New Year: New Ways Of Working?

Street Photography with Fuji X Camera System

As I started to pull together my ideas for a round up of 2014 for my blogs, one thing that really came to mind was the significant change this year in the way in which I work, and how that has been very much been equipment led. So I felt this was worth an article dedicated solely to this particular topic ahead of a yearly round up of everything else.

There have been two major changes to the way I work: one being a change in the lighting I have been using, and the second is changing the type of camera I use. To a large extent, I see these changes in the way I work are interlinked in that both these changes offer portability and flexibility and can be genuinely be seen as a significant advancement of photography, and for this reason I felt they should be combined in this blog article.

Fuji X T1 launch this year as a compact and flexible DSLR challenger.

Westcott Icelights are incredibly flexible and portable

I will deal firstly with what I consider to be the most significant change: that of the camera system. I have been using the Fuji X camera system and especially the X Pro 1 camera for well over a year now I really like it’s portability and handling and it therefore seemed logical to step up a gear with this system to get the new XT1 body when it was launched in March, along with some additional lenses including zooms with the plan of replacing my more bulky DSLR kit. The flexibility of using the Fuji X system means not only access to some amazing lenses from Fuji, especially their primes, but with adapters the use of wide number of other lens that can be used manually, including a 1937 Zeiss 50mm lens that I already owned.

I genuinely think changing the way we work as photographers opens up new creative areas for us as photographers so I was very keen to embrace the options this mirrorless camera technology offered, and in particular images coming straight out of the camera as various Fuji film simulated .jpeg images, avoiding any further post production, seemed very appealing. However I would also like this blog to serve as a cautionary note, as this seems to be a trend a lot of keen amateur and professionals are also going down right now. I think a lot of serious photographers and getting fed up with the "big brand" DSLR camera manufacturers, namely Canon and Nikon, appearing to want to take control away from the photographer by doing more and more unnecessary things within their functionality and are therefore looking for something that gives them back creative control. Fuji in particular do appear to be aiding with this, by listening to photographer and designing cameras that have a manual "back to basics" feel to them, whilst being highly sophisticated in respect to image quality and constantly improving existing cameras and lenses with firmware updates.

However, what I see so often now is announcements on forums and social media from yet another pro or keen amateur saying that they are leaving Nikon or Canon for the Fuji system, and not that long ago I too was saying very much the same thing, and had started selling off my Canon equipment in readiness to swap 75% (I still shoot film and MF digital) of what I did over to the Fuji X system. However, as I did this, I started to realise that despite the many advantages the Fuji kit had, it also had some major disadvantages that I had not really come across before. I certainly don’t want to start pulling what I still consider great equipment to pieces but, certainly for my professional work, I realised there were some large gaps that could be filled but didn’t necessarily help me work any smarter, and in some case they actually appeared to take me backwards. The main area for this being the use of on camera flash. Although this isn’t my favourite way to use flash, for weddings in particular I find it almost impossible working without it, as sometimes I am forced into the most awkward lighting situation but still need to get those perfect shots.

Test to find the best on camera flash solution for use with Fuji X system, professional flash systems are large due to there vital power output which simply overbalances these small cameras.

My tests to get something usable for on camera flash with these smaller camera bodies came up with some very creative, yet also clumsy solutions, with the use of large bulky brackets etc, making me rethink my approach. The old adage “if it isn’t broken don’t fix it” kept coming to mind, as I had spent some considerable time getting this right for my Canon DSLR system, and was totally happy with the results. So after shooting two weddings totally with Fuji, I made a decision to shoot future weddings with a mix of Canon and Fuji, thereby having the advantages of the Canon and especially on camera flash, and the more photo-journalistic approach that the Fuji does so well. This has resulted in me now looking to sell a couple of Fuji zooms lens as although they are lovely lenses they aren’t needed when working this way which prime lenses do so much better in both discreteness and reduced weight.

The size and quietness of Fuji X System makes it perfect for photojournalistic style image capture using available light.

Wedding image using on camera flash with Fuji X System, but it it is very bulky "top heavy" setup.

With the Fuji X System, they do not as yet have a serious flash solution and possibly will never achieve this unless technology allows for more power from a smaller flash unit. I have found a better lighting combination using reflectors outdoors and indoors or in low light situation LED lighting both produce excellent results.

Both images are straight from Fuji X System camera using available day light and a reflector for fill lighting (above) and LED fill lighting (below).

Which leads me nicely on to the changes in my lighting. in the past I have not had a great deal of time for continuous lighting options available to photographers either they have been hot lights which have certain disadvantages as subject often feels like they are being cooked by them, or more modern cool lights which although a great idea can lack output power and also are hard to get an accurate colour temperature from as this shifts during there use, even when these are meant to day light balanced. Enter the next generation of LED lights and although the power is still not massive the light quality is wonderful and it is stable colour temperature and very controllable, making it like being able to place daylight exactly were you want it. The lighting I find that gives me this is the Westcott Skylux head with a vast number of light modifiers available for both studio and location work, or the Icelight, which is a very portable LED solution, especially for low key work. This type of lighting kit seems to dovetail well with having a camera system like the Fuji X system with the same portability and flexibility.

Although I have briefly touch on this lighting in an earlier blog article, I will cover it in more detail in the future. I know that this is an area we will see a great deal of growth in over the next few years as technology allows for the development of more affordable smaller and more powerful LEDs for photographic and video applications.

Here are just some of the possibilities using Westcott LED lighting: A wide range of Beauty and Fashion, Portraiture and even Natural History :