Because we’re pretty terrible at looking after plants, and because everything we plant usually dies, we’ve been looking for ways to decorate our balcony without condemning some poor flowers to their untimely ends. So my wife came up with the ingenious idea of creating a garden out of windmills. I was sceptical at first, but now that I’ve seen the finished product, I’m really impressed.

I’ve created a new set of presets for Fuji users and I’m happy to announce that I’m giving these away for free. Basically, I really like the various film simulation modes available on Fuji’s cameras, and the corresponding picture profiles in Lightroom. They’re good on their own, but they also make a good starting point for some further manipulation. So, using the various profiles as a starting point, I created my own set of “Variations” of these.

I've said this many times on this blog, but Autumn is my absolute favourite time of the year. I love the golden leaves on the trees and the Autumn light. While the season is only beginning here in Ireland, already the trees are starting to turn. The once dense green foliage has started to thin out and the canopy of leaves has gone from a deep lush green, to a speckled patchwork of green and gold.

Last week I posted about some of my recent adventures shooting film, where I talked about shooting some colour negative film with my Canon EOS 5. the other day I was walking past the same spot where I took one of those shots, and as I had my Fuji X-Pro 2 with me, I thought it would be fun to take the same shot again to compare the two. 

As I only have a limited set of lenses for my X-Pro 2 at the moment, so I have been keen to try some of my other glass on the camera via adaptors. The X-Pro 2 has some nice focusing aids, and I have some interesting lenses, so I wanted to see what kind of results I could get. Lens adaptors can actually be quite expensive, depending on the brand, but there are cheaper options available. As this was more of an experiment than anything, I went with some of the cheaper adaptors that available. 

In one of my earlier X-Pro 2 diary entries I pointed out an issue that I was having with the X-Pro 2 and using auto focus on small objects in a scene or objects close to the camera. The camera’s autofocus would refuse to lock on to smaller objects such as flowers and so on, and instead it would focus on the background. At the time, I wrote that it was probably something that I was doing wrong. Well, I’ve been trying a lot of things and I finally found the solution

If you are an X-Pro 2 shooter and you’re using planing on using Capture One, then there are some important things to know. First of all, at the moment, Capture One only supports the X-Pro 2 in a preliminary fashion. There are a number of important features lacking in support at the time of writing this. In particular Capture One does not yet support X-Pro 2 compressed RAW files and it does not support any kind of lens correction on X-Pro 2 images. 

Fuji today announced the new X-T2, the successor to the popular X-T1. Like the X-Pro 2 it features a 24mp sensor, but unlike the X-Pro 2 it has 4k video. There’s not really much I can add to the already wide ranging coverage of the release. if you’re looking to find out more, I suggest you head over to Fuji Rumors which, as always has covered the launch in quite extensive detail.

There have been a couple of software updates recently that I haven’t covered because I was busy with other things. Capture One received a semi major update, and Apple updated its Raw software for MacOS. Both of these are of interest to Fuji X-Pro 2 shooters, not so much because of what’s in them, but because of what’s missing.

Last week I posted some black and white photos from my time in the little town of Heppenheim in the German countryside. I had taken a lot more photographs while I was there and I’ve finally had the time to go through them to my satisfaction. The residents of this sleepy little town clearly lit as you can see a real sense of pride in the way the buildings are adorned with flowers and decorations. Photos were taken with a Fuji X-Pro 2 and Nikon D700

One of the things that people love about their Fuji X-Series cameras is the film simulation modes and the rich colour that they give out of the camera. Many of these film simulation modes are based on actual films that Fuji makes, or used to make. Provia, Velvia and Astia are slide films, while the new (in the X-Pro 2) Acros is based on the Neopan Acros film. Lately I’ve been scanning some of my old film in and I realised that I have photos taken with some of these films, so I thought I’d share what the real thing looks like.

In the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains, just outside of Dublin, is a beautiful old 18th century estate and gardens, called Powerscourt. The estate features a restored mansion and some pretty impressive stately gardens that are kept in perfect condition. The house and gardens have been used in several movies, most notably the Count of Monte Cristo. Images taken with X-Pro 2 and 18-55mm f/2.8-4 Lens.

Last week I was travelling in Germany and I got to spend some time in the beautiful town of Heppenheim. Heppenheim is a little town about 40 minutes outside of Frankfurt and is filled with some really pretty medieval buildings. I had been there last year too and I had gotten some nice shots, but this time I was trying to do things a little differently, and so I was focussed more on the details. Images were taken with the Fuji X-Pro 2.

I'm travelling at the moment, so I haven't had a chance to do any updates on my X-Pro 2 diary series. I am actually shooting with the camera while I'm away, so I will have some more reports when I get back and have a chance to properly process my images. In the mean time, before I left, I put together a collection of my favourite shots that I've taken withe the X-Pro 2 so far.

I was doing some more shooting with the X-Pro 2 over the weekend, and It was a lovely sunny summers day. I spent a bit of time by one of my favourite places in Dublin City, the Grand canal, taking pictures and generally giving the camera a good workout. While I was mostly shooting stills, I did shoot some video with the camera too, and I have some thoughts about the process and the results.