Calke Abbey

Rocking Horse, dark and contrasty.
Rocking horse at Calke Abbey.

A couple of weeks ago I visited Calke Abbey in Derbyshire. Despite having lived just 30 miles away all of my life this was my first ever visit. I was inspired to visit by having seen photos taken there by a friend some years ago and the knowledge that the place had been “preserved” in the rather run down and shabby state that it was in rather than being renovated.

I took my entire bag of Fuji lenses and a couple of bodies, my X-H1 and my X-Pro2. As it turned out I used my 90mm f2 on my X-H1 and my 35mm f1.4 on the X-Pro2 for the entire duration. As they don’t like large bags in the place then I’ll know better what kit to take next time and leave the Think Tank Retrospective 20 camera bag at home.

I loved the lighting conditions inside the house and on this visit that’s all I did, explore the house. There are hundreds of acres of grounds and a church and heaven knows what else to explore and I’m sure I’ll be back regularly to seek out new photographic inspiration. 

The rocking horse shown above was in a room that was used as a schoolroom. I was loving the way the sunlight was pouring through the window to the right and creating the kind of localised contrasty lighting I enjoy so much. I did a quick B&W conversion using a somewhat modified “Film Noir” filter in Silver Efex. A couple of others shots from the visit are shown below.

Rocking Horse, dark and contrasty.
Rocking horse at Calke Abbey in black and white.

 

Lamp and books on a side table, dark and moody.
Lamp and books on a side table, Calke Abbey.
Light streaming in through an old window.
I’m always attracted to dilapidation and this old window certainly fitted that bill.

Rick With A Silent P

Rick and Warren.
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.

Suffering From (Long) Exposure

Old John
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
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.

Old John
A bit closer up. 28 seconds at f11, ISO 200. Fujinon 18mm f2.

Old John
The “handle” of the “tankard”. 28 seconds at f11, ISO 200. Fujinon 18mm f2.

Am I Just Pixel Peeping?

Micklegate
Micklegate, York.

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.

compare
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.

Chasing The Sun – Part 2

Corn
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).

 

Continued from Chasing The Sun – Part 1

 

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.
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.

Weather Balloon.
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.

Solar eclipse 2017.
Before the eclipse started, a complete solar disc.

First contact.
A tiny sliver of the sun is missing – first contact.

Eclipse 2017.
Very obvious now, but the clouds are evident.

Eclipse 2017.
Nearly a Pac-man moment.

Solar eclipse.
Maybe two thirds gone.

Solar eclipse.
Crescent sun.

Solar Eclipse.
Just a toenail clipping left now

Solar eclipse.
Last moment before totality.

Totality.
Totality. Note the prominence to the top right.

Solar Eclipse.
Totality without the cropping. This is what I saw through my viewfinder.

Solar eclipse.
Last moments of totality.

Solar eclipse.
Diamond ring.

Solar eclipse.
Diamond ring without the cropping.

Diamond Ring
Diamond Ring glowing brighter, a moment later it would be over.

Chasing The Sun – Part 1

Totality
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.

Solar Filter
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.

Solar filter.
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 filter.
Solar film in place between cardboard rings, tissues used to prevent scratching the solar film during construction.

 

Solar filter.
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.
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.

 

Continued in Part 2

Auto ISO

Auto ISO settings
Auto ISO settings on the X-Pro2.

Dear Fujifilm,

The usefulness of having an “Auto ISO” setting became very clear to me during one of my visits to Rome several years ago now. I was shooting only with my X100 because I wanted to liberate myself from lugging loads of camera equipment around a hot (by my native British standards) city in July.

I loved the way that I could be outside in the bright sunshine of a piazza one moment and then step into the darkened interior of one of The Eternal City’s many beautiful churches and the X100 would automatically up the ISO as needed. Head back outside again and the ISO was automatically reduced appropriately. Wonderful. Thank you. I could carry on shooting without missing a beat in radically different lighting scenarios.

What really helped this to work so well was that the X100 had a prime 35mm equivalent lens. I could set the minimum shutter speed the camera would permit before it increased the ISO for me to something that fitted the old formula for shooting to reduce the chance of camera shake – ie 1 / <focal length>, so maybe with the X100 1/40.

Applying this to shooting with my X-Pro2 is a bit more… painful. Why? Because I have a bunch of different lenses all with different focal lengths. 18mm, 35mm, 90mm, 55-200mm. If I’m using the 18mm lens I might set the auto ISO to 1/30, switch to the 90mm and now it needs to be maybe 1/125 or 1/160. Pop on the 55-200mm and… well, you get the picture. Ok, on the X-Pro2 you give me 3 different Auto ISO settings I can select, which is great – but that only allows for three different lenses assuming I wanted to use all three settings in this way.

Fujifilm, when I pop a Fujinon lens onto my X-Pro2 surely the camera knows which lens it has attached? I know it does because the optical viewfinder does all kinds of clever things to adjust the framing lines according to my focal length.

So… How about giving us the option to have an Auto ISO setting of “FL” – which would set the minimum shutter speed to something fitting the old rule of thumb 1 / <focal length>? You have the communication between camera body and lens to be able to work this out for me, so how about it?

And on the zoom lenses you could set that 1 / <focal length> minimum shutter speed intelligently as I zoom in and out, yes?

I’m going to overlook that the lens might have OIS which would change the formula considerably. Yes, your image stabilisation really is very good but for the purposes of this suggestion I’m willing to ignore it.

Sure, keep all the fixed shutter speeds there too, I might want to use one of those if I have a stabilised lens attached or I have some other requirement.

Would this really be too difficult to implement?

And how about your other interchangeable lens cameras?

I’m thinking this is such an obvious thing that surely people must have asked for it before so I’m guessing it actually must be too difficult to implement?

By the way, loving your cameras! The last time I shot with a Canon body was well over a year ago now.

 

Kind Regards,

Chris

Welford Road

Welford Road Cemetery
Using my Helios 44M. 1/10000 at f2.

I had a brief window of opportunity to get out with a camera on Saturday afternoon. Not having a huge amount of time before I needed to be back again I headed a couple of miles north of home to Leicester’s Welford Road Cemetery. This oasis of tranquillity is somewhere I find myself strolling around on a fairly regular basis. It was opened in 1849, is still in use and is (according to the leaflet produced by Leicester City Council) the third oldest municipal cemetery in the country.

I have been taking photos of some of the monuments here for quite a few years now. My favourite by a long way is the angel shown at the top of this post which stands over the grave of one Sarah Ann Palmer Cox (died 1912 aged 52) and her husband John Thomas Cox (died 1920 aged 77). She is sadly now missing her right index finger which was in place when I first started taking her photo but I still find her to be serene, sombre and a wonderful work of art.

I decided that I hadn’t been making much use of my Helios 44M lens so I shot with that for a while. I need to make sure I take it out with me more often, I do love the swirly quality of the bokeh using this lens. I’ve recently switched from using the “focus peak” function of my X-Pro2 to the “digital split image” method for assisting with manual focus. I think the digital split image is more like the focussing systems I grew up using and whether because of this or for some other reason I seem to be finding it’s the more accurate method for me.

I also wanted to try taking some long exposures. I had my Cokin Nuances 10 stop ND filter with me and set up my tripod for a couple of shots. It soon became clear that there wasn’t enough movement in the clouds to make anything particularly interesting but hey, if you don’t try…

Handy mobile app tip : Lee Filters, Stopper Exposure Guide available for free (at time of writing) for Android and IOS.

Welford Road Cemetery
A 30 second exposure at f11.

At the other end of the spectrum I was also making use of the electronic shutter of the X-Pro2 at times. I was shooting wide open with f2 lenses in bright light and the lowest native ISO setting of the X-Pro2 is 200. The physical shutter fires at up to 1/8000 but there were times I was shooting at 1/10000 or so. I was shooting in aperture priority so I was a little surprised the first time the electronic shutter activated. Totally silent shutter release. I’m more often shooting in very dark locations so I forgot all about having configured this feature.

I know that some people think I’m excessively morbid and can’t understand why I would want to wander around a cemetery with my camera. I’m not morbid, I find that there is an abundance of art on display in an old cemetery like this and history is all around.

(More photos I’ve taken at Welford Road Cemetery over the years can be found in this Flickr album).

Another making use of my Helios 44M.

Welford Road Cemetery
Using the 55-200mm to reach up to this rather eerie face on an obelisk.

Welford Road Cemetery
Shot using the Fujinon 90mm f2.

Pi Bar 27th January 2017

The Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion performing at Pi Bar, Leicester. 27th January 2017 (Fujinon 90mm, 1/250 at f2, ISO 8000).

Friday evening found me heading out through the cold and wet of an English winter evening to the snug comfort of Pi Bar on Leicester’s Narborough Road. It had been a while since I’d last shot a gig and it was time once again to crank up the ISO, select my fastest lenses and see what developed on-stage.

Christopher Moody and the Underground Kings
Christopher Moody and the Underground Kings at Pi Bar, Leicester. 27th January 2017 (Fujinon 55-200mm, 1/60 at f4.8, ISO 6400).

I started shooting with the Fujinon 55-200mm which has the advantage of giving me image stabilisation in addition to a good long reach. However, image stablisation is only half the battle when the light is low, you also have movement of the subject to consider and musicians have a tendency not to have their feet nailed to the floor (excepting Steve Rothery). After a little while I decided it would be better to break out the 90mm f2, trading the OIS and longer reach for some extra stops of light.

Bellatones
Bellatones performing at Pi Bar, Leicester. 27th January 2017 (Fujinon 90mm 1/250 at f2, ISO 8000).

I did mention cranking up the ISO didn’t I? At many venues I’m often shooting around ISO 3200. Here at Pi Bar I started off at 6400 and soon decided that I needed to up it to ISO 8000. Dark? Hell yes, it was dark. So many of these small venues really could do with better lighting but I guess they’re not really too interested in making life easier and more interesting for photographers. A few well used spots make such a difference, giving me the kind of high contrast look I enjoy and making subject isolation easier.

ISO 8000 is maybe a notch higher than I would generally like to go and it does show in the graininess of these pictures. Having said that I do find the grain produced by my X-Pro2 to be more pleasing and reminiscent of film grain than that produced by my EOS  6D (or other previous Canon bodies). Usually I would much rather have a grainy photo than a blurry photo (unless the blur is intentional). Yet again I was very impressed at the low light performance of my X-Pro2’s APS-C sized sensor. If Fuji can make a sensor perform like this at APS-C then what is the new Fujifilm GFX 50S medium format camera going to be capable of? (Sadly I won’t be getting the chance to shoot with one of those unless I win the lottery).

Bellatones
Bellatones performing at Pi Bar, Leicester. 27th January 2017. (Fujinon 90mm, 1/250 at f2, ISO 8000).

I have to say that in these murky conditions the 90mm f2 did seem to provide a superior auto-focus experience than the 55-200. This is probably only to be expected as the 90mm is the more recent lens by a good couple of years and it’s also a prime. What I lost in reach I gained in consistent results.

During the evening I enjoyed music from three different bands : Christopher Moody and the Underground Kings, Bellatones and finally The Whiskey Rebellion – all of them excellent. More photos from the evening can be found in this album on Flickr. I’ll be keeping an eye on future events at Pi Bar as it’s not far from home and I find it a welcoming, relaxing venue – even if the lights could do with turning up a bit on the stage.

Iridient X-Transformer

1:1 crops : default Lightroom import on the left, same file processed with Iridient X-Transformer to the right. Click to see full size (X-Pro2, Fujinon 10-24mm f4 – yes, I know – not a “portrait lens”!)

I use Adobe Lightroom as my raw processing software of choice and I have done so since it was first released. Back then I was a Canon shooter but for the last several years I’ve been shooting more and more Fuji to the point where as I write I’ve not shot using my Canon gear for over a year.

As a Fuji shooter I have been aware of the raw processing software “Iridient Developer” for quite some time. I have often been astonished by the apparent difference in the rendering of Fuji raw files between Adobe Lightroom and Iridient Developer. Iridient seemed to create cleaner, clearer, sharper renderings of the same image. This seemed all the more remarkable as Iridient Digital is a “small” company, indeed to the best of my knowledge a “one-man band”.

Impressed as I was by the results I was seeing being obtained using Iridient Developer it was sadly not for me. The software was only available for Mac OS and I switched back from Mac OS to Windows several years ago now. As a keen amateur photographer (ie – not somebody who makes a lot of money out of photography) I was not going to switch back to using Macs again just to be able to run Iridient Developer, no matter how much better it might make my results.

Last year I read rumors that Iridient were working on “something for Windows”. This was exciting news for me as I found it galling that despite much improvement over the last couple of years Lightroom still didn’t seem to render Fuji raw files as well as Iridient did.

I had been checking the Iridient Digital web site for any further news of a Windows release for several months and then just as it seemed like nothing was ever going to happen I seem to have missed the notification by about a week.

Iridient X-Transformer isn’t a full-blown raw processing package. What it does is de-mosaic the Fuji raw file and store it as a dng (Digital Negative) file. Once X-Transformer has produced the dng file you are free to import it into any raw processor you like which supports the dng format – for example Adobe Lightroom.

Over the last year or so I had been thinking that Lightroom had caught up a lot and maybe there wouldn’t be a whole lot of difference between X-Transformer results and a native Lightroom import.

I was wrong!

The comparison I posted at the head of this post shows very clearly just how much of a difference there is (click on the image to see the full size version). This is a photo I took of my daughter during a visit to Bolsover Castle on December 27th 2016. It just happened to be one of my favourite portraits of her for quite a while so it was foremost in my mind and I thought that the catch-lights in her eyes along with her eyelashes and eyebrows would give X-Transformer a good test. Lots of fine detail in the shot.

The original Lightroom import to the left looks almost like there’s something over the top of the image which makes it less distinct, although at the time I took it I was pleased enough with the photo. The eyebrows and lashes almost seem to smear together, the catch-light just isn’t crisp.

Looking at the X-Transformer processed version to the right is like putting on a pair of spectacles.

And when I say “processed” both of these images are before I’ve done any actual edits on them. The only processing has been importing into Lightroom and in the case of the X-Transformer version being converted to a dng and then importing into Lightroom. Everything is set to “default” for both versions.

The results appear to be so clear, so crisp and so sharp that I think I might need to tone down my homemade Lightroom preset for sharpening X-Trans files.

The image shown in the comparison was produced with X-Transormer before I paid to register it – an event which happened very shortly after I carried out the comparison! It cost me around £32 to purchase the software and this seems like very good value for money to reveal the true brilliant performance of all of my Fuji X-Mount lenses (and my X100T).

I intend to add X-Transformer into my Lightroom workflow by pre-processing all of my Fuji shot photos though it before importing the batch to Lightroom. X-Transformer can also be used from within Lightroom as an “external editor” (once configured according to the instructions included in the help file) – right click a photo in Lightroom and send it to X-Transformer.

It seems that X-Transformer is very aptly named. It really does transform your X-Trans photos if you’re used to the results Adobe Lightroom produces.

 

Edit : A bit of an oversight maybe not to show the whole of the image I used for the comparison in this post. This is after processing in Lightroom but not shown at full size.

My daughter Michelle at Bolsover Castle. Fujifilm X-Pro2, Fujinon 10-24mm f4.