Any post related to the gear I use and my thoughts on that gear.
As is the norm, anytime I get a new lens in my hands, it gets pointed at my cat. These shots happen to be from a Asahi Pentax Super Takumar 55mm f/1.8 in m42 mount. It connects to my X-T1 via a cheap Fotodiox adapter and gives me a roughly 85mm angle of view. Since I can’t afford the Fuji 56mm f/1.2 currently, I’m hoping this will hold me over until I can. For a 40 year old lens, I think it performs quite well. The cat was still not happy though.
One of the perks of using the Fuji X system is the quality of the glass they provide. Ever since I bought into it, I’ve yet to be disappointed in a lens purchase. The lens selection keeps growing and the roadmap that Fuji has mapped out shows that they intend on making the X a complete system. The only problem is that I am always tempted to increase the size of my lens collection. Last week, Fuji broke my resolve of holding out when they announced another big sale on many of their lenses.
I have been pining after the Fuji 23mm XF lens ever since it was first announced. For years, I’ve always had a 50mm (in 35mm field of view) and have really enjoyed that focal length. Lately however, I’ve been wanting to simplify what I bring to family functions and have been very intrigued about the 35mm field of view and fast aperture of the Fuji 23mm. Once the sale was announced, I couldn’t pass it up. 2 days later, it showed up.
The lens so far is everything I expected and my expectations were quite high. It seems every review of this lens that I could find online praised it top to bottom. The build quality feels superb, the manual focus ring works great and the optics are beautiful. I’m already in love with the field of view if offers.
So far, I don’t have any complaints with the 23mm lens. The hood is a bit big, but I knew that going in and purchased an old style screw in round hood. This protects the front element and reduces some glare, but isn’t nearly as large as the oem petal shaped hood. Autofocus is pretty quick and accurate, so no issues there. Manual focus works very well when paired with my X-T1. Originally, I was a fan of the focus peaking, but after playing around with the Split Focus mode, I’ve found that to work out the best for me.
All in all, this lens has been glued to my camera since I bought it. I don’t think it will be coming off anytime soon unless there is a specific purpose that the 23mm simply isn’t for. I’m even thinking of taking only the 23mm on my next trip to really give the lens a workout and see how universal it actually is.
On walking out of the backdoor of my house this afternoon, I noticed a Praying Mantis clinging to the bottom of the screen door. I quickly went back inside, grabbed my camera, lens, flash, TTL cable, tripod and a pair of macro extension tubes and set out to capture the little guy. Thankfully, he sat still while I got set up and eventually was shooting. It was difficult to get the focus just right, since I was very close to the bug and the depth of field was very thin, even at f/22. Since I haven’t yet ventured into focus stacking multiple shots yet, I’ve had to go with a very small aperture, at the risk of diffraction.
The Macro extension tubes I used were a cheap no-name brand I purchased on eBay. They are made just for the Fuji X mount and have pass through AF contacts. Considering the price, the build quality is alright and they work pretty well. To get into macro photography more though, I’ll need to learn a bit more about technique.
One of the many issues I face whenever I travel or go away camping for a weekend is what to bring. Most people worry about clothes, toiletries or other essentials, but not I. The first bag I pack is always my electronics bag. This includes a camera, lenses, filters, memory cards, extra batteries, some kind of computing device, lens cleaning supplies and anything else that would relate to photography and computing. Needless to say, this bag normally gets heavy. I wanted something smaller, lighter and able to fit easily under an airplane seat, yet still hold everything I would need.
So in my quest for a much smaller and lighter travel bag, I came across the Thinktank Turnstyle 10. It’s a medium size sling bag that has an assortment of storage compartments and would be a good fit for light hiking, biking and just walking around. It seemed like a good start.
Next was always the question of processing and backing up of images while on the trip. If it was a longer trip, the MacBook Pro travelled with me, but this required a larger and heavier bag. If the trip was shorter, then I’d toss in an old 10″ Android tablet, however this was very limited on what it could do since Lightroom isn’t supported. If only a small tablet had a full operating system on it…
Enter Windows 8.1 and a whole host of new 8″ tablets from Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba and others. The specs looked good and I was able to find a single youtube video of a guy running Lightroom on one, so I ordered a Toshiba Encore 8. It has an 8″ screen, microUSB, microHDMI, a microSD card slot and since it’s an x86 processor, runs the full Windows 8.1 OS, meaning I can install Lightroom.
I received it a few days ago and so far I am mighty impressed by the diminutive tablet. Lightroom runs fairly well, I can connect external disk drives and USB flash drives to back up and also SD memory cards through OTG cables. The tablet works well using nothing but finger input or even better with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse combo. Either way, I now have the ability to process images on the go in a very small device. The greatness of that is once I get home, everything I’ve done to those images will transfer directly into my main Lightroom library. Overall, it’s very capable and I have no problem using it. Below are some examples of how it looks.
Now that the tablet is sorted out, my next tough to pack item has always been a tripod small enough to go anywhere, but sturdy and capable enough to handle more than just a tabletop. The answer finally was revealed to me in a photography forum by someone extolling the virtues of the Velbon Ultra Maxi Mini tripod. With the exception of the name, this tripod is a great addition to the bag. It folds down to around 7″, but extends to almost 20″. The legs have 3 angles and can extend in 5 sections. The ballhead that came on it was rather large and overkill for such a small tripod, so I replaced it with a Giottos Mini Pro ballhead to make it even more compact. It holds up my Fuji X-T1 with no issues.
With the difficult stuff packed, the rest of the gear goes in the bag quite easily. Now all I need to do is a take a trip somewhere.
