in Hastings came as a bit of a shock and the skies were almost totally clear – a good omen for the following day. We had most of a day to kill so we looked around the campus of Hastings College where my wife had studied back in the day. I had visited here myself on one occasion and that was during my previous visit to Nebraska all those years before. It was amazing how clearly I remembered the place. We also had a wander around the town and the market stalls which had been put up as part of “SolFest“, the town’s celebration of the solar eclipse. It was a great atmosphere and expectations were running high for the following day.
August 21st dawned, the day of the eclipse. There was quite a lot of cloud about. We had two choices – drive around trying to find clear skies or head to Aurora as we had originally intended – and just hope we would be lucky. You could spend all day driving around trying to find the perfect conditions and still be defeated by the weather and my wife had friends (Dan and Tracy) who were running the Aurora eclipse viewing event – they were staying put and hoping for the best so that was what we did too.
The event had been organised at The Leadership Center, Aurora. Some folks had camped overnight but for those driving in on the day a free shuttle-bus service had been arranged, running from a nearby ball park where we left the car. Arriving at the Leadership Center we chose our spot in the shade of a couple of trees and I got my camera ready. I have to say I was very impressed with the event planning. Dan was providing a commentary during key phases of the eclipse but not so much that it detracted. Food and drink was available to buy at a very reasonable price with the proceeds making a contribution to the funding of the event. There was no charge for use of the shuttle bus and no charge for entrance to the event.
Solar filter in action shooting the eclipse.
We still had concerns about the clouds. At first we had a clear view of the sun but that was something which was constantly changing, we would just have to hope. It seemed like we had been there for quite a while before I noticed the first sliver of the sun had been eaten away – first contact. From then on I was taking shots at regular intervals. I was bracketing my exposures to try and make sure I got at least something. The filter was working well and I was getting a good view of the ever diminishing solar disc but the clouds were quite variable and although most of the time we could make out the sun behind them I was having to adjust my exposures quite dramatically to compensate. It was difficult to notice the light levels dropping around us, it was so gradual. At one point I noticed that the cicadas had started chirruping as they do in the evening, a sure sign it was getting darker.
A weather balloon being prepared for launch. Measurements being taken of atmospheric changes during the eclipse.
We were very lucky. Just moments before totality was due the clouds cleared enough for us to get a really good view. It was amazing just how bright it was right up until totality and then suddenly the light level fell to something similar to twilight as a “black hole” appeared where the sun used to be. I really don’t think any words, photographs or video can possibly do justice to the beauty and other-worldliness of witnessing a total eclipse. I felt like I was in a science fiction movie or a surrealist painting. We were in the shadow of the moon, the sun was a black hole above us with a rim of glowing plasma, stars and planets were visible in the sky during daytime and there was a 360 degree sunset extending all around us.
During totality there is no need for protective glasses or for my solar filter over the lens. I slid it off and carried on shooting whilst also trying to take in every moment of the experience.
It was true that no photo could adequately convey what it felt like but I had come all this way and I was prepared the best I could be so I fired away with my Fuji X-T1 and did the best I could. Yes, I needed a longer lens. A much longer lens. In hindsight maybe I would have been a little better off taking my EOS 7D with me just for the eclipse. That would have given me an effective 460mm (ish) instead of 300mm. What I really needed was a telescope. But I had what I had in terms of photographic kit, that decision had been made weeks before we left England and the most important thing was to experience the eclipse first hand, try to remember everything about it as clearly as I could.
I’m delighted that I was able to capture the photos below, inadequate as they are, I had to crop quite heavily due to my short focal length (click to see them larger). They are part of my memory of a unique event. It would be wonderful if I got the chance to see another total solar eclipse but I feel so fortunate to have witnessed one during my life and to have managed to capture anything at all on camera is a bonus. I was delighted that my DIY solar filter worked so well, much better than I ever expected it to.
Before the eclipse started, a complete solar disc.
A tiny sliver of the sun is missing – first contact.
Very obvious now, but the clouds are evident.
Nearly a Pac-man moment.
Maybe two thirds gone.
Crescent sun.
Just a toenail clipping left now
Last moment before totality.
Totality. Note the prominence to the top right.
Totality without the cropping. This is what I saw through my viewfinder.
Last moments of totality.
Diamond ring.
Diamond ring without the cropping.
Diamond Ring glowing brighter, a moment later it would be over.
Totality as seen from Aurora, Nebraska. 21st August 2017.
Towards the end of 2016 we received an invitation to attend the 50th wedding anniversary celebrations of my parents-in-law over in Colorado during August 2017. Nine days after the anniversary party a total solar eclipse was due to sweep over the USA from coast to coast with the path of totality passing within a “reachable” distance of my in-law’s house in Thornton, Colorado. My wife studied in Hastings, Nebraska and still has friends over there, two of whom were involved in organising an eclipse viewing event in Aurora, Nebraska. So back in December of 2016 plans were hatched and a hotel room was booked in Hastings (a short drive from Aurora) for the night before the eclipse.
I had seen partial eclipses before but I had never been lucky enough to see a total eclipse. Back in 1999 there had been a total eclipse which passed over SW England but at the time we were on the Isle of Lewis in NW Scotland and got to watch that one as a partial eclipse from Callanish stone circle. That was an amazing experience but it wasn’t a totality.
If I was going to find myself in the path of totality then I was sure as heck going to do what I could to try and take some photos of it but I didn’t want to spend a fortune in the process. I’ve already spent quite enough money on photographic equipment over the years and I didn’t want to spend loads more especially for an event which could be wiped out by the weather. After doing a bit of research I decided to make my own solar filter using Baader AstroSolar Safety Film and some cardboard.
I decided to travel with my Fujifilm cameras as they are smaller and lighter than my Canon rig, easier to transport. There was also the factor of them being mirrorless which I saw as being an extra layer of safety to prevent me from burning out my retinas. I would be looking only at an electronic viewfinder, never a view directly down a lens. The flippy out screen on my X-T1 was also a small factor in favour. This decision being made I then started construction of a filter to fit the longest lens I had for my Fuji cameras, the 55-200mm. This would give me an “equivalent” of a 300mm lens which I knew would be “too short” but I didn’t want to spend thousands just for this one event. I do have the Canon 70-300mm and my old 7D body would make that an equivalent of around 460mm but I had decided to take my Fuji kit and not my Canon kit. The rights and wrongs of that could be debated for ever – the decision had been made.
Making a solar filter from cardboard and solar safety film.
The solar safety film cost me about £20 for an A4 sheet. A ready made solar filter would have cost me several times that and this was way more fun anyway. The cardboard (as you can see) came from the delivery carton used by my favourite coffee suppliers. In addition some double sided tape and a glue gun were used. Two rings of cardboard were cut and the solar film sandwiched between them then more card was used to create a short tube which would fit over the lens hood of my chosen lens.
Expertly crafted rings of finest cardboard covered in double sided sticky tape waiting for a layer of solar film to be stuck between them.
Solar film in place between cardboard rings, tissues used to prevent scratching the solar film during construction.
The finished filter in place on my camera.
I completed the construction of the filter one wet Saturday about three weeks before we were due to fly out to the USA. British Summer being what it is, there wasn’t a sunny day when I was off from work between when I finished making it and when we were due to fly. I did take it out one evening when the sun was behind a layer of clouds and I got at least the idea that it was blocking light. Any other testing would have to wait until we reached Colorado.
Over in Colorado anniversary celebrations were enjoyed, extended family was met, ballgames were watched, mountains were experienced and then we had a couple of quiet days before the journey out to Nebraska for the eclipse. I took the opportunity to set up my camera on a tripod in the garden, pop on the filter and see how it worked. Or how it didn’t.
Sunspots! Shot with Fujifilm X-T1, 55-200mm, 1/500th at f16. Thornton, CO. 19th August 2017.
Phew!
It worked. And to be honest it worked a lot better than I was expecting it to. At first I thought the splodges were sensor dust. Mirrorless cameras are more prone to suffering from this as when you take the lens off the sensor is directly exposed rather than having a mirror in the way. I was also shooting at f16 which would accentuate any dust on the sensor. However, I moved the sun around in the frame and took more shots as I did so and the splodges stayed put. Sun spots! I couldn’t believe that I was seeing sun spots with my tiny lens and my DIY, bodged together solar filter. I was already excited by the prospect of just seeing a total eclipse. I was now also contemplating the fact that I might be able to capture a set of photos of my own of the event.
I tried the filter out using both my X-Pro2 and the X-T1 (normally I shoot with the 10-24mm on one and a longer lens on the other if I have both bodies with me). I decided that the extra resolution of the X-Pro2 didn’t outweigh the flippy out screen of the X-T1 plus in the event of an accident the X-T1 was bought as a used body and was older technology. Basically I would cry much more if my X-Pro2 got killed during this process. Sorry X-T1 but those were the cold hard facts.
We were due to drive out to Nebraska very early on the morning of Sunday 20th August. We were trying to minimise any issues with busy roads and in the couple of days before we traveled there were indeed stories on the TV news of huge traffic jams and even gas stations running out of fuel. This very nearly put us off the journey. It was a six hour drive each way to our destination in order to see 2 minutes 31 seconds of totality. If we stayed right where we were we would get something like a 90% eclipse without all the driving and the risk of being stranded and out of fuel on the Interstate in the middle of a Mad Max like scenario where rip-off merchants could charge whatever they liked for fuel, food, water – the chance to live on in this cruel, harsh world…
Fortunately our sense of adventure won out and we headed off at 4am on 20th August to drive along I76 and I80 to Hastings and a hotel room we hoped would still be held for us.
Yeah, I know I said I’d give the angels down at the cemetery a rest, I know, I know!
But I learned from my previous attempt and I wanted to go back and see if the things I thought about this were indeed so. There being no shortage of cloudy days around here I headed back to Welford Road Cemetery and put my theories and “learning” to the test.
I had come to believe that although my flash was indeed firing when using my wireless flash trigger and I was certainly obtaining some flash light in my photos, I wasn’t “getting the full benefit”. I suspected that I was wrong about my wireless flash triggers being able to fire a flash in sync with my shutter at 1/1000th of a second. I was catching some light, but not the strongest burst. By trying again and comparing wireless triggers against the flash being attached to the hot shoe of the camera I think I can put that one to bed. The X100T will indeed sync with a flash right up to 1/4000th of a second but my el-cheapo wireless flash triggers aren’t able to cope with that.
Which is fair enough!
I continued to shoot with my flash on the hot shoe but naturally I missed the creative possibilities of being able to position the flash independently. I do have a PC Sync cable (that’s “Prontor Compur” not Personal Computer!) and my Nissin Di866 flash unit has a PC Sync socket but the X100T doesn’t. The wireless triggers will still have their uses but not for when I’m trying to beat back sun light by shooting at a high shutter speed with the X100. I think I need to invest in a hot shoe extension cable and will need to do some research into my best option for the equipment I’m using (Fujifilm camera with a Canon compatible strobe…).
Next we come to a couple of the features of the X100T itself and how they relate to this quest for sun defying flash.
Firstly that leaf shutter. Yes, it will sync with my flash all the way up to 1/4000th of a second, but there are some limitations inherent to this shutter to consider. With or without flash there are limits to the fastest shutter speed which can be used according to the size of aperture selected.
At f2 it’s possible to shoot at shutter speeds of up to 1/1000th of a second.
At f4 it becomes possible to shoot at up to 1/2000th of a second.
At f8 it becomes possible to shoot at up to 1/4000th of a second.
Now remember I’m using the shutter speed to reduce ambient light whilst trying to keep my aperture as wide as possible in order to maximise the effect of my flash. So it becomes a balancing act – as is generally the case with photography. I can block out more ambient light by selecting a faster shutter speed of 1/4000th of a second, but in order to do so I would need to close down my shutter by four whole stops to f8. This makes the difference between my flash being blinding and just a barest glimmer of light.
Thus I find my “sweet-spot” for what I’m trying to achieve is to shoot at f2 and with a shutter speed of 1/1000th, using faster shutter speeds requires the aperture to be closed down too much to make the best of the power of my flash. I could shoot 1/2000th at f4 but that only reduces the ambient by one stop whilst reducing the flash sensitivity by two stops. Similarly going from 1/1000th at f2 to 1/4000th at f8 reduces the ambient by two stops whilst reducing the flash sensitivity by four stops. It could be done but I would need a flash four times more powerful than my Nissin.
Secondly the X100 series of cameras has a unique and very useful feature – a built in three stop neutral density filter. This is very useful when considering the aforementioned limitations of the leaf shutter. If you’re shooting in bright conditions but want to use f2 to blur the background then you can only shoot at up to 1/1000th of a second, you’ll probably be way over-exposed. No problem with the X100 series – push a button and the built in ND filter activates reducing the light hitting your sensor by three hole stops. And yes, it is a physical filter built into the body of the camera not an electronic work-around. This has made my X100T a favourite camera to use for long exposures. I have a Cokin 10 stop ND filter but by combining that with the ND filter of the X100T that can go up to a massive 13 stops at the touch of a button.
How is this of use in terms of sun conquering flash? Well I found that I could use the ND filter to reduce the ambient light quite a lot whilst not making such a huge reduction to the apparent power of the flash. Yes, the ND filter will be reducing all light coming through the lens but the flash is incredibly bright and only travels a short distance. So I can use the ND filter to make the sky look considerably darker whilst not appreciably diminishing the very much brighter light reflecting flash from my subject a few feet away. That is the best I can explain it. It seems counter-intuitive to use an ND filter to make my flash light more powerful but it’s “more powerful compared to ambient” that I’m after.
So now I really will give the angels a rest for a while, at least until I get myself a hot shoe extension cable.
