December 11, 2020

Rose Hill Photostroll covid-19: day 264 | US: GA | info | act

For a real test of the Fujifilm X-T30, I met Giles and Ernest at Rose Hill Cemetery for an afternoon photostroll. The day was lovely—about 70°—with cloud wisps texturing the blue sky. After the three of us caught up a minute, my X-T30 wearing the 23mm Fujicron went to visit some well known and new areas of Macon’s loveliest park.

I brought the 50mm Summicron and adapter for Giles to put on his CL, and Ernest was using his Fujifilm X-Pro-2 also with the 23mm Fujicron. Ernest offered to let me try his camera, but I refused, really wanting to spend some time with my new little guy. This would likely be a love-it-or-list-it trial.

I started off a bit slow, and I managed to somehow throw off my ISO setting somewhere in the middle of the walk—totally messing up some of my images. That said, the camera performed very well.

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  Looking toward Macon.

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  The grain here is from my ISO incident. ISO 51200!

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Also, the camera kept wanting to place my single-point focus square where it thought I should focus, not where I placed the point. This was truly expletive-inducing, and I could not figure out how to turn this feature off. (This is really one of my issues with Japanese cameras: way too many menus and features. As of now, I still haven’t figured this out. I know: RTFM. Here’s another benefit of Leica.)

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As is evident from my selection, I really liked my black and white conversions from Capture One. I shot everything in RAW and made the conversions in post. I’m so pleased with some of these, that I’m considering printing and framing. The sky made the perfect textured backdrop for most of these photos, and the winter sun supplied a wonderful dramatic chiaroscuro. Really a beautiful day.

I also experimented with stopping down the lens, alternating between f/2 and f/5.6 to shoot the same composition. I think every time I liked the f/2 version better—especially on the statue shots. Wider apertures render the pleasing bokeh and give the image a three-dimensional effect that really emphasizes the subject. The Summicrons do this very well, and this Fujicron is no slouch either (and a quarter the price). This was shot at f/5.6:

In all, these was a pretty impressive showing for the little Fuji, and it makes me feel a bit better about my purchase. Though I would lying if I said I wasn’t still looking at an SL. Still, this is a darn competent camera. Now, if I could just find time to read the manual.

Fujifilm Camera Information
Camera: Fujifilm X-T30. Lenses: Fujinon XF 23mm F/2 R WR • Leica Summicron-M 2/50mm (Typ IV) • Leica Summicron-M 2/35mm ASPH (Typ V) • Meyer Optik Görlitz Trioplan 100/2.8. Processed with Capture One Pro.