I like the juxtaposition of the river and the flowers.
The last few days The Girl and I walked from the Silver Saddle Ranch gate to the Mexican Dam (and back). This trip is a bit more than four miles, which is good for both of us.
The goal is to get out there not later than 0700h before the sun rises too much. She is sensitive to too much sun (overheats). Plus, the light is better early and there are lots of things that will make photographs.
I carried the Fuji X100V this morning and am still experimenting with the Kodachrome 64 film simulation. I like it and it works for many of the things I want to photograph outdoors.
It was a great hike and a beautiful morning. The capture above is lagniappe. Life is good.
I liked the light, this morning. Capture was Fuji X100V at f/4 with a Tri-X 400 film simulation.
We have walked past this marker a thousand times, I think. But this morning I liked the light, so I paused, while The Girl sniffed about, and made a capture with the Fuji X100V. The capture was at f/4 and I am playing with a Tri-X 400 film simulation.
I shot a lot of Tri-X and developed most of it with D-76, usually the 1:1 dilution. What a great film.
I am really enjoying the Fuji X100V. Life is good.
Captured on walkies at Silver Saddle Ranch with the X100V. Exposure was at f/2.8 using the Kodachrome 64 film emulation.
The Girl and I got out early today. The Flight of the Bumblebees contest started at 1000h local and I wanted to get out in the national forest in plenty of time to survey my operating point and decide how to deploy the station.
So we left the house about 0630h, drove my McD’s for another coffee and a breakfast sandwich, then headed out to Silver Saddle Ranch for walkies.
It was a bit more congested than normal, being the weekend. But we cleared the crowd at the gate soon enough and had a nice walk, if a little shorter than the last couple of days. I think that is OK as I pushed pretty hard Friday and Saturday.
I carried the Fuji X100V with me and a new film simulation — one that is supposed to mimic the color response and contrast of the beloved Kodachrome 64. I sure shot a lot of that back in my film days. What a great film.
I came home with a few decent captures, this being one of them. I like the film recipe. I think it is a keeper.
After walkies, we headed back to the house so I could pack the station, then dropped by Raley’s to buy a sandwich, and then up the hill. It was a good place. I think I will go back again as it is also a designated park, so I can do Parks On The Air there too.
My Fuji X100S, a great little camera. Shot with the Nikon D750 and a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8.
I bought a Fujifilm X100S “point-and-shoot” camera a few years ago. There was a lot of buzz about the X100V (two generations later than mine) at the time, but I did not want to buy new technology if I was not going to use it. I needed some experience with this type of camera.
So I bought a camera a couple of generations older at a lower price. I wanted to get a sense of how it worked and whether it would make images that I like. In part, it had to fit my approach to photography.
I am not a professional photographer. I am a dedicated amateur and make captures that interest me in some way. The subject has to be visually appealing, either because of geometry, or contrast, or even the nature of the subject.
I shot the X100S for a while and then got distracted by other things. One of those was amateur radio. I jumped into that hobby with both feet and my wallet. Hah!
But then work picked up (a lot) and I do not have time to go out in the field and spend several hours setting up a station and playing radio. I need to keep after the project work to meet my deadlines. Now, I know this will not last forever and I will find myself in a period of lighter workload. But, in the meantime, I noted (and have written in this weblog) that I need things in my life that nourish my soul. And so I picked up my cameras again because I can carry a camera when I am out doing something else and spend a few minutes working a subject that I encounter.
So, reenter the Fuji X100S. It is a relatively1 simple camera in the classic rangefinder style. It is reminiscent of the Leica rangefinders that some of the best street photographers used way back before I was a kid. It has a fixed focal length lens that is equivalent to a 35mm focal length (in a full frame camera). The lens is good and fast (f/2). It is sharp enough wide open. The sensor is excellent, even given it is several generations old.
The X100S lacks a couple of things I would really like to have. One is the upgraded sensor. The second is WiFi so I can transfer images directly to my iPhone (for obvious reasons).
However, the X100V is impossible to find. As a result, used cameras sell for several hundred bucks over new price! That is just crazy.
I called the shop where I bought my Fuji X-T5 and asked my salesman about this. His response was “It’s a social media thing. But you don’t want one of those. It will feel plasticky compared to your X-T5.”
He did not know I have an X100S so I have a good idea what the feel is like. It is not at all plasticky. It is a different camera than the X-T5 with a different use case. That is a use case that works me when I do not want to carry a complete kit, but want something better than my iPhone2.
Well, they just lost me as a customer. I do not know why a salesman would say such a thing about a solid piece of equipment.
Fuji Rumors indicates that the announcement of the X100V successor is about a year out. It will probably be nearly two years before we see a new camera. So, I will watch and wait for an X100V to come available at a reasonable price. I decided that I want the upgrade.
Update: I put in a Gixen snipe on a X100V that I won. It has one small ding on the top cap. That does not matter to me; I do not need a perfect camera, particularly one that will be carried in the field. I had to pay more than list for it, but not a king’s ransom, as a friend put it. It is now in my inventory and I am learning to use it.
There will be more about the X100V later. It is quite an evolution from the X100S.
1Simple is a relative term, particularly as applied the the X100 cameras. They can be set to be a point-and-shoot camera by turning all the dials to A and then, well, pointing and shooting. The cameras automation is quite capable. A more knowledgeable photographer will operate the camera by choosing which parts to automate and which to control. That is definitely not simple.
2I know that my iPhone 13 Pro Max has a sophisticated camera. And it does very well for the appropriate use case. But its control over depth of field is limited. And it does not handle like a real camera. I still use it, but there are times I want a real camera.
I think this is the first time I saw a desert peach. Image captured with Fuji X-T5 and the Fujinon 18-55mm f/2.8-4 lens.
We were out for walkies about the normal time this morning — a little later than I want but early enough that the heat has not risen. We staged at the entrance to Silver Saddle Ranch, I gathered up my things and started my tracker, and got The Girl out of the rig.
Then we were off.
There was no traffic this morning. So Sera Sue had free rein most of the time. I called her back in now and again, for practice and to check on her. When we neared the choke points where we often encounter other walkers but I cannot see them, I called her in to heel (and also for practice). At the ranch compound there was a horse trailer parked so I put her on leash. That area is often congested anyway, so a leash is a good idea.
Along the way I spotted this desert peach. I saw the fruit on a number of these desert shrubs this year, but this is the first ripe fruit seen. Maybe I should try one.
In any event, it gave me a good image. We also had a good walk. I love walking with The Girl. Really, I just love The Girl.
This is the mailbox at the Silver Saddle Ranch compound. Shot with the Fuji X100S at f/4. Post processing in Iridient Developer.
I was up early this morning, about 0500h. After a couple mugs of coffee and some work, it was time to get The Girl out to walk before the heat rose.
The air felt odd out at the ranch this morning… too warm for the given temperature and the wind was from the south. I was glad we got out relatively early because it felt like the day would warm quickly and be hot even if the forecast temperature was nearly ten degrees less than the day before.
I carried the Fuji X100S this morning. It is such a great little camera. The lens is quite good and the X-Trans sensor is still very good for a camera that is more than five-years old technology.
I made a capture of the parking area ahead sign, but it did not work. I will try again because it is geometrically interesting. I did settle on an image of the ranch mailbox. I do not know if mail is still delivered to the ranch, but there is a mailbox.
The shot was captured at f/4. I did not note the ISO and I pay little attention to shutter speed most of the time. I made some adjustments to the capture with Iridient Developer, mostly contrast but I bumped the saturation a bit and added a little sharpness. I spent about five minutes on post processing.
We had to hurry home because I had a meeting. It was still a good outing. Life is good.
I shot this with the Sony A7S and a Jupiter 8 50mm f/2 lens at f/8.
This morning was my morning to get out the new (to me) Jupiter 8 50mm f/2 lens I recently acquired. I affixed it to the Sony A7S (Mark I) and carried it with me when I got The Girl out for walkies.
I made several shots along the route and there are probably a couple more that are worth looking at a little more. However, after our walk I drove over to the east side of the Carson River and got The Girl out over there for a few minutes. I wanted to see the river.
This capture is alright, I think. It took a little adjustment to bring up the colors a bit. The contrast also needed some adjustment as it was a little flat. But I like the image.
I need to work with the lens more. It seems a little soft wide open, but has interesting bokeh wide open. It sharpens up by f/5.6 although the bokeh is lost.
After her breakfast, she kindly posed for me on the sofa while I played around with a new lens. This is the Sony A7S camera with the Russian Industar 55mm f/2.8 Zeiss copy at f/5.6 and an ISO of 1600.
A few weeks ago I bought two lenses, both are Russian copies of Zeiss optical formulas. They came from Ukraine (lots of them there) from a reputable seller. I had to order a pair of Leica mount (39mm) to Sony FE and Fuji FX mounts so I can mount these on my cameras.
This first image is of my Girl after I fed her this morning. She patiently posed for me on the sofa while I played around with the Sony A7S (Mark I) and an Industar 55mm f/2.8. I finally settled on an f-stop of f/5.6 and bumped the ISO up to 6,400 to get the shutter speed up.
I downloaded the images to my iMac and used Iridient Developer to convert the out of camera JPEG to black and white. I made a small contrast adjustment and added a bit of sharpening to the result as well.
I like the image… and not just because of the subject matter. The lens is quite sharp at f/5.6 and has good contrast. I think this lens is a keeper.
Alfalfa bales. Fujifilm X100S, f/4, processed to black and white in Iridient Developer.
On walkies this morning, I pulled myself out of my head many times. There is so much work at the moment that I keep being drawn back in to thinking instead of being. One of the reasons I love walking The Girl and carrying a camera is that both help me get out of my head and into my space.
The Girl does so because she requires attention to keep her from being so distracted she gets into trouble or roams too far out. I do not mind her hunt for critters in the sagelands… provided I keep sight of her and she does not get involved with Jacob-no-shoulders.
The camera helps me by directing my attention to things that might make an interesting photograph. This requires a different kind of attention that The Girl. It is also something that nourishes my soul. Actually, so does minding The Girl, but in different ways.
The work here is to stay out of my head. I have a tendency, some might say a proclivity, to overthink problems I am working on. It is particularly true when I have multiple projects active and there are problems that need solutions.
But, I do not want to spend all of my energy working. There are other things in life that are important too and The Girl is up near the top of that list.
This morning, in particular, I had a great struggle pushing the engineering problems out of my head and bringing my attention to my surroundings while out on our walk. Although I got out late (for this time of year) and the sun was quite warm, it was still a beautiful morning to walk and The Girl is so entertaining to watch.
The result was a partial success. I found myself lost in thought several times (too many) and consciously brought my attention back to the here and now1. It was difficult and each time I noticed I was looking at my feet (or the trail directly in front of my feet) and was oblivious to my surroundings I had to look up, shake my head (to clear the cobwebs), and pay attention.
We paused at the ranch compound and I noticed the ranch hands are moving alfalfa bales from the field to the hay bin. So we stepped into the yard, which made The Girl quite happy for new hunting grounds, and I paused at the haystack. There I found some possibles that I liked and made a few captures.
In the end, I chose this one. The image was made with the Fuji X100S at f/4. I did a little more post-processing on this one in Iridient Developer, converting it to black and white and making a small adjustment to the contrast.
The first in a long line of railroad tie posts. Captured with the Fuji X100S using the in-camera black and white conversion.
The Girl and I got out for walkies a little later than I like, now that the weather is truly summer. But there was an overcast, so we did not suffer the direct sun.
But that also meant that the light was not as nice. So I had a little trouble finding something that I liked.
Maybe I settled for this capture of a long gone fenceline. There is only a line of (more or less) vertical railroad ties that remain. The subject is the first (or the last) in that line.
