Reasons to be cheerful

Reasons to be cheerfulI recently went to the Canadian Museum of Nature with my 11-year-old son so we could spend an afternoon looking at interesting rocks and bones. I had my Fujifilm XE-1 and he had his iPod (I'm secretly pleased to see him using the built-in camera with the Camera+ app more and more).

There was no shortage of things to point a lens at and the time flew by as we explored parts of the museum we hadn't seen since the renovations were completed. Given the concern to preserve the artifacts on display, it's not surprising that most of the facility is not brightly lit. On the other hand, the central staircase and the new glass tower are open to blazing sunlight. As a result, I found that I was switching back and forth between ISOs 200 and 3200 as I moved from one part of the building to another. (I chose well in using the Fn button on the XE-1 for quick access to the camera's ISO settings.)

Reasons to be cheerful? The wide open grin of the skeleton in the first picture made me think of the Ian Dury song and fit well with the afternoon: time spent in a beautifully-restored building, with a camera I love more every time I use it, in the company of my son with the seemingly boundless energy and unapologetic curiosity.

What could be better?

I'll bet he has bony fingersWhalebaitJailbreak

Old Montreal—outside with the XE-1 at night

Basilica lampsIt's time for the March school break in Quebec, so my family and I spent a few days in Old Montreal for a change of scenery. The days are getting longer and there is the barest hint of spring when the sun is out, but we know better than to think that winter has finished with us yet. We've been fooled before!

A mild evening in Old Montreal gave me a chance to see what my Fujifilm XE-1 could do in low light. Even with snow coming down it was a pleasant walk and the architecture in this corner of the city is always interesting for a photographer. These are all JPEGs straight out of the camera taken at ISO 3200 with the 18-55mm zoom lens.

As some reviewers have noted, the electronic viewfinder does indeed lag at times in low light, but I didn't find this too much of a problem. It might be for people who depend on taking a lot of action shots, but that isn't me. I'm still getting over the thrill of carrying a camera that weighs half of my previous kit! The high-quality zoom lens does not add appreciably to the weight around my neck and it focuses and zooms smoothly and accurately. It's a pleasure to use.

All told, I am very pleased with the way this camera plays and performs. So much so that I went out and bought the 35mm f/1.4 lens while still in Montreal. More on that in the next instalment...

Place d'Armes

The night life of parking lots

Blue Basilica 

Snow cone

Like a lot of us, I have to push myself to go out and use the camera during the winter. It's not just the temperatures in western Quebec (although it can get pretty cold), it's also the shorter days and weekends that are often filled with other things. Still, I made the effort yesterday so I could put my new Fujifilm XE-1 through its paces outdoors.

I was really intrigued when Fuji brought out the X-Pro 1 because it offered high-quality images in a compact package. And, frankly, I thought it looked beautiful. It also offered something that I hadn't seen in years: real dials that offered direct control of key settings such as aperture, shutter speed and exposure compensation. Although it may just be an indication of my age, it looked like a camera should. The only downside for me was the price.

And then along came the XE-1. Slightly smaller, no optical viewfinder and... hundreds of dollars less, even with the 18-55mm f/2.4-4.0 zoom sold as a kit lens. And no less beautiful! I was willing to work with the electronic-only viewfinder if I could get my hands on the same image quality for substantially less money.

And why was all this important to me? Well, although I loved my Nikon D7000 and have shot with film and digital Nikons for close to 30 years, I wanted something lighter and more compact without having to sacrifice any image quality. I take a lot of pictures while travelling, so space and weight of equipment count for a lot, especially if I'm out all day for several days in a row.

The XE-1 seems to fit that bill and I can't get over how light it is: just 350g with battery and memory card versus the D7000's 690g for the body only. It doesn't sound like much, but halving the bulk is important when it's hanging around a sweaty neck all day. And the lenses are much lighter, too -- it all adds up.

The accompanying image was shot hand-held on a mild-ish winter day (somewhere between -10C and -15C) with the lens wide open. Needless to say, I am very pleased with kit that can produce such fine JPEGs straight out of the camera. And my neck is happier too, even though less sweaty at this time of year.

More on the XE-1 in the days and weeks to come. Time to sell the Nikon gear?

Boxing Day, Gatineau Park

It's been quite some time since I added any posts to the blog, so I'll make an effort to fix that. In the meantime, I've been putting my new Nikon P7700 to good use whenever I can.

I was very happy with the Canon G11 that I used to use as my second, smaller camera, but I got tired of having to use something other than Capture NX2 to post-process the images I took with them. I'd rather take pictures than spend time mucking around with the files afterward, so NX2 has been a godsend for me. I'd resorted to making minor corrections on the G9 and G11 files in Canon's Digital Photo Professional and then saving the files as high-res TIFFs for final processing in NX2. This was a bit of a pain, of course, but it seemed to me that Canon simply made better compact digital cameras than Nikon did.

By the time the P7700 was released, I thought that might have changed somewhat and I was ready to take the plunge. Canon introduced their G15 around the same time, but I knew I'd miss the articulated LCD screen I loved on the G11 and that was now available on the P7700. The G15 had a slight edge with an f/1.8 lens, but I thought this was a negligible advantage over the P7700's f/2.0 and zoom equivalent of 28-200mm (vs the Canon's range of 28-140mm). Some reviewers made a lot of the P7700's lack of an optical viewfinder, but I thought the argument was overblown -- I had never used the viewfinder on the G11 because it was too small and terribly inaccurate. It was more of a cosmetic add-on than a truly useful feature. All told, the P7700 had the features I wanted in a compact camera and produced NRW files that I could process natively with Capture NX2. Smiles all around.

I took this shot during a walk with my family on the estate of former Prime Minister Mackenzie-King in Gatineau Park to blow off the cobwebs on Boxing Day. It seemed that quite a few others had the same idea: walkers, snowshoers and cross-country skiers were all out enjoying the benefits of last week's snowstorm. The little P7700 performed wonderfully and I came home with a memory card full of stills, panos and video. More smiles.

I'm resolving (good photographic word!) to be a more faithful poster in 2013, but for the moment I'll wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

In the blink of an eye

I never cease to be amazed at how the business of taking pictures still has the power to fascinate me. There are times when long preparation leads to minimal results, and other times when everything just works with minimal effort.

This picture falls into the second category. We were on a day out in the centre of Antwerp when my wife and son ducked into a shop for a few minutes. I took advantage of the short break to wander down and alleyway and shoot a few frames. The sun was reflecting perfectly off the creamy walls and shedding warm light into every corner. In not much time at all I had made several pictures that I'm happy with.

Light, sky, clouds, buildings, angles, textures all just clicked... in the blink of an eye.