Summer skies.... urban landscapes

Street photography

Today my girlfriend and I went to the fair in Hamburg and I used my iphone to take a few street snaps. I actually really like to take pictures with it and I should do so more often. Enjoy...

Summer in the City

More thoughts on the Fuji X-Pro 1: Roadtrip to the Herräng Dance Camp, Sweden

Last week my girlfriend and I  took a road trip to the Herräng Dance Camp, Sweden where I am teaching the tap dance classes this year. For the trip I brought the Fuji X100 and my new X-Pro 1 along with the 35mm f1,4 and the 18mm f2,0.
Here are a few pictures taken while being on the road. I must say I really like the 18mm f2,0 as well. I have always liked the field of view from a 28mm lens. The autofocus seems a bit faster than on the longer lenses which does not surprise me. But like I said before I think the speed of the autofocus is not a big concern for me and once you understand how it works, you get very accurate results.
I also played around with the jpeg settings a bit and so far NEG Std is probably my favorite. The colors are subtle and skin tones very good. I also really like how the camera handles highlights. The dynamic range is fantastic. Being a wedding photographer this is very important to me because it can sometimes be tough to not wash out the highlights on a wedding dress.
So far I don't miss RAW support for Aperture which I use for editing my photos. And even if they come out with it I will probably stick with the jpegs. They are still robust enough to post edit them a bit. Auto white balance is working great and I almost never have to adjust it manually. I can't say that for the Nikon D3 or D700. On those cams it is almost a must to shoot raw to get most out of them.
Right now I can only think of two features I miss on the X-Pro 1:
The first one is weather sealing. I wish the body and lenses would be a bit better protected. On my last wedding gig it started to rain heavily right before we entered the church and I had to switch to the D3. I use my cameras under a lot of different weather conditions and rather not worry too much about my equipment getting ruined by rain etc.
Secondly I really wish for a second SD Card slot. I am always very paranoid about losing pictures due to a faulty card. It has never happened to me before but I would still prefer a backup solution while documenting important shoots like weddings. This is not a deal breaker for me and i will use the camera on professional gigs but the possibility of loosing data because of a damaged card is always in the back of my mind.
So here are a few pictures from the trip….. More to come soon, Thomas

UPDATE! I just published a new blog post regarding shooting a wedding with the Fuji X100 and X-Pro 1

Street photography, Lyon France

This shots are from a visit in Lyon last year. I was teaching a tap dance workshop and at night roamed the streets for some photos. I like those because they are very graphical and abstract. I used a Ricoh GRD 3.

Friends

Himmel über Hamburg

street photography

i just love walking around with my camera and taking pictures of my environment. roaming the streets and trying to find good stories in everyday life.
i haven't been able to do so as much as i would like but i managed to get around a bit. so here are a few pictures from last week in hamburg. enjoy...

spring #3

hamburg on a sunny day

hamburg is a wonderful city. especially on a sunny day. i guess the hamburg port is one of my favorite places in the city.
both photos were taken with the amazing fuji x100.

a personal fuji x100 review/opinion

back in the film days one of my favorite cameras was the konica hexar. it was an autofocus rangefinder style camera with an excellent viewfinder and 35mm f2 lens build in. for me,  it was the perfect travel and documentary camera.
since i went digital with my photography i was always looking for a camera like that. great viewfinder, compact, fixed fast lens. and i bought a lot of cameras that could possible fill that gap. i used the grd1 and 3 (which i still love), the gxr, some canon gs, a nikon p7...., the leica x1 but nothing really got close to the hexar experience.
so now after some hesitating i got myself the x100 and i must say that it is quite perfect to me. it has a great viewfinder, a sharp lens and it produces amazing files. it is the closest it could be to a hexar.
some people say that the fuji copies the leica m but i don't think so.  to me it is much closer to the hexar or the legendary contax g series. that is were it is coming from not the leica.
 
the autofocus is fairly fast, maybe not the fastest when compared to other state of the art cameras, but fast enough for anything i shoot. and that is mostly street photography and people.
the menu and software setup is a mess and it has some quirks, mostly relating to firmware. but overall the tactile feel of it and the simple straight forward control layout is a joy to use. set the aperture (on the lens), focus, frame and shoot. perfect. that's how a camera should feel and i guess that why the fuji x series gets so much recognition among photographers.

it is my only camera that i shoot in jpeg mode. simply because i get better and faster results from it then adjusting the raws. the jpeg engine is really great. the only other camera i trusted with jpegs was the olympus e-1.

i am looking very much forward using it at my next wedding assignments and i believe that it could replace my nikon d3 (which i also mostly use with primes) for most of the time. if that turns out to be true i will consider getting the x1 pro with the 3 primes and make it my main wedding setup.

here are a few examples from shooting the x100. all shot as jpegs and then converted with silver efex pro and color efex pro.

spring #2

spring #1

nola 11/12

earlier this year i spent an awesome 4 weeks in new orleans visiting friends. i had a fantastic time in this great city. naturally with all its jazz new orleans speaks to my soul. here are some of my favorite pictures during that time.....

most of the pictures were done with the ricoh grd3 or the gxr and the 50mm lens.

back in hamburg

ok. i am back home in hamburg. the weather is still cold but sunny. so here is the pic of the day.

jogging around the alster.

... and finally vienna

i don't know why some people claim that the fuji x-100 is not good or fast enough for street photography. i think the opposite is true. i love roaming the streets with this little camera. the af is quick and accurate and the optical viewfinder just perfect for composing street scenes.