International Center of Photography, NYC

I stopped into the International Center of Photography while wandering around New York this week, and just had to grab this photo. I stalked the shot for a while; fortunately the subject was quite entranced and was there for a long time, as I had to wait for other people to get out of the way. The path cleared, I fired two shots, and in the second, someone walked part-way into frame.

Patience and timing… two major components of photography!

It’s funny, a security guard stopped me. But I think he was waiting for me to get my shot before telling me “no photography”. Nice guy :)

Photography, Appreciated, at the ICP @ October 2011 | Fuji X100 @ ISO 3200, ƒ/8, 1/20

Sweet as Candy and One Smart Cookie

Walking down 9th Ave in Manhattan, this little girl was helping set up a window display. Or maybe she was the window display. Either way… adorable!

Sweet as Candy and One Smart Cookie @ Oct 2011 | Fuji X100 @ ISO 200, ƒ/2, 1/210

More Fun with the X100

I took it to the Farmers Market this morning to see how it responded to really bright light. In a full-sun and partial-shade shot, it blew out the highlights massively, and since I had it set to JPG, that shot is lost. The RAW files seem to take quite a bit of time to process in Aperture (longer than my much higher resolution Canon files), so perhaps the decoder is not as optimized for this camera. I could shoot RAW+JPG of course, but it seems to take a while to write the files to the card (and yes I have an SDHC card). However to be honest, that was more about shooting and trying to review right away (and therefore having to wait) and not just straight shooting. I will go back to RAW+JPG next time I’m out and see if I miss any shots because the camera is busy writing.

I didn’t shoot much; it’s a small market and I’ve been quite a few times.

Here’s one photo I liked; I’ve posted the original below the tweaked one from Aperture. Last color photos I shared on G+ I got a lot of comments on how nice the colors were from the camera, which isn’t a fair observation since I tweaked them myself. So below you can see what the camera is producing (using the “Provia/Standard film simulation mode”) following my version.

Ashland Farmers Market X100 Tests @ October 2011 | Fujifilm X100 @ ISO 200, ƒ/2, 1/1000

Here’s the original

Ashland Farmers Market X100 Tests (Original) @ October 2011 | Fujifilm X100 @ ISO 200, ƒ/2, 1/1000

FujiFilm X100 Second Shot

More fun with the X100. Shot in a bar in extremely low light, with the ISO cranked to 12800 and set to B&W mode. Shooting JPG, just to see what the camera can do. No tweaking in Aperture; just imported and exported.

Definitely a bit blocky, but really overall a pretty impressive result. The camera was set to –1EV though; the straight metering was too bright.

A blackgrass blues band titled ‘Stereotyped’ (yes, black not blue) in Ashland, OR @ Oct 2011 | Fujifilm X100 @ ISO 12800, ƒ/2, 1/13

FujiFilm X100 First Shot

I’m the proud new owner of the coveted FujiFilm X100, and took it out for a little spin today. I happened upon a small protest in downtown Ashland, OR where people were carrying signs to “STOP Corporate GREED”, calling for the country to be run by the working class, and painting chalk peace drawings on the sidewalk.

It’s a small town… I think anyone with a cross to bear brought it out today. If there was a consistent message, it was lost on me. Even the two local news vans (look… small town, big news) looked bored to tears.

The highlight was the 87 year old woman who asked to sing acapella, just because there was a microphone.

(click either photo to see more on flickr)

One thing I really love about this camera is how quiet it is. It’s virtually silent, and if there’s any noise around at all, the only confirmation I have that I’ve even taken a photo (because I turned off the beeps and the image preview) is that the hybrid viewfinder lines flicker off when the photo is made. Wicked cool.

And apparently it’s legal to carry your gun like this here. Goodness.