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

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Also, the camera kept wanting t place my single-point focus square where it thought I should focus, not where I placed the point. This was truly annoying, 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.

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.