My style, my clients and my way of working have changed a lot since I started out as a professional photographer about eight years ago … and so has technology. Therefor I started a major gear bag audit a couple of months ago. I thought I’d share my thought process with you in a couple of blog posts. Check the posts about my current main camera: the FujiFilm X-Pro1 and my first impressions of the X-E1.
At the moment I’m also testing a Nikon D600 (more about that soon) and I wanted to test that camera together with my buddy Stijn during an improvisation night time shoot in the empty streets of Aalst. Although the D600 is a really nice camera, I just feel more creative with the X-Pro1 or X-E1. So after a bit of testing the D600 went in to my backpack and I switched to the X-E1.
A big thanks to Nele and Steffi for reacting to our Facebook message requesting models and coming out to pose for us on this cold night. I ended up shooting a mix of some portraits, behind-the-scenes shots and other snaps. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves and just add some comments and settings here and there.
Here’s Stijn shooting Steffi. All ambient light, shot at ISO 1600 – 35mm – f/1.4 – 1/50
Stijn shooting Steffi with a speedlight. I had also a trigger on my X-E1 so, I used his flash for this setup shot.
My first shot of Steffi, using ambient light only. The light on her face is from a streetlight, filtering through a tree. 35mm – ISO 3200 – f/1.4 – 1/60
Walking through the streets, I noticed a closed shop window and tried to use the pretty ugly fluorescent shop window light to my advantage while shooting Nele on the reflective background.
ISO 500 – 35mm – f/2 – 1/250
We moved on to use another shop window as our main light. And some lights on the street as our background.
ISO 3200 – 60mm – f/2.8 – 1/60
Here’s just a quick snap of Steffi while she was posing for Stijn.
ISO 6400 - 60mm – f/2.4 – 1/60
Since I learned that shopping windows make for really nice softboxes, I shot a couple more with Steffi.
ISO 1600 – 60mm – f/2.4 – 1/60
ISO 1600 – 60mm – f/2.4 – 1/60
And if there’s no big soft available light source, we make one ourselves. In the next picture, Nele is lit by bouncing a speedlight on the buildings on the opposite side of the street.
ISO 1600 – 60mm – f/2.4 – 1/60
A little thing about the Fujinon 60mm lens: It’s a great lens but sometimes there’s a little issue with the autofocus. It sometimes goes all the way through the focus range before eventually getting it right. This just takes too long. I can’t remember having that problem when I tested that lens a couple of months ago. The issue happens with both the X-E1 and the X-Pro1. I also remember Damien Lovegrove mentioning the same issue since firmware 2.0. I hope Fuji will fix that issue soon. For now I found out that manual focussing with this lens is much easier than expected.
Let’s move on to Stijn’s ET-impression at a small red traffic light.
ISO 1600 – 35mm – f/2 – 1/60
Some more shop window light shots
ISO 2500 – 35mm – f/2 – 1/50
ISO 800 – 35mm – f/2 – 1/110
ISO 800 – 35mm – f/2 – 1/100
To finish our improvisation shoot, I played a bit with the double exposure feature on the X-E1.
ISO 1600 – 35mm – f/2 – 1/680
ISO 1600 – 35mm – f/2 – 1/680
I really enjoyed taking the X-E1 out on this kind of shoot. This weekend the X-E1 will come along on a short family trip. I’ll be writing up my final thoughts on this camera next week.
Great write-ups, Bert! Your tests once again show that the true art lies with the guy behind the camera – even if the ‘right’ camera gets the guy more inspired to be creative.
You might want to try the very recent 2.01 firmware for the 60mm lens. reported to solve some some focusing bugs introduced with 2.0.
As an X-Pro1 owner considering adding an X-E1 as a second body, I would like to hear your opinion on two of the differences between these cameras:
- is the EVF noticeably better on the X-E1, compared to the X-Pro1?
- how ‘bad’ does the lesser X-E1 back LCD look against the X-Pro1 one?
Greetz – and enjoy! René
Great write up and set of photos! Looks like you are bonding with the XE1! What type of flash trigger were you using on the XE1?
beautiful color and the photos, the photos here are straight from camera or there are some post processing done?
thx guys
@Rene: I already updated the firmware but that doesn’t change anything. As for your questions: I hardly see the difference in EVF resolution. They are both fine. Same thing for the LCD on the X-E1: it’s just fine. I’m sure you can find differences if you look hard for them but in practical everyday use, I don’t really see any difference.
@Armanius: I use my good old PocketWizard Plus II’s
@Dreamy: just some Lightroom processing except for the final picture. That one got a tiny bit of blur on a noisy patch on her nose.
Great work and beautiful shoot… did you have the chance to test the zoom..18-55mm ? Own X-Pro1 and love the 35mm . Consider to get X-E1 with the zoom.
Thx George, I’ve only had a couple of minutes with a preproduction sample of the 18-55. Can’t say anything about image quality but I was impressed with the build quality and the smooth zoom action. I’ve ordered an X-E1 with 18-55 as my second camera too. I’ll post my thoughts about the lens as soon as I can get my hands on it.
Nice ones Bert. I am really impressed by the smoothnes of these pictures and the iso performance. With great photographers come great photos, Your pictures show it really good.
If I could ask you one big question. I’m having this big problem with choosing a camera. I’m a canon guy but have been sniffing around for a new one. Did some hard studies on models and choosed to buy a canon 7d, but after some great shootout with models with a nex 7 I am looking for a camera that small and that big in posibilities. Watched the lenses and they do not suit me, then I somehow got to your page and found about x-e1. The question is more complex, how are your thoughs about the evf, is it better than using an analog one ? Is it like hard to “get used to”? or it comes as good as your at the top of this post?
I really would appreciate your advice. Because Im having this huge problem finding an answer
Thank You.