Thomas is a professional fine art photographer and writer specialising in photography related instructional books as well as travel writing and street photography.
All in X-Pro2 Diary
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.
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.
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.
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.
In this latest installment of my ongoing rolling review of the Fuji X-Pro 2, I'm looking at some various observations that I've discovered while trying out the camera. I have been keeping notes as I go out with it, and so, consider this a sort of behind the scenes, un-cut version of what will become the eventual review.
If you're looking to evaluate the X-Pro2 and you want to see how the images look for yourself, I've put together a few images as samples for you to download as raw files. I've tried to give a range of subjects, and to include some that would traditionally be tricky for certain converters.
One of my main reasons for getting an X-Pro 2, apart for the obvious one of having the camera to use, was so that I could keep my e-book guides up to date. To that end I've been doings some testing with the various different raw converters out there, and here are my preliminary findings so far.
I finally got out to do some proper shooting today, and I had a lot of fun with the X-Pro 2. I decided to focus on trying about the film modes, and even though I was shooting Raw + Jpeg, my goal was to focus on the Jpeg, and in particular the Film Simulation modes. What I was especially keen to try is the new Acros simulation. I have read a lot about it since the X-Pro 2 first came out, so I was expecting good things. I was certainly not disappointed.
After years of using my trusty little Fuji X-E1, I’ve finally decided to upgrade, and I’m now the proud owner of an X-Pro 2. In the past I have owned an X-Pro 1 but I sold it as I wasn’t happy with the camera at the time. It’s interesting to return to the larger form factor, and it’s also interesting to see how far Fuji has progressed, even since my X-E1. I want do a full review, but I also wanted to document my journey of discovery with the X-Pro 2, so I’ve decided to combine the two into a sort of rolling review, in the form of a diary.
